After twenty seconds of sliding, he slipped out of the mouth of the funnel. It was as he had hoped. His checked speed enabled him to drop onto a granite ledge beneath the opening. Even so, he fell close to the very edge. A little more velocity, and he would have gone completely over. Shuddering, he clutched the rim of rock until he'd regained some of his composure. After a while, he inched forward until his head hung over the lip of the precipice, and he could gaze downward into the abyss. Below, seemingly a thousand feet down, though he knew the distance must be an illusion fabricated by Da Vincelleo, was a lake of molten lava rising in great billows, then sinking into deep valleys, and releasing gigantic bubbles that rose and burst, and loosed a stench of sulfur that almost suffocated him. Smoke spiralled up past his head, and collected against the roof far above. The heat that ascended was strong enough to crisp his face if he had looked long into it. Nowhere was there a sign of Dafess's inhabitants. All had been dissolved in the roaring sea of lava, in the hell that had been prophesied for all their enemies. Quailing, Revanche looked to left and right along the narrow ledge for an avenue of escape. There was none. Both ends tapered off into the rock. Straight across, perhaps a hundred feet away, was the balcony from which he had hoped to see the show. If he had the guts, he thought, he could step up his anti-grav past the danger point and, almost weightless for a second, could leap to the balcony. If the pack didn't burn out while he was in midair. If he didn't misgauge and miss the balcony ... if the hellish blast from below didn't crisp him before he completed the jump ... if.... * * * * * He stood up, and by the glow thrown up from the bright ocean, he peered up the slide. Another _if_. What if he could brace his legs against the sides of the _O_, and painfully work his way back up? At that moment a figure shot out of the shadows of the tunnel, a figure that approached at express-train speed and quickly loomed larger and larger. Its blood-colored halo, the mask with the snarl of tenderness, the furnace-door eyes, and the dripping sword--all could be made out in frightening detail. Like the lost soul he believed he was, Revanche screamed and dropped flat to the ledge, crushing his snipped nose into the granite. He moaned, and waited for the clang of armor and the final whistle of the blade through the air before it thudded into his neck. Above him something dark and monstrous shot out of the _O_ and roared by. Whoosh! It missed the ledge by many feet, and fell into the lava ocean. A train of shadows flickered over Revanche. The air was disturbed by the constant passage of flying elephantine bodies. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!