His foot struck something solid, and he pitched forward onto the bottom steps of a stone stairway. The edge of the fourth step caught him across the nose, gashing the bridge to the bone. Blood spurted down his cheeks and coated his lips. All at once the exhaustion, the emotional drain and the despair flooded over his battered body, and he folded limply on the stairs. Everything began to slow down. He lay and listened to the blood drip on the step beneath his head. A soft white cloud materialized out of the black gloom and gently covered him.

* * *

Pitt shook his sore and fuzzy head violently, trying to clear the cobwebs. Slowly, very slowly, like a man lifting a tremendous weight he raised his head and shoulders and began agonizingly to crawl up the stairway. Step by step he struggled, until at last he reached his destination.

A webbing of heavy bars marked the top of the stairway. The grillwork was ancient and heavily rusted but still thick and strong enough to hold back an elephant.

Pitt hauled himself painfully onto the landing. A curtain of fresh air greeted his skin, replacing the musty odor of the labyrinth. He gazed through the rectangles between the bars and his spirits soared at the sight of the stars blinking in the sky. Back in the winding passageways he had felt like a dead man in a casket. It seemed like an eternity since he saw the outside world. He pulled himself to his feet and shook the bars. There was no movement. The lock on the massive gate had recently been welded closed.

He checked the width between each bar, searching for the largest opening. The third space from the left held the greatest spread; about eight and one-half inches. He laboriously stripped off all his clothes and set them on the other side of the barrier. Next he smeared his blood into the sweat and exhaled until his lungs ached in protest. Then, slipping his head between the bars, he strained to push one hundred and ninety pounds into the outside landscape. The rust from the bars flaked off against his slippery skin and stuck to the glue-like blood. A racking moan of pain escaped his mouth as his genitals scraped over the ragged edge of one bar. He desperately clawed at the ground and gave a final heave. His body came free.

Pitt grasped his scraped crotch and sat up, ignoring the stabbing pain and unable to believe his success. He was out, but was he in the clear? His eyes, now acutely used to the dark, darted around the immediate area.