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the Count had lived too long in the country, breathing the clean rural air. Now he could not recognize the stink of corruption even when he smelled it.
    Though Count Brass was reticent in his conversations with Baron Meliadus, the Granbretanian seemed willing to tell him much. It appeared that even where Granbretan did not rule, there were discontented nobles and peasants willing to make secret treaties with the agents of the Dark Empire, in promise of power under the King-Emperor if they helped destroy those who opposed Granbretan. And Granbretan's ambitions, it seemed, extended beyond Europe into Asia. Beyond the Mediterranean there were well-established groups ready to support the Dark Empire when the time came for attack.
    Count Brass's admiration for the tactical skills of the Empire increased every day.
    "Within twenty years," said Baron Meliadus, "the whole of Europe will be ours. Within thirty, all Arabia and the countries that surround it. Within fifty, we shall have the strength to attack that mysterious land on our maps that is called Asiacommunista. . . ."
    "An ancient and romantic name," smiled Count Brass,
    "full of great sorceries, it's said. Is that not where the Runestaff lies?"
    "Aye, that's the tale - that it stands on the tallest mountain in the world, where snow swirls and winds howl constantly, protected by hairy men of incredible wisdom and age, who who are ten feet high and have the faces of apes." Baron Meliadus smiled. "But there are many places that the Runestaff is said to be - in Amarehk, even."
    Count Brass nodded. "Ah, Amarehk - do you include that land in your dreams of empire?" Amarehk was the great continent said to lie across the water to the west, ruled by beings of almost godlike powers. They were reputed to lead lives that were abstracted, tranquil, and remote. Theirs, so the tales went, was the civilization that altogether missed the effects of the tragic Millennium, when the rest of the world collapsed into various degrees of ruin. Count Brass had jested when he mentioned Amarehk, but Baron Meliadus looked at him sidewise, a gleam in his pale eye.
    "Why not?" he said. "I would storm the walls of heaven if I found them."
    Disturbed, Count Brass left him shortly thereafter, for the first time wondering if his resolution to remain neutral were as well advised as he'd believed.
    Yisselda, though as intelligent as her father, lacked both his experience and his normally good judgment of character.
    She found even the Baron's infamous reputation attractive and at the same time could not believe that all the stories about him were true. For when he spoke to her in his soft, cultivated voice, flattering her beauty and grace, she thought she saw a man of gentle temperament forced to appear grim and ruthless by the conventions of his office and his role in history.
    Now, for the third time since his arrival, she slipped at night from her bedchamber to keep an assignation with him in the west tower, which had been unused since the bloody death there of the previous Lord Guardian.
    The meeting had been innocent enough - a clasping of her hand, a brushing of her lips with his, the whispering of love words, talk of marriage. Though still unsure of the latter suggestion (for she loved her father and felt it would hurt him deeply if she married Baron Meliadus), she could not resist the attention the Baron gave her. Even she was not sure that it was love she felt for him, but she welcomed the sense of adventure and excitement that these meetings gave her.
    On this particular night, as she sped light-footed through the gloomy corridors, she did not know that she was being followed. Behind her came a figure in a black cloak, a long dagger in a leather sheath in his right hand.
    Heart beating, red lips parted slightly in a half smile, Yisselda ran up the winding steps of the tower until she came to the little turret room where the Baron already awaited her.
    He bowed low, then caught her in his arms,