Over the next couple of days Tak cast the Mend spell on the other 'diaries', but unlike the first they showed no improvement except a superficial change in their appearance as scratches and patches of corrosion vanished from their cases. Repeated casting failed to make any difference, and the first artifact also failed to benefit from further use of the spell. It seemed they'd gained all they were going to from the ancient objects, and all that remained was to catalogue every scene and wring as much information from them as possible.

     The rak was rapidly losing interest in the whole project, though, as it became increasingly apparent that the secrets of the demigods' powers were not to be found therein, and he was starting to drop hints that Tak might want to leave and get back to his own life. "You have succeeded far beyond my expectations," he said, for instance. "You have well earned your reward." It was obvious he wanted him gone, and when a rak starts dropping hints a wise man takes them.

     Tak needed just one night to penetrate Gannlow's secret room, though. One perfect night when he could be as sure as he could be that he wouldn't be caught in the act, and so he stalled, saying he still thought there was more to be learned from study of the artefacts. Gannlow was starting to appear increasingly irritated by his presence in his mansion, though, and if the opportunity didn't come soon Tak would have to just cut his losses and leave before he was shown the door forcibly.

     His chance finally came just days before the date he'd set himself for admitting defeat. Gannlow told Tak that he had a difficult and dangerous experiment to perform in one of his other laboratories that would take most of the night, and he warned the younger wizard not to approach that wing of the mansion in case there were any stray magical influences flying about. Tak gave his word he'd stay away, while inside a rush of adrenaline was making his whole body shiver. This is it, he thought. It's now or never. This is the moment I've been waiting two years for.

     His magic sense told him when the rak's experiment had begun. He felt the tingle of powerful magics being unleashed a short distance away and knew Gannlow would be occupied for several hours at least. Chilgrone always slept the whole night through, and none of the house's servants ever came down here. Gannlow forbade them, and they wouldn't have come even if they could, fearing the dark powers he dabbled in and the wrath of the Gods that was sure to descend upon those who dared to intrude into Their domain. Tak had the laboratory all to himself until morning at least. Plenty of time.

     It still took him half an hour to gather enough courage to cast the spell, though, and he couldn't stop himself repeatedly going to the door and looking out into the corridor to reassure himself that no-one was coming. He had a vision of himself still hovering indecisively when morning came, however, and imagined the shame and self disgust he would feel if he allowed fear to rob him of his best chance. Taking one last moment to steel himself, therefore, he faced the wall between himself and the secret room, took a deep breath and cast the spell.

     It was the first time he'd cast this spell, and he was half expecting it to fail or misfire, possibly bringing the ceiling down on his head. He was quite surprised when it worked perfectly, therefore, and the whole wall underwent a change of character, losing its solidity and rippling like the surface of a sheet of water. He imagined a door in the wall, and the rock flowed, pulling away from one spot until a hole appeared. Roughly circular and rough around the edges but large enough to step through. Trembling with excitement and apprehension, he allowed the spell to end and then stepped up to the opening he'd created. The rock was cold and hard. It might have been like that for a thousand years. He allowed himself a moment or two to marvel at it, then stepped through.

     The room was smaller than he'd expected, but packed full of all kinds of stuff so that it looked like someone's attic, everything covered by a thick layer of dust. He paused in the opening for a moment, his magic sense straining for any indication that there were more traps or snares waiting for him. Of course, since only a wizard would either want or be able to break in here, any other defences the room might contain would be shielded to make sure their magical auras didn't give them away, but he paused anyway. If he was trapped or caught, he didn't want it to be because he'd overlooked some simple precaution. There were magical fields in the room, but they seemed to be the kind that were generated by spellbooks and artifacts, not traps. Of course, a clever trap might be disguised to emit the aura of a spellbook or artifact...

     He'd known he was embarking on a perilous undertaking when he'd first left Castle Nagra, though, and considering his thraldom to Khalkedon, who was likely to simply sacrifice him like a guardsman in a game of Klann sooner or later, the most dangerous thing he could do was nothing. He stepped cautiously into the room, therefore, and looked around.

