"What? Why?"

"Occasionally even our enemies do something we favor. We-my faction among theLiving-have no desire for Nakar's return. I've told Fa'tad I'd accept thelooting of the citadel if that's his price for leaving Qushmarrah."

"So what's the message?" Aaron did not believe a word the man said, butneither did he disbelieve. The captains of the factions all created their owntruths. Parts of some might actually dovetail with reality.

"It's direct and basic, Aaron. They're trying to get into the citadel throughthe wrong door. The sorcery protecting the main gate is a fake and a decoy.

The real entrance is a postern around to the south. The pattern guarding ithas been in place two centuries, which is why no one knows about it. It leavesthe wall looking unbroken. I'm told there are alarms built into the pattern.

You won't surprise anyone."

"They know what we're doing. They've been watching all morning."

"Ah? Pass that along, then. Quickly. They've had too much time already." Bel- Sidek glanced up and down the street, retreated into his alley.

Aaron looked around, too. He saw nothing but frowning buildings and fallingrain. He shrugged and hurried uphill.

The Dartars seemed surprised to see him. He went straight to Mo'atabar withhis story.

Mo'atabar seemed disinclined to credit it but Nogah butted in. "Let the witchdecide. She's the one who knows this stuff. And she sure isn't gettinganywhere going at it the way she is."

Yoseh told Aaron, "She's hit a dead end. She's lost three prisoners in thereand still can't find the way."

Mo'atabar scowled. He did not like being taught to suck eggs by hisgrandchildren. But he relayed the message, anyway.

The Herodian woman brightened. She began chattering more fervently than shehad earlier. She dropped what she was doing and hastened around to the southface of the citadel. After a few back-and-forths she froze and stared. Her chatter became vehement.

Mo'atabar said, "You were right, carpenter. She's cussing herself out for nothaving seen it. And answering herself, saying she missed it because it was socunningly hidden."

"She's arguing with herself?"

"All Herodians are mad," Mo'atabar declared.

Reyha had nothing to do and teetered at the brink of terror, so Naszif had heraccompany him on his endless rounds of the barricades. He found her chores tooccupy her hands and mind. She went along because she needed the distractiondesperately.

Naszif himself was, in a sense, pleased to be caught in a desperate siege.

Fending off those Dartar traitors left him no time to brood about Zouki.

The fending had grown easier. They no longer seemed interested in conqueringGovernment House, only in keeping him confined, out of touch.

He cursed his inability to discover what was happening elsewhere. He cursedthe rain. In better weather the siege would not have cut communications. Thewhole sprawl of Qushmarrah could be seen from the heights of Government House.

Information could come and go via signal lights or semaphore.

Reason said Herodian arms had suffered a disaster. Else the nomads would have been driven from the acropolis by now.

That idiot Sullo!

An ensign came running. He was little more than a child and did not belonghere where his story might be cut short before it began. "Sir, the physiciansaid to tell you Colonel Bruda is coming around and it looks like he'll be incontrol of his faculties."

"Very well. I'll be along in a minute." He checked one more post, stallingwhile he composed himself. He told Reyha, "So ends Naszif bar bel-Abek's dayof glory, with nothing accomplished."

Reyha did not reply. She did not speak unless he made that necessary. Her lastvoluntary statement had been a generalized expression of gratitude for thehelp given Raheb Sayed.

Bruda had, indeed, made a dramatic recovery. He was sitting up, working on aheavy breakfast, when Naszif arrived. "It as bad as they're telling me?" heasked through a mouth full of apricot.

"Probably worse. I don't know. We're cut off. I expect they control the city.

No one has tried to relieve us or even to reach us. I've had all I can do justto hold on."

"Did a good job, too, for only having kids and superannuated veterans. Mightas well tell me everything. Don't worry about repeating something these kidsmight have told me. They probably got it wrong."

Naszif told it as he knew it.

"That's Fa'tad al-Akla. Pick the moment to perfection, then strike likelightning. Having Sullo take over must have been a sweet that made him drool."

"What should we do?"

"What we can do and what those old farts in Herod will tell us we should have done, in retrospect, are two different things. If any of us get out of herethey'll want to know why we didn't fight to the last man. You and your wifelight somewhere, have something to eat while I give this a think."

Bruda pondered for fifteen minutes. Then, "Our problem is that we don't knowwhat's happening. Take a white flag and go find out what al-Akla has in mind."

Naszif's heart tripped. "Yes sir."

Colonel Bruda had spoken in Herodian. Reyha did not understand till Naszif told her.

The labyrinth could have passed for one of the hells that awaited those whorejected Herod's nameless god. Terror and madness were the twin regents of thesubterranean dark. The crazies from down deep continued their insane pushtoward the surface, attacking anyone they encountered. In turn, the Herodiantroops had taken to attacking anyone who approached them.

The flooding continued to worsen.

Nonetheless, General Cado had gained a measure of control in his own vicinity.

He guessed that as many as two thousand of his men had been killed, wounded, or drowned already.

He forbore swearing a mighty oath of vengeance only because the passion mightrule him when he broke free at last and the effort to requite Fa'tad mightprove suicidal. Who knew what disasters had transpired in the rest of thecity?

Had the Living come out of hiding?

Had Nakar returned to grind everyone beneath his iron boot?

He would know in a few hours, he hoped. His tribunes thought they had found away out through one of the drains carrying runoff water down from the thirdlevel. But it would take a lot of work yet to widen the passage enough usingonly weapons for tools, the soldiers wedging themselves into the drain withtheir bodies, working blind, under a continuous fall of water.

An officer came to report, "They've found Governor Sullo, sir."

"Yes?"

"He's dead. Murdered by his own bodyguards."

Cado grunted. Another political complication. "Stupidity is one capital crimefor which there's never a pardon."

Would he, too, be found guilty and have to pay the supreme penalty?

Aaron had grown so accustomed to the rain that his only accommodation to itwas to keep his head bowed so the drops would not hit him in the eyes. Yosehmuttered, "We'll all catch our death of cold."

Aaron agreed. "At least she seems more optimistic on this side." In two hoursof probing, the witch had not lost another prisoner and only twice had herexplorers encountered any obvious danger.

His stomach wound ever tighter. The sorceress had whispered a long time. NowMo'atabar had Faruk aside for instruction ...

Mo'atabar slapped Faruk on the behind. He scooted off around the citadel.

Aaron shaded his eyes and studied the place, sensing its awareness of theirpresence, feeling something more, something like a great dread, or a greatstorm, slowly wakening. He thought he recognized that feeling Qushmarrah hadlived with all the time till six years ago.

He looked at Yoseh. The boy felt it, too. They all did. His heart plummeted. But he refused to believe that anything had happened to Arif. His son was all right. He had to be.