'You can teach me. You'll have a hundred years, after all.

'No, she said. 'You move quicker than that.

Edeard led them along Pink Canal tunnel, then off into the drain fissure until they were standing underneath the cellar closest to where Mirnatha was being held captive.

'I can sense her, Kanseen said excitedly. 'The poor thing's terrified.

'Everyone ready? Edeard asked.

When they assured him they were, he said: 'I think I can do this so we all go up together. Remember, keep yourself concealed until they know I'm there, then take them out. And for the Lady's sake don't call out. You're not actually falling, it only feels like it.

'Wait, Boyd said. 'It feels like we're falling when we're going up,

'Yes. And no; I don't know why.

Macsen clicked the safety catch off his pistol. 'Let's just go. See you all up there.

'All right, Edeard said. He concealed himself, and waited until the others had vanished from his sight, then told the city to take them up.

The cellar he slid up into was barely high enough for him to stand upright. It was a simple oblong box of a room, with dark walls inset with narrow alcoves, and a shallow vaulted ceiling of lierne ribs. Ancient fishing nets and tishcrab cages were piled up along one wall. One doorway opened on to a spiral stair up to the smoking caverns above. The kidnappers were sitting at two wooden tables in front of it, slowly consuming a quantity of food. There was no beer or wine, just water, Edeard saw. Whoever had organized this had chosen well. These men had a ruthless discipline; they'd use the pistols resting on the table without a qualm. Just standing among them made him worry for the squad.

One of them started to look round the room, frowning. 'Did you hear something?

Edeard made for the half-open door. He wiggled his way round through the gap, not daring to breathe. Behind him, the kidnappers were picking their pistols off the table. Powerful longtalk voices were directing questions at the guards upstairs.

Edeard looked along the low corridor. The smell of fish and oak-smoke was heavy in the air. Directly opposite him was a door to the cellar where Mirnatha was being held. It was made from tyewood planks three inches thick, with iron hinges that had recently been re-set in the walls. There were heavy bolts on either side, and both sets were drawn shut. He braced himself against the wall, summoned up the full strength of his third hand, then leapt forwards.

His concealment dropped as he was halfway across the corridor. The door burst apart as he smashed it with his third hand, putting up no more resistance than if it had been made of glass.

A shout in the cellar behind: 'Hey! as their farsight caught him. Then he was through the smashed door, and folding his third hand protectively round the dazed little girl.

Three pistol shots boomed out behind him, appallingly loud in the confines of the underground chambers. His farsight caught Kanseen flicker into view behind one of the kidnappers sitting at the table. He was rising to his feet. Kanseen's pistol was aimed at the back of his skull. She pulled the trigger, and his face exploded outwards in a spray of gore. Kanseen vanished again. Dinlay was firing into the side of another kidnapper; his mind ablaze with rage and fear. He vanished. Macsen appeared on the other side of the cellar.

Edeard's pistol was swinging round to line up on one of the two men guarding Mirnatha as he charged across the cellar. It was hardly a perfect aim, but he fired anyway, getting off four shots. More pistol shots echoed round him. Shouts and longtalk howls behind him created a bedlam of white-noise. The guard he'd shot at grunted in shock, and stared down at his tunic to see a huge stain of blood spreading across his chest. Two bullets punched Edeard, knocking him to one side. One bullet hit his third hand directly above Mirnatha's head. Then he was squashed up against her, closing his arms round her shaking shoulders as she screamed a soprano wail that never ended. More pistol shots. One slammed into his neck — fired by the uninjured guard. Edeard reached out with his third hand, his strength shoving through the man's own shield. He ripped at the man's brain. The skull cracked, blood pulsed out of his ears as he crumpled to the ground.

Another bullet smacked into Edeard. He shifted his farsight focus to see the injured guard slumped against a wall; holding his pistol up, arm wavering about. He was drawing breath in feeble gulps as his blood spilled onto the floor. Edeard's third hand wrenched the gun from his numb fingers. Rotated it a hundred and eighty degrees. Pulled the trigger.

Three more shots from outside, and the shouting cut off.

'Edeard? Macsen shouted.

'All right! In here.

'Are you okay?

'Wait, he ordered, tightening his physical hold around the girl, keeping his shield as hard as rock. Mirnatha had fainted. He instinctively knew something was wrong. After the first guard had gone down, the second one had fired. Two shots had struck him, and a third was aimed at Mirnatha. They couldn't possibly have come from just one pistol.

The squad were tumbling out of the cellar opposite.

'Wait, he called again. 'Don't come in.

'What's happening? Boyd demanded.

Edeard knew he should have been delighted that all his friends were alive. Instead he scanned round and round the room, looking for the slightest tell tale sign. The cellar floor revealed nothing. There were no human feet standing on it. Edeard used his third hand to shatter the bench the guards had been using. Nothing. He crunched the second bench and all the chairs. 'Lady!

He lifted up a length of splintered wood, and sent it scything round the room. Kanseen and Dinlay were crouched hallway down the corridor, pistols held ready, their faces registering bewilderment as their farsight followed his actions. Edeard swung the wood through three orbits of the cellar without connecting to anything. He scraped it along the wall at waist-height, jabbing it viciously into every alcove as he performed a complete circuit. Again, nothing.

'You're good, he acknowledged, and reached out with his farsight to feel what the cellar floor and walls were feeling, hunting for that elusive pressure of human feet. His perception swept back and forth. Then, finally, the last kidnapper was revealed.

'Very clever, Edeard said, and meant it. He turned round, still keeping Mirnatha centred within his protective telekinesis. He aimed his pistol up at the ceiling to one side of the door, and fired the remaining two shots in quick succession.

The kidnapper's concealment fizzled out as the bullets struck, revealing him clinging to the small lierne ribs like some human spider. He fell inertly to the floor, landing with a dull crack. It was the same man who'd snatched Mirnatha from her room.

Edeard walked over to him and stared down. 'She is six years old, and you used her, he exclaimed in disgust.

The man's mouth opened. Blood spilled out. He somehow managed a small sneer. 'Rot in Honious, a weak longtalk sputtered. Then his thoughts were dimming. Edeard kept his farsight on those final flutters of emotion, searching for the slightest hint of regret. Some explanation of why a person could be so cold.

More blood bubbled out of the kidnapper's mouth as he exhaled for the last time. Yet Edeard could still sense his thoughts, enfeebled wisps of their original strength and pattern. The body had died, but they persisted. Then they moved.

Edeard gulped in shock, and took a step back as the kidnapper's soul diffused gracefully out of his body. The spectral entity hovered over the corpse for a few moments, then ascended into the ceiling and was lost to Edeard's farsight.

'Did you sense that? he asked the squad in astonishment.

'Edeard? Kanseen asked. 'Is it safe?