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no sign, but only sat and stirred his ashes, as if looking for a secret hidden in the cinders.
    But I didn’t do nowt to summon this Awd Man , Mark thought. Uncanny awd bastard .
    Like a rock rising from a river the Old Man jutted from the Red Keep’s enchanted sleep. He seemed real, where even Stargad had been half a dream. Fear flowed from him, and age, and terrible patience. The darkness of death was in the Old Man’s black robes; in the shadows that mantled him; in the coals from which he did not raise his eyes.
    So why, cased within his fear like a seed within a nut, did Mark feel a great desire to go to him?
    He shivered. You’ve a job to do, Shielder’s Mark. If you aren’t here to battle heroes, then you aren’t here to hark to an awd man’s tales neither; your business is wi’ the dagger, nowt else .
    He forced himself to go on, passing the kitchen, until the red glow of the little fire was lost.
    Why had Stargad said he should not take the dagger? Enchanted, of course. Obviously each failing hero was enspelled to defend the treasure he came to steal.
    And yet…
    On t’other hand, t’Awd Man wants you to take it.
    Angrily Mark shook his head. Why should he think such a thing? The Keep was whispering strange thoughts into his heart.
    When he reached the east wall it took him only a few moments to find what he was looking for, a stair leading up to the battlements. Reaching the parapet, he walked swiftly to where the outer wall abutted the east wing of the manor. As he had expected, there was a door there: this was the way someone coming from the royal apartments to the East Tower must pass.
    He knew Queen Lerelil’s son meant to kill his father with the dagger of which the Queen and Stargad had both spoken. Either he had come to the Tower from the Great Hall, crossing the courtyard, or he had come from his own chambers. On balance, Mark thought his chambers more likely.
    The door was a solid one of iron-banded oak, and opened outward. Mark drew his knife and reversed his grip, holding it like a club. Then he pulled the door open, stepped into the shadows behind it, and waited for the Prince to come out. Because of course the Prince must have come this way, and closed the door: and must do so again when Mark left it open, sure as any summoning. This way Mark could get to Prince and dagger before they ever came to the Tower. This way he would never have to face whatever had killed Stargad.
    It only took a moment for a tall, proud man in his early forties to emerge, clenching a black dagger in his fist as if it were an adder. As he closed the door, Mark clubbed him. He fell with a groan and lay twitching on the parapet.
    Got to practise that.
    The fallen man moaned. He was badly dazed, but when Mark tried to take the dagger from him he clutched it fiercely. “Thief!” he cried.
    Mark looked around in panic, waiting for the rush of torches, servants’ running feet. He clubbed the Prince again, much harder, and grabbed the dagger from his nerveless fingers.
    Magic lay in the iron dagger, heavy as time; sorcery clotted its dull blade like blood. It burned ice-cold; Mark yelped with the touch of it. Swiftly he flung his old knife over the battlements into the moat, and jammed the iron dagger into its sheath. He sprinted down the stairs and burst into the courtyard.
    No servants had come at the Prince’s call, just as no one had come at the ring of steel when Mark and Harler fought. Mark slowed to a walk, grinning like a madman. He had done it!
    Then the earth began to heave. The air filled with a weird, sighing sound. A dark wind gusted in the courtyard.
    Mark quickened his pace. In the breaking daylight a shadow shuddered across the courtyard. Looking up, Mark saw the Scarlet Tower begin to sway. Running grooves appeared in its tall granite walls, as if its stone were melting into crimson cloud, cut by the wind rising throughout the Keep.
    Mark yelped and ran.
    The dagger was a spike of ice along his leg;