The tiny lane was dark and empty. He ran down it and then turned left along the footpath.

There were guards on the New Bridge, but they were looking west, to Boscawen Street. Ben ran on, praying they'd not turn and see him, then ducked down under the parapet.

Scaf lay where he'd left him, unconscious, his breathing shallow.

Lifting him up onto his shoulder, Ben climbed down into the river's dried-up channel and walked across, picking his way carefully.

Overhead, on the bridge, one of the guards called out, his voice loud in the darkness, asking what was going on. A voice answered him. A prisoner had escaped. The jailer, Ponow, was dead. A search was on. Guard the gate! Ben heard them turn and run back to their posts and cursed silently.

Laying Scaf on top of the bank, he scrambled up after him. Close by was a tall mesh fence-electrified by the look of it-while to his left, some thirty or forty yards off, beside the old Round House, was the gate. The mesh fence ran to the gate and beyond. The gate was the only way out.

He unlatched his hand again and laid it next to him, then took the control box from his pocket.

How do I do this? he wondered. With two hands it would have been difficult enough, but with one and carrying Scaf . . .

He laughed. "Nothing ventured . . ."

Gripping the control between his teeth, he lifted Scaf once more, balancing him like a sack on his shoulder, then took the control and pointed it at his hand, lifting it into the air.Then, the hand floating slowly along in front of him, he stepped up onto the bridge and headed for the gate.

DENG HANG pulled off his boots and threw them into the corner of the room. He sat facing the others, smiling broadly.

"He can drink, that one! But he'll be sorry in the morning, when he comes to deal with us."

Tynan was standing nearby, gazing thoughtfully at one of the shift-prints on the wall. At Deng Liang's comment he looked across at the young man and shook his head.

"You're more drunk than him, young Liang. Why, I've seen the Myghtern drink twice as much and be sharp as a knife the morning after. Don't underestimate him. To become a king here is not easy. One is not bom to it, as Above. And to stay king, as Morel has done * * . well, that is something else altogether!

In the Above he would be-"

"A king," said Hastings, seating himself beside Deng Liang. "He's astonishing, don't you think? Like an animal. An animal that thinks."

Deng Liang broke into laughter again. It was true what Tynan had said: he was drunk.

"That may be so," Nolen said guardedly. "But he thinks he can ask what he wants from us."

Hastings smiled, ignoring Nolen's hostility. "Well, can't he? Hadn't we already agreed that he could have whatever he asked for?"

Nolen made to answer, but Tynan touched his arm to silence him. "Whatever he wants," Tynan said.

"Providing we get what we want in exchange."

"He's not stupid," Hastings added, watching Nolen turn away and leave the room. "Uncultivated, perhaps, but no fool. And that man of his-the one he calls trader-he seems sharp enough."

Franke stepped forward. "Tak says he's new here. A stranger to the Clay."

Tynan waved the matter aside. "Look. We give the Myghtern what he wants and we take what we want in return. Simple as that. Rutger will speak for us."

Franke had been elsewhere most of the day, arranging things, so Tynan said. Hastings leaned back and yawned. He was feeling good. Things weren't so bad here. And the girl . . . He had bought the girl that morning. She would be his. He would feed her well and look after her. He rubbed at his arm. It was still feeling a little sore from the injections they had had that morning. He looked up at Tynan and smiled.

"I wonder what it is he wants? To what lengths does his imagination stretch, do you think?"

"It has a ceiling, I'm sure," Franke said, making them all laugh. "I wonder what it's like," Hastings said after a moment, "not seeing the sky, the stars. Year after year. Only the dry, unchanging dark."

"You'll know soon enough," Tynan said, then, in a softer voice. "And don't worry about Nolen. He'll be all right."

Hastings hadn't been worrying, but he nodded anyway. He didn't like Nolen. Though they had many things in common, there was something about the man that got under his skin. He yawned again and wondered vaguely why it was that he so often liked his enemies better than those who were supposed to be his allies. There again, did one have any choice in the matter? Li Yuan's laws existed, preventing themfrom living a full, free life. What did it matter that he liked Li Yuan? Li Yuan and his laws were inseparable. One could not remove one without the other. .,'..- His hands were tied, the course of his life dictated by circumstances, and it was no good wishing otherwise. Even so, the thought of working with the Myghtern-with someone he for once admired-was a pleasant one.

Beside him, Deng Liang leaned forward, frowning. "What's that?"

They listened. Somewhere outside, in the Myghtern's town, sirens were blaring. It ws a strange, unexpected sound. Hastings stood, looking to Tynan, but Tynan shrugged.

At the far end of the room the inner door of the air lock hissed open. Tak stepped inside.

"What's happening?" Tynan asked.

