.

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Deep Heaven

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There was a silence. The young man did not move in his chair. His eyes, which Tess saw were beneath a single red jewel attached by a circlet to the middle of his forehead, moved slowly from one face to the other.

At length Bronze spoke. "Hail, Ryan Eranshar, King of Aredia, representative of Logaria-in-exile! I, a king of the line of Tar-Elrosi, have returned. For behold! The storm comes, and now all friends should gather together, lest each singly be destroyed."

Ryan waved his hand. From behind the throne came two men at either hand. At the left was a man with yellow hair and a black cape, dim with years and darkling in the shade of that long and cold hall. His thin face and cold eyes reminded Tess of a predatory bird. At the right was a man so bent with age that he seemed a dwarf, wheeling himself out in a chair. In his hand was a short black staff with a cap of white bone and a Swinub was on his lap. His eyes still burned with a bright light, glinting as he gazed at the strangers.

"I greet you, Bronze Tercano," said Ryan, "and maybe you look for welcome. But truth to tell your welcome is doubtful here. You only return into Roria during a time of woe. Troubles follow you like crows, and ever the oftener the worse. You should bring the Enemy here. But news from afar is seldom sooth. Here does the Emperor come again! And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected. Why should I welcome you, Bronze Stormcrow? Tell me that."

"I will, lord," said Bronze. "But who are these others? Has the king of Aredia found new counselors upon his errantry?"

Slowly the old man rose to his feet from his wheelchair, leaning heavily upon his staff; and now Tess saw that, bent though he was, he was still tall and must in youth have been high and proud indeed.

"The storm does come," he said. "And though you are held wise, Lord Ryan, now we must put aside our feuds and face the Enemy all as one. I am Pryce and the other is Lance. We have returned."

"Pryce and Lance?" said Tess. "Not the Pryce and Lance who I've heard so many tales about? The very same Lance who would have blown Johto to shards? The Pryce who would have destroyed the very fabric of Time itself? And what are you doing here?"

"We were brought," said Lance. "You may now look behind you."

...

They both turned at once and were met with the face of a god. They saw wings, hundreds of wings, spreading, folding, stretching. And eyes, eyes, eyes, and small jets of flame. Tess had the feeling that she never saw all of it at once, and which of all the eyes could she meet? Merry eyes, wise eyes, ferocious eyes, kitten eyes, dragon eyes, opening and closing, looking at her, looking at Bronze and Ryan and Antarah and the strange two men. And wings, wings in constant motion, covering and uncovering the eyes. When the wings were spread out they had a span of at least ten feet, and when they were all folded in, the creature resembled a misty, feathery sphere. Little spurts of flame and smoke spouted up between the wings; it could certainly start a grass fire if it weren't careful.

And then a voice like wind in the mountains: "Be not afraid!"

A beam of light as strong as a ladder but clear as water flowed from the center of the sweet creature, and it was impossible to tell whether the light came from the piercing silver-blue of beam's essence itself or the light blue eyes of the Elohim. The beam became stronger and firmer and then all the light resolved itself in a flash of radiance that filled the whole hall. Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great beast with a proud head and hooves. From its forehead sprang a translucent blade that contained the residue of the light. It was a creature of utter and absolute perfection.

Was this what the cherubim had become? Bronze put his hand against the great blue flanks, which heaved as though the creature had been racing. He could feel the warm blood coursing through the veins as the light had coursed between god and boy.

"Are you real?" he asked in a wondering voice.

The creature gave a silver cry which translated itself into the boy's mind as: "I am not real. And yet in a sense, I am that which is the only reality."

"Why have you come?" Bronze's own breath was rapid, not so much with apprehension as with excitement and anticipation.

"You called on me, and because there is a great need in the regions of Earth. I am Cobalion and am the chief of the Swords of Justice. Throughout your whole journey, I have been with you. I am the voice that spoke to you and made you put away your darkness. I am the one who told you that you would do the right thing if you dared."

"You brought Lance and Pryce here? But why do you show yourself only now?"

"Our Fair Lord has made it a law that the powers cannot reveal themselves unveiled to mortals, unless those mortals should, by technology and demonic dabbling, contact those powers themselves. Yet now the Djinn is free again and you will find, Bronze Southstar, that much has changed in the heavenly regions. Now Arceus has let all the gods walk free. Cobalion does as he wishes. It is clear to me that we shall all fight together, so I gathered both these two repentant ones so that they may give battle to the Dark Lord."

"How is it that you speak my language?" said Tess.

"I do not. I speak the ancient harmony."

"Then how is it that I understand?"

"You are very young, but you belong to the Hnau-Erebol-et-Elohim, now that you are in the fellowship of warriors among the body of Arceus and your sins are washed clean."

"The language of the gods?" said Tess.

"The very one that was spoken before the Fall in all the fields of creation. You are right, Tess. Bronze knows it better than you but that is only because he has listened to Arceus for a longer time."

"How do you know my name?"

"Here, in this when and where, you are called Tessa Woodhall. It is a brave name. It will do. It will have to."

"I've seen pictures of you before in the old art, Cobalion," said Bronze. "But why did I see that thing full of eyes and wings?"

"A cherubim."

"What?"

"A cherubim. I suppose you think I ought to be a golden-haired baby-face with no body and two useless little wings?"

Ryan stared at the great creature. "It might be simpler if you were. But cherubim is plural."

"I am practically plural. I am certainly not a cherub. I am a singular cherubim. The Swords of Justice make a plural cherubim. It is a constant amazement to me that so many earthling artists paint cherubim to resemble baby pigs. Anwyay, you were only seeing another appearance of me. You see nothing but appearances. That is crucial for you to understand."

"What are we supposed to do, now that Heaven has come with all its power and you are here?"

Cobalion neighed. "Heaven may have sent me, but my powers are closely defined and narrowly limited in these darkening days. I have not taken physical form in a long time. In these days it is considered a hardship assignment."

Tess studied the sand-dusted rock at her feet. "We haven't done all that well by our planet, have we?"

"There are many, even in the unfallen portions of Deep Heaven, who would like Arceus to let you wipe yourselves out, except it would affect us all; who knows what might happen? And as long as there are even a few who belong to the Old Music, you are still our brothers and sisters."

"We're all in it together," said Lance. "We shall be hard put to fighting the ancient enemy: he who distorted the harmony, and who has gathered an army of destroyers. They are returning everywhere in the universe because he is free to summon them."

