From her vantage point on the City's roof, Emily watched in awe. The air itself was burning and the roar of the boiling sea hurt her ears. She hobbled across, joining the small group who had climbed up out of the levels and had gathered there to see the end of things. Silent, they waited at the edge of the world, watching.

Last things . . . She stared out at the boiling, bubbling sea, her eyes filled with last things.

It was over. All that she'd ever known was being broken down and refashioned. It was the universe's way. Even so, she felt regret. Regret that she would never see them again: never see Michael, Mach, or- and this she regretted most-Lin Shang, with his clever hands and crippled face. For the world was finally ending. The seas were burning and the air was filled with the roar of dissolution.

And when the seas had finally boiled away and the air could not be breathed, what then? What could little men like Lin do to mend that?

She gritted her teeth, pained by the thought that he would suffer. Pained that she could not be with him when it ended. That, at least, would have been something, but to die alone . . .

She shuddered, thinking back, remembering all that had happened to her. Remembering her family's fallfrom grace, her father's death, her mother's long-suffering stoicism. And afterward, all those years spent with Bent Gessel building the Ping Tiao. Before DeVore had come. Before the great Prince of Inauthenticity had come and destroyed it all.

And yet DeVore had saved her, sent her away. She glanced down at her severed finger and frowned. To America she'd gone. To America and Michael Lever. Her fate. To become the Eldest daughter, before that City fell in flames and she came scuttling back to Europe.

Oh, I've seen much, she thought, remembering it all. And yet nothing suddenly mattered one half as much as what she had felt these past few days, knowing what Lin Shang had done for her. Little Lin, who had had no power and no beauty, yet who had risked himself for her.

Risked himself, and asked nothing back from me.

And now he would die, as they'd all die, unrewarded, just as others went unpunished. And no sense to it all, no justice, no apparent order. Only the chaos of fate and time and dissolution.

Yes, dissolution, at the back of it all. Death's maggot, wriggling in the bone.

It was getting hard to breathe now. Her eyes stung and her throat was getting sore. And her skin . . . her skin seemed to burn.

Inside, she urged herself, hearing the crack of rock, the demonic hiss of the burning sea. Inside . . .

She turned, making her way back to the shaft. But it was almost over now, and, looking back, she saw first one and then another of the group step out into the nothingness beyond the edge.

THEY HAD BUILT a temporary encampment on the plain below the ruined fortress. Beneath a flapping banner that displayed the Ywe Lung, the great Wheel of Dragons, Li Yuan paced up and down. Behind him Kuei Jen stood looking on.

"Just what in the gods' names is he doing?" Li Yuan asked, pointing to the bank of screens-at the cluster of images sent back from their remotes, high above the burning sea.

"He's draining it," Karr said, pointing to a display at the side which showed the whole of the Mediterranean basin. "He's dammed it at Gibralter, and at the Bosphorus, and again down here where the old canal was. Now he's burning it off. When he's finished he'll probably march his army straight across."

Li Yuan's eyes were aghast. "But why?"

"Because he can," Nan Ho answered quietly. "It's how he is. He wants us to see just how powerful he is before he destroys us. Because it all means nothing to him. The game . . . Only the game has meaning for him."

Li Yuan stared at the display in disbelief. The Mediterranean . . . the madman was draining the Mediterranean!

This was why his father had so feared the idea of Dispersion-this was why he had fought it so vigorously-for out there there were no limits, no controls. Out there Man could do exactly as he wished. He could take the very elements and reforge them; could reshape himself in a thousand different ways and then return-with unlimited energy, unlimited destructive power. Dispersion: it was merely another word for dissolution; for the destruction of all that was decent, all that was truly human.The wind was coming up now, gusting steadily through the encampment. Li Yuan pulled his cloak tight, then turned to look at Ebert, seated by the far wall of the enclosure, his men surrounding him.

"DeVore brings a mighty force against us. What will you eight do against that?"

"Do?" Ebert turned toward the watching faces of his dark companions and murmured something in their tongue. There was laughter, a rich, warm laughter, and then Ebert looked back at him.

"Wait and see," he answered, his face tilted up as if to the sun. "Just wait and see."

BEN GRIPPED catherine's ARM, hurrying her up the slope toward the lights of the cottage. Overhead the sky was black with cloud and the wind was howling down the valley, tearing branches from the trees and whipping the surface of the bay into a frenzy. As they struggled on, the wind tore at them, threatening to claw them back into the water.

Catherine turned to him, trying to speak, but the wind whipped away her words. Up ahead the shutters of the cottage were banging violently and there was the sudden tinkle of breaking glass.

"Come on!" he yelled, tugging at her, knowing they'd not be safe until they were inside, but she had frozen suddenly, her eyes tight and fixed like the eyes of a trapped and frightened animal. He pulled at her again, but it was no good; she was too heavy, the wind too strong. Unless she helped him . . .

There was a sudden shout-a bellow close by that sounded over the roar of the wind. He half turned, then lost his footing and went down. Yet even as he did, even as he felt Catherine's hand slip from his grasp, he felt someone-someone huge and muscular-pick him up and head toward the cottage.

"The woman!" he yelled at the Myghtern, his voice making little impression on that vast, unending roar.

"Get the woman!"

As the giant turned, a sudden gust hit them full on and the Myghtern went down, onto his knees, knocking the breath from Ben as he fell. When Ben came to he was inside, the howl of the wind more sinister, more threatening somehow, now they were out of it. The very air was alive, it seemed, making the hairs on his arms and neck bristle.

"Catherine . . ." he began, starting up, then saw her, seated in the chair beside the door, his sister, Meg, attending to a cut on her forehead. Behind her Scaf and the Myghtern looked on concerned. And Tom?

