"Roaring Bull is clever and only as greedy as he knows he can be. He does not demand so much that they will be injured by paying him, and he probably does this only to those traders far from tribes and homes. The tribes of this region he does not touch, and he probably also supplies them with the fire drinks.

Perhaps he is very clever and keeps only what he extorts, letting the other area tribes be the accidents. In any case, he keeps them happy and on his side. He also knows, as do the traders, that if they were to come at him in force, providing they could put aside all their tribal and national rivalries and trust and cooperate with one another for that much, one of the other tribes would simply move in and replace him."

"You are speaking as if we cannot get away even if we do escape," she noted.

"How far south would his voice reach?"

He shrugged. "Not too far either way or he would have far too large a set of bribes to pay to make it worthwhile. A full day, perhaps. Give him two just to allow for errors. That is why it is not as simple as slitting a few throats and slipping away, and he knows it."

She considered that. "Then if he wants me, I do not see why he plays this game with us. He could just order you killed and take me."

"He could, but he does have his own twisted code, I think. More important, he is concerned that I am from Council. He knows I am in trouble with them, but he also does not know how much influence I might have. We can be traced here simply because Council hunters would start with the Four Families' lodge and know of you, and when they found you here, they would not be gentle with those who mistreated me."

"But you said they would kill you for what you know!"

"They would. Most times they can play tricks with the mind, erase or change things, but they would not be permitted to take the slightest chance that anyone could ever learn what I knew, and many would try to find out for their own gain.

They would kill me-but first they would want to know all that I know so they could be sure that my death would end it."

She sighed. "It is all so complicated. Roaring Bull is the high chief of this whole region, yet he fears those of Council. Council, in turn, fears-what? You said they would not be permitted to take the chance. Who would they have to ask permission of? They are the guardians of all of this land, are they not?"

"Of this continent, yes, but there are many other continents and regions. The man I need to see is head of Council in one of those places. The heads of all the Councils in turn make up a body known as the Presidium. It is an odd, non-Hyiakutt word, but it means 'to rule.' They are given great power to make sure that the whole world follows the rules and great rewards for doing it."

She yawned but was fascinated. "So who makes the rules all must follow?"

"A-there is no real word for it in our tongue. A man-built mind. A thing that is as of man as this stable yet thinks impossibly faster than the finest human minds and knows the knowledge of the universe. It made the rules and commanded that this all be done long ago, in ancient times."

"Where is it? It sounds like a great demon of the Inner Darkness."

"It is. The demon that stalked our land weeks ago was created by it to serve it.

A machine in the crude, distorted form of a man. As to where it is, no one knows. That knowledge is of the sort that would get anyone killed. It protects itself. It might be beyond those trees there or high overhead in a great ship that is a small moon and circles us, or it might be in a greater ship that goes to the stars and never is in one place. No one is allowed to know. Its vast machines are loyal to it and must follow its orders exactly. They convey the messages to and from something only they know. Information, and orders as well.

Unless we threaten its system, it lets its humans rule. It selects those rulers, and it rewards and punishes them."

"But how does it rule this way?"

"The same way Roaring Bull rules. By fear. It was created by fear and out of fear, and so fear is what it knows best. That has always been the most effective and efficient means of making people do what a leader wants them to do. Fear- and reward. Long ago, it is said, humans created horrible weapons that could destroy all life down to the last rat, cockroach, and even blade of grass. Some of those in charge of those weapons feared them terribly and tried to find a way around their leaders to be certain that no such weapons would be used. With this fear, they built the machine, and they set it to discover a way that humans would never be allowed to destroy themselves. Somehow it found a way to take control of all the weapons of all the nations, and it threatened to use those weapons against their own makers unless they obeyed. Some did not believe, and it did use the weapons to destroy those nations. The rest, out of fear, did just what the machine commanded them to do. All served out of fear, but some served because they came to worship the machine and wished only to please it. These are the ones who were set over and apart from the rest."

"There are legends of this thing, but I never thought of them as more than that."