Tess felt a ripple of cold move along her spine. "What does that mean? I know that the Djinn returning would be bad, but what is going to happen now?"

"Only Arceus knows," said Cobalion. "But I have been told that the end times have not come. Not yet, though the wedding feast is being prepared and the trumpets are being polished. In those days all the evil things on Earth will be stripped of their disguises and plagues and horrors shall descend upon the world. We shall not have much of that. But in this time, evil will increase tenfold. Men will succumb easily to the doctrines of demons. Till the Djinn is defeated you will see demons and the Bright Ones walking abroad, heeding no ban. All bans have been lifted."

"Unreason has crept up on us so insidiously that we've hardly been aware of it," said Lance. "But think of the things going on in our own region which you wouldn't have believed possible only a few years ago, even before the Alliance attacked Anthien."

"You're right," said Tess. "Ten years ago my grandfather didn't even have a key to our lighthouse. Now he locks up when we go out. The irrational violence is even worse in the cities."

"The city dwellers in every region have never known a time when people drank rainwater because it was pure," said Ryan, "or could eat snow, or swim in any river or brook. The last time I walked home from the coasts to Aredia City, I saw the traffic was so bad that the drivers could have made better time with a horse than a car. There were huge signs proclaiming the speed limit was at seventy-five, when they were only crawling along at twenty."

"Here we are, at the height of civilization in a well-run state in a great democracy," said Pryce bitterly, "and four ten-year-olds in Johto were picked up last week for pushing hard drugs in a school where six-year-olds are regularly given black eyes and a bloody nose."

"But what shall we do?" said Bronze. "I have been filled with doubts now that the straight and narrow is gone. Surely there shall be no more League now that the Dark Lord has lifted his hand once more. My labors have turned to dust and never shall the Rorians see me as the Emperor. If you take all my hopes from me, o Elohim, where shall I go?" Then he fell to his knees.

"Bemoan your fate no longer," said Cobalion. "There is still a League. You ought to have guessed by now. Two days ago the Alliance tried to kill the Chairman of Roria; he was ever their foe. I protected him and was able to conceal that fact from the Anti-Arceus Cypress and the False Prophet Emrett easily. It turns out that the corrupted and withered intellects in those two darkened minds make for an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument. Arceus has made his heart proud so that he will continue to fight. You saw his ships, which the Dark Lord had not expected, driving away the Eclipse armies at Anthien. He will keep the League going as to say that he is not afraid."

"The Anti-Arceus and False Prophet?" said Pryce. "Those names I have only heard when speaking about the Last Days. But you said we were not at that time yet. Are they not fated to die soon?"

"They will die," said Cobalion. "Even I cannot see all ends. They are those creatures of the End Times that the Coda spoke of. There is no sense in speaking of it now. I am not a computer, and only machines have glib answers for everything."

"I did say that it would be hard to tell what was demon or man in the coming time," said Antarah.

"I will speak to you later, son of Aredia," said Cobalion to Antarah. "You have brought the Emperor and Tess here and for that, you have my favor. But Arceus is angry at you because you would have killed the girl, if by my hand the spirit of power had not come into Gabite and given the girl strength to resist you. Tread carefully, Antarah. I shall slay you if you walk off the narrow way too much, and then you will experience the worst of all. I have not just come here for Bronze and Tess. I have come here to save your soul."

Antarah fell to the ground in supplication as if he had been shoved. The light in Cobalion's flanks pulsed with brilliance and sparks flew from his body into Antarah's. The man gave a scream, convulsed, and then fell unconscious.

"Do not fear," said Cobalion. "He will awaken soon and feel wholly within freedom and joy. Arceus will deal with him till his soul is redeemed further."

"That was a very impromptu treatment," said Ryan. "You may under Arceus, but I have some authority here, no less than you. I do not like that you wounded my soldier."

"I have been given the power to choose harsher solutions for these kinds of problems in this progressively spiritual age," said Cobalion. "He will admit later that it was for the best. Your men are Arceans but they have gone down a bad path. They have let the desert control their faith. There is much work in Aredia that needs to be done."

"My lord, this is not like you," said Lance to Cobalion. "With my intellect, I see cause for nothing but pessimism and even despair. But I can't settle for what my intellect tells me. That's not all of it."

"What else is there?" said Bronze in despair.

"There are still stars which move in an ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. Even little ones. That's enough to keep my heart optimistic, no matter how pessimistic my mind. And you and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are."

"We had better sit down now," said Pryce. "There is still much to discuss."

...

Antarah's body was carried away. Ryan waved his hand and a fire lit in the middle of the hall. The six remaining beings in the room sat around the blaze while Cobalion emitted a silvery substance from his body that fell like rain on flagstones. Bronze saw the stuff form into a great and surging wave around them, and then it solidified into a screen that seemed woven of the light of heaven itself.

It was a map of the world, and instantly Tess saw that things were not going well. Here and there through the continents were patches of mingled orange and black, spreading outward with few to resist it. The gold that represented the Association was limited to the shifting seas, Roria, and the southern coasts of the northern continents. Then came a sound, a sound which was above sound, beyond sound, a violent, silent, electrical report, which made Tess press her hands in pain against her ears. Across the map, a crack shivered, slivered, became a line of nothingness. Then it was torn to shreds.

"The Alliance is in control of the seaward regions," said Cobalion. "Alola is dark to me. That great, dramatic fissure you saw was nothing I can explain. All it tells is that we have half a year before this world is unmade."

"Unmade?"

"That is the plan of the Dark Lord."

"But how could this be achieved?" said Ryan.

"Not by earthly means. Bronze, you have thought that the Alliance would merely control the world. They are lying to you. They wish to unmake it. As you know your Earth is ill, with fish dying in the rivers, birds dying in the forests, people dying in the choked cities. You know by war and hate and chaos. This evil is above all that. Everything will be unmade as it was in the Ancient Darkness."

"You speak of a thing and do not tell us how we can stop it," said Bronze.

"There are three things. Bronze must be crowned; he knows the path. The gods must gather to fight. And the Djinn must be bound again."

"Bound?" said Pryce. "If the old legends are true, another Prison Bottle cannot be made. It was crafted out of the Legend Plate, but those days when such things existed are gone."

"Those days are returning, and the deeds that were done in them are not utterly desert. And Bronze, you know that Arceus told you what must be done. Where is the Evil Djinn right now?"

For the second time a warm light dawned on him. "Inside the body of Cypress."

"Then Cypress's destruction is the prerequisite for our victory," said Lance. "If he is ruined then the Djinn will be exiled back to the Void."

