Thus spoke Tarn Redboots, dying tyrant of the Third Earth:

"There will be high kings after me! Vengeful kings! They will open a new gate—pour through —and destroy you, destroy Earth, destroy Earth Prime, destroy all the worlds beyond that! I swear they will!"

Prologue

Bronwyns Memory

"Good morning, it's five forty-five." "On which world?"

"I beg your pardon, is this Mr. Black?" "Who knows?"

"Sir, is this room one twenty-seven?" "I guess."

"I have instructions to call at a quarter of six—"

"You've done admirably. Just admirably. Thanks."

"Thank you." The connection slammed silent.

Black replaced the receiver and sat up in bed, trying to orient himself. His mind kept insisting that he had slept in his own apartment in Washington. He touched the drab beige bedspread. If he were in the flat in D.C., that spread would be tartan.

He rolled out of bed, staggered to the window. The motel room felt chilly. He brushed the curtain aside. Beyond the highway, where early traffic hissed through a gray rain, he saw towering industrial stacks. A horizon lined with factory structures. Clouds and pollutants were already blocking out most of the eastern light. Soon the sky would be gray from horizon to horizon . . .

September. First week in September. That much he remembered.

Standing naked by the window, Black shook his head. More memory pushed in upon him. His mind swam with an image of bar lights glinting on beer and shot glasses; of blue workshirts; hard mouths . . .

Last night, the men had gathered in one of the taverns near the industrial section to talk of what would happen when the schools opened tomorrow—wait. That was today.

He'd listened. He'd bought drinks, and concealed the fact that he was being paid to transcribe their feelings; to hammer them into some kind of competent prose for a New York-based newsmagazine called Moment.

All at once he remembered too much.

He turned and walked to the bureau. Down among shirts and socks in the top drawer, he rooted out the pint he'd bought. He uncapped the bottle, raised it halfway to his mouth.

He fought it back down again. He screwed the cap in place.

He wanted a drink as badly as he'd ever wanted one. Of course—rueful twist of the hardened mouth—each drink was that way anymore.

With effort, he re-buried the bottle and walked to the shower.

He was a tall, rangy, bold-nosed man past his thirtieth birthday. The scalding water beat down his long, dark hair. As he washed, he looked down at his right leg. It seemed like a piece of sculpture. Dark brown tone, swarthy as the rest of him. But the water beaded on it in a peculiar way.

When he climbed out of the shower, he accidentally hit the right leg against the tiled corner of the stall. The leg rang with a clear metal note. He felt no sensation.

Somehow, that brought it all back. All that he'd been trying to thrust out of his mind—unsuccessfully—for nearly two years.

He thought of the analogue worlds, touching yet not touching. Bronwyn had called that complex the Klekton.

Bronwyn . . .

He had promised two million dollars if Black would undertake a mission to the world next to Earth along the Klekton. Typical of the man who described himself as a sort of high police commissioner of another analogue, Earth Prime, that offer had been a deceit.

With bitterness, Black remembered the D.C. bank where Bronwyn had mysteriously deposited twenty-five thousand dollars to his account as proof of good faith. Once Black had completed his mission, and said goodbye to Bronwyn, and visited the bank again, that sum was no longer credited to his balance.

Deceits.

Dreams.

Delusions . . .

No analogue worlds existed, a shadow-width away from this one.

No Earth Prime existed. No Earth Three existed. No Sam existed . . . Sam.

In the coldness of the room, he recalled her face. And how much he loved her.

Maybe she was the reason he'd taken up the bottle these past two years. The stuff helped convince him that all the terror and emotion of that first exposure to the analogue worlds had been unreal. It helped persuade him that Sam had been unreal; that she didn't exist now, this moment, on the analogue known as Earth Three.

With the bottle to help, he tried hard to erase the fact that the one woman he'd ever given a damn about might still be alive—if he could only reach her.

But he couldn't. Not without the mental prowess of a Bronwyn to open one of the gates that afforded the only means of passage between the interlinked worlds.

But editors were only concerned with personal problems as they affected performance. Black was well aware that he'd acquired a reputation as a boozer. And he had no illusions about this assignment.

Moment Magazine was in bad shape financially. Normally, a paid staff reporter would have been sent to cover a story as potentially big as this one. But hard-pressed Moment could only afford a free lance.

Because he needed work, friends of Black's had interceded for him. He got the assignment. But he knew that even this tag-end fob wouldn't last if he let himself be dragged back into the morass of memory and hopelessness.

The editor of the foundering weekly was aware of Black's recent history. He warned Black to stay off liquor for the duration of the assignment.

Jesus, he thought now, who wouldn't drown in the Stuff, carrying a secret like this?

Once, late at night in his D.C. flat, he'd sat down with a ream of white paper and the intention of typing out an account of the interlinked analogue worlds, both as Bronwyn had explained them historically, and as he had encountered them personally. He meant to write about how he'd detonated the explosive on the movable island called Sea Wake, temporarily closing the vortex-like gate that permitted the tyrants of Earth Three to pour their agents through to Earth, for an eventual takeover of the world they'd abandoned when the great ice had come down centuries earlier.

He typed almost till dawn. He re-read the thirty or so pages. Then he burned them.

Anyone who read his words would have concluded that his mind had gone.

Sam. Was she alive?

That tormented him most of all. His hope told him she was, even though his last memory of her left room for doubt.

He recalled a mist-hung sky. A heaving brown sea. A capsized boat. The tyrant's sister clinging to it, along with the tough little warrior, Doggo, who'd shared his adventures . . .

Maybe Sam drowned in the Sea of Liff after Sea Wake blew. Maybe he should stop tormenting himself by imagining that she was still alive.

But somehow, he felt that she was. Yet he couldn't get back there to find out for certain . . .

Too much to remember. Too much to forget. He wanted a drink. Instead, he reached for his wristwatch.

Six o'clock already. The buses were scheduled to start rolling at quarter to seven. He had a job. And if he blew it, even Moment wouldn't hire him again.

He put the memories out of mind as best he could, and dressed, and went out into the thin rain of the Michigan morning.

ii

The rental car brought him to the dismal side street at the fringe of Winnebago City's business district. He had to park three blocks away from the large lot he'd surveyed the night before.

On the lot inside the tall chain link fence, the yellow school buses of the Winnebago Central School District had looked peaceful enough in the dusk. Parked under the wall of the District's maintenance garage, they'd attracted no attention—last night.

Now the curbs around the lot were jammed with vehicles, and more arriving every minute. Black walked quickly past a sheriff's cruiser just pulling in. Four deputies wearing white riot helmets climbed out. One carried a walkie-talkie.

Up beyond the fenced lot, Black saw a pair of city police cars parked, engines running. Their exhausts plumed out in the rain.

But most of the vehicles crowding the neighborhood didn't belong to police.

Black walked by station wagons painted with the call letters of Detroit radio and TV stations. He walked past rental cars belonging to other reporters who'd flown in for the opening of school. Winnebago City, an automotive assembly town, was the nation's focal point this morning, because of all the cities in the U.S., its population had reacted to court school-busing orders with the greatest violence.

And Winnebago City's people were out in the rain this morning.

They were arriving in all kinds of cars, six or seven men jammed into some of them. Many of the cars were late models; others were pitted with rust. A lot of both kinds had patriotic decals on the bumpers.

Black saw women in the cars, too. Women wearing babushkas and Windbreakers. Their mouths were tense, their eyes ugly. He walked faster.

Black moved along the sidewalk with grace and speed. That much he owed the white-haired Bronwyn.

Before his encounter with the old man, Black had dragged his sorry substitute for a right leg, a construct of wire and plastic courtesy of the U.S. government. He'd lost his own right leg fighting as a Green Beret in the Mekong Delta. When he had changed his mind about the war and spoken out, they handed him a court martial along with the prosthetic device. He'd limped away from the war, and kept on limping, until he woke to find that, by night, Bronwyn's unseen technicians had grafted a marvelous new leg onto his body.

Black wondered what the onlookers would say this morning if he showed them the splendidly tooled compartments where weapons could be hidden within the leg. Would they believe his stories of the analogue worlds then? The leg was his only tangible proof that it wasn't all some liquor-dream.

Inside the chain link compound, the bus drivers were climbing into their vehicles. Engines revved. Headlights shot through the slant of the rain. Black checked his watch. Almost time.

The buses had far to go, out into the county, to begin bringing back the first loads of lads. On the side of the gate nearest Black, three cameramen with TV backpacks were already filming. Portable lights shed an unnatural white glare on the gate through which the first of the buses would drive out.

Nearby, newsmen sat on car hoods. Some talked into portable tape cassette units. Others clicked 35-millimeter cameras.

Black tried to file mental impressions for his story: the nervous look of a driver, a gray, flabby man of middle age, just pulling himself up into his bus; the flicker of a roof flasher as a new sheriff s car cruised into the street; and the angry sounds from the white men and women on the sidewalk on the far side of the gate.

The crowd over there was large. A hundred or so. Black saw no signs of weapons. But somehow, from the set of jaws, the bitter eyes, he sensed that weapons were at hand.

A young, bearded man with gold-rimmed glasses turned to recognize Black as he slipped into the rear of the crowd of newsmen. The bearded young man was in his mid-twenties, cocky with the authority of his position with one of the major wire services. He and Black had gotten acquainted over drinks two nights ago. But all they really shared was professionalism. Black didn't like the kid much.

"Rudy," he said, acknowledging the other's nod.

"You almost missed it, Black. Oversleep?"

Black didn't answer. Instead: "That's an ugly looking crowd."

Rudy squinted at the plainly dressed men, the women with hair rollers showing under their scarves. "They've got rocks. Bricks. I saw one sawed-off shotgun."

"Then there will be trouble," Black said.

"Hell, I wouldn't be out here in the boonies otherwise," Rudy grinned.

Inside the compound, engines roared. Almost excited, Rudy added, "Hold on, baby. Here it comes."

iii

The first yellow bus rolled out of the rank, turned left, proceeded toward the gate at a speed less than five miles an hour. Shutters clicked. Black heard the whirring of the movie cameras.

The parents heard the sounds, too. Placards went up, crudely lettered on rain-soggy cardboard.

FREE CHOICE OF SCHOOLS!

SEND COMMIE JUDGES TO RUSSIA.

DON'T MAKE SOCIALIST SLAVES OF OUR KIDS!!

Black tugged a small notebook from his raincoat, began to scribble some phrases with a ballpoint. The rain on the back of his neck felt cold.

Across the street, a double squad of sheriff's deputies in white helmets formed up, riot sticks ready. One of the deputies kept up a rapid-fire talk on the walkie-talkie. Three burly men in Windbreakers moved out from the crowd of parents. There was applause as the men sat down in the driveway.

The sides of their faces turned white in the glare of the movie lights. Four more sat down with them. The bus pulled up until its radiator was parallel with the gate opening. Then its engines idled down.

The windshield wipers ticked back and forth. Inside, the driver waited, his expression uncertain. Two women joined the sitting men.

Three deputies broke ranks and walked across the street. The one in command waved his stick.

"All right, you people. Get up and stop obstructing the bus."

Jeers and yells from the parents. The deputy tugged at the chin strap of his helmet, blinked at the lenses, all too conscious that his every move was being recorded. He reached down for the nearest man.

"All right, now, we don't want trouble. Let's move out of the way—"

"Get your damn hands off me," the man snarled, hitting the officer's boot.

The deputy took a step backward. "These buses are rolling by court order," he said. "We don't want to hurt any of you folks, but you're breaking the law—"

"Peking law! Moscow law!" a woman shouted from the back of the crowd. There were cheers and obscene curses as the parents edged forward.

The deputy knew what he was up against, and didn't like it. He hesitated a moment, then wheeled and signaled to the ranks across the street.

"Okay, let's move them out of here."

Then back to the demonstrators:

"If you don't get up when my men assist you, I'm afraid you're going to be subject to arrest."

The placards shook. The yells grew louder. A rock whizzed over the fence and clanged off the bus hood. The deputies trotted across the street, and Black heard car doors opening. The waiting police—the reserves— began to show themselves.

The reinforcements formed up in twos and threes as the first of the deputies reached for one of the sitting men.

"Up," the deputy said.

A rock struck the side of his face. He spun, barged into the mob of parents. His fellow deputies began laying hands on the driveway sitters.

Suddenly there was screaming. A hurled brick and the windshield of the bus shattered. The driver yelled, holding his eye. By the glare of movie lights, Black saw blood running between the man's fingers.

In the drive, deputies hauled and tugged at the demonstrators who refused to rise. The parents surrounded the deputy who'd taken the rock on the cheek. At first they only hit him with fists, and their signs. Then Black caught a glint of something harder.

Iron pipe.

A cameraman with an Arriflex braced against his shoulder jockeyed around to the left, kneeling for a shot of the melee in the driveway.

"Throw the light this way, Paul," he yelled. He was filming when two of the deputies tried to pick up the nearest demonstrator, a man with a cleft chin. The man struggled and fell backward, bowling over the camera operator. On hands and knees, cleft-chin suddenly found himself staring into a lens two feet from his face.

His reddish eyes grew redder. He mouthed a curse about Commie newsmen, jumped up and kicked the cameraman in the groin.

The cameraman doubled over. Cleft-chin grabbed the Arriflex and started to smash it on the pavement. Outraged, the reporter named Rudy leaped forward. A stone hit his glasses, broke them.

Someone stepped on the cameraman's head. Rudy tried to push the attacker back. Two women tripped him. The driveway had become a hopeless confusion of swinging sticks, shrieking mouths—and now men were surging through the gate, gathering on the right side of the bus and beginning to rock it.

Blood streaming down his cheek, the driver opened the door and jumped out. Three women caught him, began to hack his face with their nails. Black maneuvered to the front of the crowd of newsmen, all of them being jostled now. Rudy had fallen, his glasses gone. Without them, he couldn't see.

A fat man carrying a piece of chain leaped through a break in the crowd. He whipped the end of the chain toward Rudy's head.

Black's notebook dropped, and his ballpoint, as he shot his right arm out and absorbed the impact of the chain across his palm. He jerked. The chain came free of the fat man's hand.

Hateful faces swirled around Black. Rudy tried to crawl past his legs to safety. The fat man slugged Black in the ribs, then spit in his face.

"Goddamn nigger-loving—"

Savagely, Black wrapped the chain around the fat man's neck and jerked both ends.

The fat man goggled, choked. Black drove his balled right hand into the man's middle, just as a helmeted cop grabbed his shoulder:

"You newspaper people stay out of—"

A roar of voices, a crash of metal, an explosion of glass, and the cop let go of Black, charging past him toward the parking lot gate. Somehow, the bus had been overturned. Somehow, there was fire in its interior, licking up through the smashed-out windows.

The police lost patience then. Riot sticks began to swing in earnest.

Black dodged fists, kicks, hard-thrown rocks. The newsmen were under attack along with the police. The holder of the movie light was toppled suddenly. The white brilliance disappeared, leaving an aftermath of darkness in which the brightest light was the fire shooting up from the bus interior.

It was chance that brought Black face to face with the tall man. The man was obviously a partisan of the demonstrators. He wore a cheap nylon jacket stitched with the name of his assembly plant athletic team. But he was unlike the rest of the parents in that he was not clean shaven. He had a small, trimly maintained chin beard, and longer hair that should have hung over his ears but didn't, quite.

All at once, Black saw the tiny pierce-mark in the man's right earlobe.

The man would have pushed by, ignoring him, if Black hadn't reached up and pulled the man's hair back from the left earlobe. Pierced—

Black stared into the stranger's eyes and said, "Shulkor."

"Let go, you mother—" the stranger snarled. Black held onto his arm, yelling.

"Shulkor—" Black named Earth Three by its native name. "I've been there! I recognize the marks of the men who come through the gate and pretend to be—"

"Crazy mother-loving bastard!" the man screamed. And somewhere, he found a pocket knife that slashed over and down, radiant with the fire of the burning bus.

In one suspended moment, Black looked into the stranger's eyes and saw the recognition and the fear. Black had named him for what he was: an infiltrator through the gate. One of the horde sent to Earth by the high kings of Earth Three, in preparation for the final assault.

The knife flashed at Black's neck. He dodged back.

The attacker's lunge carried him forward. The knife blade was driven into the upper arm of a helmeted cop struggling to beat off the other demonstrators. The cop screamed, staggered back and fainted. Other cops homed in on the tall man. Black found himself pushed aside, while three deputies subdued the attacker with whipping blows of their sticks.

As the tall man dropped to his knees, already glassy-eyed from the beating, Black shouted, "That man isn't just a demonstrator, he's—"

The words caught in his throat. Who would listen to him? Who would listen—and believe?

He watched as the tall man's eyes went closed. The man sprawled on the wet pavement, instantly trampled by men and women fighting the police and newsmen. Black had a last glimpse of the attacker's long hair falling over his left ear lobe to hide the pierce-marks.

Sirens blasted through the screaming and the crackle of flames. A fire truck arrived, followed by three additional vans of police. Gradually, the demonstrators were subdued, rounded up, handcuffed and led off to the vans.

The bus fire was foamed out, leaving a plume of dirty smoke to climb into the rain. Black couldn't find the tall man again.

But the damage had been done.

Black walked like a man with a fever, wandering through the Utter of rocks and placards as the riot slowly wound down and the buses began to roll out. There was no forgetting. There was no forgetting, anywhere . . .

iv

Using the decrepit portable in his motel room, Black finished writing his copy by eleven o'clock. He had a longer deadline than the dailies. He filed the copy by phone at eleven thirty.

He paced the room till noon. Then he gave up and drove four blocks to a liquor store.

He emerged with a large paper sack.

No matter how he tried to dodge it, hide from it, the truth of those other analogue worlds persisted. He had come face to face with that truth again this morning. And the memories he'd tried to kill for so long were overwhelming him again.

He locked the motel room door, knocked the phone receiver off the hook, shut out the Michigan rain by closing the drapes. His clothes seemed to reek of bitter smoke.

Presently, he remembered to hang the Do Not Disturb sign outside the door. In the stillness, he wiped out everything with what was in the bottles.

v

Next morning, he drove down the highway to have breakfast at a place called the Crystal Cafe. He knew it was next morning because he'd asked the man on the motel desk. His head hummed and hurt.

At the cafe, he found eight newsmen gathered at a round table in the corner. Some he knew, some he didn't. He recognized Rudy, who had a new pair of glasses.

"Jesus, Black," Rudy said, "where've you been?"

"Why?"

"You missed the biggest beat so far." "When?"

"Yesterday, when the schools dismissed at three. Made the morning look like kindergarten."

Someone shoved a Winnebago City Telegraph into his hands. Black saw a huge black bannerline.

TWO POLICE DEAD IN SECOND BUS RIOT.

Quickly, he scanned the lead. More than three hundred in the mob this time. Buses overturned and burned

at an inner city school. Gunfire. Injury. Death. . . . He felt the beginnings of fear.

Rudy said, "You better sit down and have some coffee. You look like shit."

He turned and walked out.

Back at the motel, he found the wire waiting.

WHERE YOUR P.M. FOLLOW-UP? NEW MAN NOW ON STORY. YOUR ASSIGNMENT TERMINATED.

The wire bore the signature of the editor of Moment.

vi

"Ben, there has to be something. Rewrite. Or maybe reporting for one of the suburban weeklies—"

"Gavin, I wish I could turn it up for you. I've tried. You wouldn't believe how many phone calls I've made. There's nothing. Not for a man who can't lay off the jug. Not for a man who blows a big one the way you blew that deal in Michigan. That routine about reporters being souped when they write is dandy for thirty-year-old plays. But it won't cut it with editors who expect performance in return for the check."

Black ran his tongue over his lower lip. He reached past the open pint to the scarred black, white, and tan tomcat he called Gutenberg. The cat was posed like a statue on the back corner of the night table. Its one good eye glowed like a piece of jade in the apartment's gloom.

Black scratched the cat's vibrating throat and lied:

"Ben, I haven't touched a drink since I came back two weeks ago."

"Bullshit. Harper and Flack had dinner at the Type Bar on Tuesday. They said you didn't even recognize them, you were so stoned. I hate to lay it out hard, Gavin. But I think you need AA or a doctor before you need a job."

"Then there isn't anything you can do?"

20

"Gavin, you were a good man here on the paper. Were. And the people at Moment have big mouths. All my recommendations won't offset that."

"Maybe if I phoned back tomorrow—"

"No," the editor broke in, a bit harder. "I'll call you if anything comes up. But don't bank the money."

"Ben, look. I'm practically broke—"

"I know a doctor in Georgetown who might consider talking to you for noth—"

"There's nothing to tell any damn doctor!" Black exploded. Except about analogue worlds. A warlike race still pouring through the mind-gates, intending that Earth should fall—

"All right," Ben Rubicof said, weary now. "I've got to hang up, Gavin. I'm on deadline."

"Sure," Black said. "Thanks for the effort." He hung up first.

Gutenberg regarded him with a disinterested expression. The cat, it struck him, resembled the world of late. An observer. Mildly curious, but impotent to remedy the situation.

Slowly, Black moved his hand down past his shorts to the machined, tawny metal of the artificial right leg. Except to the touch, the leg was uncannily like a real one. At the contact of his fingertips, the lid of a narrow, slotlike compartment sprang open.

The opening ran straight up the side of Black's calf. It measured about eight inches long and two across. The first time he had opened that particular compartment in the false leg, he'd found another of Bronwyn's toys. A knife which amplified light into a thin, killing, beam.

Outside the window of the flat, one of those humid Washington rainshowers fell. The rain steamed the pavements. Suddenly Black couldn't stand the flat one minute longer. He dressed in slacks, a sport shirt, a Wind-breaker. He scooped up the few small bills lying on the dresser.

Gutenberg miaowed and rubbed his leg. Black poured a saucer of milk, set it beside the refrigerator, and left by the back door.

He walked in the steaming rain, thinking. Another trip to the bank was in order. To tap the last money he had in the world—

Gray and muggy, the day passed. For a time, Black sat in a bar reading the Help Wanteds in the Post. Nothing. Not unless he wanted to try Florida land sales or door to door canvassing for encyclopedias.

He drank till well after darkness came down. Then, staggering along stale, airless streets, he tried to find his way home.

As he banged into the foyer of the apartment building, something reminded him to open the mailbox. It was an act of self-torture, because of late, the box contained nothing but bills and credit card invoices. He'd been living off those rectangles of plastic and, as a result, the printed messages on the invoices were growing a little less friendly.

Tonight he found only one piece of mail. A somewhat mangled postcard. Drawing it out, he dropped it. The card tumbled to the damp black mat.

As he bent down, a long, cold needle seemed to turn in his brain. The effects of his drinking were cleaved by sudden shock.

On the left side of the card, a badly printed halftone showed a slender, familiar face. An old man s face. Even the inked image seemed to regard Black with that scarcely hidden superiority he'd grown to dislike and distrust.

To the right of the photo, smudged type said:

BRONWYN THE MAGNIFICENT Conjurer Extraordinary! Opening September 2.   Shows nightly at 8:30 and 11. For reservations, call Monty.

This was followed by a phone number, another name —The Fortune Club—and an unfamiliar street address.

Black leaned against the foyer wall, turning the card over and peering at the cancellation mark. The mark told him the card had come from San Francisco.

He ran his index finger across the typed address. His name was spelled correctly. His apartment number was right. So was the zip.

He turned the card over again. The face of the high police official of Earth Prime regarded him with frozen amusement.

Why? Black wondered, staring at the image. Why was Bronwyn back?

More important, why had he gone to the trouble of mailing this cheaply printed announcement all the way across the country—unless for the most obvious reason: to signal his presence?

But there must be more to it than that. He must be signaling that he wanted to see Black again. Because Bronwyn did nothing without a purpose. And he would have mailed the card knowing that its arrival would bring Black to wherever he was.

A rippling edge of uneasiness troubled Black's mind as he climbed the stairs, walking fairly steadily now, the card held like a talisman, as if he were fearful that it might disappear at any moment.

Bronwyn did nothing without a purpose. Nothing.

But Black's wariness could dampen his sudden hope. Devious and dangerous though the old man might be, Black didn't intend to ignore the not-so-subtle summons. Bronwyn's mind was a link that could re-open a gate.

And beyond that gate, if she'd survived the sea, Sam might be waiting.

vii

Black was present outside the front door of his bank when the guard unlocked next morning.

He asked for his latest balance. He tried to keep his face blank when the teller wrote the amount on a slip of paper.

Barely enough left to pay the fare and give him a couple of twenties for spending.

Well, that didn't matter. Nothing mattered now except reaching the man who could re-open a gate . . .

He left his cat in the care of a neighbor. A noon flight from Dulles thundered up into the sun and bore him west over the continent.

viii

Somewhere beyond the Mississippi, with a second double Scotch in his hand, Black reclined his seat and stared at the blazing white cloud cover slipping under the jet's wing. He brought back memories . . .

The Klekton.

He believed in the reality of the analogue worlds because he'd been on two of them. And because he'd seen the agent of Earth Three in Michigan, he knew that the imperialistic plans of the high kings of that world were not imaginings born in a bottle.

Now he had a link again. Link. The word pulled his mind to an image of Bronwyn as he'd first met him, in a seedy flat in a Washington slum. A flat full of magicians apparatus Bronwyn used in his Earth cover.

He remembered Bronwyn's supple old hands playing with a set of Chinese linking rings. He'd watched Bronwyn hang the rings one from another and, with that example, attempt to persuade Black of the reality of the spatio-temporal concept known as the Klekton.

As the rings touched at certain points, so the many adjacent, analogue worlds touched. Bronwyn's world, which he termed Earth Prime in English, adjoined Earth, the heartline world, on one "side." Other worlds, one after another, existed beyond it—down the chain, if Black wished to use that term.

Up the chain from the heartline world were more analogues. The one concerning Bronwyn most was immediately adjacent to Earth: Earth Three.

Bronwyn had explained that, in the time of Earth's prehistory, a great civilization had flourished on the planet. Then the ice had come down from the north polar zone, threatening to make Earth uninhabitable. Facing extinction of their way of life, the leaders of the civilization sought escape from a world which seemed doomed.

They discovered the full extent of the capabilities of their own minds; capabilities only previously tested in a limited way; capabilities Earth men still possessed, untapped and unused, for all Black knew.

The mind-power enabled them to open what Bronwyn referred to as a gate: a spatio-temporal flaw allowing movement of physical beings from one analogue world to the next, at one of the points of intersection.

Thus a massive migration was planned. Bronwyn's ancestors—and Black's, presumably—made ready to abandon Earth to the down-flowing ice.

A few people had refused to go, and had somehow survived the ice, probably by moving far south. These survivors had fathered the races that still inhabited the Earth.

But in those old days, there were also those who rebelled against migration in a different way.

Possessing the ability to open gates, these rebels wished to go off on their own. As Bronwyn had told it, this determination led to factional warfare on Earth.

Most of the malcontents had been slain. But not all.

Massive numbers of Bronwyn's ancestors migrated through one mind-opened gate, going—call it down from the heartline world. They settled on the analogue Earth Prime.

At the same time, survivors of the rebellious faction migrated to the next analogue up from the heartline world. Shulkor, it was called.

Thus, on different analogues separated by an Earth where a few survivors blinked up at a weak yellow sun and waited for the northern ice to recede, the two groups developed in different ways.

On Earth Prime, the thrust was toward the civilizing rule of intellect. Bronwyn's ancestors merged with the inhabitants of Earth Prime and raised a civilization in which the mind was preeminent.

On Earth Three—a much more savage place geographically—the warlike nature of the rebels soon asserted itself. It was perpetuated, even enhanced. After conquering most of the peoples who lived on the various continents of Earth Three, the high kings—descendants of those first Earth-born rebels—turned their imperialism in new directions.

Upward from Three—Black kept using the up-down relationship because it simplified thinking about the interlinked Klekton complex—he had visited the next analogue, Fourth Earth. It was even more barbaric than Three, And it was not deemed worth the attention of Three's tyrants.

Instead, the high kings of Three secretly re-opened a gate to the heartline Earth. Over the centuries, they slipped agents back to the home world: men and women who pretended to live as ordinary citizens. Black had confronted one such—the tall man—in Michigan.

The agents of Three sowed discontent, stole technological secrets, and waited for Earth to destroy itself. Once the planet had come to a self-compelled end—nuclear destruction, chemical destruction, biological destruction, it didn't matter—the high kings of Three planned to migrate their armies back, en masse; and from Earth, to go on to conquer Earth Prime and the other, more hospitable worlds down the Klekton.

Here, Bronwyn and his enemies on Three reached a philosophic impasse. For Bronwyn claimed—rightly or wrongly, Black still had no idea—that if the heartline planet was destroyed, the analogue worlds of the Klekton would simultaneously perish.

The tyrants of Earth Three didn't countenance this view. They pushed their plans ahead. As a sort of espionage chief of Earth Prime, Bronwyn was forced to arrange for the vortex-like gate between Earth and Earth Three to be shut permanently. But because of the peculiar and rather arrogant intellectualism of his own world, he could not dirty himself-with such a physical task. Nor could any of his people. He needed a surrogate agent.

He'd chosen Black, bribing and coercing him until he had agreed. Black had been hurled through a gate to Earth Three, and into direct confrontation with Three's then-tyrant, Tarn Redboots.

Black had killed Tarn, just before blowing up the gate between Three and Earth. And off the floating skull-shaped island called Sea Wake, the site of that particular gate, Black had left Sam and Doggo in the sea.

Doggo was a warrior of the folk of one of the continents which Tarn Redboots had tried to subdue by force. And Sam was sister to Tarn. She was also one of the seven co-commanders of Three's armies. By the end of the harrowing time on Three, Sam had come to despise her depraved, incestuous brother and all he represented.

Closing his eyes against the cloud-glare beyond the jet's window, Black could still see the girl he'd met and fallen in love with on Earth.

Tarn's sister had come through the gate to act as a temporary agent of Three. She took the name Samantha and an elaborate cover background, in order to steal technological secrets. When Black first met her in a Washington bookshop, she'd seemed an attractive, quick girl. But nothing about her suggested that she didn't come from where she said she did—the west coast of the United States.

