The underground carriage smelled of undusted upholstery.  No, not underground - what had Tarra called it?  Oh yeah, the Transtube.  The travel system that would take them to the centre of the capital, or maybe it was the Capitol, wherever that was.  Their section of the Transtube was empty.  Just like the Northern Line late on a Sunday night, he thought.  No matter how closely he looked, though, he couldn't see any adverts for Beecham's Powders.

That would be too much to hope for, he thought, as memories of the weird seance came back to him.  A weird seance with him as the star turn.  He felt Tarra's cool hand in his.  'Do you think that guy just smuggled me in as a trick?'

'Picked up some sad case from the MidTown, you mean?  Promised you a few cheap beers.  Or maybe,' she continued, looking askance at Fitz's dishevelled appearance, 'a change of clothes and a square meal?'

Sure, thought Fitz, build up my confidence.  But he persisted:  'What do you think?'

Her reaction was inscrutable, and she said nothing.

'All that stuff,' persisted Fitz.  'The blood in that basin.  And what they were saying afterwards, about how we'd seen a forbidden snapshot of my future...'

Tarra squeezed his hand, then let go.  She produced a small ivory box from her pocket.  There were regular indentations in its upper surface, and she ran her fingers slowly over them, as though she was reading Braille.  The light of the carriage made the skin of her slender fingers seem old and puckered, like she'd been in the bath too long.

He was about to ask where she had heard his name before when Tarra pressed a sequence of indentations in the box.  Fitz found himself thrown away from her down the length of the carriage as the Transtube screeched to a halt.

Fitz picked himself off the floor.  He wasn't surprised to find that Tarra had obviously braced herself for the emergency stop, and was now standing by the dooray.

'Ouch,' said Fitz in a perfectly normal voice, but Tarra was either obviously fully occupied or just ignoring him.

Her fingers flickered over the ivory control device.  At once, the nearest door vanished into the floor.  Fitz had been impressed with the way the doors had all done this when they first boarded the Transtube, back near the run all-down digs.  He was even more impressed to see that now, exaclty aligned with their exit, was a doorway in the tube wall.  The door creaked open to reveal a dank six-sided corridor, with one of the sides forming a narrow walkway at the bottom.

'These tunnels are weird,' observed Fitz.  'Hexagonal.  You'd think it was easier to dig them circular.'

Tarra said, 'Six is a special number: six members of the High Council, six colleges of cardinals, six sides to the Great Panopticon, six suits at cards.'

'Six suits?'

'Flames, Clouds, Souls, Deeps, Mesmers and Dominoes'

'Numbers count,' said Fitz lightly.

'More than you know,' she answered.  'Now don't dawdle.  I want to get this done and get back to MidTown.'

'MidTown?'

'Kellen and Ressadriand and the others are waiting for us, Fitz.'

Typical, thought Fitz.  It's a slum, so it's given an elevated name.  Not too elevated, but enough to imply that it couldn't possibly be where the dregs of society pooled together and could not escape.

Except, of course, for Tarra and Kellen and the others.  What were they doing out there?  Slumming it.  Literally.

'I said don't dawdle.'  As soon as Fitz stepped out, the Transtube door flicked back into position, and the whole train started up again, thundering away into the darkness.  Tarra switched on a light in the tunnel, pocketed her control device and moved off.

'You know,' Fitz called after her into the weakly lit corridor, 'there are easier ways to fare-dodge.'

But she had already turned the first corner.  Fitz listened for awhile to the buzz of the Transtube rail behind him before hurrying after Tarra.