"I don't understand," said Tess. "I don't understand why our enemies are doing this. Power for power's sake could be a reason, but they won't keep it. Cypress is too far gone to see reason, but what about Emrett? Can't he realize what is happening?"

"Emrett is more evil than Cypress," said Cobalion. His face became terrible to behold. "More evil, I say, because he is older. He had more time to commit sins. He is too far gone. They are all too far gone."

"What about their soldiers, their members? Are they too corrupt to be saved?"

"The heavenly warriors in the legion I command are fighting for the souls of those who serve Team Eclipse at this very moment. Some of them will succeed in freeing them. Most will not."

"Are my parents alive?" said Bronze, feeling a little guilty that it had taken so long to remember to ask. "And what about Jake?"

"Yes. They are fighting. Jake has not yet been put to the test. I fear for him, even though Terrakion and Virizion are with him in his captivity. He may last long enough to be saved."

"You still haven't answered my question," said Tess impatiently. "Why would they do this?"

Cobalion asked her, "Why did the last Logarian Emperor Tar-Castamir want to control the world? Or Giovanni? Or Lysandre?"

"I don't know. I don't know why anyone would. I think it would be awful."

"But you admit that they did, Tess?"

"They wanted to," she conceded. "But they didn't succeed."

"They did a remarkably good job of succeeding for a period of time, and they will not lightly be forgotten. A great many people perished during the years of their rules. Cypress and Emrett appear to be not that unlike normal human beings."

She felt cold and quiet. She asked, "Okay, then, the Djinn has been orchestrating this war, right?"

Cobalion answered, "The Djinn is always behind war."

"But if they succeed, won't the Djinn kill himself, too? If he's in the body of Cypress?"

Cobalion responded coldly, quietly. "Yes."

"This is insane," said Lance.

"All war is insane," said Bronze.

"But we will fight in one," said Cobalion. "You understand the danger and the enemy, as much as your minds can hold. Already the call is going out over the world. The Rorians are stirring, finding their strength once again. Their hearts will expect a king to return and they will not know why."

"My people are with the Emperor," said Ryan. "They will spread a good report of him. Aredia is the first province that he has claimed and we shall defend it to the last drop of our blood."

"There is something else you must do, Ryan," said Lance.

"Oh! I had forgotten that he was trying for the League." Ryan stretched out his arm and gave Bronze a token that against all rational explanation, proved to be a Gym badge. "It is a good plan. The people will see you there."

"You're a Gym Leader?" said Tess. "But I thought..."

"That I would be at my Gym? I am free to go where I wish. There is a robotic trainer that fights my battles for me while I rule Aredia."

"There is much to be done," said Cobalion. "Lance, one of your students is in the north. Find Silver and bring him to us. Pryce will go to the Chairman and tell him that Bronze is alive. Ryan will give his men for the war. Bronze and Tess, you should stay for a little while before leaving. I have much to teach you."

"You'll be our teacher?" said Tess, feeling a surge of joy. "But what do we need to learn?"

"Many things," said Cobalion. "I will teach you the properties of bodies and of gods. I will school you on Arceus. Everything you have sought I may give a bit of. After my teaching your heart will be higher, your song deeper, for all your days."

"I'm going to have to fight the Un-Cypress, aren't I?" said Bronze grimly. Shivers of pain not yet tasted came over his body like it had been drenched in cold mercury.

"In the end, you will strike each other," said Cobalion with heaviness. "You will be very hard put to that. Even if you destroyed his slaves down to the last defense, the Djinn will use Cypress's abilities. He was a great trainer in his own right and there are very few left in the world would could defeat him in a battle. Part of your training will be the physical combat aspect of it. Yes, I will show you more war, I will show you pain, I will show you blood. Both of you must learn to defend yourselves, body and mind, against the hideous strength."

This did not alarm Bronze or Tess as much as you might think. The thought that Cobalion would seriously hurt them was like saying that a sperm whale would purposefully eviscerate a kitten: totally out of their perceived notions of common sense. "This is too good to be true," said Tess. "I must be having a dream, though I wish I could go on dreaming and not wake up."

"This isn't a dream," said Bronze. "If I was dreaming, I wouldn't have dreamt that Cobalion's cherubim form would look like...well, that."

"You better get started," said Ryan. "Time is running out. These trials that Cobalion will give you will be nothing like you could imagine or expect right now. Cobalion will go with you wherever Arceus permits."

"But King Ryan, we can hardly take a cherubim into town!"

"That is for the two of you to decide," said Cobalion. "I am not always visible, you know. Most of the time I am not. Myself, I find it a little simpler when I'm just a wind or a flame, but I was convinced it would be more reassuring to you if I enfleshed myself."

"If I could take you looking like a cherubim into battle with me," said Tess, "I think I'd have hardly any trouble."

"It might seem that way, alas!" said Cobalion. "But our Great Enemy saw me in that form once, and he did not yield then, nor is he likely to do so now. But come. You hmana must eat. The desert provides its own fare, and there is cocoa in the storehouses. I will bring you there."

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One day later

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The smuggler's ammunition factory with its parent carrier and ring of drone skycopters came over a lifting of sandy Aredian hills like a swarm of insects following its queen. In the con-bubble of the factory, Silver of the Johto Trio leaned forward, adjusted the lenses of his binoculars, and examined the landscape. The dry beaches of the ridge were swept clean by a recent sandstorm. Beyond the ridge, he could see a dark object that might be an Association probe, and he gave the signal to a hovering skycopter that sent it to investigate.

The copter waggled its wings to indicate it had the signal. It broke away from the swarm, sped down toward the black dot, and circled the area with its detectors dangling close to the surface. Almost immediately, it went through the wing-tucked dip and circle that told the waiting factory that a probe had been found.

Silver sheathed his binoculars, knowing the others had seen the signal. He liked this spot. The hills offered some shielding and protection. This was deep in the desert, an unlikely place for a sudden ambush. Silver signaled for a crew to hover over the ridge, to scan it, and sent reserves to take up station in a pattern around the area: not too high because then they could be seen from afar by more Association detectors.

He doubted, though, that Association patrols would be this far into the desert. They would be hamstrung with the war's business and this was still nomad country. Silver checked his weapons, damning the fate that made him come here. He rubbed a scar along his jaw, studying the scene, and decided it would be safest to lead a ground party through the sands to disable the probe. Inspection on foot was still the most certain. You couldn't be too careful which probe was which when the Alliance and the Association were at each other's throats.

