CONTENTS

The Raski girl made Demon Horns with two fingers of her left hand and spat between them. That droplet of moisture landed, dust covered, on the rutted clay of the road just missing the edge of Elossa’s stained travel cloak. She did not look at the girl but kept her eyes turned to those distant mountain rises, her goal.

In the town hate was a foul cloud to stifle her. She should have avoided the village. None of Yurth blood ever went into one of the native holdings if they could help it. Broadcast hate so deep gnawed at one’s Upper Sense, clouded reception, muddied the thoughts. But she had had to have food. A tumble on a stream’s stepping stones in the past evening dusk had turned the supplies she carried in her belt pouch into a sticky mess she had jettisoned that morning.

The merchant whose stall she had visited had been surly and sullen. However, he had not had the courage to refuse her when she made a quick choice. All those eyes, and the waves of hate. . . . Now, when she judged she was well beyond the girl who had given her that last salute, Elossa walked faster.

A Yurth man or woman moved with dignity among the Raski, just as they ignored the natives, looking over and around them as if they were not Yurth and Raski were as different as light and dark, mountain and plain, heat and cold. There was no common ground for their meeting ever.

Yet they shared the same world, ate the same food, breathed the same air. Even some among her kin had dark hair resembling that the Raski wore in tight rolls about their heads, and their skins were not unlike in color. That of the Raski might be brown by birth, but the Yurth, living as they did ever under the sky and the fierce sun, also tanned darkly. Put a Yurth, even herself, into the bodice and ankle-sweeping skirt of the girl who had so graphically made her hate clear, let her hair grow and twist it up, and she might have looked no, or little, different. It was only in the mind, she thought, that Yurth stood apart.

It had always been so. The Upper Sense was a Yurth child’s from birth. He or she was trained in its use before plain talk came from the lips. For the Upper Sense was all which stood between them and utter annihilation.

Zacar was not an easy world. Storms of terrible force came in the bleak season, sealing Yurth clans into their mountain burrows, blasting, and overwhelming the towns and the dwelling on the plains. Wind, hail, freezing winds, rain in drowning torrents. . . . All life sought shelter when those struck. That is why the Pilgrimage was only possible during the two months of early autumn, why she must hurry to find her goal.

Elossa dug her staff point into the crumbling clay and turned aside from the road which served farms she could see, the houses squatting drably some distance ahead. For the road, such as it was, angled away from the mountains she must reach. She longed to be out of the plains, higher up into the places of her own heritage, where one could breathe air untainted by dust, think thoughts unassailed by the hate which clogged about any Raski gathering place.

That she must make this journey alone was in keeping with the custom of her people. On the day the clan women had gathered to bring her staff, cloak, supply bag, she had known a sinking of heart which was not quite fear. To travel out into the unknown alone. . . . But that was the heritage of Yurth, and each girl and boy did so when their bodies were ready for the duties of Elders, their minds fallow enough to receive the Knowledge. Some never returned. Those who did were-changed.

They were able to set up barriers between themselves and their fellows, sealing out thought talk when they wished. Also they were graver, preoccupied, as if some part of the Knowledge, or perhaps the whole of it, had been a burden fastened on them. But they were Yurth, and as Yurth must return to the cradle of the clan, accept the Knowledge, however bitter or troublesome that might be.

It was the Knowledge which would itself guide them to their goal. They must leave their minds open until a thought thread would draw them. The coming of that was the command they must obey. She had tramped for four days now, the strange urgency working ever in her, bringing her by the shortest route across the plains to the mountains she now faced, the land no one visited now unless the Call came.

She had often speculated with those of her own birth age as to what must lie there. Two of their company had gone and returned. However, to ask them what they had done, or seen, was forbidden by custom. The barrier was already set in them. Thus the mystery always remained a mystery until one was led oneself to discover the truth.

