Engor

Julien and the Nine Worlds

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Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites,
Externally devoted apes, base snites, Puffed-up,
wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns,
Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons:
Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets,
seeming sancts, Slipshod caffards,
beggars pretending wants, Fat chuffcats,
smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls,
Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls,
Fomenters of divisions and debates,
Elsewhere, not here, make sale of your deceits.

(Rabelais, on the door of the Abbaye de Thélème)
Translation: Project Gutenberg's Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete., by Francois Rabelais

Book I
Return to the Nine Worlds

"Find him and bring him back!"

Those had been his orders. It was the most important mission of his entire life. And so he had searched and searched for a very long time indeed, as had thousands of his brothers. His search took him further and further away, following a trail that grew progressively colder and fainter.

And finally his search had succeeded. He found him because he had done what none of the others had dared to do: he had left the Roads and the Paths: he had left the Nine Worlds. He had launched himself into a crack in the universe so minute that it had been missed by everyone, yet so deep that it had led him here, so far, so far away that he knew that he would never be able to go back.

He was too far from home to bring back the one he came to fetch. But he had found him! And if he could not bring him back, well, he could still open the Door for him. It would have to suffice. He himself would stay caught in the trap of this world, but thanks to his sacrifice the boy would get through. He had prepared him for that without the boy becoming aware that he, Yol, even existed. He had crept into the boy's dreams. He had made him see what he had to see. He even had succeeded in giving him back the memory of a language he had never learned. He had spent every moment of his time on that task and now, at last, he was ready and there was no longer any reason to delay.

This happened when the moon missions were still under way, when colour televisions were in their infancy, and when computer data came in the form of punched cards. The Russians were still trying to bring about the Socialist Paradise on Earth and the Americans were still trying to prevent them from doing so in the name of Liberty and Free Enterprise. Abbey Road was famous throughout the world. The Flower Generation were wending their way to Kathmandu and lysergic acid was the door to Nirvana.

Julien, who was twelve and three-quarters, was daydreaming about the wide world in general while he ambled his way along a deserted beach on a cold, grey morning. It was July, too – clearly this was going to be another rotten summer. But Julien didn't care: he was on holiday. He could look for bottles carried in on the tide, or those thick green glass balls, floats that had fallen off of fishing nets. He had a huge collection of them up in the attic of the little summer cottage his parents had built in the dunes just outside a small town in the Cotentin area of Normandy.

He was wearing a yellow oilskin jacket, but he was bare-headed. He didn't care about the wind, or about the way the drizzle was running in rivulets from his soaked hair down under the collar of his plaid shirt. He didn't feel the cold on his bare legs, and he had left his plastic sandals in the ruins of the old semaphore station.

His dog Ugo – a Bouvier – had run on a long way ahead of him, racing along the hard-packed sand at the water's edge. The sand was wrinkled by strange wave patterns, like petrified water. Julien could see Ugo up ahead, black and stocky, scratching frantically at the damp surface of the sand. Perhaps he'd found an interesting, and possibly tasty, carcass. He was the same age as his young master, but of course in dog terms twelve is quite old, and Julien was dreading the time, which he knew was drawing inexorably closer, when his big shaggy companion would leave him for ever.

Finally the dog stopped scrabbling at the sand and trotted back towards Julien – with nothing in his mouth, the boy was happy to see: he really didn't want to be presented with an old bone or, worse, a dead rat.

"What have you found, boy? Want to show me?"

The dog trotted along at his side, wagging his tail and rubbing gently against his leg, as he always did when they went for a walk together. They had grown up together and so they had developed a real understanding. Of course, the dog had grown up a lot faster than the boy, and now Julien saw him, rather confusingly, as both an elderly, lovable, somewhat eccentric old uncle and, at the same time, as a little brother who didn't want to grow up. He thought he knew him, and at times would have said that he could almost hear what the dog was thinking, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he reached the place where Ugo had been scratching at the ground.

There, etched into the hard sand, was a complicated pattern some three metres across, as perfect as a piece of fine calligraphy. The pattern was completely unknown to him, and yet…

"It's a klirk!" he exclaimed. He was absolutely certain of it. Unfortunately he didn't have the remotest idea of what a klirk was, but he knew that this was one, and, furthermore, that he was looking at it from the wrong side. He'd have to walk around to the other side to see it properly.

"Did you do this, Ugo?" he asked.

The dog was sitting with his head on one side, looking at him quizzically.

"You're just messing about with me, aren't you? You're just pretending that you don't understand me!" said Julien. But then he wondered what he was expecting to happen – did he think the dog was going to answer him? He scratched Ugo's head in the way he often did and then walked around to the far side of the klirk.

And from this side the thing did seem to make sense. He was sure he knew what it was for, but somehow the meaning was just out of reach, like one of those words that are right on the tip of your tongue but which you can't quite remember. This klirk was… a sign? Like a road sign, perhaps? No, it was… it was a path! That was it – it was a path that led…

… that led…

***

"Bloody hell!!!"

Julien was a well brought up and polite boy who hardly ever swore. But when you suddenly find yourself stark naked in the middle of what seemed to be a grove of tropical trees it's probably perfectly reasonable to swear.

He was alone. There was no sign of Ugo. He was standing on what looked a bit like a manhole cover made of grey metal, on which was a deeply-inscribed pattern that matched the one on the klirk that had just brought him here.

Of course, that was what a klirk was for: it was a means of transport. He had no idea how he knew that, but he'd worry about that later, because what mattered right now was getting back home, and it looked as if that was going to be no simple matter. He could tell straight away that this wasn't Normandy. In fact, he was pretty sure that it wasn't anywhere in France, except perhaps the extreme south. Provence, possibly?

No. Definitely not Provence. He wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a great botanist, but whatever the trees around him were, they certainly weren't pines. In fact, they looked like nothing he had ever seen. Furthermore, if this had been the south of France he would have been surrounded by the sound of cicadas: on the couple of occasions he had been to the south, their noise had been everywhere. Nor was there any trace of the distinctive southern scent of pine sap, dust and dried flowers.

He didn't think this was Africa, either. There were no baobab trees, no palm trees, no jungle… admittedly he had never set foot in Africa, but he was fairly sure that it didn't look like this. To judge by the neat and tidy layout of the vegetation this could have been a park: some strange-looking flowering bushes seemed to have been cultivated, and even though the trees weren't planted in straight lines it still looked as if they had been planted, rather than growing naturally.

At least the insects weren't aggressive. The few he caught sight of looked like small, colourful scarabs: considering his lack of clothing, things could have been a lot worse. At least there didn't seem to be any mosquitoes…

What about Australia? Could he be Down Under?

Julien was a great reader of magazines like Galaxy, Meteor and the like, magazines that published translations of the best American comics and Sci-Fi novels. He had often dreamed that it might be possible, in the not-too-distant future, for ordinary people to visit the moon, or maybe even Mars. He'd have given anything to be able to go into space. And of course he was fully prepared to believe in many of the fantasies dreamed up by science fiction writers. All the same, he was reluctant to believe that…

No. Julien was a very bright boy, and deeply rational with it. He knew the difference between reality and the figments of his imagination. And in reality there could be no question that what he was actually…

On the other hand, in reality there was no such thing as a device that could instantly transport you to somewhere else, be it a klirk or anything else. And how had he actually been able to put a name to such an impossible device?

Was he losing his marbles? Or had his breakfast been laced with LSD?

No. He'd read descriptions of LSD trips, and they were nothing like this. And if this was a hallucination, it was an incredibly detailed and convincing one. There was even a sort of mild perfume in the air which he was sure he had never encountered before. And now that he'd had a couple of minutes to become acclimatised he realised that he was feeling a little disoriented, as if his weight had changed, a bit like that feeling you get in a lift when it starts to go down.

And as for this thingamajig, this… klirk, it was like absolutely nothing that he had ever encountered anywhere – and Julien was no stranger to the local public library, as a result of which his knowledge of other civilisations was not bad at all.

Well, then… why shouldn't it be true? After all, this was exactly the sort of thing that happened in Sci-Fi magazines… although it had to be said that, while the most extraordinary adventures seemed to happen all the time in those magazines, it was completely unheard of for their characters to find themselves standing around dressed as nature intended. Whereas here…

Of course, if the inhabitants of this place turned out to be furry lizards they would probably be completely unfazed by the anatomy of a visiting earthling. On the other hand, he wasn't in the habit of wandering around with his equipment on display. It was embarrassing. This wasn't Woodstock! There it was apparently the done thing to go naked. "Make love, not war!" they said, and it was commonly assumed that they made it in public, too. Love, that is, not war…

Of course, right at that moment this wasn't the main issue, because he had no intention of going looking for the local population. All he wanted to do was to get himself back to Earth – or to Normandy, if he was still on his native planet. And because he was bright he came up with the solution almost at once: klirks were paths, and paths lead in both directions. He was still standing on the klirk that had brought him here, so all he had to do was to use the same klirk to take him back the way he had come. Problem solved.

Or not, because he soon discovered that no amount of twisting and turning, no jumping off and jumping on again, and no attempt to get onto it from other angles, had the remotest effect. Apparently this klirk was a one way street. This was all the more frustrating because it seemed that he had his faithful companion to thank for this: Ugo – dear, faithful old Ugo, his constant and devoted friend – had played this dirty trick on him. Quite how, he had no idea: how could a perfectly ordinary dog have been able to draw that complicated pattern so perfectly? And how on Earth had his dog been able to create a klirk? That was another mystery he would have to try to solve once things got back to normal – assuming that they ever did get back to normal, of course…

Right now, however, things didn't look good at all, but there seemed to be no choice: with no return path to Normandy available, about the only thing he could do was to follow the path that wandered away from the klirk and see where it took him.

It didn't take long to reach the edge of the wood, and when he emerged from the trees he stopped dead. There was a kind of turf rolling away, a lush, Irish-green surface that seemed more like thick, dry moss than grass. This covered a landscape of hills, dotted here and there with small groups of trees and occasional low buildings. But what really stopped him in his tracks were the large multicoloured airships sailing lazily across the clear blue sky.

He couldn't begin to find the right words to describe the way he felt, but he was overcome by a sensation of absolute, overwhelming happiness. He had occasionally had dreams of being in a Paradise so wonderful that he had woken up each time with a deep sense of loss; being here was almost like being in those dreams again, or at least like being in a place in which he truly felt alive.

He'd seen these beautiful aircraft, with their propellers made of cloth, before: he had dreamed about them, just as he had dreamed about this landscape, and he knew, as an absolute certainty, that somewhere – just beyond those hills, perhaps – there was a white city whose gardens he had already explored…

"Hey!"

The youthful voice dragged him back out of his trance.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

He hadn't heard the boy coming towards him. In fact he hadn't spoken in French, but in Tünnkeh, and his actual words had been "Kyeh su yinna? Dir, kan djegui yinn?" but Julien realised that he could understand this, the common language of… wherever he was.

Clasping his hands in front of his genitals he answered without hesitation, "Nga Julien yin. Nga data lep song," which meant "I'm Julien. I just got here."

And now there could be no more doubt: wherever he was, it was a long, long way from home.

The boy was a few centimetres shorter than he was and looked a little younger, but it was difficult to be really sure because of the silvery patterns which decorated his face and, indeed, most of his head, because he had no hair to hide them except for a triangle of dark hair on top of his head. Beneath this silvery make-up his skin was tanned, and his brown eyes looked quite ordinary.

He also had the advantage of being dressed in a sort of sleeveless beige tunic which had no belt and reached down to his knees. He was also wearing sandals, which allowed Julien to see that he had the usual number of toes.

"Hello, Julien," he said. "I'm Niil. So where have you come from, like… that?"

The little lift of the chin and its accompanying grin were a fairly tactless way of referring to Julien's complete lack of clothing. Julien blushed, something that would be even more obvious to an observer because of Julien's colouring: he was a red-head – a nice shade of darkish squirrel-red, rather than flaming carrots, but all red-heads tend to look like red traffic lights when they blush.

"It's hard to explain," he said. "You're never going to believe this, but – and I swear this is true – I come from another world."

He almost added, "I come in peace. Take me to your leader," but he wasn't sure that the joke would be understood.

"I'd sort of guessed that. What's so strange about that?"

This came across in the same way that he might have asked "And were there a lot of people on the train?", which somehow made the question seem almost insulting.

Julien was annoyed. He'd just made an amazing journey – interplanetary, interstellar, maybe even between different universes – in any case, an absolutely unbelievable trip. And yet instead of showing it the respect that was due for such an amazing achievement, here was this smock-clad yokel acting as if he'd just crossed the road.

"Listen," he said, "until today I didn't even know that there were any other worlds. And I've got no idea how I got here."

"What! You mean, you didn't use a klirk?"

"Well, yes, I did, but normally there are no such things as klirks in my world."

"That's impossible. There are klirks in all of the Nine Worlds. It would be impossible to travel without them."

"All right, that might be true, but that's not how we travel in my world."

"So how do you do it, then?"

"We use cars, trains or aeroplanes. We use boats too, but that's really just for fun."

"Those things are like our gliders and flybubbles. That's not really proper travelling, just moving about. In any case, you couldn't have got here without a klirk, so there must be klirks in your world."

Julien sighed: it was hard to argue with the logic of that.

"I promise you that where I come from nobody has ever heard of klirks. Actually I think the klirk I used was drawn by my dog. As soon as I saw it I knew it was a klirk. I knew what it was called too, and I was very happy to see one. But I had no idea how to use it. Then I had a feeling I was looking at it from the wrong direction, so I walked round it – and then I found myself here."

"On your own?"

"Well, yes. You're the only person I've seen since."

"No, I mean, did you use the klirk on your own? Didn't you have a Guide?"

"Obviously I came on my own. There was nobody with me."

"But that's impossible!"

"What do you mean, it's impossible? Hello! I am here, you know!"

"You can't operate a klirk. Only the Guides know how, and you're definitely not a Guide."

"You're right," agreed Julien, "I'm not a Guide. Actually I don't even know what the Guides are. But, Guide or no Guide, I still found myself standing in the park, and I have no idea who or what brought me here."

"Forgive me for asking, but… well, you sound like a boy. You are a boy, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm a boy! Look!"

Julien moved his hands away, exposing himself to the other boy's curiosity. Now he was angry again: how could this kid have possibly thought he was a girl? That was way out of order.

"Well, in that case, why do you wear your hair so long?" asked the boy.

Julien's hair wasn't long – in fact he'd had it cut less than a week before. It hadn't been his idea, but his mother had put her foot down, and his father had backed her up: there were going to be no hippies in their house. If he wanted to look like a Beatle, he could do so just as soon as he was able to earn enough to keep himself. What was he thinking? Did he think he was manning the barricades at the Sorbonne? And so on, and so forth. He'd barely persuaded them to let him keep his ears covered.

"What do you mean?"

The boy frowned, looking at him as if he was a complete imbecile. Or an alien – which, of course, he was.

"Well, I don't know how it is in your country, but here on Nüngen, what you have is a girl's hairstyle. It's the same on Dvârinn – and everywhere else on the Nine Worlds, come to that."

Suddenly Julien felt exhausted. This ridiculous argument about his hairstyle was the last straw.

"Listen, you moron…" he started.

For a split second Julien thought the other boy was going to hit him, but he didn't care. He'd had enough of this entire performance. But instead the boy caught himself, and instead of hitting Julien he bowed to him.

"I am Niil, of the Ksantiris," he said. "And I apologise for not offering you a proper introduction of myself earlier."

Julien's anger melted away. After all, he supposed that Niil hadn't met too many aliens before.

"I'm sorry, too," he said. "It's just… this whole situation has got me stressed. Your Nine Worlds – I've got no idea what they are or even what you're talking about. Like I said, I only just got here. On my own. So it's up to you: you can believe me, or disbelieve me, but I really can't think of anything else I could say to convince you."

