BY PAUL EDMUND NORMAN

Marcellus toyed with the idea of leaving Miki to sleep whilst he made the attempt on Prakussara, but whilst he did not subscribe to the beliefs of the Warikeewa, he nevertheless respected them, and since Keewa had claimed to have seen his daughter's involvement in the attempted rescue of Kotsoteka, he was convinced that he should at least keep her with him for her own safety. He and Miki dug a hole in the earth to a depth of about three feet, and built a fire in the bottom, over which they placed a framework of green twigs and leaves which would burn slowly and help to retain the heat. Over this they poured a mixture of earth and leaves, and Marcellus caught a small rabbit which he skinned and they then cooked, covering the entire fire with further leaves and earth to keep in the heat. As the blue of the sky changed from dark to midnight, they ate their supper and prepared themselves for their assault on the city.

'In the first place, we do not know what lies beyond the natural barriers, the granite spikes that lie at the edge of this wood,' Marcellus told her. 'I will always go first, to investigate what lies ahead. That way, if I run into trouble, you will see it and will have the opportunity to run for your life.'

She noticed that he did not say that she could run for help, and smiled to herself, knowing that he did not hold any hope of being rescued from such a situation.

'Secondly, within the city there are many dangers for both of us, but particularly for you. You are a virgin, I presume?'

Even in the darkness he knew that she was embarrassed, but he pressed the point further.

'You have not yet given yourself to a man, have you?'

'No, I have not.'

'In a way, that is bad news. If you were not a virgin, your life would not be in any particular danger.'

'What will they do to me if they capture me?'

'I do not know. I only know that the virgins of Prakussara are forever kept from the eyes of complete men.'

'By 'complete men' you mean men who still retain their manhoods?'

'Exactly that. Men who are no longer complete are free to go amongst the virgins as they please.'

'Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why do they do this to their menfolk?'

'I do not know that, either, but I would guess that it is to prevent any threat to the women, the virgins.'

'Then what function do the women - the virgins serve?'

'You will have to ask them that,' Marcellus said. 'I know nothing of their customs. I was sent to bring virgins out of Prakussara, and I did just that. I did not think it expedient to enquire after their customs.'

'What would they do to me if they caught me and they discovered that I was not a virgin?'

'Again I do not know, but I suspect it would not be so bad.'

'From what you say, the lives of these virgins does not sound too uncomfortable.'

'It is, however, hardly natural, to live forever kept from the sight of men, with only unskra for company.'

'Unskra? That is the name given to the men who are no longer men?'

'I heard them called thus when the alarm was raised.'

'Would they also be the spearmen?'

'That I do not know. I know that the unskra fight with a determination and a ferocity that belied their lack of manhood. I saw no such traits displayed by the spearmen back at the mountain pass, but that is not to say that they were not unskra.'

'Angry Wolf, do you have a plan of any sort?'

'No, Miki, I do not. I intend to find a way into the city of Prakussara, to locate the whereabouts of Kotsoteka, and to bring him safely out.'

'You are certain he is inside the city?'

'I am certain. Where else would he be?'

'I wonder where Running Scared is right now.'

'I do not think you should call him 'Running Scared'.'

'Why?'

'I do not think he is scared at all.'

'He ran away.'

'He escaped. He saw it as his duty, and he achieved it, against all the odds.'

'He ran away.'

'He considered himself a prisoner-of-war. The duty of any prisoner-of-war is to escape.'

'He did not escape. I helped him to run away.'

'You did what?'

'I helped him to escape. He asked me to help him. I helped him.'

'You should not have done that, Miki. Why should you do such a thing?'

'He was not happy.'

'He did not know that you.....'

'I did not think he would get so far.'

'You did not think that we would run into your father. You did not think that he would be killed when we brought him back to Warikeewa camp! You did not think!'

'I am sorry, it was a foolish thing to do.'

'It was stupidity!'

'I am sorry. Do you know where he is right now? Do you know if he is safe? I would hate to think of him being on his own in this land, afraid, and alone.'

'How would I know where he was? We lost his trail when we entered Ancyros.'

'Then you do not think.....'

