Now it was Paul's turn to stumble, gagging, and to be helped along by the others.

It took them long minutes to dodge from building to building, the fires making their skin itch, their ears full of the cries of the dying and those pleading for death—an agonizingly extended walking tour through the inferno. Paul had to fight to keep going. Every bit of sheltering darkness seemed to offer an oasis of peace. Each open space felt like it was watched by hundreds of eyes.

Thank God we came after they'd been at this for days, he thought as he struggled to catch his breath in the smoldering, smoky depths of a livery stable. Thank God those Dread-clones have wallowed in this evil so long that they're almost senseless with it. He could not let himself think about the hundreds of Dodge City inhabitants whose misery had given him and his companions this chance.

They had crossed their second street and stood in a trembling huddle in a doorway across from the ruins of a newspaper office. A pile of what at first seemed to be some kind of animal skins lay in the dusty street. Paul had only just recognized them as the remains of more citizens—they had been run through the printing press until rolled bonelessly flat, and one unlucky victim even had a "Dodge City Welcomes Visitors!" headline printed across his now greatly extended body—when Martine waved tor silence. Since none of them had the breath to speak, it seemed a bit unnecessary.

"Over that way," she said at last. "It was just a moment, but I . . . I felt it."

"Felt what?" Florimel's voice was flat with shock and fatigue.

"A gateway, I think."

T4b stirred. "Anywhere, gotta be better."

They followed her along the gutted buildings and then west down Walnut Street. Behind them the Mozart was slowing like a gramophone in need of cranking. As they staggered out into the shadows west of the town, Paul saw that the moon was just now climbing above the peaks of the mountains, as if confused by the cataclysmic changes to its familiar plains.

"This way," Martine panted.

It was such a relief not to be surrounded by burning walls that Paul could almost feel the darkness cover him like a cool, damp cloth. They made their way northwest along the edge of the swamp, squelching through the mud, slipping and sticking, but it seemed a thousand times preferable to what they had left behind. Even when a buzzing thing as large as a rat alighted on Martine's shoulder, making her shriek and fall to the ground, Paul felt the bargain was worthwhile. He plucked it off her with the nonchalance of complete, exhausted misery, and twisted it between his hands until it splintered, oozed, and died.

"There," Florimel gasped as Paul helped Martine to stand. "I think I see it!"

She was pointing at a pale, low protuberance a quarter, mile away, burnished by moonlight until it seemed the lop of a giant's buried skull. Despite their sagging weariness they broke into a trot across the slickly treacherous flats.

"Fenfen!" T4b cried out, his voice full of despair. For a moment Paul thought the youth had fallen, but when he turned he saw T4b was peering back at a cloud of small fires that had detached themselves from the greater burning that was Dodge City. "Torches," T4b moaned. "Following us, like."

Paul pulled the boy until they were both moving at a stumbling trot once more. "Hurry!" he shouted to the others. "Someone's seen us!"

The ground around Boot Hill was harder, drier, and when they reached it they broke into a sprint. Paul tripped and the earth seemed to leap up toward him, smacking him like a heavy hand, but now it was T4b who reached down and tugged Paul back onto his feet.

The graveyard on top of the hill was surprisingly small, a couple of dozen wooden crosses and a few modest stone markers littering the uneven ground. There were more rocks than monuments. Other than buffalo grass, the only object on the hilltop higher than Paul's waist was a slender ash tree with a noose dangling from a long branch—a hanging tree.

"Where is it?" Florimel asked. "The gateway?"

Martine was pivoting slowly from side to side like a radar dish sweeping the skies. "I . . . I cannot tell. It will not reveal itself to my command, and there seems nothing here large enough to contain it. A grave. . . ?"

"Want me to dig, tell me," T4b said, bending to scratch at the nearest mound like a crazed dog. "Need to get out now—for true!"

The torches were moving toward them with terrifying speed, and now Paul could see that the torchbearers were at least a dozen Dread-men mounted on the strange black horses with hands. As the war party sped up the hill, not slowed in the least by the horses' bizarre gait, Paul felt himself sinking into apathy. He dragged Ben Thompson's pistol out of his pocket. It felt heavy as an anchor.

"Javier, be quiet!" Martine shouted from behind him. "Let me think!"

Paul sank to one knee, trying to steady the gun. The first of the Dreads had reached the bottom of the slope. Paul did his best to aim, wishing for the only time in his life that he had been the kind of boy fascinated by weapons. He waited as long as he dared, sweating so that he could barely keep his finger on the trigger; then, when the rider was less than twenty meters away, he shot.

Whether from blind luck or some vestige of the original simulation favoring the human participant, his shot struck the ape-horse and sent it crashing to the ground. It must have rolled on its rider, for he did not rise after the horse had skidded to a leg-flailing stop. The other Dread-men veered away sideways, taking a circular path around the base of the hill, screeching now with rage, or perhaps even with pleasure at the diversion. Many of them were armed with rifles and pistols; their guns cracked and bullets whined across the hilltop. Paul flung himself to the ground. Florimel and T4b did the same. Martine did not.

"What are you doing?" he screamed at her. "Martine, get down!"

"Of course," she said as bullets whistled through the grass at her feet. "I should have seen it before." She sprinted for the tree. "There would be no gallows on sacred ground," she shouted.

Terrified for her, Paul rose and began squeezing off shots, hoping only to distract the attention of the circling Dreads from such an easy target, but his luck had changed: although he thought he saw one of the torch-wielding shapes snap backward in the saddle, none of his other bullets seemed to have any effect. He looked over his shoulder and saw Martine reaching up to the hangman's noose, pulling it with her fingers as though readying it for a particularly large neck. Golden light burst out of it. Within moments it was an opening larger than she was, extending from the knot at the top of the noose all the way to the ground. T4b and Florimel were already running low across the hilltop. Paul turned to see the mounted men charging up the hillside, their shouts rising like the belling of hounds at the kill. He fired his last shot, flung the empty revolver toward the dazzle of torches, then sprinted for the glow.

Martine was waiting just at the edge. She grabbed his arm and together they dived into the heatless golden brilliance.

For a moment, as Paul fell through onto hard stone, it seemed that their pursuers had come through after them: the unsteady light of torches was everywhere.

Reassured by the silence, Paul sat up. The torches hung in wall brackets along a vast stone facade, outshining even the stars in the black sky. The wall was covered with painted scenes in the stiff Egyptian style, colorful portraits of people and animal-headed gods.

He stood, feeling for broken bones, but found nothing worse than skinned knees and ripped coveralls. Beside him Martine and Florimel and T4b were also climbing to their feet. The quiet, an almost palpable thing in this gallery of vast stone walls, was broken only by the sound of his companions' breathing.