Her ears were pierced, a custom of Three, but that wasn't so bizarre as to make him suspicious—then. Only later had he discovered her true name—Tarianna—and her real identity.

But he'd been forced to abandon her when Bronwyn's mind pulled him back to Earth, just seconds before the gate blew.

So, presumably, Sam might have survived on Earth Three. Doggo too.

What was happening on Three? he wondered. It was doubtful that the invasion plans had been abandoned.

The presence of the tall man in Michigan suggested as much. Perhaps there were new schemes afoot to accelerate Earth's self-destruction, as a prelude to the takeover . . .

A voice stirred Black from his reverie. The pilot was announcing his regrets that the Grand Canyon was hidden by cloud cover.

Had Bronwyn mailed Black the card in order to trap him, and possibly kill him? That couldn't be overlooked . . .

When he first went through a gate, Black had seized the old man's daughter, Helanne, and pulled her with him. She was insurance that Bronwyn wouldn't betray him, or leave him stranded; even then, Black had known that Bronwyn was devious.

Through a series of turns of circumstance, Black and Helanne had plunged through still another gate to Earth Four. On that primitive world, Helanne had presumably died. She had been dropped into a volcano by some of the barbaric inhabitants who seized her as a sacrifice.

On the other hand, perhaps she, too, was still alive . . .

Black recalled returning to Earth when the gate blew. He found Bronwyn smoking his pipe beside a campfire and maintaining that his daughter might not be dead at all. His far-seeing, far-ranging mind told him it was a distinct possibility.

Shortly after, he and Bronwyn had gone their own ways, Bronwyn saying that his official position prevented him from opening another gate in order to learn whether Helanne still lived. Black's mission was over; he was free to return to his own life, as if the analogue worlds had never existed. He was free to spend the two million dollars Bronwyn had promised to credit to his bank account.

But as he soon discovered, there was no money. And wherever he searched for the first few months, no Bronwyn. He was left with wrath, a slim hope that Sam too had survived and a prisoned feeling. Who did he dare tell?

The emotions had all stayed with him during the past two years. He felt them even now as he put the empty glass on his tray table and closed his eyes.

He saw Sam again. Dark hair. Dark eyes. A strong, almost stocky body; her strength didn't detract from her beauty. Only enhanced it . . .

Was she alive on Earth Three? He might find out before the sun went down.

He was uneasy about what might lie ahead, because Bronwyn was not to be trusted. At the same time, he somehow felt life was beginning again . . .

For the first time in weeks, he dropped off to sleep smiling.

ix

A snare drum rolled. The roll ended in a sizzle of cymbals. In the distance, there was applause, then music from the combo Black had first heard when he walked in the back door to The Fortune Club. It had taken his next to last five-dollar bill to get past the doorman.

The music almost obscured the footsteps in the corridor. Black eased out of the rickety wooden chair, stood to one side of the theatrical dressing table. A roach crawled along the floor, directly beneath a peeled section of scabrous green paint.

In one corner of the room stood a pipe dressing rack, with one hanger on it. A seedy hound's tooth jacket and trousers hung there. Black remembered the outfit.

On the dressing table lay a not inexpensive pipe, a half-empty paper pouch of tobacco. The tarnished brass doorknob turned. Bronwyn walked in.

The old man shut the door, seeming neither surprised nor alarmed to find Black waiting. He nodded, walked to the rack, and hung up his dinner jacket as he said:

"You're prompt, Mr. Black. I'd thought it might be a matter of days. Or weeks."

"When someone so illustrious announces his presence, who can fail to drop everything?"

Bronwyn's old eyes caught the light of the dressing table bulbs. "You've not lost that snide touch, have you?"

"It's the company," Black said, as Bronwyn loosened his tie, tucked a towel in his collar, and began to cold-cream away the theatrical makeup.

"Must I suffer through an interlude of insults?"

"Don't you think there's good reason for them?" Black returned.

Bronwyn's opaque eyes caught his in the mirror. "You might think so. I prefer not to comment. I'm really delighted you flew here so quickly. That means I needn't continue this silly charade of performing tricks in front of fools."

Black leaned against the wall, arms folded. "When did you come back?"

"From Earth Prime? Two weeks ago, by your calendar."

"And pop, like that, you're hired on by a club?"

"Well," Bronwyn said, scrubbing cold cream into his cheeks with a tissue, "I have practiced, you know. Every police agent needs at least one cover. Mine—an entertainer—has served decently over the years. As to how I managed to locate an engagement so fast—"

His hand paused. Again his eyes found Black's in the specked glass. His thin mouth tucked up at the corners: the demeanor of superiority Black remembered, and despised.

"Surely, Mr. Black, you recall that on Earth Prime we have developed the dormant genetic talents of our entire bodies—and minds. The conjurer who was to fill this engagement had an unfortunate accident. Fell in his bathtub—"

"And you pushed him?"

"Mentally! From all the way across town. I was taking a cocktail at the Top of the Mark at the time. Don't worry, the man wasn't badly hurt. Now is that sufficient explanation for you?"

"Yes, since I'm more interested in whether I'm really talking to Bronwyn."

"Oh? Who might it be instead?"

"Not who. What. One of your mechanical doubles. Every good police agent on Earth Prime has three or four—you told me so. When Sam came back to Earth Three from here, and carried your head, it was only the head of one of those simulacra she'd lopped off."

"Poor child, she thought she'd snatched a fine trophy. As to whether this is Bronwyn genuine, or Bronwyn imitation—a controlled physical simulation—that's beside the point. My mind is my mind."

He wadded several used tissues, tossed them into a tin basket, got up and reached for the seedy hound's tooth coat.

"You're not looking especially fit, Mr. Black. You've lost weight. Finding it difficult to locate anyone who'll credit your tales of the Klekton?"

"I'm not stupid enough to talk about it."

With a nod, Bronwyn said, "Yes, I know. Since my return, I've been watching you."

He slipped into his jacket, then picked up pipe and pouch and began to pack in tobacco. "Would you mind walking a bit? I find this place almost unbearable."

Black laughed. "You can't hide how much you hate dealing with this Earth, can you? It's so far beneath your dignity—theoretically."

"Mr. Black, there are important matters at hand. No more rancor—"

"Why not? I think there are damn good reasons for it."

"The money I promised to place in your account? Surely you didn't believe I'd be so wasteful of Prime's resources."

"Hell yes I believed it. It was the price you agreed on."

"But a police official agrees to many things! Out of expediency!" "You never intended to pay me, did you?" "No."

Bronwyn opened the door to the bricked hall, letting Black precede him. He continued: "I can't apologize for deceiving you. It was part of my job. I was required to close the gate—" They walked side by side, heads bent under the ceiling pipes. The music faded a little. "—and I did."

"But there's at least one open again," Black said as they moved up the cement stairs into the alley. Fog beaded against his cheek. Passing headlights were whorled yellow blurs.

"Many more than one, actually. Opened by the minds of the high kings of Three. As necessity dictates—"

They set off up the alley, Black's half-boots making a noisy clack on the wet concrete. Bronwyn continued:

"I had thought to end all that. It seems I only halted it temporarily. In their witless barbarism, the kings of Three still fail to realize that if Earth is destroyed, they'll be destroyed too. Along with every last one of the analogues up and down the Klekton."

"We still have no one's word for that except yours. And I'm not entirely inclined to take you on faith. If you think I'm going back a second time to try to close those new gates—do your work while you sit off safely watching—"

Bronwyn shook his head. Some peculiar, wrenching emotion seemed to muddle his cold composure. Black was puzzled. He'd never seen the old man look that way before.

"No," Bronwyn said, "that's not why I came to your world this time. I did so for a reason that is in direct violation of the rules of my position. Shall we walk? I'll tell you about it."

x

Their footsteps up the slanting sidewalk raised lonely echoes on the San Francisco street. A police car crossed an intersection just ahead. An elderly Chinese gentleman with a young girl on his arm passed, laughing.

The street rose sharply toward its summit, where lights glowed feebly in the drifting fog. Black stuck his hands in his pockets, permitting Bronwyn to take his time. But he wondered if he ought to believe even a syllable of it.

"When I brought you back into Canada through the gate that last time, Mr. Black—"

"And flew me back to the States, promising all the way that the money would be waiting."

"Please! It will be to your advantage to hear me out. This is not particularly easy for me. My presence here is the result of almost two years of agonizing—"

"With your conscience?" Black said, sourly.

They paused at a street signal, red changing to green. Night mist glistened in the old man's white hair. He seemed to speak with increasing difficulty:

"I know you think I have none. But I do. And in all the years I've held my position of authority on Earth Prime, I have not deviated from its dictates. When we flew back from Canada, I sent my mind out. I sensed Helanne—"

"Maybe. It's more likely that she died in that volcano on Earth Four."

"As you observed at the time, you saw her drop. You did not actually see her perish. Since then, I have picked up frequent impressions from her mind. She has moved from the site of the original gate between Earths Three and Four. Moved much further south."

"But still on Four?"

"Yes. And though it runs counter to my training—my official loyalties, I—"

He stopped. A moment later he said the rest: "I'm going back."

Bronwyn swung around, facing Black on the pavement outside a closed curio shop. In its window, Black saw an immense scowling Oriental god carved of dark wood.

"I know you will find it difficult to believe that-1 could be moved by such non-intellectual concerns. Nevertheless, it's so. My feelings for my daughter refuse to be stilled. We'll save a great deal of time if you accept the fact—"

"I remember you wanted to go back when we came out of Canada," Black said. "I saw it in your face, and I wondered how that impulse jibed with everything else you were. You've really fought this thing for two years?"

"Endlessly. The decision came hard. But it has been made." Another pause. Then: "My superiors on Earth Prime believe I have come here to assess the current level of infiltration."

"What happens if they discover you're using a gate for personal reasons?"

"Death," Bronwyn said. "Painless but certain. I'll take the chance. Because I feel the signals from Helanne. She is alive. And I mean to find her."

Bronwyn resumed walking, his eyes lost on the lights at the hill's foggy summit.

"Of course," he continued, "there may be practical secondary benefits from the expedition. When you slew Tam, you by no means ended the domination of Three's high kings—"

"That's obvious. As a matter of fact, before Tarn died, he warned me there'd be others to finish the work of seizing the analogue worlds."

"There is one thing new in that situation. Sending out my mind, I have discovered a curious and disturbing reversal of the pattern of two years ago. As you'll recall, the plan of the tyrants was to subjugate all of Earth Three, then turn their attention to this Earth. That last apparently hasn't changed. But at the same time, the high kings of Three have opened at least one, and perhaps more gates to Earth Four—and moved relatively large numbers of armed men there. They seem to be concentrated in the south of Four—the same area in which I picked up impressions from Helanne's mind."

For a moment Black put his suspicion aside, letting his thoughts rove back to his sojourn on the analogues. He pulled out a fact:

"When Tarn was alive, he refused to waste effort or manpower on Earth Four. Too primitive. Not worth conquering. The section I saw bore that out. The people weren't much more than semi-intelligent apes."

"But the pattern has evidently changed. In the south of that world there must be higher cultures. Perhaps some other resource we can only guess at. There's no other explanation for the shift in strategy. But Three's presence makes southern Four a dangerous place to venture. And that's why I sent the card."

Bronwyn walked on a few steps, his face unreadable in the gloom between the streetlamps. Not turning,, he said:

"I propose that you go back with me to Earth Four, and help me locate my daughter."

Black was almost too stunned to laugh. But he managed. Then: "And how many imaginary millions are you going to offer this time?"

"Don't joke with me! I need your physical skills. I am prepared to make a risky undertaking worth your while."

"If that's all you wanted to talk about, Bronwyn, forget it."

Suddenly there was slyness in the old man's eyes. He cocked his head, his stare curious, penetrating. His pipe had gone out. He re-lit it with a paper match, the flame setting firepoints to glowing in his pupils.

"Very well, Mr. Black. But I'm curious about one thing. Why did you bother to come all the way out here?"

"Because I—" He couldn't finish. Then, subtly, he felt Bronwyn begin to manipulate the situation:

"I imagine perhaps I know. Hence my proposal. You're aware that we of Earth Prime are unable to exert ourselves physically—"

"What you mean is you're above dirtying your hands."

"Describe it any way you wish. It amounts to my needing a right arm, as I did before, someone who can wield a weapon if circumstances demand it. I have a weapon, Mr. Black. Remember the knife I gave you before you journeyed to Shulkor the first time?"

Black nodded. He recalled well the marvelous balance of the slightly curved blade, the wire-wound hilt with the stud that activated a killing beam of amplified light from the tip.

"I have its mate, Mr. Black, ready to slip into that hidey-hole in the side of the leg we gave you. I'll let you have the knife, and all the aid of my mind, if you'll be my—my shield, as it were. I mean to find Helanne. I cannot do it alone. So I'm prepared to offer a reward. Not money this time—" He smiled. "Do you wonder, as I do, whether someone is alive beyond the gate?"

His meaning was instantly clear to Black. He wanted to strike the old man, to crack the smugness of that lined face. Bronwyn had him. And knew it:

"I mean to say, Mr. Black, someone you care about. Help me find Helanne. In return, I will open a gate between Four and Three, and help you search for the tyrant's sister."

The palms of Black's hands were cold now. The secret was secret no longer. Bronwyn continued:

"That is the reason you made the journey here, isn't it? Because you hoped I might know of her? I suggest you accept my offer. I am even willing to overlook that woman's position as my nominal enemy in order to strike this bargain—" The smile widened again. "She is alive, Mr. Black."

"How do you know?'

"The same way I know of Helanne. The last time I searched, Tarn's sister was somewhere near Three's Capitol, Koptic Bay. She survived the sea."

They walked on, the fog thickening around them. The lights at the summit of the hill were barely visible. Black's belly hurt. He was tempted. God, how he was tempted . . .

He was well aware of the dangers implicit in Bronwyn's proposal. But if Sam were alive—alive and reachable ...

Wait.

'There's no proof of what you say about Sam, Bronwyn—except your word."

"Your tone tells me the value you place on that. Well —" The old man shrugged, drew the bit of his pipe from between his teeth. "Let me put it like this. How much do you want her? Enough to trust me this time? It's no more complicated than that."

Somehow, Black couldn't quell a hard chuckle: "You bastard. No wonder they put you in charge of the Earth Prime police. You know I'll do it."

"Of course," Bronwyn smiled. "I knew when I mailed you the card."

xi

A day and a half later, a rented Oldsmobile— Bronwyn's money this time—headed south past San Diego in simmering heat.

With all the windows shut and the air conditioner blasting out cold, Black felt isolated. Almost unreal. He gripped the wheel tightly, turning it when necessary to whip around slower traffic.

Overhead, a massive green sign flashed by. The sign gave the mileage to the Mexican border. Not far.

Before falling asleep just below Los Angeles, Bronwyn had assured him they would be through a gate by nightfall. Black watched other automobiles on the freeway flash back the midday glare. Those cars moved silently— already dreamlike; part of a world to which he no longer belonged . . .

In the right-hand seat, Bronwyn slept like some benign grandfather. That morning, he had given Black the knife. It was hidden in the side of the manufactured leg; proof of the reality toward which the car was speeding them.

xii

Nightfall. A clear, cool evening, the heat of the land draining away into the deep blue upper sky, where the first hard stars had appeared.

The remains of three logs burned with fitful light in the open area between the sandhills. Now and again the night breeze made the coals brighter. The sudden light illuminated the hard planes of Black's body as he stripped down and wrapped himself in a linen clout. Next, he put on a sort of caftan that Bronwyn had pulled from a footlocker in the back seat of the Olds.

When the wind was right, Black could hear the hiss of traffic on the Tijuana-Ensenada highway. They had turned off that highway, bumping down an all but invisible track between the scrubby hills. Bronwyn seemed to know exactly where he was going, counting the tenths of miles aloud, calling for Black to park in the lee of a hill.

"Leave the keys in the lock," Bronwyn had instructed. "Someone may find the car. You probably won't want to store any personal effects inside. I suggest you bury them, and mark the location."

"I'm glad you're so optimistic about coming back."

Bronwyn's eyes shone with that intense emotion Black had seen briefly on the San Francisco street. "If I didn't believe I would come back with my daughter, I wouldn't

g0;<",

"It's hard to imagine a man like you caring that much for his child."

"Not all of me is intellect, Mr. Black. Although I try to keep that fact concealed." "I'm sure you do."

"Don't be disagreeable," Bronwyn returned. "We have much traveling to do together. We'll be relying heavily on each other. Constant unpleasantness will serve no useful end. We buried the past when we made our bargain."

Not completely, Black thought, following the old man across the first rise. No, not completely . . .

Now, with night settling, and the fragrant logs all but burned out, Black remembered an earlier, hard-won decision. The result of his decision might jeopardize the start of their journey. But that was preferable to finding himself Bronwyn's victim later.

Bronwyn was securing a linen clout around his middle. His voice sounded reedy above the night wind: "As nearly as I can discover, these garments will be reasonably appropriate for the southern continent of Earth Four. From a long distance down the Klekton, with an entire world between, my impressions aren't all that clear, of course. But at least we won't pop into sight naked."

There seemed to be nervousness in his swift words. He bent down to pick up his caftan. That gave Black the chance he wanted.

Black slid his hand down the right side of his false leg. With a finger-touch he opened the narrow compartment, lifted out the wicked-looking knife.

Bronwyn tugged his caftan over one shoulder, started to straighten up. Quickly Black concealed the knife in the folds of his own voluminous garment, turning his body half to the right to shield the motion of his hand closing the leg compartment.

Bronwyn faced him across the fire. "Ready," he said. "Come stand by me, please."

As Black circled around the dying fire, his heart began to speed. Rage glared in Bronwyn's eyes when Black seized the old man's left arm.

Bringing his right hand over, he nicked Bronwyn's skin with the knife.

Bronwyn tried to pull away. Black held on, dropping the knife, then gripping the other's wrist with both hands. He squeezed, feeling bone beneath the skin.

The squeezing increased the flow of blood from the cut. All at once, Bronwyn fixed his eyes on Black; a strange, emotionless stare . . .

Sudden pain made Black yell. He staggered back. His mind dulled as he fell, disoriented, landing on his left side, close to the fire.

Black felt heat on his cheek. He struggled to tense his muscles and stand up. He couldn't. Nearly completely paralyzed, he lay twitching in the sand.

Bronwyn squatted beside him. Blood leaked down into the fine white hairs on his left wrist as he brought the recovered knife against Black's throat.

"Before I kill you, tell me why you did that."

"So I could be sure—"

"Of what?'

"That you bled. That you had bone instead of plastic and metal inside your skin."

"Why? I demand to know why."

Black felt sensation in his legs again. And he could wiggle his fingers. He said, "Let me stand up."

Bronwyn considered, then bobbed his head. He rocked back on his haunches, straightened his legs, and moved out of Black's reach. The curved blade of the knife flashed. "But I'll keep this a while yet," he said. "Now explain."

"Sam destroyed one of the synthetic doubles you sometimes send in your place, when things might get dangerous for you. But one double gone leaves two or three more that I know about. Perhaps there are others that I don't. I just wanted to be sure that the Bronwyn who was coming with me through the gate was the real Bronwyn. I think it's fair you take the same risks I do."

Bronwyn's eyes narrowed, unpleasantly. "What if I told you that my simulacra are engineered to appear to bleed?"

"I'd believe you. I saw what was supposed to be your severed head, remember? Very realistic. So I cut you, then felt for bone. I'll have to accept that as sufficient evidence. I don't imagine you'll let me gather any more."

Across the faintly pulsing fire, the two men faced one another in the windy silence. Old as Bronwyn was, pale-shanked and spindly, Black felt no sense of superiority, physical or otherwise.

Abruptly Bronwyn reversed his grip on the knife. He tossed it hilt first. Astonished, Black caught it. Bronwyn said:

"Objectively, I can't fault you for the test. The matter of the disappearing millions—certain other promises— but we did agree to put the past behind us."

"When you're involved, Bronwyn, that's next to impossible."

"Very well. A truce now, agreed? Put that knife back in your leg and stand next to me. It's time I opened a gate to Four."

Black had been bending over to reach the compartment in his leg, and now stood up quickly. "You're going to bypass Three?"

"It requires effort, but I can do it."

"Sam's on Earth Three."

"And my daughter is one world removed."

"But you promised—"

"I told you I would help you find the tyrant's sister. At no time did I imply that we would make the search before we found Helanne."

"No, that's right. But since Three is the first world down the Klekton, I assumed—"

"You assumed incorrectly. If and when you are instrumental in helping me locate my daughter—"

"Now you're putting conditions on it!"

"Yes, I am. We go first to Earth Four. If we are successful there, we proceed back to the third analogue. Since I am the only one who can open and close a gate, I dictate the terms. If you don't choose to accept them, walk away."

And Bronwyn gave him the kind of look Black had seen before. A look of loathing, disgust born of being forced to deal with human beings he considered inferior.

"Well, Mr. Black?"

"Bronwyn," Black answered softly, "I'll just tell you this. Any more little tricks, and I'll kill you."

"Oh, I don't honestly think so. Not lusting after that woman the way you do."

Raging, Black took a step toward him. Bronwyn retreated, his chin jutting out, his eyes fire-bright for a moment. Suddenly Black threw up his hands in surrender.

Bronwyn laughed.

A new, quiet enmity had suddenly invaded the clearing. Both men were aware of it; neither bothered to conceal it.

Black growled, "All right, let's go."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Black," the old man murmured, not troubling to conceal his sarcasm. "Stand near me.

After replacing the knife in his leg, Black did so. Bronwyn gave him one last, mistrustful glance, then drew his shoulders up. Suddenly his jaws seemed to lock. His eyes grew huge. Dots of foam appeared at the corners of his mouth.

The night darkness frayed into dun mist that went whipping across Black's vision. He was turned, raised, thrust out of himself through vast, formless space . . .

The fury-winds howled, went silent.

His mind began to drain of consciousness. He was dropped like a plummet, through darkness that grew ever thicker. Down—and down—and down, to . . .

Return to Earth Four

Black awoke instantly. He shielded his eyes against blinding light.

He scrambled to his feet. A short distance down the side of a low hill, he saw Bronwyn. That is, he saw Bronwyn from the waist up. Both men stood in long grass that reached past their hips, blowing in a stiff wind. Overhead, a fierce yellow-red sun stood at about forty-five degrees in a metal colored sky.

Bronwyn signaled Black to come to him. Black trotted down the hill, slow going because of the tall grass. He scanned the horizon as he went.

He saw little more than endless hillsides to the north and east; at least he judged those to be the correct directions, based on an assumption that the sun followed the same course as on the heartline Earth. To the south and west, the hills leveled into windblown savannahs. Away in the extreme south, a smudged horizon suggested forest.

Black reached the old man, who was busy surveying the terrain, his eyes slitted up against the sun. Black glanced down at Bronwyn's left arm. A crust had begun to form on the cut.

Bronwyn noticed the attention. His face was ugly with resentment for a moment.

"This doesn't look like any part of Fourth Earth I saw before," Black told him.

"Describe what you remember."

"It was mountainous, for one thing. With a great many sooty clouds in the sky. The land looked volcanic. Glassy black rock. This—" He waved. "It's damn near tropical."

"We're on the southern continent, remember. Give me a moment while I search for my daughter—"

"Shouldn't we mark the site of the gate first?"

"Not necessary," Bronwyn said, impatiently. "I can open and close temporary vortices at will. Now be quiet. I want no interruption."

Color climbed Black's face. But he said nothing.

The old man kneeled in the long grass. He placed his veined hands palms down on his thighs. His shoulders jerked. Spittle flecked his lips. The rush of the wind made it difficult to be sure if he gave a short moan.

Several minutes passed. Bronwyn remained immobile as a piece of statuary. Black occupied himself with another scrutiny of the countryside.

The landscape looked benign. The waving savannahs had a deep blue-green cast. There was no sign of large animal life. They had emerged into a strange and different world. One where they would automatically be the enemies.

Suddenly Bronwyn's eyes opened.

"I found her. I felt her mind. She's alive."

"Where?"

He gestured toward the smudged horizon. "Further south. The impression was diffuse. Her thoughts were tangled in among those of a great many other people. Beyond that forest, I think there's a sizable population center. That's where I felt Helanne. Drawing back from her, I encountered others—"

"Other minds?"

"Yes. Not as many. But definitely present. I think their owners are somewhere on the fringes of that forest. The minds are not native to this analogue."

Black's spine chilled despite the sun. "From where, then?"

"Third Earth. In one of the minds, I perceived the power—"

"Adept power?" Bronwyn nodded.

"Only members of Three's ruling class have that."

"I know. One mind stood out noticeably from the rest. It had almost the same—call it weight—as Helanne's. The rest were blurs by comparison. That suggests the presence of at least one ruler from Earth Three. Perhaps with a considerable number of followers. They're blocking our way to Helanne."

Black thought that over, then said, "Why don't we get moving? Let's find out who they really are. And how many."

Bronwyn seemed unable to resist a wry smile. "There's a raw sound in your voice, my friend. With all your strength—can it be that you're afraid?"

"When a man's afraid, Bronwyn, that also makes him wary. But of course, being above physical things, you wouldn't understand."

And Black began walking through the waist-high grass. A rustle louder than the noise of the wind told him Bronwyn was following.

ii

When they had trekked for half a day, the forestland in the south began to take on more clarity.

The trees were immensely tall, with great, thick trunks and huge ear-shaped leaves of dark green. Black estimated that it would require at least another half a day to reach the edge of the wood.

He and Bronwyn said almost nothing to one another. They spoke only when one wanted to rest for a few moments.

The higher the yellow-red sun climbed, the hotter the savannahs became. The moist heat clung even when the sun began to sink. Finally, Black erupted: "Dammit, we should have brought food and water!"

"I think we'll find it in the forest. Sometime tomorrow morning."

Black licked his lips, already dry and salty-tasting. Shadows in the grass began to lengthen. The fairly level plain they'd been traversing gave way to low hills again. The hills grew larger. By the time the sun was almost down, the two men lost sight of the southern forest.

Then they had a bit of good luck.

Between two hills, they stumbled across a small, turgid stream. Black splashed out to the middle and scooped handfuls of water over his head. Bronwyn dipped a finger in, tasted, speculated in silence, then bent to drink.

Black saw a small scarlet fish go lazing by just under the surface. He shot out his hand. The fish darted, expelling a milky substance like a small underwater cloud. By the time the cloud dissipated, the fish was gone.

But Black took some comfort. Apparently they wouldn't starve on Earth Four.

He was washing down his good left leg when Bronwyn whipped up a hand. "Hear?" whispered the old man.

Black listened, shook his head. "No, I—wait."

He turned into the wind, and caught a peculiar sound from afar. A kind of rattling noise.

Memory rushed into his mind. A memory of being pursued by the hunters of Tarn Redboots, back on Three. With a frame of reference established, the sound defined itself. He told Bronwyn: "On Three, the troops of the tyrant marched to snare drums."

"Exactly." Bronwyn scowled. "Those drums are only a mile or so distant, upwind. We must move with caution."

Climbing to the next hilltop, they saw nothing except more hills stretching on toward the forest. Yet with each hill crossed, the drumming grew a bit louder.

They toiled on across other hills. Suddenly Bronwyn grabbed Black's arm. "Look there! Far left of us."

In the east, just this side of the trees, Black saw a thread of smoke climbing to the darkening sky. He studied the smoke a while, deciding aloud that it was quite far away.

Bronwyn agreed. He kneeled, closed his eyes, searched with his mind, then reported:

"There is no life anywhere near that smoke. But directly ahead"—a veined hand pointed due south—"the impressions are numerous and vivid."

They crept forward even more cautiously. The drumming grew steadily louder. Finally, at the crest of another hill, they bellied in the grass, parting it.

Below them, they saw a leveling plain—and in the near distance, the source of the drums.

iii

About thirty degrees eastward, a long file of men and women slowly marched by twos across the plain. Black guessed the number to be about a hundred.

The men and women were swarthy. They wore waist garments of what appeared to be hides. The women were bare-breasted. On either side of the double file, shorter, stockier men in armor kept watch with spears and short swords.

At the head of the procession walked three soldiers. One carried a triangular banner on a staff. The other two beat snare drums.

At the rear of the procession, Black saw more soldiers dragging ropes attached to a couple of wheeled platforms. From a cross brace above each platform swung some kind of weapon with a large fluted muzzle. Each weapon required about a dozen men to pull it. Going was slow. The longer Black stared, the more each weapon came to resemble some kind of ancient firing piece similar to a harquebus.

"Those have to be guns," he said finally. "But too big to be fired against the shoulder. The tyrants of Three do know about gunpowder—"

"Another of their stolen secrets," Bronwyn muttered.

"Could those people be villagers from the site of the smoke?"

"Whoever they are, they sure as hell have the look of prisoners."

"Perhaps the mobile guns were used to subdue and capture them. Peculiar, peculiar—I mean this sudden interest in Earth Four on the part of the tyrants."

Black pointed. "They're turning."

The banner at the head of the procession stood out in a different direction as the column began to head south. One of the women stumbled. The man beside her attempted to help her up. Two soldiers ran forward. One whacked the captured man with the flat of a sword. The man made an abortive lunge toward the nearest soldier. The rest of the column halted to watch the altercation.

A third soldier with a long spear darted in. He took the male prisoner by surprise, gutting him in the ribs from the side.

The woman screamed. She got the spear in her belly. Her scream keened on the wind a moment, then abruptly died.

Both slain prisoners tumbled out of sight in the grass. Other soldiers shouted at the column to get it moving again. Like some sort of great snake, the double file moved out, circling wide around the corpses as the snare drum beat quickened.

Carefully, maintaining their low profile, Black and his companion stole after the wheeled gun carriages at the tail of the procession. In an hour, they saw the procession's destination.

iv

Night lowered. But not so fast that Black and Bronwyn couldn't clearly discern the large camp spread on the plain.

They saw a half dozen pavilions of striped cloth. The largest, with pennons flying from its roofpoles, stood at the camp's exact center.

Around the pavilions, a ring of campfires was being built from wood that had been carried on supply carts, Evidently the carts too were pulled by men. They saw no sign of beasts of burden.