Niil didn't answer straight away. He tilted his head and looked at the visitor, apparently trying to read something in his face. Eventually he took a deep breath, like a man preparing to dive into a deep pool, and said, "What you've told me makes no sense at all. Anyone hearing you would say that you're loopy. But… I reckon you definitely believe what you're telling me. And I also reckon you're a decent person. Considering that you're just a No-Clan, of course."

He saw the shocked look on Julien's face and added, "Well… I mean… you don't belong to a Noble Family. You don't have any Marks. Even so, I don't know why, but I reckon you're all right."

"Thank you," said Julien, in a flat voice.

The clear lack of enthusiasm in this response made Niil offer an explanation.

"See, normally a Noble Son isn't allowed to have any friends who aren't themselves Noble Sons or Noble Daughters. It's not forbidden, as such, but it's definitely Not Done. Understand?"

"Yes, I think so. I'm not good enough for you, but maybe you'll make an exception in my case because I've got a pretty face. Is that it?"

Niil turned pale and Julien braced himself for the blow that he was sure was definitely on the way this time. But he was more than just fed up. His situation was catastrophic enough already, without having to put up with some stuck-up snob looking down on him. To hell with the consequence, he thought: if he hits me I'll knock him into next week!

But he wasn't dealing with some street yob. Niil closed his eyes, took two or three deep breaths, opened his eyes again and smiled.

"Sorry again," he said. "Please forgive me. I didn't mean that at all – I was just trying to explain the situation. I made a mess of it because I'm not used to talking to people from outside my own House – and not only are you not from my House, but you're from somewhere much, much further away. I just meant that I'm not allowed to have friends of my own age unless they come from a Noble Family. And on Dvârinn the Noble Houses are a long way away from each other, which means that I'm on my own a lot of the time. I have got two brothers, but they're away a lot, and in any case they're both quite a bit older than me. So I thought that maybe… well…

"Look, I don't know why, but… I believe you. And what I was trying to say – but making a complete mess of saying it – was… I'd… I'd like to get to know you. Is it all right if I say it like that?"

Now Julien felt ashamed of his outburst. His throat had tightened up too, for some reason, but he still managed to utter a subdued "Thank you." He was far more relieved than he would have thought possible: now he realised how important it was for him that Niil accepted his story.

"Don't thank me too quickly," Niil warned him. "I'm a Ksantiri."

"So what?"

Niil shook his head. "You really aren't from around here, are you?" he said. "Everyone in the Nine Worlds knows it's a really bad idea to betray the trust of a Ksantiri."

"That's doesn't bother me. I never do that sort of thing."

"Good. So – what can I do to help you?"

"Well, ideally you can tell me how to get back home. But if you can't do that… is there any chance that you could find me some clothes? This is just a bit embarrassing, being like this…"

Niil looked him up and down,quite openly, and then smiled and said, "I've seen boys who were a lot uglier than you. Still, I don't suppose you want to meet my dear cousin dressed – or not – like that. Actually, that's a good question: how come you're naked? Don't people wear clothes where you come from?"

"Of course we wear clothes! But somehow mine had disappeared by the time I got here."

"That's weird, too. Any Guide who played that sort of a trick on someone would be kicked out of his Order in no time flat."

"I suppose it happened because I made the journey without a Guide, then."

"Maybe… anyway, first let's go and have a look at the klirk you arrived on, and then if we can't find out what happened to you, we'll go to Izkya's place. She's my cousin – I'm just visiting her at the moment."

"But I don't want to meet anyone!" exclaimed Julien, anxiously.

"Why not? I'm telling you, you look pretty good, despite the girly haircut!"

He laughed at the look on Julien's face.

"It's all right, I'm just messing about. I'll go and fetch you an abba – that's a thing like the one I'm wearing. It won't take me long – the house is just on the other side of the park…"

Their inspection of the klirk failed to reveal anything new: the grey metal disc stubbornly refused to do anything at all. And so Niil led then on through the park to the far side, and when they emerged from the trees once more they could see a building that looked a bit like a large Roman villa about a hundred yards away. It was white, with a blue ceramic roof.

"Wait here," said Niil.

He jogged to the house and disappeared through its porch, leaving Julien on his own for what seemed an eternity. It was hot and he was sweating, and before too long he was forced to take refuge in the shade under the trees.

Finally Niil returned with a bundle under his arm.

"There you go," he said. "Sorry it took so long, but I ran into Izkya and stopped to tell her about you."

The bundle contained the promised abba and also a pair of sandals, and once Julien had made himself presentable they walked together to the house. Julien saw that the small number of openings in the outer walls were filled with traceries of stone, such as can be seen in India or parts of north Africa. In the centre of the wall was a porch whose black wrought iron gates offered a glimpse into an inner garden, in which could be heard the tinkling musical sound of a fountain.

As they stepped inside a smiling young woman came to meet them. She was wearing a plain blue dress, her hair was done up in a high bun, and her face bore the powder-blue tracery of a Noble Family's Marks. She gave a slight bow and spoke to Julien.

"Niria, Stewardess of the house of Izkya, is honoured to welcome the guest of her Noble Mistress," she said.

Julien gaped at her, but Niil came to his rescue.

"Be nice, Niria," he said. "You really don't need to use the High Speech here at home. And I'd like Julien to share my kang, please."

Niria dropped the formal language of her greeting and gestured to a door that opened off the porch.

"That won't take long," she said. "You'll just have time for a nice glass of chilled raal with Izkya. Go ahead."

The room Niil led Julien to was cool and opened onto a roofed gallery that surrounded the patio. There were flower arrangements here and there, and a large hanging tapestry that was patterned with geometric shapes in blue and brown. On the carpet stood a low table made of dark wood; around it were four equally low seats, and on the table stood a white metal tray holding some glasses and a pitcher full of a golden liquid.

A dark-haired girl entered the room. She might have been thirteen or fourteen. Her face, decorated with the Marks of her Family, was lit up by a smile, and her dark green eyes sparkled with intelligence.

"Izkya," said Niil, "I'd like you to meet Julien, who's actually from foreign parts. Julien, this is Izkya, First Daughter of the Bakhtars."

"Welcome to my house, Julien," she said. "You're my guest as much as my cousin's. If you need anything, just ask."

Julien nodded, thinking that there were a lot of things he needed, starting with a decent shower and a means of getting home. But he smiled all the same.

"Thank you," he said. "That's very kind of you. I hope your parents won't think I'm a nuisance."

"Oh… no, you're certainly not being a nuisance. And this is my place. The First Sire and his Lady don't live here, obviously. They live in Bakhtar Tower."

Then, like a perfect hostess, Izkya poured out three glasses of the golden drink, which tasted like a delicately-flavoured, slightly sparkling, cider.

"This is delicious!" exclaimed Julien. "What is it?"

"It's called raal," Izkya told him. "We probably produce the best raal in the district. There's nothing better when you're thirsty."

***

Niria came to take the boys to their quarters so that they could settle in and refresh themselves before the meal. They followed her along the gallery to a large room with twin beds, each of which was covered with a brown and blue blanket whose pattern matched the one on the tapestry in the other room. At the foot of each bed stood a wooden chest which they could use to store their clothes. A carpet covered the whole floor, and the room also contained a couple of armchairs and a little table.

In one wall was an archway that led into a circular room. This contained an octagonal pool, tiled with a green mosaic, that was sunk into the marble floor, and also a niche with a drain in the centre that was obviously a shower. This bathroom was lit by five narrow slits that overlooked the garden. On the other side of the bathroom was a door that led to a toilet, and this was aired by a rectangular window filled with stone trellis-work that opened onto the gallery. There was also a curtain over it to provide privacy.

Once they were alone Niil opened one of the chests and took out a white djellaba and a pair of woven sandals.

"This is a lai," he told Julien. "It's what we normally wear inside the house. I've got one just like it in my own chest. We can have a wash and put them on afterwards."

And, with no hesitation at all, he pulled his abba over his head and threw it into an opening in the wall that had been hidden by a wooden screen.

"You dump your dirty clothes in here," he said.

Julien was still embarrassed about being seen naked, but he got undressed anyway. Somehow he felt more naked than Niil, because the other boy was still wearing his Marks which, Julien could now see, covered not only his face, but the whole of his body. Julien was an only child, and so had had virtually no opportunity to see anyone undressed before: neither the Cubs nor the Scouts went in for naturism, and indeed France – despite the events of May 68 – was still puritan and basically Catholic, preferring to leave its children in a state of blessed ignorance as far as the human body was concerned. Yes, occasionally he'd caught a glimpse of a friend's willy while sharing a cubicle at the municipal swimming pool, but his only real experience of willy-watching had been his inspections of his own body, which he had spent quite a bit of time staring at in the bedroom mirror, an activity which, over the past few months at least, had made him feel strangely guilty.

Niil – who had no idea of the effect he was having on his guest – was demonstrating how to operate the shower, but once he'd done so he turned and quite blatantly examined his new friend's anatomy.

"You know, apart from the Marks, we look exactly the same!" he observed.

Blushing all over, Julien looked down at Niil's attributes, which were indeed very much like his own in terms of size, shape and even the skin that covered the end (he didn't know what that was called – talking about one's foreskin, or indeed anything else of that nature, was definitely not what was done in polite families). On the other hand, Julien had to admit that his… prick (he could hardly even think such a word, but then his vocabulary in this area was extremely limited… his todger, perhaps?)… all right, his todger, didn't have the added attraction of that nice silvery curl that decorated Niil's. Trying to keep his voice level, he asked the obvious question:

"Those Marks look really good on you. Are they tattooed? Was it done when you were a baby?"

"Of course not! Tattoos are for No-Clans! The Marks are there when you're born, but they have to be revealed. They're proof that you belong to a Noble Family. And who knows? Maybe you've got some too, but you just don't know about them."

"I'd be amazed if I had," said Julien. "They're unheard-of on my world."

"Too bad. Still, never mind – at least you've got nice hair. Most Noble Ladies would kill to have hair like that. But you're really going to have to get it cut. You can't walk around like that."

"No, thanks, I'll wait, if it's all the same to you. Perhaps we'll find a way to get me back where I came from."

Niil poured a little liquid soap onto a wet cloth, and straight away it began to foam up, at the same time releasing a strong flowery scent.

"Would you like me to rub your… ?"

"No!" interrupted Julien, who didn't want Niil rubbing anything. "No, thanks, I can manage to wash myself."

Ignoring Niil's disappointed expression, Julien took the cloth and started to soap himself. But clearly Niil's concept of sharing a shower was different from his own, because a moment or two later Niil presented him with another cloth.

"Could you wash my back, please?" he asked.

There was no way to refuse without seeming horribly rude, so Julien took the cloth and set to work. But stroking the body of another boy, even though he was doing it for a good reason, had the inevitable effect, and it was impossible to conceal it in this situation. Julien did his best: he recited his seven times table backwards in his head, but not even that was enough to restrain an erection which certainly looked good, but which was shortly – the moment Niil turned round, in fact – going to make him extremely embarrassed.

He tried to postpone that moment by making sure that he cleaned each and every square centimetre of Niil's nicely-tanned back, desperately hoping that if he took long enough his penis would sink back into innocent softness, but of course that was never going to happen. Instead it seemed to get even harder, and when Niil turned round it was to find himself looking at a stiff, twitching, exceedingly solid member, its head peeking out from under the skin and winking at him, a traitor to its master and a witness to his immodest thoughts.

Julien couldn't look Niil in the eye. Instead he stared at the drain in the floor between them, watching the perfumed bubbles disappearing. He wished he could follow them and slip away into the drain, so that he could simply dissolve somewhere in the sewers of this alien world. But then he raised his glance a little and discovered that he wasn't the only one to be afflicted with a disobedient member – except that when he raised his eyes still further, to Niil's face, he saw that Niil wasn't remotely unhappy about it.

"Great!" exclaimed Niil. "We really are the same! Alright, maybe my sang neh is a little bit shorter than yours, but even so…"

This enthusiastic comment completely wrong-footed Julien. He bit back the apology he had been about to give and mumbled a polite disagreement instead, and when Niil told him to turn around so that he could return the back-scrubbing favour, he did so without further ado.

Once they were both rinsed off, Niil filled the octagonal pool with cool water, and they sat in it side by side. The water wasn't cool enough to reduce their erections at all, but somehow it didn't seem to matter any more: Niil's laid-back behaviour was starting to rub off on the more strait-laced French boy – in fact, Julien was actually unconsciously stroking himself as he listened to the chatter of the other boy, whom he was already starting to consider a friend.

"Izkya's sure to want to take us to see Aleth," Niil was saying. "It would be a pity to miss out on that while I'm here – it's supposed to be the most beautiful city in the Nine Worlds, after all. We'll definitely have to find you an Affiliate's abba."

"What's one of those?"

"Well, with Izkya and me, people can see straight away who we are because of our Marks and our clothes. And we can't hang about with just anyone – it would attract far too much attention. So we'll need to dress you as my Affiliate. You couldn't pass as Izkya's, even if you dressed in girl's clothes – although with that hairstyle you'd certainly pass easily enough as a girl…"

Julien turned to glare at him and opened his mouth to respond to the insult, but then he saw the glint of mischief in Niil's eye.

"It's not hard to get you going, is it?" said Niil, grinning at him. "But you couldn't pass as her Affiliate because everyone knows her, and they know she hasn't got one. I'll get away with claiming that you're mine, though, because I'm not from around here."

"Right, but what is an Affiliate?" Julien asked.

"It's a No-Clan of the same age as you who takes care of you."

"You mean, it's a servant?"

"If you like. But actually it's a bit more complicated than that, because an Affiliate lives with his Noble Brother or Noble Sister full-time. He gets practically the same education, as well as keeping him entertained and looking after him."

"And you haven't got one?"

"No. My parent don't like the idea. If I did have one, he'd be sitting where you are right now."

Julien was on the point of answering that he wouldn't mind the job at all when a gong sounded.

"Time to eat!" said Niil. "Come on!"

They got out of the pool, dried themselves quickly and put on their white robes, which Niil said were usually worn without undergarments. Julien was a bit nervous about that, especially in view of the way in which the traitor between his legs had already betrayed him once. But he supposed that if Niil could manage…

He looked around for a comb, but there was no sign of one, and in the end he had to use his fingers to get his hair into some sort of presentable state.

"I'll get Niria to find you a comb," said Niil. "Only girls have them; boys don't need them, because boys have short hair."

"You mean, boys have their heads shaved," retorted Julien. "My hair isn't long, but I need a comb to keep it in place."

"Trust me, that hair is long. No Noble Son would be seen dead looking like that. Still, if you act as my Affiliate it won't matter at all – actually people prefer it if the Affiliate doesn't try to look too much like his Noble Brother…"

When they reached the lounge they found that a table had been laid out with three places, and that Izkya was waiting for them. Julian generally found girls at the very least weird and frequently completely unbearable, but all the same he was struck by the way the gold and green patterns of her Marks made her already pretty face even more attractive.

The meal was absolutely delicious, even by the standards of fine houses. It was a bit like Chinese food (which Julien loved) in the way it used finely-chopped meat and a kind of sweet and sour sauce. They ate it with a utensil a bit like a pair of sugar tongs, which was a great deal easier than the damned chopsticks supplied by his local Chinese restaurant, which it had taken him absolutely ages to get the hang of.

Finally they all said that they were too full to eat another crumb.

"Right, then," suggested Izkya. "What about a trip into town? I've sorted an abba out for Julien."

So the boys went back to their kang to change, and Julien was delighted when Niil fished a couple of pairs of underwear out of his chest and handed one to him. It was a fairly basic garment with a drawstring at the waist. Niil then put on a light grey garment that had a hem decorated with an intricate pattern in dark red.

"This is called a lakh," he explained. "The pattern is unique to my Family, and only people who carry the Ksantiri Marks are allowed to wear one. But you can wear this."

He handed Julien a loose, short-sleeved robe in a bottle-green colour.

"This is an Affiliate's abba," he said. "They come in lots of different colours and it doesn't matter which you choose. I expect Niria picked this one to go with your magnificent mane."

