Cadillac knelt again and pressed the stone against his forehead. 'I

can see nothing. The stone is clouded with the blood of our southern

brothers."

'Wash it clean and start again,' said Mr Snow patiently.

He squatted down beside his pupil.

Cadillac sighed heavily. He lowered the stone and held it level with

his waist, gazing at it fixedly. After several minutes of silence,

punctuated by sighs of frustration, he said, 'The chief warriors sit in

the head and the tail of the snake."

'Find me the capo,' said Mr Snow quickly.

'I see him,' said Cadillac. 'He has pale hair under his nose."

'Fix his face and his soul in your mind,' said Mr Snow. He moved

around on his knees until he was facing Cadillac.

'I hold him,' said Cadillac.

Mr Snow reached out and placed his hands on either side of Cadillac's

head. 'Give him to me. Pass the image of his being into my mind." He

closed his eyes and breathed deeply. 'Good. Well done." He dropped

his hands and gripped Cadillac's shoulders briefly. 'You have true

power.

Read the snake. I would know more."

Cadillac's sightless eyes rolled up under his lids. 'The snake has two

bellies filled with pipes that roar with hunger and are full of

flame.

These are also at the head and tail of the snake where the chief

warriors live. The sand-burrowers feed grey dirt to the snake. It

turns into bad air and is sucked down the pipes through rows of red-hot

flashing teeth.

These flame-pipes are also its heart. They send power through its

veins to make its body work. A power like the white fire from the

sky.

It gives life to the snake, it makes its eyes see, and turns its great

iron feet."

'Wheels,' said Mr Snow. 'Probably powered by electric motors."

'I do not know of these things,' said Cadillac.

SMore words from the Old Time,' muttered Mr Snow.

'Don't worry about them. Just keep going."'The snake has eyes on all

sides of its body. Some for looking at things close by, some for

far-seeing - like eagles.

The sand-burrowers have many boxes of frozen water which show them

pictures of what the snake sees." Cadillac paused to decipher a new

set of images. 'There are both men and women in the snake's belly.

The women are like our She-Wolves.

They also thirst for our blood. They have. strange sharp iron.

Things that throw bolts like our crossbows but filled with a great

wind. Not bows. hollow reeds that spit out bolts like iron rain. At

the head and the tail of the snake there is more sharp iron. Things

which send out long shafts of sunlight that burn like the white-hot

brands at the heart of a fire."

'Look again,' said Mr Snow. 'Do they use these things to make the

darkness like day?"

'No,' replied Cadillac. 'They have no need. They have lanterns that

send out red light which we cannot see but which fills our body and

draws our image into their magic picture boxes."

Even though he knew many things of the Old Time, Mr Snow did not

understand Cadillac's attempt to describe the infra-red nightscopes

carried by The Lady. Undeterred, he kept plugging away until Cadillac

had sent his mind's eye into every part of the wagon train and come up

with a head-count of the crew.

Three hundred sand-burrowers. Mr Snow considered the problem. If it

came to the crunch, the M'Call clan could field over a thousand Bears

and She-Wolves. But that combined total would include everyone; from

fourteen-year-old fledgling warriors who had not chewed bone to the

elders aged fifty and over. The courage of the very young would not

compensate for their inexperience and despite their agility,

Rolling-Stone and the elders would no longer be the equal, in

single-handed combat, to the warriors in the belly of the iron snake.

Pressed for more information, Cadillac described the deadly, invisible,

breath of the snake that hissed out of holes in its belly, and told Mr

Snow of the multiqayered hull, impregnable to Mute crossbow bolts. The

hatches in the underbelly and sides were sealed from within and

protected by the all-devouring breath of the snake. Mr S