Why did the Raski hate them so, Elossa wondered. It must be because of the Upper Sense. The plains dwellers lacked that. But there was something else. She was different from the hoose, the kannen, all the other life which Yurth respected and strove to aid. She did not wear upon her body, slender beneath her enveloping cloak, dust plastered from the road, fur or scales. Yet there was no hate for her in the minds of those others. Wariness, yes, if the creature was new come into the places of the clan. But that was natural. Why, then, did those who possessed bodies like her own beat at her with black hate in their thoughts if she was forced by some chance to move among them as she had done this morning?

Yurth did not seek to command-even those of lesser and weaker minds. All creatures had their limitations- even as did the Yurth. Some of her kin were keener witted, faster to mind-speak, producing thoughts which were new, unusual enough to make one chew upon them in solitude. But Yurth did not have rulers or ruled. There were customs, such as the Pilgrimage, which all followed when the time was ripe. Still no one ordered that this be so. Rather did those obeying such customs recognize within themselves that this must be done without question.

Twice, she had heard, in the years before her birth, long ago by the reckoning of the clan, the King-Head of the Raski had sent armies to seek out and destroy the Yurth. Once those reached the mountains they had fallen into the net of illusions which the Elders could weave at will.

Men broke out of disciplined companies, wandered lost, until they were subtly set back on their path again. Into the mind of the King-Head himself was inserted a warning. So that when his brave soldiers came straggling back, foot worn, exhausted, he returned to his city stronghold, and did not plan a third mountain expedition. Thereafter the Yurth were let strictly alone and the mountain land was theirs.

But among the Raski there were rulers and ruled, and they were, as far as Elossa had been able to tell, the sorrier for that. Some men and women toiled all their lives that others might live free and turn their hands to no task. That this was a part of their otherness was true, and perhaps those who toiled had little liking for it. Did they hate their masters with some of the same black hatred that they turned toward the Yurth? Was that hate rooted in a bitter and abiding envy of the freedom and fellowship of the clans? But how could that be, what Raski knew how the clans lived? They lacked the mind-speak and could not so rove away from their bodies to survey what lay at a distance.

Elossa quickened pace again. To be away from this! She was fanciful. Surely no tongue of that black ill-wishing she had “seen” with the Upper Sense reached after her like the claws of a sargon. Fancies such as that were for children, not one old enough to be summoned for the Pilgrimage. The sooner, however, that she was in the foothills, the more at ease she would be.

Thus she walked steadily as the fields about gave way from ordered rows of grain to pasturage, well grazed by hoose teeth. Those patient animals themselves raised their heads as she passed. She gave them silent greeting, which seemed so much to astound them that here and there one shook its head or snorted. A younger one came trotting to parallel her way, watching her, Elossa felt, wistfully. In its mind she detected a dim memory of running free with no rein or lead cord to check that racing.

She paused to give it the blessing of food forage and pleasant days. Back to her came wonder and pleasure in return. Here was one ruled, and yet those who ruled it did not know what manner of life it really was. Elossa wished that she might open the gate of all these pastures, let loose those the fences kept in restraint, that they might have the freedom only one remembered so dimly.

Yet it was also laid straightly upon the Yurth that they must not attempt to change in any way the life of the Raski or their servants. To do so meant using the Yurth gifts and talents in the wrong manner. Only in some crisis, to defend their own lives, might the Yurth cast illusions before their attackers.

Now the pastures disappeared; she entered the foothills of the mountains. The way was rough, but to Elossa it was familiar. She threw off the last of the shadow which had troubled her since she had come through the town. Luting her head, she allowed the hood of her cloak to slip back so that the wind might run fingers through her pale, fine hair, bring fresh breath to her lungs.

She found faint traces of paths. Perhaps the townspeople came hunting here or they fed their stock among these hills. Yet there was no sign that such trails had been recently used. Then, upon climbing the top of one ascent, she sighted something else, a monolith taller than she when it stood upright, as it must once have been. It was not native to this place, for the rock was not the dull gray of that which surfaced here and through the scanty soil, rather a red, like the black-red of blood which had congealed in the sun.

