"Central Tower, second level," she told the man, and they walked through the six, noting how the dust was heaping around their bases, and that it looked untouched, like sand piling around an impeding stone or dead tree. They were right under the Central Tower, and ahead was an entrance, with black steps going up to it. The steps had sand filling the back of the treads. The doorway into the Tower had had a door, but it was slanting half off its hinges, and they walked straight into the long passage, as big as a hall, that bisected the building. Near the entrance were the machines that had once, on a system of weights and pulleys, carried people to the top of the building, but they were disused now. Stairs went up. Feet had recently used those stairs: dusty footprints were on every step. The first level showed a corridor running high and wide to where a light came in through a broken window. The guard was walking just behind Mara, his knife in one hand, his club in the other. He said, "If someone is in front, then get behind me. If someone attacks from behind, then run up the stairs but keep me in sight." The stairs to the second level were steep and there were many of them. They arrived safely, having seen no one. Again there was the long, empty corridor, doors opening off it, as many as thirty or forty doors.

"I shall go in first," said the man. "No, I have my orders."

And they began on a systematic inspection of the rooms. Some had had recent occupants. There were discarded containers, a roll of stained and torn bedding, old clothes like rags left on the floor. Everything was dusty. No people. Where had they gone? "North," said the guard. "They've all gone up North." There was the heavy, sickly smell of poppy, and there were whiffs of ganja, but not as strong.

Then, at the eleventh or twelfth attempt — they were losing count — the guard opened a door, stepped smartly back because of what he saw and stood to one side to let her in, with his knife held out in front of him. "Be careful now," he said.

Mara saw three bodies, lying with their heads to the opposite wall, very still. Asleep... or dead? The smell was horrible: a concentration of fumes and sickness. The guard briefly retched, but stopped himself, holding the back of the hand with the knife in it to his mouth. His eyes, staring at the bodies, were appalled, shocked, afraid. Mara would have liked to run away, but she made herself walk in. She bent over the body nearest to her, whose face was hidden by an arm, probably to keep off light falling painfully into his eyes, and saw that this man was so ill, he was nearly dead. His breathing was feeble, coming at long, irregular intervals, and his eyes were half open. He could die on any one of these light, gasping breaths. A Mahondi. The second body was indisputably a corpse. Again, a Mahondi, and there was a gash across his throat, and a pool of glazing blood.

Now Mara knew, because of the shape of the head, what she would see. She knelt beside Dann, who was prone. She turned him over. He was drugged senseless. His face was covered in sores. On his arms and legs were sores and scabs on dry, flaky skin. His eyes were glued with pus. His whole body was festering, and sick, thin flesh clinging to bones.

"Dann," she said, "it's Mara."

He did not open his eyes but he groaned. He tried to speak between gummed lips. "Mara," he said, and muttered and groaned, until at last she understood what he was saying: "I killed the bad one."

And now, at least partially enlightened, Mara looked again at the face of the dead man and the face of the nearly dead one and saw they were alike. Brothers, perhaps — or could have been. Dann was here because he had been a prisoner, certainly of these two men, but most of all because of his own ancient and terrible obsession.

"He was bad," said Dann, in a child's voice. "Mara, he was the bad man."

In a corner stood the can Dann had carried so far, when they travelled here, and in it slopped a little sound of water when she shook it. She poured water into that sick, foul-smelling mouth, and his lips reached up towards it as if they were creatures on their own account, desperate for water.

"Can you get up?" she asked.

Of course he could not get up, but Mara had said it because she could not connect this poor, sick thing with the lithe and light Dann she knew. The guard gave her the knife and the club and, his face screwed with disgust, easily lifted the starved body into his arms. Around the clear space where Dann had been was a litter of lumps of black, sticky, poppy stuff, pipes, matches, and bags of bright green, dried leaf. Mara quickly took the matches and hid them. The guard looked at her strangely: he had never known that you could lack matches.

She looked at the dying man and the guard said, "That one won't be alive tonight." And in fact it looked as if he had died already: he was very still.

And so Mara and the guard, with Dann in his arms, went back down the corridor to the stairs, down the stairs to the first level, and down more stairs to the ground level. All the way Dann lay limp, but now his eyes were open. At the foot of the stairs the guard laid him down to take a rest, and Dann muttered, "Water, water," and Mara gave him all that was left in the can — which she had not been able to leave behind. Outside the Tower, Dann put up his arm to shield his face, and this encouraged Mara, that he had that much strength. And then they went back through the tunnel, Mara holding up the torch. Near the entrance a couple of girls came towards them.

"Where are all the people?" asked Mara.

They were rigid with terror — of her, or of the club and the knife she held, and pressed past, backs to the earth wall. "Isn't there anyone left?" Mara persisted.

"Why should we stay? What for? We're off this afternoon." And they began to run as fast as they could. Mara heard, "Mahondi spies." "They're spies."

Mara had Dann beside her in the chair, the guard who had carried him on the other side. Dann groaned and his eyes rolled. The movement of the chair was making him sick. The four chairs jogged their way back to the Mahondi quarter, slowly, because the runner in Mara's chair was finding it hard to pull three of them. Mara stopped them at Orphne's house. Dann would end up there anyway. She did not want the Kin to see him in this state. When the guard lifted out Dann the four runners came to stare at him, recognising him. Their faces, and those of the guards, staring down at Dann, had that look that puts the observer at a distance, like a judge pronouncing sentence. Dann was going to die, those faces said. And the young men thankfully turned away, the porters back to their chairs, the guards to their barracks, away from the ill luck of death.

Mara told the guard to lay Dann on a bed, and thanked him and saw him, too, hasten away. Mara found Orphne stirring cordials in her dispensary, and showed her Dann. Orphne lifted Dann's hand, saw how it fell, apparently lifeless. "So this is the famous Dann," she said; and as she stood there, in a white, floaty dress, a red flower in her hair, she seemed to have walked into that room out of another life, or truth.

"I thought you were as bad as I was likely to see," she said, and then, "Let's start." She went into her medicine room and came back with a strong-smelling drink. Between them, the two women got most of it into Dann, because he did swallow at last when choking became imminent, and went on swallowing, slowly, mechanically. "Good," said Orphne.

And now she took off her white dress and stood there in her long, flouncy, white knickers, her big breasts loose, and said, "If you don't want that outfit to be filthy, take it off." Mara removed her clothes — Meryx's. She could not stop herself looking enviously at Orphne's breasts, when hers were still mere plumpnesses on her chest. Orphne saw her looking and said, "You had nothing at all there when I first saw you. Now, lift."