So Turjan wonderingly entered the manse of Pandelume. He found himself in a tapestried chamber, bare of furnishing save a single settee. No one came to greet him. A closed door stood at the opposite wall, and Turjan went to pass through, thinking perhaps it was expected of him.

“Halt, Turjan,” spoke the voice. “No one may gaze on Pandelume. It is the law.”

Turjan, standing in the middle of the room, spoke to his unseen host.

“This is my mission, Pandelume,” he said. “For some time I have been striving to create humanity in my vats. Yet always I fail, from ignorance of the agent that binds and orders the patterns. This master-matrix must be known to you; therefore I come to you for guidance.”

“Willingly will I aid you,” said Pandelume. “There is, however, another aspect involved. The universe is methodized by symmetry and balance; in every aspect of existence is this equipoise observed. Consequently, even in the trivial scope of our dealings, this equivalence must be maintained, thus and thus. I agree to assist you; in return, you perform a service of equal value for me. When you have completed this small work, I will instruct and guide you to your complete satisfaction.”

“What may this service be?” inquired Turjan.

“A man lives in the land of Ascolais, not far from your Castle Miir. About his neck hangs an amulet of carved blue stone. This you must take from him and bring to me.”

Turjan considered a moment.

“Very well,” he said. “I will do what I can. Who is the man?”

Pandelume answered in a soft voice.

“Prince Kandive the Golden.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Turjan ruefully, “you have gone to no pains to make my task a pleasant one … But I will fulfill your requirements as best I can.”

“Good,” said Pandelume. “Now I must instruct you. Kandive wears this amulet hidden below his singlet. When an enemy appears, he takes it out to display on his chest, such is the potency of the charm. No matter what else, do not gaze on this amulet, either before or after you take it, on pain of most hideous consequence.”

“I understand,” said Turjan. “I will obey. Now there is a question I would ask — providing the answer will not involve me in an undertaking to bring the Moon back to Earth, or recover an elixir you inadvertently spilled in the sea.”

Pandelume laughed loud. “Ask on,” he responded, “and I will answer.”

Turjan put his question.

“As I approached your dwelling, a woman of insane fury wished to kill me. This I would not permit and she departed in rage. Who is this woman and why is she thus?”

Pandelume’s voice was amused. “I, too,” he replied, “have vats where I mold life into varied forms. This girl T’sais I created, but I wrought carelessly, with a flaw in the synthesis. So she climbed from the vat with a warp in her brain, in this manner: what we hold to be beautiful seems to her loathsome and ugly, and what we find ugly is to her intolerably vile, in a degree that you and I cannot understand. She finds the world a bitter place, peopled with shapes of direst malevolence.”

“So this is the answer,” Turjan murmured. “Pitiable wretch!”

“Now,” said Pandelume, “you must be on your way to Kaiin; the auspices are good … In a moment open this door, enter, and move to the pattern of runes on the floor.”

Turjan performed as he was bid. He found the next room to be circular and high-domed, with the varying lights of Embelyon pouring down through sky-transparencies. When he stood upon the pattern in the floor, Pandelume spoke again.

“Now close your eyes, for I must enter and touch you. Heed well, do not try to glimpse me!”

Turjan closed his eyes. Presently a step sounded behind him. “Extend your hand,” said the voice. Turjan did so and felt a hard object placed therein. “When your mission is accomplished, crush this crystal and at once you will find yourself in this room.” A cold hand was laid on his shoulder.

“An instant you will sleep,” said Pandelume. “When you awake you will be in the city Kaiin.”

The hand departed. A dimness came over Turjan as he stood awaiting the passage. The air had suddenly become full of sound: clattering, a tinkling of many small bells, music, voices. Turjan frowned, pursed his lips: A strange tumult for the austere home of Pandelume!

A woman’s voice sounded close by.

“Look, O Santanil, see the man-owl who closes his eyes to merriment!”

There was a man’s laughter, suddenly hushed. “Come. The fellow is bereft and possibly violent. Come.”

Turjan hesitated, then opened his eyes. It was night in white-walled Kaiin, and festival time. Orange lanterns floated in the air, moving as the breeze took them. From the balconies dangled flower chains and cages of blue fireflies. The streets surged with the wine-flushed populace, costumed in a multitude of bizarre modes. Here was a Melantine bargeman, here a warrior of Valdaran’s Green Legion, here another of ancient times wearing one of the old helmets. In a little cleared space a garlanded courtesan of the Kauchique littoral danced the Dance of the Fourteen Silken Movements to the music of flutes. In the shadow of a balcony a girl barbarian of East Almery embraced a man blackened and in leather harness as a Deodand of the forest. They were gay, these people of waning Earth, feverishly merry, for infinite night was close at hand, when the red sun should finally flicker and go black.