Elossa shivered, wondering why such a dark thought had crossed her mind when she sighted that toppled stone. She shrank from it, so with the discipline of her kind she made herself approach closer. As she drew near she saw the rock had been carved, though time and erosion had blunted and worn those markings. What was left was only the suggestion of a head. Yet the longer Elossa stared at it, the more that same stifling uneasiness which had ridden her in the town arose to hasten her breathing, make her want to run.

The face was Raski in general outline, still it held some other element which was alien, dreadfully alien-threatening in spite of the veil the wearing of time had set upon it A warning? Set here long ago to turn back the wayfarer, promising such danger ahead that its marker had been able to give it that distinctly evil cast?

The workmanship was not finished, smoothly done. Rather the rugged crudeness of its fashioning added to the force of the impression it made upon the viewer. Yes, it must be most decidedly a warning!

Elossa, with an effort, turned her back upon the thing, surveyed what lay beyond. With eyes taught by all her mountain training to study and evaluate terrain she caught another remnant of the far past: there had once been a road from this point on.

Stones had been buried by landslips, pushed aside by stubborn growth of bush and small tree. But the very grading which had been done for the placement of those stones had altered the natural contours of the land enough for her to be sure.

A road of stone? Such were only found near the cities of the King-Head. Labor in making such was very hard and would not have been wasted to fashion the entrance into the mountains, in the normal course of events. Also this was very, very old. Elossa went to the nearest of the stones, its edge upthrust as it lay nearly buried in the grass. She knelt and laid her hand upon it, reaching with thought to read. . . .

Faint, too faint to make any clear impression for her. This had returned to the wilds very long ago. So far in the past that the land had accepted it back, laid its own seal upon it. She could sense the trail of a sand lizard, the paw touch of a bander; what lay behind those in time was nothing she could seize upon.

The pavement itself headed for the mountain she must climb, and to use the faint traces of it would lighten her way a little, aid to save her strength for the more difficult task ahead. Deliberately she turned into the roadway. Once a way of importance, it must have been sealed, forgotten, and the fallen monolith set to forbid entrance. Who had done this and why? The curiosity of Yurth minds possessed her; as she went she kept looking for any hint of what had been the purpose of this road.

The farther she advanced along the vestige of highway the more Elossa marveled at the skill and labor which had gone into its making. It did not take the easiest way, twisting and turning, as did the game trails and footpaths of the mountains she knew, or the clay- surfaced roads of the plains, rather it cut through all obstacles, as if its stubborn makers would tame the land to serve them.

She came to a place where slides had, in a measure, covered what had been a cut into the side of the mountain itself, picking her way over the debris left by those slides with a stout aid of her staff. Still the road headed in her direction, and, because her curiosity was now aroused, she determined to see where it might lead. Though it could be, that before its goal was reached, she must turn aside to fulfill her own quest.

There were no more of such worn-off stones as that left below, but at intervals she did sight small ones, several still upright. On those there were traces of carving, but so worn that the markings were only shadows. None of these gave her the feeling of discomfort as had the one below. Perhaps they had been set another time and certainly for other purposes.

It was in the shadow of such a one that Elossa sat to eat at nooning. She need not even use the liquid in her water flask, for only a short distance away a rill from some higher mountain spring had made a runnel for itself. The murmur of running water was loud enough to be heard. She felt at peace, at one with what lay about her.

Then-that peace was shattered!

Her mind-seek lazily reaching out to engulf the freedom and quiet, brushed upon thought! One of the clans on the same Pilgrimage? There were other clans cross mountain with whom her own people had little contact save during wintering. No, in that short touch she had not caught the familiar recognition which would have signaled Yurth-even Yurth traveling with a closed mind.

If it was not Yurth, then it was Raski. For no animal registered so. A hunter? She dared not probe, of course. Though the Raski hatred was dampened by fear, who knew what might chance were a Raski, away from his own kind, to encounter a single Yurth? She remembered now those on the Pilgrimage who had never returned. There were many explanations-a fall among rocks, a sickness away from all help, yes, even perhaps death by intent from some menace they could not restrain by the Upper Sense. Prudence must be her guide now.

