She was out of control with terror, spittle running down her chin, her body shaking so that the iron manacles about her wrists rattled an accompaniment to the prayer for release issuing from her mouth.

“I wish you’d be quiet,” Adelia said petulantly.

Veronica’s eyes widened with shock and, a little, with justified accusation. “I followed you,” she said. “You’d gone, and I followed you.”

“Unwise,” Adelia told her.

“The Beast is here, Mary, Mother of God, protect us, he took me, he’s down here, he’ll eat us, oh, Jesus, Mary, save us both, he’s horned.”

“I dare say he is, just stop shouting.”

Enduring the pain, Adelia turned her head to look around. Her dog lay sprawled at the bottom of the ladder, his neck broken.

A sob forced itself out of her throat. Not now, not now, she told herself; there’s no room for it; you can’t grieve now. To survive you must think. But oh, Safeguard…

Flames from two torches stuck into holders at head height on either side of the chamber illuminated rough, round walls of whiteness marred here and there by a green algae so that she and Veronica stood as if at the bottom of a massive tube of thick, dirty, crumpled paper.

They stood alone; there was no sign of the nun’s Beast, though leading off from either side were two tunnels. The opening to the one on Adelia’s left was small, a crawling space barred by an iron grating. The one to the right was lit by unseen torches and had been enlarged to admit a man without bending. A curve in it blocked her view of its length, but just inside the entrance, propped against the wall and reflecting the chalk opposite, stood a battered, polished shield engraved with the cross of crusade.

And in the place of honor, in the center of this torture chamber, midway between her and Veronica and the dead dog, stood the Beast’s altar.

It was an anvil. So ordinary in its rightful place, so awful here; an anvil heaved from the thatched warmth of a smithy so that children might be penetrated on it. The weapon lay on its top, shiny among the stains, a spearhead. It was faceted-as were the wounds it had inflicted.

Flint, dear God, flint. Flint that occurred in chalk, seams of it. Ancient devils had labored to dig this mine in order to reach flint that they might shape it and kill with it. As primitive as they, Rakshasa used an implement made by a dark people in a dark time.

She shut her eyes.

But the bloodstains were dull; nobody had died on that anvil recently.

“Ulf,” she shrieked, opening her eyes. “Ulf.”

To her left, from far up the darkness of the left-hand tunnel, deadened by the porous chalk yet audible, came a mumbling groan.

Adelia turned her face up to the circle of sky above her head and gave thanks. The sickness of concussion, nausea from the smell of obliterating chalk, from the stink of whatever resin it was the torches were burning, gave way to a waft of fresh, May air. The boy lived.

Well now. There, on the anvil, just a couple of yards away, lay a weapon all ready for her hand.

Though her hands were tethered, from what she could see of Sister Veronica’s situation and if it resembled her own, the manacles holding their upstretched arms were attached to a bolt that went into the bare chalk. And chalk was chalk; it crumbled-as much use for retaining a fixture as sand.

Adelia flexed her elbows and pulled at the bolt above her head. Oh, God, oh, hell. Pain like hot wire through the chest. This time, she’d surely, surely punctured a lung. She hung, puffing, waiting for blood to come into her mouth. After a while, she realized it wasn’t going to, but if that blasted nun didn’t cease moaning…

“Stop gibbering,” she yelled at the girl. “Look, pull. Pull, damn you. The bolt. In the wall. It’ll come out if you tug it.” Even in pain, she’d felt a tiny give in the chalk above.

But Veronica couldn’t, wouldn’t, comprehend; her eyes were wide and wild like a deer facing the hounds; she was gibbering.

It is up to me.

Another full tug was to be avoided, but wiggling the manacles might shift the bolt sufficiently to create a cavity around it and enable it to be eased out.

Frantically, she began jiggling her hands up and down, oblivious now to everything except a piece of iron, as if she were enclosed in chalk with it, moving it grain by grain, hurting, hurting, but seeing the near end of the protesting bolt separating from…

The nun screamed.

“Quiet,” Adelia screamed back. “I’m concentrating.”

The nun went on screaming. “He’s coming.”

There had been a flicker of movement to the right. Reluctantly, Adelia turned her head. The tunnel’s bend, which was in Veronica’s view, prevented Adelia, opposite her, from seeing the thing itself, but she saw it mirrored in the shield. The uneven, convex surface threw back a reflection of dark flesh, at once diminished and monstrous. The thing was naked and looking at itself. Preening, it touched its genitals and then the apparatus on its head.

Death was preparing for his entrance.

In that extremity of terror, everything abandoned Adelia. If she could have sunk to her knees, then she’d have crawled to the creature’s feet: Take the nun, take the boy, leave me. If her hands were free, she’d have bolted for the ladder, leaving Ulf behind. She lost courage, rationality, everything except self-preservation.

And regret. Regret pierced the panic with a vision, not of her Maker but of Rowley Picot. She was going to die, and disgustingly, without having loved a man in the only health there was.

The thing came out of the tunnel; it was tall, made taller by the antlers on its head. Part of a skinned stag’s mask covered the upper face and nose, but the body was human, with dark hair on chest and pubis. Its penis was erect. It pranced up to Adelia, pushing itself against her. Where deer eyes should have been, there were holes from which blue, human eyes blinked at her. The mouth grinned. She could smell animal.

She vomited.

As it sheered back to avoid her spew, the antlers rocked and she saw that bits of string tied the antlered contraption to Rakshasa’s head, though not tightly enough to prevent them from wobbling when he made a sudden movement.

How vulgar. Contempt and fury engulfed her; she had better things to do than stand here threatened by a mountebank in a homemade headdress.

“You stinking crap-hound,” she told him. “You don’t frighten me.” At that moment, he hardly did.

She’d discomfited him; the eyes in the mask shifted; a hiss came from between the teeth. As he retreated, she saw that the penis had drooped.

But he was feeling behind him with one arm while looking at Adelia. His hand found Sister Veronica’s body, crawled upward until it reached the neck of her habit, and ripped it down to the waist. She screamed.

Still watching Adelia, the thing swaggered for a moment, then turned and bit Veronica on the breast. When it turned back to see Adelia’s reaction, its penis was rampant again.

Adelia began to swear; language was the only missile she had, and she pelted him with it: “You turd-mouthed, stench-sucking lummox, what are you good for? Hurting women and children when they’re tied? Not excited any other way? Dress like a dog’s beef, you son of a pox-ridden sow, under it all you’re no man, just a betty-buttered mother’s boy.”

Who this screaming self was, Adelia didn’t know, didn’t care. It was going to be killed, but it wasn’t going to die in debasement like Veronica; it would go cursing.

Lord Almighty, she’d hit the gold; the thing had lost his erection again. He hissed and, still looking at her, wrenched the nun’s clothes down to the crotch.

Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Gyltha’s Saxon English, Adelia used them all; filth from unknown gutters came to her aid now.