### 144

You inch your way along the tunnel until you reach a dead end. The red glow you saw earlier is pouring through a narrow portal, shaped like a large arrow slit. You look through it at an awesome sight. A cavernous crater, formed of black iron, drops in tiers to a blood-red floor far below. Hundreds of moving forms crowd every level, dragging wagons and pulling monstrous machines up long ramps and across connecting causeways. Other forms, dressed in black, beat and curse them; the heat and fumes that are wafting through the portal prevent you from seeing them more clearly.

Suddenly a solid sheet of iron descends from the ceiling and seals off the portal. You step back and turn to leave, but in the smoky distance you see another wall of iron closing off the exit.

Turn to 37.

Text copyright © 1986 Joe Dever.
Illustrations copyright © 1986 Gary Chalk.