Turjan melted into the throng. At a tavern he refreshed himself with biscuits and wine; then he made for the palace of Kandive the Golden.

The palace loomed before him, every window and balcony aglow with light. Among the lords of the city there was feasting and revelry. If Prince Kandive were flushed with drink and unwary, reflected Turjan, the task should not be too difficult. Yet, entering boldly, he might be recognized, for he was known to many in Kaiin. So, uttering Phandaal’s Mantle of Stealth, he faded from the sight of all men.

Through the arcade he slipped, into the grand salon, where the lords of Kaiin made merry like the throngs of the street. Turjan threaded the rainbow of silk, velour, sateen, watching the play with amusement. On a terrace some stood looking into a sunken pool where a pair of captured Deodands, their skins like oiled jet, paddled and glared; others tossed darts at the spread-eagled body of a young Cobalt Mountain witch. In alcoves beflowered girls offered synthetic love to wheezing old men, and elsewhere others lay stupefied by dream-powders. Nowhere did Turjan find Prince Kandive. Through the palace he wandered, room after room, until at last in an upper chamber he came upon the tall golden-bearded prince, lolling on a couch with a masked girl-child who had green eyes and hair dyed pale green.

Some intuition or perhaps a charm warned Kandive when Turjan slipped through the purple hangings. Kandive leapt to his feet.

“Go!” he ordered the girl. “Out of the room quickly! Mischief moves somewhere near and I must blast it with magic!”

The girl ran hastily from the chamber. Kandive’s hand stole to his throat and pulled forth the hidden amulet. But Turjan shielded his gaze with his hand.

Kandive uttered a powerful charm which loosened space free of all warp. So Turjan’s spell was void and he became visible.

“Turjan of Miir skulks through my palace!” snarled Kandive.

“With ready death on my lips,” spoke Turjan. “Turn your back, Kandive, or I speak a spell and run you through with my sword.”

Kandive made as if to obey, but instead shouted the syllables bringing the Omnipotent Sphere about him.

“Now I call my guards, Turjan,” announced Kandive contemptuously, “and you shall be cast to the Deodands in the tank.”

Kandive did not know the engraved band Turjan wore on his wrist, a most powerful rune, maintaining a field solvent of all magic. Still guarding his vision against the amulet, Turjan stepped through the Sphere. Kandive’s great blue eyes bulged.

“Call the guards,” said Turjan. “They will find your body riddled by lines of fire.”

“Your body, Turjan!” cried the Prince, babbling the spell. Instantly the blazing wires of the Excellent Prismatic Spray lashed from all directions at Turjan. Kandive watched the furious rain with a wolfish grin, but his expression changed quickly to consternation. A finger’s breadth from Turjan’s skin the fire-darts dissolved into a thousand gray puffs of smoke.

“Turn your back, Kandive,” Turjan ordered. “Your magic is useless against Laccodel’s Rune.” But Kandive took a step toward a spring in the wall.

“Halt!” cried Turjan. “One more step and the Spray splits you thousandfold!”

Kandive stopped short. In helpless rage he turned his back and Turjan, stepping forward quickly, reached over Kandive’s neck, seized the amulet and raised it free. It crawled in his hand and through the fingers there passed a glimpse of blue. A daze shook his brain, and for an instant he heard a murmur of avid voices … His vision cleared. He backed away from Kandive, stuffing the amulet in his pouch. Kandive asked, “May I now turn about in safety?”

“When you wish,” responded Turjan, clasping his pouch. Kandive, seeing Turjan occupied, negligently stepped to the wall and placed his hand on a spring.

“Turjan,” he said, “you are lost. Before you may utter a syllable, I will open the floor and drop you a great dark distance. Can your charms avail against this?”

Turjan halted in mid-motion, fixed his eyes upon Kandive’s red and gold face. Then he dropped his eyes sheepishly. “Ah, Kandive,” he fretted, “you have outwitted me. If I return you the amulet, may I go free?”

“Toss the amulet at my feet,” said Kandive, gloating. “Also Laccodel’s Rune. Then I shall decide what mercy to grant you.”