It was the Aredian nomads that worried him here. They didn't mind trading for all the goods you could afford, but they were devils on the warpath if you stepped foot where they forbade you to go. And they were so devilishly aggressive of late. It annoyed Silver, the cunning and adroitness in battle of these natives. They displayed a sophistication in warfare as good as anything he had ever encountered, and he had been trained by Lance and Pryce, the best fighters in the universe then seasoned in battles where only the superior few survived.

Again Silver scanned the landscape, wondering why he felt so uneasy. A head popped up into the con-bubble beside Silver; the factory commander, a one-eyed old pirate with a full beard and the brown eyes and milky teeth of an alcoholic Johtorim.

"Looks like a rich drone to find, sir," the factory commander said. "Shall I take 'er in?"

"Come down at the edge of that hill," ordered Silver. "Let me disembark with my men. You can tractor out to it from there. We'll have a look at that probe to make sure it isn't wired to a bomb. They've been doing that lately."

"Aye."

"In case of trouble," said Silver, "save the factory. We'll lift in the copters."

The factory commander saluted. "Aye, sir." He popped back down through the hatch.

Again Silver scanned the horizon. He had to respect the possibility that there were Eclipse insurgents here and he was trespassing. These Eclipse mercenaries worried him nearly as much as the natives, increasing their toughness and unpredictability. In the last few days they had been acting so cunning. Many things about this business worried him, but the rewards were great. The fact that he couldn't send spotters high overhead worried him, too. The necessity of radio silence added to his uneasiness.

The factory crawler turned and began to descend. Gently it glided down the gravel path to the base of the hill. Silver opened the bubble dome and released his safety straps. The instant the factory stopped, he was out, slamming the bubble closed behind him, scrambling out over the tread guards to swing down to the ground beyond the emergency netting. The five men of his personal guard were out with him, emerging from the nose hatch. Others released the factory's carrier wing. It detached and lifted away to fly in a parking circle low overhead.

Immediately the big factory crawler lurched off, swinging away from the ridge to the probe. A copter swooped down nearby and skidded to a stop. Another followed and another. They disgorged Silver's hand-picked platoon and lifted to overflight. Silver tested his muscles in his plasmeld suit, stretching.

"Good site for an emergency base," he thought. "Might be sensible to bury a few supplies here."

He glanced back, watching his men spread out as they followed him. Exiles from Team Rocket now allied with their old boss's son instead of the renegade Giovanni himself. Good men, even the new ones he hadn't had time to test. Good men; no cowards in this bunch. They didn't have to be told every time what to do.

From this slight elevation in the ridge, Silver could see the probe about half a kilometer away and the crawler just reaching the near edge with deft jamming instruments sticking out of its upper manhole. He glanced up at the flight log, noting the altitude; not too high. He nodded to himself, turned to resume his climb up the ridge.

In that instant, the desert erupted. Three paths of blue flame streaked upward to the hovering copter and carrier wing. There came a blasting of metal from the factory crawler, and the rocks around Silver were full of hooded fighting men.

...

Silver had time to think: "By the horns of the Dark Lord! Rockets! They dare to use rockets!"

Then he was face to face with a hooded figure who crouched low, knife at the ready. Two more men stood waiting on the rocks above to left and right. Only the eyes of the fighting man ahead of him were visible to Silver between hood and veil of a sand-colored burnoose, but the crouch and readiness warned him that here was a trained fighting man.

Silver moved one hand toward his own Poke Ballsmand kept his eyes fixed on the other's knife. If they dared use rockets, they'd have other projectile weapons. This moment argued extreme caution. He could tell by sound alone that at least part of his skycover had been knocked out. There were gruntings, too, the noise of several struggles behind him.

The eyes of the fighting man ahead of Silver followed the motion of hand toward knife, and came back to glare into Silver's eyes. "Leave the knife in its sheath, Silver son of Giovanni," the man said.

Silver hesitated. That voice sounded oddly familiar even through hood.

"You know my name?" he said.

"You've no need of a knife with me, Silver," the man said. He straightened and slipped his knife into its sheath back beneath his robe. "Tell your men to stop their useless resistance."

The man threw his hood back. The shock of what he saw froze Silver's muscles. He thought at first he was looking at a ghost image of his old mentor. Full recognition came slowly.

"Lance," he whispered. Then louder: "Is it truly Lance?"

"Don't you trust your own eyes?" said Lance.

"I had thought you were gone," rasped Silver.

"Tell your men to submit," commanded Lance. He waved toward the lower reaches of the ridge. Silver turned, reluctant to take his eyes off Lance. He saw only a few knots of struggle. Hooded desert men seemed to be everywhere around. The factory crawler lay silent with Aredians standing atop it. There were no aircraft overhead.

"Stop the fighting," bellowed Silver. He took a deep breath, cupped his hands for a megaphone. "This is Silver! Stop the fight!"

Slowly, warily, the struggling figures separated. Eyes turned toward him, questioning.

"These are friends," called Silver.

"Fine friends!" someone shouted back. "Half our people murdered."

"It's a mistake," said Silver. "Don't add to it."

He turned back to Lance. He saw then the sinewy harshness in his old teacher that had never before been seen: a leathery look to the skin, a squint to the eyes and calculation in the glance that seemed to weigh everything in sight. "I had thought you were gone forever," said Silver.

"And I thought that would be best for my security," said Lance.

Silver realized that was all the apology he'd ever get for having been abandoned to his own resources once again, left to believe his friend was dead. He wondered then if there was anything left here of the old trainer who had known him and trained him in the ways of fighting men.

Lance took a step closer to Silver and found that his eyes were smarting. It seemed to happen of itself, and they were embracing, pounding each other on the back, feeling the reassurance of solid flesh.

"You young pup! You young pup!" Lance kept saying.

And Silver: "Lance, man! Lance, man!"

Presently, they stepped apart and looked at each other. Silver took a deep breath. "So you're why the Aredians have grown so wise in battle tactics. I might've known. They keep doing things I could've planned myself. If I'd only known." He shook his head. "If you'd only got word to me, Lance. Nothing would've stopped me. I'd have come a-running and..."

Lance nodded and glanced to the waiting Aredians around them, the looks of curious appraisal on the faces of the elite warriors. He turned from the death commandos back to Silver. Finding his former student filled him with elation. He saw it as a good omen, a sign that he was on the course of the future where all was well.

"How do your men stand, Silver?" he asked.

