The Autarchs got up and left the Council Room, still muttering to themselves. But the Grand Autarch swept his cloak about him grandly and walked to a place in the paneled wall where carved cherub heads smiled amid clusters of carved grape leaves. Seizing one of the heade between his thumb and forefinger, the Grand Autarch twisted it, and part of the paneled wall swumg inward. Stone steps wound down into darkness, and the Autarch snatched a torch from a bracket just inside the doorway. A muttered word from him made the end of the torch bloom with fire, and down he went, along a corkscrewing passage so narrow that his shoulders almost brushed both walls. At last he came out into a crypt, a large room with heavy stone pillars and ribbed vaulting. Set into the walls were oblong niches, and in many of them were coffins. Brass plates glimmered on the sides of the coffins, showing that a certain Autarch had died on such-and-such a date at such-and-such an age. The grim-faced leader stalked on until he came to an empty wooden coffin that lay in the middle of the floor. Climbing into it, he lay down and crossed his hands over his chest. He muttered a few words in a strange language, and the coffin began to fill with yellow smoke. When the smoke had cleared, the Autarch was gone.