The encampment swarmed with soldiers. Now and again the wind brought laughter. The new fires brightened. Flames shot toward the sky.

The procession's two gun carriages had been parked alongside four others on the camp's nearer side. The prisoners had been herded inside a big rope-and-stake pen on the western edge. Every few feet, an armed soldier guarded the perimeter of the pen.

The men and women who had been herded into the encampment represented about half the prisoners now inside the pen. Bronwyn shook his head in a puzzled way. "So the high kings of Three are rounding up captives. A strange reversal. To what purpose, I wonder?"

"And where do they take them from here?"

"I don't propose that we linger long enough to find out. As soon as the sun's down, we must circle the camp and put it behind us. Perhaps we can reach the forest by morning. We'll be safer there—"

Suddenly he clipped off the words. Worry lines formed around his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Black demanded.

T just picked up a mind. Coming outward from the camp. Casually. Not searching for anything special. But it's there. An adept mind. In that central pavilion, I believe. I think it's title same mind I encountered earlier—"

Bronwyn glanced at the sky then. "We must go the instant it's dark."

Shivering, Black stared at the blazing fires. Time passed. The darkness closed in. Bronwyn stirred. "All right. The adept mind is resting—"

Shadows, they moved out.

v

The two men angled east, then south, bent low and traveling at a walk that was closer to a run. Far to their right, silhouetted figures crisscrossed against the spark-shooting campfires. The wind bore the sound of boisterous singing, to the accompaniment of some sort of reed pipe.

Black had no difficulty maintaining the fast pace. But by the time the camp was due west of them, Bronwyn was breathing hard. Black was tempted to make a remark. He didn't. No use exacerbating an already strained situation.

He kept his eye on the horizon-spanning darkness in the south. He was grateful for the lack of a moon. The unfamiliar constellations shed only a little light on the savannahs. When the campsite began to drop behind, he felt they might make it to cover.

"Black! He's awake!"

"The adept?"

"Yes."

Bronwyn seemed frozen in the starlight. Suddenly he spat out a series of guttural words that could only be cursing.

"Now he's looking with his mind. Touching the rim of the camp—now coming outward a little—a little more. Perhaps it's just a routine scan—"

Silence. The wind whispered in the night-black grass. Sweat began to congeal on Black's palms.

Bronwyn turned toward the distant fires. His eyes were huge. "He's coming close 1 That ridge over there—"

"Don't you have power to put up a barrier?"

"Yes, yes, I must. He's sweeping back and forth now. I think he suspects we're out here. But when did he pick us up? I didn't feel any contact earlier, I—ahh!"

Bronwyn's head snapped back. His fists beat at his flanks. He dropped to his knees, swaying back and forth while his teeth chattered. He spoke with effort: "For a man of Earth Three, he's—very powerful. They usually —lack the force of—minds on Prime. He's pushing at me—"

Bronwyn's back arched. Then all at once he slumped forward.

A moment later, his star-silvered face turned up to

Black in terror. "I didn't raise the barrier in time. He broke through. He found me. Now he's gone."

Before Black could reply, he was flung to the ground by searing pain. He lost consciousness for a moment . . .

And when the surroundings swam back into focus, he saw Bronwyn standing over him, hair blowing, mouth working:

"Run, Black. We have to run!"

They raced south, Black still dizzy from the painful contact with the mind of whoever commanded the Earth Three encampment. As he stretched his legs—Bronwyn's metal marvel on his right side bore him as steadily and surely as his own good one—he glanced back at the camp. Men ran there. And the wind blew shouting to his ears.

A loud explosion and a puff of flame lit the night. Seconds later, Black knocked Bronwyn down as scraps of metal whistled by. The prisoners on the far side of the compound wailed in terror.

"Warning shot," Black panted. "They can't possibly fire accurately at this range, and in darkness—"

"But they're coming!" Bronwyn shouted, pointing.

Black whirled, saw it was true.

Firebrands held high, dark figures charged outward from the camp. He caught the glint of flame on metal weapons.

They ran again. But Bronwyn was faltering badly every few steps. At last, he stumbled and sprawled.

When Black tried to help him up, Bronwyn shook his head.

"Can't. My leg's bent wrong. You go on."

For a moment, Black hesitated. Then something ticked in his mind. He thrust his hands under Bronwyn's arms. The old man began to protest.

"Let's see how badly the leg's hurt," Black said, hauling Bronwyn up and setting him on both feet.

All at once, the old man's expression of pain was gone. Black smiled a bleak smile.

"The leg really wasn't that bad, was it? But your little pretense might have convinced me to go ahead without you. And draw them away from you. Let's go on, Bronwyn. Together."

Black gave him a mauling shove. Bronwyn glared, started to speak. The words stayed unspoken when he saw the shine of starlight on the blade Black had slipped from his metal leg.

"Together," Black repeated. "I wouldn't want to be without your superior skills—"

Bronwyn moved faster.

But not fast enough.

The dozen men fanning out from the camp had halved the distance between it and the fugitives. The soldiers carried spears, short swords, stalking-nets . . .

"No use," Black panted after a few more steps. "They'll catch us. We have to try to take them out, and hope we can escape before more come—"

Agreeing by his silence, Bronwyn carefully sidled around behind Black, who dropped into a crouch. All at once his fear seemed to abate. He watched the running men with a strange, enveloping calm.

When the first torchbearer was close enough, Black slid his thumb over and depressed the small knob protruding from the knife's pommel.

A thin beam of white light sprang from the tip of the knife. The light touched the breastplate of the foremost soldier. The armor burst into flame, then melted into a golden rain.

Black pulled his thumb off the knob. The line of light vanished. But the soldier kept on burning. His eyes boiled out of his head and turned to liquid. As he fell, the grisly mess of his exposed musculature caught fire and it too burned. The savannah swam with a terrible dry reek, and the soldiers cut the speed of their charge.

Black laughed low. He thumbed the knob again, incinerated two more.

Now the soldiers began to drop back. They flung their firebrands down despite the protests of their leader. Lost in the darkness, they would be less of a target for the annihilating light-beam.

'Td forgotten what a lethal little—" Black began. He screamed.

He fell, thrashing, seared by the mind-power. All his nerves howled in silent agony. The knife rolled out of his hand, lost in the long grass.

He fought to turn over on his belly, push himself up on hands and knees.

"Where's the knife?" Bronwyn cried.

Black's hand scrabbled. "Dropped it—somewhere—"

"Find it, before the adept touches you again. They're coming—/"

The re-grouped soldiers swarmed closer. At last Black found the blade. It lay point up in the grass. But the soldiers were already on them—

By the uncertain starlight, Black glimpsed scraggly chin beards, gold loops hanging from pierced ears, ugly eyes.

"There's one of them—there's the other!" yelled a harsh voice. A net sailed high.

Bronwyn turned to flee. The heavily weighted net came down, dragging him to earth. Black closed his fingers around the pommel. A soldier ran up, threw his spear.

Black barely jumped back in time. The spearhead sailed past his chest. The soldier tackled him, jarring the knife out of his hands.

Falling, the two separated. The soldier leaped up. Black seized his leg, pulled. The man tumbled over with a curse. Somewhere Bronwyn squealed and fought against the confines of the flung net.

Black scrambled across the fallen man, jerked the short sword from a loop on the man's leathern belt, came up into a crouch with the blade bared.

The caftan had dropped off his shoulders. He was naked except for his clout. The wind blew his long hair.

A couple of torches had been re-lit. "Slowly, slowly!" barked the leader of the soldiers. "First make a ring around him. Then fire and the nets. He no longer has the fight-thrower—"

A soldier darted in, jabbing his torch at Black's eyes.

Black hacked over and down. The man shrieked as his forearm separated at the elbow, the stump gouting blood.

Boots slammed in the high grass behind him. Black turned, chopped low. One man dropped, his leg cut to the bone. But the other two managed to fling their weighted net. All at once Black was tangled, and foundering.

He fought to saw free with the short sword. Soldiers surrounded him, thrusting at his face with their torches. The strands of the net caught fire. Black's hair began to smolder.

Frantically, he rolled in the grass to stifle the flames. His sword, fallen under him, sliced his left thigh.

"Here's that knife of his—" someone shouted.

"Handle it carefully!" the leader bawled. "Circle the nets, the rest of you! Circle—/"

Black tried to get at them from within the tangle of strands and weights. No use. Firelight glared in his eyes. Faces swam close. In a matter of moments, they swarmed on him and beat him into unconsciousness.

vi

Light leaked under Black's eyelids, rousing consciousness. He flopped onto his belly, feeling the sting of sword cuts on his left shoulder, his left leg.

His hands explored the hardness beneath him. Dirt. He lifted his head, aware of intermingled odors of smoke and broiling meat. He opened his eyes and saw Bronwyn seated cross-legged on the ground. A pavilion of dark yellow cloth arched over both of them.

Black pushed up on hands and knees. Daylight streamed from over his left shoulder. He started to speak, checked when Bronwyn gave a cautionary shake of his head.

The old man's eyes flicked past Black's left shoulder to indicate someone there. Slowly, Black rose and turned around.

Two soldiers stood just inside the pavilion entrance. Both were short, squatly built, with the misshapen noses and earrings Black recognized as the familiar signs of Earth Three. One soldier held a spear at ready. The other, clad in more elaborate armor, said to Black: "Well—awake, finally, are you? The tyrant's growing impatient."

Outside, Black heard the sleepy murmur of men's voices, the clink of military trappings. "What about some food?"

"Oh, I doubt that's necessary," said the officer with a humorless smile. "Your audience with the tyrant will likely be brief. I presume we'll have orders to execute you right after. What's the point of wasting food on the dead?"

The officer signaled them forward. Black glanced at Bronwyn„ The old man sighed, and rose. He preceded Black out of the pavilion.

Earth Three soldiers glanced up from morning cookfires and scowled. One spat. A squad of armed men formed around the two prisoners. Inside a ring of spears, they were led toward the large central pavilion, the one flying the pennons.

At the entrance, the officer lifted the hanging and presented himself to the interior. This pavilion was obviously made of thicker cloth than the one which they'd just quitted. Black could see nothing but darkness inside.

The officer bowed toward the blackness, muttering words of obeisance. Then he stepped to one side, motioning Black and Bronwyn forward.

Black went first, taking a last look at the open sky.

He bent to enter—and halted, staring into the gloom.

Two eyes the color of milk regarded him from the center of the darkness.

vii

A man sat there, a lean, long-legged man, dressed in shades of dark gray. A silver brooch with a lustrous gray stone in its center held his cloak to his right shoulder. He lounged in a cross-legged chair, his soft gray boots flung out in front of him, hands dangling limp over the arms.

The man might have been any age, to judge by the smoothness of his face. It was a pale, ascetic face, with a sharp nose. But the eyebrows were pure white. So was the straight hair that hung to the collar of the cloak.

The man's right hand stirred. Some kind of long thong looped around his wrist nicked like the head of a snake.

"Enter, and let the hanging drop."

Someone prodded Black. He and Bronwyn stepped forward. A soldier released the entrance flap. Darkness settled. But not before Black had another unsettling look at the man's large, slightly protruding eyes.

No pupils. All milky whiteness. Moist . . .

The thickness of the pavilion-cloth sealed out all light. Black took a tentative step forward in the darkness.

" 'Ware that pile of pillows!"

The man's voice was deep, smooth, not unfriendly. Even as he spoke, Black's left foot came down on the pillows. He almost lost his balance.

"I have no places for you to sit," the man told them. "But we won't be long. I apologize for the darkness. It's my natural habitat. I am called Eljer of Shulkor. By some, Blind Eljer."

"But you can see with your mind, can't you?" Bronwyn asked.

"Which one of you speaks? Ah—the elder. Your name is Bronwyn." A pause. "Of Earth Prime. I thought I detected someone with adept talents yesterday, when I ranged my mind on a sweep of the land. This is unfriendly country for men of Shulkor. I let my soldiers do the physical work, while I stay in this dark and watch on their behalf. Did you know I detected you as early as noon, old man?"

"I realized later that you must have. Though I wasn't aware of it then."

"Bronwyn," Eljer mused, sounding almost affable. "The famed Bronwyn who means to stop Shulkor's conquest of the Klekton. I never imagined I'd encounter you in person—"

Bronwyn said, "Are you the tyrant of Third Earth?"

"Aye. Lately named, after much wrangling among the high kings. I succeeded Tarn Redboots, who perished in the explosion of Sea Wake. But you had a hand in that, didn't you, old one? So did your companion—"

Black stifled a yell as the pain of mind-contact wracked him. Eljer's mind retreated almost at once. Black struggled to stand as the tyrant's voice talked on to Bronwyn:

"Isn't this the man you sent to destroy the double gate complex in the Sea of Liff? The slayer of Tarn? Well, I'll hold no grudge against him for that. Tarn was a licentious rogue. More often controlled by his balls than by his brains. I suppose I even owe you a certain debt—Black, is it? But for you, Tarn would still hold the throne at Koptic Bay, while I'd be just another regent of one of the sub-continents—" Another pause; a satisfied little sigh. "But I am the tyrant now. So it's my duty to deal with you. I know why you've come, Bronwyn."

"You saw that too?"

"Of course. Now it may well be that your daughter is alive somewhere in the Sud—" 'The what?" Bronwyn countered.

"Sud. The Sud. It's the name of this southern continent. Unfortunately, I can't permit you to continue your little quest. You and your companion must be disposed of promptly, because I have no time to concern myself with you. I have much work to do here."

"I've tried to fathom what you could want on Earth Four," Bronwyn told him. "Your predecessor would have nothing to do with it."

"My predecessor was a fool. The high kings of Shulkor have a use for captives—"

"For ignorant peasants?"

"You sensed that, did you? Well, the prisoners are that, it's true. But they will still be useful. Never mind how."

"After you're done with Earth Four, do you intend to press on to take the Earth?" Bronwyn wanted to know. The sound of his voice covered Black's slow, careful movement. He slid one foot forward, then the next, toward the sitter in the dark.

Eljer replied, "It was my pledge to complete the Klekton's conquest that persuaded the high kings of Shulkor to elevate me to tyrant. My pledge, and one or two well-timed assassinations. To remove other contenders— Black, you will stand still."

His skin crawling, Black stopped.

Something hard, cold had slipped into the affable voice. Tentatively, Black moved his right foot again.

"Black, I have ordered you! With my mind I see more clearly than you do in—I said stop!

Eljer's voice grew shrill as Black reached for a throat whose approximate location he thought he knew. Suddenly he heard a chair overturn. Heard boots on the carpet. Then a furious crack. The thong in Blind Eljer's hand lashed Black's face from the right.

Growling, Black whirled that way. The thong cracked —behind him now, lacerating his neck. He yelled in surprise and pain.

"You're a ridiculous pretentitious brute, Black. Believe me when I tell you I see plainer than you ever could, in light or dark. You can't find me, can you? Where am I? Here—?"

The voice seemed to leap from one side of the pavilion to the other. "Here—?" Another leap. "Or is it here—?"

Out of the dark, from a completely different quarter, the thong whipped Black's ribs, drawing blood.

Enraged, Black managed to seize the tip of the thong. Wet with blood, it slipped from his fingers. He lunged forward, groping in the darkness. Somewhere, Eljer laughed.

Then, with a rush of breath that betrayed his anger, the tyrant attacked.

Three cruel strokes on Black's back. Four. Five . . .

Black turned, reaching out.

And suddenly, light struck his eyes.

He glimpsed Blind Eljer all at once. Bloody thong hanging from his right fist, the tyrant turned toward the officer who had entered:

"Lord Eljer, we heard sounds of struggle—"

"You still distrust my ability to see? Believe me, it's better protection than those iron toys of yours. But I'm weary of the game. You can take them."

Soldiers swarmed around Black and Bronwyn. Eljer seemed to follow the action with his strange, empty eyes. Black shivered; he was bloodied. But the tyrant was unmarked.

To the officer, Eljer said, "I believe the simplest way to dispose of these intruders is to throw them in the prisoner pens—" A little smile curved his mouth. He said to Black and Bronwyn, "I've issued no rations to the captives, you see. Some have been penned up three to four days without food. And cannibalism is not unknown among them. They may be hungry enough to contemplate a meal of distinctly foreign flesh—"

He wagged his quirt at the officer:

"And no one will lift a hand to halt such a feast. Is that clear?"

"Yes, lord," said the officer, pale around the lips. "Then good morning, and good-bye," said Blind Eljer, motioning them out.

viii

Dark, oval eyes lit by the glare of the sinking sun watched Black and Bronwyn, as they had watched most of the day. Watched. Waited . . .

Two of the captive women, their bare breasts hanging pendulous, whispered between themselves. Black thought he understood the meaning of the conversation, the looks, the gestures.

One of the women licked her pointed upper teeth. Sitting cross-legged near the perimeter of the pen, Black shivered.

Bronwyn sat next to him. The old man's eyes never left the mass of prisoners separated from them by only a few yards of ground.

The pen smelled of human waste and unclean bodies. Black and Bronwyn had been imprisoned there for about six or seven hours. There had been no incidents. Black's obvious strength had thus far kept the captives at a wary distance.

All day, squads of Third Earth soldiers had arrived with groups of ten to twenty new prisoners. Black concluded that the fringes of the forest must be dotted with primitive villages.

By late afternoon, he thought he could identify the captives who had gone the longest without food. They formed their own group off to the right. The group included a scarred old man with two fingers missing, a gross, middle-aged woman whose breasts drooped over the hide garment at her waist, and an emaciated young man with a hook nose and feverish eyes. Black suspected that if trouble came, those three would start it.

As the sun dropped and the breeze cooled, military campfires began to blaze again. The aroma of roasting meat drifted through the compound. The trio of ringleaders gathered more men and women around them as the cooking smells grew more pronounced.

Black yawned. How would he and Bronwyn manage to survive when the night's weariness set in?

Young hook-nose and the old man with missing fingers were bending their heads together now, talking rapidly. A trio of soldiers appeared at the far side of the pen. One carried a pail made of slats of wood bound with wire. Another bore a ceramic drinking jar. The third, spear ready, watched the prisoners.

The soldiers circled outside the pen, halted opposite Bronwyn.

"A little something for your bellies," said the spear-bearer. "Compliments of Lord Eljer."

The other two set the pail and jar inside the rope. The pail contained great hunks of fire-blacked meat. The smell was strong. The juices ran in Black's mouth.

Smirking, the soldiers retreated a short distance to watch. Bronwyn blinked, rose to hobble toward the jar and pail.

"Come back here!" Black whispered. The prisoners were muttering loudly now.

"Just because those unwashed, swine aren't being fed is no reason we shouldn't—"

"They want us to eat. So the others will attack. For a high police official, you're damn naive in some ways. You don't suppose the blind man ordered that food out of kindness?"

"I don't care why he ordered it. I intend to eat." "Bronwyn, keep your hands away from that pail or you'll—"

The warning made no difference. Bronwyn picked up a chunk of meat, began to gnaw it. Black heard the murmurs turn to growls behind him. He saw the soldiers who'd fetched the food summoning others to watch.

Black stood up. Bronwyn was reaching for a second piece of meat. Black took it out of his hands, threw it over the rope.

Bronwyn's eyes filled with rage. All at once, the rage vanished. He saw something behind Black; something frightening.

Black knew what it was without looking. He knew because the soldiers were snickering and shifting forward, to be sure they saw everything that was about to happen.

Wearily, Black turned around.

ix

A dozen of the prisoners were shuffling toward him. In the lead, the hook-nosed boy, the obese woman, the old man with missing fingers.

Black supposed he couldn't blame them for what they wanted to do. They had been gathered up like animals, and abused, and he and Bronwyn were the most convenient targets for venting their fury. The slanting light out of the west glittered on the obese woman's greasy hair.

Black pushed Bronwyn behind him. Hook-nose barked a few words at the others. He and the old man rushed forward, followed by the fat woman, then the rest.

All the attacking prisoners began to shriek—and Black heard laughter, mocking applause from the soldiers beyond the ropes.

He darted to the left, swung up the pail with both hands, pitched it at the attackers. The chunks of meat spilled into the dirt. The prisoners fell on the meat, fighting over it. Black watched in disgust as the obese woman crammed two dirt-crusted pieces into her mouth.

Hook-nose managed to snatch three. The old man with missing fingers fought for one and ate it. The rest disappeared in a matter of seconds.

With that diversion out of the way, the attackers moved forward again. Hook-nose reached Black first.

Ready with the ceramic jar—he'd already emptied the wine on the ground—Black broke the jar over hooknose's head. The young man staggered. But only momentarily.

Then the others swarmed around Black, clawing at him, hitting, kicking. He went down under a heap of bodies.

Through the tangle of arms and legs, Black saw the old man press his palms to his cheeks and scream.

Had Bronwyn used his mind as a weapon? No way to be sure. But Black doubted whether Bronwyn could fend off all the hunger-maddened men and women who ripped at Black's skin with cracked nails, bit at him with wet, slavering mouths . . .

Hook-nose clamped hands around Black's throat. Someone else grabbed Black's right leg, instantly reacted to the metallic hardness. Black kicked sideways, felt the metal slam a head. The man who was hit cried out and crawled away.

But hook-nose was on his chest now, knees dug into the dirt on either side, hands constricting. Those hands meant to kill . . .

Black brought his right hand up. He raked hook-nose's face with a shard of the jar. The slash tore the young man's upper lip open. Blood spattered on Black's cheek.

Hook-nose grew more enraged because of the wound. He tightened his grip, his long nails ripping into the flesh of Black's throat, even as Black felt other hands, other mouths attacking his body.

One prisoner dropped over, writhing from a mind-burn. But Bronwyn's efforts still weren't enough. Not nearly enough.

Hook-nose choked harder. Black's mind began to darken.

Someone bit at his right wrist. He almost let go of the shard. His face and upper chest were sticky with hooknose's blood.

Black freed his right hand, whipped it up again, rammed the point of the shard in hook-nose's left eye-socket.

The eyeball burst showering blood and fluid. Hook-nose pitched backward, shrieking. The other prisoners paid no attention, shoving him out of the way. The obese woman had unwound the linen around Black's middle and was clawing at his genitals, as if to rip them off. Black shoved hard, spilled her over, managed to slide to the right and regain his feet.

Another prisoner tottered, tongue protruding between clenched teeth, eyes squeezed shut against the impact of Bronwyn's mental attack. Bloodied and panting, Black cut a wide swath with the shard.

The prisoners retreated a few steps, re-forming into a circle. They began to close the circle. Black was at the center.

He looked for Bronwyn. The old man was kneeling on the ground, foam-lipped. No one paid attention. They probably thought he was immobilized by terror. And it was Black they wanted first . . .

The obese woman signed the others forward, leading the closing of the ring.

He dropped into a crouch again, the shard his only weapon against the final onslaught.

The obese woman's sagging breasts jiggled as she came toward him. Of them all, she seemed the most eager. She was first to leap.

She seized his outstretched arm, and before he could shake her off, she bit so deeply that he felt blood run.

Then the others charged in, bowling against him at the waist, the knees, once more dragging him down.

The obese woman hung on like a starved dog, biting, biting, until Black's pain-shot fingers opened. She gave a squeal of joy as the shard dropped into the dirt.

He rolled back and forth, trying to throw off his attackers. Too many . . .

There were mouths on his flesh. Starved mouths. Biting. Tearing.

Black began to feel dizzy. Darkness touched the edge of his mind. He knew he was blacking out. Probably for the last time . . .

x

Blowing tatters of orange-yellow light streaked across his vision. The weight of his attackers was somehow— Gone.

He sat up, saw the glint of armor.

Half a dozen soldiers had swarmed into the compound, driving off the prisoners with short swords and torches.

Black scrambled up, his long hair hanging in his eyes. Most of the prisoners began to retreat before the soldiers. But the obese woman was too maddened to heed the danger. She turned on one of the men, biting savagely.

The soldier kicked her. When she fell, another man jumped forward and touched his torch to her hair. The old woman screamed, tried to stumble up and run. Her whole head was aflame.

A third soldier stuck his sword in the small of her back and killed her.

Black turned away. He expected a death-stroke, too.

But the men surrounding him, and Bronwyn, shoved them toward the rope perimeter.

Exhausted, hurting, Black didn't know why they'd been pulled from the pen at the last moment. Didn't know and didn't care.

Afraid he was going to fall at any second, he staggered along to wherever the soldiers were leading them.

xi

Scented oil simmered in a lamp, filling the shadows with a sharp citrus scent. Black paced back and forth inside the pavilion, staring at curiously colorful robes on the camp bed. Outside, he heard Bronwyn haggling with the soldiers.

Bronwyn demanded to know whom they had been summoned to see. And why he was not permitted to enter the pavilion with Black. Black wondered the same.

The soldiers refused to answer Bronwyn's questions. Gradually, the voices faded, leaving Black to the scented silence of what seemed to be peculiarly unmasculine military quarters.

He re-tied the linen around his middle, using a piece ripped from one end to wipe away the worst of the blood on his wounds. He grew edgy as he waited. He was sure that this new development represented some land of trick on the part of Blind Eljer. A snare whose nature he couldn't guess.

A series of dark, filmy hangings separated the front two thirds of the pavilion from the rear. Behind those hangings, Black suddenly sensed a stir of motion.

He heard armor clink. A man's voice asked a question. Then there was a reply:

"No, wait outside. I'm not afraid of questioning him alone. Give me your knife, though. And when my aide returns, send him in."

The man murmured something. Black hardly heard. He was still stunned by the sound of the second voice. Authoritative, low-pitched, mellow.

And female.

The rear hangings lifted. Black caught his breath.

The girl was tall, wide-hipped. She paused with one arm still holding up the hangings. Then she moved forward with sleek grace and let them fall. Her left hand held a long-bladed dagger.

The lamplight shone on the curves of her legs, encased to the knee in metal greaves. Low-slung around her pubis, she wore a land of leather clout studded with bits of brass. Her halter was likewise of metal-decorated leather, with circular openings cut for her breasts, so that her nipples showed. A succession of thin metal war-rings circled her left arm from elbow to wrist. Her skin was a soft gray-black.

"You may sit if you wish," she said. Her face was well shaped, with a strong nose, full lips, darkly luminous eyes. A simple thong was wrapped around her forehead and knotted at the back of her head. The ends dangled between her black shoulder blades.

She sat down on the edge of the camp bed, her legs spread and one elbow resting on her left knee. It was a curiously masculine posture.

All at once, she tossed the dagger aside.

"Must you keep your mouth hanging open that way? I'm not going to have you killed. Just the opposite. You'd be dead in the pens by now if I hadn't come back to camp and discovered you'd been taken. I had trouble concealing my reaction, I don't mind telling you. I hardly expected someone I'd heard about to show up here."

Suddenly, she stamped her right foot. "In Shulkor's name, Black—I know who you are!" After the shock of that abated a little, he managed to say, "But I don't know you."

"Second in command of this—fishing expedition. I've been on a sweep of the countryside for the past two days. Rounded up eighty wretches for Eljer's processing. If we'd hit one more village, I wouldn't have been back in time—and you'd be dead. As it was, I persuaded Eljer to let me question you only with some difficulty. I'm not allowed more than an hour. At the end of that time, he wants you dead. My name, by the way, is Jina."

"Well, Jina, I've told that blind bastard everything I intend to. Which is nothing."

The black girl waved. "Don't posture! Eljer knows all he needs to know already. We can search with our minds, remember?"

"Then you're native born to Three?" he asked, probing a little, trying to find the snare he anticipated.

"From the continent Rothga," she nodded.

"And you're Eljer's second—?"

There was a teasing glint in her dark eyes. "Why not? You met one of the co-commanders of the Shulkor host. She was a woman. Two of seven is a decent average—"

Quietly, he said, "Do you know Sam?"

"Her name is Tarianna," Jina returned. "I know her well. I also know about your—relationship with her. She spoke of you often. If it weren't for that"—a shrug lifted her right breast—"do you think I'd risk myself, and my position, trying to keep you alive? Now sit down, and I'll fetch some medicine, and perhaps we can do something about those gashes. We must talk while I work. Eljer is quite serious about wanting you dead by sunrise."

xii

Wary, Black moved to the camp bed. Jina produced two small clay pots from a leather field trunk. She told Black to apply scented ointment from one, then from the other. As he did, she tore a robe to make strips to bind the worst wounds. And she talked softly:

"Tarianna changed after she met you, Black. Somehow you managed to upset her whole relationship with the high kings. And, indirectly, mine too—will you stop glaring at me? I am not going to hurt you. Shulkor help me, I'm going to try to get you Out of here, if I can do it without having my head chopped off."

"Why should I believe anything you say? You're one of Eljer's—"

"Indeed," she interrupted, nodding. "So you've a right to suspicion. But actually, I serve Eljer about as faithfully as Tarianna served her brother, at the end. The tyrant doesn't suspect that my heart's not in this wretched expedition. Or his plans to lead the invasion of your Earth, for that matter."

There were questions pouring through Black's mind now. But he held back the most important one, saying instead: "But I still have no reason to trust you—"

"Except that I know your feelings for Tarianna. And hers for you."

"She—* He couldn't hold back any longer. "She's alive?"

"Alive and garrisoned at {Coptic Bay. She's very unhappy. Your fault, you know. Before you killed her brother, you showed her what he really was—"

Black wanted to believe. But he didn't dare. Not just yet.

"I assumed she drowned in the Sea of Liff," he said. "When I blew up the island. Or do you know about that?"

"Of course. All Shulkor knows. In the long run, it was a futile tactic. Eljer and the other high kings will open new gates when"—a gesture to the outside—"we're finished here."

"Tell me about her," he said. "How did she save herself from the sea?"

"She clung to that wrecked boat long enough to be picked up by one of the flying craft. They came out from Koptic Bay to search for remains of Sea Wake. There weren't any," Jina added with a touch of mockery. "You did an excellent job, under that old snake's direction."

"Bronwyn, you mean."

The black girl nodded. "Eljer knows why Bronwyn's come to this analogue. And why he brought you. He knows Bronwyn means to find his daughter in the south. If he can. Then—the two of you intend to go to Three, for Tarianna. I do believe she'd leave with you, Black. But of course Eljer can't permit it to go that far. He's even considered sending a few men back to Three to kill her. He wasn't aware of her treachery. Or should we call it semi-treachery? Up till now, she's served the high kings with good faith—outwardly. He didn't appreciate her real feelings until he probed them out of your mind."

