“It’s damned cold,” Count Brass grumbled and went to the fire to fling on another log. Sparks flew and the log caught quickly, the flames sending red shadows skipping through the hall. Count Brass had wrapped his bull-like body in a simple woollen robe and now he tugged at this as if regretting he had not worn something more substantial. He glanced at the rack at the far end of the hall. The rack contained spears, bows, ar

rows, maces, swordsand his own broadsword, and his armour of brass. His great, bronzed face was clouded.

Again a tremor shook the building and the arms decorating the walls rattled.

Hawkmoon glanced at Bowgentle, noticing in the philosopher’s eyes the same sense of inexplicable doom he felt. “A mild earthquake, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” murmured Bowgentle, plainly unconvinced.

Now they heard a sounda distant sound like the booming of a gong, so low as to be almost inaudible. They rushed to the doors of the hall and Count Brass hesitated for a moment before flinging them open and looking up at the night.

They sky was black, but the clouds seemed dark blue, swirling in considerable agitation as if the dome of the sky were about to crack.

The reverberation came again, this time plainly audible. The voice of a huge, low bell or a gong. It hummed in their ears.

“It is like being in the bell-tower of the castle as the clock strikes,” Bowgentle said, his eyes full of alarm.

Every face was paleevery face tense. Hawkmoon began to stride back into the hall, walking with arm outstretched towards the Sword of the Dawn. D’Averc called to him. “What do you suspect, Hawkmoon? Some kind of attack by the Dark Empire?”

“By the Dark Empireor by something supernatural,” Hawkmoon answered.

A third stroke sounded filling the night, echoing over the flat marshes of the Kamarg, over the lagoons and the reeds. Flamingoes, disturbed by the noise, began to squawk from the darkness.

A fourth followed, louder stilla great booming bell of doom.

A fifth. And Count Brass went to the rack and took up his broadsword.

A sixth. D’Averc covered his ears as the sound increased. “This is sure to bring on at least a mild migraine,” he complained languidly.

A seventh. Yisselda ran down the stairs in her nightclothes. “What is it, Dorian? Fatherwhat’s the sound? It is like the striking of a clock. It threatens to burst my eardrums…”

Oladahn looked up gloomily. “It seems to me that it threatens our very existence,” he said. “Though I do not know why I think that …” A seventh stroke sounded and plaster fell from the ceiling as the castle shook to its foundations.

“We had better close the doors,” Count Brass said as the echo died sufficiently for him to make himself heard. Slowly they moved inside and Hawkmoon helped Count Brass push the doors together and replace the heavy iron bar.