But it wasn't wasn't the wall, Simon saw a moment later. The rope around his wrist was now'spiked to the forge's immense water wheel. His other wrist and both ankles had already been secured. He was spread-eagled a few cubits beneath the wheel's edge, ten cubits above the ground. The wheel was not moving, and the sluice of dark water seemed farther away than it should. the wall, Simon saw a moment later. The rope around his wrist was now'spiked to the forge's immense water wheel. His other wrist and both ankles had already been secured. He was spread-eagled a few cubits beneath the wheel's edge, ten cubits above the ground. The wheel was not moving, and the sluice of dark water seemed farther away than it should.

"Do whatever you want." Simon clenched his teeth against the scream that wanted to erupt. "I don't care. Do anything."

Inch tugged at Simon's wrists again, testing. Simon could begin to feel the downward pull of his weight against the bonds and the slow warmth in the joints of his arms, precursor of real pain.

"Do? I do nothing." Inch placed his huge hand on Simon's chest and gave a push, forcing Simon's breath out in a surprised hiss. "I waited. You took my place. I waited and waited to be Doctor Inch. Now you wait."

"W-wait for what?"

Inch smiled, a slow spread of lips that revealed broken teeth. "Wait to die. No food. Maybe I will give you water-it will take longer that way. Maybe I will think of ... something else to do. Doesn't matter. You will wait." Inch nodded his head. "Wait." He pushed the mallet's handle into his belt and climbed down the ladder.

Simon craned his neck, watching Inch's progress with stupefied fascination. The overseer reached the bottom and waved for a pair of his henchmen to take the ladder away. Simon sadly watched it go. Even if he somehow escaped his bonds, he would surely fall to his death.

But Inch was not finished. He moved forward until he was almost hidden from Simon's view by the great wheel, then pulled down on a thick wooden lever. Simon heard a grinding noise, then felt the wheel jerk, its sudden motion rattling his bones. It slipped downward, shuddering as it went, then splashed into the sluice, sending another jolt through Simon.

Slowly ... ever so slowly ... the wheel began to turn.

At first it was almost a relief to be rotated down toward the ground. The weight shifted from both his arms to his wrist and ankle, then gradually the strain moved to his legs as the chamber turned upside down. Then, as he rolled even further downward, blood rushed to his head until it felt as though it would burst out through his ears. At the bottom of his revolution, water splashed just beyond him, almost wetting his finger tips.

Above the wheel, the immense chains were again reeling up into darkness.

"Couldn't stop it for long," rumbled a downside-up Inch. "Bellows don't work, buckets don't work-and the Red Rat Wizard's tower don't turn." He stood staring for a moment as Simon slowly began to rise toward the cavern ceiling. "It does lots of things, this wheel." His remaining eye glittered in the light from the forge. "Kills little kitchen boys."

He turned and lumbered off across the chamber.

It didn't hurt that much at first. Simon's wrists were so securely bound, and he was stretched so tightly against the wheel's wide rim, that there was very little movement. He was hungry, which kept him clearheaded enough to think; his mind revolved far more swiftly than the prisoning wheel, circling through the events that had brought him to this place and through dozens of unlikely possibilities for escape.

Perhaps Stanhelm would come when it was sleeping time and cut him loose, he told himself. Inch had his own chamber somewhere in another part of the forge: with luck, Simon could be freed without the hulking overseer even knowing. But where would he go? And what made him think that Stanhelm was still alive, or if he was, that he would risk death again to save a person he barely knew?

Someone else? But who? None of the other foundrymen cared if Simon lived or died-nor could he much blame them. How could you worry about another person when every moment was a struggle to breathe the air, to survive the heat, to perform backbreaking work at the whim of a brutish master?