"Is he planning to send those men after her?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Because she is, after all, Tarn's sister. Many people on Three still consider Tarn a great man—and a better tyrant than Eljer. Eljer's position is tenuous. Almost temporary, in the sense that his continued occupancy of the high throne rests on successful completion of this expedition—and the subsequent attack on your Earth. Eljer murdered his way to his current position. An attack on Tarianna could jeopardize his standing. So he'd rather dispose of you, and let Tarianna go for the time being. When he's firmly established as tyrant, undoubtedly he'll move against her."

"I wish I could believe all that," he said.

"Why would I lie to you?"

"Maybe on Eljer's orders."

"If Eljer knew what I was doing—if he touches my mind by accident and learns—I'll be dead as fast as you." Her voice dropped a little as she went on. "I'm helping you because Tarianna and I have become close in the past year. I know she loves you more than may be good for her. But if you want to continue to doubt me, and waste time, I might as well call the soldiers."

"What's the alternative?" he wanted to know.

"The best I can offer is the possibility of escape—if everything works. It'll run me some risk. And it must be done soon—tonight. Once you leave this camp, I can't control matters. Especially Eljer's reaction. I can only give you a start. If Eljer later discovers what I did—well, that's a chance I'm willing to take."

She rubbed her arm, her voice growing even softer:

"The dark-skinned people of Rothga were the first to fall to those who migrated to Three from your world. Subjugated, we learned to serve. I rejected family life when I was very young. I chose the military instead. I've been surprisingly lucky—I've risen high. I thought I believed in what I was doing until—well, until I first grew aware of some of Tarn's filthy excesses. Then I met Tarianna for the first time a year ago. We were both stationed at Koptic Bay. Up until then, we'd only exchanged letters, dispatches, that sort of thing. She told me about you, and—" A shrug. "Let's just say I'm somewhat less loyal than I was. I'm not sure I wasn't happier the other way."

Deep down, Black struggled to believe. He wanted to trust this lithe, lovely black girl. Her eyes, direct, unwavering, said that he should. And yet he knew too much about the ways of Three.

As he finished tying up the last of his wounds, he said, "If Sam has doubts, why is she still holding her position? Serving the kings?"

"What else is there?" Jina countered. "She thought you were, if not dead, then at least permanently separated from her. The chances of her finding you and preventing your death when Three makes its final attack on Earth were poor at best."

The black girl began to pace again, her gaze lost in the pavilion's shadowy comers.

"You can't grasp how much you changed her, Black. Humanized her, is a fair way to put it. Out of sight of the kings, and holding an influential position, she's managed to check some of the military excesses that were standard under Tarn and his predecessors. For better or worse"—another eloquent shrug—"some of that rubbed off on me. I'd rather not be involved in helping you. But I am. So why don't we get to it? You have a chance to break out of this camp—"

"With Bronwyn."

"Is that absolutely necessary? He's a greater threat to Three than you are."

"He's also my means of reaching Three, once we find his daughter."

"Fool's errand. You'll probably be killed first. The whole Sud's in a turmoil—"

There was a commotion at the rear of the pavilion. For the first time, Jina really smiled.

"Well—finally. Here's someone who may convince you I can be trusted. Doggo? Come in."

xiii

The short, bow-shouldered man in military kilt and harness brushed past the rear hangings and blinked. His troll-like glare softened suddenly. A crooked grin distorted his underslung jaw.

"Blek! She told me—and I did not believe!"

Like a hairy child, he embraced Black fiercely around the middle. Then he stepped back. Beneath the unbroken line of his brows, his eyes looked moist.

"Blek. Blek my brother in the blood. I thought you had gone away—"

"And I thought you drowned in the Sea of Liff."

T held fast to £he same boat as your woman. I rode to Koptic Bay on the same flying thing."

"To serve the tyrants who killed and conquered your people?"

T would have slain them when they rescued me from the sea," Doggo said. "But I was sick and weak. Your woman tended me at Koptic Bay. We talked many times while I lay in her great house, recovering. She showed me two sides of the thing, Blek. On one side, death. On the other side, I saw myself in service. With a chance to hold back the cruel hands of the high kings, by working from within. In truth, it came down to a matter of rebelling against them and dying outright, or accepting your woman's way. I think she loves the high kings as little as I do. It was her way that I chose. I have served well,

Blek. I have saved lives when I could—"

"And at the same time," Jina put in, "he's proved himself a clever, natural leader. What he just told you is absolutely correct. Doggo has been instrumental in sparing a great many people on Three who otherwise might have died when the tyrants conquered the last sections of his home continent."

Doggo squatted down, his knuckles resting between his hairy feet. "But here, on this cursed world which I saw with you before, Blek, I have been unlucky. There is no sparing those whom we gather as captives."

"True," Jina agreed. "Eljer has definite plans for them. I requested Doggo as my aide on this expedition because I knew Tarianna had trained him to think as I do. Even so, Doggo and I haven't exactly succeeded as merciful conquerors. Oh, we may have cut down on some of the brutality that might have been inflicted on the captives. But there's no way we can halt Eljer's scheme. All the prisoners are condemned."

A heavy silence. Black felt a consuming wariness, and the pangs of hunger as well. Besides that, his wounds hurt. He grew dizzy momentarily.

When Doggo ran forward to help him stand, Black gestured him back. He said it was only lack of food. But in truth, it was a great deal more than that.

The little man took him at his word, however. He scuttled out the front of the pavilion, returning with a slightly gamy-tasting joint of meat, and a cup of thin wine. But Black ate and drank ravenously. And felt somewhat better afterward.

Doggo squatted at his feet again, an almost adoring look on his ugly face. He asked, "What has the good commander Jina been putting in your head, brother Blek?"

"That she wants to help me. That I can trust her." "Believe her."

Black stared into the small brown eyes. All at once, he managed a weary smile. The black girl smiled in return. At the same time, her eyes were full of awareness of the danger that waited just outside the pavilion.

xiv

Black said, "One thing's not clear. This military expedition to Earth Four. Tarn wouldn't touch this analogue while he was tyrant. I realize the blind man must have a different strategy, but what is it?"

"Simultaneous creation of a score of gates between Earth Three and the heartline world," Jina told him. "A final, decisive invasion."

"You suggested as much earlier. But you know that if Earth's destroyed, all the analogues will go, Eljer and the rest will rule nothing."

"They have discussed that often. They say it's a lie, spread by Bronwyn's kind, for protection." "It may not be a lie." "I have no way of knowing." "When is this invasion to take place? Soon?" "Blind Eljer has written a time-scroll for it. He means to complete the work within a year."

"But what's the purpose of this mission?" "To gather bodies," Jina said, softly. "This continent is well populated. Eljer means to take as many prisoners as he can, then submit them to a process—I have no name for it. But the machinery, collapsed and packed in some of the wagons you saw on the edge of camp, will change the captives—" "Change them how?"

"Leave them living, but of feeble mind. Walking dead, very nearly. Eljer intends to sweep the Sud, process the prisoners, and eventually put them through gates to Earth—the first waves of the attack. He knows they'll die. An expendable strike force—"

"But he's taking women too."

"They can be made to fight as savagely as the men." "How many of these—dead soldiers does he mean to create?"

"Twenty thousand minimum. Most of them are yet to be gathered, further south."

“Who designed the apparatus to change the captives?"

"A team of his engineers. As I told you, I don't know how the process works—"

"But it does work?"

Jina's dark eyes turned somber. "Yes. I have seen demonstrations. After a person is—processed, he moves only in response to the command of the mind of an adept. But he is unstoppable until slain. It's a sickening business. Outright death would be far kinder."

"That begins to make a little sense," Black said. "I couldn't figure the high kings having the least interest in conquering Four outright."

'They wish the pens full of dead flesh that walks, that is all," Doggo said, heavily.

"How can you sweep the whole continent, Jina? You haven't that many men."

"There are more garrisoned in the forest, waiting. Even at that, we're far outnumbered. But we have the wheeled guns. They give us a great advantage. The guns will be used to breach the walls of Shaz."

"And what might Shaz be?" Black wanted to know.

"The largest and most populous city of the Sud. The capital. It lies south of the forest, and west of the Sud deserts. Our spies say Shaz is ripe for attack. It's in political chaos."

She then went on to explain that, traditionally, the Sud was ruled by an hereditary ruler who occupied the throne at Shaz. This ruler's title was Raj. But apparently there were factions within Shaz that wanted the power for themselves. The Raj who should have been ruling now had mysteriously vanished in the eastern deserts when he was still an infant; and perhaps these opportunistic factions were the ones responsible for arranging this disappearance.

"Then who's ruling in place of this Raj?" Black asked.

"Until about a year ago, a kind of governing council headed by a greedy old rascal named Holofernos. He and his associates bled Shaz and the Sud for almost thirty years—ever since the infant Raj vanished. The situation changed a year ago, when the witch rose."

A prickling on Black's backbone. "Witch?"

Doggo said, "That is how she is called by the folk of the Sud, who are a superstitious lot, and believe in peculiar gods."

"As far as we can learn," Jina said, "she's more on the order of a priestess—a female oracle. Always veiled. She appeared one day out of the tropical rainforest south of Shaz. She brought the traditional signs of power. No one knew how she got them."

Black said, "What were they?"

"A great snake wrapped around her shoulders. A murderous creature they call a kill-adder. She'd obviously tamed it. And behind her plodded some kind of gray giant. A demon, a genetic freak, who knows? It's called Gol. Supposedly it lives in a pool hidden in that south forest, guarded by the kill-adders. Power over the creature and the snakes is meant to be a sign of divine authority. The witch was enthroned in Shaz. Bear in mind, we have all this only from fragmentary reports— but they add up to the situation in the capital being close to turmoil right now. Holofernos hasn't left the city. In fact, he and his friends are actively trying to discredit and overthrow this priestess, this—witch. But she has a strong hold, even though she sent Gol back to its home long ago. Apparently she's provided a certain moral leadership that's made the people even this far north resist us more vigorously than they might have otherwise. Now, though, I understand that the panic has set it. Word's traveled south about our successes. Shaz knows that Blind Eljer means to destroy this witch. When he does, all the Sud will fall."

"And most of your captives will be rounded up there?"

"Yes."

"Put through this—process? Then turned loose on Earth?"

"That is Eljer's plan. His claim to the throne depends

in large part on his success in this first phase. The kings of Three are impatient. They no longer intend to wait for Earth to destroy itself. They're going to make it happen."

Black rubbed his metal leg. Doggo chewed at a knuckle and watched Black closely. Jina walked to the pavilion's main entrance, lifted the hanging, then let it drop.

"We've spent too much time talking. It isn't long till sunrise. I have a notion about how you can get out of here."

"With Bronwyn. Where is he?"

"Just across the way, under guard. You do insist on traveling with him?"

"Bronwyn's convinced his daughter's alive in the south. I agreed to—"

"All right, all right! But between this place and wherever she is, there's the forest to pass through. And more of our troops camped within it. Then there's Shaz itself. A logical place to focus the search, perhaps. But a dangerous place for you—because we'll be marching there soon to place it under attack. Really, you'd be better off to abandon Bron—"

"No," he broke in. "I can't."

Jina sighed. "She told me you were a headstrong man. I believe her. In a way, I admire what drives you. But I also know that, generally, the driven are fools."

Black rose, stretched. The wounds inflicted in the pens had almost stopped hurting. "Can we get Bronwyn in here?"

"Black, don't trust that man—1"

His look silenced her. She gave him another, almost despairing stare. Then she said to Doggo: "Have him fetched. Then we'll begin."

xv

While Jina spoke, the sounds of the camp dwindled even more. Bronwyn watched the black girl, his eyes full of mistrust. Jina concluded:

"There's always the risk that Eljer will choose to hunt

76

you. Try to strike you down with his mind, instead of sending soldiers—"

Black nodded. "Do you think that's likely?"

"I'd say the chances are about even. I don't know how much you remember about the adept ability, Black. But employing the mind power isn't completely effortless. Sometimes the physical strain is very great. Eljer might prefer to leave the hunting and killing to his men. And if that's what he decides, you'll have a better chance. Especially once you're into the forest."

Bronwyn showed his first sign of reaction, nodding: "I do forget that the adepts of Earth Three are somewhat less proficient than those of us from Prime."

The old man turned toward Black. "As she explains it, the plan sounds very neat and simple. But it could be another of the tyrant's ploys—"

Doggo scowled. "Blek and I are brothers in the blood. There are no lies between us."

Jina shrugged. "If you prefer not to try it, I'll have you marched back to the prisoner pen—"

"I was as suspicious as you are," Black told the old man. "But now I'm satisfied she can be trusted." To Jina: "How do we leave?"

She pointed. "Out the back. I don't know if you noticed when they brought you in, but this is the one pavilion erected right on the edge of camp. You'll find only a couple of guards between you and open country. Just strike due south—"

"Won't Eljer look in your mind? Won't he try to learn whether your account of the escape is truthful?"

"Probably," she returned, sounding somber. "I'll show him false images and hope that he doesn't probe too deeply. I'm not sure how long I can hold an untruthful picture in my head—"

"Even if Eljer probes only a short time, it'll still cost you—"

"Yes, that's right. There will be struggle. Even some pain. But I think I can block him."

Doggo stepped forward, hairy fingers closing over the handle of a dagger thrust into the belt of his kilt. He pulled the blade free, slapped it handle first into Black's palm.

"For whatever help it may be," he said. "And when you are done with it, why, you can hide it away in that wondrous leg of doors."

Black grinned, taking comfort from the hard feel of the iron against his palm. Jina moved toward the hangings at the rear of the pavilion, saying, "One last caution. If you do reach the south, make your search there swift. You won't have more than a week or two before Eljer marches on Shaz."

"Right," Black nodded, beginning to feel a little more alive now, almost confident. Difficult odds faced them. But movement—effort—was better than the futility of the pen.

But Bronwyn continued to look sour and skeptical. Black made up his mind to ignore it. Despite Bronwyn's show, Black knew the old man would never miss a chance to save his own hide.

Jina said to Black, "When you strike me, strike hard. I need at least one solid mark of an attack. And I don't want to be able to raise an alarm too soon."

"All right. Jina, I—I owe you more than I can ever—"

'There's no time for such talk. Just hope this is our last meeting. If we see each other again, we'll be on different sides—and I will do what I must as a commander of the host. Doggo? When he strikes, upset the lamp."

With a last affectionate look at Black, the little man nodded. Black wished he could speak all that was in his mind. But she was right. There was no more time.

He drew in a long breath, and hit her.

xvi

Jina dropped to her knees. Doggo tipped the lamp. The wick drowned in oil, bringing darkness. By then Black was moving, Bronwyn just behind.

He checked at the pavilion's rear entrance. Outside, he heard a man's voice, thick and sleepy. How many were on guard there? More than one, Jina had indicated. He tightened his grip on Doggo's dagger and shouldered through the rear hanging, fast.

A burly, helmeted figure bulked against the light already breaking in the east. The soldier swore, fumbled to bring his spear up. Another soldier on Black's right was reacting with equal slowness.

Black hacked a long gash in the first soldier's forearm. The spear dropped. Black slammed his fisted knife-hand against the soldier's head, staggering him.

"Behind you!" Bronwyn exclaimed. Black whirled, just as the second soldier drove his spear at Black's middle.

Black arched backward, like a bullfighter dodging horns. The glittering head skated through the air a hand's width from his belly. He smacked the back of the spear-wielder's neck. By now the first soldier was up, opening his mouth to yell.

Black shot out his right hand. The blade of the dagger buried in the first soldier's stomach, just under the lower edge of his breastplate. Black wrenched the knife free as the man fell, still trying to scream. But only choking sounds came out of his mouth.

Conscious of the coolness of the air, Black turned toward the dim light in the east. It illuminated the savannahs, the distant forest, and closer to hand, the second soldier making another abortive lunge with his spear.

Black dropped the dagger, seized the spear above the head. Using both hands, he ripped it from the soldier's grip-

Wielded hard, the spear-butt stunned the man, spilled him on the ground. Black stood over him, and delivered one hard chop to the man's temple. That knocked him out.

He flung the spear away, just as Bronwyn glided forward, picked up the dagger and cut the unconscious soldier's throat.

Disgust and rage filled Black then. As far as their safety was concerned, what Bronwyn had done was probably right. Yet Black couldn't stomach it.

Bronwyn wiped the bloody knife on the grass, handed it back handle first. Black opened the slot in the outside of his metal leg, stored the knife away. As he stood up, his eyes met the old man's. He saw no emotion. None.

Black checked their surroundings.

As Jina had said, they were standing at the southern perimeter of the encampment, nothing between them and the forest save the slowly lightening savannah. The long grass blew in the cool dawn wind.

Black glanced back at the pavilion. Silence in there; and darkness behind the walls of cloth. He dipped his head toward the south to signal Bronwyn, and began to run.

He ran at half speed. That was the fastest the old man could manage. They bent low as they moved, plunging through the waving grass.

The savannah was still a place of half-light and shadow. But it wouldn't remain so for long. And any moment, Black expected to hear a halloo behind them.

Black increased the speed. Bronwyn breathed noisily. But he kept up. Finally, they reached a point where gentle hilts began again. As they ran over the crest of the first one Black felt a little better. They'd been gone from the campsite about fifteen or twenty minutes. To anyone watching back there, they should be no more than blurs on the horizon by now.

From the summit of the next hill, Black looked ahead. The dark detail of the forest stood out clearly in the growing light. With luck, they might reach the trees in an hour. He started forward at an even faster pace.

But Bronwyn protested. They paused for a minute's rest.

Sprawled on the grass, Bronwyn suddenly raised his head. His opaque eyes caught the glint of the sun breaking from the horizon.

"Blind Eljer's awake," he said. "Our escape's been discovered."

xvii

Without a word, Black jumped to his feet and headed to the top of the next hill. He worried about Jina now.

Would she have the strength of mind to hide her role in the escape?

On the other side of the hill, they began to run again. But their flight had already worn the old man down. He couldn't hold the pace. Much as he hated to do it, Black was forced to slow down.

Southward, the immense trunks of the forest loomed, a deep shadow between. Black thought of Jina's warning that more of Eljer's host was bivouacked in there, awaiting the arrival of their leader. With caution and luck, he supposed he and Bronwyn could avoid them.

"Can you pick up anything from the camp?" Black asked as they ran, his hard breathing punctuating the words.

"The impressions are confused—" "Are they sending searchers?"

"They haven't done so yet. When they do, I should be able to separate those emanations, because they'll be closer to us—"

Black let it go at that. His mood of optimism was fading.

The sun had lifted above the treetops. Its corona shaded off from yellow into orange-red, and back again. Bronwyn was faltering badly now. He could do little more than hobble.

But they kept going.

They had nearly reached the first of the towering trees when Bronwyn said, "Ah, damn, damn. No soldiers are coming."

Black turned cold. "Eljer is sending his mind out—P" Bronwyn gave a despairing nod.

xviii

Overhead, the great ear-shaped leaves stirred in the wind. The air in the forest smelled of loam and decay.

Black watched Bronwyn's face. The old man was turned toward the north, the direction from which they'd come. His thin shoulders were tensed, his eyes focused on nothing.

A flapping disturbed the branches above them. Black glanced up, saw half a dozen huge kite-winged birds sail toward the sky through a gap in the treetops. Bronwyn's sharp intake of breath made him look down again.

"He's coming very rapidly, Black. Sweeping in huge arcs. The emanations are powerful. He's one of the strongest Three adepts I've ever encountered—"

"Don't let him find us. You can raise a shield, can't you?"

"I can—with effort."

"Well," Black said sourly, "I've gotten us this far. Now it's your turn."

Bronwyn licked his thin old lips, squinting out of the shadows toward the empty, sunlit savannahs. Then he gave a little bob of his head. Agreement, Black guessed; reluctant, but agreement.

The old man sank to the ground. He crossed his legs, placed his palms on his bony knees. Black squatted beside him, watching the grasslands, still unnerved by the realization that an unseen force of mind was moving toward them across that open country.

Obviously frightened, Bronwyn settled his spine against the huge tree trunk. He closed his eyes.

Black heard one of the kite-winged birds cry in the hollowness far back in the forest. Suddenly, the sun seemed to dim . . .

Black blinked. No matter how he strained, he couldn't see more than dim outlines of the distant hilltops. The savannahs drained of color, becoming a featureless gray-As though borne on a great wind, he heard Bronwyn's voice:

"He's almost here—"

Black saw nothing but depthless gray. His body began to break out in chilly sweat. Distantly, Bronwyn moaned. All at once the grayness inside his mind began to curl and ripple.

A pinpoint of brilliant white light appeared in the gray, growing steadily in size and intensity.

Bronwyn's moans sounded almost like thunder now, each one setting up long reverberations . . .

Blinding, the light grew. Black's head snapped back. Pain wracked him. Then suddenly, the gray closed over the light again, hiding it.

Dimly, Black perceived grassy hills superimposed on the gray field.

"Very close," he heard Bronwyn gasp. "He almost penetrated that time—" "Did he actually find us?"

"No, no, I don't think—ahh!" Bronwyn's words slid up the scale into a scream.

Black saw the gray again. This time, the light breaking through was blue-white, even brighter than before.

His arms and legs began to shake. Pain came, agonizing .. .

The blue-white core of light pulsed and dimmed, pulsed and dimmed—and Black knew somehow that the gray was the barrier of Bronwyn's mind, erected to keep out that blinding, probing brilliance.

The light shone more and more intensely. It pierced the gray in three places, then three more. A wild keening began in Black's head. The very bone of his skull was aching . . .

The blue-tinged light burned brighter. Black began to thrash from side to side. He was distantly aware of his body. Yet he could see nothing except that wall of gray bubbling apart as the light poured through.

"Strong—" Bronwyn said from far away. "Can't—hold —hold him back—from both—"

Suddenly Black realized what the o]d man meant. Fear gave him the strength to move his right hand downward. By feel alone. To the metal leg.

A touch—the compartment opened.

The blue-white light pulsed, ripping the gray to tatters. Black's head was filled with the light. The pain was nearly beyond enduring.

But wrath was in him too. Driving his unseen hand to grasp the dagger hilt, while his other hand groped for Bronwyn's face.

His fingers touched foam-slimed lips, then Bronwyn's scrawny neck. He raised the dagger—it seemed to weigh heavy as the earth—until he knew the tip of it was at the old man's throat.

"Both of us," Black gasped. "Not just one—"

The gray seemed to hold steady then, the blue-white radiance pulsing more slowly. One of the holes in the gray pulled together, sealed over.

Bronwyn was moaning again. Black still couldn't see his own hands. But he knew he had to hold on, or he'd die a victim of the old man's treachery.

Left hand tight on wattled skin . . .

Right hand tight on dagger handle pressed into Bronwyn s throat ...

The blue-white light surged, bubbling, the gray blistering it . . .

"Shield both of us," Black said.

"I can't—he's too strong—"

"Both. Both. If you want to live—"

Brighter blazed the blue-whiteness—and brighter— puncturing the gray in a dozen places—a hundred— while Bronwyn's moans turned to outright screams.

But Black held on.

Brighter—

Hand on throat. Hand on dagger—

Brighter—

BRIGHTER—

The blue-whiteness vanished.

The gray melted together.

Black saw another image lapped over the gray: Bronwyn's head.

A thin line of blood trickled from the old man s left ear. The gray was becoming smooth and seamless, and slowly fading before the sharpening reality of Bronwyn and the background of the forest. A moment more . . .

The gray was gone.

Black let go of Bronwyn's throat. He pulled the dagger back. The old man fell on his side, gasping for air.

The dagger tumbled out of Black's limp fingers. He leaned against the trunk of the tree, too weak to care that the battle was momentarily over.

Closing his eyes, he let the darkness come down.

xix

"That nearly cost my life," Bronwyn complained, his voice almost feminine in its pettishness. Lifting one soiled end of his linen waist-garment, he dabbed at the blood on his left ear.

Black sat against the tree, tracing interlinked circles in the dirt with the dagger.

"But the adepts of Three aren't supposed to be any match for the superior minds of Earth Prime. How many times have you told me so?"

Bronwyn ignored him, continued dabbing his ear until Black added:

"Did he find us?"

"I can't be positive. But I don't believe so. I managed to keep the barrier up."

Black hefted the knife. "But if I hadn't put this to your neck, you'd have shielded just yourself. And let me die."

The old man spat, "I'm sick of your quarrelsome, ridiculous—"

Black's hand shot out, clamping Bronwyn's neck.

"Listen, old man. Don't pretend."

"Let go, let go! We struck a bargain! I need you—"

"But when Eljer was trying to get through to us, you decided maybe I was expendable. You were willing to take your chances without me from here on. You meant to let Eljer find me. Just me." He shook the old man, hard. "Isn't that true?"

"You seem very certain," Bronwyn sneered. "You're an expert on the mind-power, are you?"

"I've been under attack by it before. From Tarn, on Three. I felt you start to withdraw the shield from me, probably hoping you could conserve energy. Well, that's the last time you'll try to dump me when you think it's convenient. The next time, I will kill you for sure."

Bronwyn glanced away. Black released the old man and stood up. He needed no spoken confession.

Bronwyn massaged his throat. "What lies ahead of us is difficult. You're making it doubly diffi—"

"Shut up. Let's move out."

For a long moment, Bronwyn's glance locked with him. This time the old man didn't turn aside. Black saw loathing in the old eyes. And contempt. And a willingness to use Black, or abandon him, as circumstances dictated.

Slowly, Bronwyn hid those emotions. He said in a mild voice: "All right. We understand each other."

Turning, Black strode toward the dark heart of the forest.

xx

Traveling became more difficult. Perhaps it was the thick undergrowth, requiring frequent use of hands and knife to open a path. Perhaps it was the strain of remaining alert for signs of Eljer's encamped host. But Black knew it was really more than that. It was the sense of having made a dreadful but inevitable mistake.

If the forest through which they struggled was treacherous, Bronwyn was doubly so. And while Black had known that from the beginning, now it was completely in the open.

Chained to one another by mutual need, the two men labored ahead. They spoke only when it was absolutely necessary.

During two days in the forest, they sighted Eljer's men just once. And that was from a safe distance. On the third day, they emerged into arid foothills and blazing heat.

When will he try to kill me next? Black wondered. When will he decide he doesn't need me any longer? There was no answer, of course. The two men toiled on southward across the Sud.

The Raj

In the shadows of the early evening, Black and Bronwyn rested by a public wall in Shaz.

They had entered the city through its northern gate. Shaz rose impressively on the south bank of a meandering yellow-brown river. Its tall onion-dome buildings shimmered in the hot savannah morning.

The two had reached the city by following a rutted north-south road they had picked up a day before. They had seen next to no one on the road—and by the time they had walked the narrow, odorous streets of Shaz for an hour, Black thought he understood why.

Black guessed that the Sud's capital city held somewhere between fifty and a hundred thousand people. Poor clay-walled apartments were jammed alongside stately residences. Because of their narrowness, the streets gave the impression of always being crowded. And most were in shadow even at midday.

The people looked to be a sturdy lot. But now they moved with hurried step and nervous eye. Afraid.

Considering that he and Bronwyn had tramped for almost eight days, Black didn't feel half bad. They'd foraged off the land; there was animal life after all, if a

man was willing to lie in wait for three or four hours. Small hare-like animals proved fairly tasty, even burned black by a cook-fire. An occasional creek saw to their drinking needs, and kept them relatively clean.

At the city gate, armed men had inquired anxiously about where they'd come from. Bronwyn had mimed speechlessness, pointing at the north horizon. The soldiers wanted to know whether the two had spotted any sign of a hostile army supposedly roaming in the north. Bronwyn shook his head. The two passed on into the blue shadows of the streets.

The men and women of Shaz were obviously demoralized. They knew they faced the threat of Blind Eljer. Black saw that knowledge in almost every passing face.

The public wall against which they now sat was perhaps three stories high. It surrounded some kind of park. The wall faced the largest plaza they'd encountered in the capital, a paved open area of fountains and benches and decorative pylons carved from a red-veined pink stone resembling marble. To their right and left, walls at the edge of the square hid private residences.

Directly opposite them was a two-story wall with soldiers along its parapet. The wall, painted with stylized pastel pictures of city life, concealed the lower portions of a vast jumble of onion-domed structures, from whose slot windows lamplight was gleaming.

That was the palace of the hereditary Raj, Bronwyn had informed Black when he returned from a begging trip a short time earlier. Now the palace housed the witch-priestess whom the citizens called the Veiled Lady.

"She hasn't any name?" Black asked.

Bronwyn hunkered down beside him, answering, "Not that I was able to learn. She's highly thought of, though. But one thing is plain—you pointed it out. These people are terrified."

"And I'm hungry. Did you get any money?"

"Some." Bronwyn opened his hand to show peculiar triangular-shaped coins. "Age has its advantages. People seem to take pity on an old beggar. Well—shall we spend this?"

Black nodded. They walked to a side street, found an open-front shop where they sat on the ground beneath a striped awning. The shop served a sort of folded-over pancake full of spicy stew. Bronwyn's coins bought four of those—two apiece—and two cups of wine.

After the meal, they returned to the public wall, which seemed to be a lounging-place for mendicants. Bronwyn and Black sat among more than a dozen men sprawled out along its length, and regarded the passing crowds.

Boots slammed on the far side of the plaza. Two companies of soldiers appeared. They seemed incapable of keeping time with the march leader's cadence count. Some of them were nearly as old as Bronwyn. Others were striplings.

Comparing the toughness of Blind Eljer's relatively few soldiers with these frightened incompetents, Black had little doubt about the outcome of an eventual conflict.

But why wasn't Shaz better defended? Perhaps there'd never been a need for defenses before. Now, hasty preparations would probably prove all but worthless.

At length Black asked, "Have you searched for her?"

"No. I intend to do so now. Put your head back so it looks like we're both sleeping—"

And he reclined his own head against the wall and shut his eyes.