He grinned at Julien, who this time refused to rise to the bait. Instead he let Niil help him on with the abba – he needed help because it was tricky to sort out how to use the wide, dark blue belt that came with it to catch and display the garment's many folds properly. But once it was on he looked in the mirror and discovered that it had been worth all the fiddling about, because he looked astonishingly good in it.

"There you go," said Niil. "Now you almost look presentable. Except… wow! I never noticed your eyes before!"

"What's wrong with them?"

"Nothing – they look amazing. They're green, with sort of grey-blue flecks in them. It's…"

"Really? I'm just ordinary, you know."

"Well, maybe, but they still look beautiful."

"Do boys usually compliment each other on their appearance here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well," explained Julien, "where I come from, only girls talk like that."

Now it was Niil's turn to look embarrassed.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"I'm not offended at all," Julien assured him. "Quite the opposite, in fact, and thanks for the compliment. Does that mean it would be all right if I say that you look really good in your lack?"

"It's not a 'lack', it's a lakh," said Niil, emphasising the guttural ending. "But… no, I don't mind you saying that at all."

***

They met Izkya on the patio and she led them around to the far side of the house, where they found themselves on the bank of a small river. A boat was moored to a small wharf, and once they were on board Izkya made Julien jump by giving a sharp whistle through her fingers right by his ear. But that surprise was nothing compared to the shock he felt when an enormous water-creature popped out of the water right next to him and stared at him with a huge eye. Izkya gave a different whistle and the creature disappeared back under the water, and a moment later the boat drew away from the wharf. And as the vessel moved out into mid-channel Julien realised that the creature was pulling the boat, rather like a man pulling a rickshaw.

It was still quite hot out here on the water and away from any shade, but Julien found that somehow his garment kept him cool even when the sun was beating down on him. The abba came with a hood, and once he had raised it he felt confident that he wouldn't have to worry about the sunburn to which he, like so many red-heads, was so susceptible.

The journey started in a landscape of private parks and upmarket villas like Izkya's, but gradually they entered a more built-up area, a mix of private houses and official-looking buildings, all built of white stone and most carrying ornate carvings and elegant sculptures. Eventually the river led into a wider thoroughfare, which in turn opened out into a vast lake. Their vessel made its way to a pier to which were moored several other boats like their own and a number of larger, barge-like vessels which Julien assumed were designed to carry freight.

***

They stepped ashore and Julien saw the people of Aleth for the first time. The pier and the surrounding streets were alive with a throng of colourful, noisy people whose behaviour was the complete opposite of the calm, measured atmosphere he had experienced so far. Children ran about, chasing each other around the market stalls, which were themselves surrounded with buyers and onlookers. The air was full of smells, too, some good and some anything but. There were stalls selling a sort of kebab cooked on braziers, and fruit stalls, and spice stalls, all adding their distinctive aromas to the air.

"Noble Lord! Noble Lord! Got us a talek so's I can eat?"

A young boy of nine or ten was tugging at Julien's abba. He had closely-cropped blond hair, which made his round, tanned head catch the sun and glint like a sort of helmet. He was wearing only a sort of blue loincloth, tattered but relatively clean – actually his body was cleaner than might have been expected, too. But of course Julien didn't have any taleks, or diraks, or indeed any of the other coins or notes in use in the Nine Worlds – and anyway, the kid didn't look that skinny or under-nourished. Still, he was about to ask Niil if he could spare the boy a coin or two when Niil addressed the kid himself.

"If you're hungry," he said, "take yourself to Batürlik's yard and tell him you're the First-Greeted of Niil, Third Son of the House of Ksantiri."

The boy gaped at him for a good ten seconds before he finally got his wits about him, at which he dropped to one knee and touched his benefactor's sandal with the tips of his fingers.

"Noble Lord," he said, "may your kindness bring peace and happiness to you, and to your Noble Family. I am Ambar, son of Aliya, of the Fruit Quay. Call, and I shall come."

"I know your name, Ambar, son of Aliya, of the Fruit Quay," replied Niil in a formal voice. "If I call, you will come."

The boy stood up and scampered away into an alley, one of many that made this entire area a maze which, nonetheless, Izkya and Niil seemed to have no problem navigating. Before Julien had even managed to start asking any of the questions that were filling his head, Izkya offered him an explanation.

"When you visit a world for the first time," she said, "it's customary to pick a First-Greeted. You normally pick someone who's very poor. You send him to one of your Family's agents, or to a well-established merchant, and he presents himself as your First-Greeted. He's then fed and clothed exactly as a member of your House would be. He might even be offered accommodation, if he doesn't have anywhere else to live. Starting from that moment, your Family sort of sponsors him. It's not a big deal for us, but it is supposed to bring good luck."

"Is this the first time Niil's been here, then?" asked Julien.

"No," said Niil, "but last time I was with other members of my Family, so that didn't count."

"So you'd never picked a… First-Greeted before?"

"No, I hadn't."

"So why did you pick him?"

Niil shrugged. "No idea," he said. "He just seemed… no, I really couldn't tell you."

"And what was all that stuff about 'Call and I will come'?"

"Oh, way back it was part of the deal: you could ask your First-Greeted to help you, and he would always agree, even if it meant doing something really dangerous. On the other hand, if you did ask for help, the First-Greeted became a full member of your Noble Family from that point on, at a level only one step below your own. It doesn't happen any more – nobody would go to a First-Greeted for help. It's just that the ancient form of words is still used."

"Oh. And who was that that you sent him to?"

"A guy called Batürlik. He's one of my Family's suppliers."

"But how will he know that it was really you who sent the kid?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, couldn't just anyone turn up on his doorstep and say 'I'm the First-Greeted of Niil of the House of Ksantiri'?"

Niil and Izkya both stopped so abruptly that Julien had taken two more steps before he realised that they were no longer with him. He turned and found them both staring open-mouthed at him.

"What?" he asked. "What did I say?"

"Nobody would ever do that," Izkya told him. "You'd have to be out of your mind to pull a stunt like that. If anyone really was stupid enough to do that he'd be busted before the day was out."

"And then what would happen to him?"

"He'd get a one-way ticket to the Great Forest on Tandil."

"So what's so bad about that?"

"The Great Forest on Tandil is full of extremely nasty animals."

"Ah."

Julien kept looking all around him, determined not to miss anything. Before too long they had moved away from the bustling, noisy crowd of the port area into a district that was rather more upmarket, with solid, middle-class houses and exclusive boutiques that advertised what they dealt in only by discreet carved signs above the doors. The passers-by here were a lot less noisy and their clothing was elegant and expensive-looking. Quite a lot of them were wearing the Marks of a Noble Family.

They reached the corner of a street and Julien found himself looking at a huge open space, so massive that the buildings on the far side looked no bigger than dolls' houses. It was paved in flagstones, each a different shape, all highly polished and of a multitude of different colours and shades – in fact Julien would have said that every stone was unique, although the huge number of them made it impossible to say for certain.

"What's this place?" he asked.

"That," said Niil, with a smug little smile, "is the Emperor's Palace."

"Huh? Where?"

"Right there in front of you," said Niil, gesturing at the open square.

"You mean, it's underneath the square?"

"No, it's above ground."

"But there's nothing there!"

"Oh, yes, there is. You just can't see it."

"You mean, the palace is invisible?"

"Now you've got it!"

"Oh, come on! Pull the other one!"

"Sorry?"

"I mean that you're trying to get me going again, aren't you?"

"Not, I'm not – honest!"

Julien looked at Izkya, but she looked every bit as straight-faced as her cousin.

"But… how can you be sure the palace is there if you can't see it?"

"Well," said Niil, "it becomes visible every twenty-three cycles."

"So how long's a cycle? How old are you?"

"I'm twelve and four-ninths."

Julien thought that a 'cycle' couldn't be too different from an Earth year.

"So have you ever seen it?" he asked.

"No. It's due to appear in about two cycles from now. But we've got some pictures of it – we'll show you once we get back to Izkya's."

People were walking and talking all around them, but not one of them set foot on the polished flagstones. Instead they were all using the wide pavement that ran all the way around the outside of the square. Obviously Julien wanted to know why.

"Aren't you allowed to walk across the square?" he asked.

"Well, it's not forbidden, but nobody does it," Izkya told him.

"Why not? Is it one of those things that are just 'not done'?"

"No, it's not that. It's simply impossible to take more than five or six steps into the square before you come back out again. You think you're walking straight ahead, but instead you get turned around and find yourself walking back the way you came."

"Have you actually tried it?"

"Of course I have," she told him.

"What about you, Niil?"

"Me, too."

"Can I have a go?"

"If you like," said Niil. "But it would be better to wait until there are fewer people about, because as soon as they see someone trying to cross the Palace Square, everyone stops and watches, so that they can laugh at you when you find yourself back where you started. You really don't want to attract that much attention, believe me. But I promise you can have a go later – maybe when we come back this evening."

Julien would have liked to try it straight away, but he knew that Niil had a valid point.

A few minutes later Izkya led them onto a wide avenue shaded by plane trees, or something not too different, anyway. They had silvery bark with green spots and large serrated leaves. In the shade beneath the trees there were a large number of stalls offering different types of cool drink and a wide variety of fruit and sweets. But although this was superficially like the port area, somehow the crowds here seemed less noisy and vulgar – in fact it reminded Julien, who normally lived in Paris, of the families who visited the Tuileries Gardens on warm summer afternoons.

Children ran about chasing balls or gathered round one of their number who had a rainbow-coloured spinning top. Others had water fights using big syringes, whose contents sparkled in the air like streams of diamonds. Weird grey animals that looked like a cross between a cat and a squirrel went darting between the legs of passers-by as they scampered from tree to tree, climbing a short way up each one and then stopping as if to wait for something. White-crested birds that looked like green-and-gold pigeons pecked at the grain and crumbs thrown to them by some of the people, and sometimes they would stop nibbling long enough to utter snatches of song that rang out clear and distinct above the background noise of the crowd. In some places the trees were more widely-spread, and between their branches Julien was able to catch glimpses of the silhouettes of buildings that were much taller than any that he had seen hitherto. He pointed to a tower that must have been at least sixty metres tall and which had a large number of openings, presumably windows, in its walls.

"What's that?" he asked Izkya.

"That's Skandari Tower," she told him.

"Yes, I can see it's a tower, but what's it for? Do people live there?"

"Yes – that's where the First Lord of the Skandaris lives."

"And has your family got one of those?"

"Of course!"

"Can you point it out to me?"

"Not from here, but once we get to the end of the Great Promenade you'll be able to see it."

"What about you, Niil? Has your Family got a tower too?"

"No. We don't have towers on my world. On Dvârinn we have trankenns."

Julien opened his mouth, but before he could ask the question, Niil answered it for him.

"A trankenn is a ship," he explained. "They're very big and really beautiful. Ours is the third most beautiful ship on Dvârinn."

"You mean, you live on boats?"

"Well, not during the stormy season, but the rest of the time, yes. My father owns a hundred and sixty-eight of them."

"Wow! Is he the king, then?"

"He's First Lord of the Ksantiris."

"Does that mean he rules everyone?"

"Well, sort of. He's the Emperor's Mirror, the Keeper of the Law and the Power."

Julien nodded. He was just starting to realise just how important his hosts were: they obviously belonged to very rich, powerful families – families who actually ruled their worlds.

"What about you, Izkya? Is your father an Emperor's Mirror, too?" he asked.

"Yes, he is."

"So where is his kingdom?"

"He's the ruler of Frühl."

"And where's that?"

"Right here. Aleth is the capital city of Frühl. It's also capital of the Nine Worlds."

"And that's why the Emperor lives here in his invisible palace?"

"That's right."

"So is the Emperor invisible too?"

She looked at him as if he'd just said something completely ridiculous.

"Of course he isn't invisible!" she said.

"So you've seen him, then?"

"Well, no. But my father meets him regularly."

"What, in the palace?"

"Obviously."

"But… how does he get there?"

This endless stream of questions was getting on her nerves, and although she had been brought up to be patient and understanding, there were limits, and being constantly asked questions whose answers were known to the thickest street-child on the planet was not how she wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon.

"He gets there by klirk," she said, shortly. "Now, do me a favour and stop asking questions. Just look around and enjoy the walk. Would you like some sweetsnow?"

Julien had thrown back his hood once they were under the trees, and unfortunately this meant that when he blushed at the girl's sharp response it was immediately visible, thus adding to his humiliation. And being offered some ice-cream, like a little boy being bribed to behave, simply made it even worse.

He'd noticed he ice-cream vendors, of course, and he'd been on the point of asking his hosts to buy him one. But the manner in which it had been offered simply left him with no choice but to try to gather the tatters of his self-esteem around him.

"No, thank you," he said stiffly. "Actually I'm feeling a bit tired. I think I'll go back to the boat and wait for you there."

Izkya had completely failed to notice the effect she'd had on him and was about to make things even worse by pointing out that he would almost certainly be unable to find his way back on his own. But Niil, who had noticed, jumped in to forestall her.

"Listen, Julien, you've really got to try some sweetsnow," he said. "I'm dying for one myself, and I'd really like to show you how good it is. Let me buy you one – please?"

The way he said it made it clear that he'd be really disappointed if Julien said no, so Julien accepted this opportunity to save face.

"Well, if you insist," he said.

He allowed himself to be led to the nearest stall and was given a small bowl made of something white and very light, which was then filled with something that looked a bit like blue sherbet. A miniature spoon was then stuck into it. He tried a little nibble.

"Flipping heck!" he exclaimed. "What is it?"

"Surprise!" said Niil, grinning at him.

And it certainly was a surprise: the moment the mixture had touched his tongue it has simply disappeared, leaving nothing but a cold puff of air, sweet and tasting strongly of citrus fruits, something like orange or tangerine or lemon or kumquat… It was absolutely delicious; it was thirst-quenching; it was refreshing. Julien felt that he could eat as much of this as he wanted without ever becoming too full, which was what usually happened when he ate too much dessert.

"That's amazing!" he said. "How do they make this stuff?"

"That's probably the most closely-guarded secret the Guild of Sweet-makers has," Niil told him.

"Are there other flavours?"

"Sure, there are loads. This one is garel-flavoured."

He turned to the vendor and said, "Put them on the Ksantiri account, please, Your Honour."

He handed a cup to Izkya and got back to digging into his own, with obvious relish.

Shortly afterwards they reached the end of the avenue, a place where a number of low buildings stood, interspersed with wide green spaces in which towers of all heights and shapes stood proud and tall. Izkya pointed to one of the tallest ones, a tower that seemed to be made of some sort of polished metal and which, in the warm light of the afternoon sun, shone with a sort of coppery hue.

"That's my Family's tower," she said proudly.

Niil, wanting to avoid any more unwanted questions from Julien, jumped in to add, "That's where the First Lord of the Bakhtars and his Lady live."

Julien gaped at it. The tower wasn't just high, it was almost supernaturally beautiful, and the metal that covered it gave the impression of being almost organic, growing out of the ground like a giant plant rather than being man-made. It was an incredible feat of craftsmanship. There were other towers not too far away and some were even taller, but none of them matched the Bakhtar tower for sheer beauty. There were airships moving slowly between the towers, and their rainbow-coloured decoration made them look like huge insects looking for nectar from gigantic plants.

"That," he breathed, "is incredibly beautiful."

"You should see it at sunset," Niil told him.

"And speaking of sunset," said Izkya, "it's about time we headed for home."

Suddenly Julien looked unhappy. The mention of the passing of time brought home to him where he was: he wasn't on holiday – which is what the afternoon had felt like – but stranded on an alien world.

"What's up?" Niil asked him.

"I should at least try to get back home," said Julien. "My parents will be worried sick if I don't get back this evening…"

By the time their boat got back to the little private wharf behind Izkya's house the sun was much lower in the sky and the heat had eased a bit. Julien had managed to regain something of his earlier good mood. He was still worried about his situation, but he didn't think it would be fair to cast a shadow over the happiness of his hosts, who were after all doing their best to make his involuntary visit as pleasant as possible.