     There was almost nowhere to step. Every inch of floor space was cluttered with boxes and crates filled with seemingly worthless blankets and papers piled up to the ceiling. If the secrets of the raks were in here, he might need weeks to find it. In one corner he saw an iron-strapped mahogany chest, too buried under several layers of old clothing for opening it to be anything other than a major undertaking. He kept on looking, hoping to find it elsewhere, thereby making the operation unnecessary.

     He climbed over a pile of sequined cushions and unpaired shoes to reach a chest of drawers standing against the far wall, and pulled open each of the drawers in turn, finding them to be full of assorted nick nacks. Small woodworking tools. Cheap ornaments. Poor quality jewelery, as well as a lot of stuff he couldn't at first identify. He sorted through it for a while, thinking there might be something important mixed in among it all, before wiping the dust off on his legs and moving on.

     Another cupboard standing next to it contained a lot of mouldy books that he pounced on eagerly before sighing in disappointment when he found they were only biographies of minor nobles he'd never heard of. He returned to the chest, therefore, now sure that whatever the room was protecting had to be inside. He spent an hour rearranging the room's contents so he'd be able to lift its lid. He was aware, even as he was doing it, that the mess he was making would be immediately obvious the next time Gannlow came here unless he spent twice as long putting everything back again, but he didn't let himself think about that. He focused on his work, thinking only of what he might find inside the chest when he'd finally managed to uncover it.

     The chest contained only a lot of old bottles, though, each one wrapped up in crinkly brown paper to protect it from bumps. There seemed to be no reason for such care as they were all empty, containing only cobwebs and the occasional shed outer skin of a spider. It wasn't as if they were antique bottles either, which might fetch a couple of silver pieces from a collector. They were just bottles. Probably ten or twenty years old by the look of them. Why take such care to protect them... Of course! The paper! The bottles were just a red herring! It was the paper they were wrapped up in that was the real treasure! Clever Gannlow!

     He picked up a bottle, ripped off its wrapping, smoothed it out on the chest's curved lid and examined it eagerly. It was ordinary wrapping paper. There was nothing written on it. No watermarks, no handwriting. No tingle of his magic sense to indicate a spell of some kind. Just ordinary, everyday, common or garden wrapping paper. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it across the room in frustration. There had to be something hidden in this room, unless...

     A sick feeling of fear settled in the pit of his stomach. Unless the whole room was a red herring. A trap to divert attention away from where he really hid his secrets. Gannlow would look in here in the morning, see all the mess he'd made and know that Tak had betrayed him while, somewhere else in the mansion, his real secret room remained safe and inviolate.

     What would Gannlow do to him? he wondered, trembling with fear. He was a rak, never forget that. Who knew what terrible punishments a rak might dream up, to torment him for the rest of his natural life? Unless he could put everything back the way it was before morning. What time was it now? How much time did he have? Better get started. He started by finding the ball of wrapping paper he'd thrown away, smoothing it out and wrapping the bottle up again.

     He was placing it carefully back in the chest when he noticed something that had been tickling the back of his mind for some time without his being consciously aware of it. When he'd first entered the room he'd sensed several magical fields, the sort that might be made by spellbooks or magical artefacts. Now, though, those impressions had gone. There was no magic to be sensed anywhere, not even from the wards and traps that he knew were on the door. Something's stopping my magic sense from working, he realised with a start of excitement.

     He rushed back to the hole he'd made in the wall, and it all came back; the impressions of several sources of magic somewhere within a few feet of him. So there was something hidden in the room after all. He stood still for some minutes, concentrating on his magic sense, trying to get a feel for where the impressions were coming from, and the strongest of them was coming from the chest with the bottles in. False bottom! He rushed back to it, almost tripping over a stuffed mannikin with a fur coat draped over it, and heaved the chest over onto its side, spilling all the bottles out. A piece of wood fell out as well, the false bottom that had almost fooled him, and when he looked back in he saw what he'd been looking for.

     It was a glass spheroid, about ten inches across and eight inches high. It looked like a polished lump of veined marble, but it was glowing with its own internal light in a way that made him feel a little unwell to look at. He couldn't sense the magic that he knew had to fill it, but he somehow knew that this was the most intensely magical thing he'd ever been this close to.

