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eady to accept them.

Lord Yama-Shita had made the ultimate sacrifice in his bid to lead

Ne-Issan into a new age. He, Kiyo Min-Orota, shared his lofty vision

of the future and was happy to risk his own life to help make that

vision a reality. It would prove to the man who would soon adopt their

dead lord's mantle that he was a worthy ally.

Someone who could be trusted with the deepest and darkest secrets of

all.

Once again, Min-Orota's choice of words made it clear that he

understood the real nature of the enterprise: the recapture of the

Dark Light. A time and place was arranged: noon at a secluded manor

house far removed from the palace and the press of the bustling

seaport.

The unloading of the chest in broad daylight would not attract the

attention of the watch, and an official from the palace would be on

hand to ensure it passed out of the docks without being subjected to

the tiresome attentions of customs officials.

On the appointed day and hour, an ox-cart carrying a driver, the chest

and four porters made its way towards the rendezvous. It was preceded

by the two aides and four other mounted samurai and followed by a

second cart containing twelve soldiers in civilian clothes. The three

groups varied their pace and distance between each other, merging at

times with other traffic on the road. To the casual observer, the

carts and riders had no connection with each other, and this was

precisely the impression they wished to create.

When the mounted samurai had reconnoitred the area around the manor

house to ensure that there were no forces lying in ambush, the two

aides ordered the cart beating the chest to enter the grounds. The

second vehicle, carrying the disguised soldiers, whose weapons were

concealed beneath the straw on which they lay, stopped on the road

outside. To any passer-by they were nothing more than a group of

patient peasants stretching their legs whilst the driver and ox-boy fed

and watered their animals.

The manor-house - a rambling stone and timber structure with a tiled

roof dating from the middle of the previous century - was an

uninhabited, dusty, echoing shell. Two of Min-Orota's lieutenants,

whom the aides had already met, conducted them and the chest into

Min-Orota's presence, then retired with the four porters.

This quartet was also disguised soldiers, drawn from the forty or so

who had survived the dbcle at the Heron Pool.

Lord Kiyo Min-Orota was seated on a single straw mat, placed in the

centre of a dais which ran across the far end of the room. He called

upon them to approach and remove the four straw mats covering the

section of the main floor in front of where he sat. The aides pulled

the mats aside. A trap-door lay beneath. Opening it, they found steps

leading down to a deep cellar.

This, explained Lord Min-Orota, was where the chest would be hidden.

Once it was safely below, the trap-door would be replaced by planking

which would merge with the surrounding floor, and there it would remain

until the Yama-Shita came to recover it. But first, he said, he would

like the opportunity to look upon the priceless gift he had come so

close to receiving and which had coloured their late master's dreams of

the future.

The two aides asked him to recall his two lieutenants.

After removing the rolls of silken cloth, the four men lifted a large,

heavy object wrapped in linen from the chest. When Min-Orota's men had

left the room, the two aides removed part of the wrappings to reveal

the engine from a Skyhawk - the basic aircraft carried aboard the

Federation's wagon-trains. The engine, with its laminated

wooden-propeller placed alongside it, was seated securely inside a

timber frame.

Min-Orota examined the engine at close quarters without touching it.

Was this, he enquired, the strange device that had powered the original

flying-horse - and which was believed to have been destroyed?

The aides assured him that it was.

Min-Orota praised Yama-Shita's cleverness. On top of all his other

attributes he was also the master of illusion!

Was it not true that the Shogun's representatives had been present when

the device had been consumed by fire? By what cunning means had such