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settling to the rhythm and sway of the boat’s movements, all the while attempting to stop himself falling headlong against his seated companion.
    As the boat splashed its way through the deeply recessed arch of the Water Gate, with its intricate carvings set deepinto the weathered stones, Alan was unprepared for the maze that now enfolded them. He had expected city streets, roads and squares. Instead he discovered that the Old City was a labyrinth of tunnels carved out of solid rock, honeycombed with openings into still darker tunnels.
    In such claustrophobic surroundings he felt increasingly uncomfortable with the silence of the hooded women. At the same time the proximity of great power caused his oraculum to glow so brightly that it cast a rubicund beacon over the skiff, and would have been enough in itself to illuminate the way had there not been torches burning in sconces at regular intervals.
    ‘Wow! How old is this place, Milish?’
    ‘Older, I’m sure, than any other ecclesiastical buildings in all of Monisle. Its written history stretches to more than five millennia, yet the sages believe that it is more ancient still. It guards its secrets well.’
    After a lengthy and twisting course within the tunnels they arrived at a jetty in a mildewed wall where a solitary figure, gowned in white, stood waiting for their arrival. Unlike the rowers she was uncowled and Alan saw that she was no more than twenty years old and of a dark complexion, with heavy eyelids, a pert nose and wide, full lips. Her eyebrows, like her scalp, were hairless. Her chestnut-coloured eyes assessed him curiously, but it was he who broke the silence.
    ‘My name is Alan Duval. My companion you already recognise, the Princess and Ambassador …’
    ‘Mage Lord, you need no introduction.’ The young woman interrupted him, bowing a little awkwardly as if unused to greeting strangers. ‘I am permitted to speak in order to be your guide.’
    She indicated where a door stood open onto an ascending spiral of steps. They seemed to climb endlessly, with more tunnels opening off the staircase at many levels, until finally they reached a small and narrow atrium. By now they must be high within the labyrinths of the Old City. With a gesture towards the single stone bench lit by a flickering sconce, their guide made it clear that they should wait for her return.
    Alan could barely contain his impatience, pacing around for a few moments before pausing in front of a narrow, unglazed slit window, through which, standing on tiptoes, he could catch a glimpse of the lamp-lit towers of Carfon.
    The return of their guide was heralded by the smell of incense. Cowling her head, she led them through a corridor with a worn stone floor, and through a chamber set with wooden benches and kneelers that was lit by candles and proved to be the source of the incense, and still further into a pentagonal room that was the anteroom to the assembly chamber. Here, she stood back, her head bowed before a tall, severe-looking woman garbed in an ankle-length gown of lime-green.
    ‘I am Aon.’
    The woman confronting Alan was perhaps in her early sixties. In assessing Alan, she made no effort to disguise her curiosity. Her gaze focused for several moments on his oraculum before finding his eyes, and once finding them, never leaving them.
    ‘I’m Alan Duval.’
    ‘Who, if the rumours be true, has entered this world from another – and who bears the Oraculum of the First Power of the most Holy Trídédana!’
    He gazed back at her, eye to eye, in silence.
    ‘I am informed that the Elector, Prince Ebrit, considers you naive, perhaps a dangerous idealist.’
    ‘I guess that in his world idealism might be another word for fanaticism. If that’s what the Elector thinks of me, I can see how it might make me appear dangerous.’ He let his words sink in a moment before shrugging.
    ‘It must be difficult in one so young to assume such power without being a little overwhelmed by it.