He drew himself to his full height. Now he felt himself expanding and growing like a giant. Not like a balloon-every bit of him was as solid as it had been before. His hand touched the rock ceiling. There was a moment of pressure, then the rock seemed to explode away from around his body in red-glowing fragments and go whizzing away into- blackness.

He rose up through the earth until his head broke the surface, and kept on rising. The earth gaped where he broke through, then closed behind him. He flexed his legs and leaped upward. His legs pulled free of the rock and earth. Now he stood in the Tower of London. Already his head was above the top of the flagpole on the White Tower, and as he turned from side to side to look over London, he continued to grow.

Black and shining, Blade grew, until he could see London spread out below him, lit with a hell-red glow from horizon to horizon. God-like, he stretched his arms out to embrace the city and seemed to hear it roar and pulse in response. Then the red light faded, and the city vanished. Blade stood alone in the blackness-the gigantic, terrible, blackness-knowing that this time he had been pushed beyond the normal human limits-into where?

Chapter TWO

Blade literally came back down to earth with a bump. Suddenly the darkness was gone, and he was back to normal size. Then he struck something hard and cold with a bone-shaking crash, bounced, and rolled over and over down a long, hard, sloping surface, picking up bruises as he went. He finally arrived in Dimension X with a bone-jarring thump against another hard surface.

He lay there without even trying to move until his head began to clear. He felt aches and pains all over, from the bruises and cuts he had picked up rolling over the rocks. And he knew he must have struck his head harder than usual, since there was a distinct, unmistakable roaring sound in his ears.