"They're smugglers and Rocket outcasts all," said Silver. "They stand where the profit is."

"Little enough profit in our venture," said Lance, and he noted the subtle finger signal flashed to him by Silver's right hand, an old hand code out of their past. There were men to fear and distrust in the smuggler crew.

Lance pulled at his lip to indicate he understood and looked up at the men standing guard above them on the rocks. He saw Antarah there. "Antarah," he said, "this is the Pokedex Holder Silver of whom you've heard me speak. He's one of my old students and friends, a son of the exiled Giovanni. He can be trusted in any venture."

"I hear that you are a good fighter," said Antarah. He came closer so that the smugglers would not hear, at least til they had been searched and deprived of weapons. "We are the heads of the southern resistance against the Eclipse Alliance. There are many great persons and Pokemon among us, including the Emperor of Logaria. It would be well to have you."

Silver's mind returned to the command when he heard some of his men protesting. He shook his head and whirled. "Are you men deaf?" he barked. "This is the rightful Lord of these lands. Do as he commands."

Grumbling, the smugglers submitted.

Lance moved up beside Silver, speaking in a low voice. "I'd not have expected you to walk into this trap, Silver."

"I'm properly chastened," said Silver. "I'll wager yon scouting probe is little more than a decoy, a bait to lure us."

"That's a wager you'd win," said Lance. He looked down at the men being disarmed. "How many of your father's men are among your crew?"

"None. The old members of Team Rocket spread thin. There are a few among the free traders. Most have spent their profits to leave this place for better regions, or go off and fight the Alliance. They and Team Rocket have an old feud. That might be what Giovanni is doing: fighting Team Eclipse."

"But you stayed."

"I stayed."

"Because you think Giovanni is here," said Lance.

"I thought I had nothing left but revenge," said Silver. "Can you help me find him?"

"The Emperor of Logaria and the Shah of Aredia must be consulted. You are now under their authority, since the Logarian heir has returned to these lands."

"Who is this Rorian lord that I should serve him?"

"You'll see."

Silver glanced at him and looked back to the patches of smoke and debris out on the desert where carryall and skycopters had been brought down by Aredian rockets. He felt a sudden pang for the men lost there, his men, and he said: "I hoped you would've been more concerned for the men you couldn't save."

Lance shot a hard stare at him and lowered his gaze. Presently, he said: "They were your friends, Silver. I understand. To us, though, they were trespassers who might see things they shouldn't see. You must understand that."

"I understand it well enough," said Silver. "Now, I'm curious to see what I shouldn't."

"No storm nor creature nor condition can stop us," said Antarah. "That is good for now. There was a time when we did not raid the desert's borders for fear of being seen. But now the Association has little enough air cover left to waste time looking for a few specks in the sand. Your aircraft were a shock to us here."

"We weren't the shock to you that you were to us," said Silver. "What's the talk of the Associtation's defense plans?"

"They say they've fortified the villages to the point where the Alliance cannot harm them. They say they need only sit inside their defenses while they wear themselves out in futile attack."

"In a word," said Antarah, "they're immobilized."

"While you can go where you will," said Silver, "and so can the Alliance."

"They have lost the initiative, and so may lose the war," said Lance. "The Alliance only has to survive to win. That's something I taught you. But the new Emperor and the god Cobalion says that the enemy is exactly where they want him to be. Well, Silver, do you enlist with me for the finish of this campaign?"

"Enlist?" Silver stared at him. "My friend, I've never left your service. You're among the only ones left me, besides Gold and Crys. To think you gone was a black terror. And I, being cast adrift, made what shrift I could, waiting for the moment I might sell my life for what it's worth: the final defeat of Giovanni."

"Which of your crew don't you trust, Silver?"

"There're some new recruits," said Silver. "Out-of-regioners."

"Yes?" said Lance.

"They're not like the usual fortune-hunting lot we get," said Silver. "They're tougher."

"Eclipse or Association spies?" asked Lance.

"I think, Lance, that they report to no Chairman. I suspect they're men of the Alliance's service. They have a hint of dark training about them. If it is true, it has been well masked."

"They must not get near the heir," said Lance quietly.

"I would see him before I make any judgment," said Silver.

"Bronze Tercano, the Pokedex Holder, is becoming a name of renown in these parts," said Lance. "He is a foe of evil men that you would like to count among your friends. Will you touch hands with my friend Silver, Antarah?"

Slowly, Antarah extended his hand and gripped the heavy calluses of Silver's right hand. "There are few who haven't heard the name of Silver son of Giovanni," he said, and released his grip. He turned to Lance. "The storm comes rushing. Should I go meet this king?"

"At once," said Lance.

.

.

.

Eclipse Base Prime

.

Jake remembered that the Eclipse men had grabbed him and then dragged him away. One of the huge men's fists had crushed against his temple, leaving him with visions of stars and dismay. The explosion of pain, the stabs, the cuts, the burning; and now his thoughts were trapped in this endless loop, playing the last visions over and over again. Nightmares, memories, his life draining away.

Occasionally, like bubbles rising to the top of a boiling pot, he saw his mother when she had been young and beautiful, an intelligent woman filled with the zest of life. She had laughed at his jokes, and strolled arm-in-arm with him through the parks of Roria. Once, they had gone to view the huge monument made out of a wrecked Terramist mechanical body. Ah, the clarity of perception, the sharpness of perfect recall.

Jake awoke tied to a chair in a cold room filled with machines. In spite of the enormous width of the room it was even longer than it was wide. His head felt as though bombs were going off inside it. Perspective made the long rows of machines seem almost to meet. He supposed that they were radioactive, or that they were going to eat him. These flashes of terror swam though his psyche with a force that burned his lungs. He knew that this place was under the control of the Eclipse Alliance.

The wall computers were not unlike the great quantum machines he had seen in his science books and that he knew Cypress sometimes worked with. Some did not seem to be in use; in others, lights were flickering on and off. In one machine a long tape was being eaten; in another a series of dot-dashes were being punched. Several white-robed attendants were moving about, tending the machines. They paid no attention to him; short, oily men with thick spectacles and darting movements, with the symbol of the Alliance at their lapels.

A man came from a door in the wall, and Jake assumed that his waking had been observed. What was there about him that seemed to contain all the coldness and darkness of Hell? He blinked and saw that it was Emrett. When the False Prophet spoke, his words sounded very old, very thing, and very hungry.