"It's nothing, gentlemen," the small man said reassuringly. "A prisoner's escaped, that's all. We'll soon have him locked up again. But until we do, the Myghtern has requested that you stay here. There's a guard on the outer door, so you're perfectly safe."

Hastings, who had come across, met Tynan's eyes, a query in his own as to whether this might not be some kind of ploy on the Myghtern's part, but again Tynan made a shrugging gesture.

"And if you don't find him?" Nolen asked, coming up behind them.

"Oh, we'll get him," Tak said, smiling tightly. "Why, he'd need to be some kind of sorcerer to get out of the Myghtern's city right now."

it's NO GOOD, Ben thought, setting Scaf down, I have to rest. At his own estimate he had walked almost four miles, yet for all his attempts to keep some kind of track on where he was, he had to admit that he was lost.

He leaned over Scaf, listening for a breath, then, when he could hear nothing, put his fingers to Scaf s neck, feeling for a pulse. It was there, but faint. Far fainter than it had been. If he did not get help soon, Scaf would die. But where would one find help, here in this endless darkness? His only hope was to get to the seal. To somehow find a way back to the Domain.

Ben crouched, looking about him. His eyes had slowly become accustomed to the darkness. Even so, it was hard to discern between shadow and substance. So often his eyes had tricked him, making him think something-someone?-was there, when there was nothing. He had been right to think of this place as a giant "shell," for his brain, denied its usual visual stimulus, had begun to create its own pictures- painting illusions on the blackness. In that regard the Clay was a giant desert, filled with its own mirages.

Down here, he realized, one came to trust other senses than sight- one's sense of hearing, particularly.

There was a sharp click!-the sound a stone makes when it falls against a hard surface. He waited, tensed, listening, then turned back and lifted Scaf onto his shoulder once again. As he did, the dayman stirred and murmured something.

"What?" Ben asked as quietly as he could, placing his cheek against Scaf s face.

"Leave me," Scaf said, quietly yet distinctly. "Alone you'll make it.With me-"

"No," Ben whispered, and began to move again, picking his way blindly, his feet finding their way slowly, deliberately, across the uneven surface. He felt Scaf shiver, the movement rippling through his body like the wind through a rag, and felt his determination harden. They would get out. They would.

"I'm no good anymore," Scaf said after a moment. "I'm blind, and my legs-"

"That doesn't matter," Ben whispered. "We can replace all kinds of things these days. Eyes, legs. I'll make you as good as new."

"And the memories?"

Ben's legs moved slowly through the dark, separate, it seemed, from this thinking self. For a moment he conceived himself as some kind of piston-driven machine, filled with fuel, pumping its way slowly, inexorably through an eternity of darkness.

"That's for you to choose," Ben said finally. "Whether you want to keep them or not."

But Scaf was sleeping again.

Ben walked on, his legs pumping wearily through the endless dark.

THE FOUR OATEMEN knelt before Tak, their heads lowered abjectly. They had failed in their duty and now they must pay the price. Tak's men formed a great circle about them in the High Cross, the cathedral towering over the scene. Tak waited angrily, gun in hand.

"Mes y gwyryon!" one of the guards insisted, his eyes pleading with Tak. But it's true! "An jevan tewlel hus ha y luf nyja y-ban ha dyswul an hespow . . . crakkya a'n gwelen!" The demon cast a spell and his hand floated up and undid the great locks . . . snapped them like twigs!

Tak's anger boiled over.

The gunshot sent a ripple of fear through all those watching. The three kneeling men hunched into themselves, whimpering.

Tak walked down the line. "Liars!" he screamed, firing point-blank at the second man. "Fools!" Again a shot rang out. "Incompetents!"

The gun clicked, empty. Tak glared at the man, then, throwing the gun away, drew his dagger and, grabbing him by the hair, slit his throat.

He stepped back, looking about him. There would be no more talk of demons and spells. Above technology, that was all this was. Yet he knew his men were scared. He had seen what had happened to the jailer, Ponow, and knew that dozens of his men had seen it too. Whoever-whatever?-did that had superhuman strength. And the great locks on the gate . . . there was no doubting that they had been snapped. But that was not the point. He could not let the rumors get out of hand, nor his men succumb to fear. He must control them, and the only way to do that was to make them more afraid of him than of this "sorcerer" Shepherd.

He turned. A messenger had come.

"Pandra vyth gwres?" What now?The messenger's gap-toothed mouth opened in a wide smile. "Ny trovya pystryor!" We find wizard!

"Prysner," he corrected him, then, "Py plas?" Where?

"Holya!" the messenger answered, turning away. Come! "Ny settya an jevan!" We've surrounded the demon!

TAK LOOKED THROUGH the heat-sensitive glasses and smiled. Shepherd was at the bottom of the valley, trudging along the bed of a dried-up stream, the wounded servant on his shoulder.