Black followed suit. From under slitted eyelids, he detected the faint shudder H:hat indicated the old man was dropping into a state of trance. Bronwyn's lips peeled back from his teeth. His breathing grew strident. A fleck of foam appeared on his lips.

All at once he sat up straight. His eyes flew open. He looked at Black in a peculiar, puzzled way.

"I think she's here. That is—"

"What's wrong? Either you're sure or you're not."

The old man lifted one veined hand to point. "The emanations are strong and consistent. From there."

Black scowled. "I guess you must have made a mistake."

"Black, she's there! I feel her—alive—"

"Well, you certainly couldn't have chosen a harder place to get into," he said, staring at the mural decorated wall surrounding the palace. All at once, a suspicion—a hope—flickered in his mind. He almost mentioned it to Bronwyn, but decided against it.

Was Helanne inside the palace? If so, how would they pass the guards and manage to find her?

It was the old man who came up with the risky solution.

ii

Somewhere a reed pipe skirled a minor tune. The stars over the deserted street were sharp and brilliant. The shop across the way was ready to close.

Black huddled back in the gloom on the opposite side of the street. The object of his attention was little more than an alcove in the front wall of a larger building. There was a trestle across the rear of the alcove. On it stood jars of wine and an assortment of cups and mugs.

A footfall, to the right. Black turned. Bronwyn came gliding up. He was smiling.

"There is a magistrate who holds court once each morning. He disposes of criminal cases from the night before. The people I spoke with said the magistrate is the man that black girl mentioned. The man named Holofernos. At any rate, his audience room is inside the palace. And so are the jails."

His eyes picked up lamp-gleams from the shop. His smile widened. "Shall we arrange to bring ourselves to the magistrate's attention?"

Black nodded, hitched up the linen around his middle, started across the street. The shopkeeper, a man with a big stomach and oily cheeks, was wiping the trestle with a sponge. He looked up as Black entered.

The shopkeeper waved. "Closing, can t you see?"

"One drink, that's all we want," Bronwyn said.

The shopkeeper eyed the two suspiciously. His gaze rested especially long on Black, whose arms and shoulders bore the marks of healed wounds. Finally, he shrugged.

He picked up a jar and two cups, pushed them across the trestle.

Black poured a cup for himself, one for Bronwyn. He didn't like the smell of the wine. But Bronwyn drank his almost at once.

The shopkeeper reached across the trestle to take Bronwyn's arm. "Here, pay before you drink—!"

Smiling, Bronwyn returned, "Why, I'm afraid we can't."

The shopkeepers brows pulled together. "What's that?"

"We thank you for your generosity. We have no money."

All at once the sweaty face turned ugly. A hand under the trestle came up with a short club of gnarly wood.

"Beggars, are you? Thieves, more like! Two kawri apiece for the wine!"

"We regret we can't accommodate you," Bronwyn said, starting to move away. That brought the shopkeeper from behind the trestle as Bronwyn added, "We've only lately come off the road from the north—"

"I don't care if you came swimming up from the bottom of Gol's pool, you wheedling swine." The shopkeeper gave Black a wary look and stalked into the street. "Watchman! The place of Luco. And quickly!"

Bronwyn glanced at Black, who took the cue and turned to the trestle. He blew out the lamp while Luco continued to bawl for the watch.

Bronwyn approached the shopkeeper, grasping his shoulder. "See here, I'm sure we can work this out agreeably—"

Luco whacked Bronwyn's hand to make him let go.

Bronwyn let out a yell louder than the blow warranted. It was effective enough to bring someone to a nearby window, crashing open the shutters.

A blowsy woman leaned out of a second floor window and demanded that the quarrelers be quiet. Up the street to the right, Black spied a bobbing lantern. The watch?

He seized the shopkeeper, hauled him around. "You've no right to hit my friend. He offered to make an arrangement—"

"Take your hands off me!" Luco cried, hitting at Black's knuckles with the club. Black feigned rage, reaching for the shopkeeper's neck with both hands.

He throttled just hard enough to make the man squeal and kick fearfully. By that time, there were shouts from the four watchmen hurrying toward the altercation.

The flat of a sword whacked Black across the temple. He reeled away, pretending to be badly stunned. Luco rushed to the watchman with the lantern.

"Thieving travelers! Drank my wine and assaulted me after refusing to pay!"

Bronwyn feinted, as if to run. A watchman pointed a sword at him: "Stand still, if you want to get off with a fine instead of a chopped-off hand!"

Bronwyn stopped. The leader of the watchmen said, "All right, Luco. Save the details for the morning. We'll lock them up and have them present in the magistrate's hall. Be sure you're there to prefer charges."

The shopkeeper vowed he would be. Black and Bronwyn let themselves be prodded back toward the plaza and the palace.

iii

Ten minutes in the hall of the magistrate convinced Black that he didn't like the justice of Shaz. Or the man who administered it.

The hall itself was located on the second or third floor of one of the larger buildings in the palace compound.

Black couldn't be entirely sure of the level because the sour, noisome cell block in which they'd been confined all night was located several levels below the ground. Guards had led them up seemingly ^terminable flights of airless stairs to the spacious, high-ceilinged chamber. There, a scruffy lot of prisoners—three women, nine men —were herded into a large dock at one side of the room.

Along the other side was an assortment of citizens whom Black presumed to be witnesses. Seated on one of the benches was oily-faced Luco.

Pipes and drums announced the arrival of the magistrate and a crowd of clerks and cronies. Soldiers prodded the prisoners with spears, insisting that they rise and bow their heads.

The magistrate, Holofernos, looked even older than Bronwyn. And he was even more slightly built. His long white hair, gathered in a tail behind his head, was held in place by a ring of yellow metal. He carried a thick book in one hand, a jeweled wand in the other. Signs of his office, presumably.

Holofernos took his place on a small dais, seating himself ostentatiously in a cross-legged chair. His little sparrow eyes darted from prisoner to prisoner. They lingered a moment on Bronwyn, and twice as long on Black's craggy face. Black stared back until Holofernos looked away.

The magistrate's face was a deep red color, a sharp contrast to his white hair. Webs of purple-black veins marked his cheeks. He had an obvious air of self-importance. And Black noticed that the various cronies and clerks who had entered with him all pulled up chairs slightly behind the dais, as if to be seated in front of it was not allowed.

The men who accompanied Holofernos looked well groomed and prosperous. They whispered and joked with each other as the clerks settled down on stools and prepared ink brushes and scrolls to record the morning's business.

Holofernos called for the first case. His voice was high and thin. The cronies immediately stopped talking. No doubt about who had the authority here.

First to be summoned before the dais was a sallow, big-breasted girl in ragged clothing. The charge was public solicitation.

A stout gentleman from one of the witness benches came forward. He recounted how the young woman had accosted him the previous evening. Holofernos listened to the story, then nodded.

"Child," he said to the girl, "you would not find yourself in these straits had you paid the licensing tenth to the court collector." He indicated a sleek, sleepy man seated behind him on his right. "However, you apparently saw fit to ignore the law."

The girl exclaimed, "Is there anything you and your crowd don't tax, from eating to pissing? I wouldn't—"

"Be quiet!" Holofernos' voice was mild. But his eyes were cruel.

"I wouldn't put a single coin in your pocket!" the flushed girl went on. "It was a shining day for Shaz when the Veiled Lady turned you out of the highest office. She should have thrown you out of the city altogether, instead of putting you where you could steal from every—"

Suddenly she faltered, unnerved by the old man's stare. Taking his cue, Holofernos' cohorts treated the girl to equally ugly looks.

"If you are quite through," Holofernos said, "then hear the court's sentence. The penalty for unlicensed solicitation is the loss of one foot. For the assaults of your viperish tongue, that penalty is doubled."

He waved. Soldiers surged forward. Screaming and weeping, the girl was hauled out. Her cries seemed to ring and echo for a long time.

As the next case was summoned, Black leaned to Bronwyn and whispered, "Have you found her?"

Bronwyn's eyes were closed. Black barely heard him say, "She's quite close—"

And once again, that wild—or maybe not-so-wild— suspicion darted through Black's mind. The more he thought about it, the more probable it seemed that the suspicion could be right. He said to Bronwyn, "But have you made contact?"

Bronwyn's cheeks were pale. His hands were locked in his lap. "I've called her mind. I'm not certain she's heard. The impressions—"

"Even if you reach her, she may not be able to help us unless she gets here soon." Bronwyn seemed to miss the implication of those last few words. Black added, "That old man has pretty tight control—"

From behind the prisoner-box, a soldier growled, "Close your mouth unless you want to be dragged out and executed without trial." He whacked the back of Black's head with the butt of his spear.

Black stiffened, fighting to control his anger. Bronwyn seemed to drift deeper into his trance.

Holofernos was disposing of the current case. He ordered beheading for a pair of grubby-looking pickpockets who had apparently appeared before him several times already.

The clerk read from his scroll. Black thought he heard the name Luco. He was gigged with a spear. He stood up.

iv

Black and Bronwyn left the dock, crossed the shining floor to stand in front of Holofernos. Black tried to read Bronwyn's face; tried to discover whether his seeking mind had yet made contact with Helanne. The old man's face was expressionless.

"Two travelers," droned the clerk, "unidentified. Lately come out of the north. Charged with defrauding a merchant. Where's the witness, the wine-server Luco—?"

The fat fellow puffed forward, his expression obsequious. Holofernos paid no attention. He was busy scrutinizing Black, then Bronwyn.

"Travelers?" he repeated. "From how far north? Above the Forest of Ya?"

Black knew only a few place-names. That wasn't one of them. He glanced at; Bronwyn for help.

"No, not that far," Bronwyn replied. "We hail from a village a long way eastward. We're seeking one of my grandchildren who has run away—"

It sounded so glib, Black could only assume that Bronwyn had made a lightning stab into the mind of some citizen of Shaz, perhaps as long ago as last night, to find a usable detail or two.

Holofernos, however, looked skeptical. Before he could speak, Luco exclaimed: "They drank my wine, magistrate! Then they refused to pay. They admitted they intented to cheat me from the start!"

"We've traveled far," Bronwyn said. "We were weary and thirsty."

"Still," Holofernos countered, "you committed a criminal act. The punishment is loss of the left hand."

Black's belly tightened. Holofernos went on:

"However, we are prepared to lighten the sentence if you are able to supply us with useful information."

"Of what sort?" Bronwyn asked.

"In the north, there are invaders. A host led by a blind man. We know not where they come from, for their ways are not those of the people of the Sud. Did you see them in your passage? And if so, how many?"

Bronwyn's wild white hair bobbed. "We saw them, indeed we did. Not a great number, either. But dangerous to you because they bring powerful weapons on wheels. The weapons shoot fire and smoke. They kill many men in a single explosion—"

An uncontrollable ripple of alarm passed through the crowd. It was abruptly cut off when the old magistrate raised one hand and leaned forward.

"Tell us of the fire-weapons," he ordered.

Bronwyn did, describing Eljer's wheeled guns in elaborate detail. He spun out the description longer than necessary. Black knew he was trying to buy time. He had a feeling the effort was futile. Bronwyn had evidently failed to make contact with Helanne. They'd been in the magistrate's hall about half an hour. And there was still no sign of her. Perhaps, Black thought, his suspicion was crazy and unfounded after all.

At the conclusion of Bronwyn's explanation, Holofernos again asked about the numbers of Eljer's forces. Bronwyn started a long, rambling answer, describing how he and Black had glimpsed the troops of the invaders from a distance, then approached furtively for a closer look. But he could not say whether the men they had seen represented all or only part of Eljer's host . . .

"Can you or can you not give us a head-tally?" Holofernos snapped.

"That we cannot, magistrate—beyond saying as we already have that the invaders are few in comparison to the population of this great city. But their armament more than makes up for it."

"Very well," Holofernos waved. "The shop owner Luco is well known to us. He is a citizen in good standing. Therefore, his charges are accepted as fact. Punishment will be carried out accordingly."

To a stunned Bronwyn he added, "The loss of your left hand should not impede your search for this missing grandchild. If indeed that's a true story, and not some flimsy cover for criminal intentions. Next case."

Black stepped forward. "Wait. I thought you said the sentence would be lightened—"

"We stressed useful information about the threat facing Shaz. The old man offered little of value."

"But you gave your pledge—!"

"Take that one away and deprive him of his tongue as well as his hand!" Holofernos smiled at Black. "Will that teach you to be respectful of authority?" Black shouted, "So you never had any intention of—" "Captain, get this arrogant brute out of here"

Black heard boots behind him, coming fast. A soldier seized him and he let his rage break free. Bronwyn saw, cried a warning. Too late.

Black hit hard, squashing the nearest soldier's nose and breaking it, making blood run . . .

v

It was a futile exercise, and Black knew it. They completely outnumbered him. They used their spears and short swords expertly.

He was driven to his knees. A soldier aimed the butt of a spear at his midsection, missed, struck his right leg. In the confusion, nearly everyone missed the metallic clang of that contact. But Black had a quick impression of Holofernos catching it. The old magistrate's eyes narrowed at the sound.

On his knees, ringed by soldiers, Black was like a trapped animal. He grabbed for his tormentors, missed, grabbed again—while men kicked the small "of his back, and a whip lashed one side of his face.

All at once, the shouting died away.

Panting, Black turned to follow the other staring eyes.

High up on a narrow gallery, he saw a tall, slim figure in pastel veils.

In the unnatural quiet, he heard a voice he thought he knew: "Bring them to me. They are mine."

"But lady, they're ruffians!" Holofernos exclaimed. "Criminals! They started to attack our person—"

"Bring them," repeated the veiled woman. Then she turned and vanished through a dim doorway.

Holofernos stared at Black and Bronwyn with ill-concealed fury. He sat down, made an angry gesture of dismissal.

Black lumbered to his feet, bleeding from the whip-marks. He hardly dared hope that what he'd suspected was true . . .

Then he saw Bronwyn's small smile and knew it was. Helanne had answered.

But there was only one person in Shaz whose authority could reprieve them from the magistrate. She, too had answered the summons.

Helanne and the Veiled Lady were one and the same.

vi

The reunion of father and daughter proved to be far different than Black had expected.

He and Bronwyn were led to vast, colorfully decorated rooms on a high floor of an adjoining building. As they climbed to the rooms, stair windows gave Black a dizzying view of the palace complex, the city, the wall, and the grassy plain stretching into the distance.

Then he and Bronwyn were in a cool, dim chamber with an open gallery on one side, and a canopied terrace beyond. The woman hidden by pastel veils waited in the center of a mirror-like floor.

A gesture, and the servants clustering in the room's corners slipped away. So did the soldiers. A distant door closed, then another.

Slowly, hands lifted the pastel veils. Black saw the woman he remembered.

Helanne was tall and lithe. Her veils nearly hid the fall of her fair hair. Her eyes were as he remembered, too. An unusual green that in certain lights looked olive.

She acknowledged Black briefly, then gazed at her father. Still dizzy from his struggle in the magistrate's hall, Black had to sit down. The floor seemed to be sliding from side to side. He stumbled to a pile of thick cushions and sprawled, breathing in big gulps of air.

Bronwyn stepped forward, both hands extended. Helanne likewise reached out. They clasped hands and stood staring into one another's eyes, faces absolutely blank of emotion. Black wondered what mental currents were flowing between them. Remembering. Explaining. Welcoming . . .

The dizziness grew worse. He put his face down against a pillow and gave himself up to the darkness.

vii

"I think you did yourself harm by taking us away from the magistrate," Bronwyn said.

Helanne shrugged. She reached for a small purplish fruit in a bowl beside her, replying, "Holofernos couldn't hate me more than he does already. I should have deposed him altogether. But he has a few highly influential friends. And you must remember—" there was a warmth in her eyes now, an enthusiasm Black had never seen before—"I am new to the responsibilities of statecraft. I don't govern perfectly. I make mistakes. Trying to work with Holofernos by putting him in a lesser post, one in which I believed I could watch and check him, was probably one of them. I know he'd have me assassinated if he could. I'm careful."

Darkness had come to Shaz. The stars shone above the terrace where the three of them sat together beneath the canopy, eating an evening meal. Black's wounds had been dressed. And several hours' sleep had restored his spirits a little. A voluminous mantle of wine-red cloth kept out the chilly evening breeze.

Helanne's servants had been sent inside, so that she and her father and Black could speak in private. The old man sipped wine from a jewel-studded cup, then said:

"You seem to be taking your new-found authority quite seriously, child."

Helanne's eyes reflected the gleam of a lamp on a low taboret. "The people of Shaz expect me to take it seriously. Because I brought Gol and the kill-adder with me when I first walked in the gates, they believe I have supernatural powers. They look to me to better their lot. In some ways, I've done that."

Bronwyn clucked his tongue. "Do you mean to say that you're genuinely concerned about the welfare of this shabby place?"

"Yes. I have responsibility. I have to care about what happens."

"Well," her father returned, "you won't have to concern yourself that way much longer. The tyrant's armies will soon march down and invest Shaz. Obviously you haven't weapons to withstand the attack."

Helanne frowned. "No. We have nothing to match their cannon. Worse than that, the people are next to demoralized. You noticed that, Black. I offer them encouragement. Prophecies of victory that I don't believe myself. It's not enough. They realize Shaz will probably fall. The only thing to prevent it is a miracle from me. I'm afraid I don't have one at hand."

Lost in shadow, Black sat watching her, marveling at the change in her attitude and personality.

When he'd known Helanne before, she had been completely involved in her father's scheme to prevent an invasion of Earth. Now, she seemed to have forgotten all about that. Bronwyn was obviously displeased.

"I have some catching up to do," Black said. "For instance—when did you first know we were here, Helanne?"

"Only this morning. A short time before I arrived in the magistrate's hall."

"Until then," Bronwyn told her, "I hadn't sent the call clearly."

Helanne smiled. "For a moment, I thought one of Holofernos friends had slipped in secretly and poisoned me. I thought I might be dying—and having hallucinations. When I realized I wasn't, I came directly to the hall. And none too soon! Long ago I gave up hope of ever seeing any of the other Klekton worlds again. Truthfully, I knew I could open a gate myself—but I never did it. Perhaps, deep down, I never wanted to. And once I got used to the idea of staying here, I didn't mind not going back. There's so much to be done for these people—"

Bronwyn picked up one of the purple fruits, frowning. Helanne looked at Black across the flame of the lamp.

"Father snared you in another of his clever little traps, did he?"

"I had reason to cooperate with him."

"Yes, he's told me. The sister of Tarn Redboots. Still on Earth Three—"

"Where Black and I shall go straightaway," Bronwyn broke in. "To fulfill my end of the bargain. Let Blind Eljer tear down the walls and recruit his mindless army. Long before that happens, we'll be safely back on Earth Prime, devising ways and means to make certain his host has no way of creating new gates to Earth—"

"You sound as if you take it for granted I'm coming with you," Helanne said.

"Of course! You can't want to stay here—!"

"This is neither the time nor place to discuss it," she answered. Bronwyn's scowl grew deeper than ever. Black was somehow amused and gratified.

Helanne went on, "Before I would abandon Shaz, I'd have to make certain the people had some chance of withstanding this blind man's attack. But that's between you and me, father. At a later time—"

A strained silence. Finally Black asked Helanne how she'd come by her authority. "I got some of the story from the black girl, Jina. She spoke about this Gol. And the kill-adder—"

Helanne's fair hair gleamed as she nodded. "I encountered them months after we saw each other last—"

"When those savages up on the northern continent put you into the volcano to appease their gods. Helanne, I saw you dropped into that fire—!"

"And that seemed the end of it," she agreed. "But evidently it wasn't meant to be. There was a ledge part way down. I struck it, and I crawled back against the volcano wall to keep from being burned to death. I could hear them stomping and beating their clubs on the ground up above. Finally, I knew I had to try to climb out, whether they were still there or not. They weren't. They'd gone back down the mountain. Once I made it to the top, I lost consciousness and lay for a day, perhaps more—"

Slowly, she untangled the rest of the story:

Burned and bruised, she had descended the mountain, to find that Black and the others had gone back through the gate to Earth Three. Helanne had thought of using her own mental abilities to open a new gate. But she was too exhausted and hurt to try just then. She wandered for days in the wilderness of glassy black rock, foraging roots and drinking stagnant pool-water to stay alive.

Then she reached an isthmus. It connected the northern continent with the Sud. Her strength was returning slowly, and it came back in full as she moved south into warmer weather.

"Most of the villages I passed through made me welcome. I pretended to be from the north, and evidently the villagers had never seen a woman from there. Or if they had, they were afraid of the northern people. For whatever reason, I wasn't harmed. I kept moving south. I planned to re-open a gate eventually. But there seemed to be no hurry. Somehow or other, I bypassed Shaz—I didn't know where I was going, really—and reached the southern rainforest. And Gol."

"What is he?" Black asked. "Or should I say it?"

"I don't really know. I found him in a pool in the center of the forest. Great huge snakes—the kill-adders— guard the pool's approaches. One of them attacked me. I used my mind to fend it off, then tame it. I went on to the pool where Gol was just waking—"

She paused, her olive eyes lost in the past. Her voice grew soft:

"I think the giant must be one of the last survivors of a race that may have inhabited this world at one time. I had impressions from his mind that he once knew others of his own kind. His intelligence is rudimentary, but he can understand a few words of speech. For all his fearsome looks—he's twice as tall as we are—his nature isn't particularly savage. He's rather like a great overgrown child. If he'd picked me up in his hands, he'd probably have killed me without meaning to. I managed to quiet him—"

"With your mind?" Black asked.

"Yes. Then, from his, I read that mastery over him, and over the kill-adders, was a sign of divine power in the Sud. He's not bright enough to know what to do about that, you see. So he remains in the pool, content. I ordered him to follow me to Shaz. He said he would, provided I'd let him return to the pool when I was done with him. I agreed. We took one of the kill-adders with us. Gol carried it around his neck like a necklace until we reached the city. Then I had to let it twine around my shoulders. Slimy thing! But I controlled it. By then I'd studied a great deal of what was in Gol's mind. I knew he was venerated in Shaz.

I think I also knew what sort of reaction I'd get from the people—"

Bronwyn snorted. "Superstitious worship from a mob of illiterates—"

"You're right. Realistically, that's all it is. The people hid from me when I first walked through those gates. They ran screaming—and hid. But within a couple of days, they weren't afraid any longer. They reacted to my coming—by deposing Holofernos and his governing council. I was offered the rule. I sent Gol back to the pool with the kill-adder—"

"Forgetting your responsibility to Earth Prime!" Bronwyn exclaimed.

"Not exactly, father. I accepted the wishes of the people partly because I wanted to, and partly because I thought Prime might have some use for control for a section of this analogue world. Black's Earth flanks Three on one side. This world flanks Three on the other. It seemed a sensible strategic move. As soon as I had control in Shaz, I intended to open a gate and find you again, to tell you I'd established a base of operations the high kings of Three might not be aware of."

"But you've been here almost two years!" Bronwyn objected. "Somewhere, you obviously lost sight of your original objective. An objective I approve of, by the way—"

She leaned forward, suddenly intense: "There was so much to be done! Holofernos and his crowd had bled this kingdom, ever since the last Raj disappeared in the desert as a child. I got involved in matters of government I'd never dreamed about or anticipated. And I had an equally demanding job on my hands just keeping Holofernos from turning the magistrate's chair into a new power base. The months went by—then all at once, spies from the north reported the blind man's army—"

Her voice trailed off.

Black asked, "Do you regret not going back to Prime immediately?"

"Haven't I answered that?" A thoughtful pause. "Truthfully—no. I'm not entirely unmindful of my responsibilities to Earth Prime. But there has been so much to do here—!" Another pause. "Let me try to explain it another way. At first, taking the veils, I enjoyed what I was doing almost the same way I'd enjoy a game. I had an objective that I thought might benefit Prime—the one I told you about. But there was also a certain pleasure in simply surviving by my wits. A game! But that has changed."

Black asked, "How?"

"I suppose the best way to put it is to say that ruling the people of Shaz has become an end, not a means. They need good leadership. They're not highly civilized, as you've already discovered. But they're decent and basically intelligent, for the most part. I've come to respect them. Love them, even—"

Bronwyn looked disgusted.

"This isn't the child of Prime I came to find," he said. "This is some ridiculous, sentimentalizing fool. It seems I've risked my life for nothing."

And he turned and walked off into the shadows of the gallery.

Black looked at Helanne. By turns her face showed sorrow and anger.

In the morning, Black decided, he'd speak to Bronwyn. Regardless of what happened between Helanne and her father, he was going to make sure that the jump to Three didn't abort.

viii

Early next day, Black found the old man taking the air on the terrace.

Overnight, the sky had filled with fast-sailing gray clouds. The morning was gloomy. So was Bronwyn's expression as he paced back and forth.

He glanced up with obvious annoyance when he saw Black bearing down on him.

"What do you want?"

"A plain answer. We took care of your part of the bargain. We found your daughter. When do we go to Three?"

Far below, the wind lifted dust in the streets, whirling clouds of it across the great plaza. Bronwyn turned to watch the dust clouds.

Angry, Black took hold of his shoulder. "If you're having second thoughts—"

Bronwyn whirled, flinging off Black's hand.

"You witless fool! I want to be away from here as much as you do. But with my daughter!"

"Our agreement—"

"Is suspended! Held in abeyance until I can persuade Helanne to leave with us. I will not abandon her to this foolish, misguided pursuit of ruling a city about to be destroyed."

"How long do you intend to wait?"

"For a time yet," Bronwyn replied. "But not indefinitely, of that you can be sure. You have no choice but to accept the situation, Black. Unless, of course, you wish to try to reach Earth Three by yourself."

Black wanted to beat the nasty smile off the old man's face. Instead, he wheeled and stalked back inside— dogged by the bleak certainty that it might be a long time before Bronwyn honored his part of the bargain,

And before he did, Blind Eljer would be marching .. .

ix

In desperation, he sought Helanne.

Servants told him she was away in another wing of the palace. From there she was to go out among the people of Shaz, and then later still, meet with the magistrate, Holofernos. When Black finally found her alone in her rooms at twilight, her veils thrust down around her shoulders and a drawn look on her face, it was the last of her three errands that she brought up first:

"The magistrate is furious with me for reprieving you yesterday. It's the latest in a long series of what he terms affronts."

Black reached for a cup and a jar of wine. "Does he know your relationship to Bronwyn?"

She shook her head. "Holofernos is convinced I saved the two of you simply to humiliate him. Let him think it. There are far more serious concerns."

Black's eyebrows hooked in inquiry.

"I went among the people today. They're terrified, Black. Travelers brought word that the blind man's army is definitely moving south. I tried to encourage the people to fight for their own survival They lack the will. Deep down, I think they know they're already beaten."

"Helanne, I can appreciate what you've tried to do here. Even if your father can't. But you've got to look at it from my angle. Bronwyn made a bargain—"

Mockingly: "And you trusted him to honor it."

"That's a hell of a thing for his daughter to say."

"I say it because I'm his daughter."

"Well, he knows what I'll do if he reneges on me—"

"What?”

"Kill him"

She absorbed the statement without the slightest hint of emotion.

"You're the reason for the impasse," Black went on finally. "He won t leave without you."

"And I refuse to just—desert Shaz and let the people be swallowed up by Eljer's army. You told me what would happen to them! They'd be enslaved, robbed of their minds—"

"But I'm going to get to Three somehow."

"Because of Tarn's sister."

"Yes."

She said slowly, "Black, I understand how you feel. But that won't move me from what I have to do." "Stay here?"

"At least through the initial attack. I owe these people that much. Perhaps there's some way I can give them the will to fight. Even against cannons."

Black tossed off another cup of wine. "You can't win against Eljer. Unless—as you said before—you can work miracles.'*

A rueful smile. "The people believe I can. That compounds the problem."

"You really would like to hand them a miracle, wouldn't you?"

"Yes. But I'll have to settle for the next best thing. My presence—for whatever encouragement that's worth— right up through the hour Eljer tries to breach the walls. Believe me, if I did have supernatural powers, I'd use them! I'd summon the infant Raj himself to make a miraculous reappearance from the desert—and the dead— after years—"

Suddenly, she stopped. Black didn't like her expression one bit,

"What the hell are you thinking?"

"The Raj," she said. "The last Raj disappeared over thirty years ago. Supposedly abducted. The Raj has authority even greater than mine. The power of the hereditary throne. And now, all at once, here we have two obvious strangers. Strangers I've protected, and Holofernos and the rest don't know why. You're not much over the right age—"

"Are you insane. They'd never believe it—1"

The wind whispered through the gallery, stirring hangings. Helanne rose, approaching him with more poise, more strength, than he'd ever seen in her.

"They'd believe the Veiled Lady," she said. "If she certified you Raj."

"But I can't work miracles against Eljer either!"

"The Raj is not supposed to have any powers like that. Only the immense prestige that stands behind the throne of Shaz. It might be the kind of lift that would give the people the will to resist—"

"Forget it," Black snarled. "I didn't make any bargains to impersonate anyone."

Helanne shrugged. "All right. It was an idea, that's all. Though the masquerade wouldn't be difficult. There'd be a certain distance kept between you and the people—because of their respect for your title. Of course, there would be a trial by combat. It's traditional when any Raj assumes his throne. He must prove his claim. If you're afraid of that—"

"Damn right I'm afraid. I've seen enough men die to know it's permanent."

She confronted him, the veils taut over her breasts. 'Then let me ask you this. How badly do you want to reach Three? My father won't go without me. And I won't go until I'm sure my people have at least a slim chance to survive. You could give them that chance. Quickly. If you choose not to—I'll be forced to try. Stay till the end of the battle, very likely. And we might never get away at all. You see the alternatives, don't you, Black?"

Then, softer, as if she knew she'd closed the trap: "Don't your

x

Black spent a sleepless night. A night filled with thoughts of his own predicament—and Sam.

In the morning, he went to Helanne, and told her he would go along with the scheme.

xi

Even for an indoor amphitheatre, the pit was small. No more than ten tiers rose around the circular retaining wall. The entrance to the little arena was located on the main level of one of the palace buildings, with the arena's floor sunk one level below.

In the center of freshly raked white sand, Black waited. Sweat ran down his nose.

