Alp was naked, weaponless, and horseless. Was Surefoot here? He saw no bones. And of course he had already decided that his mount would not be here in hell, not even in the hell for horses. That was the nature of man's hell: to be without horse and weapon.

His appraisal of the canyon had taken only an instant, but already the scuffling sounds in the chamber behind made it clear that the Galactics were coming after him. That was the system of hell too: perpetual pursuit, and torture upon capture. But now he knew that not all demons had the same specific objectives; most likely the other demons of this realm had other warriors to torment and would ignore him. If he could kill the four assigned to him, as he had killed the four Kirghiz, he would have no quarrel with those outside.

Kill? Not precisely. His Galactics were associated with the Game, and in that context the act of killing did not accomplish the usual relegation to an afterworld. There were strange things about this Game—but he didn't have time to work it out now, though it was all in his helmet-sponsored memory. He had to move.

He ran down the channel he found himself on. Above it were other channels, and below it were more, like ropes stretched the length of the canyon. This was a street in a city—neither road nor town like any he had known in life. Karabalgasun was a city, and it had streets, but the houses were not tall and the roads were flat on the ground. The cities of the far places he had read about were similar: Changan in China, the Middle Kingdom; Babylon in the southwest.

Now he realized that the path itself was moving! He had stepped onto a woven mat being dragged along, and it was carrying him along with it, as though he rode the back of a monster serpent.