"I have been waiting for you, my dear," said Emrett. His voice was kind and gentle, not at all the cold and frightening voice Jake had expected. It took him a moment to realize that though the voice came from the man, he had not opened his mouth or moved his lips at all, that no real words had been spoken to fall upon his ears, that he had somehow communicated directly into his brain. "But how does it happen that there is only one of you? Where is Bronze Tercano and his miserable mate?"

"Oh, they just got away," said Jake, trembling with fear and horrified fascination. Emrett was different, less than human. His eyes were bright and had a reddish glow. In his sclera was a light, and it glowed, pulsing, throbbing, in steady rhythm. Jake shut his eyes.

"Clever, aren't you? Closing your eyes would, of course, help," the soothing voice went on, "but there are other ways, my little man. Oh, yes, there are other ways."

"If you come nearer I'll kill you!"

"Oh, will you, indeed, my little man?" The thought was tolerant, amused, but four men in dark uniforms appeared and flanked the chair.

"Now, my dear," the words continued, "I shall of course have no need of recourse to violence, but I thought perhaps it would save you pain if I showed you at once that it would do you no good to try to oppose me. You see, what you will soon realize is that there is no need to fight me. Not only is there no need, but you will not have the slightest desire to do so. For why should you wish to fight someone who is here only to save you pain and trouble? For you, as well as for the rest of all the happy, useful people on this planet, I, in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all the responsibility, all the burdens of thought and decision."

"I will make my own decisions, thank you," said Jake.

"But of course. And our decisions will be one, yours and mine. Don't you see how much better, how much easier for you that is? Let Beheeyem teach you your multiplication tables."

"No," said Jake.

"Once one is one. Once two is two. Once three is three."

From a source that he could not see the numbers bored into his head.

"Once four is four. Once five is five. Once six is six. Once seven is seven. Once eight is eight. Once nine is nine."

"By the stars in the sky, you will not touch me!"

"Once ten is ten. Once eleven is eleven. Once twelve is twelve."

The number words pounded insistently against Jake's brain. They seemed to be boring their way into his skull.

"Twice one is two. Twice two is four. Twice three is six."

Jake's voice came out in an angry shout. "And what He did in the Silent Planet, He did not just do for me, but you as well, and all Men and Pokemon. When He died in the Wounded World He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less."

"Twice four is eight. Twice five is ten. Twice six is twelve."

"Father!" cried Jake. "Father!"

The scream, half involuntary, jerked his mind back out of darkness. The words of the multiplication table seemed to break up into laughter. "Splendid! Splendid! You have passed your preliminary tests with flying colors."

"You didn't think I was as easy as all that, falling for that old stuff, did you?" he demanded.

"Ah, I hoped not. I most sincerely hoped not. But after all you are very young and very impressionable, and the younger the better, my little man. The younger the better." Jake looked up at the fiery eyes, at the light pulsing inside them, and then away. He tried looking at the mouth, at the thin, almost colorless lips, and this was more possible, even though he had to look obliquely, so that he was no longer sure exactly what the face really looked like, whether it was young or old, cruel or kind, human or alien.

"If you please," he said, trying to sound calm and brave. "Since you haven't captured Bronze yet, it would be good for you to let me go. An army will be upon you soon."

"Ah, Bronze!" There seemed to be a great chortling of delight. "Ah, yes, Bronze! Why do you want him to save you?"

"Didn't you ever have a friend yourself?" demanded Jake. "You don't want him for a reason. You want him because he's your friend."

"Ah, but he hasn't been acting very like a friend, lately, has he? Abandoning his friend and family to go gallivanting off on wild adventures of his own with that Woodhall girl."

"He was working for the good of Roria. He'd never have left me otherwise."

"And by the way, Jake," continued Emrett blandly, "you don't need to vocalize verbally with me, you know. I can understand you quite as well as you can understand me."

"The spoken word is one of the triumphs of man," he proclaimed, "and I intend to continue using it, particularly with people I don't trust."

"And you don't trust me?"

"What reason have you given me to trust you?"

"What cause have I given you for distrust?" The thin lips curled slightly.

Suddenly Jake sprung his trap. The cords had only been tied lightly and he had some skills that Bronze had taught him. It had never entered the Djinn's mind that this slow, stupid boy would ever try to attack his servant. His hands darted forward and hit the man as hard as he could, which was fairly hard, as he had had a good deal of coaching from his Pokemon.

The men in dark uniforms moved smoothly but with swiftness to him. Emrett casually raised one finger, and the men dropped back. Jake began to frantically work at the bonds on his legs and Emrett made no move to stop him.

Emrett gave a wince and the thought of his voice was a little breathless, as though Jake's punch had succeeded in winding him. "May I ask why you did that?"

"Because you aren't you," said Jake. "I'm not sure what you are, but you aren't what's talking to me. I'm not very sorry if I hurt you. I didn't think you were real. I thought perhaps you were a robot, because I didn't feel anything coming directly from you. I'm not sure where it's coming from, but it's coming through you. It isn't you."

"Pretty smart, aren't you?" the thought asked, and Jake had an uncomfortable feeling that he detected a snarl.

A thought came to Jake in the form of an arrogant, barrel-bodied creature, like a great, bearded bull that made him think swifter. "Go for its eyes," he thought: Terrakion thought. With Emrett still standing indecisively, Jake went at him with the weapons of tooth and nail. Suddenly Emrett's hands became wild and strong and struck at Jake with thin arms like steel-springs. Jake, with his lithe wireness, eluded most of the blows, and tried desperately to catch Emrett by the wrists, and then caught him.

The wrists became talons, became nothing. Jake was left holding nothing. He heard a screeching hell-laugh, and Emrett gave him a thundering blow. He saw red blackness and steadied himself. "What have they done to you?" he cried.

A loathsome thought came to him in Emrett's tones superimposed on the whine of metal rubbing against metal. "Nonsense. Of course the Djinn hasn't done anything to me. I am Emrett, and I took the Djinn into me because he is right. It is not the Djinn who is empty; it was I. He has filled me with the pleasure of the abyss of nothingness. Come, let me meld you to me..."

...

Jake, in his hot agony, was bound again and forced to watch and listen. The first phase of the reconditioning began. With Jake the disquiet ghost that was once Emrett had innumerable games to play. It had a whole repertory of obscenities to perform with its own, or rather with Emrett's body: and the mere silliness of them was almost worse than the dirtiness. It would sit making grimaces at him for hours together; and then, for hours more, it would go and begin repeating Jake's name over and over again. Often its grimaces achieved a horrible resemblance to people whom Jake had known and loved in his world. But worst of all were those moments when it allowed Emrett to come "back" into its countenance.

