“Even the Rune?” Turjan asked, forcing a piteous note to his voice.

“Or your life.”

Turjan reached into his pouch and grasped the crystal Pandelume had given him. He pulled it forth and held it against the pommel of his sword.

“Ho, Kandive,” he said, “I have discerned your trick. You merely wish to frighten me into surrender. I defy you!”

Kandive shrugged. “Die then.” He pushed the spring. The floor jerked open, and Turjan disappeared into the gulf. But when Kandive raced below to claim Turjan’s body, he found no trace, and he spent the rest of the night in temper, brooding over wine.

Turjan found himself in the circular room of Pandelume’s manse. Embelyon’s many-colored lights streamed through the sky-windows upon his shoulder — sapphire blue, the yellow of marigolds, blood red. There was silence through the house. Turjan moved away from the rune in the floor, glancing uneasily to the door, fearful lest Pandelume, unaware of his presence, enter the room.

“Pandelume!” he called. “I have returned!”

There was no response. Deep quiet held the house. Turjan wished he were in the open air where the odor of sorcery was less strong. He looked at the doors; one led to the entrance hall, the other he knew not where. The door on the right hand must lead outside; he laid his hand on the latch to pull it open. But he paused. Suppose he were mistaken, and Pandelume’s form were revealed? Would it be wiser to wait here?

A solution occurred to him. His back to the door, he swung it open.

“Pandelume!” he called.

A soft intermittent sound came to his ears from behind, and he seemed to hear a labored breath. Suddenly frightened, Turjan stepped back into the circular room and closed the door.

He resigned himself to patience and sat on the floor.

A gasping cry came from the next room. Turjan leapt to his feet.

“Turjan? You are there?”

“Yes; I have returned with the amulet.”

“Do this quickly,” panted the voice. “Guarding your sight, hang the amulet over your neck and enter.”

Turjan, spurred by the urgency of the voice, closed his eyes and arranged the amulet on his chest. He groped to the door and flung it wide.

Silence of a shocked intensity held an instant; then came an appalling screech, so wild and demoniac that Turjan’s brain sang. Mighty pinions buffeted the air, there was a hiss and the scrape of metal. Then, amidst muffled roaring, an icy wind bit Turjan’s face. Another hiss — and all was quiet.

“My gratitude is yours,” said the calm voice of Pandelume. “Few times have I experienced such dire stress, and without your aid might not have repulsed that creature of hell.”

A hand lifted the amulet from Turjan’s neck. After a moment of silence Pandelume’s voice sounded again from a distance.

“You may open your eyes.”

Turjan did so. He was in Pandelume’s workroom; amidst much else, he saw vats like his own.

“I will not thank you,” said Pandelume. “But in order that a fitting symmetry be maintained, I perform a service for a service. I will not only guide your hands as you work among the vats, but also will I teach you other matters of value.”

In this fashion did Turjan enter his apprenticeship to Pandelume. Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night he worked under Pandelume’s unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed “Mathematics”.

“Within this instrument,” said Pandelume, “resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells which bear his name. I have endeavored through the ages to break the clouded glass, but so far my research has failed. He who discovers the pattern will know all of sorcery and be a man powerful beyond comprehension.”

So Turjan applied himself to the study and learned many of the simpler routines.

“I find herein a wonderful beauty,” he told Pandelume. “This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity.”

In spite of these other studies, Turjan spent most of his time at the vats, and under Pandelume’s guidance achieved the mastery he sought. As a recreation he formed a girl of exotic design, whom he named Floriel. The hair of the girl he had found with Kandive on the night of the festival had fixed in his mind, and he gave his creature pale green hair. She had skin of creamy tan and wide emerald eyes. Turjan was intoxicated with delight when he brought her wet and perfect from the vat. She learned quickly and soon knew how to speak with Turjan. She was one of dreamy and wistful habit, caring for little but wandering among the flowers of the meadow, or sitting silently by the river; yet she was a pleasant creature and her gentle manners amused Turjan.

But one day the black-haired T’sais came riding past on her horse, steely-eyed, slashing at flowers with her sword. The innocent Floriel wandered by and T’sais, exclaiming “Green-eyed woman — your aspect horrifies me, it is death for you!” cut her down as she had the flowers in her path.

Turjan, hearing the hooves, came from the workroom in time to witness the sword-play. He paled in rage and a spell of twisting torment rose to his lips. Then T’sais looked at him and cursed him, and in the pale face and dark eyes he saw her misery and the spirit that caused her to defy her fate and hold to her life. Many emotions fought in him, but at last he permitted T’sais to ride on. He buried Floriel by the river-bank and tried to forget her in intense study.

A few days later he raised his head from his work.

“Pandelume! Are you near?”

“What do you wish, Turjan?”

“You mentioned that when you made T’sais, a flaw warped her brain. Now I would create one like her, of the same intensity, yet sound of mind and spirit.”

“As you will,” replied Pandelume indifferently, and gave Turjan the pattern.

So Turjan built a sister to T’sais, and day by day watched the same slender body, and the same proud features take form.

When her time came, and she sat up in her vat, eyes glowing with joyful life, Turjan was breathless in haste to help her forth.

She stood before him wet and naked, a twin to T’sais, but where the face of T’sais was racked by hate, here dwelt peace and merriment; where the eyes of T’sais glowed with fury, here shone the stars of imagination.

Turjan stood wondering at the perfection of his own creation. “Your name shall be T’sain,” said he, “and already I know that you will be part of my life.”

He abandoned all else to teach T’sain, and she learned with marvellous speed.

“Presently we return to Earth,” he told her, “to my home beside a great river in the green land of Ascolais.”

“Is the sky of Earth filled with colors?” she inquired.

“No,” he replied. “The sky of Earth is a fathomless dark blue, and an ancient red sun rides across the sky. When night falls the stars appear in patterns that I will teach you. Embelyon is beautiful, but Earth is wide, and the horizons extend far off into mystery. As soon as Pandelume wills, we return to Earth.”

T’sain loved to swim in the river, and sometimes Turjan came down to splash her and toss rocks in the water while he dreamed. Against T’sais he had warned her, and she had promised to be wary.

But one day, as Turjan made preparations for departure, she wandered far afield through the meadows, mindful only of the colors at play in the sky, the majesty of the tall blurred trees, the changing flowers at her feet; she looked on the world with a wonder that is only for those new from the vats. Across several low hills she wandered, and through a dark forest where she found a cold brook. She drank and sauntered along the bank, and presently came upon a small dwelling.

The door being open, T’sain looked to see who might live here. But the house was vacant, and the only furnishings were a neat pallet of grass, a table with a basket of nuts, a shelf with a few articles of wood and pewter.

T’sain turned to go on her way, but at this moment she heard the ominous thud of hooves, sweeping close like fate. The black horse slid to a stop before her. T’sain shrank back in the doorway, all Turjan’s warnings returning to her mind. But T’sais had dismounted and came forward with her sword ready. As she raised to strike, their eyes met, and T’sais halted in wonder.

It was a sight to excite the brain: the beautiful twins, wearing the same white waist-high breeches, with the same intense eyes and careless hair, the same slim pale bodies, the one wearing on her face hate for every atom of the universe, the other a gay exuberance.

T’sais found her voice.