«To my chamber, well after dark-and be quiet and careful about it. The fewer who know the better.»

Ogier eased his swordbelt around his little paunch, distended by the hearty meal. «It shall be done. And then I will stand the first watch myself-in the harem.»

Blade watched the Captain exit laughing and went to his own private quarters, a suite of austere and high-ceilinged rooms with something of the Romanesque about them. But comfortable enough. His bedchamber was hung with drapes and opened into a latrine closet. There was a great round bed in the center of the room and mirrors here and there on the wall and a large table and a chair for working. Blade sank into the chair, put his feet on the table and examined his image in one of the mirrors.

He looked as he usually did in Dimension X, a bit larger than life, this illusion helped by the full black beard. The planes of his face were flatter, his jaw more prognathic, his eyes harder and colder, his stare more intent. He had noted it all before. He was Blade and yet he was not Blade; he was the same human animal with better and improved survival equipment.

It would be some time yet before Valli arrived, if she came at all. Blade went to the bed and stretched out without undressing. He must relax now and begin thinking ahead. He had come through the first ordeal. But it would not be the last and he much doubted that it would be the worst. Danger lay ahead and he must contrive to meet it as it came. It was always so in DX-you lived from hour to hour, day to day, week to week.

The thought made him uneasy and he left the bed to make a check. He returned satisfied. There was a guard on the door and a man beneath each of his chamber windows. From over the court, beyond a fountain of colored water, he heard the shrill laughter of women. Ogier had wasted no time in letting his men know of their good fortune. Blade grinned and went back to his bed.