Then its voice, which was always Emrett's voice, would begin a pitiful, hesitant mumbling, "You be very careful. Jake. I'm down in the bottom of a big black hole. No, I'm not, though. I'm on Earth. I can't think very well now, but that doesn't matter, he does all my thinking for me. It'll get quite easy presently. That boy keeps on shutting the windows. That's all right, they've taken off my head and put someone else's on me. I'll soon be all right now. They won't let me see my press cuttings. So then I went and told him that if they didn't want me in the first fifteen they could jolly well do without me, see. We'll tell that young whelp it's an insult to the examiners to show up this kind of work. What I want to know is why I should pay for a first-class ticket and then be crowded out like this. It's not fair. Not fair. I never meant any harm. Could you take some of this weight off my chest, I don't want all those clothes. Let me alone. Let me alone. It's not fair. It's not fair. What enormous bluebottles. They say you get used to them..." and then it would end in a canine howl.

Emrett was no better than Cypress. Jake had full opportunity to learn the falsity of the maxim that the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman. Again and again he felt that a suave and subtle Mephistopheles with red cloak and rapier and a feather in his cap, or even a somber tragic Satan out of old myth, would have been a welcome release from the thing he was actually doomed to watch. It was not like dealing with a wicked Dark Lord at all: it was much more like being set to live with an imbecile or a monkey or a very nasty child. What had staggered and disgusted him when it first began the "therapy" continued to disgust him every day and every hour. The details, of course, he remembered with loathing for the rest of his life and I respect his wishes not to print them here.

A day passed and Jake was permitted to move freely, though Emrett would often paralyze him with invariable drugs or psychic Pokemon. On such occasions that he was free to face it, there were nasty moments when the two stood facing each other. It never came to a fight, for the Un-Emrett merely grinned and perhaps spat and fell back a little, but before that happened Jake usually had an opportunity to discover how terribly he feared it. For side by side with his disgust, the more childlike terror of living with a ghost or a mechanized corpse never left him for many minutes together. The fact of being alone with it sometimes rushed upon his mind with such dismay that it took all his reason to resist his longing for society: his impulse to rush madly over the long hall until he found the Un-Cypress or Djinn itself and beg for their protection.

As time passed Jake could not resist the conviction that the general development was in the enemy's favor. There were, of course, ups and downs. Often the Un-Emrett was unexpectedly repulsed by some simplicity which it seemed not to have anticipated. Often, too, Jake's own resistance to the terrible debate was for the moment successful. There were times when he thought: "Thank Arceus! I've won at last." But the enemy was never tired, and Jake grew more weary all the time, and presently he thought he could see signs that his thought patterns were being poisoned.

Through all these ups and downs, all changes of the front line, all counter-attacks and stands and withdrawals, Jake came to see more and more clearly the strategy of the whole affair. There was a general distrust of Bronze the creature tried to convince Jake to adopt that was the sluice for all further argument against Jake's convictions. It was clear that the Un-Emrett's whole effort was to increase this element. As long as this was but one drop, so to speak, in the sea of his mind, he would not really succeed in pushing it away entirely. Perhaps, while it remained so, he was protected from actual disobedience: perhaps no rational creature, until such a motive became dominant, could really throw away happiness and hope in Arceus for anything quite so vague as the Tempter's chatter about joining Team Eclipse or the Upward Path or Deeper Life. The veiled egoism in the conception of noble revolt against Bronze must be increased. And while he was able still to perceive such things, Jake thought, despite many rallies on his part and many setbacks suffered by the enemy, that its power in his mind was, very slowly and yet perceptibly, increasing.

On the fifth day since he awoke the second phase began, and the first procedures taxed him so greatly that they still affect his consciousness to this day. The Un-Emrett had Beheeyem awash his mind with exotic, breathtakingly pleasurable sensations. He could not gasp or even tell him to stop. He was put into a neurological void.

A turgid swell of indistinctly splendid images shaped themselves into things. He was standing in a Golden Country amid the grass and young trees. A grove of bluebells was growing at his feet. The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, Tess was in his his arms. At the beginning he had no feeling except sheer incredulity. The youthful body was strained against his own, the mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes! Actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing her mouth. She had clasped her arms about his neck, she was calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He had pulled her down onto the ground, she was utterly unresisting; he could do what he liked with her. But the truth was that he had no physical sensation, except that of mere contact. All he felt was incredulity and pride.

Then the Un-Emrett cut off the mind-stream and Jake returned to realspace. Before the Tempter began to speak Jake was aware of the consequences of his enemies's play. This present sexual temptation, if conquered, would itself be the next, and greatest, step in the opposite direction: an obedience to Arceus and a love for Tess freer, more reasoned, more conscious than any he had known before, was being put in his power to accept. He wanted to be with her in real life in the same way, but then he realized that this was a perverse thought and made a sally of his will to abolish it.

"That was not real," said the Un-Emrett, "but it will be if you side with us. Don't you understand that Bronze will be doing such a thing as we speak? He will treat her like nothing more than a breeding animal. You will have to save her, and convince him otherwise."

His defense was penetrated in the subtlest way. He hated the Un-Emrett and knew that the only way to resist it was to love it, to even understand it. Then its power would shrivel up and it would die, for he was certain that the Un-Emrett could not withstand love. But he could not do it. Perhaps it was not impossible, but it was too much to ask of him. For that very reason of his hatred, the fatal false step which, once taken, would thrust him down into the terrible slavery of appetite and hate and economics and government which the Eclipse-men know so well, could be made to sound so like the only and truest one. What made him feel sure that the dangerous element could be in his interest was a growing and progressive disregard for the plain intellectual bones of the problem. It became harder to recall his mind to the data: Bronze's actual feelings toward Tess, complete uncertainty about Tess's feelings toward him, and a present hope so great that no vague future happiness could be for the better. But these counter-arguments proved unavailing, and with a thought of "This can't go on," his will submitted to haggling.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to join our side. It is your only chance to spare both of them, or at least the one you love. Otherwise they will be destroyed." The external and, as it were, dramatic conception of the self as heroic was the enemy's true aim. It was making Jake's mind a theatre in which that phantom self should hold the stage. It had already written the play.

Jake decided to play along. If he continued to resist doubtless the Enemy would continue its solicitations till he went mad. One day he would be able to tear off those cruel arms, to evade its sledgehammer blows. If he could trick it, then he would be playing the part of the double agent.