'Think what?' Marcellus demanded angrily.

'.....that it might have been he who was firing at the spearmen?'

'What would cause you to think such a thing?'

'I do not know. I just hoped.....I thought it looked like him.'

She was close to tears, he could see. He put his arm around her and hugged her close.

'It did look like him, did it not?' he said, more gently.

'I thought so. And I thought that the lone figure who has been following us since we came through the mountains also looked like him,' she whispered, turning her tear-stained eyes up to gaze longingly at him.

'Yes, that is him, I am sure, Miki,' he said with a huge grin.

'I am glad you think so, for I am certain it is him.'

'And you would still call him 'Running Scared'?'

'I think so.'

'Why would you? He has proved himself to be far from scared.'

'He was running when he left the camp.'

'But was he scared?'

'He was.'

'Of what?'

'Of me.'

'Of you?'

Miki nodded. Marcellus hugged her again, and they laughed together.

'Now we must get on, or we will lose our opportunity.'

'He will be all right, I suppose?'

'I have not known him long, but I believe he will be all right, yes.'

'He does not eat enough.'

'He will survive. When we take him back to Warikeewa camp you can look after him better than he looks after himself.'

'I thought he would be killed.'

'You may serve him with his last meal, before his execution.'

'Oh!'

They trekked off through the woods and soon came to the grassy incline that heralded the twenty-foot granite-spiked wall they had seen earlier. There was a full moon, and it was not difficult to see that the wall itself would be easy enough to climb, but as to what lay beyond the wall, that was an entirely different matter. For all they knew, there could be a score or a hundred of the spearmen waiting to either kill or capture them the minute they landed inside the wall. Furthermore, this natural feature of the apparently unwelcoming and hostile landscape that was Ancyros, was not the actual city wall, but merely something the inhabitants had used to their advantage, a first line of defence.

Marcellus hauled himself to the top of the granite wall and peered over. On the other side of the wall there were more trees, but these looked as though they might have been cultivated, and grew at fairly regular intervals. There was a path leading to the city wall proper, but it would have amounted to sheer foolhardiness for them to march up to the gate and ask for admittance.

Safely over the spiked rocks, they skirted the city wall looking for a window, a hole, anything through which they could gain entrance to the holy city. Eventually they came upon a stream that entered the city via a semi-circular opening in the wall. It was a route Marcellus had used several times to penetrate one city or another, through the sewers, but he hesitated to take Miki in that way, and again wrestled with the idea of leaving her behind and entering the city alone.

'I believe it would be for the best.....' he whispered, but she put a small bronzed finger to his lips to quieten him, and waded into the stream until she was up to her waist.

'Are we going in or not?' she called in a loud whisper. Reluctantly he joined her in the brown swirling water. They held hands, held their noses, and dove. For what seemed like an eternity they were under the water, then they located the opening and passed through under the wall and into the city of Prakussara.

Coughing and spluttering to expel the possibly foul water from his lungs and his mouth, Marcellus emerged from below the surface to find himself on the edge of a canal. Miki had already hauled herself up onto the bricked bank, and was rubbing herself dry with grass and leaves torn from the canal side. Soon Marcellus was doing the same. They were in a dark alleyway, with tall, stone-faced buildings either side of the canal. Where they sat was a narrow path leading away from the walls, but they knew that there was little purpose for a path which led only to a hole in the wall through which the canal discharged into the exterior stream, or else only to the city wall. They concentrated their attention on the area behind them, at the wall itself, and Miki was the first to discover a small wooden door set into the side of the building that abutted the wall.

Marcellus bent to examine it, reasoning that it was either simply a store cupboard or else an entrance to the building for taking goods in, and not intended for persons to pass through. Nevertheless, it was not locked, and he pulled it open, peering inside. Within the building it was completely dark, except for a solitary candle some ten to twelve feet away, on a ledge immediately to his left. He allowed his eyes to become accustomed to the extraordinary gloom, then squeezed his large frame through a little further and ascertained that there was a flight of stone steps directly below the doorway. Satisfied that there was no one in the room, he pulled himself through onto the narrow ledge and turned to assist Miki.