Elossa pulled tight the string of her food bag, picked up her staff, got to her feet. No more easy way by the road. She must put her mountain knowledge to the test. No Raski had the skill of the Yurth in the heights. If she was indeed the quarry now, she was sure she could outdistance her trailer.

The girl began to climb, not with any spurt of speed-who knew-this chase might be a long one and she must conserve her strength. Also she could not stretch the power too far, keeping in touch with the pursuer and still sense out any trouble ahead. That lightest of mind-probes could only be made at intervals, to be sure she was being trailed and not that the other was going about some business of his own on the lower reaches.

2.

At a point well above the forgotten road Elossa paused to take a breath or two, allow her mind-search to range below. Yes, he was still on a course which brought him in her wake. She frowned a little. Though she had taken precautions against such a thing yet she had not really believed it would happen. No Raski ever hunted Yurth. This trailing was unheard of among her people since the great defeat of the King-Head Philoar two generations ago. Why?

She could stop him, she believed. Illusion, mind-touch-oh, yes, if she wanted to bring her own talent into use, she had weapons enough. But there remained what lay ahead of her. When one set out upon the Pilgrimage there was no hint given by those who had made it of what might be expected. However, there were some warnings and orders, the foremost of those being that she would need all her talent to face what lay ahead.

It was the nature of the Upper Sense in itself that it was not a steady thing, always remaining at the same force no matter how one used it No, it waxed and waned, must be stored against some sudden demand. She dared not exhaust what she might need later merely to turn back a stranger who might come this way by chance and did not really trail her.

Night was not far off and nights in the mountains were chill. Best find a place to hole up for the dark, cold hours. With eyes used to such a task, Elossa surveyed what lay ahead. So far this upward slope had not been enough to tax her strength greatly, but she noted that there were sharper rises beyond. Those she would leave, if she could, for the morning.

She now stood on a ledge which, to her right, widened out. Some drifts of soil there gave rootage to small bushes and grass. Bearing in that direction she came out into a pocket- sized meadow. The same stream which had given her drink near the ancient road fed a spring pool here. Her sweep of mind-search touched birds, several of the small rock-living rodents, nothing more formidable.

Dropping her staff and bag on the edge of the pool, Elossa knelt to splash the water over her face, wash away the clogging dust of the plains. She drank from cupped hands, then took from the breast of her jerkin a disc of metal depending from a twisted chain. Holding this flat on her palm, she gave a last survey, with eye and mind, of her immediate surroundings, making sure she dared to slacken her guard for a short time.

Nothing near which need be watched with caution, though perhaps she was indulging in folly to try this. Still, it was best she knew who or what did follow. If the climber was a hunter, well enough. But Raski acting out of tradition-that was something else again.

She looked down at the plaque of metal. Its surface was clear, but strangely enough did not reflect her face. The disk remained completely blank. Elossa drew upon her power of concentration. Try first to envision something she knew existed in order to prove what she might later see was not just fancy born from her own imagination without her being aware.

The pillar of warning. There was a ripple on the mirror-not-mirror she held. Tiny, a little fuzzy, since distance also influenced reception, the fallen block of stone with a malignant face, now in more shadow with the passing of day, appeared.

Well enough, reception was working. Now for her follower, which would be a far more difficult task since she had never seen him and must project from mind-touch alone. Warily, very slowly, she sent out the questing thought.

It touched, held. She waited for a long moment. If the trailer were conscious of the probe there would be instant response. She would then break that tenuous linkage at once. But he did not react to her delicate probing. So, she applied a stronger send, staring down into the mirror.

Far more fuzzy than the pillar, yes, because she dared not reinforce the linkage past the power she now exerted. But there was a small figure on the mirror. He was dressed in the leather of a Raski-a hunter surely, for he had a bow and a bow case, though he also wore a short sword. His face she could not see, but the emanations of the mind-touch suggested he was young. And. . . .

