 Samah has opened Death's Gate, allowing the dangerous dragon-snakes unfettered access to all four worlds.Haplo is too exhausted to capture Samah, so he returns to the Nexus and reports to Xar, his lord.Xar assigns Haplo to take Bane back to the air world Arianus, where Haplo will reactivate a city-sized machine called the Kicksey-winsey, which has stopped for the first time in history.