Once inside, he pulled the little wooden door shut so that no one would suspect anything from the outside, though he doubted that the doorway had been used in several years.

They descended the stone steps and examined the room they were in. It was large, with a tall ceiling, and a decorated floor, though the light level was too low for them to make out what the decorations were. Marcellus estimated that the room was about twenty-five feet in length and fifteen wide. At the far end from which they had entered was a raised platform, with steps ascending from either side. There were no windows, and there appeared to be no doors, although further inspection of the staged area revealed a stout oak door, securely locked from the other side.

Cursing softly to himself, Marcellus found another pair of candles and lit them, the better to assist in their examination of the chamber they were in, in case there was a third exit which they had previously missed. As the candles flickered into life, his eye caught the design on the floor and he drew his breath sharply.

'What is it?' Miki whispered.

'I have seen this design elsewhere,' he breathed. 'It is the sign of Khamen.'

'What is Khamen?'

'It is a God which some people of Barbessel worship. I had not known the cult was practised in other provinces of Heraklion.'

'What is a cult?'

'You, the Warikeewa, have certain beliefs which you hold sacred, and you proceed with your lives according to those beliefs. If your beliefs forbade you to do something, you would not do it. In return, you pay homage to some deity or other which you believe is responsible for controlling your lives and what you do with them.'

'Kartoma,' she said, closing her eyes for a brief instant.

'Kartoma. I remember. These people have a similar deity, whom they believe came to Heraklion from the Moon. It is called Khamen.'

'Every people on Heraklion is entitled to a belief in a deity, or someone who controls their destinies. As I recall, Angry Wolf spoke of Controllers previously.'

'The Controllers are the deities which the vast majority of Herakians believe in, that is true. I personally have no further belief in the Controllers.'

'You believe in Khamen now?'

'No, I have seen what depraved practices the followers of Khamen indulge in!' he said grimly.

Miki shuddered.

'Are we in danger?' she asked.

'Whilst we remain within this room, yes. We must find a way out.'

They explored the staged area further, and Marcellus noticed that there was a certain amount of light coming into the room from above. He looked around for something to climb on, and found, behind one of the drapes, a stool. But even climbing onto this and jumping he could not reach the ceiling. It was Miki who had the idea of hauling herself up the drape, and once there it was a simple matter for her to locate the source of the light.

'It is a trapdoor,' she called in a whisper. 'Can you climb the drape as I did?'

Marcellus nodded, and began to follow her. By hanging from the top of the drape with one hand he was able to get his fingers into the crack of the trapdoor and raise it an inch or so, then, satisfied that the coast was clear, he hauled himself through and reached down to pull Miki up after him. They were in a narrow curved corridor, the walls of which were brightly painted with all manner of strange hieroglyphics and lit with flaming torches at regular intervals.

'If we had a plan of the city.....'

'In here!' Marcellus cried, and pushed through an open door as they both heard footsteps approaching. Marcellus pushed the door to and put his eye to the crack, saw two men walking along the corridor. He put his finger to his lips to indicate that Miki should remain absolutely silent. As the men came level with the door he opened it suddenly, knocking out one of the men instantly, and pulled the other into the room, clamping his hand over his mouth to prevent him from crying out. Miki started to drag the other man into the room but he was too heavy. Marcellus, keeping hold of the first man around the throat, his hand still over his mouth, stooped to help her, and at last they had both men in the room and the door safely shut.

'If you promise not to scream or raise the alarm, I will release you,' Marcellus told his captive. The man, whose eyes were wild with fear, nodded his agreement and Marcellus let him go, drawing his sword as a precaution.

'We mean you no harm,' he told him. 'All that we seek is a captive of your people, one of our people, whom we wish to take back to Pekeesh with us.'

'He is not in this building,' the man said, in a high, pipy voice.

'Where is he, then?'

'With the women, in the central keep.'

'And where is the keep in relation to the building we are now in?'

'This building is a disused temple on the outer wall. The keep is several hundred feet away, in the centre of the city.'

Marcellus nodded.

'Is there some way in which we may reach the central keep without being seen?'

'I imagine it could be achieved. It has never arisen.'

