"I don't like this idea of talking to the guardians," he objected. "If they are soldiers, then force is the only logic that they will respect." "

Look, king," Ace snapped, "if it was up to me, I'd love you to go in there and get yourself cut to pieces by them. But the Doctor wants you in one piece, and I'm going to try my best to see you stay that way. If those guardians have half the stuff I think they've got, they'd make a chicken ah la king of you in seconds. So we do this my way, okay?"

Her anger did get through to him, and he subsided. "Very well," he said, reluctantly. "For the moment, we will do this as you wish. But if it doesn't work, then it's my turn." He fingered the edge of his axe. "Agreed?"

"Whatever you say," replied Ace. "Okay, Avram, let's finish this leg of the trip." She pulled herself to her feet and she and Gilgamesh followed the songsmith down the narrow pathway between the rocks. Within a few moments the mountains had closed in on them, and they were winding their way down between two walls of sheer granite. In a way it was very beautiful, but she was in no mood to appreciate the fact. Her feet hurt, her temper was frayed, and she had a growing suspicion that the Doctor was up to something behind her back. The sooner this trip was over the better.

Avram halted abruptly, and gestured ahead of them. "The guardians," he breathed.

Ace shouldered him gently aside, and her gaze followed the curve of their trail.

It was worse than she had expected. The guardians of the dawn were not soldiers in s.p.a.ce suits. They were robots.

There were two of them, each about eight feet tall. Humanoid in shape, they stood at attention. Long metal legs were hooked to a squat body. Two long, jointed arms ended in claws fitted with what looked like needle-pointed guns. Atop each body, with no intervening neck, sat a head of sorts. They had eyes like camera lenses, small gratings below the eyes, and then what seemed to be antennae or mandibles sticking out from the lower part of the faces. Ace didn't like to think what they were for. She stepped forward.

Two heads spun to face her, and the arms clicked up, weapons covering the small group. She braced herself for attack, but the robots intoned in unison: "Approach and identify."

The voices were metallic, but they were neither lifeless nor monotonous.

They sounded almost like the buzzing of wasps. Ace moved forward hesitantly, followed by Avram and a very quiet Gilgamesh. Something had finally managed to make an impression on his ego, it seemed.

The two robots heads clicked slightly, and spun to face each other. Both guardians produced several of the buzzing noises before the heads rotated back to face the trio.

"Approach," the first one repeated.

"Identify," added the second. There was a slight difference in pitch between the two voices. Ace mentally christened them One and Two.

"We are approaching," she said. "And I'm Ace. These are Avram and Gilgamesh." She gestured towards her companions. The robot heads followed her movements, resting for a long moment on Avram's nervous features.

"Returned," One said, then buzzed.

"Singer: Avram," added Two.

"State -" One told Ace.

"- your purpose," Two completed.

Not knowing which of them to look at, Ace shrugged. "We're here to see Utnapishtim."

"Not possible," One clicked.

"Sees no one," Two explained.

"Nergal's blood," Gilgamesh growled, unsheathing his axe. "I told you it was a mistake to try to talk to these creatures. Let me take them apart."

"Attack?" hummed One.

"Illogical," added Two. Before Gilgamesh could make a move, both robots spat laser beams from their mandibles. A rock beside the king glowed and melted into a small pool of slag. Gilgamesh did an almost comic double take, and realized that he was outmatched. Carefully, he replaced his axe over his shoulder.

"Wise - - move." The robots turned back to Ace. "Utnapishtim - is to be protected."

Mentally cursing Gilgamesh, Ace tried again. "We're not here to harm him,"

she said. "We're here to ask his help."

The robot heads regards Gilgamesh again. "Some -" began One.

"- help," finished Two.

"Don't blame him," Ace sighed. "He can't help being overaggressive. But Avram and I aren't like that."

"Avram -" - isn't," robots agreed. "But - - you?"

Carefully, slowly, Ace took her hands from her pockets. In her right hand, she held Ishtar's bomb. The guardians" arms swivelled up to train on her.

"Wait!" she called out. "It's safe!" The antennae twitched.

"So-"

"-it is." The arms stayed in position, however. "Explain - your actions."