When they got back round to the patio they found a man there waiting for them. Izkya took him off to one side and had a brief conversation with him.

"That's Alko," Niil told Julien. "He's one of her father's inner circle. He's got his own flybubble."

Izkya came back to join them.

"The Noble Lord Alko tells me that we've got an invitation to the Tower tonight," she told them. "Obviously I sent a message to my father about you when you got here, Julien, and now he wants to meet you. He thinks it should be possible for one of the Masters of the Order of Guides to get you back to your home. So we'd better go and get ready."

"Come on," said Niil. "We don't have long,so we'd better go and get washed and changed. We can't turn up at the Tower covered in dust."

Clothes had been laid out ready for them – presumably Alko had warned Niria about the invitation. These clothes were nothing like the simple robes Julien had seen so far: these were clearly special ceremonial garments. On Julien's bed were a dark, bronze-green tunic and baggy black trousers that could be tightened at the ankle, and Niil had something similar in midnight blue, with dark grey trousers. Niil had already thrown his clothes off and now he helped Julien to remove his abba, and of course the result of being undressed by a naked boy was completely inevitable.

"Come on," exhorted Niil. "We haven't got much time, so we'd better wash together!"

Julien thought he'd already experienced washing about as 'together' as it gets in the shower that morning. He was wrong. This time it wasn't a question of turn-and-turn-about back-scrubbing: instead,the idea now was just to rub soap randomly into your partner's body at any point where you could get at him, laughing a lot as you did it. Julien rather suspected that this particular unorthodox, inefficient and time-consuming method was something that Niil had invented on the spot, although he had to admit that it was certainly exciting. Things would almost certainly had got a lot more interesting if the gong – damn the man who made it! – hadn't reminded them that they weren't supposed to be having fun, but getting ready to meet one of the most powerful men in the world. So they got out of the shower, dried themselves and got dressed – that is to say, Niil dressed both of them.

"Not bad at all," Niil observed once Julien was ready. "That hatik really suits you. I'm sure we've got time to cut your hair, and then you'll look absolutely perfect."

"Not a chance!"

"But you look like a girl!"

"And how do you think I'll look with my head shaved? My mother would throw a fit if I went home with a bald head!"

"Trust me, when you get home your mother will be so happy to see you again that she won't care what your hair looks like."

The way Julien's face clouded over told Niil that he'd spoken without thinking.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm an idiot."

"No, you're right," said Julien. "There's not much chance of me getting home tonight, is there?"

He took a deep breath. "All the same," he continued, "I'd still prefer to hold off on the haircut for now, because I really don't think that your style would suit me at all. And, talking of style, what type of shoes do we wear with this get-up?"

Niil indicated two pairs of something that looked like slippers made from braided silver.

"These," he said. "They're called kamdris."

Julien slipped his feet into them.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "These are amazingly soft. You, can hardly feel them at all!"

"They're made of tak hair," Niil told him. "It comes from Tandil."

"That's the forest full of dangerous animals, right?"

"Exactly. In fact taks are extremely nasty. You can't buy footwear like this anywhere: the only way to get a pair is if you're given them by a First Lord."

"Then it's very nice of him to lend them to us."

"This isn't a loan. A First Lord doesn't lend anyone anything. These are gifts."

"Wow!" said Julien again. "I suppose I can understand him giving a pair to you easily enough, but why me? He's never even set eyes on me!"

"You're with me, and that's good enough for him."

"But I don't even come from your world!"

"That makes no difference. You're with me, and so people will treat you as well as they treat me. Or as badly, of course…"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, if I had enemies and they caught us together they'd treat you as an enemy too. But don't worry," he added, with the little grin that Julien was getting used to by now, "I'm a nice person. I don't have any enemies. Come on, we'd better not keep the First Lord waiting…"

***

They went to the porch, where they found Alko talking with Niria the stewardess. Izkya wasn't there yet, which gave Julien a chance to ask one more question.

"Listen, what do you call Izkya's father?" Julien asked.

Fortunately Niil was more patient than his cousin. "He's the First Lord of the Bakhtars, of course," he answered.

"Yes, but… hasn't he got a name?"

"Oh, I see. Well, yes, obviously he has a name – it's Aldegard. But nobody uses it except for his immediate family. Everyone else just calls him 'First Lord'. Well, Izkya calls him 'Father', obviously…"

"And what do you call him?"

"Well, First Lord – or, if he insists, 'Uncle'."

"Is he your mother's brother or your father's?"

"Neither. It's just because our Families are the same rank."

Izkya arrived and Julien looked with some admiration at her outfit. She was wearing a hatik too, but quite apart from the fact that it made her look extraordinarily graceful, the material itself seemed to be made out of the night: it was like looking at a dark sky full of slowly-twinkling stars which shimmered as she moved. Her trousers were the colour of evening mist and were gathered at the ankles with circlets that looked like mother-of-pearl. The outfit was completed by kamdris and white stones in her hair that were like little stars that had escaped from the night sky of her tunic.

Julien had never taken the remotest notice of anything that a girl might be wearing. He'd always found the female obsession with fashion ridiculous, and hated listening to them talking about clothes almost as much as he hated the way they giggled when they were swapping secrets behind boys' backs. But at that moment he had an epiphany: Izkya was beautiful. Dressed in her finest clothes, there was no trace of the slightly snobby, short-tempered girl he thought he knew. This was unmistakeably a princess.

"Come on," said Niil, tugging his sleeve. "And close your mouth: you look like a village idiot."

Niria stopped them to check them over to make sure that they wouldn't disgrace their hostess. She gave them a satisfied smile, and apparently she didn't disapprove of Julien's 'long' hair too much because she reached out and tweaked a stray lock back into place. This gesture almost made Julien lose control of himself, because it reminded him so strongly of the home he was so far away from. It was all he could do to stop himself flinching away, because here was yet another woman who couldn't stop messing about with his hair. – and then he almost burst into tears at the thought of his mother, who did exactly the same thing to him every day before he left the house, no matter how often he begged her not to.

"Go on," said Niria. "Alko will be waiting for you…"

Alko's flybubble was a blue and green airship equipped with at least a dozen propellers that were painted with virulent vermilion spirals which were so dazzling that they almost called for sunglasses. The gondola was open, but there were metal hoops over the top, suggesting that some sort of a cover could be rigged if necessary. Lord Alko was busying himself at the prow end, where an array of cogs and levers formed the control panel.

The ship rose slowly and silently, and then the big propellers began to spin, the ship turned towards its destination and began to move forwards through the warm evening air.

Julien was entranced: here once again was that marvellous sense of total happiness he had experienced in his dreams. This was the way to fly – a gentle, silent cruise on a deck open to the fresh air, as opposed to being cooped up in the cramped cabin of a roaring jet plane. How could people have abandoned such a perfect means of travel?

He jumped when a a huge blue scarab with scarlet legs suddenly landed on the rail next to his hand. It was almost as big as his hand, in fact, and could have passed for a massive jewel. Now that was something you didn't see inside an aeroplane!

The white city was now spread out before them, although in the light of the setting sun it seemed to be made of gold and copper instead. And then, as they approached their destination, the sun disappeared over the horizon and night fell.

Julien gasped: at the same moment all of the towers started to radiate light. It wasn't like the way buildings are lit up with light coming through their windows: instead it was the buildings themselves that began to glow with a sort of bioluminescence that started at ground level and spread progressively upwards until it reached the very tip of each tower. Each building had its own shade of colour, which blended harmoniously with those of the towers around it. The result was both wonderful and somehow disconcerting, as if some giant had poured the light of an immense rainbow over them.

The rest of the city was lit up as well, but in a more orthodox fashion, as thousands of windows emitted a golden light into the air. The stars overhead were shining too, and in the clear air of this world they seemed to Julien to be closer than ever.

"It's beautiful!" he breathed.

"It's the most beautiful city in the Nine Worlds," agreed Niil. "There's nothing to match this anywhere, not even on Dvârinn."

They were getting close to the harbour, the point where the river widened out into the lake. From up here the waters of the lake themselves were like a dark nothingness, but garlanded at its edge by the shining lights of the port area. Julien was leaning out, trying to see the place where they had moored their boat that afternoon, when he heard a sort of stifled groan coming from the front of the ship. He straightened up just in time to see Lord Alko put both hands to his neck and then collapse onto the deck. Then Niil shoved him violently onto the deck himself, at the same time yelling to Izkya, who was sitting in the stern, "Get down! Someone's shooting at us!"

In confirmation of this there were two thwacking noises from the ship's side, as if something had hit it and stuck there. It didn't take a lot of imagination to conjure up a picture of arrows, or possibly – more probably, even – crossbow darts.

Julien had hit his head on the deck, but that was the least of his concerns: he was thinking that the people attacking them were unlikely to stop with the killing of Alko, and also that a flybubble makes an awfully easy target. And if they fell a few hundred feet onto the houses below, they would be every bit as dead as they would be if an arrow or dart actually hit them. He turned to Niil.

"We've got to try landing," he said. "Can you fly this thing?"

"I might be able to," said Izkya, who had wriggled her way to join them. "Alko's been showing me how."

Her voice was trembling, and it was only the need to do something that was keeping her from outright panic.

Alko was still making horrible gurgling noises, but they were becoming feebler. It was clear that he was dying, but there was nothing they could do for him. Izkya took a deep breath and started moving forwards on her hands and knees.

"Watch out!" warned Niil. "Keep your head down!"

At the same time they heard a new noise above their heads: the unmistakable hiss of escaping gas.

"Shit!" exclaimed Julien. "They've punctured the gasbag!"

"It's strong material," Niil replied. "It won't tear open…"

He was fairly obviously trying, not entirely successfully, to convince himself as well as his companions.

By now the boys had followed Izkya to the pilot's position. They were reluctant to touch Alko, who was now silent, but his body was stopping anyone from reaching the controls. Another missile pinged off a metal panel somewhere, and that was enough to stir Julien into action: he grabbed the dead man's shoulders and pulled as hard as he could. The body rolled over, revealing a chest that was drenched in blood that looked black in the twilight. There was no sign of an arrow or dart, which must have ripped his throat open and then continued on its way.

Izkya groped over her head, found a lever and pulled, and the ship veered to the right. She pulled on another and the ship started to descend. They heard more impacts overhead, which would mean more holes in the gasbag, and now Julien could feel that the ship was going down quite quickly.

"You've got to get us over the lake!" shouted Niil.

Izkya was kneeling up, trying to identify the controls. The ship was zigzagging – it certainly wasn't acting like a 'dirigible' any more – and the canvas propellers were spinning madly as the ship fell through the air. Finally she found the correct levers and the aircraft, still lurching and swaying wildly, started heading towards the black expanse of the lake.

Julien gripped the rail and strained his eyes into the night, trying to find the enemy. Obviously they could only be in another flying machine, but because the ships were almost soundless he had no idea which way he should be looking. Next to him Niil popped his head above the rail, trying his hardest to work out where they were so that he could call out directions to Izkya, who had to keep her head down so as not to share the fate of the pilot.

They were a lot closer to the rooftops now. Julien felt almost as if he was in a lift whose cables had snapped. He could hear loose cloth flapping overhead, which was louder than the hiss of escaping gas.

"That's it!" cried Niil. "We're over the harbour!"

Well, thought Julien, at least they weren't going to end up splattered like a bug on a windscreen.

"We're going to have to jump!" he yelled. He had just realised that they were certain to die if they got caught underneath the collapsed gasbag or snagged on the frame of the sinking airship. But when he glanced overboard he couldn't tell how far above the water they were: the water was too smooth and there wasn't enough light. To judge from the lights of the port, though, they couldn't be very far above the surface.

"We're going to hit it in a moment!" he shouted. "We need to climb over the rail and hang onto the side of the ship, then we can let go when we're low enough."

"But… they'll see us and shoot us!" objected Izkya.

"There's no choice. If we don't jump we'll get trapped in the wreckage and drown," said Niil. "I hope you can swim, Julien."

"Yes, I can."

"Come on, then!"

They climbed over the rail and clung on, hoping they wouldn't have to wait too long. Julien didn't think he'd be able to hang on for very long anyway. But the ship was falling fast, following a glide-path that got steeper all the time. Then he heard Niil's voice.

"Ready? Then… now!"

Julien let go. He caught a tiny glimpse of the blurred glittering of the water below him, and then he felt a violent blow in his back, followed by a sharp pain, which in turn was immediately followed by the sting of the water as he hit the surface and rolled over. As he sank he thought that it was appalling luck to get hit like that at the last possible second.

The water wasn't particularly cold. In fact it was pleasantly cool, and he would have enjoyed swimming in it in other circumstances. But he thought that now, with an arrow probably penetrating his lung, he'd be lucky if he even made it back to the surface. To make things worse, if that was possible, in the complete darkness he couldn't even tell which way was up and which was down. If he tried to swim he could just as easily force himself deeper instead of climbing back towards the life-giving air…

Julien was almost out of air. He seemed to have been underwater for ages, and although he knew that his body was slowly floating up towards the surface, he was also very much aware that being struck just before he hit the water had meant that he hadn't been able to take a deep breath before going under. Nor did he know how far he had sunk. In any event, in a few seconds he'd be out of air, and so – on the grounds that he would definitely die unless he tried something – he looked around him, decided that the water looked a little darker beneath his feet, and struck out in the opposite direction.

The first stroke he took was agony: he felt as if there was something piercing right through his chest. But at this stage the pain was irrelevant: within a few seconds he was going to be unable to stop himself opening his mouth and trying to breathe underwater. So he kept going. Every stroke took a huge effort, and he knew that he was using the last of his energy reserves, and yet he wasn't afraid – in fact, the searing agony tearing through him made him almost think that drowning would simply be a release from pain. Nevertheless, something inside him refused to give up and kept him struggling towards the surface.

But a few seconds later he realised that he had reached the end of the road. He had no more strength and he was out of air. Everyone had to die one day, he thought…

He opened his mouth and expelled the air that seemed to be trying to burst his lungs in a scream of pain and despair that began as a stream of bubbles… and which ended under a sky that seemed full of an incredible number of stars.

Julien gulped in air. AIR! Forgetting his wound for a moment he basked in the pure pleasure of being able to breathe once more – and if the act of breathing was tearing open the wound in his back, and each stroke that he took to stay afloat was turning the arrow-head in the wound, well, too bad.

"Julien! Dive!" yelled a voice.

He turned and saw Izkya close by on his left.

Dive? No chance, he thought. But she yelled at him again.

"We've got to go under!" she shouted. "We need to swim under water – that way, towards the lights!"

She got close enough to grab his shoulder, and now he could see that she was pointing to a cluster of lights on the shore off to his right. They seemed to be miles away.

"I don't think I can," he told her. "I'm wounded."

"I'll help you," said Niil, who had just appeared on his other side. "Where are you hurt?"

"It's my back – the right-hand side."

There were sudden splashes all around them, the closest only three or four feet away, and Julien realised that the killers were still trying to finish them off. He duck-dived back under the water, getting as deep as he could and then trying to use his feet and left arm to propel himself in the right direction.

He still felt like death, and now he was starting to wonder how much blood he had already lost. He was sure he was never going to reach the side of the lake, anyway. But then he felt a hand grabbing his tunic and pulling him forwards, and he realised that he'd do better just to use his legs and let his friends help him. He popped up for air and saw that it was Niil who was trying to tow him along.

Izkya was a little way ahead of them, but she turned, saw that Julien was struggling, and swam back to them.

"I'll take his other side," she told Niil.

They dived once more, this time without any arrows hitting the water nearby. They hadn't got very far, but Julien was starting to hope again despite the pain in his chest.

They surfaced every thirty seconds or so, each time expecting to hear the splash of arrows, but it looked as though their attackers had lost them, which wasn't surprising in the near-total darkness. Nonetheless, they stayed underwater as much as they could in order not to betray their position with a lot of splashing. Julien was exhausted, and soon his legs had more or less stopped working.

Then they heard shouting, and they could see lights on the surface of the water.

"Boats!" gasped Niil, relief in his voice. "Someone's coming to rescue us!"