'It has now. Will you lead us to the central keep without attempting to raise the alarm?'

'You will kill me if I do.'

'You have my word on it.'

'Then I will lead you.'

'What is your name?'

'Llista.' He pronounced it 'Lee-yista'.

'Well, then, Llista, if you doubt my word, I will let you feel the blade of my sword, to familiarise yourself with its keenness. You are sure you know what is required of you?'

'To lead you to the central keep without raising the alarm.'

'And, of course, to get us safely inside.'

'That too.'

'Lead on, and remember that my blade is aligned with your kidneys. It will be a slow and agonising death for you.'

'You realise that I cannot enter the keep with you?'

'Why?'

'It is not permitted. The virgins are kept within the keep.'

'Our fellow countryman is also kept within the keep. Why is he permitted to be in there if you are not?'

'Allow me to explain. Certain of us are allowed within the keep to tend to the needs of the virgins, to assist in their bathing, to prepare their food, that sort of thing. That privilege is given to only a few of us. We are unskra. Some unskra have other tasks allotted to them, keeping the city clean and functioning. I am one of the other unskra. My task and that of my comrade is to keep this building from falling into disrepair.'

'And our fellow countryman, your prisoner?'

'He has been put in with the women so that there can be no hope of him surviving his visit to Prakussara.'

'Because he has been with the virgins, and that is not permitted?'

'No man who has looked on the face of a virgin who is not unskra, and one of the chosen unskra, must die,' Llista said.

'Very well. Now lead us to the central keep.'

'I would warn you that you cannot escape. Once you have looked on the faces of the virgins, you are dead meat!'

'Do not worry, Llista, I will not force you to enter the keep with us. Lead on!'

They went out into the corridor and exited the temple building. It was quiet and dark, a criss-cross of alleyways where the walls of the buildings were so tall Marcellus doubted the sun ever penetrated. They passed one or two unskra on their way to the keep, but they kept to the shadows and were quietly confident that no one had seen them. At last they arrived at the central keep, the entrance to which was an ornate porticoed affair, with some twenty stone steps leading up from the street level. Llista accompanied them as far as the stout double doors, and waited to see what Marcellus would do next.

'Is there a bell-pull, or do you just knock on the door?' he asked quietly. His sword was still pressed hard against Llista's ribs.

'I do not know. The situation has never arisen.'

'Knock on the door,' Marcellus directed him.

'You said you would not force me to enter the keep,' Llista wailed anxiously.

'Maybe I lied when I said that. Knock on the door.'

'I cannot, I am not chosen unskra!'

'My blade becomes impatient!' Marcellus said. 'It will cost me nothing to rid Prakussara of you. Knock!'

Reluctantly Llista raised his fist and hammered on the door, knowing that any apparent failure to knock loudly enough would result in his premature demise, something he was now certain would happen anyway. After what seemed an eternity, and several more knocks on the door, it swung open, and another unskra stood there, his mouth open with disbelief. Marcellus pushed Llista inside, and within a second had the other unskra unconscious on the mosaic floor. Again they were in a curved corridor, engraved similarly, with hieroglyphics made from thousands of tiny mosaic pieces, and here and there the symbol of the Moon God Khamen etched into the walls.

'Where now?' Marcellus demanded.

'Forgive me! I do not know! I have never been in the inner keep!' Llista said in his thin, pipy voice.

'There are no plans of the keep anywhere in the city? You do not know its layout?'

'I do not!'

'Then we will go this way,' Marcellus said, pointing to the left. They edged around the corridor hesitantly, Llista still leading the way, Marcellus holding his sword firmly against the man's ribs and keeping hold of Miki's hand. Eventually they came to a choice of directions, either through an enormous, ornately carved double door, or down a flight of stone steps that would take them below street level, and probably to the dungeons.

'Down the steps, little man.'

Marcellus took one of the flaming torches from its holder and pushed Llista onto the stairwell. After they had descended some ten steps, they curved round to the right and merged with a narrower spiral staircase where the stonework had worn away over a passage of considerable years. In some places the stone was worn down so far it almost touched the step below it. At last they reached the bottom, finding themselves standing in another passageway, leading off into the distance. A few paces away they could see a door. There was no sign of any guards.

