The uneven light and drifting dust made it difficult to judge the size of the place, but Garth estimated that it was a good fifty feet to the far wall.

He turned around to see what lay behind him and discovered that he was only a few feet from the wall. He saw no door, no windows, and wondered where the sunlight was coming from. He looked up.

The room extended upward incredibly far, easily a hundred feet; graceful columns soared out from the walls into elaborate vaulting, the details lost in distance and shadow. Much of that vaulting was in disarray; a large section of the roof was missing and, Garth realized, a large part of the wall directly behind him was gone as well. He had not noticed it sooner because the wall was intact to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, but from that point up, most of it was gone.

That explained where most of the rubble had come from.

The sunlight was spilling in through the break, and the steep angle indicated the middle part of the day-though Garth could not be certain which day it was. Dust was drifting everywhere, sparkling and blurring in the beams of light; surely, Garth told himself, it would have settled if more than one day, or at most two, had passed since the wall was shattered.

The overman considered his situation. He had no clear idea where he was; he could not even be certain he was still in Ur-Dormulk, but the presence of the dead soldier implied that Garth was still wherever he had fallen when the immense homed monster had burst up from beneath. It seemed reasonable to assume that the break in the wall and roof had been made by the creature. Of the beast itself, however, there was no trace, save a faint, lingering, unpleasant odor; the sound of its heartbeat was gone. The silence, in fact, was nearly total; Garth felt as if he could hear his own breathing, his own heartbeat, and perhaps even the faint hiss of the dust sifting down onto the stones. The air, too, was almost still; no wind could be heard blowing around the broken columns overhead.

That did not necessarily mean that he was safe from the monster; it night be lurking just beyond the walls.

Almost anything might be out there, Garth thought. He had no way of knowing that there had been only one monster. Even leaving monsters aside, he could reasonably assume that any humans he might find would be hostile. After all, he had been attacked for no reason he knew of, and now any survivors might consider him responsible for awakening the creature-though Garth was sure it had been the blow of the human's axe on the thing's horn that had done that.

He could not in good faith deny all responsibility. He had been investigating where he was not welcome, and perhaps he had interfered in things best left alone. He had not, he had to admit, known what he was doing. He had apparently been the indirect cause of more destruction; it seemed that ever since he had first touched the Sword of Bheleu, he brought destruction wherever he went.

That was not of immediate concern, however. He had no desire to sit where he was all day. The sun was reassuringly warm. He was stiff and sore, with several minor wounds, but he was well rested and thirsty. It was time to be up and about.

Garth stretched, hoping that the movement would not reopen any of the cuts he had received in the fighting and his fall, and climbed down off the slab.

He looked himself over carefully; he still wore his mail, which was dented and twisted here and there, with several broken links. The black metal was stained brown in several places, but Garth did not think any of the blood was his own.

His breeches, too, were bloodied but intact, though no one would ever again take them for new. One leg had come untucked from his boot top; he stuffed it back in.

The boots themselves seemed sound, but something had gashed one of them across the instep; Garth doubted it was still watertight.

His sword, axe, and helmet were gone, but his belt was still in place and his dagger still in its sheath; he was not completely unarmed. He recalled that the sword-Galt's sword-had been broken. That was unfortunate.

Nothing remained of his surcoat but tatters; he removed them. His cloak was missing.

He glanced around, seeing nothing but broken stone, scattered debris, drifting dust, and sunlight. There was no sign of life, nothing that could be considered threatening. He decided to take a complete inventory. Slowly, he removed his coat of mail.

The gambeson beneath was filthy, soaked through with sweat and blood, and pierced in several places, though Garth could not remember feeling anything stab through it. He untied it and began to peel it off.

Blood had clotted inside it, and yanked painfully at his fur and flesh as he tore the garment away, but at last he managed to get it off.

He looked himself over, tugging here and there at matted patches of his sparse black fur. He found half a dozen scratches, none of which he could remember receiving. All were healing adequately, though he had reopened at least one when he removed the gambeson. Bruises were more numerous; one arm in particular ached.

He had nothing to clean his wounds with, save his own saliva; he moistened one of the scraps from his surcoat in his mouth and then dabbed at the cuts with it. He had kept medicinal salves in a pouch on his belt, but that was missing; he was not sure what had happened to it. Only his dagger remained on his belt; the pouch and his purse were gone. A wild slash might have cut the pursestrings and the strap that held the pouch, he thought; he had been fortunate that such a blow had not done far worse, if that was what had occurred.

Though the sun had seemed almost hot on his face when he first awoke, he found himself growing chilly with only his fur protecting his chest and back; reluctantly, he donned the stiff, stained gambeson again and pulled the battered mail back on.

That done, he considered his next step.

He had several things he wanted to do. He wanted to find the Book of Silence, do whatever he could to damage the cult of Aghad, and see what had become of the monster, whether it had gone on a rampage or just settled down quietly somewhere. He felt responsible for it and hoped that it had not done too much damage. He had caused more than enough death and destruction already, without the aid of any monsters. He might also want to investigate the attack on him, to find out whether the overlord had sent those soldiers. If he had, retaliation might be called for. Garth had come to Ur-Dormulk on a peaceful errand-relatively peaceful, at any rate, vengeful though it was-and the trouble had begun only when he was attacked without warning or cause.

If the monster was on a rampage, he might want to do something about that, too-but he was not about to try to defeat anything that large without a great deal of help, preferably magical.

All of that could wait, however, because his first priority, as always, was survival. He did not know where he was; he was stranded here without food or water or decent weapons.

Water seemed like the most important concern. He had the dagger and no visible foes, so weapons were not urgent, and if he grew sufficiently desperate for food, there was the corpse of the soldier. He hoped that it would not come to that. He had never eaten human flesh, nor wanted to; no overman had, so far as he knew, despite what some of the nastier human legends suggested. The idea of eating what had once been a fellow sentient being was slightly revolting. Still, if it came to a choice of that or starvation, he did not intend to starve.

Water, then, was what he had to find.

If he was still where he thought he was, in Ur-Dormulk, then water should be available one way or another. He had not forgotten that lake.

He saw no sign of water in the vast chamber about him, however. He would have to find a way out.