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She soon gave up trying to convince them and stared silently at us over the bear’s shoulder, her face projecting strength Don’t be afraid, she seeraph We’ll survive this, too

I worried not all of us would survive even the trip to the top of the tower Turning around, I tried to see who it was that had been shot A someone limp in her arms--Miss Avocet, I think--and then a meaty hand srowled uard

Finally we came to the top of the tower and its very last door In the hallway beyond, pale daylight shone on the curving wall There was an open deck above us, a fact I filed away for future reference

Caul stood beanor Anomalous--yes, there in the back! Since I owe this discovery in part to your expeditions and hard work--credit where credit is due!--I think you should do the honors and open the door"

"Come noe’ve no tiuarded …"

"Don’t be such a ninny-," Caul said "This won’t take but a ed Perplexus out of the crowd and up to the door Since I’d last seen him, his hair and beard had turned alabaster white, his spine had curved, and deep wrinkles grooved his face He’d spent too long away fro to catch up to him Perplexus seehing Once he’d regained his breath, he faced Caul, drew in a snorting lungful of air, and spat a glistening wad of phleg!" Perplexus cried

Caul raised his pistol to Perplexus’s head and pulled the trigger There were screams--"Jack, don’t!" Bentham shouted--and Perplexus threw up his hands and spun away, but the only sound the gun un and peered into its chaed "It’s an antique, like yourself," he said to Perplexus, then used its barrel to flick the spittle from his jacket "I suppose fate has intervened on your behalf Just as well--I’d rather watch you turn to dust than bleed to death"

Heoaths at Caul in Italian, was dragged back to the group

Caul turned to the door "Oh, to hell with it," he muttered, and opened it "Get in there, all of you!"

Inside was the sa fourth wall extended into a long, dark corridor With a few shoves fro it The sh and uneven, then widened into a primitive, day-lit rooht’ve called it a cave but for its approxiular door and ts So it out of soft rock

We were herded outside into a hot, dry day The view opened dizzyingly We were high in a landscape that could’ve been an alien world: everywhere around us, towering on one side and rolling away into valleys on the other, were hue, reddish rock, all honeycoh the h the sun was nowhere near setting, the sky glowed orange, as if the end of the world were brewing just beyond the horizon And despite evidence here of a civilization, other than ourselves there was no one in sight I had a heavy, watched feeling, like ere trespassing someplace ere not meant to be

Bentham climbed down from his bear and re across the hills

Caul threw a big-brotherly arm across his shoulders "I told you this day would co here, didn’t we?"

"We did," Benthareed

"But I say all’s well that ends well, because now I get to do this" Caul turned to face us "Friends! Ymbrynes! Peculiar children!" He let his voice echo away into the strange, o down in history Welco for applause that didn’t co now in the ancient city that once protected the Library of Souls Until recently, it hadn’t been seen in over four hundred years, nor conquered in a thousand--until I rediscovered it! Noith you as my witnesses …"

He stopped, looked down for aravity ofthe Sistine Chapel!" He patted Benthao and take what’s ours"

"And ours as well!" said a voice behind et us, will you, sir?"

"Of course I won’t," Caul said, atteuise his irritation at having been challenged in front of everyone "Your loyalty will be repaid tenfold"

He turned with Bentha us after the branches and feeders into the spiked hills Following a route he’d no doubt forced Perplexus to reveal and had trod many times in recent days, Caul led us down obscure and bra the arrogance of a colonizer The watched feeling I had only grew As if the rough openings bored into the rock were a colony of half-closed eyes, so slowly from a thousand-year sleep