collapsed. With his gun still in his hand, Modred cautiously approached the

pile

of smoking clothing on the floor. He gingerly lifted up the waiter's jacket.

The

hideous skull was lying on the floor beneath it. There was only the skull,

cracked and brown with age, and nothing else. As he stared down at it a snake

crawled out of the left eye socket. A hollow, echoing laugh boomed forth from

the skull's gaping jaw.

And then the skull exploded, shattering into a thousand bright blue shards of

shimmering, glowing crystal that spun around the room in arabesques and

coalesced into a whirlwind funnel of blue fire, encircling him and sucking

all

the air out of his lungs, spinning him around and around, faster and faster

and

faster, and then the maelstrom sucked up into itself and disappeared, taking

him

along with it.

There was a loud, insistent banging on the door.

"Sir! Sir, are you all right? Sir, what's going on in there? What is that

noise?

What are you doing? Sir! Sir!"

The room service waiter tried the knob and found that it was open. He took

one

step inside and froze. The room was empty, but it looked as if a tornado had

passed through it. It was totally destroyed.

"Bloody hell!" the waiter exclaimed, staring at the wreckage with stunned

disbelief. Then he shook his head and squinted. For a moment he could have

sworn

that the walls inside the room had become somehow insubstantial. It seemed as

if

he could see through them to a galaxy of stars. And then he heard the distant

sound of malevolent, ghostly laughter.

The bottle of Scotch crashed to the floor as the waiter took off running down

the hall.

CHAPTER ONE

As Wyrdrune passed the Washington Square fountain, the white-faced mime fell

in

step behind him. Wyrdrune was preoccupied, deep in thought as he walked with

his

shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into the pockets of his brown

Inverness

coat. A wide-brimmed brown felt hat was pulled low over his forehead. . He

didn't notice the mime walking close behind him, burlesquing his stride, his

posture, and his facial expression. It was only when he heard the eruption of

laughter from the people who had gathered to watch the mime that he stopped

and

looked up, puzzled. The mime, playing to his audience, didn't notice Wyrdrune

stop and walked right into him.

Wyrdrune turned around, frowning, and the mime backed off a pace,