"Now what the -" he began, and went to pick up the table. Ajayi stopped him, putting her hands on his forearms.

"No!" she said, and met his gaze. "This might mean..."

The old man realised, and quickly got up from his seat and went into the hot, bright space of the games room. By the time he came back from calling for an attendant, Ajayi was leaning over the table with a smile on her face, watching as a pattern of spots slowly appeared on the dominoes they had placed there.

"There, you see!" Quiss said, sitting down, bright-faced with sweat and triumph. Ajayi nodded happily.

"Gosh," said a small voice, "it's awfwy hot in here."

"That was quick," Quiss said to a waiter as it appeared from the games room's bright interior. It nodded.

"Welw," it said, "I was on my way here to see what you wanted fo" wunch. But I could take you-wanswer, if you wike."

Ajayi was smiling at the waiter, finding its speech impediment more funny than she knew she ought. She was just in a good mood, she supposed. Quiss said, "Certainly you can; it's...' he glanced at Ajayi, who nodded, and Quiss continued, "... they both disappear in a blaze of radiation. Got that?"

" 'They bofe disappea" in a bwaze of wadiation.' Yes, I fink I've got that. Twy not to be too wong; see you water..." It turned and waddled back through the games room, head down, mumbling the answer to itself, its little blue boots sparkling with reflected light from the fish under the glass floor, its steps and voice dopplering oddly as it passed a clock face.

"Well..." Quiss said, and leaned back in his chair, taking a deep breath, putting his hands behind his head and resting one booted foot on the balcony balustrade, "I think we might just have got it this time, you know that?" He looked at Ajayi. She smiled and shrugged.

"Let us hope so."

Quiss snorted at such faint-hearted lack of belief, and looked out over the blank white plain. His thoughts returned to that odd experience in the room deep in the castle's bowels. What was the point of that hole, that absurdly named planet and the link between here and there? Why the ability actually to make those people do things? (He had, reluctantly, discounted the idea that it was only he who had this intriguing capacity.)

It was most frustrating. He was still in the process of trying to get his contacts in the attendants to talk about this new aspect of the castle's mystery. So far they had been quite unforthcoming, despite all his cajoling and threats. They were frightened, no doubt about that.

He wondered just how immutable the castle's society really was. Might it be possible, for example, for them - him - to carry out a coup? After all, what god-given right did the seneschal have to run the place? How had he come to power? Just how closely did the two sides in the Wars supervise the castle?

Whatever the answers, at least it gave him something else to think about apart from the games. There might be another way out. There just might; never assume things were set and certain. That was a lesson he'd learned long ago. Even traditions change.

Maybe this run-down heap was approaching some sort of catastrophe curve-edge, some change. Once, no doubt, it had been all its architects had intended, perhaps full of people, intact, not crumbling, fortress as well as prison... but now Quiss felt its pervasive air of decay, tottering senility made it - if he could find the right key, or weapon - easy prey. The seneschal was only slightly impressive; nobody else was at all. He - along with the woman - was the most important person in the place, he was sure. It was all for them, it revolved around them, only really made sense if they were here, and that itself was a kind of power (as well as a comfort - he liked to feel he was, as he had been in the Wars, part of an elite).

Ajayi sat, wondering whether to wait for the small waiter to return before she went on reading her book. It was a strange story about a man, a warrior, from an island near one of the planet's poles; he was called Grettir, as far as she could make out from the translation she was reading. He was very brave except for being afraid of the dark. She wanted to go on reading, no matter what the response was to their riddle-answer. Either way she couldn't imagine anything happening for a while.

They were both sitting there, quiet, absorbed, a few minutes later when, from the bright, air-shimmering depths of the games room a small voice said,

"Sowwy..."

Outside the Belvedere pub, in Penton Street, a table stood on the pavement, guarding the pub's open cellar doors. They must be expecting a delivery from the brewers, Graham thought. The table, wood and formica, standing over the two opened traps of the cellar, reminded him of the chair in the corridor of the School, just before he left.

He was almost at the top of the low, building-disguised hill now; the road had all but flattened out. A few cars went along Penton Street, but it was quiet after the bustle of Pentonville Road, which he had just crossed. He looked over to the far side of the street, at some shops, a cafe. The area seemed unable to make up its collective mind whether it was run-down or not.

A copy of that day's Sun newspaper tried to wrap itself round Graham's feet, caught in a sudden dusty gust of wind. He stepped out of it and let it flatten against some roadside railings. He smiled, recalling Slater's apoplectic reaction to Sun readers. The best time, Graham thought, was when - only a few weeks ago - they had been sitting in Hyde Park. Slater had decided that as they were all going to be around during the summer anyway, they should arrange days out, and had therefore organised a Saturday afternoon picnic, having made up his mind on the Friday that the following day would be hot and sunny, which it was.

Slater had invited Graham, Sara, and a young man Graham assumed was Slater's latest conquest, a short, muscled ex-soldier called Ed. Ed had short fair hair and wore cut-off jeans as shorts, and a green Army T-shirt. He sat on the grass slowly reading a Stephen King novel.

They had talked, at Slater's instigation, about what they would do if they won a million pounds. Sara refused to play; ask her if she ever did win, she said. Ed thought carefully, and said he'd buy a big car, and a pub somewhere in the country. Slater didn't know what else he'd do, but he'd had this great idea for using at least some of the money; go to the American South, hire a crop-dusting plane and a willing pilot, fill the tanks with a mixture of chilli sauce and indelible black ink, then fly over the biggest Ku Klux Klan march of the year. That would make their eyes water; paint the mothers! Yippee!

Graham said he would use the money to create an ultimate work of art... it would be a map of London, with every single street and house shown, and on it would be traced - in black ink, funnily enough - the path, the route that each individual person in London took that day, whether by train, tube, bus, car, helicopter, plane, wheelchair, boat, or on foot.

Sara laughed, but not unkindly. Ed thought it would be difficult to arrange. Slater pronounced the idea boring, and said that it would be boring even if the map was coloured and/or you used different-coloured inks for the trails, and anyway, his was a much better idea all round. Graham thought Slater sounded a bit drunk, and didn't reply-he just sat with a knowing smile on his face, and grinned briefly at Sara, who smiled back.

She wore a light summer dress with a high, elegant neck, and a big white hat. She had on white shoes with round toes and rather old-fashionedly large clumpy heels, and silk or silk-look stockings, or tights, which Graham thought were unnecessary on such a warm day. She leant against a tree, looking beautiful. When she put her head back, and put her arm behind her neck, he kept glancing, quickly, ashamed, at the dark length of curled hair in the exposed armpit.