That was when Anotine struck me on the shoulder in order to get my attention. When I looked over to her, she had, still supporting the head, stepped around to the front of him, and with her thumb and middle finger lifted the closed lids of the creature's eyes. The nothing was twenty yards away when we hoisted the Delicate's head again to a place just a few inches above my own. Instantly, a green light similar to that which had emanated from the Fetch shot out of the emblem on the door. The gradually widening beam struck the open eyes of our trophy, and the doors slowly began to part.

Once it was possible to gain access, we lowered the head and, with a coordinated heave, tossed it behind us. So close were we to the dissolution that the last remnant of the Delicate did not land on pavement but went over the ever-diminishing edge of the island in a mile-long fall toward liquid mercury. We did not stop to watch its descent, but ran forward into the dark opening of the Panopticon.

23

"It's as empty as the Fetch's head" I cried, as my eyes adjusted to the shadowed interior. The light that streamed in through the portals set intermittently along the vertical length of the tower was enough to show me that there were no objects waiting to be deciphered. The inner base of the Panopticon was merely a round floor, in the exact middle of which began a spiral staircase that wound its way toward the dome a hundred feet above.

"What now?" asked Anotine, breathing heavily.

As soon as the words had left her, the circular wall around us began to dissolve. Tiny holes were forming and light shot through them in a confusion of bright beams. It was clear that soon these holes would join together to form the absence of a wall.

"Up," I shouted, and we made for the stairs. As my foot touched the bottom step, the doors we had worked so hard to breach disappeared, and the nothing began to creep across the floor toward us.

The fatigue that had earlier slowed me in our retreat to the tower was now thoroughly forgotten. If we were to rest for a moment, the world would slip away beneath us, and the glorious dive into the silver ocean that I had once imagined would become a reality.

We scrabbled ever upward around the twirling metal beanstalk that was the stairs while beneath us we could see the nothing climbing just as quickly, negating the steps we had trod only seconds before and vanishing the walls of the tower as it followed us toward the dome. Beneath all this was an unobstructed, breathtaking view of the glimmering ocean a mile away. The wind was so fierce at times that if there hadn't been a banister along the outer edge of the steps, I might have been blown off like a handkerchief.

The climb seemed both endless and pointless, and I could hardly catch my breath as we turned the tight circles in our ascent. Anotine was a few steps ahead of me, and I had the feeling she could have gone faster, but was regulating her speed to make sure I was safe.

As we approached the halfway point, I looked above and could see that there was a small landing illuminated by light from one of the portals. We came up through a hole in the floor of the landing, and Anotine didn't stop. I had no intention to, myself, but as my eyes came level with it, I noticed that on a circular shelf, which defined the edge of the landing, were positioned a series of hourglasses, each separated by only a few inches. Without thinking, I leaped off the stairs, bounded over to the closest one, and grabbed it. The entire procedure took less than five seconds. I turned and headed back for the stairs, and then with a sick feeling realized that the nothing was upon me. The landing was coming apart. I lunged for the steps, trying to grab the banister in order to pull myself back on course, but I missed. Instead, I felt a hand clutch tightly to my wrist. I don't know how she managed it, but with one powerful tug and a fluid swinging motion, Anotine placed me back on the next step just as the twenty or more hourglasses fell away toward the ocean.

I didn't need any extra incentive at that point to move faster. With the hourglass cradled in my arm, I bounded two steps at a time. When I thought my heart was about to explode, I looked up and saw an aperture in the floor of the dome, like an open trapdoor.

Anotine reached it and jumped through, and I was no more than a second behind her. As I hit the floor inside the dome, I rolled over and kicked the trapdoor shut. I let the hourglass tumble out of my hand as I found Anotine, and we entwined each other in a viselike embrace, our bodies heaving, in syncopation. I could feel her heart pounding against mine as I closed my eyes and waited to fall.

We waited and we waited, and my obvious expectation that the floor would dissolve beneath us did not seem soon to be fulfilled. The howling wind of disintegration suddenly died, and there was complete silence. I opened my eyes and saw Anotine open hers.

"Well?" she said.

I shook my head.

Then we dropped, not through the floor, but with the dome intact around us. The fall seemed to have been slowed by some force, for we did not plummet the way the Doctor's winch had, but instead dropped with the lightness of a feather. Still, we held tightly to each other for a long time until there came a modest collision with the surface of the ocean, the impact of which bounced us a few inches off the floor. The dome settled on the surface like a boat, and the hellish roar of the wind was replaced by the thick liquid sound of rolling mercury. The motion of the waves rocked us gently and, dismissing my fears that we would soon sink or the dome would be melted, I reveled in this moment that did not call for physical exertion.

"We should get up and see what predicament we have gotten into now," said Anotine.

"Why?" I asked.

She smiled and closed her eyes. I did the same and found myself falling yet again, this time into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion.

I was delighted eventually to awaken in that it was a good sign we had not been consumed by the ocean, but at the same time, my entire body ached so thoroughly from all of the punishing work I had required of it that existence was now barely preferable to the alternative. My knees cracked as I straightened them, and even the simplest movements elicited a groan. It soon became clear to me that Anotine was gone. As I rolled onto my stomach to find a position from which I could use my arms to push myself up, I heard her call my name.

"Cley," she said, "you've got to see this."

With a good deal of effort, I rose to my feet, staggering somewhat in the process. I stretched and rubbed my eyes before turning around and getting my first true look at the inside of the dome. Of course, it was circular to match the cylindrical form of the tower. The trapdoor, which I stood next to, seemed to be the central point of a wide space. There was a short wall, no more than four feet all around, and then the dome began, some kind of crystal or glass that arched upward at its center at least twenty feet. I fully expected to see some kind of beacon or light source, remembering the way the structure had glowed at night, but there was nothing. Instead, the substance that the dome was made from generated its own luminescence. The glow of it lit the interior more efficiently than even spire lamps might have.

"Come here," said Anotine, waking me from awe at the architecture of the marvelous place. When I turned to find her, she was off to my left, standing next to a chair whose back was to me. As I approached, I could see that it was no ordinary chair, but more like a black, leather throne without legs. The seat hovered two feet off the floor and appeared connected in front to a low metal rail that, I just then noticed, ran the entire circumference of the inner dome.