"Maestra!" Sim had her arm but she shook him off. Gripping the chains of the second bridge, she faced Finn and spat words at him.

"I curse the crystal, and I curse you."

"There's no time," he said hoarsely. "Just go."

"You've destroyed my trust. My compassion. I thought I could tell truth from lies. Now I'll never dare show kindness to a stranger again. For that I can never forgive you!"

Her hatred scorched him. Then, as she turned away, the bridge lurched.

The abyss swung crazily. In a second of frozen horror the Maestra screamed and he gasped, "No!" staggering one step toward her. Then Keiro had hold of him and was shouting and something was cracking and as if the pain in his head had slowed them down he saw the chains and rivets that held the bridge snapping and jerking out, heard

Jormanric's great howl of laughter and knew this was treachery.

The Maestra must have realized too. She stood upright.

She gave him one look, her eyes to his; then she was gone, she and Sim and the others were gone, down and down, and the bridge was a crazy contraption slamming and shedding wrecked ironware in a clattering uproar against the side of the cliff.

Screaming echoes faded.

Crumpling to his knees, Finn stared, appalled. A wave of nausea shuddered through him.

He clutched the crystal, and through the roaring in his ears heard Keiro say calmly, "I should have guessed the old rogue would do that. And a lump of glass doesn't look much for all your trouble. What is it?"

Then Finn knew, in a second of sour clarity, that he was right, that he must have been born

Outside; knew it because he held in his hand the one object that no one in Incarceron for generations had ever seen or would even guess the purpose of, and yet it was familiar to him, he had a word for it, he knew what it was.

It was a key.

Darkness and pain roared up and swallowed him. He fell into Keiro's firm grip.

Finn felt himself fall for a thousand miles down the abyss before he crashed onto a ledge.

Breathless, he raised his head. All around, darkness roared. Beside him, leaning back against the rock, someone was sitting. Finn said instantly, "The Key ..."

"At your side."

He groped for it in the rubble, felt its smooth heaviness. Then he turned.

A stranger sat there. He was young and had long dark hair. He wore a high-collared coat like a Sapient s, but it was ragged and patched. He pointed to the rock face and said, "Look, inn.

In the rock was a keyhole. Light shone through it. And Finn saw that the rock was a door, tiny and black, and in its transparency stars and galaxies were embedded.

"This is Time. This is what you must unlock," Sapphique said.

Finn tried to lift the Key, but it was so heavy he needed both hands, and even then it shook in his grasp. "Help me," he gasped.

But the hole was closing, swiftly, and by the time he got the Key steady, there was nothing left but a pinhole of light.

"So many have tried," Sapphique whispered in his ear. "Have died trying,"

FOR A second Claudia was stock-still with despair.

Then she moved. She shoved the crystal key into her pocket, used Jared's disc to make a perfect holocopy of it nestled in the black velvet and slammed the drawer shut. Fingers hot with sweat she took out the box prepared just for this emergency and flipped out the ladybugs. They flew, landing on the control panel and the floor. Then she clicked the blue switch on the disc to red, swung, and aimed it at the door.

Three of the laserlights fizzed and died. She slid through the gap they left, flinching from imaginary bolts of weaponry. The grille was a nightmare; the disc chuntered and clicked, and she howled at it in desperation, sure it would break down, run out of power, but slowly a white-hot hole melted in the metal as the atoms scrambled and re-formed.

In seconds she was through it, had the door open, was in the corridor.

It was silent.

Amazed, she listened. As the study door clicked shut behind her, the panic alarms were sliced off as if they rang in some other world.

The house was peaceful. Doves cooed. And below, she heard voices.

She ran. Up the back stairs, right to the attics, then down a passageway through the servants' garrets to the tiny storeroom at the end; it stank of wormwood and cloves.

Diving in she groped hastily for the mechanism that opened the ancient priesthole, her fingernails scraping grime and spiderwebs and then, yes, there! The latch barely wide enough for her thumb.

As she jabbed it, the panel grated; she flung her weight on it, heaved it, swearing, and it shuddered open and she fell in.

Once she had it shut and her back against it, she could breathe.

Before her, the tunnel to Jared's tower ran into darkness.

FINN LAY crookedly on his bed.

He lay there a long while, gradually becoming aware of the noises of the Den outside, of someone running, of the clatter of dishes. Finally, groping with his hand, he found that a blanket had been laid carefully over him. His shoulders and neck ached; cold sweat chilled him.

He rolled over and looked up at the filthy ceiling. Echoes of a long scream were ringing in his ears, the tingling of alarms and panicking, flashing lights. For a sickening moment he had the sense that his vision had stretched into a long dark tunnel leading away from him, that he could step into it and grope his way toward the light.

Then Keiro said, "About time."

Blurred and distorted, his oathbrother came and sat on the bed. He made a face. "You look rough."

Finn's voice, when he tried it out, was hoarse. "You don't"

Slowly he focused. Keiro's mane of blond hair was tied back. He wore Sim's striped coat with far more panache than its owner ever had, a wide studded belt slung around his hips, a jeweled dagger strapped to it. He spread his arms. "Suits me, don't you think?"

Finn didn't answer. A wave of anger and shame was rising somewhere in him; his mind squirmed away from it. If he let it in, it would drown him. He croaked, "How long? How bad?"

"Two hours. You've missed the shareout. Again."

Carefully Finn sat up. The seizures left him dizzy and dry-mouthed.

Keiro said, "It was a bit more severe than usual. Convulsions. You jerked and struggled, but I held you down and Gildas made sure you didn't injure yourself. No one else took much notice; they were too busy gloating over the treasure. We carried you back."

Finn flushed with despair. The blackouts were impossible to predict, and Gildas knew of no cure, or so he said. Finn had no idea what happened after the hot, roaring darkness engulfed him, and he didn't want to know. It was a weakness and he was bitterly ashamed of it, even if the Comitatus held him in awe. Now he felt as if he had left his body and had come back to find it sore and empty, that he was aslant inside it. "I didn't have them Outside. I'm sure of it."

Keiro shrugged. "Gildas is desperate to hear about your vision."

Finn looked up. "He can wait." There was an awkward silence. Into it he said, "Jormanric ordered her death?"