Blade turned and followed him. Somewhere he came up with the strength to run, in spite of the pain in his knee and his weariness from the fighting. Not only to run, but to run fast. He was only a few steps behind the fleeing Nris-Pol as they sprinted out of the work chambers into the corridor leading to the shafts.

As they reached the doors of the shafts, a tremendous rumble echoed down the corridor. Floors and walls and ceiling all heaved and shook, sprinkling the running men with bits of debris. All the indicator lights over the shaft doors went out, and some of them exploded, spraying bits of glass on to the floor.

Blade did not need Nris-Pol's howl of fury to tell him what had happened. Somewhere, high above or far below, somebody had violently cut off the power to the shafts. They would need stairs to get up and down the tower for the rest of the battle.

Nris-Pol was heading for the door to the nearest stairway before the echoes of the power cut-off had stopped rolling through the corridor. He plunged through the door and on down the stairs still a few steps ahead of Blade. If he had stopped to fight, he might have been able to beat Blade off, or perhaps hold him long enough for others of his own men to come up. But there was no more reasoning left in him than there was in a mad dog. All he could think of was to get away from the towering blood-stained figure pounding along after him, swords drawn and gleaming.

They went down the stairs at a dead run. Blade's breath was beginning to be a white-hot rasping in his lungs. His legs felt as though they were made of rubber, and his knee sent pains stabbing up into his brain each time his right foot slammed down on a step. Once he nearly stumbled and went headlong down the stairs on top of the fugitive ahead. Several times he heard scrabbling feet and panicky whimpers that suggested Nris-Pol also had nearly fallen. But the man was always able to stay on his feet, somehow, and even keep his distance.

Nris-Pol was still out in the lead when the five-hundred foot stairway ended, and the two men dashed out into a corridor on the level of the balcony. Nris-Pol threw a wild-eyed glance over his shoulder at Blade, and lurched away in the direction of the balcony itself. Blade followed him. He noticed some of Bryg-Noz's warriors and armed Low People passing by. Part of his mind told him he should call out to them, tell them to seize Nris-Pol. But the other part told him that this was between him and Nris-Pol, and that it should stay that way.

Then they were out on the balcony itself, and Nris-Pol was heading for the railing without slowing down. He did not slow down as he reached the railing and slammed hard up against it-and then went over. Nor did he scream as he went over. He plunged the two hundred feet down to the ground in silence.

That silence was not broken until he landed. Blade had just reached the railing when that happened. On the ground far below a searing burst of purple flame shot up, rising upward and outward in all directions like a huge and hideous flower. Then it faded, and a thick cloud of greasy black smoke puffed up, hiding a wide patch of ground. After a few moments the light breeze cleared away the smoke, and Blade could get a clear view of the scene below. Where Nris-Pol had struck there was now a crater a good ten feet wide and five feet deep, with charred earth banked up around its edges. Several bodies were lying on the ground around the crater. Farther away, people were lying on the ground and moving feebly, or sitting up slowly and rubbing their heads. The fall of Nris-Pol did not immediately lead to the fall of the Tower of the Serpent. But it certainly eased things considerably, as the defenders discovered that their leader was dead. They also discovered that the Low People were roaming about the tower with pikes in their hands, sticking those pikes into any of the High People they found. The defenders' morale fell, and so did their swords. Well before the dinner hour, all resistance had ceased. Within an hour after that, Bryg-Noz's men and their Low People allies had occupied the whole tower and had even managed to get the shafts operating again.

Blade took over the First Warrior's chambers as his own personal command post. From its windows he watched the sun go down over Melnon, the towers to the west looming black and huge against the glow of the sunset. There were many more night-lights on the other towers than usual. This did not surprise him at all. They would certainly be spending a sleepless night tonight. Nor would this be the last one, either. But both the Tower of the Leopard and the Tower of the Serpent had alert guards posted. They would not be surprised and destroyed, tonight or any other night. And because they would not be destroyed, the old way in Melnon was gone forever.

Blade had just reached the point of realizing that he was horribly hungry when a Leopard warrior he knew came into the chambers. He bore a message from Ye-Jaza, on her perfumed stationery. To Blade, the perfume seemed grotesquely out of place, considering that he had been smelling nothing but blood and sweat all day. But he opened the letter, and a sour smile curled his lips as he read it. Then he threw it on the floor.

«What is it, honored Blade-Liza?» asked the warrior.

«Ye-Jaza wants to come over and join me-tonight-here in the Tower of the Serpent. She wants to see what has been done, she says.»

«She wants an easy thrill,» said the warrior sourly. His armor was slashed and there was blood on his legs. He had fought his fair share that day, and had the same opinion of thrill-seeking spectators as Blade did.

«She's asking the impossible,» said Blade. «I'll have to tell her that.»

The warrior shook his head wearily. «I would not call that wise, Blade-Liza. Ye-Jaza is of the type to be jealous-madly jealous. If you do not let her come over, she will think you are with another woman. And then-«the warrior shrugged.

Blade sighed. He would have cursed, if he had felt strong enough to do it. «I know. She will do her best to get the alliance of the two towers broken up.»

«Yes. And perhaps she might even try to have you killed. That would be a terrible tragedy for Melnon, if I may say so, what you have done-not just today, but-«

«I know, I know. We'll talk about that later. I suppose I had better let her come over. You can tell her that. But be sure to pick a few reliable warriors to escort her over. I'm damned if I want her run through with a pike by some roving Low Person who doesn't recognize her.»

The warrior nodded and left without another word. Blade leaned wearily back in his chair. Why not? he thought. Mir-Kasa was dead, and so was Kun-Rala. There was no other woman in Melnon now for him except Ye-Jaza. It would be comparatively easy to keep her happy, and the alliance intact. And she was far from bad company, when all was said and done, particularly now that thirty years of obstinate virginity had been swept away and dumped on the garbage heap.

There was another knock on the door. «Come in,» he called absently. The door opened, and four warriors half-pushed, half-pulled the First Surgeon of the Tower of the Serpent into the room.

Blade rose, his mouth starting to fall open in surprise before he caught himself. «This is-unexpected,» he managed to say. «I expected that you would be killed.»

«Well, I was not.» The First Surgeon seemed much more in control of himself than he had been, the day Blade saw him trembling at Mir-Kasa's coming. «Nor were many of the other surgeons and scribes and workers. We managed to lock ourselves away in our chambers. But we will come out if you can offer us safety from the Low People. In fact-«the Surgeon hesitated «-we will even work for you, and Bryg-Noz, if you will treat us well.»

Fatigue made Blade too foggy-minded to completely grasp what the surgeon meant at first. Then realization hit him. «Why?» he snapped suddenly.