Strong hands pulled him back. “You don’t want to die that bad,” Garnet said.

At last the glowing failed, and the abyss was dark again.

“Not dense enough,” Hastings said, the cold sweat running off his body. “Praise Chthon you didn’t blow us all to hell. Can’t you see what this is?”

Bossman accepted the reprimand. “What is it?”

“The fire cycle,” Hastings said. Faces stared blankly at him. “Look, the vapor drops from the ceiling there, some kind of natural gas. It settles in a pool at the bottom. Probably there are many crevices and rifts that suck the mixture through to the flames. Miles of tubing, similar to what we have been traveling through, only much farther down. The whole thing is a gigantic blowtorch (if you remember the primitive term), spewing fire and superheated air out the other end, heating the caverns. As that air travels and expand, it cools, until it arrives back here and brushes those saturated formations above, picking up more fuel.”

“What do you know,” Bossman said in amazement.

This meant, Aton realized, that this was a closed cycle. Water vapor, oxygen, combustibles—all seeped through porous rock, allowing no physical exit. There could be no escape this way, even if they found a way to cross the main chasm. The draft went nowhere, and they were still trapped.

•  •  •

The party slept: men and women sprawled in all attitudes across the floor, gathering strength and courage for the march back to the river. In the “morning” those unable or unwilling to continue would be slaughtered and prepared; this was already routine, and no lots had been necessary so far for the performance of this ultimate service. Some few volunteers kept guard upwind, though in the overriding fatalism the chimera had lost much of its terror. If it came, the first scream would precipitate a savage chase—for the meat on its body.

Garnet did not sleep. She stood overlooking the sheer drop, silent and still. Her hefty body had slimmed with the lean marching. Soon it would be too slim—but right now she was a handsome figure.

Aton came up behind her. “I could push you over, now.” Would it never end?

“I guess the water’s safe,” she said.

“Turn around.”

Garnet turned with a sullen half-smile. Aton put a hand on her collarbone, fingers touching her neck, the heel of it just above and between her breasts. He exerted slow pressure. “You body will tumble into that mist,” he said. “Over and over until it thuds against the bottom with no sound for human ears, and lies there, mistress to the rock and gas until it rots and sublimates into food for the sacrificial flame. A pyre for Garnet. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

“We both drank, and nothing happened. Must be good water.”

“Perhaps I will make love to you first,” he mused. “Then you would have to die. Everything I touch has to die.”

“Yes.”