ing rapidly, and she didn't like to think what he might do if
she didn't get away on her first try- It would be better to wait
for a more certain chance.
The motley company was slowly assembling in the corner,
with occasional low-voiced grumbling that Dan pretended
not to hear. Robert and Freddy between them supported the
slowly recovering Marianne, while Jonathan stalked past and
Lady Cranleigh glowered impartially at everyone- For a mo-
ment or two, it looked as if Dan had gotten things under
control at last; then Jasper said in a cross, too-loud voice,
"But what is it the fellow wants?"
"The Sacred Dishi" Jonathan answered. He gave Dan and
Jack a dark look. "But he shall not get it, however he tries,"
"The what?" said Jasper.
"The sacred dish," Lady Granleigh said, giving her brother
a sidelong glance full of meaning "The platter that we gave
to Mr de Mare this morning." She nodded in Mairelon's di-
rection.
"What?" several voices said at once- Lord St. Clair exam-
ined Mairelon with angry speculation, and both of Dan's
pistols swung to point at the magician. Kim cursed mentally
and swiveled her head from side to side, trying to watch Dan
and the door at the same time.
"I told you not to try any tricks with me, Merrill," Dan
said. "Where's the platter? And this time, tell me the truth!"
The shadow on the doorsill shifted and withdrew, but Kim
stayed where she was. With Dan so jumpy, she'd be shot
before she was out the door if she made a run for it- She
edged toward the front of the table with a vague idea of
227
doing something, she wasn't sure what, if Dan looked like
shooting Maireton.
"Merrill?" said William Stuggs, giving Mairelon a swift,
sharp look "Well, well."
"What does that mean, 'well, welt'?" Jasper demanded,
rounding on his servant.
Stuggs's expression instantly resumed its usual appearance
of placid stupidity. "Ain't e the cove you was lookin' for in
London?"
"Answer me!" Dan said to Mairelon, "Where is the platter?"
"Which one?" Mairelon asked- "The one your man Slower
left by my campfire, or the one Lady Granleigh was so anx-
ious to get rid of? Or one of the other fakes Fenton seems to
have been peddling?"
"The Saltash Platter, you buffoon!" Laverham shouted.
"Infidel! What have you done with the Sacred Dish?"
Jonathan cried at the same moment.
"Fenton?" said Freddy, frowning. "I've got a footman by
that name What's he got to do with Jen's dish?"
Mairelon lifted his bound hands and scratched his ear "I
don't have any better idea where the Saltash Platter is than
you do, Laverham-"
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Why not?" Mairelon shrugged. "It's true," '
"I gave you the Saltash Platter this morning," Lady
Granieigh insisted in her most superior manner- "How dare
you suggest otherwise!"
"Oh, you gave me a platter, all right, but it was a forgery
and you knew it," Mairelon said. He gave her a charming
smile that expanded to include the entire ring of surprised,
confused, and skeptical faces. "By the by, how do you happen
to know anything about the Sattash Platter, hmmm?"
"Never mind!" Dan said. "I don't care about her, and I don't
228
believe you." He raised his pistol and slowly and deliberately
cocked it. "For the last time, where is the Saltash Platter?"
" don't have it," Mairelon said-
"But of a certainty you do not," said a new voice, Dan
whirled, and everyone else's head nicked toward the door.
Kim bumped her head on a table leg, cursed, and turned to
see Renee D'Auber standing in the doorway. Her auburn hair
was dressed in ringlets and threaded with a peach-colored
ribbon that exactly matched the delicate muslin of her walk-
ing dress, and she smiled brightly when she saw the faces
turned toward her. "I have it."
"Renee!" Mairelon said "What are you doing here?" Then
his face went blank as a stocky, sandy-haired man stepped
into the doorway beside her, and he added in a thunderstruck
tone, "Andrew?"
229
-S-A^- 111] en0. Richard," said the sandy-haired man,
JB^^^ I1 He sounded nervous and uncertain,
f f which Kirn thought was understandable under
the circumstances, but his attention was fixed on Mairelon
rather than on Dan or Jack Slower, "i, um, it's been a while."
"Well, well," said St. Clair- "This is becoming quite the
family gathering,"
Dan Laverham glared at St. Clair. Mairelon did not move,
he seemed as oblivious to the crowd around him as the man
he had called Andrew, Kirn frowned, puzzled both by St.
Clair's comment and the unusual strength of Mairelon's reac-
tion. Then her head jerked and almost hit the underside of
the table again as several fragments condensed into the mem-
ory of Mairelon's voice saying in a flat tone, "The evidence
was overwhelming. Even my brother Andrew believed it."