'Kotsoteka!' Marcellus called, and immediately there were murmurings from up ahead, though he did not think any had answered his call, but were simply stirring from their slumbers. Set into the door was a small iron grill. Although it was dark within the cell, he could see that none of the occupants, of whom there were three, were Kotsoteka. They proceeded along the passageway, and in the space of ten minutes had passed a further five cells, none of which contained Kotsoteka. Abruptly the passageway ended in a solid stone wall, and they were forced to the conclusion that Kotsoteka was not being held in these particular dungeons. They retraced their steps, climbing the spiral staircase carefully, this time with Marcellus leading the way so that Llista could not push them down from his vantage point.

They emerged back into the curved corridor of the central keep. Ahead of them were the enormous double doors, which Marcellus believed must lead to some inner temple or chamber associated with the cult of the virgins, to the right was the doorway through which they entered, to the left more corridor, possibly more dungeons.

'Did you see the prisoner brought into the city?' he demanded of Llista.

'Yes. A bronzeskin. I saw him.'

'To which building was he taken?'

'Directly to this one.'

'And you do not know where the women reside within this building?'

'No.'

'Very well, we will try in here,' Marcellus said, approaching the double doors. Llista's face turned white.

'No! You cannot go in there!'

Marcellus swung round to face him.

'You said you did not know the layout of the interior of the central keep,' he said, raising his sword.

'It stands to reason!' Llista said, panicking. 'Those are the double doors to the inner temple of the handmaidens of Khamen!'

'It stands to reason, or else you have been lying!'

'Marcellus, when you came to Prakussara before, did you not come to this building when you abducted the women?' Miki asked. Llista's eyes opened wider than ever as he realised who the huge white warrior before him was.

'Marcellus! Marcellus of Barbessel! You have dared to return!'

'Be quiet!' Marcellus said angrily. To Miki, he said, 'No, we entered from above. Through these doors I am certain we will find Kotsoteka.' He turned back to the doors, and Llista made a dash for it, hoping to get to the entrance before Marcellus saw him go, but Miki stuck out her foot and he crashed against the floor. Marcellus hauled him to his feet and pinned him to the wall with one giant fist.

'If you do that again, I will slice you in two!' he said through half closed eyes. 'Do I make myself clear?'

'Perfectly,' squealed Llista, and to his horror he watched as Marcellus opened the doors.

'Well, well, Marcellus of Barbessel. Whatever are you doing here?' Marcellus' jaw dropped open as the doors swung open to reveal a score of unskra spearmen, and as they parted ranks, the tall, imposing figure of Vitellius strode towards them.

'I did not let them in!' Llista screamed. 'They forced me to lead them here!'

'Silence him,' Vitellius said, and a spearman impaled the luckless unskra through the heart. He died instantly.

'Well, Marcellus, you have not answered my question.'

'I killed you!' whispered Marcellus.

'Evidently, you did not, for I am here, talking to you now. Or do you believe that I have returned from the grave to haunt you?'

'I killed you, in the battle for Pekeesh!'

'Ah, yes, I remember the battle. But as I recall, you were deceived many times during that campaign. What was her name, the girl you slaughtered, believing her to be my dear Ravenna, yes, Cunyana, that was it.....'

Marcellus's fist clenched around the handle of his sword, but twenty spears were levelled at his chest. It was an empty, futile gesture. Vitellius had made certain that there were at least four men in front of him, protecting him.

'Take his sword,' he told them, and Marcellus was disarmed, without a struggle. 'Tie him up, and her.'

'I will kill you again if I have to!' breathed Marcellus. Vitellius laughed.

'You know, you are really far too serious, in your chosen profession. You should choose a vocation that allows you to have a sense of humour, my friend!'

'You never were, and never will be my friend!'

'Come now, after all we have been through together? Shar-Mak? Kerro's Drift? Horta? Mekhitar? And finally, no, not finally, though you evidently thought it so, Pekeesh, that great wasteland of savages. Marcellus, you were offered employment in my army once before. Reconsider that offer, for it still stands.'