Elossa blinked, instantly broke the contact. No, the response had not been that of Yurth. Yet that other had come to know that he was under her inspection-not clearly. He had been alerted only into uneasiness.

She considered that with a small measure of unbelief. By all the standards of her own people such awareness among the Raski was impossible. If they had had any of the Upper Sense they could never have been deceived by illusions. Still she was also certain that what she had read in those few moments before she had severed linkage had been right He knew! Knew enough to sense she was probing.

Which made him dangerous. She could, of course, induce an illusion. It would not last long, no one Yurth had the power to hold such; it required a uniting of energy of many to produce that. But, she sat back and stared into the beginnings of a sunset There were several illusions, useful, the materialization of a sargon for example. No man could hope to stand up to one of those furred killers who killed to drink blood, and which were known to den among the heights. So insane were they that even Yurth could not control them more than to turn them for a space from the path they followed. They could not be mind-spoke, for they had not real minds only a chaos of blind ferocity and a devouring need for blood.

An excellent choice and. . . .

Elossa tensed. Sargon? But there was a sargon! Not downslope where she had thought to place her illusion, but up mountain. And it was headed toward her! Water-of course-water was needful to all life. This pool beside which she now sat might be the only water for some distance. She had noted the prints in its clay verge of wild birds as well as the lesser paw marks of the monu and mak. Water would draw the sargon.

Nor had this one eaten lately. The consciousness, such as this beast had, was all raging hunger near overwhelming thirst Hunger, she must play upon that!

No sargon could be turned aside by illusion, and she could not alter its path either. The beast’s hunger was too great. Swiftly she loosed mind-search. There was a rog, one of the dangerous beasts who also laired among the mountains. Was it too far away? Elossa could not be sure. It depended upon how hungry the sargon was.

Now working with precision, she fed into that swirling pit of ferocious desire the impression of the rog . . . near. . . . Not only would that mean food and blood to the rabid hunter, but rage at the invasion of what it considered its own hunting ground. For two great carnivores could not occupy the same territory without a battle-not two of these breeds.

She was succeeding! Elossa knew a flash of elation which she quickly dampened. Overconfidence was the worst error any Yurth might pay for. But the beast on the slope well above her had caught her suggestion, was angling away from the pool meadow. Now the wind blowing down mountain brought a trace of rank scent.

Rog, that way, she continued to beam. Yes, the sargon was definitely changing course. She must monitor, though, continue to. . . .

All this was a drain on her power which she had not foreseen.

Elossa held fast. The rank stench grew stronger. That the sargon could pick up her own body scent she did not fear. Long ago the Yurth had discovered various herbal infusions for both the skin and the inner parts of their bodies which destroyed the normal odors such beasts could pick up.

The sargon was running now, the momentum of down-slope adding to its normal high speed when on a trail. Already it had passed the meadow and was well below her own position. It was time to withdraw that prick of mind-goad. There was a rog, sooner or later that. . . .

Her head jerked. The now gathering dusk in the lower reaches of the mountain might confuse sight but nothing could conceal that scream of rage and hunger. The rog so close. . . she had not thought it to be. . . .

Swiftly she strengthened her mind-probe and then froze.

Not the rog! Something to hunt, yes, but human! He who had come after her by chance or purpose had been in the right position to be scented. The sargon was after him.

She had sent this horrible death in that direction! Elossa felt cold flooding through her, following that realization. She had done the unthinkable, loosed death at a creature whose species she shared. Raski might be subjected to illusion, they could not be death doomed by Yurth. She had. . . . The horror of her act made her sick. For space of a breath she could not even think, just felt the terror of one loosing forces not to be controlled.

Then, snatching up her staff, leaving her bag of provisions where she had tossed it, Elossa turned back to the slope up which she had climbed. Hers the fault, if she went to death now it was no more than the payment she had so earned. That other had bow, wore steel-but neither could turn a sargon.

She slipped and slid, the skin of her hands scraped raw, intent on keeping her footing. No need to court a fall, which could serve nothing, save perhaps wipe out by death the memory of these past few moments.