"They are not legends but truths. Its very creators became its victims. It is said that they were all the first ordered killed. They did not dream what their creation would do. It ordered them to tear down the whole of the world and build it back up as it had been in many other times. Tremendous amounts of knowledge were completely forbidden, wiped away, along with the great things humans had done. It had logic and its orders. It decided that the only way to ensure than man, with his violence, cruelty, and tyranny, could never destroy himself was to keep man forever in a state of knowledge where such weapons and such means could never be even imagined. The bright ones who might change things either were taken up to the leadership to fall under its commands directly or were either managed or killed. Superior knowledge was reserved for Council, and even that has limits, which is why I run. I know now a piece of knowledge that it thought long extinguished from the mind of any person."

"It is evil. It came out of the formation of all evil, the fire pits, and it rules us." She shuddered. "You speak almost as if those of Council worship it."

"They do worship it. It is their god, their sole belief, and they serve. They do not, however, love it as we love the Creator, the Great Spirit who created the universe. They serve because they fear it and cannot fight it. They hate it, for evil is hate, and fear, and terror, and brutality. They must have all these things to serve it properly. It is the Lord of the Inner Darkness, the ultimate void, which encompasses everything. It is an ancient story. Once human beings occupied its place, and they were set to destroy not only themselves but everything. So others, in fear, built their own god and gave it dominion over the rulers of men. That is the tragedy of it."

"What?" She yawned again, unable to stave off sleep much longer.

"That men have always dreamed of being the rulers of the Inner Darkness, and some finally made it, only to have it snatched from them by another. Our leaders now do not hate its power; they envy and they covet it. They wish to reclaim it for themselves. Otherwise, there is only one Lord of the Inner Darkness; as much as they can ever be are Lords of the Middle Dark, above all but one but forced to carry out only the will of the one. They preserve the Outer Darkness in which we all must live."

He had gotten preachy, and she had finally surrendered to her exhaustion. Still, it was truth that he spoke. Only he now knew the secret of the Inner Lord; he knew that there was something it feared, that there was one way to challenge its power and perhaps defeat it. Five gold rings. Precious good that knowledge was doing him, of course. He was squatting here in a foul stable dressed only in a rope and a rag, at the mercy of one of the least of the chain, a Lord of the Outer Dark named Roaring Bull, whom he understood perfectly. If he could not deal with Roaring Bull, he could hardly deal with Lazlo Chen and others as bad or worse.

Still, for the first time he was beset with doubt. What was he really doing anyway? Carrying the secret of the keys to the Inner Dark to one who might be far worse than what they had now. Those five, whoever they were, who wore the rings-they had not been appointed to those positions by the Master System because of longevity or family breeding. They had earned their way with the blood of others, mortgaging their souls in the process. Men like them, perhaps better than them, had reached the point where mass genocide and mass suicide were taken for granted. Would humanity be better off in the hands of five evil people? Would his own people, whose way of life was spiritual and fulfilling, be among the first to be penned up, perhaps extinguished, while others again slaughtered the buffalo and deer and elk into near or total extinction just for sport?

Oddly enough, he decided that the attempt to find and use the rings was worth the risk. If it could be done or if he could just spread the knowledge of the rings so that someone, some day, could and would do it, he should try.

Cloud Dancer was not truly correct. Master System, whatever it was, had not coalesced all evil into itself; its evil had been entirely taught to it by humankind. It was not an evil creation, just one that had done its job and then kept on doing it. It was evil now, the ultimate evil, because it had gone on past its time and threatened to go on forever. By locking the people of Earth into their own past, it had rendered them powerless to destroy themselves. And it had done more. It had taken the huge masses of people who could not be supported by such a system or controlled by it and scattered them among the stars. He hadn't mentioned that part to Cloud Dancer, because she thought the stars were spirits, and the concept of billions of humans was beyond her. Still, it was exactly so.

Even if Earth again reached a capacity for self-destruction, humanity would not die. So many worlds out there were populated now that humanity would probably live-in some form or another-as long as the universe lived. Yet those worlds, too, were held down, suppressed by the Master System. It treated them all as it had treated its birthworld, and worse. Humanity could not be destroyed, and that was the objective of the system as its human creators had envisioned, but neither could it grow- ever.

Better that men be in command, even if they were far more evil than the machine.

Evil men had come and gone throughout history and caused great suffering, but they had come-and gone. Others, some better, some worse, all different, had replaced them, but civilization had grown. He must loose the Lords of the Middle Dark from their chains, even if they devoured him and all that he held dear. He, as a historian, understood that better than most.

