Even as Samlor's heels hit the floor on his second stride, hands and swordblades wrenched the bronze latch into fragments. A file of Beysib troopers withlamps and swords plunged into the tunnel behind Lord Tudhaliya.

Samlor's plan had been based on the assumption that his sudden assault wouldstartle the gathering of fisher-folk and give him the thirty seconds or so thathe needed to block his escape route. This security troop was as well-trained asany force the Cirdonian had encountered, and they were already primed to ripopen hiding places. Presumably Tudhaliya thought he was after fugitives from theceremony, but that mattered as little to him as it did to Samlor.

The Cirdonian smashed open the cask and kicked it over. The naphtha gushedacross the stone, darkening it, and began to flow sluggishly back in thedirection Samlor was fleeing. Samlor dared not ignite the fluid until he wasclear of it. He took a stride and another stride, ignoring Star's wailing as hershoulder brushed the tunnel wall. The Cirdonian turned and flung his lanterntowards the naphtha. Lord Tudhaliya batted the light back past the fugitiveswith the flat of his sword.

Then the second Beysib trooper stumbled over the cask and banged his own lampdown into the naphtha. The tunnel boomed into red life. It singed Samlor'seyebrows, even though Lord Tud-haliya shielded the Cirdonian from the worst ofit.

The Beysib noble pitched forward. Samlor ran for the boat, clutching the childnow in both arms. The capering fire threw their shadows down the tunnel ahead ofthem.

Samlor set Star in the stern of the punt and began shoving the vessel backtowards the water. The sea had retreated since he dragged the punt out of it.While Samlor thrust at the boat, he glanced back over his shoulder. The blazingpetroleum was creeping down the slope of the tunnel. Just ahead of it, hisclothes afire but a sword gripped still in either hand, came Lord Tudhaliya. Theswordsman's hair and flesh stank as they burned, but there are men whom nodegree of pain will turn from a task. Samlor recognized the mind-set very well.

The Cirdonian still had a push dagger sheathed on his left wrist, but it was asuseless against this opponent as the knives he had left in bodies cooling on thetemple floor. Samlor snatched up the punt pole, sliding it forward in his grip.As Tudhaliya feinted with his left sword, Samlor thrust the pole into the centreof the Beysib's chest. With enough room to manoeuvre, Tudhaliya would haveavoided the clumsy attack. Instead, his sluggish reflexes bounced him againstthe tunnel wall, and the end of the pole knocked him back into the spreadingflames.

The Beysib stood up. Samlor poked at his groin, missed, but caught his opponentin the ribs with enough force to topple him again. Tudhaliya's swords snickedfrom either side, inches short of where Samlor gripped the pole. Chips flew, butthe pole was seasoned ash and as thick as a man's wrist. Samlor thrust himselfaway, and the Beysib recoiled on to his back in the fire.

The naphtha sucked a fierce breeze from the tunnel to feed its flames. The glareflickered now around Tudhaliya's face, as instinct forced him to breathe. Therewas no help in that influx, only red tendrils that shrank lung tissues andblazed back out of Tudhaliya's mouth as he finally screamed.

'My sweet, my love,' Samlor whispered as he turned back to the girl. 'I'm goingto take you home, now.' The punt's flat bottom jounced easily over the stone asif the executioner's death had doubled the rescuer's strength.

'Are you taking me back to Mama Reia?' Star asked. She had watched Tudhaliya diewith great eyes, which she now focused on Samlor.

The man splashed beside the boat for a few paces while the shingle foamed. Thenhe hopped aboard and thrust outwards for the length of the pole. Since the tidehad turned, there was no longer need to fend off from the corniche. When theywere thirty feet out, the Cirdonian set down the pole and worried loose thelashings of his oars with his spike-bladed push dagger. 'Star,' he said, nowthat he had leisure for an answer, 'Maybe we'll send for Reia. But we're goingback to your real home - Cirdon. Do you remember Cirdon?' Inexpertly, thecaravan-master began to fit the looms through the rope bights that served thepunt for oarlocks.

Star nodded with solemn enthusiasm. She said, 'Are you really my uncle?'

Poling had raised and burst blisters on both Samlor's hands. The salt-crustedoar handles ground like acid-tipped glass as he began the unfamiliar task ofrowing. 'Yes,' he said. 'I promised your mother - your real mother. Star, mysister ... I promised her -' and this was true, though Samlane was two yearsdead when her brother shouted the words to the sky - 'that I'd take care of oh.Oh, Mother Heqt. Oh, to have brought us so close.'

Lord Tudhaliya had not trusted his men on the shore to sweep up the cultists.Someone in the boat Tudhaliya had stationed off the headland had seen the manand child. The Beysib craft was a ten-oared cutter. It began to close thedistance from the first strokes that roiled the phosphorescence and brought thecutter to Samlor's attention.

An archer stood upright in the cutter's bow. His first shot was' wobbly andshort by fifty of the two hundred yards. He nocked another shaft, and the cutterpulled closer.

Samlor dropped his oars. He knelt and raised his hands. He did not trust hisbalance to standing up. 'Star,' he said, 'I'm afraid that these men have caughtus after all. If I try to get away, something bad may happen to you by accident.And I can't fight them, I don't have any way to fight so many.'

Star peered over her shoulder at the Beysib cutter, then turned back to Samlor.'I don't want to go with them. Uncle,' she said pettishly. 'I want to go back toCirdon. I want to play in the big house.'

'Honey,' Samlor said, 'sweetest ... I'm sorry. But we can't do that now, becauseof that boat.' The cutter was too big to overturn, the caravan-master wasthinking. But perhaps if he jumped into the larger boat with his push dagger, inthe confusion they might -

The Beysib archer pitched into the water.

It was a moment before Samlor realized that the man had fallen forward becausethe cutter had come to an abrupt halt beneath him. The swift craft had thrown upa bone of glowing spray. Now the spray's remnant curled forward and away fromthe cutwater as a diminishing furrow on the sea.

'Now can we go to Cirdon, Uncle?' the little girl asked. She lowered the handsshe had turned towards the cutter. Either her voice had dropped an octave, orthe caravan-master's mind was freezing down in sudden terror. The white tendrilsof Star's hair blazed and seemed to writhe.

The cutter's bow lifted. The boat disappeared stern-first with a rush and a roarand the screams of her crew. A huge, sucker-blotched tentacle uncoiled a hundredfeet skyward, then plunged back into the glowing sea.

Samlor's hands found the oars again. His mind was ice, and his muscles movedlike flows of ice. 'Yes, Star,' he heard his voice say. 'We can go back toCirdon now.'