But Mamun gazed up just as levelly as before. 'Some among my brothers thought that you would run, but I knew better. Khalul always said your pride would be the end of you, and here is the proof. It seems strange to me, now, that I once thought you a great man. You look old, Bayaz. You have dwindled.'

'Things seem smaller when they are far above you!' growled the First of the Magi. He ground the toe of his staff into the stones under his feet, his voice carrying now a terrible menace. 'Come closer, Eater, and you can judge my weakness while you burn!'

'The time was you could have crushed me with a word, I do not doubt it. But now your words are only empty air. Your power has leaked away with the slow years, while mine has never been greater. I have a hundred brothers and sisters behind me. What allies have you, Bayaz?' He swept the battlements with a mocking smile. 'Only such as you deserve.'

'I may yet find allies to surprise you.'

'I doubt it. Long ago, Khalul told me what your final, desperate hope would be. Time proved him right, as it always has. So you went to the very edge of the World, chasing shadows. Dark shadows indeed, for one who calls himself righteous. I know that you failed.' The priest showed two rows of perfect white teeth. 'The Seed passed out of history, long ago. Interred, dark leagues beneath the earth. Sunk, far below the bottomless ocean. Your hopes are sunk with it. You have only one choice left to you. Will you come with us willingly, and be judged by Khalul for your betrayal? Or must we come in and take you?'

'You dare to speak to me of betrayal? You who betrayed the highest principals of our order, and broke the sacred law of Euz? How many have you murdered, so that you could be powerful?'

Mamun only shrugged. 'Very many. I am not proud. You left us a choice of dark paths, Bayaz, and we made the sacrifices we had to. There is no purpose in our arguing over the past. After these long centuries, standing on opposite sides of a great divide, I think neither one of us will convince the other. The victors can decide who was right, just as they always have, since long before the Old Time. I know your answer already, but the Prophet would have me ask the question. Will you come to Sarkant, and answer for your great crimes? Will you be judged by Khalul?'

'Judged?' snarled Bayaz. 'He will judge me, the swollen-headed old murderer?' He barked harsh laughter down from the walls. 'Come and take me if you dare, Mamun, I will be waiting!'

'Then we will come,' murmured Khalul's first apprentice, frowning up from under his fine black brows. 'We have been preparing long years to do it.'

The two men fell to sullen glaring, and Jezal frowned with them. He resented the sudden feeling that the whole business was somehow an argument between Bayaz and this priest and that he, although a king, was like a child eavesdropping on his parents' conversation, and with just as little say in the outcome.