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the girl, and together they watched and listened as the Forgotten King answered.
    â€œI care nothing for any god’s service. I seek only to die.”
    After a brief pause, Garth answered, “I had suspected as much. I could see no use for a basilisk except to kill. When you swore you meant to harm no other, I guessed that you wanted it to slay yourself. Later, though, I doubted my conclusions, for you said that what you sought would have some great significance to the rest of the world, and the death of one old man did not seem to fit. I thought that you might perhaps be lying, that in fact you did want only to die, and that all your other claims were merely to entice me to aid you—but the Wise Women of Ordunin told me that if I served you, my name could live until the end of time, which did not fit such a hypothesis.
    â€œNow, you say that you seek simply your own death; how can this have such mighty repercussions? How can my aiding you ensure my eternal fame? I do not understand. Further, you say that you care nothing for the gods, yet there was no mistaking the Dûsarran priest’s description; you are the one he described as the high priest of the Final God.”
    â€œI was,” the Forgotten King answered.
    â€œWere? Have you forsaken the service of the death-god?”
    The old man did not answer.
    Garth sat silently for a moment, then said slowly, “I think I begin to see. The Dûsarran said that it was in the nature of your service to the god of death that you, yourself, cannot die. You wish to die, though; you have lived more than four ages, he said, and now you grow weary. Yet you cannot die so long as you serve The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken. You have therefore forsaken your service—or sought to. You did not die when you met the gaze of the basilisk; your immortality is still strong. Death has not accepted you, the god has not accepted your renunciation of him.”
    The old man nodded very slightly.
    â€œThen is it that you mean to force the gods to acknowledge your resignation, so that you may die? Do you intend to invoke the gods themselves?”
    The Forgotten King did not answer.
    â€œThat must be it; you will bring The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken into our own world, so that you may end your pact with him. Such a conjuring would indeed be a feat worthy of eternal fame, a thing unequalled in history.”
    The yellow-robed figure shifted slightly. “Not ‘unequalled in history,’ Garth. I did it once, when I first made my pact.”
    â€œI can see, too, how you could offer me immortality; I could be presented to the god as your replacement. Such an eternal life does not appeal to me.”
    The King shrugged.
    â€œThis conjuring—how is it to be done?”
    â€œI have not said that I plan any such thing,” the old man answered.
    â€œYou keep up your air of mystery, but what else can you intend? You do not deny it, do you?”
    Again, the sagging shoulders rose and dropped.
    Garth sat back and considered. His chair creaked beneath his weight. The Forgotten King would not confirm it, but his theory made sense; it hung together neatly and fit all the known facts, as well as the old man’s previous statements. Why, then, did the King not admit it? There must be possible consequences that he thought would displease Garth and discourage any further aid. Such consequences must be fairly easy to discover, too; if they were in the least esoteric, it would be simple enough to keep Garth from learning of them.
    He thought the matter over. Bringing The God Whose Name Is Not Spoken into the mortal realm—what would that entail? The god sometimes demanded human sacrifices; could that be it? It could, indeed. Further, the invocation itself surely would involve the speaking aloud of the unspeakable name, whatever it was—that was supposed to mean certain death. Obviously, it would not kill the Forgotten King, but what of those around