The sight of his old friend stopped him. The General stood gasping with exertion and pain in the center of a clear space ringed by riflemen and Magisters. For a heartbeat or two, Elgart did not understand why Klamath had stopped there. Then he saw that some blade had taken Klamath’s sword-arm at the elbow. A belt hauled tight around his upper arm served as a tourniquet. The stump of his elbow dripped blood.

Swaying, Elgart stared. He could hardly keep his feet.

Klamath came closer. In a rush, he flung his good arm around his friend. “Elgart,” he croaked like a sob. “Elgart.”

Wrestling with himself, Elgart panted, “The King needs you.”

Klamath jerked back, stared at the former spy’s cleft face.

“South of the pavilion.” Elgart could not find enough air for words. “He is trying to reach Rile.

“You are too far below him. Too far north.”

Klamath gaped at Elgart for an instant. Then he became the General again.

“Rowt!” he roared. “A new heading! We must break through the enemy below that plateau and climb! King Bifalt is there!”

Relief took the last of Elgart’s strength. He sagged to his knees. Now seemed like as good a time as any to rest.

Drifting on the edge of darkness, he seemed to hear Klamath shouting for a Magister of fire.

Fire? thought Elgart. For me? Oh, hells.

Then he went away for a while.

Watching from the balcony outside the librarian’s workroom, Magister Rummage saw a man, apparently a rifleman, emerge from the fray on the south side and stride upward. Before long, a patch of clean snow shifted and became a woman in white. They may have spoken to each other. He wiped his saber on his thighs, sheathed it. Together, they ascended past the lower plateau.

In the north, General Klamath’s forces struggled across the slopes, perhaps trying to rejoin King Bifalt and the rest of Klamath’s army. Aided by his Magisters, Bellegerin and Amikan, the General drove into the mass of the Great God’s infantry.

But those were details. Magister Rummage noticed them and forgot them. His attention was fixed on the pavilion. On the table and the books. On the priests and the Great God.

The god had recovered from the effects of Magister Avail’s shout. He stood away from his chair, holding his tall cross upright as if it were the emblem or instrument of his inevitable victory. In a golden nimbus, he faced the Repository. Despite his brief setback, he still seemed to look straight at Magister Rummage, daring the hunchback to respond.

Rummage met that stare without flinching. His only friend had sacrificed himself for nothing. He was more than angry. He was no longer afraid.