How strange that he should do that, thought Tak. From what he'd heard life was cheap in the Above; almost as cheap-so Tynan said- as here. Such a man as Shepherd could buy a hundred men, surely?

Unless he, Tak, had overlooked something.

They had got nothing torturing the men: nothing, that was, about why Shepherd was here, in the Clay. It seemed he had not confided in his men. Yet he must have wanted something, or why take the risk?

Tak frowned, then put the glasses down. Turning, he signaled along the line of men. It was time to take their captive back.

BEN STOPPED AND TURNED , astonished. High above him and to either side, where there had been nothing only a moment before, were now two straggling lines of lights. Slowly, even as he watched, they approached, spreading out to encircle him.

Lamps, he realized, noting the ghostly presence of men behind the lights. They're carrying lamps.

He sank to his knees, resting Scaf on the ground beside him, then looked up again.

So this is it.

After what he'd done to the jailer he didn't expect any mercy from them. The best he might hope for was a quick death; the worst-well, Scaf could tell him what the worst was.

He watched, observant to the last, a camera eye, seeing the swaying lamps come on toward him. Two flashes from a laser and even that would be denied me, he thought, knowing how easily a good marksman could burn away his cornea. It would take but an instant.

Briefly he closed his eyes, swallowing, and as he did light flooded his head. For a moment he thought it had happened and waited for the explosion of pain at the nerve ends. But there was nothing, only the sense of being washed in brilliant light. Light, and the howling screeches of the daymen.

Ben turned, wincing, into the light. At the head of the valley, less than two hundred yards from where he knelt, a searchlight rotated slowly, focusing its powerful beam on the hillside, picking out a hundred fleeing figures.

He shielded his eyes with his right hand, then turned, looking back up the hillside. Only one of the daymen remained now, his hands on his hips, staring back defiantly, then he turned and walked away.

Ben shuddered, then stood and slowly turned, raising his hands.

A voice from within the light boomed out. "Ben? Ben Shepherd?"

He closed his eyes, surprised by the wash of relief he felt, the sheer joy at hearing his own name."Yes," he said quietly, knowing they could not hear him. "It's me, Ben Shepherd, back from the dark."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The Dark Angel.

THORN STOOD BESIDE the Myghtern's throne as the five were brought before him. He had spent a good part of the night and the first few hours of the morning briefing the Myghtern, yet he felt fresh, energized by the thought of the encounter.

He watched as they came down the long room toward the Myghtern; saw how they stood there, unbowed, before him, meeting his primitive fierceness with their own high arrogance.

"We have brought you a gift," said Hastings, stepping forward.

The Myghtern turned to Thorn, not understanding. He whispered in the big man's ear. "Present . . ."

The Myghtern turned back, smiling, and beckoned Hastings on. "Kerghes!"

Hastings looked to Thorn. "What did he say?"

"He said you should bring it."

Hastings turned and signaled for the gift to be brought forward. One of the Myghtern's stewards advanced, carrying a box draped in black cloth. He bowed, averting his eyes from his master, handed the gift to Hastings, then backed away. Hastings stepped forward onto the lowest of the steps that led up to the throne.

"With our deepest respect and best wishes, King Moyha."

Thorn translated, amused that the five did not know that Moyha was not his name, merely another part of his title-"Grandest." Like many barbarian chiefs he chose the most grandiloquent of titles- Myghtern Moyha-"Grandest of all Kings." Though maybe, for once, there was an element of truth in it, for was a king to be judged merely by the size of his domain?

He stood aside, watching as the Myghtern removed the cloth. Beneath it was a delicate golden cage and inside the cage a small black bird: a tiny thing, as black as nothingness itself, yet its eyes were golden, like polished orbs.

"A gift from the Above," Tynan said, smiling tightly as Thorn translated.

The Myghtern studied the bird a moment, then turned and handed it to Tak, who stood close by. When he turned back his face seemed grimmer. His hands gripped his knees tightly. He was anchored like a rock in his throne, his hugely muscled arms like something carved from oak. Slowly he surveyed the men before him, his eyes moving from one face to the next, then, one by one, gesturing at each with the index finger of his right hand, he named them.

"Fran-ke. No-len. Ha-stings. Ty-nan. Deng Li-ang." He nodded to himself, then turned to Thorn, giving a short bark of laughter. "Gowek . . . mes cref." Liars . . . but strong.

Thorn returned the Myghtern's smile, wondering if any of the five had bothered to learn anything of this bastard language, but he doubted it.He stepped forward, standing between the Myghtern and the five. "I speak for the king," he began, seeing how Nolen and Tynan smiled at that. Unpleasant, ironical smiles. "He has told me what to ask from you, and what to give. You will deal with me." Hastings stepped back, looking to Tynan.