"Wait!" said Izkya, before he could call for help. "We don't know who they are. They could be working with the killers, looking for us to finish the job."

So they just kept swimming, on the surface now so that they could keep an eye on the boats, which fortunately – or not – didn't get any closer to them.

***

It took them over half an hour to reach the shore . Julien was vaguely wondering how he could still be alive after probably losing half the blood in his body, but he was so completely exhausted by now that it didn't seem to matter. Even the pain in his chest had faded to a dull ache.

The current in this part of the lake wasn't particularly strong, but it had still carried them quite a distance, and instead of the stone pier where they had moored that afternoon, they fetched up against a dilapidated wooden wharf. It took them several minutes of groping their way around the slimy pillars before they finally found a ladder that would take them up to dry land.

Julien found it almost impossible to climb the ladder: his right arm had more or less packed up on him and he needed help from both his companions before he finally made it to the top. He slumped down on the edge of the wharf.

"We need to have a look at your injury," said Niil, starting to take off Julien's tunic.

Julien let him get on with it: he was too tired even to think properly. Very carefully indeed Niil got the tunic off him, although getting it over his right arm made Julien give a moan of pain.

It was hard to see anything: the only light came in the form of a vague glow from the lights of the city, and those were quite some way away.

"You're all right," reported Niil. "It hasn't broken the surface."

"What?!" gasped Julien, roused from his torpor. "That's impossible – it definitely hit me! And it hurts like hell, too!"

"Yes, you were hit," explained Izkya, "but you were wearing a hatik. They don't just look good – the material also protects anyone who wears one. It's almost impossible to make a hole in it. I'm guessing the arrow, or whatever it was, broke one of your ribs, and that's why it hurts so much."

A wave of relief swept over Julien, hotly followed by another reaction, and this one made him absolutely furious: he'd spent the last three-quarters of an hour or so convinced that he was bleeding to death, and neither of these rich bastards had bothered to tell him the truth. No, they'd been perfectly happy to keep quiet and let him make a fool of himself. He took a deep breath, ready to tell them exactly what he thought of them… and passed out from the pain in his back.

When Julien woke up he found himself lying on the foul-smelling wood of the quay. He felt cold and light-headed. Niil was kneeling beside him, speaking to him urgently, but Julien couldn't make out anything that he was saying. He vaguely remembered being angry with both Niil and Izkya, but now he realised that this was completely unfair, because it was obvious to him now that they had saved his life – he certainly wouldn't have reached the shore without their help, even if he'd only suffered a broken rib instead of an arrow in the lung. But what was Niil gibbering on about?

"Kanndé yinna?" said Niil. "Tannda, intchikmitchick drogoguidou."

Suddenly something clicked in Julien's head and he got the message, which was "Are you all right? We've got to get out of here – now!"

Julien realised that he was a mess: now the feeling of anger had been replaced by a wave of emotion that left him on the brink of tears. He tried to pull himself together, because clearly Niil and Izkya had other things to worry about apart from him.

"I'm all right," he said. "I think I can walk."

Niil's face seemed to glow with relief.

"Good," said Izkya, "because we certainly can't stay here. We've got to get a message to the Tower so that they can come and rescue us."

"Do you know anyone round here?" Niil asked her.

"Well, no, not in this district. I don't think I've ever been here before. I don't even know for sure where we are – I think maybe we're somewhere near Robber's Quay…"

Niil helped Julien to his feet. He was cold: now that his hatik had been taken off he was bare-chested, and he started shivering. The weather wasn't actually all that cold, but the immersion in the lake combined with his exhaustion and the damage to his chest had left him feeling frozen. Niil wrung out his tunic and gave it back to him, but he couldn't get it on again because of his bad shoulder, and in any case wrapping the damp material around his shoulders only made him feel even colder. Niil took it back.

"We've got to find a place where we can warm him up," said Izkya. "Come on!"

"Let's see if we can find our way to Fruit Quay," suggested Niil.

They kept their voices to a whisper: the area around Robbers Quay was one where it was better not to draw attention to yourself. This wasn't too difficult because of the piles of boxes, bundles and baskets that were scattered all over the place – and it was dark, of course, and that helped a lot. But there were people about: between the great warehouses that were shuttered and locked up for the night were alleys where there was a glow of light escaping from behind shutters or badly-fitting doors. Muffled shouts and laughter indicated that there was plenty of life down there too, most of it loud and boisterous. And every now and again they had to duck down behind piles of junk in order to hide from small raucous groups or the occasional dangerous-looking individual.

Julien was not only freezing cold, but he was also still in a lot of pain, and he kept having to bite back groans each time he strained his chest as they ducked and skulked their way along the quay.

***

At last they reached an area where the air was absolutely drenched in an unbelievable mixture of smells. Julien felt a little better: at least the walk had warmed him up slightly, and he'd even found a way of taking shallow breaths that allowed him to breathe without straining his ribs too much.

"This is Fruit Quay," Izkya told him.

"Isn't this where Niil's First… you know, the kid we met this afternoon… isn't this where he lives?"

"Yes, you're right," said Niil. "Ambar, son of Aliya, of Fruit Quay. But he's not going to be a lot of help in this situation. I think we should try to get to Batürlik's yard – he's my family's agent, so he's bound to help us."

"Is it far?" asked Julien, nervously.

"No, not really. About ten minutes, I should think."

"And with a bit of luck we'll run into some of my father's guards," added Izkya, hopefully. "He's sure to have sent someone out to find us – we should have been at the Tower ages before this, after all."

Julien's tunic was almost dry by now, so he put it back on, even though getting it past his shoulder was still painful.

Izkya led them off into a maze of poorly-lit alleys: the lamps were too far apart, leaving pools of darkness between them. Julien looked around nervously: the few passers-by were looking at them suspiciously, which he supposed was understandable: this didn't seem to be an area where three children wearing expensive ceremonial clothing were a common sight. But nobody asked them any questions. And nobody offered to help them.

***

Eventually they emerged into an area where there was a bit more life, with better lighting and a number of decent-looking inns, from whose doors there wafted out the smell of high-class cooking.

"I'm starving!" complained Niil.

"Tough!" replied Izkya, shortly. "You'll have to wait till we get home."

"I know that! But I could definitely do with a snack. All that swimming has made me hungry."

Julien wasn't remotely hungry: now that he'd warmed up again he felt as if his ribs had a really bad case of toothache. He'd have preferred to be knocked out again, rather than having to walk around feeling this awful. But he managed to keep quiet and did his best to walk normally.

They emerged into a small square, on the far side of which was a four-storey building with an impressive porch that could be reached through a pair of large, heavy gates faced with metal. These were resolutely closed. On either side of the porch there were lanterns that illuminated a panel above the gates showing Batürlik's sign of a boat laden with boxes and fruit.

They crossed the silent square and Niil took hold of the metal handle of the door knocker and knocked twice, producing a hollow, somehow sinister sound that echoed across the square. He waited for a while and then, when it was clear that nobody was coming, he knocked twice more, swinging the knocker as hard as he could. They heard the sound of a bolt being slid open, and then a small panel in the door opened and an unfriendly voice said "What do you want?"

"Go and tell Batürlik the Merchant that Niil, Third Son of the Ksantiris, requires his services," commanded Niil.

The tone was that of one who was used to being obeyed, and Julien wasn't too surprised when a small door set into the larger one opened and the guardian signalled them to come in, projecting as he did so something that Julien supposed was deference. Or possibly grovelling. It was certainly clear that the man was trying to indicate by his behaviour the enormous respect that someone of Niil's exaltedness could not fail to inspire.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I mean… May the Noble Son forgive me. If He would be but kind enough to wait here with His Noble Companions for just the smallest of moments, Master Batürlik will certainly come in person to wait upon Him."

He turned and walked away, his bulky shape silhouetted against the hazy yellow light of the courtyard. Julien's ribs were still feeling dreadful, but he still felt up to making a comment about the man's rapid change of tone, but as he opened his mouth to do so his nostrils were filled with a stench that brought with it a massive sense of déjà vu. He had certainly never before breathed in that sickening mix of cinnamon, raspberry and clogged sewers, but his reaction was nonetheless immediate.

"Ghorrs!" he gasped. "There are ghorrs in here! We've got to go – now!"

He didn't wait for his friends to respond. Instead he wrenched the door open and started running, and to Niil's and Izkya's credit they didn't try to argue, simply rushing off after him as fast as they could, back into the maze of narrow lanes and dark, deserted alleys. You didn't stop to chat about ghorrs. Ghorrs weren't something to be taken lightly. They were an enemy – the enemy – the worst danger you could imagine, barely a step below natural disasters. Ghorrs were vicious killers that no self-respecting person would unleash on his worst enemy.

They ran flat out for about ten minutes, concentrating only on putting as much distance between themselves and Batürlik's yard as they possibly could. Julien felt that every stride was ripping open his chest, but he kept going all the same. His eyes were watering with the pain, but it was so dark that it didn't really make his vision any worse.

***

When they got back to the waterfront they stopped, gasping, behind a large stack of packing-cases several metres high. When she finally got her breath back Izkya asked the question that had been begging to be asked since their mad flight had started.

"What happened?" she asked. "How did you know there were ghorrs there?"

Julien still hadn't got his breathing under control, so he just shook his head.

"But… are there ghorrs in your world?" asked Niil. "And did you actually see one at Batürlik's place?"

Julien shook his head again. "Not seen," he gasped out. "Smelled."

"What?"

"I didn't see one," Julien clarified. "But I… I smelled their stench. There was definitely at least one of them there."

"But how do you know what they smell like? Have you actually seen one before?"

"No. But I can swear that what I smelled was a ghorr. Couldn't you smell it?"

"Well…" said Niil, slowly, "it did stink a bit under the porch. But I certainly couldn't say if it was a ghorr or just a backed-up sewer somewhere. I've never seen one of the damned things. And if you haven't seen one either…"

"I know what I'm talking about.. Trust me. I don't understand how I knew, but I am absolutely certain that what I smelled at Batürlik's was a ghorr."

"Well, if you're right," said Niil, "then Batürlik is definitely dead."

"Why?" asked Julien. "How can you be sure?"

"Ghorrs kill absolutely everyone except their masters," Izkya explained. "If Batürlik is still alive, it can only be because he's controlling the ghorrs, or because he's an accomplice to the people who are controlling them. And if that turns out to be the case, then I can absolutely guarantee that my father will see to it personally that he doesn't live out the week."

Julien shivered: clearly breaking the law in this country was a really bad idea. But right now they had more immediate problems. He asked the question they were all thinking: "So what do we do now?"

There was no answer for several seconds.

"Well," said Niil, eventually, "I didn't see who was attacking us in the flybubble. But if there really were ghorrs at Batürlik's…"

"There were, trust me," Julien assured him.

"All right, I believe you. So I should think the same people are behind both attempts. We've got to get to your father's place, Izkya, and that's a long way off. You can bet they're still looking for us, and with Julien in his current condition he won't be able to get too far. I think we should find somewhere to hide and then work out how we're going to contact your father."

"But I don't know anyone round here," objected Izkya.

What a surprise, thought Julien: the princess doesn't hang out with fishmongers and dockers. Who would have thought it?

"Nor do I," said Niil. "Except… maybe I could try to find my First-Greeted, Ambar. We're not that far from Fruit Quay."

"What! You're mad!" exclaimed Izkya. "First, he's only a kid, so what help can he possibly be to us in this mess? And second, you know the tradition as well as I do: do this and the kid would become part of your Family. Your father would go berserk!"

"My Noble Father would do more than merely going berserk if his moron of a son didn't take every possible step to find help when he was in trouble. Besides which, if you've got a better idea, I'm all ears."

Izkya didn't have a better idea. They decided that it would be best if Izkya stayed with Julien while Niil went to try to find Ambar, son of Aliya. The only way he could do it would be to ask in one of the many taverns in the area, but he was confident that his Noble status, confirmed by his Marks, would protect him from both unwelcome attention and unwanted questions from the locals.

***

It took Niil a while to pick a tavern to try – none of them looked particularly respectable – but in the end he settled for one that looked slightly less unpleasant than the others. As he entered the room the din suddenly disappeared as if by magic. Niil stepped further into the room, doing his best to project an appearance of calm confidence, as would be expected by a boy of his position, while every pair of eyes in the room turned to stare at him.

He threaded his way between the tables of strangely silent sailors, trying to ignore their stares, until finally he reached the far end of the room, where the owner, a short, tubby, balding man who could see that this boy was completely out of place in his establishment, hurried to meet him.

"Noble Son," said the innkeeper, "my inn is unworthy of your patronage, but I would be honoured to serve anything you might want."

"I'm sure your cooking is right up here with the best houses," said Niil, "but I only need some information."

Niil had kept his voice down because he didn't want to share his secrets with a room full of strangers, but that turned out to be a major mistake, because the innkeeper, in an attempt to hear him, leaned in close to him, almost close enough to touch.. Not only had it been several days – and quite possibly several weeks – since the man had been near a bath-house, but his clothes were impregnated with a foul mixture of fish and burnt grease, which mixed with the man's own acrid sweat to produce a vile stench. Struggling not to let his reaction show on his face, Niil backed away until his buttocks hit a table, preventing him from retreating further.

"I'm looking for a boy," said Niil, desperate to get the business finished with so that he could escape to the comparatively fresh air outside. "His name is Ambar, son of a man called Aliya, who I understand lives somewhere round here, on Fruit Quay."

The innkeeper was visibly surprised, but he managed to remember his manners and caught himself before he could ask a question: you didn't ask questions of members of Noble Families. Instead he looked over his shoulder and bellowed "Karik!"

A brown-haired boy of about twelve, as dirty as his master and wearing only greyish rags, appeared at once but stopped a sensible distance away – obviously he was well used to being beaten and wanted to stay out of range.

"Do you,know a kid called Ambar, son of Aliya?" the innkeeper asked him.

"Well, yes, but he's just a beggar!"

The innkeeper looked at Niil, who nodded.

"Go and get him, and be quick about it," ordered the innkeeper. "The Noble Son is waiting!"

"But… he's an orphan. He just hangs about on the quays – I really don't know where…"

He was interrupted by a roundhouse slap that turned his cheek red under its coating of grime and brought tears to his eyes. But he managed not to cry out.

"Find him, you cretin!" yelled the man.

The poor kid scurried away, and his master turned back to face his distinguished guest and smiled.

"I'm sure this won't take very long, Noble Son. If Your Lordship would be kind enough to take a seat, I would be honoured to serve you with a cup of our finest raal."

Niil would sooner have drunk water from the muddiest part of the river than risk putting his lips on any cup in this squalid dive, and by now he'd also decided that any man who could clout a defenceless child round the face without fear of retribution was not a man in whose company he wanted to spend a second longer than was necessary.

"Thank you, Master Innkeeper," he said, "But I would prefer to wait outside your door and enjoy the night air."

That was clearly another way of saying that he wanted to get out of the foul stink of this establishment as fast as he possibly could. By now Niil had exhausted his supply of diplomacy, and he didn't spare another thought for the visibly insulted innkeeper as he strode back to the door and into the street outside.

***

He spent the next half-hour or so impatiently pacing back and forth outside the door to the inn . But then he finally saw, in the feeble street lighting, two boys running towards him. He called to them before they could enter the inn, and Ambar – who was now wearing a yellow-trimmed brown abba reaching down to his knees and a pair of new sandals – positively gaped when he recognised his benefactor. In fact his expression of stupefaction would have been comical in other circumstances.

"Noble Lord!" he gasped.

Niil grabbed his shoulders before he could prostrate himself and held him upright, and as he did so he said to the other boy, "I'm sorry – I have nothing to offer you in payment for your trouble, but I hope to be able to rectify that soon."

"You don't need to do that, Noble Lord. Just take good care of Ambar."

That was a highly unusual response: in this part of the world most people wouldn't ever say no to a little profit. Nor, indeed, did they usually tell a Noble Son what to do, no matter how politely it had been phrased. Niil was impressed, both by the boy's willingness to forego the usual gratuity, and by his concern for his friend.

