Things pulled at him, demanding him to look, smell, hear what they were. Alive ... it had all come suddenly alive!

His head stopped. Kygek's portly features leapt into view, like a landscape seen through an enlarging glass. Scaf groaned. He could smell Kygek's breath, like an old and rotting corpse.

Kygek tried to speak, but couldn't. It was as if the words terrified him. But words had never frightened Scaf, not even at the start, when they had first come to the Domain, that moonlit night nine years ago.

That was why he had been the first to be named by the Master. "Scaf he had been called: "Quick."

Scaf lifted his eyes, moving from the great black lake of Kygek's mouth, spiked with jagged, yellow rocks, past the furred caverns of his nostrils to the liquid blackness of his pupils. Kygek tried again to speak and once more failed, but it didn't matter-the fear in his eyes, the torment there, were eloquent enough.

"No," Scaf said clearly, trying to keep Kygek's eyes from dragging him down into their terrifying depths.

Kygek thought they had been poisoned, but the Master would hardly keep them for nine years, feed and clothe them, shelter them and teach them his language, only to poison them like vermin. No. Whatever this was, it had a purpose. There was a reason why the world had suddenly changed.

He pulled his eyes away, slowly, agonizingly turning his head. There was a reason why the watershimmered like a pit of silver snakes; a reason why the trees on the far side of the water leapt at him like hungry animals; a reason why the honeybees burned orange and black in the air surrounding him, why their buzzing reverberated like a power saw inside the echoing cavern of his skull. The Master had done something to them. Not poison, no, but something else. Something that had changed their relationship with the world.

He put his hand before his face and stared at it, fascinated, tracing the lines, the patterns of the flesh, and as he did words came to him from nowhere.

"What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread gra"sp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?"

He shuddered, astonished by the sound of his own voice, loud, echoing loud, offering the strange words to the busy air. Those words . . . he'd never heard them before that moment. And yet he knew-knew without asking-that they were not his own.

The Master ... he would have to ask the Master.

Slowly, with an agonizing slowness, he stood. He tried to close his eyes, but it was no good: it was as if his brain refused to let him blank it out. Slowly he turned, his eyes picking their way from object to object like a mountain climber finding handholds in the surface of a cliff. At any moment he might fall.

The water vanished. He let go of a tree and grabbed at a nearby bush. It leapt into view, holding him like a piece of sticky tar. He shook it off and grasped at a low fence.

He was almost there now. His eyes clung to the fence, conscious of the grain of the wood, of the great eyelike whorls, the shining silver head of a nail. Each thing grabbed at him, forcing him to look. Gritting his teeth, he jerked himself free, then turned his body that final, tiny bit.

There!

Scaf could smell Kygek at his feet, could hear his rasping breath beneath him, but his eyes were fixed elsewhere. There, at the top of a brilliant, emerald slope of grass, was the Master's cottage, its walls so white, so powerfully, overwhelmingly white, they hurt Scafs eyes.

He whimpered gratefully.

"Master!" he called, his voice like thunder in his head. "Master!"

Slowly the darkness at the door's edge thickened, widening like a flooding river until, with a suddenness that made Scaf jump, a hand appeared, gripping the wood.

Scaf shuddered, his whole body trembling with a violent anticipation, and then a wave of blackness hit him like a club.

BEN PUSHED THE DOOR open and stepped out into the sunlight. For a moment he stood there, puzzled, then he saw them, down at the end of the lower garden, by the water.

He went down, bending over Kygek to check the pulse at his neck. Kygek stared up at him as he did, doglike as ever, yet there was something new in his eyes; some element of curiosity that had not been there before. The pulse was high but regular. Good, Ben thought and smiled, patting Kygek's shoulder, then turned to the second of them. Scaf was unconscious. Ben knelt beside him, concerned for a moment, then relaxed. The pulse was normal, his heartbeat regular. He had probably just got overexcited, that was all. It was Scaf who had been calling him.As he leaned back, Scaf moaned and opened his eyes. Seeing Ben, the dayman's large, round eyes widened perceptibly, a look of utter astonishment seizing his face.

Ben smiled. "Is it strange, Scaf? Is it all ... changed?"

"Yes," Scaf said quietly, the word filled with wonder. "Your face . . ."

Ben held himself still, letting the Clayman study the contours of his face. So often he had done so himself, standing before a mirror, a lamp to one side, turning his head so that the shadows fell in different ways.

But this felt different. To have another see him as he saw himself . . .

