The Face of Chaos

She slapped the coins into Stulwig's moist palm and watched, glaring, as he packed up his satchel and picked up the staff he had leaned against the door.

'The blessing of Heqt upon the healing -' he mumbled.

'And upon the hands of the healer,' Gilla responded automatically, but she was thinking, I have wasted my money. He doesn't believe his paltry herbs will do any good either. She listened to the hurried clatter of Stulwig's sandals on the stairs as he hastened to reach his own lodging before darkness fell, but her eyes were on Lalo's still face.

And suddenly it seemed to her that his breathing had deepened and there was the suggestion of a crease between his brows. She stiffened, watching, while hope fluttered in her heart like a trapped moth, until his features grew smooth again. She thought of the great waves that sometimes slapped at the wharves though the sky was clear, that fishermen said were the last ripple from some great storm far out to sea.

Oh my beloved, she thought in anguish, what bitter storms are raging in the far reaches where you wander now?

The children were waiting for her when she came out of the studio, all of them except for her oldest, Wedemir, who was ajunio"-master with the caravans. Her daughter Vanda had gotten leave from her Beysib lady when Gilla sent for her, and sat now with Alfi on her lap, looking at her mother with a fair approximation of the flat Beysib stare. Even her second boy, Ga

Gilla glared back at them, knowing they must have heard her argument with Alten Stulwig. What did they expect her to say?

'Well?' she snapped. 'Stop looking at me like a batch of gaffed cod! And somebody put the teakettle on!'

Lalo was following the scent, familiar as the stink of a man's own closestool, of sorcery.

He knew this much about the strange existence he was caught in now - even a dauber whose only magic had flowed through his . fingers could smell sorcery here, and though in that other life Lalo had been wary of wizards, he had not been quite wary enough, and that was the start of the road that had led him here.

There, for instance, was the gaudy presence of the Mageguild. a mixture of odours from the faint aromas of the magelings to the full-blown, exotic outpourings of the Hazard-class wizards who were their masters - a potpourri with all the mixed fascination of Prince Kitty-Cat's garbage bin. Here also was the alien tang of Beysib ritual, and the fuggy flavours produced by all the little hedge-wizards and crones, and the wavering scents of those who served in the temples of the gods.

But what he was seeking was not in the temples, though it came from a place that was close by - a house whose very foundations were sorcery. Someone was working a spell there even now, elegant magics that sent spirals of power smoking into the dim air. Lalo had known that flavour before, though he had not then recognized it - the unique atmosphere that surrounded Enas

Yorl. Focusing, he found that he could interpret what he was sensing

as colour, a line of light that snaked outward, another crossing it and another, a net to capture any spirit that might be wandering there. And Lalo could feel the presence of those Others, beings less conscious than the ghosts he fled, but more active and aware.

A Symbol flickered into being in the centre of the knot, pulsing lividly, colour, shape, and flavour all combined to lure its intended prey. Lalo shuddered as something swept by him. The glowing lines distorted and the Symbol in their midst dissolved and then reformed, imprisoning a roil of writhing energy and forcing it into a form that human eyes could, however unwillingly, see. But the Gateway that had opened for the creature was still there, and Lalo, frantic for contact, thrust himself through.

"Ehas, barabarishti, azgeldui m 'hai tsi! Oh thou who dost know the secrets of Life and Death, come to me! Yevoi! YevadF The Voice snapped shut the gap and set the imprisoned entity to whirling in a shower of nitrate and sulphur-smelling sparks.

Lalo contracted like an upset snail, seeking to avoid the touch of that light, the sound of those words. They were the language of the plane from which the spirit had come, and Lalo's present condition gave him the power to directly apprehend them, and to realize that there were worse places than the one in which he found himself now.

'Evgolod sheremin, shinaz, shinaz, tiserra-neh, yevoi!' The Voice rolled on, conjuring the creature to bring to him the knowledge of how to separate the soul from a body to which it had been obscenely and indissolubly fettered by sorcery, of a way, though the price of it might be a

But presently the Voice stilled, the echoes died away, and Lalo allowed himself to focus on tlie insubstantial figure that stood within its own shimmering circle beyond the triangle within which Lalo and the demon shared an unwilling captivity. It was Enas Yorl - it must be - yes, he would always know those glowing eyes.

And at the same moment Enas Yorl appeared to realize that his summoning had been more successful than he intended. A wand rose, and power swirled and eddied in the still air.

'Begone, oh ye intruding spirit, to thine own realm where thou shall wait until I do summon thee!'

Lalo was tumbled by a riptide of power and for a moment knew a desperate hope that the sorcerer's instinctive house-cleaning would send him home. But where was home, now?

Then the power ebbed, and Lalo sat up, still in the triangle. The demon in the sigil beside him spat and reached for him with flaming claws.

'Oh thou spirit who hast come to my summoning, I conjure thee to tell me thy name.' Enas Yorl seemed unmoved by his first failure, and Lalo began to understand the patience and plain nerve required for wizardry.

He got to his feet and approached the edge of the triangle as closely as he dared. 'It's me, Lalo the Limner. Enas Yorl, don't you recognize me?'

And as he waited for the sorcerer to reply, Lalo realized that he himself recognized Enas Yorl, and that was very strange, for the essence of the curse that tormented the sorcerer was that his form should never remain for long the same. With a kind of horrified fascination, Lalo looked into the true face of Enas Yorl.

He read there passions and evils at the limit of his comprehension, barely confined by lines of vision and tormented love. In that face all that was great and terrible were joined in an eternal conflict that only the slow erosion of hopeless years might ever hope to reconcile. And those years had already become so long. It was a face whose planes had been chiselled out by the relentless blade of power, ground down again by a kind of patient, painful despair. At last he understood why Enas Yorl had refused to let Lalo paint his portrait. He wondered which part of it the sorcerer feared most to see.

'Enas Yorl, I know you, but I don't know what I am, or why I am here!'

The sorcerer certainly saw him now, and he was laughing. 'You're not dead, if that's what was worrying you, and there's no stink of magic about you. Were you fevered, or did that mountain you are married to knock you senseless at last?'

Lalo sputtered, denying it, while he tried to remember. There was nothing - I was painting; I was alone, and -'