And this time there were no friends to rescue Simon. Binabik and Miriamele, even should they somehow make their way into the castle, would surely never come here. They sought the king-and had no reason to believe Simon still lived, anyway. Those who had rescued him from danger in the past-Jiriki, Josua, Aditu-were far away, on the gra.s.slands or marching toward Nabban. Any friends who had once lived in the castle were gone. And even if he somehow managed to free himself from this wheel, where would he go? What could he do? Inch would only catch him again, and next time the forge-master might not devise such a gradual torment.

He strained again at his bonds, but they were heavy ropes woven to resist the strains of forge work and they gave not at all. He could work at them for days and only tear the skin from his wrists. Even the spikes that held the knotted ropes against the wheel's timbers were no help: Inch had carefully driven them between the strands so that the rope would not split.

The burning in his arms and legs was worsening. Simon felt a drumbeat of real dread begin inside him. He could not move. No matter what happened, no matter how bad it got, no matter how much he screamed and struggled for release, there was nothing he could do.

It would almost be a relief, he thought, if Pryrates came and found that Inch held him prisoner. The red priest would do terrible things to him, but at least they would be different terrible things-sharp pains, long pains, little ones and great ones. This, Simon could tell, was only going to become steadily worse. Soon his hunger would become a torment as well. Most of a day had pa.s.sed since he had last eaten, and he was already thinking on his last bowl of sc.u.m-flecked soup with a regret bordering on madness.

As he turned upside-down once more, his stomach lurched, momentarily freeing him from hunger. It was little enough to be grateful for, but Simon's expectations were becoming very slight.

The pain that burned his body was matched by a fury that grew within him as he suffered, a helpless rage that could find no outlet and so began to gnaw at the very foundations of his sanity instead. Like an angry man he had once seen in Erchester, who threw everything in his house out of the window, piece by piece, Simon had nothing to fling at his enemies but what was his own-his beliefs, his loves, his most cherished memories.

Morgenes and Josua and Binabik and the others had used him, he decided. They had taken a boy who could not even write his own name and had made him a tool. Under their manipulation and for their benefit he had been driven from his home, had been made an exile, had seen the death of many he held dear and the destruction of much that was innocent and beautiful. With no say in his own destiny he had been led this way and that, and told just enough half-truths to keep him soldiering on. For the sake of Josua he had faced a dragon and won-then the Great Sword had been taken from him and given to someone else. For Binabik's sake he had stayed on in Yiqanuc-who could say that Haestan would have been killed if the company had left earlier? He had come with Miriamele to protect her on her journey, and had suffered because of it, both in the tunnels and now on this wheel where he would likely die. They had all taken from him, taken everything he had. They had used him.

And Miriamele had other crimes to answer for. She had led him on, treated him like an equal even though she was a king's daughter. She had been his friend, or had said she was, but she had not waited for him to come back from the quest to the northern mountains. No, instead she had gone off on her own without even a word left for him, as though their friendship had never existed. And she had given herself to another man-delivered her maidenhood to someone she did not even like! She had kissed Simon and let him think that his hopeless love had some meaning ... but then she had thrown her own deeds in his face in the cruelest manner possible.

Even his mother and father had abandoned him, dying before he could ever know them, leaving him with no life and no history but what the chambermaids had given him. How could they!? And how could G.o.d let such a thing be?! Even G.o.d had betrayed him, for G.o.d had not been there. He was said to watch all creatures of His world, but He obviously cared little for Simon, the least of His children. How could G.o.d love someone and leave them to suffer as Simon had suffered, for no fault other than trying to do right?

Yet with all his fury at these so-called friends who had abused his trust, he had greater hatred still for his enemies: Inch, the brute animal-no, worse than any animal, for an animal did not torture; King Elias who had thrown the world into war and blighted the earth with terror and famine and death; silver-masked Utuk'ku, who had set her huntsman after Simon and his friends and had killed wise Amerasu; and the priest Pryrates, Morgenes' murderer, who had nothing in his black soul but self-serving malice.

But the greatest author of all Simon's suffering, it seemed, was he whose ravening hatred was so great that even the grave could not contain it. If anyone deserved to be repaid in torment, it was the Storm King. Ineluki had brought ruin to a world full of innocents. He had destroyed Simon's life and happiness.

