He had rented a mule cart. It had provided a less noticeable method of scoutingthe cove than a horse would have done. The cart had also transported the punt hehad bought to the nearest launching place to the headland that he could find.The roadstead on which Sanctuary was built was edged mostly by swamps, but theless-sheltered shore to the west had been carved away by storms. The limestonecorniche rose ten to fifty feet above the sea, either sheer or with an outwardbatter. A lookout on the upper rim could often not see a vessel inshore butbeneath him. That was to Samlor's advantage; but the punt, the only craft theCirdonian felt competent to navigate, was utterly unsuited to the ocean.

Needs must when the devil drives. Samlor's great shoulders braced the poleagainst the cliff face, not the shelving bottom. Foam echoed back from the rocksand balanced the surge that had tried to sweep him inward with it. In thatmoment of stasis, Samlor shot the punt forward another twenty feet. Then thesurf was on him again, his muscles flexing on the ten-foot pole as theytransferred the sea's power to the rock, again and again.

Samlor had launched the punt at sunset. By now, he had no feeling for time norfor the distance he had yet to struggle across to his once-glimpsed goal. He hada pair of short oars lashed to the forward thwart, but they would have beentotally useless for keeping him off this hungry shore. Samlor was a strong man,and determined; but the sea was stronger, and the fire in Samlor's shoulders wasbeginning to make him fear that the sea was more determined as well.

Instead of spewing back at him, the next wave continued to be drawn into therock. It became a long tongue, glowing with microorganisms. Samlor had reachedthe tunnel mouth while he had barely enough consciousness to be aware of thefact.

Even that was not the end of the struggle. The softer parts ofth& rock had beenworn away into edges that could have gobbled the skiff like a duckling caught bya turtle. Samlor let the next surge carry him in to the depth of his pole. Thephosphorescence limned a line of bronze hand-holds set into the stone. Thepowerful Cirdonian dropped his pole into the boat to snatch a grip with bothhands. He held it for three racking breaths before he could find the strength todrag the punt fully aground, further up the tunnel.

The tunnel was unlighted. Even the plankton cast up by the spray illuminatedlittle more than the surfaces to which it clung. Samlor spent his first severalminutes ashore striking a spark from flint and steel into the tinder he carriedin a wax-plugged tube. At first his fingers seemed as little under his controlas the fibres of the wooden pole they had clutched so fiercely. Consciousdirection returned to them the fine motor control they would need later in thenight.

By the time a spark brightened with yellow flame instead of cooling intooblivion, Samlor's mind was at work again as well. His shoulders still achedwhile the blood leached fatigue poisons out of his muscles. He had been moretired than this before, however. The very respite from wave-battering increasedthe Cirdonian's strength.

With the tinder aflame, Samlor lighted the candle of his dark lantern. Then,carrying a ten-gallon cask under one arm and the lantern in the other hand, hebegan to walk up the gently rising tunnel. The lantern's shutter was open, andits horn lens threw an oval of light before him.

The tunnel was not spacious, but a man of Samlor's modest height could walksafely in it by hunching only a little in his strides. He could not imagine whohad cut the passage through the rock, or why. Scraps - a buckle, a broken knife;a boot even - suggested that the smugglers used it. Samlor could imagine fewcircumstances, however, in which it would pay smugglers to off-load beneath thesurf-hammered corniche rather than in the shelter of the cove. For them, thetunnel might be useful storage; but the smugglers had not built it, and in alllikelihood they had as little knowledge of its intended purpose as Samlor did,or Hort.

Samlor set down the cask at what he estimated was the halfway point along thetunnel. The cask had been an awkward burden in the narrow confines, and itsweight of a talent or more was as much as a porter would be expected to carryfor even a moderate distance. Because it used muscles in a way that the punt hadnot, however, the hundred yards Samlor had carried the cask were almost

relaxing.

The only thing certain about the escape he hoped to make in a few hours was thathe would have very little time. Now the Cir-donian set the cask on end and drewhis fighting knife. The blade was double-edged and a foot long. It was stoutenough at the cross-hilt to take the shock of a sword and was sharpened to edgesthat would hold as they cut bronze, rather than something that its owner couldshave with. Samlor had razors for shaving. The knife was a

different sort of tool.

He set the point at the centre of one of the end-staves, using his left hand tokeep the weapon upright. The butt cap was bronze, flat on top, and a perfectsurface for Samlor to hammer with the heel of his right hand. The blade hummed.The beechwood cracked and sagged away from the point. Working the knife loose,Samlor then punched across the grain of the other four end staves as well. Theline of perforations did not quite open the cask, but they would permit him tosmash his heel through the weakened boards quickly

when the need arose.

He was more aware than before of the lantern's hot shell as he paced the rest ofthe tunnel's length. He could hear someone above him when he reached the end ofthe tunnel. The susurrus could have been anything, wind-driven twigs as easilyas the slippers of a guard on the floor above. There was a sharper sound topunctuate that whispering, however; a spear grounded as the man paused, or thetip of a bow. The stone conducted sounds very well, but it conducted them sowell that Samlor could not get a precise fix on where the guard was in relationto the trap door. For that matter, the caravan-master had no idea of how wellthe upward-pivoting door was concealed. It might very well flop open in thecentre of the room above.

The good news was that the sounds did not include speech. Either the guard wasalone, or the party was more stolid than the random pacing seemed to suggest.

Samlor needed more information than he could get in the tunnel. There would beno better time to learn more. He shuttered his lantern and slid the worn bronzebolt from its socket in the door jamb. There were stone pegs set into the endwall as a sort of one-railed ladder. Samlor set his right foot on the midmost,where his leg was flexed just enough to give him its greatest thrust. His righthand held the dagger while his left readied itself on the trap door. Then theCirdonian exploded upward like a spring toy.

As it chanced, the door was quite well hidden in an alcove, though the hangingsthat would once have completed the camouflage were long gone. There was no timeto consider might-have-beens, no time for anything but the pantalooned Beysibwho turned, membranes flicking in shock across his eyes. He was trying to raisehis bow, but there was no time to fend Samlor away with the staff, much less tonock one of the bone-tipped arrows. Samlor punched the smaller man in the pit ofthe stomach, a rising blow, and the point of the long dagger grated on theBeysib's spine in exiting between his fourth and third ribs.

The Beysib collapsed backwards, his motion helping Samlor free the knife foranother victim if one presented himself. None did. The nictitating membranequivered over the Beysib's eyes. In better light, it would have shown colourslike those on the skin of a dying albacore. The blow had paralysed the man'slungs, so that the only sound the guard made as he died was the scraping of hisnails on the stone floor.