«A month ago I would have had him flayed,» Ogier grumbled. «Now I take his name and will do nothing but transfer him to dirty jobs. He has been won over by the priests.»

Blade filled his wine glass. «I am right, Ogier. We must act, and with speed. I will kill Casta this night. You must make your plans accordingly.»

Ogier shook his head in wonderment. «Being a prisoner has affected your thinking, Blade. The man escaped. He had heard enough. Casta will be warned and ready for you.»

«I agree. But even so I must do it. There is a time for swift and direct action, Ogier, and this is such a time.»

«But how? I have just said it-Casta will be warned. You will walk into a trap.»

«That is part of it,» said Blade. «If I go alone-and I will-he will let me get so far before he closes the trap. I have seen a side of Casta that you have not, and I think that he does not really want to kill me yet. I have knowledge that Casta yearns after. He would have me prisoner, broken and weak, perhaps tortured, but he wants me alive and able to speak. He will let me into the tomb of the Izmir. It will pleasure him. So long as he thinks he has the upper hand and can take me any time he chooses.»

For a long time Ogier did not speak. Then: «I would not have you do this, Blade, but I cannot stop you. If you can kill him it will be a boon for Zir, though I think you had best kill the Princess Hirga also. And I will have to act in unison with you and pray for luck.»

Blade eyed him. «You advise against it. I listen and I discard that advice. I go. And you, no matter your misgivings, are with me?»

Ogier put his sword on the camp desk. He laid his hand on it at the hilt. «By this weapon I swear it. Come success or death. It is time. I have taken enough from that crow.»

«Then come to my tent for an hour, Ogier, and we will whisper. It is quieter there and less suspect. Pick us a guard of six men you can trust.»

«I think I can find that many,» the General said dryly. «The crows have not yet corrupted all of them.»

It was full dark when Ogier left Blade alone. Blade bade him take the guard with him. «I will not need them. From now on I act alone and involve no other man. See that you keep your promise to care for the woman, Valli.»

«I will keep it.»

«And care for her child, if she has one. I think she will.»

«That also, Blade. Things will change in Zir if I come to power. No more babes will be strangled.»

«Then farewell, Ogier. If I do not see you again, and I may not, I tell you true that you are a man and a soldier.»

«Goodbye, Blade.»

They clasped hands a last time and Ogier was gone. Blade retired to his pallet. The moon would be late tonight and he need not begin the venture for an hour or so.

He did not try to sleep. He sought to concentrate, to make the crystal work and establish contact with the computer, but it refused. He soon gave it up. Janina was in the way.

Blade closed his eyes and saw her again, glowing and gleaming, beckoning from the ledge. He became aware of a physical reaction. His groin was taut and hurting. In his mind she changed from diamond to flesh, warm and soft and inviting. Her breasts were full and firm, and she leaned to trail her pink nipples over his face.

«Blade! Come to me, Blade.»

The words came sibilant into the tent. Blade started up on his cot. Sweat beaded his face and crawled in his beard. She had spoken. Across all the miles and the water and again the miles she had spoken, had called to him.

Real or phantom? He no longer could be sure. Janina. He must go to her.

Project DX, the computer, Lord Leighton, the six previous forays into Dimension X, they had all conspired to work this schizophrenia, to tear his brain in half. The brain operation, the implanting of the crystal, had been the last straw. Blade knew now that he was a bit mad. Insane. Crazy. He laughed. He did not care. Reality was what you made it, what you said it was, what things meant to you.

He was like a madman who knows that he is mad and also knows that in madness there is a deal of sanity.

Janina. She called him again and for a moment she was in the tent and this time it was he who beckoned her to his bed. She would not come. She held out her arms and stood looking at him and the tent filled with her radiance. Then she vanished.

Blade groaned and got off the pallet. No more. Not now. Janina sapped his will and his strength and he had need of both this night. He began to make his preparations. It did not take long. He stripped naked and buckled his swordbelt on. He wore high-laced buskins. He donned a plumed helmet and slid his left arm into the straps of a small circular shield with a boss of sleek metal. Nothing else. He was ready. But for the ball of twine.

He hefted the twine in his hand. Stout enough. He smiled to himself. Casta would let him into the maze-he had no doubt of it, for the High Priest was sure of himself. And Blade, with the aid of the twine, would let himself out.

Chapter 15

An hour before moonrise, Blade was at the east entrance to the towering monolith that was the Izmir's tomb. The night was dark and windless, and all about on the plain the campfires blazed, but no torches burned over the arched door and no black priests guarded it. Casta knew he was coming. He was making it easy for him.

For a moment he lingered in the arch. A glow of torches filtered up the ramp from the central rotunda. Nothing moved. No sound. Blade drew his sword and went down the ramp.

The great central chamber brooded in dim, guttering light. The stink of the torches filled it. Blade watched the dark gates that opened from the chamber like wheelspokes. Nothing in there. Nothing he could see.

He went to the third door from the left, thinking back. He had made a point of remembering it. It was through this door that the priest had conducted him on his first and only visit to Casta. Blade moved on. Not this time.

He paused at each entrance, stood silent and sniffed the air. He was near to completing the circle when he found it. The foul odor. It came faint but unmistakable-the stink of dead meat and ordure and something else that he could not identify. Blade moved into the passage.

On a last thought he had attached a dagger to his belt. And carried a second in his hand. He drove the spare dagger into a crack between stones and secured the end of his twine to it, testing both dagger and twine. Firm. He began to explore along the passage, sword thrust before him, unreeling the twine as he went. Ahead of him a torch glinted in a sconce.

He went a little beyond the torch and peered into the dark. No more torches. He went back and lifted the torch from its iron ring and now had to sheathe his sword again for lack of a third hand. He stepped on briskly, holding the torch high and letting the twine out behind him.

Light flashed overhead and then was gone. Gone before he could raise his eyes. A panel in the stone ceiling had been opened and closed. They knew where he was.

The sound behind him was a minor avalanche. Stone crashed down. Blade tugged at his line. It came easily to him, lax and supple. Useless. He reeled it in until he held the frayed end in his hand. So much for that. He cast the ball of twine away and drew his sword. With torch in left hand, held high, and the sword ready in his right, he proceeded.

A wind began to sweep through the narrow passage. A hot wind with the cry of tortured souls behind it. The wind rose and gusted at him, not now, a scalding wind rising in fury. It bore small particles of somethings-and? — that scoured his face and body and threatened his eyes. Blade bent his head and plodded on into the wind. It howled at him and buffeted him and then, in an instant, died away. Somewhere off down the passage a baby cried piteously and a wolf moaned. His skin crawled. He went on.