Glawen sauntered from the chamber. Mutis pressed close behind him.

"Have I not said: "Hurry'?" He drove his fist into the small of Glawen's back; Glawen jerked his left elbow into Mutis' neck; he turned to see the flat small-featured face contorting, so that the mouth was a small pink circle. Muds lurched forward; Glawen tried to strike out and jump back, but too late; Muds overpowered him and bore him to the floor. Glawen rolled and kicked, to catch Mutis in the ear. He jumped to his feet and stood panting, but now the hall was full of confusion and hooded figures in flapping gray gowns. Anonymous hands seized Glawen and pulled the hood down over his eyes so that he could not see. He heard Muds speaking in a furious babble, and a shuffling rustle, as if Muds were trying to push toward him.

Glawen was half led, half pushed down two flights of stairs.

Here there was further confusion: exclamations and ques dons

Muds at last gave sullen instructions: "To die old place;

diose were die orders."

Glawen heard murmurs of doubt and soft comments which he could not comprehend. He tried to dirow off die hands which gripped him so that he could raise the hood, but without success.

Muds spoke: "I will now take him in charge. He is docile; I need no more help."

"He is quick and strong," said a voice hard by Glawen's ear.

"We will come too, and prevent violence."

"Ah, bah!" grunted Muds.

Glawen was taken along a corridor which smelled of wet stone, ammonia and an aromatic odor as of fungus crushed underfoot. He heard a creak and a scrape, and he was thrust forward.

Hands released their grip; he was free. Once more he heard the creak and scrape, and the thud of a closing door, then silence.

Glawen pulled the hood from his face. He could see nothing.

He stood in absolute darkness.

After a moment Glawen moved back toward the door and found the wall. Echoes, or perhaps another subtle perception, informed him that he stood to the side of a large room: a subterranean place, to judge by the odor of wet rock. The only sound was a soft tinkle of running water.

Glawen stood motionless for five minutes, trying to gather into coherent form what remained of his composure.

"I seem to have made a number of mistakes," said Glawen to himself.

"Conditions are truly going from bad to worse."

He felt the wall behind him, encountering natural stone:

uneven, damp and smelling of mold. It would seem that he stood at the very core of Pogan's Point.

Glawen started a cautious exploration, testing the floor as he went, half expecting to come upon the lip of a chasm: a trick which might well be expected from the Monomantics, so that when Plock came to look for him, the Ordene Zaa in tones of injured innocence could say: "The crazy Captain Clattuc? We could not restrain him! He chose to enter a cave and fell into a chasm! We had nothing to do with it!"

But Glawen found no chasm. The floor seemed level. Glawen groped ten paces to the left of the door, then returned and tested ten paces to the right. The apparent curvature of the wall--assuming that the chamber was circular--would indicate a diameter of about sixty feet. The circumference would then be, roughly, about two hundred feet. Glawen went back to the door and prepared to wait. Sooner or later, someone must come to see to his needs. Or perhaps no one would come--ever. Glawen wondered if this might have been the fate of the missing tourists, who had sought too zealously for Zonk's Tomb. It was not a cheerful notion. He had kicked Mutis in the ear, but he could not die happy on that account alone.

Half an hour passed. Glawen became uncomfortable leaning against the wall and seated himself on the floor. His eyes grew heavy and despite the cold hard stone he began to doze.

Glawen awoke. Time had gone by: several hours at least. He felt cold and cramped and miserable. His mouth was unpleasantly dry.

He listened. No sound but the plash of running water, coming generally from the right. He heaved himself to his feet and felt for the door. A sudden idea entered his mind; perhaps it had never been locked! What a fine sardonic joke to play on the foreign policeman: to put him in a dungeon and leave him to starve behind a door which had never been locked!

Glawen tested the door. It felt dismally solid. He groped along the panel and around the frame, but found neither latch nor hinge nor draw chain, Glawen drew back and gave the door a great buffet with his shoulder. The door failed to move. Glawen uttered a despondent grunt.

An hour passed, or perhaps two; Glawen found himself unable to judge. In any case the wait had become most tedious, and he could hope for little better the rest of the long night;

almost certainly he would be confined until morning, while everyone else enjoyed the comfort of their warm beds.

Glawen heaved a sad sigh, and took command of himself. Fury at this point was a futile exercise.

His mouth was thick with thirst. Keeping always in contact with the wall, he crawled on hands and knees to the right, and after about twenty yards came upon a rill of cold water.

He cupped up a handful and tasted. The water was harsh with minerals and barely potable. Glawen drank a few mouthfuls, enough to assuage his thirst, and rising to his feet groped around the wall and back to the door.

An unknown period of time passed. Glawen sat by the door, his mind numb.

From high up on the wall came a sound. Glawen lifted his head. The sound was repeated; he identified it as the squeak of a door moving on dry hinges. The sound was joined to a crack of light which revealed the outlines of a balcony, twenty feet above the floor.

A figure shrouded in white came out on the balcony, carrying a lamp. Glawen sat motionless; the play of light and shadow confused his perceptions; he felt only a passive interest as to who or what had come to overlook the chamber.

The person in white fixed the lamp into a socket, then with a swift motion threw back the hood of the gown. In the yellow lamplight Glawen saw a thin face with large dark eyes, a thatch of tawny-copper hair and fine, clearly defined, features. The hair clasped the face like a copper casque, almost covering the ears, clinging to the forehead and swirling up in curls at the nape of the neck. With dull surprise Glawen saw this person to be the Ordene Zaa. Her gown was of a softer fabric than that which she had worn before and fitted her with rather more grace.

Zaa looked down at Glawen, her expression inscrutable. She spoke in a light, almost airy, voice: "With great skill you have contrived an uncomfortable plight for yourself."

Glawen responded in measured tones: "My conduct has been quite correct. You have wrongfully placed me into this plight, for reasons quite beyond my understanding."

Zaa shook her head.

"In terms of local realities, my conduct is correct. Yours is based upon naive theorizing; already it has been proved useless."

"I do not care to argue," said Glawen.

"It would seem as if I were complaining."

Zaa looked down with amusement.

"You seem to have an unusually serene disposition."

Glawen perceived that Zaa vas playing with him as a cat with a mouse, and made no comment.

Zaa prompted him: "Is it by reason of stoicism? Or a resolute philosophy of elaborate pans?"

"I couldn't say; I am not much for introspection. Perhaps I have simply gone numb."

"A pity. If Mutis has a fault, it must be that he does not forgive lightly, and I believe that his head still rings from the force of your kick. But we cannot dwell upon past wrongs; we must look to the future. What do you say to that?"

"I say, give me my information and I will be away from this dismal place without a moment's delay, and never so much as look over my shoulder. This is your most sensible option."

Zaa smiled.