Sometimes Simon felt that hate was keeping him alive. When the agony became too strong, when he felt life slipping away, or at least pa.s.sing out of his control, the need to survive and revenge himself was something to which he could cling. He would stay alive as long as he could, if only to return some measure of his own suffering to all who had abused him. Every miserable lonely night would be recompensed, every wound, every terror, every tear.

Revolving through darkness, in and out of madness, Simon made a thousand oaths to repay pain for pain.

At first it seemed a firefly, flitting on the edge of his vision-something small that glowed without light, a point of not-black in a world of blackness. Simon, his thoughts floundering in a wash of ache and hunger, could make no sense of it.

"Come," a voice murmured to him. Simon had been hearing voices through this entire second day-or was it the third?-upon the wheel. What was another voice? What was another speck of dancing light? a voice murmured to him. Simon had been hearing voices through this entire second day-or was it the third?-upon the wheel. What was another voice? What was another speck of dancing light?

"Come."

Abruptly he was pulled free, free of the wheel, free of the ropes that burned his wrists. He was tugged onward by the spark, and could not understand how escape could be accomplished so easily ... until he looked back.

A body hung on the slowly circling rim, a naked white-skinned form sagging in the ropes. Flame-hued hair was sweat-plastered on its brow. Chin sagged on chest.

Who is that? Simon wondered briefly ... but he knew the answer. He viewed his own form with dispa.s.sion. Simon wondered briefly ... but he knew the answer. He viewed his own form with dispa.s.sion. So that's what I looked like? But there's nothing left in it-it's like an empty jar. So that's what I looked like? But there's nothing left in it-it's like an empty jar.

The thought came to him suddenly. I'm dead. I'm dead.

But if that was so, why could he still dimly feel the ropes, still feel his arms yanked to the straining length of their sockets? Why did he seem to be both in and out of his body?

The light moved before him again, summoning, beckoning. Without will, Simon followed. Like wind in a long dark chimney, they moved together through chaotic shadows; almost-things brushed at him and pa.s.sed through him. His connection to the body hanging upon the wheel grew more tenuous. He felt the candle of his being flickering.

"I don't want to lose me! Let me go back!"

But the spark that led him flew on.

Swirling darkness blossomed into light and color, then gradually took on the shapes of real things. Simon was at the mouth of the great sluice that turned the water wheel, watching the dark water tumble down into the depths below the castle, headed for the foundry. Next he saw the silent pool in the deserted halls of Asu'a. Water trickled down into the pool through the cracks in the ceiling. The mists that floated above the wide tarn pulsed with life, as though this water was somehow revivifying something that had long been almost lifeless. Could that be what the flickering light was trying to show him? That water from the forge had filled the Sithi pool? That it was coming to life again?

Other images flowed past. He saw the dark shape that grew at the base of the ma.s.sive stairwell in Asu'a, the tree-thing he had almost touched, whose alien thoughts he had felt. The stairway itself was a spiraling pipe that led from the roots of the breathing tree up to Green Angel Tower itself.

As he thought of the tower, he abruptly found himself staring at its pinnacle, which reared like a vast white tooth. Snow was falling and the sky was thick with clouds, but somehow Simon could see through them to the night sky beyond. Hovering low in the northern darkness was a fiery ember with a tiny smear of tail-the Conqueror Star.

"Why have you brought me here, to all these places?" Simon asked. The spot of light hovered before him as though listening. Simon asked. The spot of light hovered before him as though listening. "What does this mean?" "What does this mean?"

There was no answer. Instead, something cold splashed against his face.

Simon opened his eyes, suddenly very much an inhabitant of his painful flesh once more. A distorted shape hung upside down from the ceiling, piping like a bat.

