“What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”

“As one of the three, you’re under black watch. That’s why I summoned you here, to one of my places of solitude.” He turned and walked through the wall. I followed him, still bearing my flagon, and we seated ourselves beside a still, green pool beneath a rocky overhang, umber sky above. His castle contained places from all over Chaos and Shadow, stitched together into a crazy-quilt pattern of ways within ways. “And since you wear the spikard you’ve added resources for safety,” he observed.

He reached out and touched the many-spoked wheel of my ring. A faint tingling followed in my finger, hand, and arm.

“Uncle, you were often given to cryptic utterances when you were my teacher,” I said. “But I’ve graduated now, and I guess that gives me the right to say I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

He chuckled and sipped his beer.

“On reflection, it always became clear,” he said.

“Reflection…” I said, and I looked into the pool. Images swam amid the black ribbons beneath its surface — Swayvill lying in state, yellow and black robes muffling his shrunken form, my mother, my father, demonic forms, all passing and fading, Jurt, myself, Jasra and Julia, Random and Fiona, Mandor and Dworkin, Bill Roth and many faces I did not know…

I shook my head.

“Reflection does not clarify,” I said.

“It is not the function of an instant,” he replied.

So I returned my attention to the chaos of faces and forms. Jurt returned and remained for a long time. He was dressing himself, in very good taste, and he appeared to be relatively intact. When he finally faded there returned one of the half familiar faces I had seen earlier. I knew he was a noble of the Courts, and I searched my memory. Of course. It had been a long while, but now I recognized him. It was Tmer, of the House of Jesby, eldest son of the late Prince Rolovians, and now lord himself of the Ways of Jesby — spade beard, heavy brow, sturdily built, not unhandsome, in a rugged sort of way; by all report a brave and possibly even sensitive fellow.