'You stand for everything I am committed to fight against,' Marcellus said.

'But why? Why can we not settle our differences amicably? Why must we always be at each other's throats?'

'Because you are evil.'

'And you are not? Really, what makes you so certain that what you are doing is right, and what I am attempting to do is wrong? Who is to say that the grand scheme I have planned for the peoples of our glorious world will not ultimately benefit the vast majority of them?'

'The vast majority of those who are left alive after you have finished your slaughtering?'

'Marcellus, cast your mind back to the days when you were the protégé of Kestren. You believed everything he told you, of a new horizon in Heraklion, where there would be plenty for everyone.....'

'Kestren was a traitor!'

'Kestren served his purpose. He was placed at my disposal many years ago, to persuade you to my cause.'

'That he failed to do miserably.'

'He was overtaken by circumstances.'

'The circumstance of my early departure from Horta, no doubt?'

Vitellius inclined his head.

'Exactly so, my.....friend.'

'And because he failed to recruit me to your force, you had him executed.'

'Yes.'

'And now? What are you doing in the holy city?'

'Waiting for you, of course. I knew you were in Pekeesh, with your ignorant savage friends. I knew that if I could bring Kotsoteka here to Prakussara, you would come searching for him. And here you are.' Vitellius beamed happily. For his part, Marcellus was having extreme difficulty coming to terms with the fact that the man he had thought to have killed in Pekeesh was still very much alive.

'So. I am here. You have what you wanted. Let the girl go. She means nothing to you.'

'How noble of you!' sneered Vitellius.

'It is not a question of nobility. If what you wanted was me, then you have me. You do not need Miki. Allow her to leave, unmolested, and return to Warikeewa camp. And Kotsoteka, for that matter.'

'You are right, she means nothing to me.'

'Then allow her to go.'

'But she means something to you.'

'To me? She is a companion, nothing more.'

'So it would not matter to you if I were to dispose of her here and now?'

'I did not say that. She is daughter to the chief. She is my friend. The daughter of my friend. You do not need her. You have me.'

'She is the daughter of Keewa, then?'

'Yes. But your quarrel is not with the Warikeewa, it is with me.'

'Do not overestimate yourself, Marcellus. There are many like you, most of which I have disposed of. You are simply a thorn in my side. It seems that everywhere I turn, you are there, thwarting my plans.'

'I am pleased I have been able to succeed where others have failed.'

'It cannot continue, of course. I put off killing you many times in the past, I will not do so now.'

'I expected nothing else.'

'You will die, here in Prakussara.'

'And Miki, and Kotsoteka? What use are they to you?'

'I will keep them here, I think.'

Marcellus's heart sank.

'But why?'

'Because you do not wish it.'

'They are of no significance to you!'

'But they are to you!' Vitellius snarled. 'You care for them. Therefore they are important in this matter!'

'Let them go, Vitellius!'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Because you wish it!'

'Then what will you do with them?'

'That does not concern you. You will go to your death not knowing what has become of your friends. That will satisfy me enormously! Take them away!'

'Wait!' Marcellus cried, and Vitellius held up his hand.

'What is it?'

'You made the mistake once of not killing me where I stood.'

'In Hor-Lak. I recall the incident.'

'Are you going to make the same mistake again? Give me an opportunity to escape again? Surely you cannot be that stupid!'

'No, I am not that stupid. There is no escape, Marcellus. Your death warrant is sealed. Your death is certain.'

'I escaped from Prakussara once before.'

'So you did,' Vitellius said quietly, stroking his chin thoughtfully. 'Only now it is different.'

'In what way?'

'Security has been tightened within the city. You cannot escape.'

'It was easy enough getting in.'

'Ah, yes. But that was because I wanted you to get in, you see.'

Marcellus glared at him, knowing that what he said was true. It had been far too easy gaining entry to the city of Prakussara. He had known it, and dismissed it.

'Take them to the chamber of the handmaidens of Khamen,' Vitellius said. 'Then, when it is the right time, Kotsoteka and 'Angry Wolf' will be executed, and the daughter of the mighty chief of the 'mighty' Warikeewa of Pekeesh will be given to you.'