'Books,' she snorted. 'Waste of fucking time.'

Vague sounds echoed from beyond the gate: someone approaching inside, accompanied by an irritated muttering. Now locks clicked and grated and the weathered door squealed open.

A man of an advanced age and a pronounced stoop gazed at them in wonder, an unintelligible curse frozen on his lips, a lighted taper casting a faint glow over one side of his wrinkled face.

'I am Bayaz, the First of the Magi, and I have business with Cawneil.' The servant continued to gawp. Jezal half expected a string of drool to escape from his toothless mouth it was hanging open so wide. Plainly, they did not receive large numbers of visitors.

The one flickering taper was pitifully inadequate to light the lofty hall beyond. Weighty tables sagged under tottering piles of books. Shelves rose up high on every wall, lost in the fusty darkness overhead. Shadows shifted over leather-bound spines of every size and colour, on bundles of loose parchments, on scrolls rolled and carelessly stacked in leaning pyramids. Light sparked and flashed on silver gilt, and gold ornamentation, and dull jewels set into tomes of daunting size. A long staircase, banister highly polished by the passage of countless hands, steps worn down in the centres by the passage of countless feet, curved gracefully down into the midst of this accumulation of ancient knowledge. Dust sat thickly on every surface. One particularly monstrous cobweb became stickily tangled in Jezal's hair as he passed over the threshold, and he flicked and wrestled at it, face wrinkled in distaste.

'The lady of the house,' wheezed the doorman in a strange accent, 'has already taken to her couch.'

'Then wake her,' snapped Bayaz. 'The hour grows dark and I am in haste. We have no time to—'

'Well. Well. Well.' A woman stood upon the steps. 'The hour grows dark indeed, when old lovers come calling at my door.' A deep voice, smooth as syrup. She sauntered down the stairs with exaggerated slowness, one set of long nails trailing on the curving banister. She seemed perhaps of middle age: tall, thin, graceful, a curtain of long black hair falling over half her face.

'Sister. We have urgent matters to discuss.'

'Ah, do we indeed?' The one eye that Jezal could see was large, dark and heavy-lidded, rimmed faintly with sore, tearful pink. Languorously, lazily, almost sleepily it flowed over the group. 'How atrociously tiresome.'

'I am weary, Cawneil, I need none of your games.'

'We all are weary, Bayaz. We all are terribly weary.' She gave a long, theatrical sigh as she finally glided to the foot of the steps and across the uneven floor towards them. 'There was a time when you were willing to play. You would play my games for days at a time, as I recall.'

'That was long ago. Things change.'