At the end of the corridor was a large chamber, and in the opposite wall of that chamber there was a door with an enormous gilded relief of a leaping flame carved on it. Four armed guards and a woman sat on cushions just outside the door. The woman wore a short, low-cut blue and silver tunic.

«Ho, Arllona,» said Mirdon. «I see you march forward in your career as a Free Prisoner. Now you can even dress as you please.»

Arllona smiled. «Or as pleases the Prison Keeper. I am much in his confidence, now.»

Mirdon laughed, a short, harsh laugh. «Or much in his bed. Well, I am not surprised. You had the soul of a whore when you served the Jade Masters. Doubtless you are now beyond the power of even the gods to change or improve you.»

Arllona's expression did not change at all. Apparently she was beyond caring about insults. She was short, only a few inches over five feet, and so sturdily built that she looked almost heavy. Gleaming dark hair flowed halfway down her back, and her tunic showed off firm full breasts and well-turned legs.

Jormin's voice cut through the chamber. «Enough of this unseemliness.» He stepped forward, half shoving Mirdon to one side, and faced the guards. «This Rauf was taken in the desert by Mirdon's patrol, in my presence. By my order he has been chosen to enter the Mouth of the Gods. He shall heal of his wounds, and then his time shall be decided.»

Three of the chamber guards surrounded Blade while the fourth unlocked the flame-decorated door. A click, a grinding noise, and Blade was being hustled through an arched doorway into a large dim chamber beyond.

As the door swung closed behind him, Blade had a final view of the chamber. Mirdon was standing rigidly erect, hands clasped behind his back, trying not to glare at the calmly arrogant Jormin. The woman Arllona, on the other hand, was trying not to stare at Blade. Just as the door cut off his vision, he saw her eyes rise to meet his. Then the door thudded shut, and Blade was alone for the first time since his capture.

Blade was also alone most of the time for the next couple of weeks. He had visitors twice a day. One of Jormin's guards brought him his food, and a physician came to check the healing of his wounded leg and face.

The chamber where Blade was confined apparently dated from several centuries before, when a dozen people might feed the Mouth of the Gods in a single night. It was large enough to comfortably house twenty or thirty people.

The sacrificial victims were privileged characters, so the chamber was furnished with all the luxury that Kano's wealth could arrange. The floor and walls were mosaics, the ceiling gilded, the furniture massive, richly carved, and set with silver and jewels. Tapestries covered every patch of wall that wasn't covered with mosaics, and a delicately carved screen stood before the one window.

The screen could easily be folded aside to let in more light and air. Nothing else protected the window. A quick look told Blade that the window was quite useless as an escape route in any case. Below it lay a sheer drop of more than a hundred feet of smooth black wall falling to a roof garden far below. There was nothing in the chamber to make a hundred-foot rope strong enough to hold Blade's weight, and nothing to tie one to if he could make it.

Obviously, good treatment for the sacrificial victims didn't extend to making it easy for them to escape! Blade doubted that he had much chance of getting out of this chamber without help, or much chance of finding that help. Mirdon might not like his being in Jormin's hands, but the officer was just as determined to kill him as was the priest.

It looked like there was nothing to do but wait. He'd done it before and could do it again. Meanwhile, the food was good and his wounds were healing fast. He would be at his full strength and speed when they came to take him out of the chamber to the Mouth of the Gods. That was the one time Blade knew he would have a chance to escape, or at least take a few Kanoans with him as he went down.

Blade's window gave him a view clear out across the Gardens of Stam to the outer wall and the countryside beyond it. He could see many miles, out to where green fields and groves and yellow-brown hills met the luminous blue sky. The distance first blurred, then destroyed details. But he could easily see the glint of metal and the dust clouds as troops moved in and out of the city.

He could also see that the Raufi were striking harder and harder against Kano. Hardly a night went by without a distant spot of fire pulsing in the darkness. Hardly a dawn came without showing a thin pillar of smoke rising in the same place.

The strain on the Kanoans grew rapidly. The enforcement of the curfew grew more rigorous. By night the streets of the great city were as silent as a graveyard. Blade noticed that instead of six guards in the roof garden below his window, there were now four. A few days more, and there were only two. Blade wondered if the guards outside his door were also being taken away to reinforce the walls and the mounted patrols. Even if they were, it wouldn't help him much. Nothing lay beyond his door except the labyrinth of the prison. He would have to crack the secret of that labyrinth, then fight his way into the open past the guards at the main door.

So the waiting game would have to go on. It would not go on much longer, though. Every day the doctor nodded approvingly at the way Blade's wounds were healing. It was only a matter of time before he was a clean and unblemished sacrifice, fit for the Mouth of the Gods.

Blade awoke in darkness. He did not wake in silence. Softly, but unmistakably, a key was turning in the lock of the chamber door. Blade was instantly alert, but he lay motionless.

The faint metallic clicking continued. Whoever was trying to get in was obviously having a little trouble with the lock. For Jormin's guards or the doctor, the door always slipped open easily. Who else could be interested in entering the chamber, and at this time of night? Could Mirdon have decided to strike back at Jormin by striking down Blade? That would mean a deadly feud with the Consecrated; was Mirdon desperate enough for that?

More clicking, then a sharp, familiar clink as the bolt sprang clear. More metallic sounds-a key being withdrawn. Then Blade saw movement in the darkness as the chamber door opened.

The door opened slowly and silently. Whoever was pushing it hoped to sneak up on a sleeping Blade. At any time in any Dimension, that was something more easily hoped for than done. Blade continued to lie still, making his breathing regular and lowering his eyelids until he could just barely see.

Suddenly the door swung wide, with a faint creak of hinges. Blade saw clearly out into the chamber beyond. Pale moonlight and a dying torch showed that it was empty. The light also silhouetted a small figure standing motionless in the doorway. Blade caught a suggestion of long hair flowing down over square shoulders.

The figure moved forward, shutting the door behind it, then stood still once more. Blade's ears picked up the faint rustle of fabric sliding over skin, the even fainter whisper of clothes landing on the floor. A moment of silence, then bare feet started across the floor toward him.

Blade was no longer tense. He saw that it was Arllona walking across the chamber toward him. Arllona, completely nude. Blade continued to lie still and watch admiringly as Arllona materialized out of the darkness.

Her body was full and abundant. But there was no excess to any of it, no flabbiness, no softness. Her magnificent breasts quivered gently, delicately, with each step. Her nipples were large, dark, perfectly centered. Her waist was surprisingly slim, so trim and neat that her breasts looked almost out of proportion. Her hips flared out widely, so that her gracefully curved legs looked almost too short. Her thighs cradled a perfect triangle of dark hair that seemed almost too bushy. Everything about this woman was «almost» out of proportion. Nothing really was, when you looked more closely. Somehow it all arranged itself in harmony, and the result was a robust, earthy beauty. Blade found his breath quickening in anticipation. As Arllona moved still closer, he saw that anticipation-or something-must be working in her too. Her lips were slightly parted, and her nipples had risen to firm points.