Down here it really did look like an alien planet. And for all its bizarre, fascinating strangeness, it was an ugly place, as ghastly as an open wound.

When they paused, Serena looked down at a four inch-wide crack in the hard-packed dirt that zigzagged across the road and on into the forest as far as she could see, and she murmured, "So much for the popular lovely image of Atlantis as paradise; this place is beginning to look more like somebody's idea of hell."

The words were barely out of her mouth when the ground beneath them shuddered and heaved. Serena would have fallen if Merlin hadn't caught her arms. For what seemed like minutes, she held on to him and tried to keep her balance, hearing the crash of trees and boulders and the indescribable sound of the very earth writhing in torment.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the quake ended. Silence was absolute for a full minute, and then a few birds cheeped and sang tentatively.

"It's over," Merlin said. "For now, at least. Are you. all right?"

"That's a loaded question." Serena adjusted her pack when he released her arms, and tried to conjure a smile as she looked up at him. "My first earthquake. To be honest, I didn't like it much. There'll be more, won't there?"

He nodded. "And probably worse as we get closer to the end. We should always be on guard, and try to stay away from the more dangerous areas, where there could be rock slides, for instance, or falling trees."

"Yeah." She was staring down at the crack in the road, which was now a couple of inches wider. She swallowed hard. "I'd rather not become a permanent part of the lost continent."

Merlin took her hand in his. "Come on. We'll move off the road but keep it in sight for a while."

Serena was more than willing to move; that crack in the earth unnerved her. And she was grateful for his reassuring grasp, though she dared not say anything about it. Not so much because she didn't want Merlin to know she was jittery, but because she didn't want to call undue attention to the contact between them. As he had said, what they had to do here would be difficult enough without… that.

The sun was well up now, so they had no trouble seeing when they moved into the forest. But even without darkness the forest evoked a creepy feeling, Serena decided, eyeing the distorted, stunted trees and listening to bird sounds-she thought they were bird sounds, anyway-that were alien to her ears. It was impossible to adjust completely to the strangeness of the surroundings, she decided, because everything that was odd affected the senses in an overwhelmingly primitive way.

This place looked strange, sounded strange, smelled strange, and definitely felt strange.

Merlin stopped suddenly, and Serena followed suit, her wandering mind recalled to more pressing concerns when she saw that they were about to have their first contact with the citizens of this alien place. Powerless citizens. Serena could sense no power at all emanating from them, but she sensed in them a great deal of brute strength.

The men, three of them, approached after a momentary hesitation when they first saw the strangers. Their eyes were fixed on Merlin; as far as Serena could see, not once did any of the three even glance at her. But she didn't really think about that because she was so busy staring herself. At them. And the fine hairs on the nape of her neck were stirring in a primitive response to what she saw.

Now she knew what "wrongness" Merlin had sensed earlier.

"May we be of service, My Lord?" the first asked in a courteous and deferential tone as they halted before Merlin and Serena. The man had to look up quite a ways to meet the Master wizard's black eyes.

Merlin didn't react visibly to the men, nor did he correct or question the assumption of his rank, and when he replied, his tone was uncharacteristically careless, even arrogant. "No, I think not."

Still respectful, the same man said, "You are a stranger to Atlantia?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yes, though I don't see why that should concern you," Merlin replied, bored.

The man ducked his head slightly, as if in apology, but his eyes remained on Merlin's face. "No offense was intended, My Lord. We see few strangers here these days, and I merely wished to be of service. If you should be interested in trading or selling your property, I'm sure I could arrange a viewing with the Mountain Lords."

"My property?"

"The woman, My Lord. Her coloring makes her rare. She is your concubine?"

That caught Serena's attention. "I-" she began indignantly, only to be silenced when Merlin's hand squeezed hers in warning. The man still hadn't looked at her.

"She is mine," Merlin replied calmly.

"The Mountain Lords are always greatly interested in powerless women, My Lord, particularly when they possess rare coloring and have not yet been affected by the Curtain. My Lord Varian, especially, would pay any price for her."

Serena, still struggling with shock and incensed by the assumption that she was any man's property- concubine, for God's sake!-tried to make sense of the man's words. The "Mountain Lords" had to be the male wizards, she decided, but what in hell was the "Curtain"?

"I have no desire to be rid of her," Merlin told the man, his tone still bored.

The man inclined his head. "If you should change your mind, My Lord, I can be found in the village to the west. My name is Payne."

"I'll remember that. Good day."

"My Lord." Payne inclined his head again and half bowed, his two companions did likewise, and the three men strode off toward their village.

Putting aside, for the moment, her outrage at being called a concubine, Serena said, "Richard, what the hell's happened here? Did you see them? They looked like… like Neanderthals. As if they'd regressed physically. Is that possible?"

Merlin gazed after the men, frowning. "Neanderthals… yes, they did resemble ancient man. Sloping forehead, overhanging brow, jutting jaw. Much shorter than modern man, heavily muscled, conspicuously hairy."

With a shudder Serena said, "They made my skin crawl. Even before Payne offered to sell me for you."

"They were definitely hostile, despite Payne's so-polite tone," Merlin said, looking down at her. "His respect and courtesy were no more real than his smile. He was afraid of me, afraid and resentful, I think. I was recognized instantly as a wizard, and he just as quickly assumed you were powerless. Why? They had no power and shouldn't have been able to sense mine."

Serena pulled her hand gently from his and took a couple of steps to sit on a fallen tree. She was trying to think, fighting to overcome the aversion she'd felt toward the three men. "Well, if all the powerless men here look like them, and the wizards don't, it would be easy to see the difference."

"True. But if their women, the powerless women, also look like throwbacks to the Ice Age, then why did he assume you were powerless?"

"The women must not look like them." She frowned. "We aren't in the Ice Age, right? I mean, those men don't look the way men are supposed to look whenever we are?"

Merlin untangled the question silently, then shrugged. "No, we aren't in the Ice Age; we haven't traveled seventy thousand years back in time. The men of this time should look very much like modern man in most respects. A few inches shorter, on the average, but they should certainly not look like Neanderthals."

"Is it possible they've regressed?"

Merlin shook his head slowly. "I think not. Neanderthals died out; we aren't directly descended from them. But I suppose these people here might have… mutated."

"What could have caused it?"

He joined her on the fallen tree, still frowning. "Mutations sometimes occur during the duplication of DNA. Or if DNA is damaged by X rays or some chemicals. Or-" He looked up suddenly, through the sparse leaves above them at the pale blue sky. "Or, perhaps, the energy spillover of generations of wizards."