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Vael felt the tremor in the Dial Square. He lost his footing as the whole concourse heaved up in a wide ripple. Dry dust ran like sand down the undulating peaks, revealing the black lines and patterns inlaid on the white marble beneath. Wide circles and number systems that were meaningless to anyone standing directly on the surface.

He clung to the outside wall where he had been tumbled, watching the unbroken marble flowing with a procession of waves like cloth on the surface of a ripple bath. The buildings on the square were swaying in the tumult. The undulations were moving up through the City as it rose around the steady stars.

He was angry. Events were taking a fresh turn and he was not in on the secret. The tremors had emanated from the haunted sector, where he was too frightened to venture. He must find out, but to enter that artery mouth was to cross an invisible barrier that his mind's eye could not face.

The quake subsided slowly, settling the square into new shapes, fresh mounds and ditches over which the marble was smoothly draped like raw pastry.

Silence returned, but Vael's mind seethed with anger. Dust thrown up by the quake thickened the air and choked in his lungs. He stumbled along the edge of the concourse, willing himself to enter the street that he loathed. But he had to find Shonnzi and the girl before the guards stole his chance.

There was a rough alcove set in one of the walls. It had been curtained with ancient material and surrounded by woven twigs and brown flowers, like an altar. On its ledge, the Phazels had placed offerings, old food and gilded trinkets, votive gifts that pleaded for atonement and release from their Gods. But the Menti Celesti were deaf to such pleas, or busy with divine games elsewhere.

How laughable. There was precious food here that was recently offered. After all this time, they still persisted in unshakeable superstition. It made Vael almost blind with rage that he should be trapped inside this world with these fools. They should be making offerings to him!

If the girl knew a way out of this insane trap, then it should be him that had her — not that brat Shonnzi. It was Vael that the finger pointed at. Vael that the eye inside his own head stared at. Him! Him! Him!

He choked as acrid smoke filled his throat. His sight slammed back into his head and he saw the shrine in flames. Shreds of burning material floated upwards with the smoke. The stone cracked and crumbled in the heat. He had caused it. It was still with him. The hatred in his body could burst out and consume anything in its path. It had erupted for the first time since he was trapped in this tomb. He bit at his own hand, willing and forcing the wild power back under control. He was still an Individual.

There was a loud crack. He looked up. The whole side of the burning building was breaking away and toppling towards him. He didn't move. It couldn't touch him. He was an Individual. The hot rubble arced down, streaming smoke behind it. It crashed to the ground at his feet.

His head was full of eyes inside. His mind's eye. The keening eye of the Sphinx. Loie's accusing eyes. And the watchful, ever wakeful eye of the venerable Pythia.

The noon gong sounded three.

The gloom that had hung over the City like fog during a bitter winter lingered with the arrival of a cold spring. The dourness had become inherent in the people.

The port. The Court of Principals. The Krewva Prospect. The Pythia flicked through views reflected on to her screen by panoptics throughout the City.

In the market, crowds gathered as a party of fur-clad PenShoza traders displayed fresh consignments of workers from Oshakarm and the Star Grellades. There had been no workers from the Grellades for years. They were prized for their blue-bronze skins and their temperaments. Quick to learn, but utterly and unquestioningly subservient. They were selling well. Abolishing the duties payable on such imports had been a good plan.

A small but vociferous group of protesters was bunched on the street nearby, obstructing the crowds and