His smile broadened, and as it did Scaf gave a tiny sigh of delight. Then, with a suddenness that was frightening, the dayman's face changed, grew horrified. Scaf was staring past him now, as if there were a demon at his back.

Ben half turned, confused, but there was nothing: only the two remotes that followed him constantly. For a moment he didn't understand, then, with a laugh, he reached up and plucked one of the tiny hovering cameras from the air.

"It's all right," he said, cupping the thing in his hands to show the Clayman. "It's a remote. A tiny camera.

It just looks like a bug."

Slowly Scaf s terror subsided. Slowly the light of curiosity returned to his face.

"I-I've never seen it before," Scaf said slowly, his eyes locked on the tiny machine.

"They've always been there," Ben said, picking it up between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

"You've just not noticed it. Like the rest of it. The drug I gave you has heightened your perceptions.

Sharpened them."

With an effort Scaf pulled his eyes away from the remote and looked at Ben again, the dark pupils of his eyes as tight as pinheads. "Is this for good?"

"Permanent, you mean? No. It'll wear off in a few hours. But it'll leave a residue. You'll sense things much more clearly from now on. And it ought to sharpen up your thought processes too. And when I give you the second shot-"

"The second?" There was a look of doubt in Scaf s eyes now as if he wasn't sure whether that sounded a good thing or a bad. Kygek, who had been lying there listening to everything, gave a distinct groan.

"Don't you want to be better than you are, Scaf?" Scaf s mouth worked impotently a moment, then he shrugged. Ben placed the remote in the air, then reached out to hold Scaf s shoulder. "Of course you do,"

he said, his voice heavy with reassurance. "You all do. Even Kygek here. It's your destiny."

He squeezed the dayman's shoulder gently, then stood, looking about him. The other two must be somewhere about. Back in the blockhouse, perhaps, lying on their backs in bed, engrossed by the patterns on the ceiling. He laughed, remembering his own first experience with the drug. It had been like a door opening in his head. He had seen . . . darkness. The infinite darkness between the individual atoms.

So much space and so little substance. So much . . . nothingness.

Ben looked back at Scaf. It was working. He could see it in their eyes, in the hesitancy with which they now encountered every facet of the world. He had switched them on. For the first time they were alive, truly, vividly alive, the way he himself was alive. He laughed, then spread his arms wide. It was time to further their education.HE CARRIED THE TWO daymen back to the bunkhouse, one under each arm, then searched nearby for the others, defter he found in the toolshed, crouched in a comer, staring at the objects on the shelf in front of him. Blonegek was in the lane, standing facing the stone wall. Neither had the least understanding of what had happened to them. He brought them back and strapped them in their beds, then returned to the cottage to fetch the lists he'd prepared.

As he made his way out of the study, Meg came from the living room and, closing the door behind her, took his arm, keeping her voice low.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

He smiled at her and reached out to brush her cheek. "It's what I'd always planned. You know that."

"Yes. But why now? Is it because he's here?"

"He" was the man from SimFic who was sitting in the living room even as they spoke.

He shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe it's just time. 1 need to do something new. This . . . well, I've been preparing for this a long time now. You know what they say, as one door closes another opens."

"But what if it harms them?"

His fingers combed the hair behind her ear, then he drew her closer, embracing her. "It won't harm them.

To be better than they were, that can only be a good thing, no? We've fed them, clothed them, been kind to them. If they'd stayed in the Clay they'd surely have been dead long ago. No, Meg, I've done them no harm. Nor shall I."

She stared back at him, her dark eyes searching his. "You promise?"

"I promise. Now let me get on. And tell our Mister Neville that I'll be with him in another twenty minutes."

THE STRONG EFFECT of the drug was beginning to wear off. As he unfastened their bindings, Ben whistled to himself cheerfully. It was just as he'd said to Meg. It was time to stretch himself again.

He stood back, watching them sit up, noting how they looked to each other, checking that they were all all right. That concern, which he'd noticed before, was highly developed in the daymen. They were a tight-knit group and even Scaf, the most individual of the four, would rarely act without the approval of the others. The drug had had little effect on that aspect of their relationship. Or so it seemed. It was early days yet, and as the doses continued it would be interesting to see whether the bonds between them would remain as strong.

Scaf was staring at him again, not with the drug-induced intensity he'd shown earlier, but with a curiosity that none of the others seemed to display, even now. The others merely looked down, as if ashamed. Or maybe they were afraid? It was hard to tell. "What is it, Scaf?"

He saw how the others looked up, attentive suddenly, looking to Scaf. For while Crefter-named for his strength-was physically the dominant one, it was to Scaf they looked whenever there was a problem.