He turned, then smiled. Tom was in his usual place on the turn of the stairs, silent, staring.

The cottage juddered and groaned, the shutters banged. The howl intensified.

"It's getting worse!" Meg said, turning to him, her eyes worried. "What is it, Ben? What's happening?"

"I don't know," he said. "I . . ."

He shrugged, but it was like something he'd read in Amos's journals, about the wind that followed a nuclear explosion: the great inrush of air to fill the vacuum.

DeVore, he thought. DeVore's the vacuum at the heart of this.

But this wind had some physical cause too. Something must have happened. Something catastrophic. He glanced at the screen, but it was blank. Communications must be out. Yes, of course they were out. The storm . . .

He got to his feet then shook his head to clear it, but still the constant roar of the wind sounded deepwithin.

"Come on," he said, going across and helping Catherine to her feet. "Let's go down into the cellars. This is one storm we'd better ride out below."

N WIB E L O O K E D to the sky and laughed.

"Hear how old Mother Thunder rebukes her son."

Along the line the others stopped fastening their harnesses and looked up at the thick layer of cloud overhead and smiled inside their helmets.

Dogo, the biggest of them, Ezeulu's son, answered Nwibe, his voice sounding in every earpiece. "When her son is angry, there is always trouble in the village, no?"

"There will be trouble enough without those two adding to it!" Aluko Echewa answered, clipping himself into the harness, then adjusting the straps about his shoulders.

On every side the floor of the great sea steamed, shrouding the strange, uneroded shapes of the freshly exposed rocks with swirls of mist. Perhaps Mars was like this once, Aluko thought, millions of years ago. He turned, looking to his left, then to the right, making sure everyone was ready. Then, pulling down the rigid armatures of the flying suit and slipping his hands into the gloves, he checked along the line.

"Ugoye?"

"Ready."

"Chike?"

"Done."

"Nwibe?"

"One moment, Elder. . . . Okay, I'm ready."

"Odile?"

"Ready."

"Elechi?"

"Done."

"Dogo?"

"Itching to go, Elder."

"Nza?"

"Ready."

He closed his eyes. At once an image filled his head; sent back from one of the remotes that were tracking their progress. It showed the eight of them spread out in a line along the dry bed of the ancient sea, the special harnesses they were wearing making them appear twice their normal size.

"Okay," he said, placing his fingers over the control pads. "Let's lift. Slowly now."His thumb closed with a gentle pressure on the pad. At once he felt himself lifted; felt and saw ... for at the same time the eight figures in his head lifted and began to drift forward.

Even as they climbed, emerging from the deep rift in which they'd been hidden, the storm broke overhead.

"See how the young ram loses his temper!" Dogo said in his earpiece, laughing his rich, deep laugh, as a bolt of lightning struck the brittle rock less than a li to the left of them with a sharp crack of destructive power. And then the thunder spoke, exploding all about them, shaking the air with an unexpected violence.

"The night is our mother," Aluko began, speaking into the heads of his brothers, repeating the words of the litany for those who, unlike Dogo, had the sense to be afraid. "She comforts us. She tells us who we are. We live, we die, beneath her. She sees all. Even the darkness deep within us."

"How? How?"

DeVore glared at the man on the screen, his face hard, his anger kept tightly in check.

"We're not sure, Master," the Technician said warily, conscious that his very uncertainty was guaranteed to upset DeVore. "He's gone behind things. Tweaked them, somehow."

"Tweaked them?" DeVore let out a snort of disgust then shook his head. "How? Exactly how?"

"We-"

"Find out! Understand me? And when you know, tell me. Until then, your life is forfeit, man. You're dead."

He turned from the screen, his anger matched only by his curiosity. It was meant to be foolproof, tamperproof. But somehow Li Yuan had managed to get around the back of things and override his systems.

Ward.

1.

he thought with a sudden certainty. This is Ward's work!

Okay. But how did he use that knowledge? How could he regain the advantage he had temporarily lost?

I should have hit the island, he thought. Yes, and the Shepherd place, too, while 1 was at it. The only reason he hadn't was because he'd thought he could take them as prizes once the rest was his. To have them work for him.

You were too greedy, he told himself, calmer now, beginning to think again. But never mind, it's still all yours if you play this right. The advan' tage is still yours. After all, you still have all the stones.

"Master?"

There was a new face on the screen. His own face, but a copy. Overlaying it was the printed number 154. It was the Commander of that craft.

"Yes, one five four, what is it?"

"There's something coming at us from the north."

"Something? Be more specific.""Eight men, Master. Eight men in rocket suits."

DeVore gave a laugh of disbelief. "Is this a joke, Commander?"

"I ... I thought you should see what our remotes are sending back."

"Okay. Patch it through."

He stood back, relaxed, chuckling to himself. Eight men in rocket suits! Whatever next?

His laughter died. The image on the screen was none too clear; even so, he recognized those suits and knew what color the faces were behind the dark reflecting surfaces of their visors.

"Osu . . . What in the gods' names . . ." And then he saw it. Then, with a strange little laugh, he understood.

"Eight stones," he said softly. "Is that all you can muster, Li Yuan? And what of your father's boast that time, that he would place the last stone on my grave? Vanity ... an old man's vanity, that's all that was.

Vanity and boastfulness. And now you'll pay the price. Now I will clear the board."

He laughed, then spoke to his Commander.

"You will engage, one five four. You will attack those eight and destroy them, understand me?"

"Master!"

And then he would deal with Ward. Yes, and with Shepherd too.

He cleared the screen, then looked about him at the silent room, smiling. Yes, it was time to clear the board.