Molgarin shrugged. “It’s a shame, really; we thought at one point that your cousin might be of a mind with us. We even invited him to join us, but he proved to have these silly, vainglorious ideas of his own. He has, frankly, been a considerable annoyance to us.” Molgarin shrugged. “No matter. Now that we possess all that you have so kindly provided us with, he can be dealt with at our leisure. These… gadgets will act as bait, if nothing else.” Molgarin smiled thinly. “Your friend Elson Roa learned what happens when somebody at first cooperates and then opposes us; your cousin will find the lesson equally hard, though I intend to draw the process out a little where he is concerned. Conversely, those who help us-like Seigneur jalistre, whom I believe you know from the Sea House-find the rewards considerable. I think I might give him something from this selection as a present.”

Molgarin looked to one side. More ceiling lights came on, revealing Feril standing ten metres away, a bulky collar round his neck. The Lazy Gun was nearby, resting on a thick column of clear glass beside the odd vehicle with the single slanting wheel she had seen underneath the tower, and a dozen or so other bits and pieces of what appeared to be suitably ancient and exotic technology, none of which she recgnised.

“Call me a sentimentalist,” Molgarin said. “But I thought it only right to rescue everything the tower and its undercroft contained, even though all the rest is baublery next to the Lazy Gun. See; we even brought your little android friend.” Molgarin raised his voice fractionally. “You may wave, machine.”

Feril raised one hand stiffly and waved.

“It is worried about the restrainer collar,” Molgarin explained to her, smiling. “Really, it is safe as long as it takes no more than a step or so from where it is now.”

Molgarin got up from his throne and went over to the Lazy Gun. He was a little less plump and rather taller than Sharrow had guessed. He patted the Gun’s gleaming brushed-silver casing. She noticed that there was some sort of device fitted to it, too; a thick looped metal bar twisted round the right-hand grip, secured with a lock, prevented access to the trigger mechanism.

“This will,” Molgarin said, “when the time is right, make life considerably easier for us.” He turned to smile at her. “Really your family has done so much for our cause, despite opposing us at practically every turn, that I feel almost mean that I have had to do what has been done.” He moved away from the Gun, though not towards his dais. “Not to mention what has to be done.”

Another spotlight came on, and revealed a figure standing beside Molgarin. It was her.

Sharrow looked at herself. Her image was blinking in the strong overhead light, looking with an expression somewhere between fear and bewilderment at Molgarin.

This new Sharrow still had all her long, black, curled hair; she was dressed in a long, conservatively dark suit identical to that Sharrow had chosen earlier and now wore.

Molgarin reached out a hand to the other Sharrow; the woman offered him her left hand. Molgarin curled it up in his.

Sharrow felt the fingers in her own left hand start to ache. She tried to rise but the young man behind gripped her round her neck while the one in front grabbed her feet.

Her image, hand crushed inside Molgarin’s, cried out just before she did.

The pain disappeared, cutting off. She saw her image crying and touching her injured hand with the other.

Molgarin shook his head and smiled broadly at the real Sharrow. “If you only knew the self-restraint I have had to exercise with this toy,” he said. He turned and stroked the woman’s cheek. She seemed not to notice. “Though of course I have enjoyed her,” Molgarin said. He looked back at Sharrow. “Quite empty,” he said, nodding at her image. “Her mind is quite empty.” His smile grew wider. “Just as it should be, really.”

He drew something from his robe. It was a HandCannon. “Allow me to introduce your clone, Lady Sharrow,” he said. He pointed the gun at the woman’s face. “Sharrow’s clone,” he said softly. “This is Sharrow’s HandCannon.”

The woman looked into the muzzle of the weapon, puzzled.

Sharrow struggled. “You fuck!” she screamed.

The clone glanced at her when she yelled, then looked away again. She gave no impression that she had recognised herself in Sharrow.

“Oh, I’m afraid we never really bothered to teach her any languages, Lady Sharrow,” Molgarin said. “Never showed her a mirror, either,” he added absently. He moved the gun right up to the woman’s eye. She drew her head back just a little.

“She’s sweet, isn’t she, my little day-fly?” Molgarin said, moving the gun from one of the woman’s eyes to the other. Her eyes crossed following the weapon’s movements.

“I’ve had her for a couple of years now,” Molgarin said conversationally. “I’m only sorry we didn’t collect the necessary cells when you were in that mining hospital on Nachtel’s Ghost, when I had you implanted with the crystal virus. Still.”

Molgarin continued to move the gun from side to side, then said, “Yes; I’ve enjoyed her company over the past two years or so. But I have the real thing now.”

He fired into the woman’s right eye.

Sharrow flinched, biting off a scream and feeling her eyes close on the image of the back of the woman’s head disappearing in a red cloud and the body being blown backwards into the darkness. She kept her eyes shut, feeling herself tremble uncontrollably; she tried to stop it but could not.

The young man behind her shook her. “Oops!” he whispered.

She opened her eyes, still trembling, her chest heaving. She choked the sobs back and listened to her own breathing, gazing through tears at Molgarin coming towards her.

“Oh, save your grief, Lady Sharrow,” he said, putting the gun back into his robe, a small frown joining the faint smile on his face. “She was a blank,” Molgarin said, spreading his hands. “A nothing; scarcely human.” He laughed lightly. “For whatever that’s worth.”

He stood looking down at her for a moment, then swivelled and returned to his throne. He sat back with one leg crossed over the other.

“What, Lady Sharrow?” he said after a pause. “No insults, no threats, no curses; no bravado?” He shook his head. “I warn you I shan’t be satisfied until you’ve called me something vile-doubtless involving that disagreeable word ‘fuck’-and come up with some unlikely and painful-sounding fate you may merely wish on me but which I have the means-and for all you know the intention-of inflicting upon you.” He contrived to look terribly amused with himself.

She was still breathing hard, fighting back her terror, trying to find strength from somewhere, from anywhere. She stared at him, not knowing how to express anything she felt.

Molgarin gazed at her with a look of tolerantly amused patience.

Then his expression changed. He frowned and looked up at the slit-views of the desert displayed in a wide circle around the chamber.

“What?” he said. He looked distracted. He peered at the screens, turning to stare at those behind him. “What?” he said again, and raised a hand to one of his earrings. “How?”

She looked up. The slit-views of the desert were no longer static sections of a peaceful panorama. Dots danced in the skies above the mountains on three sides. What looked like a cavalry charge was taking place on two of the screens; Keep guards were running from the mounted troops, throwing their guns away.

“Well, do it!” Molgarin said, still with his hand at his ear and looking away from her. “Now!” he shouted. “Anything!”

She saw the emissary in front of her looking worriedly at the one holding her arms. The one at her feet let go and drew a small laser pistol out of his uniform jacket.

There was sudden movement on several of the screens. A series of great grey explosions lifted slowly from the surface of the desert. They continued to expand and lift. They looked so immense she expected to hear them, no matter how deep they were, but then they started to fall back in silence.