the pergola. For them the portal must hang unchanged, open for their hunting.
Cappen gave that which he held a half-twist and brought the edges back together.
Thus he created a surface which had but a single side and a single edge. Thus he
obliterated the gate.
He had not been sure what would follow. He had fleetingly supposed he would
smuggle the scroll out, held in its paradoxical form, and eventually glue it
unless he could burn it. But upon the instant that he completed the twist and
juncture, the parchment was gone. Enas Yorl told him afterwards that he had made
it impossible for the thing to exist.
Air rushed in where the gate had been, crack and hiss. Cappen heard that sound
as it were an alien word of incantation: ‘Mobius-s-s.’
Having stolen out of the temple and some distance thence, the party stopped for
a few minutes of recovery before they proceeded to Molin’s house.
This was in a blind alley off the avenue, a brick-paved recess where flowers
grew in planters, shared by the fanes of two small and gentle gods. Wind had
died away, stars glimmered bright, a half moon stood above easterly roofs and
cast wan argence. Afar, a tomcat serenaded his intended.
Rosanda had gotten back a measure of equilibrium. She cast herself against
Jamie’s breast. ‘Oh, hero, hero,’ she crooned, ‘you shall have reward, yes,
treasure, ennoblement, everything!’ She snuggled. ‘But nothing greater than my
unbounded thanks …’
The Northerner cocked an eyebrow at Cappen. The bard shook his head a little.
Jamie nodded in understanding, and disengaged. ‘Uh, have a care, milady,’ he