No. It was one of Inch's henchmen, and Simon himself was hanging head-down at the lowest point of the wheel's revolution, listening to the axle squeak. The henchman turned another dipper full of water over Simon's face, pouring only a little of it into his mouth. He gasped and choked, trying to swallow, then licked his chin and lips. As Simon began his upward turn, the man walked away without a word. Little drops ran down from Simon's head and hair, and for a while he was too busy trying to catch and swallow them before they dripped away to wonder at his strange vision. It was only when the wheel brought him down the other side again that he could think.

What did that mean? It was hard to hold a coherent thought against the fire in his joints. It was hard to hold a coherent thought against the fire in his joints. What was that glowing thing, what was it trying to show me? Or was it just more madness? What was that glowing thing, what was it trying to show me? Or was it just more madness?

Simon had experienced many strange dreams since Inch had left him-visions of despair and exaltation, scenes of impossible victory over his enemies and of his friends suffering dreadful fates, but he had also dreamed of far less meaningful things. The voices he had heard in the tunnels had returned, sometimes as a faint babble barely audible above the splashing and groaning of the wheel, other times clear as someone whispering in his ear, s.n.a.t.c.hes of speech that always seemed just tantalizingly beyond his comprehension. He was beset by fantasies, dizzy as a storm-battered bird. So why should this vision be any more real?

But it felt different. Like the difference between wind on your skin and someone touching you.

Simon clung to the memory. After all, it was something to think about, something beside the horrible gnawing in his stomach and fire in his limbs.

What did I see? That the pool down below the castle is alive again, filled up by the water that's splashing right under this wheel? The pool! Why didn't I think of it before? Jiriki-no, Aditu-said that there was something in Asu'a called the Pool of Three Depths, a Master Witness. That must be what I saw down there. Saw? I drank from it! But what does that matter, even if it's true? He struggled with his thoughts. Green Angel Tower, that tree, the pool-are they all linked somehow?

He remembered his dreams of the White Tree, dreams that had plagued him for a long time. At first he had thought it was the Uduntree on frozen Yijarjuk, the great ice waterfall that had stunned him with its magnificence and improbability, but he had come to think it had another meaning as well.

A white tree with no leaves. Green Angel Tower Is something going to happen there? But what? He laughed harshly, surprising himself by the rasping noise-he had been silent for many, many hours. He laughed harshly, surprising himself by the rasping noise-he had been silent for many, many hours. And what can I do about it anyway? Tell Inch? And what can I do about it anyway? Tell Inch?

Still, something was happening. The Pool was alive, and Green Angel Tower was waiting for something ... and the water wheel kept turning, turning, turning.

I used to dream about a wheel, too-a great wheel that spun through Time, that pulled the past up into the light and pushed everything alive down into the ground ... ... not a huge piece of wood paddling dirty water, like this. not a huge piece of wood paddling dirty water, like this.

Now the wheel was carrying him down once more, tipping him so that the blood again rushed to his head and made his temples pound.

What did the angel tell me in that other dream? He grimaced and choked back a cry. The pain as it moved to his legs felt like someone jabbing him with long needles. He grimaced and choked back a cry. The pain as it moved to his legs felt like someone jabbing him with long needles. "Go deeper, "she said. "Go deeper " "Go deeper, "she said. "Go deeper "

Time's walls began to crumble around Simon, as though the wheel that carried him, like the wheel that had haunted his dreams, plunged directly through the fabric of the living moment, pushing it down into the past and dredging up old history to spill across the present: The castle below him, Asu'a the Great, dead for five centuries, had become as real as the Hayholt above. The deeds of those who were gone-or those like Ineluki who had died but still would not go-were as vital as those of living men and women. And Simon himself was spun between them, a bit of tattered skin and bone caught on the wheel-rim of Eternity, dragged without his consent through the haunted present and the undying past.

Something was touching his face. Simon surfaced from delirium to feel fingers trailing across his cheek; they caught in his hair for a moment, then slid free as the wheel pulled him away. He opened his eyes, but either he could not see or the torches in the chamber had all been extinguished.

