A growing uneasiness coursed up Astron's legs and into his chest. The phenomena were intereseting, but he could not force himself to consider dispa.s.sionately exactly what was taking place. He felt his stembrain writhe within the confines of his control with far greater power, straining to be free. He looked about the casino floor. All of the alea-tors there had fallen to their knees. With eyes focusing on nothing, they rocked back and forth and keened with the rest. Only Kestrel and Phoebe were still alert, looking apprehensively all about. Astron had waited long enough. Now was the time.

Astron looked at the beckoning anvilwood and then turned back to Centuron. "The mines of which you spoke as we entered," he said. "What is their danger? Quickly, I must know."

Centuron squinted at Astron and then threw back his head. The laughter tumbled from his lips in gasping wheezes. For several moments, he shook in spasms, unable to regain control. Astron clenched his fist in frustration, eyeing again the distance to the anvilwood, Camonel's smouldering fire, and Kestrel and the pollen, unable to decide which was to be the first objective.

"Byron and the others." Centuron ignored the question when he finally could speak. "They are all one and the same, driving down the one path to mutual destruction. Each in his own way has surrendered his free will to the ether and has given up any stake in determining events by his own volition. And with each such submission, on a level far below their conscious thought, the self-doubt has increased and the reason for existence has become less firm. We indeed are the mere puppets of some other creator, a bubble of life breathed into being by G.o.ds that have walked away."

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"Demon," Nimbia said suddenly. "I do not like what I see. The fey can create realms out of their thoughts, but that is not what sustains them, once they are born. Only so long as the occupants believe in their own existence does what they inhabit continue to resist the pressures that push against them from the outside. All the aleators here-look at them. They slump and-"

Centuron interrupted Nimbia's words with another peal of laughter. "We are all gathered here, almost all of the occupants of our realm. We now face what we have hidden in our hearts and refused to believe. There is no purpose to existence. The triumph of predestination over luck proves it. It is the end of the universe and everyone that it contains."

"There are thousands here." Astron shook his head. "One spin of the wheel and a few words cannot affect everyone so."

"Despite your great misfortune, you are not one of us," Centuron said. "You cannot know the importance of what has transpired."

"I wish to continue living," Nimbia said fiercely as she placed her hands around Byron's arm. "Surely others do as well."

Centuron waved at the casino walls a final time. "Observe the dissolution of the fabric of existence," he said. "You and your companion are too few to keep alive an entire universe when it no longer has the will to live."

Byron looked down at Nimbia and then glanced at the fuzzy haze seeming to blur the spectators on the wall farthest away. He licked his lips and patted Nimbia's hand on his arm. "Perhaps Centuron is right," he said in a husky voice. "Perhaps afterward there will not be enough time."

Byron released the grip on his blade. He wiped the back of his hand against his lips and looked with glowing eyes at Nimbia. "There is nothing more I can do about the others." He waved back toward the center of the casino floor. "But now, at least I can succ.u.mb to the joys of my temptation." He spread his hands wide and, with a slow deliberate motion, reached to draw Nimbia to him.

"Wait, wait a moment, Byron." Nimbia hesitated and

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then smiled. "I knw you do not fully understand my words, but this is not what I had in mind." She waved her arm around the casino. "First we must do something about the will of the people. If you truly are a leader, then rally their beliefs to save us all." Her smile brightened. "Do your duty. Then you will deserve the reward."

Astron's stembrain boiled. He gritted his teeth, pulling it back under control. He looked at Nimbia's smile and then back at Byron, baring the fangs that were no longer there.

"No," Astron said. "The hillsovereign is not yours to do with what you will. As she states, her favor is to be for the most deserving-and not because of what emotions she excites, but the qualities she has inside. She is not yours, Byron; she is-she is mine!"

Not fully realizing what he was doing, Astron fumbled for the sword at his side. He glanced around the casino and saw the closing fog obscuring the farthest stands. The sound of the keening faded into softness and then vanished altogether. The ground underneath his feet felt like a thin sheet of linen loosely stretched over a tub of water. The wetness of the swirling fog began to glisten on his cheeks, as if he were exposed to a gentle rain.

"Do not be overly alarmed, demon," Nimbia said quickly. "1 am sure that Byron has sufficient n.o.bility to be different from the-"

She stopped as she saw the gleam in Byron's eye intensify. He spread his arms in a wide circle. Nimbia took a step backward and then halted as her foot touched the edge of the stadium wall. She looked back helplessly, her eyes growing wide with fear.

