Cromis saw nothing he recognised as a machine.

'You had better begin,'said Trinor to the dwarf, looking uneasily about. His voice was taken by the diamond walls and flung about. As if in response, the visual display of the brain increased its activity. 'It is aware of us. I would like to leave here as soon as possible. Well?'

For a moment, the dwarf ignored him. His ugly features had softened, there was a gleam in his knowing eye. He was enraptured. He sniggered suddenly, swivelled slowly on his heel to face the traitor.

'My lord,'he said satirically, 'you ask too much. It will take a century to understand this.'He shrugged. 'Ah yes, you hold the knife, I remember.'He shook his head sadly. 'I can shut it down in a week – perhaps a little more. It is a matter of finding the right…, combination. A week: no less.'Trinor fingered his scar.

For the next few days, Cromis saw nothing of Tomb or the Queen: they were kept in the central chamber of the complex, constantly under the eyes and swords of the reluctant Northmen, while he and Grif were limited to the cargo hold of the airboat, and lived out a dreary captivity among the dead sloths.

Each day, a Nortimman brought them food.

Cromis's in-turning nature enabled him to come to terms with this – he made verses while gazing from the porthole at the unchanging waste: but it betrayed him also in the end, in that it kept him unaware of Birkin Grif's shift of mood.

Confinement chafed the big Methven. He grew irritable and posed questions without answer. 'How long do you suppose we will live after the shutdown? Tell me that.'And: 'The dwarf cares only for his machines. Are we to rot here?'

He took to sharpening his broadsword twice a day.

Later, he lay morose and withdrawn on a pile of bloody pelts, humming songs of defiance. He tapped his fingers dangerously.

Each day, a Northman brought them food.

On the sixth day after the discovery of the central chamber, Birkin Grif stood behind the door of the hold, honing his sword.

The door opened, their jailor entered.

He had an energy blade in his right hand, but it did him no good.

Grif stood over the folded corpse, eyeing with satisfaction its pumping stomach wound. He wiped his broadsword on the hem of its cloak, sheathed it. He wrested the flickering power-blade from its tightening grip. A terrible light was in his eye.

'Now,'he said.

Cromis found himself dulled and slowed by horror.

'Grif,'he murmured, 'You are mad.'

Birkin Grif stared levelly at him.

'Have we become cowards?'he said.

And he turned and ran from the hold, quick and silent.

Cromis bent over the ruin that meant death for the Queen. In the distance, cries of pain and surprise: Grif had come against the Northmen in the forepart of the ship, berserk.

The nameless sword in his hand, Cromis followed the trail of slaughter. On the command-bridge, three dead men. They sprawled grotesquely, expressions of surprise on their faces, their blood splashed over the walls. The place stank. The open hatch yawned. Wind blew in from the desert, filling the dead eyes with fine dust.

Outside, the wind tugged at him. A fifth corpse lay at the entrance to the bunkers. The door moaned and hissed as he entered. 'OURUBUNDOS,'it said. It snickered. Cromis caught up with Grif halfway down the corridor that led to the brain-chamber – too late.

His ragged cobalt mail was smeared with blood, his hands were red with murder. Over the corpse of his final victim, he faced Norvin Trinor. And behind the traitor, their blades spitting, stood ten Northern wolves.

Trinor acknowledged Cromis'arrival with an ironical nod. 'I did not expect quite such stupidity,'he said. 'I will make no more contracts with you. I see they are worthless.'

Birkin Grif ground his heel into the chest of the dead Northman. His eyes sought Trinor's, held them.

'You have killed your Queen,'Trinor said. 'Yourself, too.'

Grif moved a pace forward.

'Listen to me, Norvin Trinor,'he whispered. 'Your mother was had by a pig. At the age of ten, she gave you a disease. You have since licked the arse of Canna Moidart.

'But I will tell you this. There is still Methven enough in you to meet me now, without your dirty henchmen -'

He turned to the Northerners. 'Make a combat ring,'he said. Trinor fingered his scar. He laughed. 'I will fight you,'he said. 'It will change nothing. Four men are with Methvet Nian.

They have instructions to kill both her and the dwarf if I do not shortly return to them. You understand: die or live, you or I, it will change nothing.'

Birkin Grif dropped the stolen energy-blade and slid his broadsword from its scabbard.

The dead Northman was dragged away. In the strange milky light from the windows of the corridor, the combatants faced each other. They were not well matched. Grif, though a head taller, and of longer reach, had expended much of his strength in. the cabin of the airboat: and his slow, terrible rage made him tremble. Trinor regarded him calmly.

In the days of King Methven, both of them had learned much from tegeus-Cromis – but only one of them had ever matched his viperish speed.

They clashed.

Behind the windows, queer objects stirred and drifted, on currents of thick liquid.

Two blades made white webs in the air. The Northmen cheered, and made bets. They cut, and whirled, and leapt -Grif cumbersome, Trinor lithe and quick. Fifteen years or more before they had fought thus side by side, and killed fifty men in a morning. Against his will, Cromis drew closer, joined the combat-ring and marked the quick two-handed jab, the blade thrown up to block…

Grif stumbled.

A thin line of blood was drawn across his chest. He swore and hacked.

Trinor chuckied suddenly. He allowed the blow to nick his cheek. Then he ducked under Grif's outstretched arms and stepped inside the circle of his sword. He chopped, shortarmed, for the ribs.

Grif grunted; threw himself back, spun round; crashed unharmed into the ring of Northmen.

And Trinor, allowing his momentum to carry him crouching forward, turned the rib-cut into an oblique, descending stroke that bit into the torn mail beneath his pponent's knees, hamstringing him.

Grif staggered.

He looked down at his ruined legs. He showed his teeth. When Trinor's sword couched itself in his lower belly, he whimpered. A quick, violent shudder went through him. Blood dribbled down his thighs. He reached slowly down and put his hands on the sword.

He sat down carefully. He coughed. He stared straight at Cromis and said clearly: 'You should have killed him when you had the chance. Cromis, you should have done it -'

Blood filled his mouth and ran into his beard.

tegeus-Cromis, sometime soldier and sophisticate of the Pastel City, who imagined himself a better poet than swordsman, clenched his long, delicate fingers until Lheir rings of intagliated, non-precious metal cracked his knuckles and his nails made bloody half-moons on his palms.

A huge, insane cry welled up out of him. Desolation and murder bloomed like bitter flowers in his head.

'Trinor!'he bawled. 'Grif! Grif!'

And before the turncoat's hand had time to reach the energy blade his victim had discarded – long, long before he had time to form a stroke with his arm, or a word with his lips – the nameless blade was buried to its hilt in his mouth, its point had levered apart the bones of his neck and burst with a soft noise through the back of his skull.

tegeus-Cromis shuddered. He threw back his head and howled like a beast. He put his foot against the dead man's breastbone and pulled out his blade.

'You were never good enough, Trinor,'he said, savagely. 'Never.'

He turned to face his death and the death of the world, weeping.