"Karik," he said, "I am Niil, of the Ksantiris. If I fail to fulfil my promise to you, it will be because I am dead."

"Then, Noble Lord, I will wait for your reward with eager impatience."

"Very well. Now go. And you, Ambar – you come with me."

***

They found Izkya and Julien on the quay. Of course he'd been gone for some time, and they were both more than a little worried about him, and so they were relieved to see him return. Ambar waited quietly while Niil told the other two what had happened. Finally Niil turned and spoke to him.

"Ambar," he said, "we're in trouble. Someone is trying to kill us, and they're serious about it. We were on our way to the First House of the Bakhtars, but I'm fairly sure that if we tried to get there we'd be ambushed on the way. Besides, my guest Julien is wounded and can't run, or even walk too far. We need help. Do you think you could get to Bakhtar Tower for us?"

"Of course I'll go, Noble Lord, but I don't reckon the guards there will take any notice of someone like me."

"Oh, yes, they will. They'll take notice because you're now wearing a brown Ksantiri abba. And, just in case that isn't enough, take this." Niil removed his dark blue tunic. "Show them this hatik and they'll have to accept that I sent you."

"Once you get there," added Izkya, "you must ask for Lord Nardouk. Nobody else, mind – just him. And if anyone gets obstructive, tell them that the Noble Daughter Izkya will have them sent to Tandil immediately unless they obey you straight away."

Ambar nodded, looking impressed.

"If it turns out that Lord Nardouk isn't there," continued Izkya, "you must insist on speaking to my father. Demand to be taken to the First Lord in person, understand?"

Ambar nodded again.

"Be careful," Niil warned him. "The people who are looking for us won't think twice about hurting you if you run into them. They're trying to kill us, and it's a certainly that they'll kill you too if they find out that we sent you. And… we think they've got ghorrs with them."

Ambar blanched: ghorrs in Aleth? That was monstrous. But he kept his voice steady and replied, "Don't worry, Noble Lord, they won't see me."

"Perhaps not," said Niil. "But… look, nobody's going to blame you if you prefer to wait until morning."

Ambar hesitated. It was certainly true that things would look a lot less dangerous in daylight. And the thought of ghorrs waiting to ambush him in the dark… but he was clever enough to understand the situation.

"No, Noble Lord," he said. "If they're already looking for you, we can't waste time. I'll keep my eyes open."

"Off you go, then," said Izkya. "Succeed, and I can promise you that my Noble Father will know how to reward you."

Up until now Ambar had kept his eyes lowered, as was proper for one whose status was that of a beggar. But now he straightened up.

"Noble Lady," he said, "my folks are dead, but they taught me to be grateful. Now my life belongs to Noble Lord Niil, I don't need nothing else."

Izkya bristled at such insolence. Was this guttersnipe talking to her about honour? She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought, but Niil beat her to it.

"I hear you, Ambar, son of Aliya," he said. "You're going into danger for my honour and your own. I'm not offering any reward."

He put his hands on both sides of the young boy's head, pulled him forwards and gently touched their foreheads together. Izkya said nothing, but she was shocked: this sort of greeting was reserved for very close relatives, or for those to whom you wanted to show great honour.

A second later, the child had vanished into the night.

Ambar was running. He'd taken off his new sandals and slipped them into the pocket of his abba, and now that he was barefoot he was making almost no sound at all. He wasn't quite sure what Niil's head-to-head gesture had meant, but he did feel somehow honoured by it.

He wasn't particularly scared. Sure, the thought of ghorrs loose in the city was frightening, but he didn't expect them to come anywhere near him. By now he'd been on his own for a year, and in that time he'd learned most of the tricks that you pick up living on the streets: he knew just about every hidden corner and every sneaky short-cut, and he knew a dozen different ways that he could take to get to Bakhtar Tower.

Since his parents had died he had survived thanks to the generosity of the local people. If he'd been a bit younger he would probably have been adopted by someone, but he had been ten when his parents died, and that was was a bit too old for adoption. All the same, he'd never been seriously hungry.

The landlord of the small house where he had lived with his parents hadn't been sufficiently generous to let him stay there for free, and so he'd slept here and there on the quays, wherever he could find a bit of shelter, but he still had everything he really needed.

Actually, and despite what the Noble Lord who had sent him on this mission might have thought, Ambar wasn't normally in the habit of begging – in fact he found the idea of begging rather shameful, and he didn't really need money anyway. But when he'd first set eyes on the strange being with the ridiculously long hair that seemed almost to burn as it caught the sun, he had been so fascinated, and so consumed by a weird and inexplicable need to see him closer to and even to touch him, that he had used the only pretext he could think of, which was to ask him for money.

What had followed had been like a fairy-tale in which the main character is blessed by luck in completely unbelievable ways. First the Noble Lord Niil had chosen him as his First-Greeted. Then he had sent him to the merchant Batürlik's yard, where he had not only been given the fine clothes he was now wearing, but also fed to bursting point with amazing food. And then tonight Karik, the pot-boy from the Three Tankards inn, had come looking for him, had found him on Old Quay, and had brought him back to answer the call of his benefactor, whom he had never expected to see again. And finally, wonder of wonders, the Noble Son of the Ksantiris had honoured him with a mission – and a dangerous one, too. So here he was on the way to one of the great wonders of the city, the Tower of the Bakhtars – and not only that, but he had actually been ordered to go right inside it!

He trotted along, keeping to the shadows. He had now left the well-populated area of the harbour behind him and had reached the Great Promenade, that broad, tree-shaded boulevard where – though of course Ambar did not know this – his sponsor and his fascinating friend had eaten sweetsnow earlier that day. The place was still lively at night: under the trees a great array of lanterns illuminated rows of stalls around which a crowd of people moved, eager for entertainment and refreshment. Jugglers went through their routines, and the smells of cooking filled the air. Music added to the atmosphere of excitement and laughter. And there were some stalls that were doing a discreet trade in pills and potions, each of them allegedly created by wizards, each allegedly superior to those being sold elsewhere, and each directly imported – allegedly – from exotic realms and distant lands, if not, indeed, distant worlds.

Ambar was of course not interested in any of this. His main worry was that his brown abba announced loudly that he belonged to a Noble Family, and at this time of night no respectable boy would be anywhere near this place. So he found a dark corner and pulled the abba over his head, thus transforming himself back into the blue-loinclothed beggar-boy he had been only that morning. He rolled his abba and Niil's blue hatik up into a tight bundle and walked openly out into the crowd of revellers.

Nobody spared him a second glance: if the finest wizards in the world had concocted a spell of invisibility for him it couldn't have worked better than his current appearance. A short distance away he saw a couple of other urchins who looked just like he did, hanging round the stalls in the hope of a few scraps of meat or a couple of sweets. They were so much part of the landscape that the vast majority of the people who came out at night to party shooed them away with the same lack of attention as they did the occasional annoying fly that buzzed around them.

"Hey! You!"

He turned around and discovered to his dismay that the shout was aimed at him: there was a man in dark blue clothes waving at him. He didn't have any Marks, but his clothes looked expensive. His hair was cut very short, of course, and – as far as Ambar could tell in the lamp-light – he had the dark mahogany complexion of the natives of Yrcadia. This was really frightening, because there was a rumour that Yrcadians could actually read the minds of their adversaries and so anticipate each attack almost before their opponent had finished thinking it up. Of course, that was only a rumour…

"Yes, you!" called the man. "Come here!"

Ambar approached him slowly, doing his best to act like just another beggar-boy who was here in the hope of getting a few crumbs from one of the food-stalls.

"Noble Lord?" he asked.

He didn't have to act to make his voice tremble with fear, the way any street kid would speak in front of such an imposing and frightening character: that came entirely naturally.

The man threw a coin to him.

"Go to Doskar's stall over there," said the warrior, pointing at a drinks vendor a hundred metres or so away, "and get me a tankard of beer. And you can keep the change."

Ambar felt his knees trembling, because he didn't need to look at the coin in his hand to know from its weight that it was a ngul tchenn of a hundred taleks, which was the largest of the silver coins, next below the ser tchoung, the smallest gold coin. And that was far too much for a tankard of ale. What the warrior was giving him wasn't a tip, it was an invitation to share his bed.

This was common enough, of course: there were plenty of poor street-boys in Aleth who kept themselves alive by selling their bodies. But Ambar had only been on the street for a comparatively short time, and had never been hungry enough to consider following that path himself. And nor was the warrior obeying the normal practice for such transactions: the custom was that a boy who was in the market for that sort of business would indicate the fact clearly, either by giving his prospect a look of clear invitation, or by 'accidentally' displaying what he had to offer. Generally it was considered improper to solicit a boy who had not indicated his availability, and even more so to persist when the boy had said no.

But the warriors of Yrcadia weren't exactly famous for their gentle manners and careful etiquette, and nor were they generally very patient. Instead they were highly dangerous: resisting them was hard for anyone, and downright impossible for a street kid that nobody would try to defend. Common sense told Ambar that he would have to go with the man. But this wasn't simply a question of unwanted attention: if it really came down to it, he thought he could probably cope with anything the man had in mind to do to him. No, the real issue was that this was going to prevent him from carrying out his mission.

He nodded and made his way to the stall, where the owner wordlessly handed him an overflowing stoneware tankard and a considerable amount of change.

The tankard was heavy and difficult to carry, and it was overflowing with strong-smelling beer. There was no way he could carry it as well as the bundle of clothing, and he'd already used the belt of his abba to tie the whole thing into a package that wouldn't come undone. All he could do now was to tie the two ends of the belt together and stick his head through the loop, allowing the bundle to rest on his back. Then he made his way back to the Yrcadian, doing his best not to spill the beer.

The man accepted the tankard from him and took a long swig.

"Good," he said. "Want some?"

"Um… no, thanks, Noble Lord. And here's your change."

"I said you could keep it."

The man put his hand on Ambar's shoulder, gripping it firmly: obviously he had no intention of letting Ambar turn him down.

"You wouldn't say no to a present, would you?" the man asked.

"No, Noble Lord."

"Good lad! For one moment there I thought that maybe you didn't like me!"

He finished off his drink, rubbing the boy's shoulders with his free hand. Nobody took any notice: this was something they saw every day, and in any case they were only interested in their own entertainment.

The man even slipped his calloused fingers down the back of Ambar's loincloth, stroking the velvety smoothness and clearly liking what he felt. And once he'd finished his beer he took Ambar back to Doskar's stall to return the tankard – apparently now he'd found his boy he had no intention of risking him slipping away.

***

The warrior had rented a kang in one of the large number of inns in the streets that ran into the Great Promenade. The place was fairly basic, but clean, and he had his own private bathroom. The man of the desk made no comment about his guest's escort: he saw this sort of thing every day. Instead he simply checked that his guest was happy with his accommodation and then just wished him goodnight.

"Take off your loincloth," ordered the warrior once they were in the kang with the door closed. "And you can put your bundle over here on the chest. What's in it?"

"Just some clothes, Noble Lord, and a little money."

Ambar didn't want the man to start poking around in the bundle, and so he distracted him in the best possible way by posing in front of him, naked, his hands clasped over his genitals, and doing his best to look submissive and vulnerable, the way an inexperienced rent-boy might.

"Move your hands – I want to see what you've got," said the man. "Put your hands on your hips."

Ambar obeyed, trying to look as gauche as possible.

"Turn round… this is your first time, is it?"

"Yes, Noble Lord."

The man's eyes gleamed. "You're in luck, then," he said. "You're going to have the privilege of being broken in by a real expert. Your pretty little bum will remember this for a very long time indeed."

"Please, Noble Lord," begged Ambar. "I don't really want to."

Once again Ambar didn't need to act scared, and his tears were completely genuine. They didn't do him any good, though: far from melting the man's heart, they actually seemed to act like an aphrodisiac.

"You don't have any choice," the man said. "I've paid for it, and now I'm going to take it."

He didn't seem to care in the slightest that the child hadn't offered, or even agreed to, such a deal. If he had a conscience at all, it obviously wasn't bothering him.

He threw his clothes off, revealing his impressive muscles: his body was clearly that of someone who had been trained for fighting. His erection wasn't particularly massive, but it was still plenty big enough to scare Ambar, whose rear entrance had never had to deal with anything like this. Even so, he would have been prepared to resign himself to his fate, had he not known that even if he did there was no chance of the warrior letting him go before daybreak. And that would mean that he had failed in his mission, because anything might happen to his patron between now and then if he didn't fetch help.

"Come on, then, little chicken," the man said, "let's start with a shower. We don't want to spoil such a big occasion by stinking of sweat, do we?"

It was while he was being soaped and rubbed down under the shower that Ambar felt the first germs of an idea come to him. He didn't like his situation at all, but his body reacted to the attention it was getting all the same, and the man, mistaking the boy's erection for a sign of enthusiasm, decided that it was time for the kid to take an active part in the preparations.

"Right, it's your turn," he said. "Don't be shy – get me good and clean everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. After all, you're going to be getting intimately acquainted with my intimate parts, aren't you?"

Ambar managed a little laugh. He took the soap and began to wash the man's body. He intentionally took his time over the erect penis, gently soaping the exposed glans over and over until the man told him to stop. Then he went round behind him, turning his attention to the man's buttocks and then to what lay between them, tickling the man's anus in order to get him to spread his legs, and then moving forward from there until he was able to take hold of the man's dangling scrotum. For a moment or two he rolled the delicate contents between his fingers in a sensuous way. Then he pressed a finger against the underside of the penis and followed it up to the sensitive frenulum, which he stroked a couple of times before following the penis back down to the testicles, which he took hold of once again.

By now the man was completely relaxed, and so what happened next came as a complete surprise: Ambar wrenched the testicles backwards, at the same time ramming his head into the small of the Yrcadian's back as hard as he could. With perfect unison the man's feet slipped on the soapy tiles and he pitched forwards, not even having time to yell before banging his head against the wall and collapsing in a boneless heap onto the floor.

Ambar didn't hang around to witness the success of his stratagem: true, the man was flat out and bleeding copiously, but that didn't mean that he couldn't regain consciousness at any moment. Ambar grabbed a towel and dried himself quickly, put his loincloth on again, grabbed the bundle of clothes and left, though he had the presence of mind to walk slowly and to say 'Goodnight' to the innkeeper on his way past the front desk.

Somehow, despite the pounding of his heart, he managed to maintain his self-control outside the inn, continuing to walk calmly all the way to the far end of the Great Promenade, where it opened into the maze of private parks he would need to find his way through in order to reach Bakhtar Tower.

***

Once he entered the parkland he started to jog. There wasn't much light: a little later the moon would rise, but right now there were only a few widely-spaced lamps and the twilight. By day this place was quite pleasant, with its flowering bushes and carefully-selected trees, but at night it was positively scary. Ambar was convinced there were nasty creatures lurking in the undergrowth – in fact he knew for a fact that some were there: the giant centipedes, for example, with venomous spines protruding from their armoured carapaces. Their poison wasn't usually fatal, but it was agonisingly painful, sufficiently so to cause paralysis for around fifteen seconds following the sting, and then a hideous swelling and discolouration of the affected limb. And then there were the gleks, which were a sort of large rat that was capable of giving a nasty bite that would often become infected.

Yes, he had disposed of a dangerous Warrior of Yrcadia, but then he hadn't really stopped to consider what he was doing, and nor had he realised quite how dangerous the Warriors could be: he'd simply acted, and he had been lucky that the man had been knocked out straight away. If he'd stopped to think properly about it first he would never have taken the risk. Here in this dark wood it was different: his imagination kept conjuring up visions of monsters and deadly creatures that liked catching and eating small boys, and he simply couldn't rein it in. In fact this part of his mission, which lasted only half an hour and involved nothing more than crossing a large but basically cultivated and managed park, was by far the worst part of it, because here he was fighting his own demons and struggling against the chimeras of his own imagination. And that was a fight for which he would never be honoured, for no Homer would ever sing in praise of one who fights nothing more than the monsters that haunt the mind of a child…

Finally he reached the base of the enormous tower whose walls were glowing with an amber light. He went straight up the vast staircase that led up to the main entrance, and once at the top he pulled himself up to his full height, forced as much authority as he could manage into his voice and said to the guard, "Honourable Guard! The Noble Daughter Izkya has sent me with a message for the Noble Lord Nardouk! I have to give it to him straight away. And if the Noble Lord Nardouk is not here, I have to take the message to the First Lord instead."