"What are you?" asked a quavering voice. It was just to one side, but he was moving away from it. "I hear you cry out. Your voice is not like the others. And I can feel you. What are you?"

The inside of Simon's mouth was swollen so that he could barely breathe. He tried to speak, but nothing came out except a soft gargle of noise.

"What are you?"

Simon struggled to answer, wondering even as he did so if this was another dream. But none of those, for all their rustlingly intrusive presence, had touched him with solid flesh.

An eternity of time seemed to pa.s.s as he made his way to the top of the wheel where the great chains sawed noisily upward, then began his downward turn again. By the time he reached the bottom he had worked up enough spit for something close to speech, although the effort tore at his aching throat.

"Help ... me ... "

But if someone was there, they did not speak or touch him again. His circle continued, uninterrupted. In darkness, alone, he wept without tears.

The wheel turned. Simon turned with it. Occasionally water splashed on his face and trickled into his mouth. Like the Pool of Three Depths, he thirstily absorbed it to keep the spark inside him alive. Shadows flitted through his mind. Voices hissed in the porch of his ear. His thoughts seemed to know no boundary, but at the same time he was trapped in the sh.e.l.l of his tormented, dying body. He began to yearn for release.

The wheel turned. Simon turned with it.

He stared into a grayness without form, an infinite distance that seemed somehow near enough to touch. A figure hovered there, faintly glimmering, gray-green as dying leaves-the angel from the tower-top.

"Simon, " the angel said. " the angel said. "I have things to show you. "I have things to show you.

Even in his thoughts, Simon could not form the words to question her.

"Come. There is not much time. "

Together they pa.s.sed through things, moving crossways to another place. Like a fog evaporated by strong sun, the grayness wavered and melted away, and Simon found himself watching something-he had seen before, although he could not say where. A young man with golden hair moved carefully down a tunnel. In one hand was a torch, in the other a spear.

Simon looked for the angel, but there was only the man with the spear and his stance of fearfully poised expectation. Who was he? Why was Simon being shown this vision? Was it the past? The present? Was it someone coming to rescue him?

The stealthy figure moved forward. The tunnel widened, and the torchlight picked out the carvings of vines and flowers that twined on the walls. Whenever this might be, the past, future, or present, Simon now felt sure that he knew where where it was happening-in Asu'a, in the depths below the Hayholt. it was happening-in Asu'a, in the depths below the Hayholt.

The man stopped abruptly, then took a step backward, raising his spear. His light fell upon a shape that bulked huge in the chamber before him, the torch-glare glittering on a thousand red scales. An immense clawed foot lay only a few paces from the archway in which the spearman stood, the talons knives of yellow bone.

"Now look. Here is a part of your own story...."

But even as the angel spoke, the scene faded abruptly.

Simon awoke to feel a hand on his face and water running between his lips. He choked and spluttered,-but at the same time did his best to swallow every life-preserving drop.

"You are a man," a voice said. "You are real."

Another draught of water was poured over his face and into his mouth. It was hard to swallow while dangling downside-up, but Simon had learned in his hours on the wheel.

"Who... ?" he whispered, forcing the word out through cracked lips. The hand traced across his features, delicate as an inquisitive spider. he whispered, forcing the word out through cracked lips. The hand traced across his features, delicate as an inquisitive spider.

"Who am I?" the voice asked. "I am the one who is here. In this place, I mean."

Simon's eyes widened. Somewhere in another chamber a torch still burned, and he could see the silhouette before him-the silhouette of a real person, a man, not a murmuring shadow. But even as he stared, the wheel drew him up again. He felt sure that when he came back around this living creature would be gone, leaving him alone once more.

"Who am I?" the man pondered. "I had a name, once-but that was in another place. When I was alive."

Simon could not stand such talk. All he wanted was a person, a real person to speak with. He let out a strangled sob.

"I had a name," the man said, his voice becoming quieter as Simon rotated away. "In that other place, before everything happened. They called me Guthwulf."

PART TWO.

The Blazing Tower Blazing Tower