The long rope, more than fifty feet of it, was tied around Blade's waist. Three of his fellow slaves grabbed it as Blade walked to the grating and looked down into the pit. The glare of the sun above made the darkness below look even deeper than usual.

Blade lowered himself down through the grating and hung from one of the bars. The three slaves holding the rope tightened their grip, and the leader nodded. Blade let go of the bar and felt himself sliding down into the dusty darkness below.

The usual cloud of ashes and soot rose around him as he landed. A moment later the wooden scoop thumped down beside him. He picked it up and went to work. He wanted to work normally for a while, to get the people on the surface nicely off their guard.

Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty. By now Blade moved about in a continuous choking fog of ashes. He was working half-blindly, shoving ashes steadily down the slopes of the great piles, deeper into the darkness. He'd seen those slopes before. He'd also seen the body of a pit slave who died when one of those slopes gave way under him. The slave had died in the darkness, suffocated under tons of ashes.

Blade worked still harder for another five minutes. Now he looked like a mud-covered statue as his sweat mixed with the ashes and soot all over him. His eyes, his nose, his mouth, every inch of his skin prickled and burned and itched.

He threw a quick look upward. Nobody was visible through the grating. The rope from above drooped slackly down over the bars of the grating, as though the three slaves on the other end were half-asleep.

There would never come a better moment. Blade dropped his scoop, reached up, clamped both hands tightly on the rope, then heaved with all his strength. As he did he threw himself backward with all his weight, and simultaneously let out a long, agonizing yell of total dreadful fear.

As he went over backward into the ashes, he felt a jerk on the rope as it flew out of the hands of the slaves. Then he heard it hissing over the bars and plopping down all around him. At the same time the ashes rose up even more thickly than before, in a blinding dark gray fog. For a moment Blade was completely unable to see anything in any direction. He had to hold his breath to keep from choking to death on the ashes.

If he couldn't see anything, that meant anyone looking down from above couldn't see anything either. Working by touch alone, Blade wound the rope into a tight coil, then untied it from around his waist. As the cloud of ashes slowly settled, he let out another convincing yell. He also raised his head, searching for the mouth of the tunnel.

There it was, just visible enough to make a decent target. Blade drew back his arm, held his breath, and threw. He knew he would have only one sure chance to get the rope into the right place. If he missed, the rope would fall back down into the ashes. He would never find it quickly enough.

Blade's eye was good. So was his throwing arm. The rope sailed straight to its target, vanishing into the tunnel with a faint thud. Blade coughed as loudly as he could, thrashing his arms and legs around to make the ashes rise up around him again. Occasionally he stopped coughing to yell frantically for help. All in all, he gave a remarkably good imitation of a man struggling desperately not to fall down one of the great ash slopes to certain death.

Eventually Blade's flounderings and shoutings stirred the heat-drugged men above to help him. Another rope came snaking down through the grating, this one with a large loop tied in one end. Blade drew the loop over his head and shoulders and gave three tugs on the rope. The loop tightened around Blade's chest, and he rose out of the ashes and the pit into the daylight.

His head banged against one of the bars as he rose through the grating. Then the slaves and one of the guards were grabbing him by whatever came to hand, including his hair, and pulling him onto solid ground. He lay there, head swimming and chest heaving, until somebody dashed a bucket of water into his face.

Blade staggered to his feet, spluttering and gasping convincingly. Two of the slaves held him up until he was sure that he could stand by himself.

«Slope fall?» asked one of them.

Blade only nodded. Nobody would be expecting him to give a speech minutes after he had narrowly escaped being buried alive in ashes!

«All right, all right!» shouted one of the guards. «Stop playing around! You've had your bath. Now get back down there and get back to work!» A long whip cracked out, and the metal-weighted tip caught Blade across the hip. He gritted his teeth, felt the blood flowing, but also felt immensely relieved.

None of the guards seemed to have noticed anything wrong. To them it was just another near-accident to a slave. Why should that hold up the day's work any more than necessary?

The guards kept Blade an hour later than usual that day, to make up for the time he'd lost during the accident. After fifteen hours in the heat and the ashes and the darkness Blade was beginning to feel unsteady on his legs. The water they poured over him had never felt better, and the water they gave him to drink tasted like nectar from the gods. He was clearheaded and walking straight by the time the guards led him back to his prison.

The guards threw him down into the chamber as usual, and Neena ran to help him to his feet, also as usual.

«You look-«She shook her head, unable to find words. «What happened?»

«A slope collapsed under me in the pit,» Blade said aloud. Ignoring the raucous laughter of the guards, he took her in his arms and held her, his mouth half-muffled in her hair, close to one ear. They stood that way until the guards' laughter died away and the door slammed shut.

«You did it?» she whispered.

«I did. The rope is in place.»

She shivered.

«Is something wrong?» he asked.

«The day after tomorrow-they come for me-they take me to King Furzun. The guards said it.»

«Then we escape tonight.»

«No, Blade-you must have a day to become strong again.»

Blade shook his head. «That won't help, and tomorrow night will be more dangerous. They'll be expecting you to do something desperate. Tonight they'll be thinking you're paralyzed with fear.»

«But-«

«It will be tonight, Neena. If it is not tonight, it may not be at all.»

Neena shivered, then forced a faint, wavering smile onto her face.

«Very well, Blade, it shall be tonight.»

Chapter 12

Darkness came to the world outside their prison. Blade and Neena ate dinner, then rested, gathering as much strength as they could for their escape.

Blade had a grimly accurate notion of their chances. This whole escape was a thoroughly improvised affair, full of gambles, with little equipment and less margin for error. They would have no weapons, no clothing, no footwear. They would have practically nothing except a grim determination not to die helplessly in Trawn. How far that determination could carry them remained to be seen.

Beside him, Neena was drifting off to sleep. It was a good sign that she was calm enough to sleep. Blade remained awake and watched the tunnel. He did not expect to see the orange glow of a fire in the Hearth of Tiga. No wood had come in for one during the day. That was also good. The fire that had helped them before by showing them the gap could now trap them in the tunnel.

Neena slept peacefully, and her low, regular breathing even lulled Blade into a few minutes' doze. He jerked himself awake, shook his head to clear it, then gently awakened Neena.

«It is time.»

She sat up, brushed the hair out of her eyes, shook herself, stretched like a cat, loosening every muscle, and nodded.

As silently as prowling animals they crept across the floor toward the grating and opened it. Blade took two of the wooden bars with him. Win or lose, they would not be back here.