Every seat up above was filled with invited guests. Members of the court. Influential citizens. These last looked down at Black with expressions akin to reverence.

The court crowd gave an impression of greater skepticism. Surrounded by a clique of companions, the aged Holofernos watched the arena with outright scorn.

Directly opposite the magistrate, Bronwyn sat beside his veiled daughter on the first row. She was guarded on three sides by soldiers. They had created a spear-wall to protect her.

The pit buzzed with excited conversation. Although night had fallen, the air was steamy. High in the frescoed dome, smoke from wall torches curled, adding the smells of pitch and burned wood to those of perfume and close-packed bodies.

Over the voices in the little amphitheatre, Black could hear a greater clamor. Outside the palace wall, thousands of people were gathered.

The Veiled Lady had spoken to her people in the public plaza just after sunrise that same day. She proclaimed that the Raj had escaped captivity and returned to claim his throne, in company with an old man of the desert tribes—Bronwyn—who had befriended him in his youth.

All day long the palace had buzzed with the excitement of the news. From the seclusion of Helanne's terrace, Black looked down on the plaza and saw immense crowds.

Helanne reported that, as expected, Holofernos and his group were furious. And they didn't believe for one moment that Black was the hereditary Raj, mysteriously —coincidentally—returned in the city's hour of need.

The people, on the other hand, professed to believe at once. Needing some kind of sign or miracle, perhaps they wanted to be fooled.

But not the magistrate.

His eyes told Black that the charade might play its course a while yet. But in the end, Black would be exposed.

Gazing up at the old man, Black thought back to the morning in the magistrate's hall. Had Holofernos heard the accidental clang of a spear against his false leg? He believed so at the time. Now the memory was unclear.

Black wore a clout around his middle, nothing more. He had been supplied with a long staff of extremely hard, supple wood. Strong. But not unbreakable.

He blinked back sweat from his eyes, gripping the staff in both hands. He looked at the slot door in the far side of the retaining wall. From there, presumably, his opposition would appear. Though in what form, he had no idea. Helanne had refused to tell him, saying that that, too, was part of the traditional trial.

Black glanced up to the highest tier. A messenger, stiff-backed, staring at nothing, stood with a long wand in each hand. On one wand was tied a silk of scarlet. On the other, a silk of white. When the combat was over, one of the silks would be shown to the mob outside.

White for victory.

Red for death.

Bolts on the slot door shot back noisily. The door opened outward. A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd, then stilled.

The spectators leaned forward.

Black felt cold and feverish by turns, waiting for a first sign of movement in the dark beyond the door. Abruptly, a rag-bound leg thrust into the light—and three longhaired men in grimy rags shuffled out.

Knives winked in their hands.

The men had filthy, unkempt hair. Vulpine faces. As they sidled forward, Helanne raised her hand.

"These three condemned stand against the Raj," she announced. "If they take his life, then he has deceived us, and they are free. If not—the Raj shall administer the justice which has already been pronounced upon them."

Her hand fell. Black looked at the raggy trio. Condemned thieves? Murderers? Or both?

Feral eyes watched him. With apprehension and just a glint of hope. They had nothing to lose in the combat He had everything to lose. He took a firmer grip on the staff as the first of the three smiled suddenly, exposing half-rotted teeth.

Then, close together, the three started toward him again.

xii

The trio moved to within about three yards of Black, then began to spread out.

One man slipped to the right, another to the left. The one in the center began to turn his blade in the air, a small, mocking gesture.

The man in the center took a couple of more steps. Black caught a whiff of sweet wine. Had the men been given drink, or drugs, or both, to stoke their courage?

The two flankers moved even further to the right and left. It became difficult for Black to see all three at once. He watched the smiler's knife hand for the tensing that might signal a charge.

Abruptly, Black heard a scurrying on his left. He turned, raising the staff. Too late, he saw the man on the left dig in his heels, halt his run. Black's mind screamed that the real attack was coming the other way . . .

He whirled. In almost complete silence, the right-hand killer moved in, running. His hand flashed down . . .

Black barely had time to dodge. The blade glanced off his right shoulder, gashing it. Black spun, slammed one end of his staff into the knife-wielder's back. The man cried out, fell.

People in the crowd jumped up. Black kneeled on the fallen man's back, whipped the staff under his chin, pulled back with both hands. The man shrieked as his neck snapped.

A shadow flickered on the sand. Black let go of the staff, rolled sideways . . .

Just as a second attacker stabbed downward.

The blade missed Black's metal leg by a fraction, jamming into the spine of the fallen man, and making him shriek a second time.

What the staff had begun, the knife finished. The first man's head lolled.

While the second struggled to free his imbedded knife, Black snatched up the staff, clouted him in the side of the head. Then Black charged him where he sprawled.

As Black raised his staff, something hit his spine. A stinking arm wrapped around his windpipe. Legs clutched his middle. The attacker—the man in the center—had leaped on his back. Holding on with his legs and one arm, he whipped his right hand toward Black's face, the hand with the knife in it . . .

Black had a quick impression of a ring on the man's middle finger; a gold ring with a large dark gray stone mounted in it.

The man on Black's back screeched like a harpy, choking off Black's air with his left hand, slashing at Black's face with his right.

Black grabbed the man's knife wrist, held it away . . .

Despite his wiriness, the man was strong. And wine and perhaps drugs and certainly the possibility of pardon lent him extra strength. Black had to fight to keep the slashing knife away ...

The second attacker had regained his feet, was stumbling through the sand, aiming to strike low, for Black's belly.

Grunting, Black bent forward. He rolled the clinging man off his back.

The man hit the sand, hard. Black snatched up his staff as the second attacker stumbled over the first. The second man was closer now. Black hit twice, viciously. Bone cracked.

The second man's eyes filmed. Lines of blood began to run down his shattered temple. He flopped on hands and knees, moaning and urinating on himself.

Breathing raggedly, the first attacker came on again.

Black had to jump back to avoid being cut. On the second jump, his left foot slipped out from under him.

He crashed into the sand. The attacker appeared above him, knife raised, grimy face blotting out the torches, the tense spectators . . .

Black's parry with his staff clipped the attacker's wrist. The man dropped his knife. But instead of retrieving it, he stamped on Black's midsection. Then again. Again.

Pain seared Black's belly. He couldn't hold onto the staff. The man kneeled on Black's chest, knotted his left hand in Black's hair, thrusting his fisted right hand toward Black's face.

Black tried to pitch the man off again. He was too winded. Too weak.

Suddenly the feral eyes gleamed with the hope of victory. As through a mist, Black saw the ring's gray stone snap back on a hinge to expose a short needle. The needle's tip carried a drop of black shining gum.

No common criminal wore such a sophisticated weapon, Black knew. He guessed its source. Holofernos . . .

The needle was dropping toward his cheek. Black fought his pain and weakness. Fastened both hands on the killer's wrist. Pushed up hard.

Shrieking, the man tried to avoid his own hand being thrust back at him. But Black's effort prevailed. The needle nicked the man's dirty chin.

A tiny gem of blood appeared in the nick, mingling with a touch of the black gum.

Suddenly the man stiffened. He began to flex his fingers in the air, as if clawing against invisible pain.

Black's eyes never left that right hand. A drop of gum still clung to the needle. He slid out from under the trembling man, darted half a dozen steps as the man began to shake with ghastly paroxysms.

The man's tongue protruded. He made retching sounds. His sandals kicked up sand as he fell. Finally, writhing, he flopped over on his back with his teeth clenched on his tongue. Blood ran out of his mouth as he died.

Panting, Black looked around the silent tiers. He picked up his staff, staggered over to the outflung right hand of the dead man. He rammed the staff down on the man's ring finger, leaving bent metal.

Then he turned and stared up into the face of Holofernos.

The old magistrate's flushed complexion had turned even redder. He and his companions sat grim and silent. Black's bleak stare told Holofernos that he knew who had given the man the poison ring.

Someone in the middle tiers began to clap. Others took up the rhythm. The sound swiftly increased in volume.

The messenger flung down the wand with the scarlet silk attached. Face shining, he ran outside bearing the white silk aloft.

The clapping grew even louder. Holofernos and his crowd were forced to join in.

Black's eyes swam. Though brief, the combat had taxed him, emptied him of energy . . .

From somewhere outside, there was a roar of voices. The white silk had been presented. The true Raj had vindicated himself.

Inside and outside, they cheered louder.

Louder . . .

Nausea washed over Black. Finally, he closed his eyes and bent his head in an effort to drown out the thunder that signified his victory.

xiii

During the next three days, Black moved through the city, letting himself be seen.

Helanne accompanied him sometimes, other times not. Always, though, he was surrounded by a contingent of soldiers who kept the crowds back.

And the crowds came—thousands eager to see him. To touch him if they could. To convince themselves that their hereditary ruler had at last returned from imprisonment and exile.

Black found the excursions tiring, even though he was required to say little or nothing. But he was forced to wear the purple robe of the Raj, and the great golden collar and headpiece, both immensely heavy.

Several times, he thought he detected one or more of Holofernos' cronies in the mob. As if they were watching for an obvious mistake. But Helanne had coached him well. He'd memorized a dozen ritualistic phrases, and learned to make the Raj's traditional right-handed sign of blessing. The people were so desperate for their miracle, Black thought cynically, that a wood image of a Raj would have served just as well.

Helanne met several times a day with the military commanders of Shaz and the officers of the recently-recruited citizen guard. To Black's astonishment, he discovered that her plan was having the effect she wanted.

Where fortifications had been lacking on the wall before, now they were going up. Stake-bastions were pointed outward and lashed together so that Eljer's men would have difficulty raising scaling ladders. Troops of the citizen guard began to drill more frequently in the public plaza. Helanne was buoyed up. At last, her people seemed to have the drive necessary to resist the coming onslaught.

And as she repeatedly told them, she considered the will to fight as important, if not more important, than supremacy of weapons. Shaz clanged and banged and hammered, making ready for a war it might not win, but acted as if it would.

While preparations went forward, couriers raced in from the north to report Eljer's host within a few days' march.

Through all this, Bronwyn grew more restless and quarrelsome. He was openly contemptuous of Helanne's enthusiasm and concern. Black watched the old man closely, certain that Bronwyn's impatience would soon produce some overt action.

And trouble.

xiv

"When?’'

Helanne lifted her gaze from the crystal goblet. She set the goblet down, matched Bronwyn's defiant question with a defiance of her own:

"You have asked me that every day. The answer is still the same. After the host of Three comes."

"The host is within two days' march of this city! I refuse to wait any longer!"

Helanne's olive eyes locked with her father's. "Oh?"

Seated cross-legged on the third side of the dining taboret, Black watched the sparring with sleepy interest.

The meal had been filling, the wine better than usual. A warm, moist breeze blew in from the gallery.

Most of the servants had retired. The lamps flickered low, wicks dancing in the wind. Long shadows twisted across the walls.

Distantly, saws grated; hammers rang; men counted cadence, drilling through the night.

Helanne said finally, 'This is the first time you've presented me with an ultimatum, father."

'This sham with Black—" Bronwyn's wave barely acknowledged the other's presence. "It's disastrous! The high moral purpose you've given your people will melt away the moment the first of Eljer's cannon blows a hole in the outer wall. That's too long to wait to open a gate. You could be captured, injured—or worse."

"Concerned for my welfare, are you?"

"And mine. And that of Earth Prime. I remind you of where your highest responsibility lies—"

She shook her fair hair. "That was my highest responsibility

once. It's not any longer. But I see no point in continuing this

argument—" She set her goblet aside after a final sip, stood up.

"I'm exhausted. I'm going to sleep for a while."

Bronwyn's dark eyes simmered. "Helanne, I mean to depart this godforsaken world—and soon."

She turned and looked at him. "Not yet."

Black reached for the jar of wine, trying to conceal a faint smile. Helanne started out of the room. Suddenly, Bronwyn sat up quite straight.

That, and the expression on his face, were Black's first warnings.

xv

Helanne seemed to stumble. She regained her balance, turned, her olive eyes going wide. The old man's lips were flecked with foam.

"Stop it!" Helanne breathed. "Let go—"

Bronwyn's wrinkled lids dropped over his eyes.

"Black, he's trying to open a gate! Right here! He means to take me through—"

"For your sake," came Bronwyn's oddly hollow voice. T have much more experience as an adept, Helanne. You'll only bring injury to your mind if you fight me—"

"But I won't go—" she began, rushing toward him. She stumbled again, falling to her knees. Her head snapped back. Her cheeks shone with sudden sweat.

Bronwyn's fists closed tight. Resting on his knees, they grew bloodless from the pressure. He began to sway from side to side.

Helanne whimpered. She tried to speak, couldn't. She stretched her hand toward her father . . .

Black was on his feet. "Can he open a gate here, Helanne?"

"If he—wants to. I haven't—the strength to counteract a mind as strong as his—" "But I don't feel it. Before, I always have—"

"He's only pulling me," she breathed. Then suddenly, a scream: "He's going to leave you here—/"

Black realized she must be right. Devious Bronwyn. Meaning to break the bargain again.

Helanne was whimpering like some mindless child. Roaring a curse, Black lunged at the old man.

He closed his hands on Bronwyn's throat, held tight . . .

Sick with horror, he let go.

The flesh of Bronwyn's throat was curiously pliant. Curiously—inhuman—

And underneath that skin, Black had felt something thin and hard. Like—

A metal strut.

A filigree-handle meat knife lay on the taboret. Black snatched it up, raked it along Bronwyn's wrinkled forearm.

The skin split open. Beneath it, Black saw not red musculature but a layer of puffy white foam. There was no blood.

Simulacrum . . .

Abnormally huge, Bronwyn's eyes stared at him. The foam-flecked lips curled upward into a mechanical smile.

xvi

T saw the blood!" Black shouted. "I saw it before we came through the gate—!"

Bronwyn's voice had an even more hollow sound now. That rigid smile never relaxed:

"Yes, you saw the real Bronwyn's blood—then. But just after you lost consciousness—and you could not watch me—I placed you in a suspended state for a matter of minutes. During that interval, I brought out the simulacrum I had taken along to Mexico. Did you honestly believe I'd expose myself personally to all the dangers we've faced?"

"Where was it?" Black yelled. '"Where?"

"In the trunk of the automobile. Folded up and waiting to be animated. That took only a moment. I soon had it standing beside you, awake, and under control. You're looking at that same simulacrum right now. Physically, I have not been with you since Mexico. Mentally, of course, I have been at your side every moment. Projecting myself into the simulacrum. Living with my mind in its body—"

"Controlling it all the away from—where are you?"

"Not far from where I left you on Earth. The strain is great, reaching such a long distance along the Klekton over continuous periods of hours. But it's not impossible for me to do. Except for times when I've slept, I've been there—and safely here—too. Simultaneously. I see no reason for allowing Helanne to continue her misguided efforts on Earth Three. I reached that decision earlier today—"

"You said you needed protection! Physical protection!"

"The simulacrum—the instrument, the extension of my mind—needed protection. Wandering Earth Three alone, it could have been attacked, destroyed—" One of the mechanical hands lifted, jerkily, as though strain had lessened the perfection of Bronwyn's control. "If you have no more questions—"

"I want Sam. I want my end of the bargain!"

"Ever the optimist, eh, Mr. Black? You should have learned after our first encounter—I use others as necessary. And I discard them when my ends are achieved."

"You never meant to take me to Three?"

"Not once," said the mechanical representation.

Black screamed then, a great animal bellow of rage. He grasped the false Bronwyn around the middle, lifting it. The simulacrum was surprisingly fight. He hurled it as hard as he could.

The simulacrum struck the wall and slid down, hitting the floor with an odd thud-and-clang. It lay crumpled in a crooked position, unmoving.

And suddenly, Black did hear the mind-winds. And

Bronwyn—laughing at him across the vastness of the interlinked analogue worlds:

T thank you for your help, Mr. Black. I regret I cannot aid you in reaching Earth Three. But you'll appreciate that my daughter is my chief concern. And now that I've reclaimed her, I can turn my attention to the task of preventing more gates opening to Earth—an Earth I suppose you won't see again."

Black's mind ached from the impingement of Bronwyn's consciousness. He lurched toward the crumpled simulacrum. The wind-voice howled in his head:

"Wrench it and break it all you want. I'm out of it now. It's yours—"

The roar. Far away, he thought he heard Helanne's anguished cry . . .

His vision cleared. All the lamps but one had been blown out.

Helanne was gone.

Out in the night, Black heard the rap of hammers, the rasp of saws, the shouts of drillmasters . . .

He looked at the fallen simulacrum. The artificial mouth was locked in a ghastly imitation of Bronwyn's smile.

Black glanced around. He was by himself. No way to reach Sam on Three. No way to reach his own Earth. Sold out. Betrayed.

The Raj betrayed. The all-powerful Raj. Damn, that was funny.

But he didn't laugh.

xvii

A footfall. Black whipped around. A servant cowered in the dim light. T heard an outcry, Raj. Then awful laughter. Is—?" The man stopped, terrified by the starkness of Black's face. Slowly, his eyes moved to the crumpled figure by the wall.

The man obviously didn't know what to make of it. He recognized the features of Bronwyn. But he also recognized that the crazily bent limbs couldn't belong to a normal human being. Such an agonized posture was simply not possible.

"What has happened, Raj?" the servant whispered. "Why does the old man lie so?”

"Leave," Black said. "Forget what you saw."

"The Veiled Lady was with you, Raj. I heard her cry out. Where is she, Raj?"

"Get out of here!" And Black flung a crystal goblet.

The goblet struck the wall and shattered. Tiny shards tinkled down, a sound like bells. The servant darted into the darkness of the doorway. Then his footsteps diminished swiftly.

In a moment, Black heard voices. First just one. Then more. He whirled, dashed through the gallery to the terrace parapet.

He braced his palms, leaned up, looked over.

Too far down.

The commotion grew louder out in the corridors. Black ran back to the main room, caught up his mantle, pulled it on. For days, he'd been carrying a knife in the outer compartment of his false leg. He checked swiftly to make sure it was still there. It was.

He wrapped the mantle around his head as he moved toward the door to the hall. There was only one sensible course for him now. Flight. From the palace, from the city. He wouldn't be able to maintain the Raj role without Helanne's help.

Servants clutching lamps clustered in the corridor. They drew back as Black strode past them. He didn't run. But he walked quickly. As he passed, the servants genuflected. If he could keep them that respectful until he left the palace behind . . .

Thirty paces more and he'd reach the twisting stair that led downward. Once in the warren of streets between the palace buildings, he'd have a better chance to escape detection.

Torches glared on his right. He missed a stride, looked that way . . .

His stomach drew up tight.

At the head of nine or ten of his cronies, Holofernos was marching toward him along the cross-corridor. Black had only seconds in which to make his decision—bolt or stand and bluff. Because Holofernos' party included three spearmen, Black decided to try to brazen it out.

The gold ring binding Holofernos' white hair glittered in the streaming torchlight. The magistrate approached Black, bowed his head with contemptuous respect:

"Mantled for a night walk among your subjects, Raj?"

"Do you question my right, magistrate?"

"No. I have more pressing concerns."

The foxy eyes never left him. Black knew Holofernos was convinced he was an imposter. How long could he continue to spin out the game without a direct confrontation?

Holofernos went on smoothly, "Servants came rushing to my apartments. They told of strange commotion here. Where is the Veiled Lady?"

"In her quarters." Black gestured back the way he'd come. "Go see for yourself."

"But I've been told she's gone. Mysteriously vanished. Perhaps slain—"

"Who said that?"

Holofernos smiled. "Never mind his name. I train those who are my eyes and ears to act with discretion. I have it on good authority from one I trust that the Veiled Lady has disappeared."

Black's gaze locked with that of the crafty old man. Impasse.

Holofernos fingered the veined side of his nose. "Perhaps we should go to her quarters together, Raj. See to her welfare in person. Both of us."

Black started to reply. But the magistrate cut him off: "Or is there some reason why you might not welcome that?" His hand seemed to glide upward in the air. One of his men slapped the shaft of a spear into his palm. "For example, because you're not the Raj at all—" And with a dexterity surprising for one so frail, Holofernos swung the spear hard. Its head struck Black's right leg. The metal rang like a bell.

Holofernos laughed. He flung the spear aside. T heard that sound when you first came before me. A false sound—as you are false, Raj. I do not know how it is possible to form a leg of metal. Or make it fool the eye as completely as that one does. But it marks you. Marks you as other than he whom you pretend to be. Certainly you're not a man of the Sud. So tell us, Raj—"

Holofernos started walking forward. His followers stayed close behind. Black saw hands moving to knives; knuckles whitening on spear-shafts.

"Who are you, really? An assassin? Have you murdered the Veiled Lady?" He chuckled. "Raj, somehow I sense that the fortunes of the governing council that once ruled Shaz are again on the ascendant. With the Lady gone, the imposter deposed—"

The magistrate made a small, eloquent gesture. And the smile in his eyes grew brighter.

Black knew now that bluffing was useless. He bent swiftly, pressed the right side of his leg, whipped out the dagger. There was instant panic on the faces of Holofernos' followers.

But the old man didn't retreat a single step: "A marvelous contrivance, that leg. We'll discover its origin before the night's done. I think we'll discover yours as well—take hold of him\"

The first spearman who moved to obey got a slashed face for his pains. The man fell back, shrieking. By that time, Black was gone down the corridor.

He reached the twisting stair, plunged down through the dark, the bloody knife still in his hand. Above, he heard shouting, the clangor of armor as soldiers struggled down the narrow staircase in pursuit.

A man on guard at the ground-level door barred his

way with an upraised torch. When he saw Black's savage face, he fell back, murmuring, "Raj—" Black darted into the night.

xviii

Black bent into the stiff night wind, the mantle pulled up around his face.

He crossed the huge plaza, aiming in the general direction of the southern wall. He circled wide around a troop of citizen guards drilling between iron kettles loaded with burning firewood.

A man came running from the direction of the palace. As he hurried on, Black heard the man exclaim:

"They say the Veiled Lady is killed. They say the Raj is a false Raj, and has fled—"

Black plunged on through the dark. He had no trouble leaving the palace grounds.

He gained a narrow street. Rushing along, he heard shutters banging open above him. There were clamorous voices everywhere now.

Black half suspected that Holofernos wouldn't be too concerned about pursuing him. The magistrate would probably concentrate on spreading the news that the Raj had been proved an imposter. He imagined that Holofernos' paid agents would soon see that the word reached all quarters of the city.

Near the southern gate, he approached a street-corner shrine. There, a woman wept on her knees.

"What is it, woman?" he asked her. "Why is there so much lamentation in the city?"

"Haven't you heard the news from the palace? The Raj is a false Raj. He has been driven out."

"If that's true, who is in command?"

"Old Holofernos, they say. The cursed despot who oppressed us before—"

Black ran on, filled with bitter thoughts.

As easily as a king could be raised, a king could be dethroned. He didn't doubt that Holofernos had planned for the eventuality of this moment; planned long ago. Perhaps while Helanne first held power.

He saw the lamp-lit south gate ahead. Three or four soldiers stood there, exchanging worried comments. Black pulled up his mantle and approached them at a rapid walk.

"Unbar the gate!" he ordered.

The soldiers turned to stare.

T said unbar it!"

"Are things so bad that you feel compelled to run, citizen?"

"That's my privilege, isn't it? The invaders are almost upon us. You'd do the same if you had any brains. Now let me pass!"

Shrugging, the soldiers lifted the massive bar. One man swung the left gate inward by tugging its giant ring. Another asked Black:

"Is the news really as bad as we've heard? The Veiled Lady vanished? The Raj proved false?"

Before Black could answer, an officer came out of the guard booth, drawn by the voices. He lifted his lantern.

"Who is it—?" His eyes widened. "I've seen you before, citizen—"

His hand streaked out to rip aside Black's cowl.

"Raj!"

The officer stood directly between Black and the windy darkness beyond the gate. He heard shouting in the streets behind him. A squad of soldiers was approaching on the run.

The officer stepped in close. Black whipped aside the mantle-fold concealing his knife.

"The Raj is dead," he said savagely, driving the knife into the officer's thigh.

Black meant to wound, not kill. The strike created the diversion he wanted. The officer dropped the lantern, staggering. A moment later, Black jumped across his body.

One long leap and he was through the gate. Free of the wall; into the darkness . . .

He ran up a short dirt track, cut left to the wind-whipped, waist-high grass of the savannah. He hid the knife in his leg, then ran on, driving himself, his hair standing out behind him, his mantle flying.

Finally, after what seemed miles, he halted on a low hilltop and looked back.

On the northern horizon, the wall of Shaz glowed with the torches. Lamps burned in the highest of the palace's onion-domes. It resembled a toy city.

He listened. The wind brought him no sound of pursuit.

And there probably wouldn't be any. Holofernos had what he wanted.

But what would the old politician do about Blind Eljer's advancing army?

Well, that was his worry, not Black's.

As his tension faded, replaced by weariness, he sank down in the long grass. The night pressed in around him. Thanks to Bronwyn's treachery, he was alone on Earth Four.

Without knowing where to turn next.

The God-Tool

In four days, Shaz of the Sud fell before Blind Eljer.

From his vantage point in the hills to the south, Black saw only a little of the fighting. Eljer's attack was direct and brief. The battle lasted less than a day.

The tyrant of Earth Three chose to strike principally against the northern wall. But toward the end of the day, Black did spot a few platoons of soldiers raising scaling ladders on the city's western side.

Several bands of men attempted the climb, only to have the defenders on the parapets stretch poles out through the pointed logs, catch the ladder-tops and shove them back.

By the time the scaling of the west wall had been tried three times—unsuccessfully—various onion-dome buildings inside the city were ablaze. When the wind was right, it brought Black the sounds of Eljer's cannon.

At the western wall, the tyrant's men refused to give up. Hauling on ropes, they pulled one of the wheeled guns around from the north side of the city. They fluted muzzle of the cannon was aimed upward. Black watched the sudden appearance of a white ball of smoke. Then he heard the heavy thud of the explosion, followed by a crash, and shrieking along the parapet.

After five such shots, a sizable gap had been created in the stake-bastions. The scaling ladders were hoisted into place again. All at once, Black saw the city's south gate open outward. He recognized the armor of the men pouring through.

The men shouted, waving swords and spears aloft. On one spear-point hung a severed head.

Evidently Blind Eljer's invaders had breached the wall at another site, and struck due south through the city. If they didn't have Shaz completely under control as yet, Black suspected they soon would have. More buildings burned now, shooting up sparks and billowy smoke-clouds.

Some of the soldiers who'd come through the south gate ran around to the west, to inform their comrades that scaling the wall there was no longer necessary.

But the men who'd labored for over two hours wanted the rewards of their effort. They clambered up the ladders anyway, swinging swords, and dropped out of sight behind the wreckage of timber and parapet-blocks. Again the wind brought the clang of weapons, and screaming.

By dawn, most of the fires had been extinguished. Blind Eljer's troops patrolled the walls.

Black hunched in the damp morning grass, wondering what ugly sights he'd see if he were inside the city. Eljer setting up his equipment to process the captured citizens into automatons, for one.

Numerically, Shaz should have been able to withstand the assault. Realistically, of course, that was not true. The inhabitants had certainly never seen such fearsome weapons as the wheeled cannon. And they had had no leadership . . .

If the people of Shaz had ever entertained doubts about the capabilities of Holofernos and his cronies, they must be wishing that they had responded to the doubts, and acted.

Now it was too late. Shaz had fallen. Black had to turn his mind to his own predicament. A predicament which was becoming very difficult indeed.

ii

Southward, about a day's march by his estimate, another great rainforest rose up. The trees were far taller than those of the wood of the northern Sud. And they spread across the whole south horizon. That forest was probably the location of the pool that was home for the giant called Gol—

Black thought of striking off to explore the rainforest for food. He still had the knife in his leg. With it, he'd been able to catch one short-haired animal during his vigil on the savannah. The raw meat and the blood had made him sick to his stomach. But at least it was food.

He had caught the animal two days ago. In all, it was four days since he'd escaped Shaz. He was growing feverish with hunger and thirst.

Obviously he'd made a mistake waiting this long to forage for food. At sunset, when he started south toward the rainforest, he stumbled repeatedly. Finally he fell, too weak to go on. He lay in the long grass, breathing hard, as the last yellow and scarlet light drained from the sky.

Would this be the way it ended for him? Sprawled on strange ground, alone, starving to death—?

In his near-delirium, he thought of Jina.

As the darkness came down, he concentrated on imagining her face. Silently, he called to her:

Jina? Jina, you must be in Shaz by now. Jina, can you hear my thoughts? I'm in the hills to the south. I need food and water. Jina—?

He consciously fought to clear his mind of all thoughts except the silent appeal; an appeal he repeated over and over during the early hours of darkness.

Jina.

JINA . . .

At last, too exhausted to sustain the effort any longer, he slumped down, unconscious.

iii

Darkness laced with flame— The roar of wind in long grass—

Black swallowed. There was an acid taste in his mouth. He grew aware of dark blurs above him.

How long had he slept? Hours? A whole day? Whatever the time, he'd been discovered while he lay senseless. The blurs above were the shadowy outlines of two people . . .

His mind willed him up from his outflung position. But his weakened body couldn't react fast enough.

"We've found him, Doggo. Put out the fire in case they're watching."

Suddenly, recognition of that voice penetrated Black's dulled mind. Before the torchlight died, snuffed in the grass where it set long stalks smoldering, he saw little Doggo, a short sword at the belt of his kilt. And towering over him was Jina, wearing her familiar metal-studded clout and halter.

She unslung a skin bag from her shoulder. Her arm rings jingled softly. A second pouch fell to the ground.

"I didn't know whether you'd come," Black said in a ragged voice. "Or even hear me."

"Lady Jina caught the call of your mind last night," Doggo said. "She told me of it after daybreak. But we could not risk slipping out through the gate until sunset."

Black said, "I suppose I shouldn't have asked it of you. I didn't know what else to do. I waited here while the city was attacked. I got too weak from not eating—"

"Time enough for explanations," Jina broke in. She crouched beside him, her black cheeks shining in the faint starlight. She pressed the skin bag into his hands. "That's wine. Drink it slowly. Just a few mouthfuls at first, so you don't become ill. The pouch contains meat and bread."

