Who indeed? he wondered. For is he not bound, though in a different fashion, as surely as I have bound this beast?-But it would take the gods themselves to do such a thing ...

... And he pondered this and dismissed it.

It does not matter, he finally decided. He is my friend. I could ask this demon if he knows of him, but his reply would make no difference. Morningstar is my friend.

Then the world began to darken about him, and he tightened his grip for fear that he was growing faint. But as they swooped lower and the darkness deepened, he knew that they were nearing the edge of the realm.

Finally, the creature he rode alit. His sweet voice sang out:

"This far may I bear you, master, and no farther. That black stone before you marks the end of the realm of darkness visible. I may not pass it."

Jack passed beyond the black stone, and the blackness there was absolute.

Turning, he said, "Very well, then. I release you from my service, charging only that should we ever meet again, you will not attempt to harm me and shall serve my will as you have on this occasion. I bid you depart now. Go! You are sent forth!"

Then he moved away from that realm, knowing he was near to his goal.

He knew this because of the faint trembling of the ground beneath his feet. There was a barely perceptible vibration in the air, as of the hum of distant machinery.

He moved forward, meditating on his task. In a short while, magic would be ineffectual, the Key itself useless. But the black area through which he now proceeded should be empty of menace. It was simply the blackness that lay before the place. He caused a small light to occur intermittently, that his feet might be guided. He needed no guidance for direction; he had only to follow the sound and feel it strengthening... . And as it strengthened, his ability to produce the guide light weakened and finally failed.

So he moved more carefully, not missing the tiny light too much because a pinpoint of light was now visible in the distance.

AS THE LIGHT grew in size, the humming and the vibrations increased in intensity. Finally, there was sufficient illumination for him to discern his course. After a time, the brightness was so intense that he cursed at having forgotten to bring his ancient sunglasses with him.

The brightness resolved itself into a square of light. He lay on his belly and looked at the light for a long period of time, allowing his eyes to make an adjustment. He repeated this many painful times as he advanced.

The floor of the place had become smooth beneath him; the air was cool but pleasant, and free of the odors which had prevailed in the region he had recently departed.

He moved until it was immediately before him. There was nothing but the light. It was a gigantic opening onto something, but all that he could see was the yellow-white blaze; he heard a grinding, clanking and humming, as of many machines.

... Or the Great Machine.

Again, he lay prone. He crawled forward through the opening. He lay upon a ledge, and for a moment his mind could not assimilate all that was below.

It had so many gears that it would have been an interminable task to number them, some turning slowly, some rapidly, big unto small; and there were cams, drive shafts, and pulleys and pendulums-some of the pendulums twenty times his own height and slow, ponderous-and pistons and things that corkscrewed in and out of black metal sockets; and there were condensers, transformers and rectifiers; there were great blue-metal banks containing dials, switches, buttons and little lights of many colors, which constantly blinked on and off; there was the steady noise, a hum, of still further buried generators- or perhaps they were something else, possibly drawing power from the planet itself, its heat, its gravitational field, certain hidden stresses-which buzzed in his ears like a swarm of insects; there was the blue smell of ozone, reaching everywhere. There was the brilliant light coming from all the walls of the enormous cavern which housed the equipment; there was a battery of buckets which moved on guidelines above the entire complex, occasionally pausing in their courses to dump lubricants at various points; there were power cables, like snakes, that wound from one point to another, indicating nothing he could understand; there were tiny, glass-enclosed boxes, connected with the whole by means of thin wires, which contained components so minute that he could not discern their forms from where he lay. There were no fewer than a hundred elevator-type mechanisms, which constantly plunged into the depths or vanished overhead, and which paused at various levels of the machine to extrude mechanical appurtenances into portions of its mechanism; there were wide red bands of light on the farthest wall, and they flicked on and off; and his mind could not encompass all that he saw, felt, smelled and heard-though he knew that he must deal with it somehow-so that he searched for a clue for the best point of impact, seeking within that massive structure for that which would destroy it. He found titanic tools hung upon the walls, tools which could only have been wielded by giants, to service the thing-wrenches; pliers, pry bars, things-that-turned-other-things-and he knew that among them lay the thing that he required, a thing which, if properly employed, could break the Great Machine.

He crept farther forward and continued to stare. It was magnificent; there had never been anything like it before, and there never would be again.

He looked for a way down and saw a metal ladder, far off to his right. He went toward it.

The ledge narrowed, but he managed to reach the topmost rung, and from there he swung himself into position.

He began the long climb down.

Before he had reached the bottom, he heard footsteps. They were barely discernible over the sounds of the machinery, but he distinguished them and backed into a shadow.

Although the shadow did not possess its normal effects, it hid him. He waited there, near to the ladder, next to a generator of sorts, and thought of his next move.

A small, white-haired man limped by. Jack studied him. The man paused, found an oilcan dripped lubricant upon various of the gears.

Jack watched as the man moved about the Machine, finding various slots and openings, squirting oil into them.

"Hello," he said, as the man passed.

"What-Who are you?"

"I am one who has come to see you."

"Why?"

"I came to ask you some questions."

"Well, that is pleasant enough and I am willing to answer you. What do you wish to know?"

"I was curious about the makeup of this Machine."

"It's quite complex," he replied.

"I daresay. Could you give me details?"

"Yes," he answered, dazzling him with the explanation.

Jack nodded his head and felt his hands grow stiff.

"You understand?"

"Yes."

"What is the matter?"

"I believe that you are going to die," he said.

"What-" And Jack hit him in the left temple with the first knuckle of his right hand.

Crossing to a rack of tools near the Machine, he studied the great array of equipment. He selected a heavy bar of metal, whose function he did not understand. Lifting it, he sought a small glass case the old man had indicated. He studied the hundreds of tiny, delicate gears which turned within it, moving at varying rates of speed.

Raising the bar, he smashed the glass, and began to destroy the intricate mechanism. With each blow he struck, a sound of mechanical protest arose from some new portion of the vast Machine. There came an irregular humming, then a series of clanking sounds, as if something large had snapped or been torn loose. This was followed by a shrill whine, a grating sound and the screech of metal against metal. Then came a banging noise, and smoke began to rise from