ld fill your entire lifetime with pleasures,"
Sather Karf went on. "And you were assured of jewels to buy an empire.
All this the council is prepared to give you. Are you ready for your
reward?"

"No!" Bork's cry broke out before Hanson could answer. The big man was
writhing before he could finish the word, but his own fingers were
working in conjurations that seemed to hold back enough of the spells
against him to let him speak. "Dave Hanson, your world was a world of
rigid laws. You died there. And there would be no magic to avoid the
fact that there you must always be dead."

Hanson's eyes riveted on the face of Sather Karf. The old man looked
back and finally nodded his head. "That is true," he admitted. "It would
have been kinder for you not to know, but it is the truth."

"And jewels enough to buy an empire on a corpse," Hanson accused. "A
lifetime of pleasures--simple enough when that lifetime would be over
before it began. What were the pleasures, Sather Karf? Having you reveal
your name just before I was sent back and feeling I'd won?" He grimaced.
"I reject the empty rewards of your empty promises!"

"I also rejected the interpretation, but I was out-voted," Sather Karf
said, and there was a curious reluctance as he raised his hand. "But it
is too late. Dave Hanson prepare to receive your reward. By the power of
your name--"

Hanson's hand went to his pocket and squeezed down on the blob of sky
material there. He opened his mouth, and found that the thickness was
back. For a split second, his mind screamed in panic as he realized he
could not even pronounce the needed words.

Then coldness settled over his thoughts as he drove them to shape the
unvoiced words in his mind. Nobody had told him that magic incantations
had to be pronounced aloud. It seemed to be the general law, but for all
he knew, ignorance of the law here might change the law. At least he
meant to die trying, if he failed.

"Rumpelstilsken, I command the sun to set!"

He seemed to sense a hesitation in his mind, and then the impression of
jeweled gears turning. Outside the window, the light reddened, dimmed,
and was gone, leaving the big room illuminated by only a few witch
lights.

The words Sather Karf had been intoning came to a sudden stop, even
before they could be drowned in the shouts of shock and panic from the
others. His eyes centered questioningly on Hanson and the flicker of a
smile crossed his face. "To the orrery!" he o