"Everything's gone wrong—" Black gulped between the first swallows of wine. The wine made him retch. Doggo laughed, but not unkindly.

After getting some of the wine down, Black began to feel a little better. He bit into a butt of bread. When he'd finished the bread, he said:

"I wondered whether it would be safe for you to come."

"Neither safe nor unsafe," Jina returned. "No one questioned us when we departed through the south gate. My position is high enough so that I can come and go as I please."

"Does—" Black spoke between bites of meat. "—does Eljer suspect you helped Bronwyn and me the first time?"

"He may. I don't know for certain. As far as I can tell, he's never looked directly into my mind for the answer. Instead, he made an assumption. That I was careless."

She picked up Black's right hand, raised it to her left cheek. He felt three knotty ridges of mangled tissue.

Gently, he took hold of her chin. He turned her head so the starlight fell aslant her face. He saw the parallel scar-marks.

Jina went on, "He assumed I was guilty of not being sufficiently watchful. It wasn't a serious enough offense to merit my removal. Especially not a world away from Koptic Bay. But Eljer won't allow me to make the mistake again. He employed a little cosmetic disfigurement as a reminder—"

She guided Black's hand to her other cheek. He uttered a low, savage sound. Both her cheeks were scarred.

"Eljer has several special little whips," she told him. "The one he used for this—disciplinary action—has three thongs, each with a little hook at the end. I suppose I should be thankful the punishment was no worse. He could have put out my eyes with that whip if he'd wanted."

"What can I say to you, Jina? If you hadn't helped Bronwyn and me, you wouldn't have been hurt—"

"I knew the risks. What bothers me now is that I still don't know whether Eljer actually assumes I made a mistake, or whether he's only playing another of his sly games. To see if I really am a traitor. It's devilish hard to outguess a man like that. Seeing in the dark—well, he doesn't think as ordinary people do. Since the disciplinary whipping, I've gone about my business. Carried out my duties as if I were totally loyal. I really don't want to lose my life helping you, Black. That's why I debated answering your call tonight. You're welcome to the pouch and wineskin. But Doggo and I will be going right back."

Doggo said, "Do not blame Lady Jina for being frightened, Blek. She was cruelly punished by the blind man." Black's nod said he understood.

Doggo asked, "What has become of the white-haired man?"

Quickly, Black told them of recent events, including Bronwyn's betrayal. At the end, Jina laughed:

"From fugitive, to lord, to fugitive again—Sam would be proud of your mobility! So the old conniver abandoned you—?"

Black nodded. "And I don't know what happens next."

He was glad of the darkness. It concealed how uncertain he really felt. Deliberately, he changed the subject:

"Shaz fell with very little opposition."

"Because of the cannon. And because—as you suggested a moment ago—there's no one left to lead."

"I assume Eljer captured Holofernos—"

"Beheaded him," she said. "It was virtually Eljer's first act after the surrender. He had the old man's head chopped off in the plaza. The heads of his cronies, too. What little resistance was left melted away. Eljer's already set up the processing equipment. Within a very few days, there will be several thousand more recruits ready for transfer back to Three. Then, Eljer informs me, we'll all leave here. Look, enough of Eljer. What about you? I can try to open a gate to Earth Three—"

Astonished, he said, "Bight here?"

"What else do you propose to do? You can't return to Shaz. You certainly can't wander around the Sud forever. Without the help of an adept, you've no way off this world."

"But you can do it?"

"Open a gate? I never have before. But I think so. My adept power is not strong, or precisely directed. I'm willing to try, so long as we do it now. The longer Doggo and I remain out here, the more likely our absence will be noticed, and called to Eljer's attention. We didn't leave the city until we felt reasonably sure he would have retired for the night."

"Then let's try," Black agreed. "And that's the last I'll trouble y—"

Cold to the bottom of his belly, he broke off and stared past her.

"What is it, Black? What do you—?"

Twisting her head around, she stopped too. She gave a small cry of dismay.

Doggo clicked his teeth, and snaked his sword free. There was defeat in Jina's next words:

"Then he did suspect. Damn!"

"Have you felt him inside your mind tonight?"

"No. Not once." She stabbed her hand out, pointing. "But that's a search party, nothing else."

She was indicating the lights Black had seen first. Windblown lights of fire, held by several men emerging from the south gate at quick march. Black caught the unmistakable wink of weapons.

iv

"All right," he said. "I pulled you into this situation. So I'll do what I can to—"

Jina's hand slashed the air. "Don't waste time on such talk! I knew there was a chance Eljer might be having me watched."

"But we can't let those men carry word back to the city. If none of them ever shows up again, you may be able to bluff your way out of it."

Doggo's teeth shone suddenly. "Blek is right. The only way is to kill them all."

Black and the others exchanged looks. Silence bound the pact.

v

"We've come too far—"

"No, we'll march half an hour more."

"I tell you, we've lost them!"

"But the tyrant's orders are to keep track of her!"

The voices of the four searchers drifted to Black through the rustling grass. He was on his knees, his knife in hand.

A little way to his left, Doggo hunkered on his ankles, running his tongue over one long tooth. On the right, Black couldn't see Jina at all. Her dark skin blended with the night's blackness.

The quartet of soldiers couldn't be more than half a dozen paces away. Two had been given the job of holding the group's four torches. The other two, in the forefront, beat the grass with a spear and a sword. The swordsman had done most of the complaining. The spear-handler, probably in command, was the one who had silenced the complaints.

Grumbling, the sword-wielder hacked back and forth. Black peered between the long shoots, watching light flare from the blade. It was keenly sharp; it severed the stalks with little more than a whisper.

Now only four paces remained between the searchers and Black.

Now three.

Two...

The sword blazed in the high grass . . .

Black shot upward and forward in the same swift motion. He'd slipped his knife into his left hand. With his right, he reached past the hacking sword-blade, clamped fingers on the soldier's wrist.

The man's face looked sickly in the whipping torchlight. Surprise, and the pressure of Black's fingers, unnerved him. He let go of the sword.

Black whipped the knife in from the left. Horror shone in the soldier's eyes, just before the blade pierced the side of his neck.

Disbelieving, the man tried to twist his head down to stare at the knife. Then he crumpled.

Black tore the knife loose. The other men were too startled to move fast. An almost bestial glee on his heavy-browed face, Doggo stabbed the spearman in the chest, killing him before he dropped. By that time, the other two were desperately trying to defend themselves.

One flung a torch straight in Doggo's face. Doggo's brows caught fire. He jumped back, howling. Somehow his foot became tangled in the grass.

As he went down, the soldier leaped at him, thrusting his other torch at Doggo's eyes.

Black raced toward Doggo, knife lifted. He was dimly aware of the last soldier dropping one of his torches and turning to run.

Like an ebony wraith, Jina came out of the dark with her own dagger bared. The last soldier tried to slash off her attack with his torch. She dodged under it. Black heard the soldier shout, "Treacherous whore—/"

The soldier dropped the torch and the rest was lost.

On his back, Doggo was desperately fighting off the thrusts of the torch held by the man looming over him. Doggo whacked the man's leg with his short sword. The blade struck a greave, drew sparks.

The soldier thrust the firebrand down again. Once more Doggo rolled out of the way. But not quite fast enough. The torch burned his wrist.

The little man let go of his sword, lying vulnerable.

The soldier would have struck Doggo's face. But he heard Black coming, and whirled. His mouth wrenched in fear and fury.

He thrust out with his torch. This time his target was Black. And Black was running too fast to stop or veer

Like a blazing sun, the torch loomed brighter, hotter. Black snapped his head down, rolled his right shoulder under. He felt the fire lick his hair, the back of his neck, as he brought himself up hard from underneath the soldier's belly. He lifted, pushed—and at the same time probed hard with his knife hand.

Just before the soldier slid down Black's back, flung over like a sack of grain, Black's knife found an opening in the seam of the man's leather armor. The blade cut flesh, buried deep . . .

The soldier fell on top of his own torch, writhing. He began to scream, great piercing yells of pain. Panting and half-blind, Black kneeled on the man's back, lifted his head, hesitated only a second—and cut his throat.

Nausea climbed into his mouth as he staggered to his feet. A short distance away, he saw Doggo brushing himself off.

"Jina?" Black called.

A shadow coalesced out of the night. She was breathing hard:

"He—got away from me—I almost had him, too!"

Black looked to the north. He thought he saw the soldier's fast-moving shadow, racing toward the city gate. Black shook his head, disgusted.

Jina's smile was forced. "At least that settles matters. He'll report to Eljer immediately. Will you welcome one more exile into your company, Black?"

"Two," Doggo said. "To speak true, I am not so sorry. I would rather stand with my brother in the blood than serve the blind man."

Jina sank down in the long grass and covered her eyes with one hand. "The question is, Black—what do we do now?"

vi

When they had rested a little, they decided to press on south, in case Blind Eljer chose to send more men in pursuit.

But he didn't.

Morning found them alone on the windy savannah, with the great rainforest looming closer on the south horizon. In the north, the onion-domes of Shaz were reduced to smudges.

Jina proposed that she try to open a gate for them all. A gate back to Three.

"Yes," Black told her. "Try."

He and Doggo huddled close together, watching her as she clenched her hands, closed her eyes.

She moaned a little, the hair-thong bobbing at the nape of her neck. Foam dotted her lips. The moments stretched on.

Black's vision blurred . . .

Then, just as suddenly, it cleared—and Jina screamed.

She tumbled forward on her face. Black cradled her in his arms, reviving her after several minutes. She sat up, her dark eyes holding a new terror:

"He tried to block me—"

"Eljer?"

"Yes. And he succeeded! He must have been waiting for an attempt like that. He kept me from opening the gate."

"Why didn't he attack you?"

T don't know. But he didn't. There must be a reason. He does nothing haphazardly. Help me up." "Do you feel well enough to—?"

"Yes. Let's keep walking. In an hour or so, I'll try again."

But when she made her second attempt, the result was the same. Sudden pain—and collapse.

This time, she was even weaker afterward. But harsh understanding glinted in her eyes:

"I think I know what he's doing. Every time I try to open a gate, he'll block me. So we can't leave Earth Four. Maybe he doesn't mean to kill us at all. Maybe our punishment is to be in exile here. Permanently."

"When he goes back to Koptic Bay, how can he prevent you from opening a gate?"

"By that time, Black, we may be dead. Of starvation— or worse. It's the land of punishment that would suit Eljer's sense of humor. Not death outright. But slowly— from hunger, wild beasts in that forest—yes, he'd consider that appropriate. And amusing."

Looking at her anguished face, Black believed her. A shadow seemed to cross the sun and darken the day.

vii

And so—southward again.

Distance provided only ephemeral safety, Black knew. Any moment, Eljer's mind could reach out and destroy them.

But perhaps, as Jina maintained, he was content to play with them; keep them wandering for a while, imprisoned on this alien world ...

That night, they camped on the savannah, dividing the remainder of the contents of the pouch and the wineskin. Jina seemed less weak now. Several hours had passed since her third futile attempt to open a gate.

Black thought over an idea he'd had a while ago. The more he dwelled on it, the more it pleased him.

He liked the plan because it meant they could take the initiative, instead of running to no purpose. Eljer might kill them outright before finally returning to Earth Three. Rather than simply waiting for that to happen, Black preferred to take action.

Risky though the plan was, it still might work, because it had worked once before—for Helanne. Jina, too was an adept . . .

He told them about his idea. At the end, Jina shook her head:

"You've no guarantee the people of Shaz would rise."

"The witch came out of the south once before. And the people overthrew Holofernos. Provided Eljer doesn't decimate the whole population by the time we get back, I think there's a chance they would react in a similar way again. You said they outnumbered your soldiers—"

"They do. But we have no way of locating this pool you speak about." She gestured to the tree-lined south horizon. "That forest is immense!"

"You can probe with your mind. You have the same power as Helanne. She controlled the snake—and brought Gol to heel—"

"She was an adept of Prime! On Three, our proficiency is not as great—"

Black shrugged, staring wearily into the blaze of the sun. "I'll admit it's a small chance. We'd have to find Gol —subdue him—then somehow get back inside Shaz.

Jina stood up, slashing the air with one hand. Jutting through the cutouts in her halter, her black breasts shone. "Black, I told you—Bronwyn's whelp could tame that monster because she is a high level adept!"

"Well, I admit it's easier to be defeated without making an effort—"

She snatched up a clod of earth and flung it, hard. "What do you want from me? I've cut myself off from my people—my own kind—"

"Don't hand me that! If you were a completely loyal subject of Three, you'd never have helped Bronwyn and me escape. I grant you, we've no guarantee we could find the pool. Tame the snake. Make Gol follow us. I think we're probably free to try—to operate as we wish —at least for a time. But if you're afraid—"

She spat on the ground.

"Then why not, Jina? Personally, I'd sooner die my way than just—wait. But you're the one with the mind power. You're the one who has to face whatever's in that pool."

Without glancing up, Doggo muttered, "I would rather go Blek's way too, lady."

"Oh, damn you both—all right! Let's see if we can find this fabulous forest god of yours. Maybe Eljer will leave us alone long enough for that."

Black said, "He may be so busy with preparations for departure that he won't bother to keep close watch on—"

But she interrupted, in a harsh tone:

"—and we can die with some style!" In silence, they headed south across the savannahs toward the rainforest.

viii

For the past day as they'd struggled into the rainforest, there had been less and less solid ground on which to walk. Now the water was waist deep.

Tiny insects bedeviled the skin. The air was heavy with moisture. Little light penetrated between the great leathery leaves of the trees far above. Occasionally, a kite-winged bird went skating through the treetops, giving off a wild, echoing caw.

Creepers barred their path frequently. Some were so thick and tangled that Black had to spend a long time chopping them apart.

Under the water, they walked in gummy mud, ankle deep. At regular intervals, they stopped to let Jina send her mind searching.

“It's not far now," she said, opening her eyes. "The impressions are very strong. I can tell Gol's in the pool. . Sleeping, I think—"

Her voice was strained. Black scoured sweat out of his eyes, started forward again.

Each step had to be undertaken carefully. They made " slow progress. Black led the way. Jina came next, and Doggo last. The little man's expression said he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his earlier decision. The rainforest around them was gloomy as twilight. Gray-green shadow hid things that cluttered among the trunks " and creepers.

That morning, back where the swamp began, Black had caught two fish. Doggo had climbed a tree, going high enough to hack off a few small limbs that were relatively dry. They found a piece of flint-like stone on dry ground. Using it, Black managed to strike sparks off Doggo's sword edge. After repeated tries, he blew a small fire alight.

The broiled fish took the savagery out of their hunger. But now Black's belly was aching again. Hunger? he wondered. Or fear?

As they moved, weapons held above their heads, he grew conscious of an occasional quick ripple on the muddy water. As if some creature were flicking along just below the surface.

He guided the others around an immense trunk rising straight up from the brackish water. He saw a ripple to the right, two more on the left. Beyond the tree, the water opened out into a large, circular area surrounded by trees. On the far side of the open water, an impenetrable-looking tangle of creepers formed a natural curtain.

Behind him, Black heard Jina inhale sharply. She too sensed the danger in this place . . .

He caught other sounds. Faint rippling plops. The surface of the open water was disturbed by the unseen creatures. He planted his left foot, felt it sink to mid-thigh in the mud. He raised his free hand to hold them back:

"We can't cross. It's too deep. We'll have to go back. Circle around—"

His head was turned toward the black girl. He saw her eyes flare wide, just as he heard a louder splashing. He turned—and yelled.

An immense serpent thick as his arm reared up from the center of the water. It stood almost straight, its head swaying from side to side. The serpent's skin was roughly diamond-patterned. Its head was wide and flat. The unblinking eyes seemed to watch them all.

Slowly the serpent's jaws opened. A long three-forked tongue shot out between curved fangs.

Black started to move backward, very carefully. The kill-adder was perhaps two yards away from him. And at various points on the open water, other serpents were appearing.

"Jina?" he whispered. "Can you get hold of one of them with your mind?"

"I—" A deep breath. "I'm trying. I think the adders fear we'll harm the thing in the pool—"

"Down!" Black yelled, as the nearest kill-adder whipped its head forward.

He had only seconds to jam the knife between his teeth and shoot his hands out, clamping them on the serpent's skin a couple of feet below its head.

The head snapped down. For one awful instant, Black stared into inhuman yellow eyes. The triple tongue flicked out. The soft, wet mouth opened wider. The flat head dipped toward his left wrist . . .

He heard Jina moan softly. The kill-adder writhed in his hands. Its skin was slippery, almost as if coated with a heavy oil.

The bobbing head came within inches of his fingers. Then it rose again, swaying. On the points of its two long fangs, Black saw venom-droplets form and glisten—

"Jina—?°

"I'm holding it, Black. But it's fighting me—"

If Jina lost control for even a second, the fangs would come down and pierce his skin. He suspected the venom would be swift to act. His throat grew clogged with fear.

He wanted to drop the loathsome thing. But somehow, he held on, quelling his terror. Below the water, the serpent seemed to be moving, coiling . . .

"It's still afraid we'll harm the creature in the pool—" Jina breathed.

Black kept silent, kept his fingers tight, wondering how it must feel to bring the mind into contact with the chilly, unreasoning consciousness that lived in that ugly head.

The venom-drops grew larger on the tips of the fangs. One drop grew so swollen that it fell, shimmering, toward Black's left arm.

He wrenched aside. The droplet missed his elbow by an inch.

The kill-adder began to writhe harder. The other serpents standing in the brackish water began to glide forward . . .

Another moan from the black girl. The serpent seemed to stiffen, whip its head upward. Suddenly the oily body began to slide upward through Black's fingers. He wasn't strong enough to prevent it.

The serpent's head rose above him. He heard Jina cry, "Let go! I have it—"

Black released his grip, tore the knife from between his teeth, ready to fight. The kill-adder towered higher, then suddenly collapsed on itself, raising a huge splash as its powerful coils hit the water.

The coils sank, then the head. Just before the head disappeared, membranes closed to hide the brilliant yellow eyes.

As the kill-adder sank, the others dropped too. And vanished below the surface.

Doggo was bent forward next to Jina, short sword ready. His small eyes showed his primitive terror. Jina seemed to stare through Black, whispering:

"Stand still and let it come to me. It will come if we make no sudden moves. It's still afraid of me. It wants to be sure there's no danger to Gol. Whatever you see or feel—don't move—"

And, slowly, she reached up behind her back.

She unclasped her leather and metal halter, let it fall in the water. Her hands disappeared below the surface. Black knew she'd pushed off her clout. Her voice sounded hollow:

"It doesn't think as we think. Yet somehow I can understand it. And it, me. Now it knows I'm completely vulnerable—hold still, it's—"

Suddenly, below the water to his left, Black felt a stirring. A passage ...

Doggo's little fist went tight on the sword hilt. It was all Black could do to keep from slashing the water in wild terror.

The kill-adder's head broke the surface. It twined around Jina's waist. The head disappeared behind her.

The head came back into sight over her left shoulder. Black saw the fear in her eyes. But she remained absolutely still.

The giant snake's head slithered down over her shoulder and came to rest on the incline of her left breast. Its jaws closed. The membranes slid down to half-veil the pupils.

Jina shuddered, her strain released. She breathed: T have control."

After a moment, she added, "Let's move swiftly. It knows we won't harm Gol. But it's still angry that I tamed it—"

"How far to the god-pool?" Black asked.

She inclined her head. "Only to there."

He turned, seeing the wall of creepers on the far side of the open water. The rest of the kill-adders had sunk out of sight, as if they'd never existed.

Black slid by her, watching the flat head on her breast. Swallowing hard, he signed to Doggo.

The two began clambering around sunken tree trunks, circling to approach the creeper-wall from the left. Jina kept up with them, the kill-adder quiet now. Its long body trailed away in the water behind her.

But there was still fear in her eyes. And a look of great strain on her face.

ix

Black's knife sawed through the last of the tangled creepers. The vines parted, the bottom portions dropping into the water with a splash that sounded thunderously loud in the silence.

He blinked into the gloom. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the faint light filtering into the pool directly ahead of him.

The pool was tranquil, the brackish water undisturbed. Thick tree trunks rose around the pool's perimeter. The air had a still, superheated quality.

Black searched for signs of life. Nothing. Not a ripple on the water; not even an insect darting in the slanting fight. It was as though life avoided the place.

He found himself whispering:

"Jina, are you sure—?"

"Yes. And he's awake. Look to the left." Black did, and caught his breath.

In a particularly heavy area of shadow between two outward-angling trunks, he saw strange slits of light. Slits that grew wider. Opening . . .

Eyes. Immense eyes. In a huge head, just above the water.

Even as the recognition penetrated his mind, there was the sound of water being disturbed. With startling speed, Gol rose . . .

Doggo cried out fearfully. The huge gray head shot higher. Then an immense muscled chest rose out of the pool. Black wondered what long-gone genetic mutation had produced such an incredible giant.

Gol stared at them with a kind of dumb cunning. Its nose was thick and flat. Deep creases indented its brow. Its ears were pointed; and from the top of its smooth, massive head stuck a small tuft of hair. The stalk was bound with metal rings. Once, the creature or its land had known enough of civilized ways to fashion metal into ornamentation . . .

Huge ropy muscles stood out all over its thick-looking hide. Misty beams of light drew reflections from its chest and shoulders as it bent its head forward to see who had entered its private domain.

All at once, the giant reached toward them with one great claw-fingered hand.

That was too much for Doggo, who gave a fierce yell and lunged forward past Black, ignoring the latter's shout of warning.

Gol's hand stretched across the pool. Jina too tried to call Doggo back. But he was already swinging his short sword over and down. The blow caught Gol's forearm . . .

Doggo's blade didn't so much as nick the giant's skin.

The little man staggered back, floundering in the water. Gol gave a kind of snort, withdrawing its hand. Black had a moment to marvel at the toughness of that gray hide—but only a moment.

Gol's fierce slanted eyes searched the pool for whoever had stung it. Then its hand shot out again, plainly in anger this time. It reached for Doggo, who was all but submerged. He struggled for footing, spitting out water.

In another second or so, the giant would have Doggo's head in his hand. Black moved forward—the water was shallower toward the center of the pool—but he stopped when he heard Jina's sibilant hiss of warning.

She slid by him, the kill-adder twining around her shoulder. She darted to the left, between Doggo and Gol. Suddenly, her face lifted toward the giant.

Doggo recovered his footing. He raised his sword. Black's gesture told the little man to hold his attack.

Gol's hand hovered above Jina's head. If those immense fingers closed on her body, one quick crush would kill her . . .

Very slowly, Jina reached across with her right hand. She laid her palm on the head of the kill-adder resting on her left breast. Then, Gol's hand a threatening shadow above her, she began to bring her left hand up.

Gol's fingers seemed to tense. The slanted eyes shone with sullen rage. Jina's hand came higher, straightening, stiffening . . .

Until suddenly she extended her arm full length.

Gol splashed backward a step. Then another. He made small coughing sounds in his throat.

Jina raised her head, stretching her left hand higher. It was a gesture of authority; of command.

Twined between her legs, the kill-adder thrashed once. Jina's shoulders trembled.

Gol seemed to hesitate, as if uncertain whether to surrender or strike. It was an eerie struggle, conducted in silence except for the sound of movement in the water where Gol's great thick legs stirred the pool.

Black knew that if Jina's mind was not strong enough to hold the thing in check—if it turned on them—all of them would never escape the pool alive. One might make it. But Gol would surely move fast enough to strike down the others . . .

Jina's shoulders began to shake more violently. How much longer could she sustain the effort of trying to control the huge thing?

It lifted both its hands in front of its chest. Black tensed again, knife ready . . .

Jina's arm muscles stood out as she strained her left hand high. Pointing. Commanding . . .

All at once, Gol lurched backward.

The giant seemed to bend back at the waist, grasping trees on either side. The great head hung down. The baleful eyes stared in dumb surrender.

Jina kept her hand raised as she spoke:

"I have tamed the kill-adder. You will not harm me, or those who have come with me."

Gol gave a series of grunts. Then he articulated what sounded like two words:

"Na har."

Black recalled Helanne saying the creature had rudimentary powers of speech. He realized that the giant was trying to repeat Jina's words.

Not harm.

"I will rest for a while now," Jina went on. "So will my friends. While we rest, you will not stir. You will stay peaceably in this pool. Then, when I speak to you again, you will come with us out of the forest, just as you went with another who tamed the kill-adder. You will follow us to a city. And when we have done with you, we will give you leave to come back to this pool that is your home. But until we say you may return, you will obey no one but me. You will hurt no one except those I tell you to hurt. Now, creature, you may rest too."

Again Gol made peculiar monosyllabic noises, hanging there between the trees and watching the black girl.

Slowly, she turned to Black. Her face was stark, ravaged with strain. One of her hands flicked the kill-adder's head. It roused, twisted away, plopped into the water.

"That—cost me, Black," she gasped. T don't know how long it will obey me. An hour, a—"

Suddenly, she cried out Black darted forward to catch her as she fainted.

Jina's skin felt feverish. She slumped unconscious in his arms. He brought his head up sharply, watching Gol for any signs of an attack.

Without looking at Doggo, Black said to him, "We'll back out of the pool. Find a place where we can put her down—"

Slowly, a step at a time, they retreated to the creeper-wall. All the while, Gol's great slanting eyes watched them. Black's heart hammered hard in his chest.

He felt creepers against his back. He kept moving. A step. Another . . .

Jina's limp legs drew ripples in the water. Another step. One more . . .

The vines fell back in place, hiding the giant that hung between the trees—

Either subdued or waiting to strike.

x

As nearly as Black could reckon, Jina slept for the better part of four hours. Then she woke. Still exhausted, she said. But capable of moving again.

"Has Gol stirred?" she asked.

"Not a sound. Not so much as a splash in there." Black glanced uneasily at the creeper-wall.

Jina wiped her hands down her naked flanks. "We must go back to Shaz at once. While I still have control of his mind. He didn't like leaving the forest with Helanne that first time. Away from the pool, he's afraid. But he'll go because I tell him he must." She started forward. "I’ll bring him out—"

"Do you want me to help?"

Her smile was weary. "I wish you could. I'll take him to the gates of Shaz. From that point on, it's up to you."

Stepping down into the water, she moved toward the creeper-wall.

Black signed Doggo to his feet. The two watched as Jina disappeared into the gloom.

xi

They came to the south gate of Shaz by night—by design.

Occasionally a sentry cried the hour from the wall. Otherwise, the city was quiet. A few lamps burned in onion-domes that hadn't been destroyed by fire. Once, they heard raucous singing. Shaz slumbered, secure.

No, Black thought. Conquered would be a better word.

He had discussed strategy with Jina and Doggo on the trek from the rainforest. Their slim chance rested on their ability to reach the central city—the palace, if possible—without being caught. It would be perilously difficult. They might well be cut down before they ever came close to Blind Eljer.

But finding the tyrant was the plan they'd agreed upon. So they would carry it through.

It struck Black that he might not have long to live. Somehow, it didn't matter. There were simply no other alternatives.

The one favorable circumstance seemed to be Eljer's lack of concern for their whereabouts. On the march back across the grasslands, Jina had tentatively sent her mind exploring. She had found no evidence that the tyrant was awake, or even aware of them. Perhaps, as Black had surmised earlier, Eljer was content to let them roam the Sud, considering it a fit prison for them.

But what if Eljer had already re-opened a gate to Three? What if he was no longer in Shaz—?

A scurrying in the dark. Doggo appeared from the right.

"Watchman," he said, pointing to the city wall looming above them.

"Where?" Black said.

"Back there, some distance. They have spread their sentries thin."

"What would possibly attack them from out here?" Black returned with a sour smile. Opening his leg, he palmed the knife. "Nothing—they think."

Twined around Jina's shoulders, the kill-adder glistened in the starlight. Behind her, head low, great long arms hanging at its sides, Gol stood unmoving. It had followed Jina dutifully on the long, wearying walk out of the rainforest.

"All right, Jina," Black whispered. "Tell him what we want him to do."

xii

Jina stiffened. Then Gol's hands lifted from its sides.

Black tensed as the huge fingers reached for him. The creature's right hand closed around his legs, as if they were no more than sticks. The other hand slid around his shoulders. Then he was lifted.

The slanted eyes looked at him, neither friendly nor unfriendly. Like some toy, Black was set on the wall. Then Gol's hands opened, dropping back into the darkness.

Black glanced right, left, then out over the city.

It was the darkest hour of the night. The streets were empty and silent. From his vantage point, Black could see the ruins of many burned buildings. And he could pick out the figures of sentries far down the wall in either direction.

He crept to the wall's inner edge. He raised his metal leg up over the parapet, pulled himself up, sat there looking down.

Two soldiers were on duty under the lamp that burned over the gate. Both sat with their backs to the wall. There might be a third man in the guard booth.

It was a long way to the ground.

Black flopped over on his belly, preparing to drop his legs over the parapet, then hang and let go. Maneuvering, he made an awkward move. His right leg hit the parapet's edge, and clanged softly.

Down below, one of the soldiers scrambled to his feet.

He asked his companion whether he'd heard a noise. Black wasted no more time. He bellied over the edge, let himself down until he was hanging full length. With the knife between his clenched teeth, he let go.

He hit hard, and off balance. He fell. That cost him a second or so.

The soldiers reacted instantly, starting around the guard booth. On the ground with his left leg twisted beneath him, he felt the quick, hurting pull of a muscle.

He heard one of the approaching guards say:

"There, out beyond the light—"

By that time, Black was up and running.

He burst into the light, burying his blade in one soldier's belly. The other leaped for the booth, shouting, "Captain—/"

Black feinted toward the booth. The soldier stepped into the doorway as another man appeared behind him, sleepy-eyed. But instead of continuing toward the booth, Black angled for the gate.

Knife back in his teeth, he used both hands to grab the underside of the crossbar. It was held inside two upright prongs, one mounted on each door. Just as he raised the heavy beam free of both prongs, a shadow flickered in the corner of his eye.

He dropped to the ground—and a spear glanced off the gate, its shaft snapping.