The guard, who had listened open-mouthed to this, closed it with a snap that could have been heard a mile away. Had the situation been less serious, Ambar would have burst out laughing at him, because clearly this guy had been recruited more for his muscles than for his brain.

"You want me to summon Lord Nardouk?" the guard asked.

"That's right."

"And you think he'll come to talk to a beggar?"

"Then take me to him."

"Not a chance!"

"Well, the Noble Daughter Izkya also said that anyone who stopped me from completing my mission, or even delayed it, would get a one-way ticket to Tandil. Look, this ought to convince you…"

He undid his bundle and pulled out Niil's dark-blue hatik.

"So," he went on, "do you fancy a holiday on Tandil?"

The huge guard raised a hand the size of a dinner-plate.

"If your father didn't teach you any manners," he threatened, "I don't mind doing it for him!"

Ambar never even flinched.

"Lay one finger on me and you'll answer to the Noble Daughter," he replied. "Can't you recognise a hatik when you see one? Apparently not. But surely even a complete moron would realise that I wouldn't have found something as special as this lying in a gutter!"

The guard restrained himself from delivering the slap he'd intended, but his entire attitude made it clear that he had no intention of letting some guttersnipe tell him what to do. They could have stayed in that stalemate all night, if another guard who was posted a short distance away hadn't heard Ambar's shrill voice and come to see what was going on.

"What's up, Barogh?" he asked. "Trouble?"

"No, just this kid who's looking for a good slap."

Ambar grabbed his chance and turned to the newcomer.

"Honourable Guard," he said, "I am Ambar, son of Aliya, of Fruit Quay, the messenger of the Noble Daughter Izkya, and your colleague here won't let me carry out my mission."

"This piece of scum wants me to summon Lord Nardouk, if you please," said the first guard. "And he says that if I don't he's going to have me sent to Tandil!"

"And I will, too, if he holds me up any longer!" shouted Ambar, who had had more than enough of this. "That's exactly what the Noble Daughter said!"

"To be fair, that does sound exactly like her," said the second guard. "I'm inclined to believe you, I think. I'm going to send for Lord Nardouk – but I warn you, little man, if you're lying, you'll be the one heading for Tandil!"

"You're crazy, Askil!" protested the first guard. "If you disturb him for nothing the Noble Lord will skin you alive!"

"I'll risk it," said Askil. "After all, if the Noble Daughter really did send him, she must have had a pretty good reason for doing so."

He turned to Ambar. "I don't suppose you can tell me what the message is?" he asked.

"Sorry," said Ambar. "I have orders to speak only to Lord Nardouk, or the First Lord himself."

"All right. Follow me."

The guard led Ambar into a hall so vast that it could have been used to drill a regiment. It was brightly lit, and Ambar could see that the white marble walls were covered in frescoes showing landscapes from all over Frühl.

"Wait here," said the guard, leaving him staring open-mouthed at the splendour of the walls.

Ambar scarcely noticed as the guard trotted off in the direction of a door at the distant far end of the hall, but he noticed soon enough when the guard came back a few moments later accompanied by a man in a plain black robe, because the newcomer's whole being seemed to radiate power and authority. Ambar struggled not to lower his gaze before someone who looked so serious and so important.

"So," said the man in a penetrating voice, "I understand that you were demanding to see me."

"Noble Lord," said Ambar, trying to keep his voice steady, "I didn't demand anything. But the Noble Daughter Izkya ordered me not to speak to anyone except you. And she gave me this hatik to show that I really have come from her."

Ambar held out the garment to the man, taking in his appearance properly for the first time: penetrating grey eyes under thick eyebrows, full head of grey hair – and an outstretched hand. Ambar put the hatik into it, and the man examined it.

"This is not the Noble Daughter's hatik," he said.

"No, my Lord. It belongs to my benefactor – that's the Noble Lord Niil, of the Ksantiris."

"Indeed it does," said the man. "Very well, Ambar, you have my attention. Speak."

So Ambar told his story. He told it clumsily, out of sequence and gabbling a bit in places because he was desperate to say how vital it was for his benefactor and his companions to be rescued straight away. But Lord Nardouk, for all that he held an exalted position, was also very patient, and by asking plenty of questions he soon knew everything that the boy did – indeed, he'd also found out a few things that the boy hadn't realised he knew. He was also a good judge of character, and what he saw before him pleased him very much.

"Ambar, First-Greeted of Niil, Third Son of the Ksantiris," he said, once the recital was over, "would you please put on your abba, the one your benefactor gave you? You're a brave and resourceful lad, and it's not right for you to have to walk around looking like a beggar. This is your house now."

Once Ambar was looking decent and had put on his new sandals as well, Nardouk told him to take a seat on one of the stone benches that ran along the walls, and once the boy was seated Nardouk sat down beside him.

"Now," he said, "I want you to describe exactly where we can find your benefactor."

"My Lord, it would be a lot easier if I just took you there."

"Sorry, Ambar, but you're not coming with us. There might be ghorrs out there, and it's a miracle you made the journey once without getting hurt. I want you to stay here and wait for us. Tell me exactly where they are, and please don't waste any more time trying to persuade me to take you with us."

It was clear that the Noble Lord wasn't going to change his mind, and so Ambar gave as good a description as he could of the quay, and explained exactly where on it the others had been hiding when he had left them a couple of hours previously.

When he had finished, tiredness finally caught up with him and he couldn't stop himself from yawning. And nor could Nardouk stop himself from smiling gently.

"I think it's past our heroic messenger's bedtime," he commented. "The Honourable Askil will take you to the guards' quarters and find you a comfortable place there. You've done what you had to do. Now it's my turn."

He turned to the guard and said, "Guard, this child is in your care, and I'm holding you responsible for his safety, understand? I expect the First Lord will want to see him tomorrow."

He stood up and hurried away, leaving the guard to look after a small boy who was already almost asleep.

It was the darkest hour of the night. Lord Nardouk had argued himself blue in the face as he tried to persuade the First Lord to stay in the Tower, but the First Lord wasn't exactly a kid who could be told it was past his bedtime: instead he was determined to travel with the rescue party. He had, however, expressed a wish to see the brave messenger who had risked his life to bring them the news, and he had hoped to speak to him personally, but when he reached the small room he found that Ambar was fast asleep, with Askil keeping a watchful eye on him.

The First Lord and Nardouk set out with only three companions. They weren't much to look at: a grey-haired woman whose youth was only a distant memory; a slim man of medium height with a serious expression and a pigtail hanging over his right shoulder; and a creature that looked like a blue dog.

The woman was a Sentry. She could identify threats that most people would miss, and – and this was the main reason for her inclusion in the party – she was able to detect the presence of a ghorr long before it could see or hear her.

The man was a Silent Warrior. The members of this order chose for themselves whom they wanted to serve, most usually in the capacity of bodyguard, but also sometimes as a tutor for the children of a Noble Family. They were also some of the very tiny number of humans who could stand up against a ghorr, at least for a brief period.

As for the 'blue dog', it wasn't really a dog – in fact, strictly speaking it wasn't an animal at all. It was a Guide, one of the most sensitive and intelligent creatures of the universe: not only could it use the klirk network to travel and carry passengers, but it could also, should the need arise, travel without using the klirks at all.

The three of them – Markya the Sentry, Dalko the Warrior and Aïn the Guide – were worth more than any band of soldiers that the First Lord might have been able to get together for this expedition. They left Bakhtar Tower using one of the secret klirks hidden inside, and Aïn took them to the garden of a mansion not far from the merchant Batürlik's yard.

When a klirk is used it disrupts the structure of the universe itself, rather in the way that a moving boat sends ripples over the surface of a lake, and ghorrs are able to detect this disturbance. Aïn had done his best to keep these ripples to a minimum, and he was not just any Guide – he was a Master among Masters. The only one who had ever reached his level had been Yol the Intrepid, but Yol had disappeared years ago during the Great Quest. Nonetheless, despite Aïn's expertise, it was impossible not to leave some small trace of their passing, and he was sure that it would have alerted the ghorrs that were no doubt hunting for the Noble Daughter and her companions at that moment.

Their trip brought them to the centre of a small grove of ornamental trees. As soon as they arrived Dalko slipped out of the grove to reconnoitre – it was, after all, quite possible that their enemy might know about this secret place. Meanwhile, Markya closed her eyes and started scanning for the subtle signs that would betray the presence of a ghorr. It only took her a few seconds to recognise the position.

"There are eighteen ghorrs," she told them, in a youthful voice that offered a sharp contrast with her wrinkled appearance. "I've never seen so many at one time. I think there are some other things as well, but they're being hidden by someone who knows what he's doing – I'd guess it's a Master Sorcerer working with a Dre Tchenn. I don't know why they're after the Noble Daughter, but they've seriously pulled all the stops out to get her."

The First Lord said nothing – he was afraid that if he did his voice would betray his anguish. Instead, Nardouk spoke.

"Markya," he asked, "can you locate the ghorrs?"

"Not accurately," she replied. "I told you, someone is hiding them. But I'm fairly sure that the closest are only a block or two away."

At that moment Dalko came back.

"It's clear," he reported. "There's nobody in the garden and the street is empty too."

Nobody had actually heard him arrive: he moved like a ghost.

The garden door opened directly onto the street, and so, with no further delay, they ran, moving from shadow to shadow, flitting through the streets towards the river. Dalko scouted ahead of them, approaching each junction with caution with every sense on alert.

Soon they reached Fruit Quay. They couldn't make out very much in the dark, but the quay appeared to be deserted.

"We need to be very careful," Markya warned them. "I can sense ghorrs in almost every direction, but I can't tell how far away they are."

The First Lord thought for a moment. "I think they'll wait until we've found the children and then attack on the way back," he said. "After all, they haven't found the children yet, so probably they're waiting for us to do that for them."

"I'll go and look for the children," said Dalko.

"No, wait," said Nardouk. "They don't know you – you'll scare them. I'd better go."

"Fair enough, but I'm coming with you," said Dalko.

The two men made their way towards the storage area that Ambar had described for them. There were packing cases and bundles piled in long rows, containing textiles, dried food, spices, cereals and other things, all of which combined to create a stink that was to a sensitive nose what the racket of an orchestra of tone-deaf gorillas would sound like to a musician's ear.

Ambar had done his best to describe his friends' hiding place accurately, but it's really difficult to pinpoint a place on a quay that looked exactly like every other part of it – rows and rows of bundles, all looking the same. Nonetheless, Dalko had undergone many years' training as a Silent Warrior, and as a result his senses were a formidable detection system. And so, even in the near-total dark, he finally found the footsteps of a barefoot child in the grime of the quay. In order to be sure he lay down and sniffed at one of the footmarks, and discovered – masked as it was under the thousands of foul smells on the quay – the characteristic scent of the small boy he had seen only very briefly, sleeping under Askil's watchful eye, just before setting out on this expedition. He stood up and started running, followed by Nardouk, who was doing his best – though failing – to be as silent as the noiseless warrior ahead of him.

Suddenly Dalko froze.

"That's where they are," he whispered, pointing at an even darker recess between two piles of bundles.

Nardouk walked the fifty steps to the place Dalko had indicated, stopping just short of it and coughing gently.

"Lord Nardouk?" Izkya's voice betrayed both her fear and her tiredness.

"Yes, Noble Daughter, it's me. The First Lord is just along the quay. We've come to get you."

As he got closer he could make out the girl's pale face, and then, after some muffled noises, the bare chest of a young boy who was doing his best to look fit and ready.

"Noble Lord," asked Niil, "what happened to Ambar? Why isn't he with you?"

"Don't worry," Nardouk told him. "Your First-Greeted is safe – we left him asleep at the Tower. I wouldn't let him come with us."

Groaning, Julien emerged from the hiding place, holding his chest.

"Watch out, Noble Lord," he said. "There are ghorrs at Batürlik's, and there might be others looking for us, too."

"I know," said Nardouk, helping him to stay on his feet. "That's why we have to hurry. I'll carry you."

"But I can…"

"Just keep quiet and let me do this, all right? We don't have time to argue."

He swung Julien up onto his shoulders, making him utter a muffled cry.

"I know I'm hurting you," said Nardouk. "I'm sorry – just try not to make a sound."

He started running, with Niil and Izkya at his heels and Dalko once more scouting ahead. When they reached the First Lord he didn't waste time hugging and kissing his daughter because he knew they weren't safe yet.

They all ran, following Aïn towards another klirk, one that was so secret that only he knew about it. Clearly they couldn't go back using the same one that they had used for the outward journey, because by now that one would certainly have been located.

Although Nardouk was doing his best to move smoothly every stride he took jarred Julien's ribs. It felt as if someone was sawing away at them with a rusty knife. The poor boy clenched his teeth and prayed that he could just pass out as quickly as possible.

Suddenly Markya the Sentry froze. She concentrated for a few seconds and then said, "There are two ghorrs about two hundred paces ahead of us."

Immediately Aïn led them back and over to a street that ran off at right angle from the one they had been following. Nobody raised any objection: to confront even one ghorr was terribly risky, but to try to take on two would be nothing short of suicidal. Every now and again Markya made them stop so that she could check that they weren't running into another ambush, but it seemed that they were escaping the net.

They had been running for about five minutes when they heard the flapping of wings and shrill chirping sounds. Without slowing his pace Dalko told them, "We've been spotted. They're using blackwings, and that one is on its way to warn its master."

They kept running, because there was nothing else they could do. After what seemed to be an endless time they reached a park and rushed along a maze of paths until they reached a group of ornamental bushes whose pale flowers could be seen despite the darkness. Aïn was just about to lead them into the bushes when they heard a deep growl, and at the same time the air was filled with the sickening and unmistakable stench of a ghorr.

With a horrible feeling of absolute despair Markya realised that she had been completely fooled: whoever her opponent was, he had deliberately given her the impression of being unable to completely hide the location of his ghorrs in order to lull her into a false sense of security. And now they were about to fall into the clutches of a ghorr so perfectly concealed that she had not had the remotest hint of its presence until this instant.

Dalko didn't waste time wondering how it had happened: in the blinking of an eye he had interposed himself between the enemy and the group he was guarding. His left hand now held a blade that glittered in the starlight, while his right hand was hooked into a claw, ready to rip into his enemy. At that moment he was beyond both the fear of death and the lust to triumph. He was once again prepared to dance the terrible life or death pas-de-deux, and this adversary was simply a way in which he could hone his skills to perfection.

And then all hell broke loose.

***

It's not easy to describe a ghorr, because they are not natural animals: instead they are the result of blasphemous experiments by generations of power-hungry sorcerers and scientists with no conscience. Nature could never have produced such a chimera single-handed. It has the spider's chitin-armoured body and four pairs of jointed legs ending in formidable claws. But it also has fangs resembling those of the most feared of the Tandil big cats, the laktir, strong enough to remove a man's head from his shoulders in a single bite. It has venomous barbs on its belly whose poison is instant death to an opponent who gets too close, and its sensory organs are as good as those of any other predator, second only to those of a Silent Warrior, and also to a lesser extent to the intuition of the Sentries and the foresight of the Guides.

All in all, a ghorr is an appalling killing machine that would be absolutely perfect, had its masters not, for their own protection, been forced to limit its intelligence and reduce it to a state of blind obedience coupled with boundless malevolence. A ghorr hates unreservedly anyone his master has not told it to spare or respect. This makes it both a terrible, efficient weapon and at the same time very difficult to wield effectively – which is why anyone found to be using a ghorr is deemed by Law to be outcast from the society of normal beings and is to be hunted down and destroyed wherever possible.

