Strata

vanished.
    ‘What have you done with him?’ said Kin.
    ‘He Has Been Deposited In A Place Of Safety, Unharmed Except Maybe For A Few Friction Burns.’
    ‘I see. And his ransom is our flying belts, right?’
    Abu spoke. The demon said: ‘No, My Master Says He Knows Now That You Come From Another World. There Was Another Such Traveller, Some Time Since, Who—’
    ‘Jago Jalo?’ said Kin. Abu glared at her.
    ‘Crazy fool,’ hissed Silver.
    ‘That Was His Name,’ agreed the demon. ‘A Madman. He Abused Our Hospitality. He Stole From Our Collection. He Sought The Forbidden Island Too.’
    ‘What happened to him?’ said Kin. The demon shrugged.
    ‘He Escaped From Here With A Carpet, A Bottomless Purse And A Cloak With Unusual Powers. Even I Have Been Unable to Locate Him. My Master Feels, However, That All Is Not Lost.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘He Has Three New Flying Devices, Two Captive Demons And You.’
    Kin sprang round. More guards had appeared on the balcony, and they were archers. She considered taking a dive for the open air with thebelt on full throttle. She might get hit. She doubted whether the disc’s medical facilities were satisfactory. Anyway, that wouldn’t solve Silver’s problem.
    So she collapsed into tears of inconsolable grief.
    She heard a brief conversation between the demon and his master. Then two servant women were summoned to take her away.
    She had one glimpse of Silver’s impassive face before she was escorted out of the room and into a maze of ornate arches and screens. A male guard walked behind her with a drawn sword.
    The women chattered at her solicitously. When they reached one arched doorway the guard left them, and took up a post outside the door. Kin was briefly surrounded by a gaggle of small dark-eyed women in scanty clothing before the older of her escorts shooed them away. She felt helpful arms guiding her to a bench. She sat and stared.
    Later a middle-aged woman brought her some food. Kin looked up at her gratefully. Under the strange make-up the woman was watching her with simple-minded sympathy.
    So Kin apologized silently as she hit her, as nicely as possible. The woman sighed and collapsed, but Kin was already on her feet and running.
    She sped through several low and airy rooms and had a blurred impression of fountains, singing birds and bored women sitting on large cushions. Kohl-eyed, they stared after her and began to scream as Kin cannoned into a servant carrying a tray.
    A long way behind her a new series of screams suggested that a guard had reluctantly invaded the seraglio.
    Kin reached a balcony, considered the courtyard below, then scrambled up a decorative trellis that trembled even under her weight. It took her on to a flat roof and into the full glare of the noon sun.
    Shouts below meant that a guard had got as far as the balcony. Kin threw herself down, chest heaving, hoping that he would think she had taken the easy way and dropped into the courtyard. He didn’t. There was a sudden silence, broken by some heavy breathing.
    Then wood cracked, and there was the beginnings of a wail that ended with a noise like a falling man hitting hard stone flags.
    She jogged across the roof to the nearer of two towers that pierced it. It wasn’t a wise choice really, but she couldn’t think of anything else. There was an arch with no door, and a dark spiral stairway as cold as ice after the glare of the sun off the roof.
    The stairs ended in a turret room with glassless windows looking out over the city. Kinpeered around in the gloom. It looked as if she was in a storeroom.
    There were a few carpets rolled up against the wall, and boxes in untidy heaps beside them. A tall bronze statue in vaguely Middlesea dress was propped against a three-legged table with what looked like the wreckage of a drinking party strewn across it. There were several swords, including one that looked – Kin couldn’t believe it, but closer inspection bore out the first impression – one that
was
half-buried in an anvil.
    In the middle of the floor was a statue of a horse, cast in some dark metal. The musculature had been done well, but the pose was uninspiring. It just stood four-square, looking at the floor.
    ‘Junk,’ said Kin. She tried to pull an iron-bound chest across the stair-hole, then gave up and sat on it instead. There was no sound below.
    ‘A person could hold out here for weeks,’ she thought. ‘With food and water, that is.’ Food! She thought longingly of the