He could see the day. They would be in a hallway and Jake would be behind the Un-Emrett. He would grab its skull and squeeze. He would squeeze so hard that his arms would break and his eyes would burst from his skull. He would squeeze until his hands cracked and his ribs groaned from the effort. He would squeeze until he felt meat and blood and bones running between his fingers, until everything that could be broken had been broken. He had hate. Emrett knew hate, of course, but nothing, not at a thousand parsec's distance in degrees of similitude removed, like his.

He shut his eyes. It was more difficult than accepting an intellectual discipline. It was a question of degrading himself, mutilating himself. He had got to plunge into the filthiest of filth, to join the Alliance to save his friends from them. But what was the most horrible, sickening thing of all? He thought of Emrett. The enormous face (because of constantly seeing it before him he always thought of it as being a meter wide), with its heavy black hair and the eyes that followed you to and fro, seemed to float into his mind of its own accord. What were his true feelings towards the Eclipse Alliance?

"You have had thoughts of deceiving me," said the Un-Emrett. "That was stupid. Stand up straighter. Look me in the face."

It paused, and went on in a gentler tone: "You are improving. Intellectually there is very little wrong with you. It is only emotionally that you have failed to make progress. Tell me, Jake; and remember, no lies: you know that I am always able to detect a lie; tell me, what are your true feelings towards the Eclipse Alliance?"

"I hate you."

"You hate us. Good. Then the time has come for you to take the last step, phase three of your reconditioning into our administrative apparatus. You must love the Great Djinn. It is not enough to obey him in the hopes of betraying us and saving your friends from our power: you must love him."

It released Jake with a little push towards the guards. "The Hive Room," it said.

...

It was bigger than most of the cells Jake had been in. But he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a meter or two from him, the other was further away, near the door. He was strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head. A sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of him.

For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and the Un-Emrett came in. "You asked me once while being brought here," it said, "what was in the Hive Room. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in the Hive Room is the worst thing in the world."

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which the Un-Emrett was standing. Jake could not see what the thing was.

"The worst thing in the world," said the Un-Emrett, "varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal."

It had moved a little to one side, so that Jake had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four meters away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were wasps.

"In your case," said the Un-Emrett, "the worst thing in the world happens to be wasps."

A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear that he was not certain what, had passed through Jake as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water.

"You can't do that!" he cried out in a high cracked voice. "You couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible."

"Do you remember," said the Un-Emrett, "the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. It was the wasps that were on the other side of the wall."

"Oh!" said Jake, making an effort to control his voice. "You know this is not necessary. What is it that you want me to do?"

The Un-Emrett made no direct answer. When it spoke it was in the schoolmasterish manner that it sometimes affected. It looked thoughtfully into the distance, as though it were addressing an audience somewhere behind Jake's back.

"By itself," said the Un-Emrett, "pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable, something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the wasps. For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand, even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you."

"But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it is?"

The Un-Emrett picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table. It set it down carefully on the baize cloth. Jake could hear the blood singing in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. He was in the middle of a great empty plain, a flat desert drenched with sunlight, across which all sounds came to him out of immense distances. Yet the cage with the wasps was not two meters away from him. They were enormous insects. The droning sound of their wings filled his ears.

"These wasps," said the Un-Emrett, still addressing its invisible audience, "although an insect, are bred to be carnivorous. I have tested this. I have set them loose in the poor quarters of towns. In some streets I found that babies left outside usually last five minutes. The wasps are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless."

There was an outburst of humming shrieks from the cage. It seemed to reach Jake from far away. The wasps were fighting; they were trying to get at each other through the partition. He heard also a deep groan of despair. That, too, seemed to come from outside himself.

The Un-Emrett picked up the cage, and, as it did so, pressed something in it. There was a sharp click. Jake made a frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair. It was hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was held immovably. His Adversary moved the cage nearer. It was less than a meter from Jake's face.

"I have pressed the first lever," said the Un-Emrett. "You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a wasp leap through the air? They will leap onto your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue."

The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Jake heard a succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a split second left: to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul acidic odor of the brutes's stingers struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. He must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the wasps.

The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The wasps knew what was coming now. One of them was flying up and down, the other, an old rotten grandfather of the hive, slammed against the mesh and moved its stinger furiously. Jake could see the sloshing venom and the teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.

"It was a common punishment in Imperial Logaria," said the Un-Emrett as didactically as ever.

The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then...no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment: one body that he could thrust between himself and the wasps.

...

Do it to Bronze!

Another thought came, faint, almost obliterated by the terror. "No. Do not say that. Never that. Don't fight the Un-Emrett. Help me defeat it."

Cold.

Cold beyond snow and falling mercury.

Cold beyond the absolute zero of a planet's shadow.

Cold pulverizing him into nothingness.

Cold and pain.

"You are not weaker than it, Jake. Help me fight it. Help me fill it."

Cold, then:

Arceus.

A great cry. A tempest of wind. A lightning flash of fire across the cold, breaking, burning the cold and pain. Terrakion and Virizion as cherubim. Wings. All the wings. Stretched to their fullest span. Eyes. All the eyes opening and closing, opening, shining.

Flame. Smoke. Feathers flying. The two Swords of Justice flung their great cherubic selves into the void of the Un-Emrett who was destroying Jake. Wings and flame and wind, a great howling of all the hurricanes in the world meeting and battling.

A cold feather that was not a feather floated through the cold.

It is not for nothing I am named Elyon. Not for nothing I am named Ransom.

Jake, it is not for you to hold him. Let me do it. Let me hold them, Emrett and Cypress and the Djinn. I can love them. I can fill them.

The words of the Glory.

Do it to Arceus! Say that!

I have already done it. I already dared. You dare not.

Jake! You are Named! My arms surround you. You are no longer nothing. You are. You are filled. You are with me.

Un-Emrett, you will not touch him. You are not nothing and I rule you. Let him be apart from you. Let him be without you.

Let him be Jake.

...

He was falling backwards, into enormous depths, away from the wasps. He was still strapped in the chair, but he had fallen through the floor, through the walls of the building, through the earth, through the oceans, through the atmosphere, into outer space, into the gulfs between the stars: always away, away, away from the wasps. He was light years distant, but the Un-Emrett was still standing at his side. There was still the cold touch of wire against his cheek. But through the darkness that enveloped him he heard another metallic click, and knew that somehow the cage door had clicked shut and not open.