The massive, ox-sized abomination charged at Dalko as fast as its eight legs could move it. The man moved only at the last possible second: faster than the eye could have seen even in broad daylight he took two steps to the right and brought his blade down, slicing the last two segments off one of the monster's legs. That wasn't much of an injury for a ghorr, but it did fulfil its purpose of drawing the creature's rage away from the group in front of it and onto the mad creature that had been stupid enough to challenge it.

The First Lord took the opportunity to push his daughter towards Aïn.

"Get her away from this, please," he asked.

It took Izkya a few seconds to realise what was going on – she'd been listening to the growls of the ghorr as it faced up to Dalko. But when she realised what her father was suggesting she moved quickly away from Aïn.

"No way!" she shouted. "I'm not going!"

The First Lord took her by the shoulders.

"Izkya, you don't have a say in this," he said. "Go back to your mother and wait for us."

"I'm not going without you, father. And you can't make me, either: the Guide can't take me unless I give my permission."

This was true: except in the case of criminals sentenced to exile the Guides had no choice. They'd sworn an oath so sacred that any attempt to break it would have led automatically to a fate worse than death.

"Izkya, I want you to go," said the First Lord. "It might be the last thing I'll ever ask you to do – go now, before it's too late."

Her father was the most powerful person in this world, and yet his voice had cracked as he spoke. And that was enough for Izkya. She nodded and turned towards the Guide. Right now she knew exactly what the big blue dog really was, but like everyone else she would forget what it had looked like once it had gone.

As she reached its side she found herself also standing next to Julien, whom Nardouk had just put down in order to be able to go and help Dalko in his doomed fight. Poor Julien, she thought: this really hasn't been much of a welcome to our world. Really he was the one the Guide should take first…

***

Suddenly there was movement. For the first time Dalko had been hit by his opponent, pushing him into Nardouk who in turn lost his balance and stumbled back, colliding with Julien. Julien was already having trouble staying on his feet, and as he was pushed he grabbed hold of the nearest thing he could find to try to retain his balance. That turned out to be the fur of the Guide. As he touched it he felt a sort of jolt run through him, and as he closed his hand instinctively on the silky fur he heard a voice in his head.

Hold on as tight as you can, and mind you don't let go! it said. And then: By the Powers – Who are You?!

Julien was by now so tired and confused that he barely paused to question this: he knew straight away that it was the Guide talking to him. He clung on even more tightly and thought as clearly as he could, My name is Julien, and I come from another world!

You've got Yol's mark on you. Is he the one who made you a Guide?

I'm not a Guide, and I've never heard of anyone called Yol.

This exchange went far faster than if they had actually had to use spoken words. Questions and answers were exchanged almost instantly.

I don't care what you believe, you've clearly received the Gift. You're a Guide, and an amazingly powerful one, too.

But…

There's no time for questions or doubts now. I need your permission to use your Gift and your mind.

During the few seconds that this conversation had lasted Lord Nardouk had thrown himself into the battle and managed to land three blows with his sword before having his chest ripped open by the ghorr's claws – and that despite the fact that he was wearing a hatik made of the same nearly indestructible material that had protected Julien earlier in the evening. But his courage had given Dalko a chance to recover and re-enter the fray, and once again he was holding the monster at bay. The creature had lost some of its legs, but that didn't seem to have greatly reduced either its mobility or its aggressiveness, and now they could hear the growls of others as they rushed towards the spot.

First Lord Aldegard, having consigned his daughter to the care of the guide, now drew his own blade and prepared for death. On his left Markya the Sentry thought briefly of her teachers and her ancestors and pulled her own blade, the one she had inherited from her mother, from its scabbard. At least, she thought, I won't be leaving any orphan children behind me: never having married now seemed like the right choice.

For his part, Niil was hellishly frustrated: he'd received the training and knew how to fight, but he had no weapon, and bare hands were completely useless against a ghorr. He'd heard the First Lord asking the Guide to take his daughter away, and that was as it should be, he thought: at least the courage his colleagues were displaying wouldn't be wasted if Izkya escaped. That just left Julien, who was in any case in no condition to fight, and Niil decided that he'd take his stand next to him. There might be nothing practical he could do to help, but at least he could hold his hand until the end came…

They were in a hurry, and even though Aïn the Guide had the ability to stretch time enough for a second to feel like several minutes, he didn't think he could stop to try to find answers to the questions that were swarming through his head. Right now the only thing he could do was to grab hold of the tiny opportunity he had been given to rescue, not only the young girl, but some of the others, too. Maybe even all of them…

First he had to persuade the injured boy, who was already out on his feet, to give him permission to enter his mind. No Guide was permitted to do that without specific permission, not even in the direst emergency.

Julien, he thought, I am Aïn Zadilak Bilalil ez a Katak, Master Guide. I need to enter your mind in order to use your Gifts and your Force to help the people for whose safety I am responsible. Please can I do that?

Yes.

Julien didn't have the remotest idea of what the Guide actually wanted to do, but he was willing to do anything he could to help. But then he realised to his absolute horror that he was no longer alone in his own head. He hadn't imagined for a moment that Aïn would be able to take such complete control, nor that he would be able to access all his memories – ALL of them – even the ones that he normally kept hidden even from himself, as far as he could, because of the shame and embarrassment they caused him. It was a million times worse than discovering that someone has invaded your bedroom and read your secret diary, because he would never have written down some of these things. But now absolutely everything – all his most secret thoughts, all the things he had never told another living soul, everything he had tried to bury for ever in some dark sub-basement of his mind – every last one of them was spread out beneath the gaze of the Guide. Julien felt he was going to die of shame, and the sooner, the better.

Don't worry, I'm only going to look at what I absolutely need to see. True, you can't hide anything, but I won't look at anything that you'd think embarrassing. There's nothing you can do, but I swear I won't look at anything you would prefer me not to see.

This time it wasn't like hearing someone else's thought in his head: this time it was more as if he'd thought it himself. And he knew straight away that it was the truth: Aïn was his friend and would never want to cause him any embarrassment. Aïn wanted only what was best for him, and if he had taken control of his body it was only for a moment – just for long enough to do what had to be done.

***

Aïn had almost lost the boy: he'd never before entered a mind so completely unprepared to receive him. Until now the only times he had actually achieved a full mental fusion had been with another Master Guide. But this child clearly had no idea what he was, nor did he have the remotest idea of how to use the Gifts present within him – Gifts which were so much more powerful than anything Aïn had encountered previously. So he took a few precious seconds to try to calm the strange boy down, to soothe him with feelings of love and only then, once the boy was sufficiently relaxed, did Aïn really set to work.

Relying on the vast power hidden at the heart of the boy's consciousness he created an invisible bubble which spread out to include every member of their party, adapting itself to fit their movements and utterly excluding anything which was not part of them – especially anything even remotely connected to the ghorr and its allies. For a non-existent fraction of time the seven members of the group existed solely through the combined abilities of a Master Guide and a child who had no idea what was going on.

Then they were in the Outside, and only Aïn and Julien could see exactly what now surrounded them. The others simply had no sense that could have perceived it, just as someone born blind is unable to see a landscape. But Julien was able to see. The ghorr had been scary enough, but the sight of what might, for want of a better term, be called the other side of the universe would have destroyed his mind if Aïn had not somehow closed his eyes and thus protected him from this new sense that he was using for the very first time.

Aïn had been trained, not only to withstand the chaos, but also to navigate his way through it. The klirks existed in order to make the process simpler, and indeed using the paths they marked out was no more difficult than following a bobsleigh course. On the other hand, travelling without using klirks was a great deal more difficult, because it meant that you had to find your own way through the chaos unaided. The difference was akin to that between travelling by train and hacking your way with a machete through the Amazonian rainforest.

The crossing would take no time at all – at least, not as time is measured in the normal world. But if the Guide were to die in mid-journey while trying to find the way, everyone who was with him would simply cease to exist, and not even a button would be left behind.

Of course, Aïn had no intention of dying. All the same, he was starting to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew by trying to rescue everyone. Even using Julien's massive resources, which were far above his own, he felt as if he was swimming in treacle and wearing himself out without making any headway. If he had been accompanied by another Master Guide he would have shared the load – but then even if another Guide had been with him, moving this number of people in these circumstances would still have been impossible.

Ideally he would have preferred to keep the whole thing secret and land discreetly on one of the hidden klirks inside the Tower, but he no longer had the strength to go looking for those hidden portals. Instead he took the simple route and went direct to the Great Gate.

When people travel with a Guide they normally arrive in complete silence: one moment they are not there, and the next they are, and that's all there is. But what happened on the roof of Bakhtar Tower was a lot more dramatic.

First, the Tower itself shut down: the amber light flowing on its metal sides suddenly went out. Next came a gigantic BANG!! which would have made the noise made by a hedge-hopping supersonic fighter plane sound like a bubble-gum bubble popping. At the same time the building was struck by over a score of thunderbolts which melted three metal statues into piles of slag and cracked fifteen metres of rooftop. Two flybubbles that were parked on the roof, fortunately unattended, were vaporised.

There were eighty guards posted at various points around the roof of the building. All of them suffered hearing loss that lasted two weeks, eighteen suffered minor burns and three passed out, officially due to air pressure but actually, according to gossip, due to sheer terror. Some lost control of their bladders, and the gossip further suggested that some losses of control were rather more… well, whiffy.

Other than the immediate witnesses, hardly anyone ever found out what had caused the huge explosion on top of the Tower, although wild rumours continued to run for several years after the event. Within the closed world of the Master Guides, Aïn became known from that moment on as 'Aïn the Deafening', and a lot of people would wonder what such a great Master had done to be given such an unflattering nickname.

The travellers themselves, with the exception of Izkya, hadn't been expecting to travel at all: they were caught in mid-fight and ended up launching their final attacks against the ghorr into thin air instead. Suddenly the stink and the darkness of the park had been replaced with the utter confusion of the top of the Tower, with the glowing metal of the melted statues, the dazed guards and the smouldering debris of the flybubble gondolas, the whole scene still reverberating with the deafening echo of their arrival.

All the same, it only took the First Lord a few seconds to size up the situation and to realise that his guards couldn't hear him. He used signs to order them to go for help and then turned back to his companions.

The only one who was actually bleeding was Nardouk. Dalko told Aldegard that he was uninjured, and the ghorr hadn't got close enough to anyone else to hurt them. But Julien and Aïn were motionless on the ground: the boy was unconscious but rigid, and still clinging to Aïn's fur in a death-grip, and Aïn was scarcely breathing, his fur standing up on end like a scrubbing-brush.

Finally they got everyone down into the First Lord's apartment, where the First Lady was waiting with no less than three Health Masters, who got straight to work on their patients. The slashes on Nardouk's chest already looked infected and were starting to blacken, and it was essential that they be cleaned out and a healing balm applied as quickly as possible. If that could be done there was a good chance that the wounds would close up in three or four days.

It was harder to separate Julien from Aïn – every time an attempt was made Julien clung on even more desperately and uttered heart-wrenching cries. Eventually they managed to make him open his eyes and relax a little, and after that the Health Masters were able to start work on his ribs.

While all this was going on Izkya had just hurried to her mother: the First Lady Delia had been doing her best to look calm and composed, but when Izkya threw herself into her arms she couldn't help crying with relief.

***

Niil felt a bit left out. True, he was neither wounded nor unconscious, and he supposed he should be grateful that he had escaped unscathed, but he wouldn't have minded if someone had wanted to fuss over him a bit. He hadn't even been offered a cup of warm södja.

He shrugged. If he wasn't needed – and he certainly didn't seem to be – then he thought he'd leave all these important people to get on with it without him. He spotted a comfortable-looking couch and lay down on it, expecting to be able to fall asleep almost immediately. But he had no sooner closed his eyes than a hand was shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes again and found himself looking at a guard who was wearing the grey livery of the Lower Gate.

"Noble Lord," said the guard, "the First Lord asks if you would be kind enough to go down to see your First-Greeted and let him know that you got back safely. The First Lord says he would do it himself, but he really needs to stay and make sure that order is restored. If you'd like to come with me, I'll show you where he is."

He was given a blue tunic to replace the hatik he had lent to Ambar: even though the circumstances were unusual, it would hardly be right and proper for a Noble Son to to wander through the corridors in a state of undress.

Niil got up at once, all trace of grumpiness gone: the First Lord had actually asked him to do him the favour of taking care of Ambar! He realised that, far from discounting him, they were actually turning to him as one of the few people who was still fit enough to actually do something useful.

He followed the guard as far as a descent shaft, where they jumped into an empty nacelle that carried them smoothly down to the ground floor of the building. After what seemed like half a mile of corridors they reached the guards' quarters, and there his guide left him and went back to his duty post.

There was a small light burning beside the bed, and by its light Niil could see Askil, who was sitting beside a basic army-type bed on which Ambar was sleeping under a thin powder-blue sheet. As Niil approached, Askil stood up and gave him a questioning look.

"I'm Niil, of the Ksantiris," Niil told him. "I've come to see my First-Greeted and to give him some good news."

He shook Ambar's shoulder gently. The boy woke up straight away, blinking in the light from the lamp beside the bed. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was and to recognise Niil.

"Noble Lord!" he exclaimed with a big smile. "Lord Nardouk managed to rescue you, then! I wanted to go with him, but he wouldn't let me."

"I know. He told me. Anyway, if you're not too tired I'll take you to see Izkya and Julien, too."

Ambar scarcely hesitated: he threw back the sheet, revealing his nicely-bronzed young body, which he rapidly covered with his precious Ksantiri abba.

Askil led them to the ascent shaft. Ambar had never used a shaft before and gripped Niil's hand when the nacelle started to carry them back up towards the top of the Tower. Normally such behaviour would be frowned upon, but neither of them worried about it at all – in fact both enjoyed the unlikely intimacy of it.

***

When they reached the First Lord's apartments they found that a measure of calm had been restored. The First Lord wasn't there, but the First Lady came to greet Ambar as soon as he stepped into the room.

"I see you've found your benefactor, Ambar," she said. "My daughter isn't here to thank you in person, but I must insist on doing so myself on her behalf."

And then, unbelievably, this Lady, who was so beautiful that Ambar could only compare her with the cherished memory of his own mother, came to him and brushed his forehead with a kiss, at the same time stroking his cheek, which still bore the faint marks left by folds in the pillow, with her scented hand.

"Ambar," she said, "We'll meet again soon, but I'm happy to be the first to thank you for your part in the rescue of my beloved daughter."

She turned to Niil.

"I expect you'll want to look after your own people," she said. "The Health Masters have finished with the stranger you brought with you and he's waiting for you in a kang where you can stay with him and our brave young friend here."

Ambar blushed at the praise, and Niil thanked the Lady politely and then allowed a Lady-in-waiting to lead the two of them to the kang that had been prepared for them.

The unthinkable had happened: despite their most careful preparations, the prey had once again slipped out of their trap. Deep in the Ultimate Desert the Circle of Invocation disappeared with a deafening thunderclap. The seventeen Sorcerers of Eng'Hornath stood rooted to the spot for several seconds. On the Stone of Power, the name of which none dared utter, the victim's blood still dripped: the great blue- and gold-feathered wings had long since ceased to twitch, but the vril, a rare and sacred bird to be found only on Tandil, had lingered on in agony for a considerable time, its pain powering the evil magic of the outlawed sorcerers. Its ravaged beauty was a sign of their allegiance to the Chaos Demons of the Outside, and no sacrifice less significant could have enabled them to control such a large number of ghorrs – and yet still it had not been enough.

Demd'Rhat crumpled and fell. The blood flowing from his mouth and ears looked black in the pale light of the Second Moon, and it was clear that he was dying: the backlash had just struck him. Dark Magic allows no imbalance: if you use it with intent to kill, someone has to die, and if the intended victim somehow avoids the strike, it will rebound upon the one who summoned it up and kill him instead. Demd'Rhat was the second of the Sorcerers of Eng'Hornath to die since they had first gathered to fulfil their deadly mission.

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