Blade whispered, «Chara, I'm going to try to distract them, draw them away from you. Lie still and don't make a sound.»

«No, Mazda, your life is too valuable…»

He turned away from her and, crouching, moved off silently to the left. When he judged he had gone far enough, he stood up and shouted, «Here! Here! I'm over here, you swine!»

Then he ran.

But was he running in a forest or down a vast cathedrallike corridor? Suddenly both images appeared before him, like a double exposure, and he realized…

This is an illusion! I'm not in Tharn! There are no Looter machines here! I must wake up!

The image of the corridor faded.

The searchlight of the first machine swung in Blade's direction, passed over him, swung back, caught him. The three machines accelerated, pursuing him.

He dodged as he ran, but the searchlight followed, never losing him for an instant. He sensed the bulk of the machine above him, saw it out of the corner of his eye, a black silent hulk behind the blinding light.

Then he heard a metallic rattling, a swish like a giant whip, and suddenly his ankle was gripped by a cold metal tentacle. He fell on his face, clutched wildly at the twigs, the stones, the weeds, anything. The tentacle gave a tug and he swung upward, head downward, struggling frantically, to swing like a pendulum, narrowly missing some treetops.

The earth fell away rapidly.

The forest became a small black blot. He could see the campfire, a tiny point of light. Looter machines were everywhere, moving slowly across the landscape, some with searchlights, some simply featureless blobs of darkness. In the unnatural silence he could hear distant screams. Chara's screams! They'd found her after all.

Above him, inside the first machine, someone laughed.

Then the tentacle let go.

Richard plunged downward.

He thought desperately, I must wake up! I must wake…

Blade awoke with a savage headache.

Someone was pounding furiously on the door of his bedchamber.

«Come in, damn you,» Blade shouted, sitting up in the darkness.

The door burst open and Yekran stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the shifting glare of a bright maronite lamp. He was a big barrel-chested man with a broken nose and a long scar across his left arm and shoulder. He was clad in a tunic, kilt and sandals, and armed with sword and dagger slung from a brown leather belt.

It was Narlena who held the lamp. Her tunic was dark green. Her hair hung disheveled and black to the small of her back, and her delicate features were clouded with fear.

«We're under attack!» Yekran announced.

Blade stood up, swaying, not yet fully conscious. Had he been dreaming about some sort of monster made of glowing energy? He shook his head to clear out the cobwebs. «Who's attacking us?»

«Krog!» Narlena whispered the name.

For a moment Blade stared stupidly at her. Krog? Who was that? Then it came back to him. Krog was the leader of the gang of vandalistic Wakers Blade had, some months back, driven from the city in a final decisive battle. Krog had agreed to lead his forces far to the north and stay there, but it seemed this was only a ruse by which the clever Waker bought his life and, almost as important, bought time to regroup his army. Blade had come to this strange city of Pura and found it divided between the barbarian Wakers and the civilized but decadent Sleepers-men and women who spent their lives in underground vaults in artificially induced dreams-who had given up their civilization to the barbarians by default. It was Blade who had organized the Dreamers and led them in the crusade to drive the Wakers out.

But now the Wakers were back!

Blade realized he had been a fool to trust Krog. The man's word was worthless!

In feverish haste Richard dressed and armed himself in an outfit not unlike that of Yekran, then, together with his two friends, he hastened out and down the long decaying hallway. He could hear distant shouts and the clash of metal on metal. Had the enemy already breached the walls and entered the city?

Swords drawn, they ran out the front entrance and descended the stone stairway to the street. In spite of the repair work the citizens of Pura had been doing, the city still resembled an ancient abandoned ruin, though it was not as bad as it had been when Blade first saw it. Armed men and women were rushing past, mostly heading toward the north wall. Blade saw an old man coming from the north wall, pushing against the crowd.

«Has Krog entered the city?» Blade called to the man.

The man answered hysterically, «He's across the bridge. I could swear he's right behind me.»

This seemed to be an exaggeration, but nevertheless the sounds of battle were uncomfortably close and getting closer. Blade cursed himself. He had had Krog at his mercy and let him go. How many lives was that act of kindness going to cost?

The way ahead of them was jammed, so Blade, Yekran and Narlena veered off down an alley, looking for a less crowded way. It was dark in the alley, except for the glare of Narlena's lamp. Wild shadows danced on the mossy brick walls.

Then, behind them, a door of rotten wood burst asunder and with a triumphant howl a stream of ragged, hairy, fur-clad men surged forth from the basement.

The three tried to flee, but another horde of warriors was now emerging from the darkness ahead. They were trapped between the two forces, and hopelessly outnumbered.

«Back to back,» Blade commanded.

The other two obeyed, and they stood in fighting crouch, awaiting the enemy attack.

It was not long in coming. After a few seconds hesitation, the Wakers advanced cautiously until only a few yards away, then charged.

Blade found himself hacking his way through a solid wall of stinking human flesh. The light fell and was crushed underfoot, but they fought on in darkness, grunting, gasping, struggling, drenched in a warm sticky fluid Richard knew must be blood.

His sword blade broke, severed by a blow from some heavy blunt weapon, perhaps a mace. He fumbled for his dagger. The heavy weapon swung again, connecting with Richard's head. Stunned, bleeding, he fell to the broken paving stones of the alley floor, under the trampling feet, and someone shouted, «We've got him! We've got him! We've got Blade!»

Another light appeared, a blazing torch.

Richard looked up through a tangle of faces and saw the shadowed features of Krog grinning down at him, clean-shaven, short-haired, curiously civilized among his shaggy troops. Blade attempted to struggle, but the troops held him pinned, immobilized.

«Is that really you, Blade?» Krog demanded. «By the gods, so it is!» He turned to his second-in-command and snapped, «Spread the word! We've captured Blade!»

Helpless, Richard heard the shout pass down the line, to be echoed by more and more distant barbarian voices.

In a daze he was dragged to a nearby cellar. Through the mob he glimpsed Yekran and Narlena. They were prisoners too. Krog followed close behind.

«Krog!» called out Blade through cracked, bleeding lips.

«Yes?»

«Is this how you repay me for sparing your life?»

«I'm not going to kill you, my friend. I'm not even going to torture you. That will have to do for payment. A life for a life! That's fair.»

Blade found himself in one of the Sleepers' vaults, now abandoned, and began to understand. «No! You're not…»

«Yes, I am,» Krog said seriously. «I'm going to put you in one of those dream chambers. This one, if I remember correctly, was made for a big man like you.»

The interior of the vault, no larger than the inside of a London studio apartment, was jammed with men, and when someone switched on the lights, Richard could see the low blue-enameled ceiling almost completely covered with a maze of tubing and cylindrical reservoirs and with square metal boxes at irregular intervals. Some of the boxes had dials and tiny lights on their sides.