rned to his bedroom-office and got into his armor;
then, ignoring the throbbing of his reawakened wound, he mounted Easy
Money and set out. He had no weapons, but it could not be helped. With
a little luck, he would have need of none. He was about due for a
little luck, if you asked him.

He gambled that Rowena would use the same route back to the chamber of
the Sangraal that they had used in leaving it--actually, she had no
other choice--and he encephalo-guided Easy Money at a fast trot in the
direction of the river in the hope of overtaking her before she
reached the entrance to the subterranean passage. However, the hope
did not materialize, and he saw no sign of her till he reached the
entrance himself. Strictly speaking, he saw no sign of her then
either, but he did discern several dislodged stones that could have
been thrown up by the black rohorse's hoofs.

[Illustration]

Entering the passage, he frowned. Until that moment, the incongruity
of a sixth-century damosel encephalo-guiding a twenty-second century
rohorse had not struck him. After a moment, though, he had to admit
that the incongruity was not as glaring as it had at first seemed.
"Encephalopathing" was merely a glorified term for "thinking," and
Rowena, shortly after mounting Perfidion's steed, must have made the
discovery that she had only to think where she wanted to go in order
for the rohorse to take her there.

He had not remembered to bring a light, nor did he need one. The
infra-red rays of Easy Money's eye units were more than sufficient for
the task on hand, and overtaking the girl would have been as easy as
rolling off a log--if she hadn't been riding a rohorse, too.
Overtaking her wasn't of paramount importance anyway: he could
confiscate the Sangraal after she returned it just as easily as he
could before.

The odd part about the whole thing was that Mallory never once thought
of the inevitable overlap till he saw the flicker of torchlight up
ahead. An instant later he heard the sound of a woman's voice, and
instinctively he encephalo-guided Easy Money into a nearby shallow
cave.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

The flickering light grew gradually brighter, and presently hoofbeats
became audible. The woman's voice was loud and clear now, and Mallory
made out her words above the purling of the underground stream: "...
And then he set down the maiden, and was armed at all pieces save he
lacked his spear.