But first there was that pipsqueak pirate and dictator over there in that lodge, chuckling to himself and filling his fat belly. If he could not deal with Roaring Bull, he deserved no better than serving the lowest of the lords of evil. After Moxxoquan, Emperor of the Council of Nations, what was a Roaring Bull?

He felt suddenly invigorated, although the smells of fine food denied him attacked his stomach. He would not be stopped here. He had a thought that was appropriate to the occasion, although it was out of place here and to one of his lineage, traditions, and spiritual beliefs; a thought that only a scholar who had been given the keys to knowledge forbidden to the masses of humanity could have in such a time and place: Why, this is merely Limbo; I stand only at the gates of Malebolge and have nine circles to go before I am permitted to Dis. What warrior could dream of facing great Satan in his lair when he is trapped in Limbo?

He scouted the village, strutting as if he were its master, yet all eyes averted from him, all contact forbidden. They watched him in furtive glances and wondered if he was mad or perhaps would make a bargain.

But he would make no bargains with demons, he knew. He would not be trapped forever in Limbo, as they all were.

A number of traders were stopping at the landing: perhaps six or more canoes, some double and lashed together to carry all the more. The summer was ended, and they were going home. Two large warriors guarded the path and eyed Hawks nastily, so he went to one side and waited for the traders to come up. They were of many nations, but he was able to make out their conversations as they came up from the landing and went into the village to pay their respects-and perhaps more as well-to Chief Roaring Bull.

"I do not like this one bit, so many of Council without respect going about the land," one remarked to another casually in a tongue Hawks understood.

"I do not know what they do here," the other responded. "That Crow man and that black Caribe bitch. I would gladly give my life if I could first be permitted to cut their arrogant throats. They had better not come into my tribe!"

"They were looking for someone in particular," the first one noted. "I hope that if they find him, he feels as you!"

"You will have more two or three days south," another put in. "Up on a bluff on the west shore. They tried to be hidden, but they are amateurs, soft in the ways of living free. They were there when I came up. A bunch of them digging holes and sifting dirt. Their ways are inexplicable."

That all interested him, and he remained to hear as much new gossip as he could.

He didn't know who the southbounders were referring to. A Crow and a Caribe?

Council Security, certainly, at least the Crow.

They were hunting someone. Him, perhaps? Had they found the body up there, or had the Val just pulled the alarm when it saw that Hawks, the only Council member around not searching with it, had vanished south? The fact that a Caribe had ventured this far north was unnerving, even though she would make the hunters easy to spot. She had to be the one who'd lost the courier, the one told to go up there and not come back without a dead body and a destroyed briefcase.

With her career and future on the line, she would pull no punches, and for the knowledge of the rings, Master System would allow a lot of leeway.

The others to the south were more interesting. Archaeologists, certainly, from the description. This was a region of the mound builders, whose structures remained miraculously preserved in spite of the prior huge population here and the massive destruction that had followed.

The archaeologists would try to blend in, but somewhere close they would have modern equipment, which Hawks might be able to use to advance his cause and cover his tracks.

All right, he said to himself. You now have a destination, pursuers, and a potential for escape. If you can just find something to eat and get a little more rest, you might just save your neck.

Saving humanity would come later.

Neither Hawks nor Cloud Dancer got much rest. In anticipation of action, he just couldn't sleep; she quickly discovered that the stables were busy places in the daytime and managed to catch an hour here and an hour there. He admired her greatly for her seeming lack of concern. He tried to draw on her courage.

The trouble was that they didn't have enough to go on to work out a definite plan. They knew what they had to do, but how it was done would be strictly improvised, and they were depending a lot on the overconfidence and incompetence of the men set to watch them.

It wasn't until late that evening that they had enough privacy to discuss their plans. Cloud Dancer had effectively scouted and memorized the village layout the night before, but he had to describe to her in detail the interior of Roaring Bull's main lodge as he remembered it. He also told her about the two security people who were probably looking for them.

"I would prefer more time to study this, but I have been fearful all day that they would arrive here, and they will certainly be here within another day. I think we must go as soon as we can."

"It is better to act than to dwell," she responded.

He had feared a clear night, but the mists rolled in off the rivers and hung heavy on the village, and through it a light, cold rain fell, turning the whole area thick with mud. The dampness was uncomfortable; at times like this he appreciated all those inoculations against colds, flus, and pneumonia, and he worried a bit about Cloud Dancer.