Swords whicked from sheaths. Black rolled over, palming the knife as the captain and his underling moved in from two sides. Black saw that he'd released the crossbar from the prongs of the right-hand door. But it had fallen so that it was still held by the prongs of the left. Thus, the right door could be opened only a little.

"Jina?" he yelled. "Make Gol break the gate—"

The knife in Black's hand flashed bright as the two shuffled forward warily, swords out.

Behind him, Black heard the right gate open, then strike the crossbar. Suddenly there was another, heavier thud, as great weight was applied to the outside of the right door. Black crouched in the lamplight, trying to watch both soldiers at once. The captain ordered the other man to move ahead. Black was ready with a knife-parry when the soldier lunged.

The knife rang against the sword, the impact driving pain up Black's arm. The frightened soldier kicked him viciously, then whipped his sword back, intending to drive it into Black's side.

Black slashed at the soldier's face, wrenched backward as the sword skinned by his side. He chopped over from the right, a clumsy blow. But the edge of the knife gashed the soldier's sword arm. That was enough to make the man's fingers open. The weapon fell.

Black was conscious of the captain on the move behind him. There was another crash-and-creak from the gate. With one swift stroke, Black opened the soldier's cheek, then shoved hard. The man shrieked and tumbled into the guard booth.

A shadow on the ground, moving . . .

Black pivoted.

His left foot twisted. He dropped to one knee as the captain thrust his sword at Black's chest.

That stroke would have killed him, but for the fact that the gate crossbar snapped suddenly. One flying section struck the captain's leg. He yelled, his sword-thrust aborted. The blade whispered by Black's ear.

Black buried the knife handle deep in the captain's gut.

He shoved the dead man away as both gates swung in. Gol loomed in the opening.

Jina and Doggo slipped past the giant. Along the parapets, Black heard haloos, men running.

"This way," he gestured, starting into the nearest dark street.

A spear skated down from the wall. Doggo leaped over it.

As Jina followed Black, the kill-adder glistened in the lamplight. Its yellow eyes were open. Gol started to follow too. Another spear flashed from the wall, striking the giant's shoulder, glancing off.

Not even cut by the spear-head, the great creature turned, reached up to the wall to seize the spear-thrower. Black heard bones crackle, a shriek . . .

Gol's right hand came back into the light. Bits of arm and leg protruded between gory fingers. What the giant flung into the dirt no longer resembled a man.

The halloos along the wall continued. Black, Jina and Doggo plunged down a dark, narrow street. Gol lumbered behind, slow-moving, his huge splayed feet making slapping sounds on the stones.

Black decided it was time to let the sleeping citizens know who—and what—had returned to Shaz. He beat on shutters and doors. Soon these began to fly open.

One street-level window revealed a man in. a night-cloak. He looked out, saw Jina with the kill-adder twining around her body, then Gol's massive head and glaring eye. He disappeared from the window suddenly, yelling:

"The god-creature is in the streets! The god-creature and a witch of the south—!"

"Wake as many as you can!" Black shouted at him. "Tell them to kill the enemy—!"

He didn't wait to learn whether the man would answer the summons. There were other doors to hammer, other shutters to bang. At each, he cried the same message.

Soon, they'd covered about a third of the distance to the palace. The streets were still empty of the enemy. But their advantage of surprise couldn't last much longer.

Before they'd gone another block, Black was heartened by the sight of three burly men emerging from a doorway. Two were armed with clubs. The men vanished in the dark. From a neighboring street, someone cried, "Out of your beds! The witch has risen—/"

Another four blocks, and Black spotted perhaps a dozen more men—citizens—moving through the darkness of the streets. All carried knives or lengths of wood. The people were responding to the sight of Gol and the black witch carrying the kill-adder.

But were they responding fast enough? Black didn't think so. And where was the enemy?

All at once, that question was answered. A squad of soldiers bearing lanterns and spears burst into sight around a bending in the street.

There was a yell from an old man in a group that had begun following Black and the others. As Black led his companions down a cross-alley, the citizens plunged into combat with the soldiers.

Well, Black thought, at least it's begun. He only hoped enough people would have the courage to seize the moment—and that the news of the witch's coming would spread quickly, and reach all quarters.

"Black—I"

He whirled, saw Jina leaning against a wall, her eyes wide. "What is it—?"

"Eljer's awake—he's found me—"

Her hands clawed the air in front of her. Then, giving one sharp cry of agony, she doubled against the wall.

Her fingers fought for purchase, found none. She slid down, sprawled out on her side, her breasts heaving. The kill-adder slithered away into the shadows.

Black kneeled over the black girl, tried to shake her awake. But Eljer had struck her with telling force. She was barely breathing.

He heard strange noises, twisted his head up . . .

Saw Gol bending forward with a curious childlike puzzlement. Helplessly, Black said to Doggo, T don't know how to control him—"

Lanterns—shouts—and more soldiers' coming at them on the run . . .

xiii

Spears flashed and clanged off the wall. Black and Doggo were outnumbered ten to one. He searched desperately for some means of escape. A few paces ahead, he saw a wall on his left; possibly there was a garden beyond.

He ducked away from another spear, pointed Doggo toward the wall, turned to shout, "Gol! Gol—come this way!"

The kill-adder was wrapping itself around Gol's immense right leg. The giant picked up the snake, draped it clumsily over its shoulder. But its glowing eyes were uncomprehending when Black shouted his command again.

The soldiers were only a block away.

"Gol—come here?'

Black bawled the "command, then started toward the wall over which Doggo was already scrambling. The giant didn't move.

Sick with despair, Black ran after Doggo, leaped and caught the top of the wall. He swung up, over—and dropped into prickly shrubbery.

The night was alive with sound now. Shutters and doors banged everywhere. Swords rang. Men shouted oaths and commands. And, occasionally, cried out in pain ...

Doggo scrambled to him, panting, "Where, Blek?"

"Still the palace. We have to try for Eljer—"

He didn't want to abandon Jina. She was certain to be slain if they discovered her lying in the shadows. But he couldn't carry her and move swiftly.

And reaching the palace was all that mattered now.

In a curiously calm, fatalistic way, he realized his life was probably already forfeit. So he might as well gain maximum advantage from the dying. Push on as far as possible—

To Eljer, if he could.

The people of Shaz seemed to be taking up arms. Would there be enough of them to tip the balance? No way of telling.

Well, he'd done his best on that score. All he could do now was strike for the tyrant, and hope he could get close to Eljer before he was stopped and killed.

He pushed Doggo ahead of him across the garden.

They floundered through an ornamental pool and left by a pole gate.

Looking back along the street, Black saw a first fire burning. It was consuming roofs near the south wall. And nearer, through a break in the rooftops, he saw Gol.

In the street Black had just quitted, the giant was picking up soldiers and hurling them like doll-figures. Gol squeezed its victims before throwing them. The great hands shone with blood.

Black held that image in his mind as he plunged down the street after Doggo. The sky grew redder, and the sounds of fighting and killing louder . . .

xiv

There was no warning.

One moment, Black and Doggo were pounding along a crooked street. The next, Black's head erupted with blinding pain.

When he grew aware of his surroundings again, he was sprawled on his back. Doggo tugged at him:

"Blek, what is the matter? Blek, can you stand—?"

He staggered up. "I think it was Eljer. He touched my mind. He found me. Then he pulled away again—"

But the pain fingered, savage, throbbing.

"He's gone," he repeated. He knew there was purpose in the mind-contact. But he didn't know what.

Trying to clear his head with a hard shake, he said, "Let's go on."

xv

They were about three quarters of the way to the palace, Black judged. He was growing winded. Everywhere, they encountered people running. In fives and tens, the people carried rocks or legs ripped from furniture—improvised weapons. The fires multiplied. The din of fighting was almost constant.

He began to hope that, regardless of what happened to him,

Shaz might throw off the tyrant. Or at least tear a good hole in

his strength. The street he and Doggo were climbing angled up steeply. It ended in a wall, where another street apparently led off to the right. On that wall, there was light all at once; an interplay of grotesque shadows.

Men approaching.

Black checked both sides of the steep street. The buildings were three stories. All doors were shut, all windows shuttered. The glare on the wall ahead brightened . . .

And suddenly, its source spilled into sight.

A dozen men; then twice that many. Enemy soldiers.

Black and Doggo started to retreat. The soldiers didn't seem in any great hurry to pursue them. All at once, their ranks parted. A man stepped through; a long-legged man in garments of gray.

A silver brooch with a gray stone gleamed on his right shoulder. His soft gray boots were planted wide. Black saw straight white hair, faintly protruding milk-white eyes . . .

He stopped.

Doggo ran on a step or two. Then he halted too, watching Black.

Blind Eljer stood at the head of the street, lightly slapping his thong-whip against his right leg. And Black knew the end was coming.

"I came for you," Eljer shouted down. "What you've done tonight deserves personal settlement."

"That's why you touched my mind—?"

"Yes," Eljer shouted back. "To find you. I owe you much. For making Jina turn against me. For bringing that creature out of the forest. My mistake, I suppose, was allowing you and that black bitch to have free run of the countryside—"

A pause. When he spoke again, his voice was quite loud and confident:

"But none of that matters. Only the payment. We'll put down the rebellion soon enough. But first, you and I shall finish our business. These men of mine won't interfere. Tell that stinking traitor Doggo to do the same."

"Do as he says, Doggo," Black breathed.

"Don't fight him, Blek. He can strike you with his mind. Run, while the way's still open behind us—"

"No. Don't interfere." Louder: "Ready—"

"Ready, slayer of Tarn Redboots," Blind Eljer called down, a smile twisting his lips.

Black didn't understand that smile until Eljer cracked his little whip once. All the soldiers threw down their torches. In an instant, the sloping street was completely dark.

Then Black heard a faint sound. Eljer’s footsteps . . .

He was coming down the inclined street. Armed with his whip. And his ability to see where there was no light.

At last Black knew how the game was to be played out. Like a blind man in the dark street, he waited for the other blind man shuffling toward him.

The blind man who could see.

xvi

For a moment he wondered what was happening beyond the high buildings that kept out all but the faintest starlight. He still heard sounds of fighting. But it was impossible to tell who was coming out ahead.

Black was exhausted. In a way, he was glad that Eljer had sought him out. He'd given of his energy for too long. There was very little left. It would almost be a relief to have it all over with . . .

Sibilant footfalls. Closer now. Black realized the tyrant was speaking to him:

"—the citizens I have already processed. When I've done with you, I'll open the pens and spill them into the streets. They'll make quick work of the rebels. They'll kill their own relatives—their mothers, their children—on command. Then, in a matter of days, I'll be going back to Shulkor. To open new gates and send my strike force through to your Earth. Pity you can't go with me to watch it fall. But I'm weary of you. Your lust for Tarn's sister has turned you into a disgusting annoyance—"

Black tried to listen to the voice; tried to judge how close Eljer was. But he couldn't tell.

"Not a threat, mind you. Never a serious threat. An annoyance."

"But one you evidently think you have to dispose of—" "Even an annoyance can steal valuable energy. That's

why I decided to seek you out. Have this done,

quickly—"

Black dove toward the voice, knife hand flashing down. He almost fell, cutting empty darkness.

Blind Eljer laughed—behind him.

"I'm not there in front of you, Black. I'm here. Why are you so blind?" The little whip cracked.

Black whirled, stabbed out.

Nothing.

"No, Black, wrong again. Not behind. On your right—"

Two cracks of the whip. He charged—and slammed painfully against a building's wall. "No, Black, on your left—" Two cracks of the whip. He started that way. "Here, to the right—"

Eljer had to be moving with great speed. As soon as Black lunged one way, he heard the voice from another quarter.

The laughter mocked. The whip-cracks echoed between the high walls. Black's mind began to seethe with a deep red fury.

This way, Eljer had the best of him. He could string out the game until he tired of it. And he would win.

Thinking quickly, Black turned and ran toward the wall on his left. He raced along it until he found a door. He began prying at the door with the blade of his knife.

"Black? Here I am. Behind you—"

Black feigned the hard breathing of a man hysterical with fear. He scraped and pried with the knife, as if he were trying to snap the latch that held the door shut.

"Black?”

A moment of silence. Then steps—and anger in Eljer's voice:

"Black, turn and fight. I didn't imagine you were a coward on top of all—"

Breathing louder, Black sawed the knife back and forth in the crack between door and door-frame. Let him think I'm terrified. Let him think I've broken—

He made louder, mewling sounds. Suddenly Eljer's voice rose close behind him:

"Fight, damn you!"

He heard the whistle of the little thong-whip. That gave him enough warning. He turned, letting go of the knife and lashing out with both hands. In the dark, he found solid flesh—Eljer's arm.

Too late, the tyrant tried to pull away. Black tore the little whip out of Eljer's hand. He looped it around the blind man's neck and whipped his crossed wrists to each side.

Eljer struggled harder, pawing at the thong around his throat. Black held on tight, pulling both ends. A moment later, the expected attack came . . .

A searing light burst inside his head, almost making him let go of the whip. The pain intensified, like fire along his nerves. He wanted to scream, to run. But somehow he held—and tightened . . .

Just when the flaring light grew most intense, and Black knew he had to let go or die, the light dimmed at the edges. He held on.

Eljer kicked wildly at his legs; his good one and his false one. He held on.

The kicks grew weaker. The light was dimming steadily.

He let go when he was certain Blind Eljer had strangled to death.

Weak, he slumped against the wall. "Blek?"

"Yes—" Hard to breathe. Tired. Hurt. "He's dead." Somehow he summoned energy to make it louder: "I said Eljer is dead. Light a torch and see."

In a moment, flame flickered at the high end of the street. Black saw Eljer lying on his back. His milky eyes stared at nothing. The thong was buried an inch in his purpling throat.

And before he passed out, Black saw Eljer's men turning to run.

xvii

Morning.

Smoke palls stained the sky. There had been a good many fires set during the night. Most of them still smoldered.

Black leaned on the rail of the terrace, his long hair riffling in the wind. He tried to shut out the voices from the apartment that had once belonged to Helanne.

Now and again, Jina's quieter speech would break through the loud, harsh voices. The deputation of citizens had come to find her just a short time after she'd entered the palace compound at first light. She had entered with Gol plodding behind her, the kill-adder twining around her.

In the street where she'd fallen, Jina had gone unnoticed in the shadows, left alone by the rampaging soldiers. She'd wakened to find the immediate attackers all dead, killed by the gray giant. With Gol following, she made her way toward the palace. She reached the great plaza just about the time the rumor spread that Blind Eljer had been slain. That was the turning point throughout the city, Black later learned. From then on, Eljer's men had fought with little heart.

Black himself had wakened inside a dank storeroom that opened off the sloping street where he'd killed the tyrant. Doggo had attacked the same door Black had pretended to try to open. He cut through the wood latch and hauled Black inside to protect him from roving bands of soldiers.

Soon after the news of Eljer's death spread, those soldiers began to disappear from the streets—violently.

More and more citizens were abroad, given heart by the presence of the woman they called a witch of the south. Black had stumbled outside into streets virtually cleared of the enemy. He made his way to the palace without difficulty.

Jina had barely occupied Helanne's own apartments when the citizen deputation arrived.

The people told her that most of Eljer's men would soon be dead or imprisoned. Once sparked, the revolt's end was almost ordained, because the tyrant's men were outnumbered. And there had been no time for them to bring their wheeled cannon into play.

So now Black leaned on the rail and stared down into the plaza. There, other citizen groups were marching in with survivors of Eljer's army. Some were herded through the palace wall. To cells, Black presumed. A few —officers—were forced to kneel for beheading.

One or two of the officers wept and begged for mercy. Most accepted the end stoically. The plaza stones shone wet in the sun.

He was filled with a vast, numbing tiredness. How long since he'd eaten properly? Slept a whole night without fear? An eternity, it seemed . . .

And now, when peace should be returning, contentious voices rang from inside.

Jina spoke, loudly, angrily. He didn't hear the exact words. But the tone was clearly negative.

He turned as she appeared between the gallery columns. She'd found clothing—a clout, a plain halter of leather. But her body was still marked by small clotting wounds. Fatigue showed in her eyes.

Doggo trotted behind her, one hand on his sword. He kept glancing toward the chamber they'd just quitted.

Dim faces peered from the other side of the gallery. Farther back in the shadows of the apartment, Black saw the gleam of Gol's eyes. The giant crouched in one corner, its shoulders pushing against the ceiling, his head hunched forward, a kind of great docile child. The kill-adder twined around its neck.

As Jina approached, her eyes cautioned Black to silence.

She stood close to him, pretending to study the plaza, where an officer's cry was cut off by the whack of a sword. Doggo shifted from foot to foot, obviously watching the gallery for signs of danger.

Danger? Black thought wearily. Why now?

"I must talk quietly, Black," Jina said. "They're very angry with me—"

"The people? That's crazy! You helped them throw off Eljer—"

"So I have pointed out," she nodded, sighing. "I also reminded them that I have spared the lives of those officers who operate Eljer's processing equipment, in the hope that those poor cretins we found in his pens can somehow be restored to normal. But bear in mind, this deputation was elected—quickly, but elected all the same—to speak for a majority of the citizens of Shaz—"

T still don't understand what's wrong. Don't they want you to send Gol back to the pool?"

"That they'll accept. But not my decision to leave."

"Oh. I see."

"When I told them I intended to go—I didn't exactly tell them where, mind you—I just said I would be leaving Shaz, and the Sud, very soon. They begged me not to. I insisted, I was firm on it. Now I'm afraid there'll be trouble."

Black scowled. "Ungrateful bastards."

"Don't score them too harshly. After all, we both had a hand in their attitude. Between us, we manufactured another witch of the south. And brought the signs of her power to Shaz a second time. They don't want another Holofernos ruling them. They—" She hesitated. "They want me to take the veils."

"Stay here?"

"Yes. They're angry because I told them I couldn't. They don't understand why. It was getting really ugly in there, so I said I had to come out on the terrace for a few minutes of private thought. And consultation—" After a moment, she lowered her voice even further: "There's another reason we have to go. An even more urgent one."

"What is it?"

"You."

"I don't under—"

"Did you think you wouldn't be recognized when you came back to the city? The people want to know why you pretended to be the Raj. How you influenced Helanne to make her certify you. Right now, they're hesitant to move—there's too much euphoria from the victory. But it won't take long for that to wear off. One of the citizens in there spoke of forcing you to tell the truth. He used the word torture."

Black absorbed that in silence, as she continued:

"So the longer we drag this on, the worse—the more dangerous—it'll be. I've already spoken to Gol—with the mind-power. When I go, he'll simply leave Shaz and return to the rainforest. They won't be able to hold him here by force. I don't think they'd even try. The neatest way to handle it is for us to go. Now."

"You mean open a gate here?’'

"Yes, right here. To Three. Well be gone before they quite know what's happened. They'll never consent to my leaving otherwise. And they'll get along well enough with the tyrant gone. I don't think they'll repeat the Holofernos mistake."

Black thought, then asked, "Will you take Doggo too?"

She nodded. T only hope I have enough control."

He pretended to study the smoldering skyline. It only took him a moment to say, "All right." A pause. Then: "Are they still watching?"

"Yes."

"Then don't waste time."

Jina nodded. Her dark lids closed. With her face toward the terrace rail, she stiffened. Black waited for the first windy roar that would tell him her adept's mind was forcing open a vortex between Earths Four and Three.

He stared at the smoke-streaked sky, not sorry to see the last of this analogue world. Not sorry in the least.

Jina's low moan made him swing around. Voices muttered along the gallery. Several of the boldest members of the deputation emerged into the open, pointing at the black girl.

Black looked at her. The past hours had undoubtedly robbed her of energy. Would she be strong enough?

The deputation was moving forward, talking louder, aware that something odd was happening, without knowing quite what . . .

He looked at Jina again. Could she bring it off? Exhausted as she was, could she take him back to Sam?

xviii

The familiar fog drifted across his eyes. The surging winds beat at his eardrums. He seemed to soar in emptiness that was without form, without color . . .

Then an image started to form. But with puzzling slowness.

Always before, emerging from a gate, the transition had been sharp. Now he perceived the image far off, and far below. Had Jina oriented them incorrectly?

He recognized a curling brown sea. Liff, surely. On Earth Three. He saw a tumbled old city on a jutting headland. Koptic Bay. Seat of the tyrant of Three . . .

But he was high above it. And mist swam across the image. One moment, it seemed real; the next, it was flat, like a picture.

What was wrong?

Slowly, he seemed to descend toward Koptic Bay. On the headland, breakers curling at its base, sat the airy, luxurious palace. Yes, and there was the long private lake. Tiny figures stood on the palace ramparts.

Again mist intervened. He heard a high, sharp note, almost musical. What was wrong?

Once more he saw Koptic Bay. But as yet he had no sense of his own physical reality. Somehow, his mind was aware, but his body didn't exist.

Perhaps his physical self was still whirling out be-

tween the analogues—and only a mental picture of their destination lay ahead of him. A picture flattening again suddenly. The colors ran out of it. Darkness closed in from the edges.

The high, piercing soprano note became a voice. Jina's voice, through the wind-roar:

"Blackblackblack—"

He tried to reply but had no lungs, no voice-box. Why was she failing?

The voice sang again—in terror:

"Blackblackblackblack—"

He fought to send his thoughts:

Jina, where are you?

"Black, they have hold of me—"

Jina, why aren't we through the gate? I saw Koptic Bay. But it vanished—

"They're holding me. Physically holding me. And I'm too tired. I shouldn't have tried it now. I can get you part way. But I can't get Doggo through, I can't get myself through at the same time. And the people know something's happening. They've surrounded me. They won't let me go—"

Jina, you've got to put me through to Earth Three!

"I'm trying!" The faraway soprano voice took on a sorrowing note. "Even under ideal conditions, my power isn't strong—oh! I can see the terrace again. Black, I'm still here! Doggo's still here—and they're holding me down—Black—I'm sorry—"

Put me through, Jina! PUT ME THROUGH!

"I'll try—"

Abruptly, Black felt himself lifted, hurled hard. Falling . . .

xix

Sandy hills.

A blazing sun.

A low, murmuring wind.

He pushed himself up slowly. He tasted his own 167 parched lips. A short distance away, between sandhills, he saw something gleam in the sun.

Even as he ran toward it, he recognized it. He began to yell:

"No! No, goddamn it, NO—"

He lunged against the hot metal, searing his hands as he spilled the drifted sand off the hood of— Bronwyn's rented car. Bronwyn's rented car—on Earth.

xx

Where was the error?

Had Jina tried too hard> there at the last? She'd catapulted him past Earth Three straight to Earth.

Was she still on Four with Doggo? Held there by fanatics who wouldn't allow her to go?

The blowing sand gave no answer.

He heard the hum of cars along a highway. Sam, he thought, staring at the sky. Oh, Christ, Sam—

He opened the right-hand door of the Olds and sat on the edge of the blistering-hot seat. He wondered why the car hadn't been found yet.

Not that he gave a damn.

He rested his forearm on the searing dash, his eyes closed against the pain and loss.

Coda

The Day Before Apocalypse

The Mexican police picked him up on the highway. He was wandering, sunstruck, staring up into the glare of the sky and muttering names.

Jina.

Doggo.

Sam.

He was only peripherally aware of them taking him gently but firmly by the arms. They guided him to a dusty sedan in which the air conditioning operated noisily. They asked him questions as they drove. Questions about his name, nationality. About the illegal use of drugs. He answered them. Or he supposed he answered them. He heard his own voice. But none of his answers made any particular sense to him.

Finally, the sedan swung through a large gate and up a long drive between gently stirring palms. Ahead, he saw rambling white buildings. He had a piercing vision of Sam's face.

Then he fainted.

ii

A week and a half later, he was released from a San Diego hospital and given a cheap suit of clothing, a cardboard traveling bag, and a bus ticket up the coast.

In the San Diego hospital ward, he'd signed papers. Meaningless papers proffered by a succession of rather irritable Americans in wrinkled suits. They professed to be representatives of various Federal and State departments. Black never looked at the papers he was signing.

He had answered all the questions to the best of his ability. And as honestly as he thought he dared.

Yes, his name was Gavin Black.

Yes, he was a former Washington, D.C. newsman who maintained an address in that city.

Yes, he had an alcohol problem . . .

(There was a hiatus in the questioning. He dozed for hours, or maybe days. Later, he learned that, during the interval, certain calls had been made to the eastern seaboard. Then the questioning resumed.)

No, he had no recollection of how he had arrived in California.

Yes, he had started drinking even more heavily than usual after being fired from his last assignment ...

All the time, a part of his mind hung back. What would they say, these rather irritable bureaucrats, if he suddenly blurted a word—Gol, for example.

They'd think it slang. Or a slip of the tongue.

What if he explained what it meant?

They'd lock him away for certain.

That mustn't happen.

So he answered each question with extreme care.

He felt the bitterness of defeat very deeply. He was cut off from Earth Three again. Cut off from anyone who could lift him there—to Sam.

He had to find her.

Eventually he was turned out into the southern California sun, a civic responsibility discharged. They had provided a bus ticket to Los Angeles because he'd told them that was where he wanted to go. Said it on the spur of the moment; he couldn't think of any better place.

The great chrome coach rolled onto the freeway and headed north. Black stared out the green-tinted window at the speeding lanes of traffic. The cheap board suitcase sat between his feet.

He glanced at the elderly Mexican woman sitting beside him. What if he showed her his metal leg? The compartments?

He'd probably be arrested.

But all at once, he had a destination.

It came to him quickly. Positively. In Los Angeles, he hitched rides from the downtown bus terminal to the airport. There, he used a Traveler's Aid phone to longdistance the central emergency number maintained by one of his credit card organizations. The one to which he owed the least money.

He said he'd lost his card. His air fare north was okayed. He was even advanced one hundred dollars. It would be waiting for him in cash at the desk of the small hotel where he'd secured a room.

In San Francisco.

iii

Hands in the pocket of the cheap raincoat he'd bought earlier in the afternoon, Black shivered in the fog and looked up at the front of the Fortune Club.

The window was overlaid with planks. The front door was padlocked. A metal sign reflected street lights.

OUT OF BUSINESS.

iv

It was a futile search, and he knew he'd get nowhere with it. But he went through with it anyway.

He was locked in a kind of invisible prison; the prison accompanied him wherever he went in San Francisco. One day became two, then four, then a week. What would the hotel do when his cash ran out? Somehow, he had to buy time.

Time to walk the hilly streets. Searching faces; looking into eyes . . .

There was no solid, logical reason why he might expect to see Bronwyn in this city where he'd last met him. No reason; just groundless hope. Without the power of a Bronwyn, the mind of a Bronwyn, the way back to Sam on Three was forever closed.

He didn't find Bronwyn.

But on the eight day, he found Helanne.

V

An unusual late afternoon drizzle had started. Black was on Nob Hill, hurrying along in the rush hour crowds, when he spotted a face coming toward him.

Fair hair.

Eyes—olive.

There was quick recognition. Then fear. She fought through pedestrian traffic going the opposite way, darted into the main door of the Fairmont.

He had a quarter of a block to run to reach that same revolving door. He shouldered a fat man aside, whirled into the lobby, shook rain off his face with a dash of his hand. He searched the plush lobby.

There! She was just disappearing down a corridor beyond the elevators.

She glanced back, then plunged out of sight. He ran after her.

A dozen men wearing plastic name badges came off two elevators at once. Black nearly knocked one man down. The man grabbed him.

"Damn hair-freak! Watch where you're—"

Black stared into the man's face. The man closed his mouth, paling. He let go. Black ran on.

Down the corridor . . .

Down the stairs.

The lower level was a long, echoing arcade lined with shops. At the far end, Helanne's heels tapped and rang.

He was only halfway along the arcade by the time she went out the revolving door.

When he reached the street, it was raining harder. People hurried by. He searched for a running girl with fair hair.

No sign.

Gone.

Gone.

vi

Down by the Embarcadero that night, with the rain pouring outside, he found a bar.

He hadn't tasted a drink in a long time. Now his tongue crawled with thirst.

He had less than four dollars left. He stood under the neon, debating. The street was deserted except for. an off-duty cab. Finally he gave up and went inside.

The bar was practically empty, save for a couple of rough-looking wharf types. Black climbed on a stool, something telling him he'd never find Helanne again. Or Bronwyn. If they had been in the city, he was sure they would be gone by now.

The bartender asked for his order.

"Beer."

If he were going under, all the way under, he could stretch it out by drinking cheap.

The bartender filled a glass, set it in front of him. Black started to pick up the glass. He stopped, looking at the bartender.

"Something wrong with the beer?" the man asked.

Black tasted it. Bitter.

"No," he said. "The beer's fine."

"Then what the hell are you staring at?"

The bartender said it in a kind of easy, relaxed way. But his eyes were wary.

Black kept staring.

At the man's little chin beard.

At the man's gold earring. It winked in his pierced 173 right earlobe, only partially concealed by long, uncombed hair . . . "Well?"

"Nothing," Black said, standing up so suddenly that he upset the glass. Beer dripped on the floor as he slammed down two quarters and walked out into the rain.

He was certain the man was one of the infiltrators from Earth Three. Certain.

He walked fast, shoving a panhandler aside. At the corner, he looked back.

The bartender had stepped outside. He was watching Black in the rain, as if undecided about coming after him.

Black walked faster.

vii

The rain slacked off. The fog came in. Black kept walking. Here, in America—in a cosmopolitan city—he felt alien.

Because of where he'd been.

Because of what he knew.

He was sure that the final, apocalyptic invasion of Earth—the invasion which Bronwyn had warned of, and Blind Eljer had promised—would come. And soon. It might very well destroy the heartline world, Earth, and with it, the other chain worlds along the interlinked complexity called the Klekton ...

Destroy Earth Three.

Destroy Sam.

He had to find her.

He passed another bar and paused outside, tempted. But he moved on. There was too much else to do. Find Helanne. Find Bronwyn.

Find someone to reopen a gate to Earth Three.

Blind Eljer had definitely said that the invasion would come shortly. He had said the high kings were committed to it.

How much time was left? Could he locate Bronwyn before the first invaders came pouring through new gates for the final onslaught?

Much to do. And little time. Black turned up the collar of his coat against the fog and hurried on.