Scaf made a tiny shrugging motion, then looked away. "You want to know what's happening-is that it?"

He glanced at Ben then nodded.

"I understand. Today . . . well, if I'd prepared you for what was going to happen, you wouldn't have gone through with it. Now that it's happened, you'll be better prepared next time. Maybe you'll even enjoy it."There was a disgruntled murmur from the others. Ben took a long breath, momentarily irritated by them-by their stubbornness, their intractability. It was as if they didn't want to be better than they were: as if all they really wanted was to wallow in the filth and darkness from whence they'd come.

"This is it," he said, keeping his voice free of any trace of irritability. "Don't you understand that yet? This is what we've been working toward all these years." He held up the printouts he had brought from his study and waved them at the daymen. "Look, I've made lists for each of you of what needs to be done."

He began to hand them out. "You'll see here just what needs to be prepared, what packed."

There was general consternation as they studied their lists. Kygek, in his usual fashion, scratched his head. But it was Scaf, as ever, who spoke for them, his long face furrowed deeply.

"But this . . . this is for a journey, Master." He looked up and met Ben's eyes. "Where exactly are we going?"

"Inside," Ben answered, smiling back at him. "Into the Clay."

NEVILLE TURNED FROM the window, looking across as Meg came back into the room carrying a loaded tray. As she set it down, he went across to her, watching as she laid out the cups and then poured the ch'a.

Tea, he reminded himself. Here they call it tea.

Setting the teapot down, she lifted the brimming cup and offered it to him, her dark eyes meeting his for the first time since she'd left the room. Again he felt his stomach clench, his heart begin to hammer.

Whatever he'd expected to find out here in the Domain, it wasn't her. He had thought her a fiction-something conjured from Ben's mind, like all the rest of it, but she was real. Real, and quite beautiful.

More beautiful even than the day.

He watched her draw her long dark hair back from her face, then lift her own cup; felt his breath catch as she smiled and sipped.

So simple a thing to do, and yet she transformed it utterly.

"So, Mister Neville?" she said, the unusualness of that word Mister, the strangeness of her accent-so pure and clipped-making him feel, once again, that he had strayed into a dream. "Do you like our little valley?"

Like it? He laughed gently and made a vague gesture with his head. How could one not like it? Why, he had fallen in love with it the moment he had stepped from the cruiser. With it and with her.

He looked about him at the room, at the carved wooden panels of the walls, the dark oak beams, the low ceiling, and the soft furnishings of the chairs, and sighed.

"It's like a dream," he said. "If only the whole world were like this."

"It was once," she said. "Or parts of it."

He stared at her, drawn into her eyes a moment, unable to look away, then broke his gaze, embarrassed, unused to such directness.

She was like her brother in that. Neither of them had learned any of those games one took for granted in the Above: games of face and status. One did not have to look for the motive behind their words, nor forsome barbed insult.

"Those men," he said, turning to indicate the window. "Who are they? I thought you were alone here."

"The daymen.

7.

" She moved past him, the scent of apple wafting to him from her hair, so fresh and natural.

"They came here nine years ago when the valley was invaded. Ben captured them, civilized them."

"I didn't know," he said, moving up beside her to stare out down the garden toward the bay. "Was it frightening?"

"Yes." She turned her face to him and smiled. A smile full of sunlight and roses. "I left, after that. I stayed away from here almost two years, but I had to come back. Ben needed me."

He frowned, not quite understanding what she meant, but sensing the strength of feeling behind her words.

"Your brother is a remarkable man, Nu shi Shepherd. No one knows the inner workings of a man better than he. His self-knowledge is quite astonishing."

His comments brought a strange smile to her features. "Forgive me, Mister Neville, but you're wrong.

Ben but guesses at his nature. If he knew, there would be no art, no ... creativity in him. It's that darkness within him he pursues. Those things unknown."

She stopped, turning suddenly. Ben had stolen silently into the room. He stood beside the door, like a piece of the darkness itself, his dark eyes watching them intently.

"I learnt his road and, ere they were sure I was I, left the dark wood behind, kestrel and woodpecker, the inn in the sun, the happy mood when first I tasted sunlight there. I traveled fast, in hopes I should outrun that other. What to do when caught, I planned not. I pursued to prove the likeness, and, if true, to watch until myself I knew."

Neville felt a shiver ripple up his back. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

"Is that something you made up?"

Ben stepped into the light. "Good God, no. That's Edward Thomas. The Other.' He understood, you see.