By early morning the conditions were appalling but very much to the advantage of the pair. The sleepy guard was back, but he'd retreated inside to keep out of the rain; when Cloud Dancer slipped silently from the stable and peeked in the small hut across the way, she found him out again and snoring loudly by a small fire. The watchdog looked up, yawned, and went back to sleep. She checked for the guard down the street as well, but he was gone, almost certainly inside by a fire himself, warming his insides with fire liquids. She saw no trace of other watchers.

When she returned for Hawks, he was already numb from the cold of the stable and somewhat wet, since the roof leaked, so actually moving more than made up for the additional wetness outside. The mud, however, was both deep and slippery, something which worked against them, but would also be a problem for pursuers.

Cloud Dancer's silent friend peered out the doorway nervously and was given a whispered response. She motioned them up and in with a hand gesture. The warmth of the kitchen felt good.

The woman was indeed tiny, although her proportions showed the results of being a cook. Not that she was fat, but her behind and breasts were definitely a lot fatter than they were supposed to be. She had long, stringy black hair with traces of gray, although she didn't look all that old. Her eyes were ancient.

She was barefoot and had on a simple skin and cloth dress which looked as worn as she did.

Time was pressing, but he tried his entire repertoire of American languages and found each met by a shaking of the head. She had certainly learned some Illinois just by being there, but he didn't know that language. Since so many of the plains languages were related, as were another group from the southwest, he decided that Cloud Dancer had probably been correct: The mute woman was from either the south or the east coastal area. How she had wound up in the hands of this band was probably an epic story but not one she would ever tell.

She had gone to some risk for their sake, that was clear. She had two knives for them, one a hunting knife and the other well balanced for throwing, and somehow she'd managed to get a spear. She also had a worn leather shoulder bag that contained some provisions such as small apples, nuts, and dried fruit. It was more than he had expected, but both he and Cloud Dancer understood the obligation their acceptance incurred. In a place this small it was unavoidable that such help would be traced back to the slave woman, whether they succeeded in escaping or not. The punishment would be very slow and agonizing torture until death released her, in public, as an example of what happened to those slaves who betrayed their masters.

"She must come along, you know," he told Cloud Dancer.

"I knew you would think so. I could not love a man who would decide otherwise."

"It is also not likely we can return her to her people." The Hyiakutt accepted returned or escaped prisoner-slaves into the tribe, but many tribes considered becoming a prisoner or slave to be an act of unworthiness and tantamount to death. Also, she had clearly been here a long time; she would have no future and few, if any, friends if she did return. "I also could never keep a slave."

"Come on and let us go," Cloud Dancer said irritably. "It was I who involved her in this and agreed to her help. I understood then that you would have to marry her, too. Come. If we do not make good this escape, then none of this matters."

He kissed her, then kissed a very surprised new wife who probably did not yet understand that she had taken on that title. He pointed to himself and said in Hyiakutt, "Walks With the Night Hawks." She nodded, and he pointed to his wife and companion. "Cloud Dancer." Then he pointed to her. "Silent Woman," he said, and she nodded and looked pleased. He turned and gestured toward the door.

"Check to see if all's clear. Time to live or die."

All was clear; so far they had moved without detection. The rain was still falling, and the mist was so thick that they could have made it to the canoes and gotten away without anyone seeing them, but to do so would have meant inevitable pursuit in force and probable recapture within two days. Hawks took the hunting knife and a kitchen hatchet; Cloud Dancer chose the spear, with which she was more proficient, and a long, thin kitchen tool that resembled an ice pick. Silent Woman carried the supply bag and the throwing knife. They headed for Roaring Bull's lodge.

The lodge door was directly across from the storehouse, which would have had the usual two guards on it' had the rain not forced them inside. Hawks hoped the crude wooden door of the lodge wasn't barred from the inside. There was no other way in that was practical. But fire was a constant hazard to anyone in such wooden and hay-lined lodges, and it was unlikely that anyone would bar their only possible escape, particularly with two guards less than five meters away.

Hawks crept around the side of the lodge, checked again for signs of anyone about, then pulled on the door. It gave easily, but he hadn't remembered it making that much noise. He could only hope that the sound of the rain would mask their entrance. He had his knife in one hand and a hatchet in the other, and he took a deep breath and stepped into the lodge.