"What are you doing here?" Mairelon said in the same tight
voice Kirn remembered.
"Trying to keep your head out of a noose," Andrew replied,
Now that Kirn had remembered who he must be, she could
see how much he resembled Mairelon in his middling height,
230
neat build, and rounded face. Andrew glanced at Renee
D'Auber and added, "At least, that was the original idea."
"What do you mean by—"
"Then you do have the Saltash Platter?" St. Clair inter-
rupted, looking fixedly at Mademoiselle D'Auber.
"Nonsense," Lady Granleigh said. She made an urgent mo-
tion at her brother, but Jasper, who did not appear to have
the slightest idea what she wanted of him, remained where he
was.
"But, yes, I have it," Renee D'Auber told Lord St. Clair.
"Though I do not at all see why it is you who ask, when it is
this person with the pistols who was so very curious before."
"Where is it?" Dan demanded.
"Don't tel! him," Freddy advised "Fellow ain't the thing at
all, that's my opinion."
"For once, I agree with you, Freddy," Robert murmured,
"Freddy!" Marianne had recovered enough to pull away
from Robert and clutch at Freddy's arm in protest. "Oh, be
careful' That man might shoot you!"
"It would be a singular service to humanity if he did," St.
Clair said. "I have seldom met a more tiresome group, or one
more foolish. Mademoiselle D'Auber—"
"Quiet!" Dan commanded, "Or I'll shoot you, Gregory! I'm
tired of your interference."
"You seemed in need of some assistance," Lord St. Clair
said with unruffled calm. "I was only trying to help."
"I don't want your help, you insufferable—"
"But you know each otheri" Renee D'Auber said in tones of
pleased surprise. "It is a thing remarkable, I think."
Mairelon shook himself and tore his eyes away from the
man in the doorw
ay. "Yes, St. Clair, how do you come to
know Laverham? And how long have you been, er, ac-
quainted? At least five years, I think?"
"Oh, much longer than that," St. Clair replied. "I expect
231
you would be vastly interested in the details, but unfor-
tunately I don't intend to give them to you,"
"Perhaps Laverham can be persuaded?" Mairelon said.
"Not by you," Dan snarled. He turned back to Renee-
"Cive me the platter"
Behind Renee, Andrew made a gesture of protest, but he
had enough sense not to say anything. Renee D'Auber tilted
her head and considered Dan Laverham with an air that sug-
gested something unsatisfactory about the object of her scru-
tiny, "It is not at all possible for me to give you the platter
now," she said at last, as if granting a great concession in
answering at all,
"Renee," Mairelon said warningly-
A muscle in Dan's jaw jumped. "Don't lie to me," he said in
a tone that made Kirn shrink back from the edge of the table,
just in case he turned in her direction.
"I tell the truth," the Frenchwoman said, affronted. "And it
is quite true that I cannot give you the platter now- I am not a
fool, me, and I do not wish to lose it. So 1 do not carry it
about with me, especially when there are housebreakers and
highwaymen and persons with pistols everywhere. If you
were not yourself without sense, you would have compre-
hended that and not bothered me with silly questions."
Mairelon made a muffled, choking noise. Dan lowered his
pistols slightly and studied Renee through narrowed eyes,
"She ain't no dull mort," Jack Slower offered. "1 bet she
done it like she says "
"I have no doubt of it," St Clair said. "If, that is, she has
done anything at all."
"Ain't no knowing," Stuggs said with an air of deep gloom,
"She's French."
"It's easy enough to tell whether she's lying," Dan said. He
walked over to the card table and set something heavy down
just over Kirn's head. She flinched and backed away slowly,
232
hoping he would not drop anything. If he bent over, he
could hardly miss seeing her. At the rear of the table, she
stopped and curled into a lumpy, motionless ball, waiting for
Dan to move away again,
"What do you think you're doing, Laverham?" St. Ctair said
sharply, and Kirn had to suppress an urge to peer over the
edge of the table to see what he was referring to-
Tm going to find out which of them is telling the truth,"
Dan answered, "If it's Merrill, the Saltash Platler is in this
building somewhere- That's close enough for me to find, even
with only two of the indicator balls to use as a base for the
location spell."
"Freddy!" Marianne said in a carrying whisper. "Is he going
to cast a spell?"
"You know not what you do," Jonathan said in his best
master-dmid voice. "Beware the consequences of defiling the
hall of the Sons of the New Dawn!"