     Now he appreciated how cleverly Gannlow had hidden it, how all the rubbish the rak had piled in here hid it more effectively than the most cunning and clever illusion spell. The whole room screamed decoy, and you had to be really convinced that there was something in here to find before you'd find it. If Tak hadn't come in through the wall, it would have fooled him as well. "Clever," he muttered as he bent down to pick up the globe. "Clever, but not clever enough." The object was surprisingly light for its size, as if it were hollow and contained empty air...

     "Put it down, very, very carefully," said a voice behind him. The voice of Gannlow. The tone of his voice said that he was very angry. Very angry indeed, but also afraid. Terrified in fact, but trying very hard not to betray the fact.

     Tak was too startled to realise any of this at the time, though. It was only later, when he replayed the moment in his mind, that all these nuances became clear to him. At the time, all he felt was a lightning bolt of sheerest terror that he'd been discovered and was about to be punished in the most terrible way. He jerked upright in a reflex of fear, and the globe slipped out of his hands to strike the hard corner of the chest with a loud crack, followed by a thud as it hit the floor.

     "No!" cried Gannlow in horror. He lunged forward, pushing Tak aside and reached for the globe with trembling hands, but the object had been cracked by the fall and was glittering with escaping magic. "No! No!" cried the rak in horrified denial. He turned to face the younger wizard. "Mend it!" he begged. "Use the Mend spell! Quickly! Mend it and all will be forgiven! We'll forget this ever happened!"

     Tak had been drained of heat by the brushing contact with the rak, though, and could only shiver with cold as the globe continued to leak magic, covered now by cold, blue, dancing flames that spread up the rak's arms to envelope his head. Tak knew how dangerous randomly escaping magic was and managed to scramble back towards the hole in the wall, wincing with pain every time he put weight on his frostbitten shoulder. Gannlow was following him, though, still begging and pleading him to mend the globe, which was now almost incandescent with energy.

     A shrill whine set Tak's teeth on edge, and his hair stood up on his head with static electricity. The whole room was alive now. Sheets and blankets fluttering as if in a strong wind and the drawers of the cupboards rattling as if an earthquake was happening. A pile of wooden crates fell over, spilling jars of dried grass heads onto the bare floorboards, and the plaster bust of a young woman exploded in a shower of dust and flying fragments.

     Gannlow loomed over Tak, holding the globe out to him in desperation. "Please! Please mend it! Quick, before it's too late!"

     The escaping magic spilled over Tak's body, making his skin shine transparently, and for a moment all his muscles and tendons were clearly visible. The aura of freezing cold that surrounded the rak washed over him like a blast of arctic wind. Tak kicked out with his feet, knocking Gannlow over and throwing him half across the room, and then he scrambled out through the hole he'd made in the wall.

     Gannlow was already getting back to his feet, and Tak saw with horrified fascination that his mummified skin was splitting and peeling away, revealing dry yellow bones. The rak was literally falling apart. "No!" he moaned, staring in horror at his disintegrating hands. "Nooooo!"

     Tak gabbled the stone shaping spell and closed the hole in the wall, then scrambled to his feet and fled back to the stairs. He was halfway up when the whole building was shaken by a massive explosion. Tak was thrown from his feet and blocks of stone fell from the ceiling. One fell on his ankle and he felt a flare of pain as a bone was broken. He pulled himself back to his feet, afraid of being buried as the whole mansion collapsed, and limped the rest of the way up, wincing with every step. At the top, voices were calling out in fear, demanding to know what was going on, and one of the maids fled past him, her thin nightie barely covering her shapely body.

     "Out of the house!" Tak shouted at her. "Get out of the house, quick!"

     His apprehension was unfounded, though. The house didn't collapse, although it did suffer damage from cracked walls and broken ornaments. Outside, though, a gaping hole appeared in the middle of one of the lawns, a spot which Tak later determined was directly above Gannlow's forbidden room. Foul vapours rose from the hole for some hours afterwards, but other than that the excitement was over.