It is here I must admit the weakness of my auguries. By what force you sped through a dusk shorn of moon and star, by what spirits led, by which secret path, or whether by horse-sense, or whether by will alone, I cannot see. In my visions are merely mountains, and a clear tarn in whose lapping mirror lies the dark tower to which you come. You shall be there soon enough.

In meantime, there are other means of divination than what are revealed to us in dreams. I have here a letter from one Ignatius Pavel, your brother, written but never sent (to whom intended, I know not, and the letter does not say, and is not dated). It begins:

<span class="mu-r">
I have no faith in God, but I believe in Hell.

It is not in my memory to have seen power stand uncoupled with corruption. It is not in my power to forget by what cruelties I have purchased this throne, nor indeed by what atrocities I shall unborder its limits. I have read the holy book of the infidels and studied their desert god: kun fa-yakūnu! “Be”, He says, and it is! And if by lesser words, I may condemn, or raise a man, or take his life, or pardon him, and if by mere ceremony, scepter, and ring my blood can harden and my temples numb to the cry for quarter, how much more severe may be the indifference of the almighty God?

Do not marvel at my words. It is not madness but mad disquietude; the sinner’s immortal hope, to all eternities opposed. It may be all Hell’s are human, and all plagues and famines the riddle by which saints are sieved. I spit upon mysteries. Let Him set the mark of murder upon my head, and all earth not surrender her strength, nor sevenfold vengeance deliver me from death, still the body hangs, uncoveréd, and my head, unbowed. Aye, I murdered all I loved in the world. My lord. My brother. Still more, my friend. I ground all hideousness to a pitch and drank the mingled venoms up, and turned snake and stung, for that I could crush all others beneath this wounded heel, and finish the Babel that was begun.

To you alone I confess this, my–
</span>

The remainder is eaten by fire and dust, as shall all our histories in time. What we here remember is all that remains, and all shall remain but a little while.

And so.

>You hid your horse and its treasures in a secret place before you came to the tower’s lonely mouth.
>You knocked the gates upon the stolen steed, as surest proof of your honest commission
>You waited till the tower slept and all life behind its oriels were still, then entered by surreptition.
>Write-in