He’d managed to install generators in the gulch below the cliff some twenty years ago, and tanks for petrol, and to deepen and improve the eastern harbor for his sleek modern boats, but electric power here was reserved entirely for the televisions and the computers, never for lighting or warmth. And those computers had brought him the first word of all this madness, not telepathic voices that he had long ago learned to entirely shut out. No, Benji Mahmoud had told him the times were changing.

How he wanted to keep things as they had always been.

There was no one on this island but the two of them, and down in the gorge the old mortal caretaker and his wife and his poor feebleminded daughter. The old mortal caretaker saw to the petrol tanks and the generators and the cleaning of these rooms by day, and he was paid well for it. He saw to Rhosh’s cabin cruiser in the harbor, that big powerful Wally Stealth Cruiser which Rhosh could effortlessly sail on his own. They were forty miles from the nearest land. That’s how Rhoshamandes wanted to keep it.

True, once the great Maharet had come calling. That had been in the nineteenth century and she had appeared on his battlements, a lone figure attired in heavy wool robes waiting courteously for an invitation to enter.

They had played chess, talked. And she had gone her way. First Brood and Queens Blood had no longer meant the slightest thing to either of them. But he’d been left with the impression of insurmountable power and wisdom, yes, wisdom, though he did not like to admit it. And he had admired her in spite of his wariness and the unpleasant realization that her gifts vastly exceeded his own.

Another time the formidable Sevraine had been here too, though he had only caught a glimpse of her in the oak forest that covered the lower southern coast of the little island. Yes, it had been Sevraine, he’d been sure of it.

He’d gone down into the valley and in search of her. But she’d vanished, and to the best of his knowledge she’d never returned. She’d been splendidly attired, in gold-trimmed robes of rich flashing color. And that indeed was how she was always described by those who insisted they’d seen her—the magnificent Sevraine.