Moving slowly towards the two poised robots, Ace held out the bomb.

"Look at this. Could anyone from this culture or time period have constructed such a device?"

The antennae twitched again, a little longer this time.

"No," One agreed.

"It was "- built on Anu," Two completed.

"Interesting. Where did -"

"- you get it?"

Ace was beginning to think she should have called them Tweedledee and Tweedledum. She explained: It comes from a wrecked escape capsule, near the cities of Kish and Uruk."

The robots heads swivelled to regard each other. "Wait - a moment." There was a short pause, during which Ace could hear the sounds of machinery emanating from the robots. Then she felt a slight tug on her arm.

"What are they doing?" Avram asked, looking worried.

"Probably communicating with Utnapishtim or one of his people," Ace told him. "There's only one conclusion that they can come to - that Ishtar escaped their attack on her. They're bound to want to know more."

The two heads swivelled back to cover them. "Pa.s.sage - agreed," they said. "Follow - this path."

Ace replaced the bomb in her jacket pocket, and sauntered up to the robots. She patted them as she pa.s.sed. "Good boys," she approved.

"Praise-"

"- non-essential."

Gilgamesh favoured them both with a much darker stare, but kept his temper in check as he moved beyond them. Avram brought up the rear, smiling nervously at the unresponsive robots. Ace led the way down the narrow chasm. When she looked over her shoulder, both guardians were ignoring the human party and were watching the approach once again.

"Weird," she muttered.

"Now what?" Gilgamesh asked her, crossly. "Does this path lead to Utnapishtim?"

"Let's hope so. We'd better follow it to find out, hadn't we?"

"Well, I don't like it at all." Gilgamesh pointed up the sheer cliffs of rock on both sides of them. "All an enemy has to do is to drop stones on us from above, and we're doomed. We have no room to fight in here. It stinks of treachery."

"Look, rocks-for-brains", Ace told him, "if they'd wanted to kill us, those two guardians back there could have fried us where we stood and nothing you or I could have done would have stopped them. We're safe here just as long as we do exactly what we're told."

"No man tells Gilgamesh what to do," the king complained, scowling. "And no woman, either, even if she claims to be a G.o.ddess." He looked pointedly at Ace. "I am willing to go along with your schemes only so far, Aya."

This was all she needed: Gilgamesh in a grouchy mood and itching for a fight. It was like having to deal with a child, constantly keeping him in line.

What had she ever done to deserve this? Hoping that the walk would tire him out, she marched on round the next bend in the canyon, and stopped dead.

The pa.s.sageway opened out abruptly as the cliffs retreated on either side.

They were on the rim of a vast hollow in the mountains, into which the pathway now led downwards. She looked about her and saw that the cliffs circled to meet on the far side of a huge lake. Abruptly she realized where they were.

"It's an extinct volcano," she exclaimed. "A lot of them have lakes in their centres, like this."

Avram nodded. "There are tales that this mountain once was host to the G.o.ds," he told her. "The smoke from their feasting fires rose for many years, then stopped. The G.o.ds moved on."

"I hope this was a long time ago," she muttered. She couldn't quite recall, but she vaguely remembered something about extinct volcanoes having lakes in them. Or was that just wishful thinking on her part?

"Down there," Gilgamesh growled, pointing. Following the line of his finger, Ace saw that there was a small shack of some sort by the water's edge.

Next to it was an even smaller boat.

"Think you that is where Utnapishtim lives?"

"It seems a bit grubby," Ace replied, uncertainly. "I'd expected something much larger. And metallic." The sun didn't penetrate into the crater.

Peering, she asked: "Is that some kind of island in the centre of the lake there?" "Perhaps," the king agreed. "In this shadow, it's hard to tell. I never trust the dark; anything might lurk within its embrace. Still, things may be more visible when we reach the house."

Ace agreed, and they started off down the slope towards the small building.

It was easy going - perhaps a bit too easy. Stones rolled out from under their feet, gathering momentum as they skittered down the slope.

The ground levelled as they approached the lip of stone that the shack stood on. To Ace's keen gaze it seemed a peculiar building. It looked as if it had been carved out of whitish plastic, instead of the wood or stone or brick of the buildings in Kish and Uruk. As she drew closer she realized that her guess had been correct: the but was made from some sort of artificial material.

