looks like the end of the trail."

"No--not quite," Kennon said. "There seems to be a path here." He
pointed to a narrow cleft in the black rock. "Let's see where it goes."

Copper hung back. "I don't think I want to," she said doubtfully. "It
looks awfully dark and narrow."

"Oh, stop it. Nothing's going to hurt us. Come on." Kennon took her
hand.

Unwillingly Copper allowed herself to be led forward. "There's something
about this place that frightens me," she said uncomfortably as the high
black wails closed in, narrowing until only a slit of yellow sky was
visible overhead. The path underfoot was surprisingly smooth and free
from rocks, but the narrow corridor, steeped in shadows, was gloomy and
depressingly silent. It even bothered Kennon, although he wouldn't
admit it. What forces had sliced this razor-thin cleft in the dense
rock around them? Earthquake probably. And if it happened once it could
happen again. He would hate to be trapped here entombed in shattered
rock.

Gradually the passage widened, then abruptly it ended. A bleak vista of
volcanic ash dotted with sputter cones opened before them. It was a
flat tableland, roughly circular, scarcely half a kilometer across,
a desolation of black rock, stunted trees and underbrush, and gray
volcanic ash. A crater, somewhat larger than the rest, lay with its
nearest edge about two hundred meters away. The rock edges were fire
polished, gleaming in the yellow sunshine, and the thin margin of trees
and brush surrounding the depression were gnarled and shrunken, twisted
into fantastic shapes.

"Hey! what's this?" Kennon asked curiously. "That crater looks peculiar,
like a meteor had struck here--but those stunted plants--hmm--there
must have been some radioactivity too." He looked at the crater
speculatively. "Now I wonder--" he began.

Copper had turned a sickly white. "No!" she said in a half-strangled
voice--"oh, no!"

Kennon looked at her. "You know what this is?" he demanded.

"No," Copper said. But her voice was unsteady.

"You're lying."

"But I don't know." Copper wailed. "I'm only guessing. I've never seen
this place before in my life! Please!--let's get out of here!"

"Then you know about this," Kennon demanded.

"I think it's the Pit," Copper said. "The redes don't say where it is.
But the description fits--the Circle of Death, the Twisted Land--it's
all like the redes say."

"Redes?--what are redes? And what is this business about circles