He paused, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark of the room. There was no light left in the fire, and the two alcohol lamps were long extinguished. The ventilation came from wooden slats near the ceiling propped open with sticks, and it was still quite dark outside. He wondered if he would break his neck.

The place smelled like a pigpen, but it was relatively warm and dry, one of the few lodges here with wood floors. The two large tables were littered with the remains of the previous night's activities, and many of the large skin flagons would need refilling. The sounds of scurrying and chewing told him that the mice were first on the cleanup detail.

In one corner was a small collection of weapons, including a bow and a quiver of arrows. He kept that in mind, although they were of no use in here.

When lodges this large were divided into rooms, it was usually with blankets.

Roaring Bull, however, had actually had a wooden partition built so that none of his trader guests would get into his bedroom even by accident.

Hawks jumped at a sound behind him, then recognized the slender form of Cloud Dancer. He eased back over to her, and as soon as she was used to the dark, he gestured toward the curtained-off doorway to the back room from which came the sounds of deep snores.

The darkness was a complication neither had thought of. Cloud Dancer moved to the fireplace, found a stick, and gently stirred the remains while crouching down and blowing on them. There were still a few spots of red. She got one of the torches from a holder, and after many tries it ignited. It was not, however, in the best of shape and gave them at the start only a bit more light than a match would have. It would have to do. Hoping that it wouldn't burn out, she replaced it in its holder, from where it lit the room with an eerie half glow.

Hawks cautiously pulled back the curtain and looked inside. He wasn't really prepared for the sight of the old fat man stark naked, sleeping between two equally naked women, both obviously slaves like Silent Woman. The light shone on the face of the nearer of the two women and she stirred, opened her eyes, turned, then opened them again and stared at Hawks in stark terror. He put a finger to his lips, then motioned for her to get up and stand away from the old chief. For a moment she couldn't move, then she did as instructed. He was relieved. He'd kill the old boy if he had to, but he sure as hell didn't want innocent blood on his hands.

He leaned back out, whispered to Cloud Dancer, and exchanged his hatchet for her spear. At this distance and in these crowded conditions, the spear seemed the best weapon. The slave girl's eyes widened as she realized that the invader was not alone.

Hawks poked Roaring Bull with the spear, gently at first, then more rudely when the man merely stirred. Finally the chief raised his lids just a little.

"Enough acting!" Hawks hissed. "Sit up and face me!"

Roaring Bull smiled, sat up, yawned, and stretched. "Or you'll do what?" he asked genially in Sioux. "Kill me? That will get you nowhere. One shout from me will bring in a horde of sleepy but dedicated warriors."

"Make that shout and you feel the spear," Hawks responded. "We have already resolved that this will work or we will die. No other choices. I am comfortable with either. Are you? Shall I make a small, painful hole in you to prove a point?"

By this point the other woman had awakened, gasped, and now sat up, pressed into the corner.

Roaring Bull seemed to consider his position. "Seems I underestimated you, boy.

Few Council types would have the ability, and fewer the courage, to get this far."

Hawks rudely pulled on the curtain, bringing it down. The torch was burning more brightly now. "Come on out, and quietly. No tricks! If we are discovered in here, we will die, but you will die, slowly and painfully, before we do. Even if you are hurt, you do not cry out, or at the very least I will sever your tongue."

"Bold words," the chief sighed, but he got up and came out into the main room, where Cloud Dancer sat on a table, one of the bows from the corner in her hand, its drawstring stretched with a small hunting arrow.

Hawks turned back to the two women. "Do either of you want to come with us?"

he asked, first in Sioux, then in several other languages when they did not respond. He was about to give up when one whispered, in a language close enough to Cheyenne for him to make it out, "He is death. We must not go with him."

"Choose now," he responded in Cheyenne. "I have seen many men in this village, young and old, but I have seen few old women. Come now, or you will remain here forever."

"Come where?" the other asked, frightened. "There is no place for us to go."

"With me. Perhaps to death. Perhaps to life. The mute one goes with us."

"But she is addlebrained."

Never had he met two people more intent on remaining slaves. He did not argue further; he had done his duty. He began cutting up some blankets and rope while Roaring Bull stood in all his naked majesty watching with seemingly little concern.

The two women stared at Hawks. "What are you going to do with those?" one asked.

"If you will not go, then you cannot be allowed to raise any alarms too soon. I must bind and gag you both."