and when the stronger squalls howled over him he flattened himself against the bridge and clung to it. All the time the lava bubbled and seethed below.'

At last he saw the far side of the cavern ahead, another precipitous rock wall. He crawled towards it, until he saw, to his horror, that the last section of the rocky spur had crumbled away and fallen into the fiery cauldron below. There was a gap between the end of the spur and the far wall of the cavern as wide as three strides of a tall man. He went to the edge and looked across this gap. There was a small opening in the facing wall.

From Eos's memory he knew that she had not passed this way for hundreds of years. On her last visit the spur had been entire. This last section must have crumbled away only relatively recently. Eos had been unaware of it, and that was why he had not expected to be confronted by this obstacle.

He crawled back a short way, knelt up and kicked off his sandals, then shrugged the handle of the basket off his shoulder and discarded it. The sandals and the basket fell over the edge and plummeted into the lava lake. He knew he did not have the strength to go back, so he must go forward. He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, then gathered the last of his physical strength and bolstered it with all his mental and psychic powers. Then he came up into a crouch like a marathon runner at the start of a race. He waited for a lull in the furious winds that swept over the spur. Then, in the momentary stillness, he drove himself forward along the narrow path, leaning forward and stepping high. He leapt out into space, and knew in that instant he would fall short. The cauldron waited below to receive him.

Then the wind was shrieking again. It had changed direction and doubled its fury. It came from directly behind him. It swept under the skirts of his tunic, billowed them and flung him forward. But not quite far enough. His lower body slammed into the cliff and he just caught hold of the lip of the opening. He hung there, his legs dangling over the drop, all his weight hanging on his arms. He tried to pull himself up high enough to hook one elbow over the lip, but could raise himself only a little way before he fell back at full stretch of his arms. Frantically he kicked and groped with his bare feet for a foothold on the cliff, but the rock was smooth.

A fountain of burning lava erupted from the cauldron below him.

Before it fell back, particles of molten magma splattered his bare legs and feet. The pain was unbearable and he screeched in agony.

'Taita!' Fenn had sensed his pain and called to him across the ether.

'Help me,' he sobbed.

'I am with you,' she replied. 'With all our might - now!'

The pain was a goad. He strained upwards until he felt the sinews of his arms popping, and gradually, achingly slowly, he drew himself up until his eyes were level with the lip, but then he could rise no further.

He felt his arms giving way.

'Fenn, help me!' he cried again.

'Together! Now!' He felt the surge of her strength. He drew himself up slowly until at last he could throw one arm over the lip. He hung on it for a moment, then heard her cry again.

'Together again, Taita. Now!'

He heaved upwards and threw out his other arm. It found purchase.

With both arms holding his courage returned. He ignored the pain of his burnt legs, heaved upwards and the top half of his body flopped over the lip. Kicking and panting, he dragged himself into the mouth of the opening. He lay there for a long time until he had recovered the strength to sit up. Then he looked down at his legs and saw the burns. He pulled off the lumps of lava that were still adhering to the soles of his feet, and lumps of his flesh came away with them. Upon his calves, blisters filled with transparent fluid were ballooning. He was crippled by pain but, using the wall as support, he dragged himself to his feet. Then he staggered on down the tunnel. The soles of his feet were raw, and he left bloody footprints on the rock. The glow from the fiery cauldron behind him lit his way.

The tunnel ran straight for a short distance then began to descend and the ruddy light faded. In its last glimmer he made out a half consumed torch jammed into a crack in the rock. It had been there since Eos's last visit so long ago. He had no means of igniting it, he thought.

Then he remembered the power he had taken from the witch and stretched out his hand towards it, pointing his forefinger at the charred end and focusing on it his psychic force.

A glowing spot appeared at the head of the dead torch. A thin spiral of smoke rose from it, and then, abruptly, it burst into flame and burnt up brightly. He took it down from the crack and, holding it high, hobbled on as fast as his scalded feet would carry him. He came to the head of another inclined shaft. This was also stepped, but the rock was not worn, the marks of the masons' chisels still fresh. He started down it, but the steps seemed endless and he had to stop repeatedly to rest. In one such interval he became conscious of a low susurration, a trembling

in the air and in the rock upon which he sat. The sound was not constant but rose and fell intermittently, like the slow beating of a gigantic pulse.'

He knew what it was.

Eagerly now, he came to his feet and started downwards again. As he went, the sound became stronger and clearer. Down again and still down Taita went, and the sound swelled, his excitement, too, until it was strong enough to dull the pain in his legs. The sound of the mighty pulse reached the peak of its volume. The rock walls shook. He dragged himself forward, then stopped, astounded. He had acquired the memory of this place from Eos but the tunnel had come to a dead end. Slowly, painfully, he went forward and stood before the wall.

It seemed to be of natural rough stone. There were no cracks or openings in it, but in its centre, level with his eyes, three signs had been carved. The first was so old and eroded by the sulphurous gas of the lava cauldron that it was illegible, its antiquity unfathomable. The second was only slightly fresher, and when he studied it more closely he saw that it was the outline of a tiny pyramid, the soul sign of a priest or a holy man.

The third was the most recent but, nevertheless, many centuries old. It was the cat's-paw outline of Eos's spirit sign.

The engravings were the signatures of those who had visited this place before him. Since the beginning time, only three others had found their way here. He touched the stone and found it cold, a marked contrast to the hellish craters and flaming lava that he had passed along the way.

'This is the gateway to the Font for which men have searched down the ages,' he whispered, in deep reverence. He laid his hand upon the cat's-paw symbol, which grew warm to his touch. He waited for a lull in the great pulse of the earth, then uttered the three words of power he had taken from the witch: her secret conjugation known to no other.

'Tashkalon! Ascartow! Silondela!'

The rock groaned and began to move under his hand. He pressed harder, and there was a harsh, grinding noise as the entire wall rolled ponderously aside, like a turning millstone. Behind it lay another short flight of stairs, then a bend in the tunnel from which came a roar like that of a wounded lion. No longer muffled by the stone door the full thunder of the earth pulse burst round him. Before he could brace himself, he was driven back a pace by its power. The tunnel ahead was lit by a weird blue light, which grew stronger in harmony with the great pulse, then faded as the sound receded.

Taita stepped through the portals. Two more torches were set into

slots in the walls on each side. He lit them, and when they were burning brightly, he limped on slowly down the passage towards the source. He was filled with a sense of awe far greater than he had ever known, even in the holy sanctums at the temples of the great deities of Egypt. He turned the corner at the end of the passage and stood at the top of another short stone staircase. At the bottom he could make out a smooth floor of white sand.