"It is your fate to be so unlucky," Byron said. "Such beauty was meant to be consumed."

"Underneath it all, I am a person like anyone else," Nimbia said, pain and disappointment putting a bitter edge to her voice. "Judge me for that and nothing else. That is all I ask."

"The allure is too great." Byron shook his head. "There is no one who can resist, no one who can look past the exterior with dispa.s.sion to see if there is any other value inside."

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"Somewhere there must be at least one." Nimbia put out her hands to ward off his approach. She looked about frantically and then stopped when she saw Astron rushing to her.

"Dem-Astron!" she shouted. "Astron, help me. He is like all the rest. Only you are different. Please, quickly do something. There is so little time."

"The mines! What are they?" Astron yelled at Centuron as he stepped in Byron's way. "Tell me so that I may act."

"We do not know where any are buried." Centuron waved his arm. "But it does not matter. They will dissolve with the rest. Far better that-"

"Buried," Astron interrupted. "Did you say buried?"

"Why, yes-"

"That explains the blotchy appearance of the casino floor," Astron said. "With my membranes down I see far into the red, even into what is called heat in the realm of men. And turned earth is colder than that which has been in contact with the air."

He broke off and reached behind to grab Nimbia's outstretched hand. Ducking to the right, he avoided the swat of Byron's arm and started running out onto the casino floor, pulling her behind. He jogged to the right of a seemingly different-textured plot of ground and then sharply veered back to the left. Behind him, he heard Nimbia stumbling after and Byron's heavy tread in pursuit.

Astron cut to the side and felt his heel rip into the softening earth. Like a folded blanket, the ground wrinkled under the thrust. His foot dug deep into the earth and then, with a sudden lack of resistance, seemed to poke through into a chilling nothingness underneath. Frantically, he reached down and jerked his leg free, watching an inky blackness curl upward out of the hole.

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Byron had retrieved his sword and was waving it wildly over his head. "I am too swift for you," the demon called out suddenly as a glimmer of an idea darted into his mind. "And until you catch and overcome me, you will not have the hillsovereign."

Byron ran up to where Astron pulled at his leg. He

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ed one step in Nimbia's direction and then hesitated. "Guard your backside," Astron said, waving his own blade as convincingly as he could.

Byron turned and looked down at Astron. The look of l.u.s.t on his face distorted into one of battle rage. He gripped his sword with both hands and raised it high in the air. With an ear-piercing yell, he brought it down in a vertical swipe directly over Astron's head. The demon waited until the last possible moment and then jerked aside, just missing the slash.

Byron's sword dug deeply into the softening ground, burying itself almost to the hilt. Immediately, the warrior tightened his grip on the pommel and strained to extract his weapon. As Astron had hoped, the blade trembled, but did not bulge. He scrambled to his feet and again took Nimbia's hand. "I have decided," he said. "To Kestrel and Phoebe. It will be a moment before Byron is a menace again."

Together they zigzagged their way to the remains of Je-lilac's contingent. The swirling fog had penetrated almost to the first few rows of seats. Astron could no longer be sure that any of the aleators in the stands were still there.

"The pollen," he shouted, pointing at Kestrel's rucksack as he dashed up upon them.

"The anvilwood," Kestrel answered as he motioned to the abandoned fortification to the right of where Ca-monel had stood.

"And the flame." Phoebe pointed at the remains of Camonel's fire. She looked at the crumpled tapestries lying nearby. "There is wizard's work to be done."

"Wait a moment," Kestrel said to Astron as the demon dropped Nimbia's hand and started to head for the anvil-wood. "I have learned some things that might be important in the quest. Whoever merged the realms of symmetry planted the seeds of calculation in this universe as well. Look, there is the evidence of the navigator's almanac."

Astron skidded to a halt. "A book, did you say? That is most interesting and might indeed provide a clue."

"Not now," Phoebe shouted.

"I have tried to a.n.a.lyze the facts just as you would and extract the most important," Kestrel yelled at As-

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Iron's back when the demon resumed running to the other fortification. "Of all of the features of the almanac, it seems to be most strange that it lasts for centuries, and yet, every few days, the format is completely different."