It wasn't large - about twenty feet long and wide, and about eight tall. There were no windows, and a single door. Feeling somewhat uncertain she approached and lifted her hand to knock.

"Not much point," a voice said, lazily, from the direction of the boat. They spun around to see a gaunt figure unfolding from within it, yawning.

"There's n.o.body inside. Just me out here."

Ninani sat before the polished metal of her mirror, carefully applying the kohl make-up to line her eyes. She would have to look her best, when she met her father later this afternoon. King Agga had been in a constant foul temper since his last conversation with Ishtar. Ninani was determined to break him out of it. Provided, of course, Ishtar had not yet discovered the plotting that she had tried to do against the G.o.ddess.

It gave her the chills just to think about that. It was more than a week since En-Gula had vanished, and nothing had been said about the young priestess having visited the princess. Was it possible that no one had known of it? Or did Ishtar know that the two girls had been conspirators and was simply biding her time? Swallowing her doubts and fears, Ninani reflected that she was probably not cut out to be a conspirator. It was too hard on her stomach and nerves.

There was a quiet rapping on the door. a.s.suming it was Puabi with fresh clothing, Ninani called out imperiously for her to enter. Gazing into the mirror, she smeared the kohl across half of her face in panic at what she saw there.

En-Gula had returned.

With a cry Ninani spun about, torn between her terror that En-Gula was a ghost and her expectation that the girl would be followed through the door by the temple guards and an order for the arrest of the princess. Instead the priestess was followed by two improbable figures, both swathed in the robes of merchants.

Falling to her knees, En-Gula kissed the closest of the princess's feet.

"Lady," she murmured.

Panic was followed in Ninani's mind by caution. One of the two odd figures closed the door silently, after glancing into the corridor to be certain that they were not observed. The Princess managed to shake off her fears, and could not restrain her curiosity. "En-Gula," she asked, "where have you been? What has happened? And who are these people?" The Doctor slipped out of his disguise with a thankful sigh. It had been hot wearing the heavy woollen cloak. Enkidu contented himself with just throwing the hood back from his hairy visage. Ninani choked back a scream when she saw him.

"You - you're that - that creature of Gilgamesh's!" She looked ready to scream for help. En-Gula leapt to her feet.

"Peace, lady!" she hissed. "He means no harm! He is here to help us with Ishtar. As is this other, the G.o.d Ea."

Uncertainly, Ninani subsided. Staring warily at the Doctor, who doffed his hat politely, she finally said: "Forgive me, but I find it hard to trust any visiting divinities after witnessing what Ishtar has done."

"And quite rightly, too," the Doctor agreed. "Terrible state of affairs here.

But I'm here to do something about it. En-Gula has been telling us that you want her power broken."

The princess nodded. "She is evil, and disturbs both my father and my city." She looked him over, curiously. "Can someone such as you truly help us to defeat her?"

"I'm probably the only one who can," he a.s.sured her. To En-Gula, he added: "Perhaps you'd better tell the princess what happened to you."

He stood patiently by as the priestess told the tale of the finding of the Doctor, and Ace's raid on the temple. The Doctor tried to restrain his annoyance at this part. The girl then told of the planning session in Uruk, and finished her tale.

Ninani looked at each of them in turn. "So," she finally said. "Gilgamesh, Aya and the singer have gone in search of Utnapishtim, while you three have come here. To what purpose?"

The Doctor took up the conversation. "I really need to get a look into Ishtar's inner rooms," he explained. "All her equipment is there. I know she has implanted some kind of transponders in the minds of a number of people, by which she can control them. I'd like to sever that link, if possible, before we actually destroy her."

"So," said a low, hard voice from the doorway, "you plot treason now, Ninani?" They all spun around. Ninani paled with shock. In the open doorway stood her father, backed by several of his soldiers.

16: THE LAKE OF SOULS.

As the man stepped out of the boat Ace sized him up. He was tall, well over six feet, and his face was weather-beaten and lined. His hair was pure white, and rather straggly. It had obviously been slept on. The stranger ran his bony fingers through it, trying to get it into shape.