"Quiet," said Dan. "I've had as much of your posturing as I
can stomach. Jack, keep an eye on them."
This last instruction seemed unnecessary to Kim, since,
from the way his pistols had been waving about, Jack had
been trying to watch everyone at once for some time. She
could just see him out the side of the table and through the
latticed back of a wooden chair, his jaw clenched and his
eyes compressed to slits of grim concentration. Stuggs was
creeping around the outside of the group toward him, craning
his neck to get a look at Dan. Did the great looby think this
was some kind of show, or was he fool enough to try a trick
on a real magician in the middle of a spell? Then Dan began
to speak diamond-sharp words Kim could not understand,
and every other thought left her mind instantly.
She knew at once that something was wrong. Always be-
fore when she had heard magicians at work, the too-solid
words had settled quickly into an orderly arrangement, full of
233
dangerous corners and edges but as firm and stable as the
words themselves Dan's words were floating free, jostling
against each other like a market-day crowd, fighting the
structure the magician sought to impose on them
The magicians in the room were also quick to realize that
Dan was in trouble Renee D'Auber stepped backward into
Andrew, her eyes widening, and brought up her left hand in a
contorted gesture
"Renee, don'ti" Mairelon cned "You'll only cut what's left
of the basic binding'"
"Break off, you fool'" St Clair said to Dan at the same
moment "You'll have the house down in another minute "
"He can't break off," Jonathan said with bitter satisfaction
"If he does, he'll lose what control he has He'll lose it soon,
in any case His obstinacy has doomed us all "
Jasper Marston made a gobbling noise and collided with his
sister as he tned to leap for the door Marianne gave a lady-
like shnek and fainted again This time, Freddy caught her
without mishap Dan's voice droned on Robert stared at
Jonathan and demanded, "What do you mean by that, Jon?"
"He has fallen afout of the protections of the Sons of the
New Dawn," Jonathan answered "1 warned him not to med
die!"
"You might have tned warning him you had a protective
spell up, you young idiot'" Mairelon said acidly as, with two
swift motions, he undid the special knot Kim had used and
stripped the binding cords from his wnsts "What did you
use"? Quick now'"
Jonathan mumbled something, and Kim stopped listening
No matter what he said, no matter what Mairelon thought he
could do, there wasn't time She could hear the note of des-
peration in Dan's voice, she could feel his words twisting like
oiled eels The very air inside the lodge was beginning to
shine with reflections from the invisible, impossible crystal
234
words, and with every syllable Dan spoke, the glow grew
stronger He had to be stopped now, before he put so much
power into his distorted spell that it really would destroy
them all when he finally lost control of it
Kirn took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and stood up
with a surge, pushing the heavy wooden card table up and
forward with all her strength Cards and markers slid off and
scattered across the floor, the pistol Dan had set on top of
them followed with a metallic scraping noise The table hit
Dan hard, knocking him sideways He staggered briefly, then
regained his feet, but his concentration had been shattered
and the spell broke free
There was a brilliant flare of light, and sharp-edged words
flew in all directions Mairelon, Renee D'Auber, and Lord St
Clair Hung their arms up in identical gestures of repudiation
and simultaneously shouted the same unintelligible phrase
Kim ducked behind the upturned table as the unseen words
bounced back toward her Something hit the floor with a me-
tallic ping, and something else with a clear ringing noise
Dan cned out and fell heavily against the table Kim heard a
peculiar muffled noise that sounded like Jack Stowers voice,
then the remnants of the spell swirled and settled around her
like dust They lay in shimmenng silver dnfts on the wooden
floor for a long moment before they melted into nothing
"Well done," St Clair's voice said to someone
"Thank you," Renee D'Auber responded
"Kim'" Mairelon called He sounded very close, an instant
later, he appeared, bending anxiously over the end of the
table "Kim?"
"I ain't hurt," Kim assured him "Is that spell done with?"
"For the most part," Mairelon answered
Judging this to be as near a "yes" as she was likely to get
from him, Kim climbed cautiously to her feet and looked
around Freddy, his arms locked around the unconscious Mar-
235
ianne, was trading icy stares with Lady Granleigh and Jasper
Marston Jonathan alternated between baleful muttering and
attempts to untie his hands with his teeth Meanwhile, Jas-
per's man, Stuggs, had a firm and very professional-looking
armlock on Jack Slower Stower's pistols had vanished, and
his clothes were even more rumpled and disreputable than
Mairelon the Magician Page 26