Once more the sargon screeched. It had not yet closed in. But how much time had she? Her Yurth-trained mind began to shake free from the shock of knowing what she had done. To go down this way would avail her nothing.

Her staff was no weapon with which to face what would be be there. There was only. . . the rog!

Elossa struggled to marshal her thoughts, gather strength. She stood on a small ledge, her back to the rock of the mountain, looking down. The stubby brush of the lower slope hid what lay there.

Rog! Like a summons a battle commander might shout when hard pressed her thought leaped out. It caught that other animal mind, fighter the rog might be and was. Ferocious, it was not insane as was the sargon. Now she thrust with power where normally she would have inserted an idea slowly, gently. Sargon . . . here . . . hunting. . . kill. . . kill!

The other huge carnivore responded. Elossa played upon its hatred, bringing that emotion to a pitch which would have burned out a human mind entirely. The rog was on the move!

Out of the dusk came a second cry-and that was human!

She was too late-too late! Elossa gave a dry sob. Once more she began the descent There was no more need for the rog to be goaded into battle. It was ready. Now she must seek the man who might be already dead.

Pain, yes, but he still lived. Not only lived but fought! He had climbed to a height where the sargon could not yet reach him. But that would not serve him as a refuge for long. Also he was wounded, easy meat for a furred monster now making a determined effort to pull him down.

Rog. . . .

As if in answer to that thought a third cry sounded. Now she saw. Across the slope, angling straight for the brush-hidden parts below, came a huge dark shape. Standing taller than she at the shoulder, its thick body so covered with dense fur that its short legs were nearly hidden, it scrambled, its claws loosing showers of small rocks, earth and gravel.

Even among rogs this was a giant, old enough to be a wary fighter, for only the strongest survived cubhood. It was indeed a fit match, perhaps the only one for the sargon. As it came it bellowed for a second time, sounding a challenge which, Elossa hoped, might draw the enemy from its final attack upon its victim.

The challenge was answered by a screech. Elossa swallowed. Would the sargon attempt to make sure of its prey before it turned to do battle? She sought to enter the raging mind. Rog! She was not sure that her mental prod did any good now. The mind of the thing was an insane whirl of death and the need for destruction.

Rog! Her urging might be futile, but it was all she could do. She was sure that the man yet lived. For a snuffed life was never to be mistaken. That she would have felt as a kind of diminishing of herself. Not such a blow as would issue from a Yurth death, still to be picked up.

The rog had halted, in a spray of gravel flying outward from its feet. Now it reared, to stand with its heavy fore-paws, the huge claws visible against its dark fur, dangling. Its head, which appeared to be mounted on no neck but resting directly on its wide shoulders, raised so that the muzzle pointed in the direction of the brush, jaws slightly agape to show the double row of fangs.

Then, out of concealment came the sleek, narrow head of the sargon. The creature screeched once more, threads of foam dripping from its mouth. Long and narrow as a serpent, its body drew together as might a spring. Then it launched itself through the air directly at the waiting rog.

3.

The beasts crashed together in a shock of battle which reached Elossa not only by sight and sound, but as an impact of raw emotion against her mind to nearly sweep her from her own feet before she was able to drop a barrier against it. Rog and sargon were a tangle of death-seeking blows. Elossa crept on hands and feet along the slope above to reach a point where she dared descend. Her duty still lay in that danger spot below. She was certain that he whom the sargon had attacked was wounded. The stab of pain her mind-seek had picked up had been enough of a jolt to suggest he might be in grave danger still.

She slipped downward until the brush closed about her; any sound she might make in that passage was well covered by the clamor of the battle. Once hidden by the growth she got to her feet, using her staff to hold back branches and open a way.

Very cautiously she sent out the thinnest of probes. To the left, yes, and down! Elossa was sure she had the position of the other centered. Shutting her mind against the emanations of rage beamed from the struggling animals, she went on.

The brush thinned out. She was in the open where rocks clustered under the rapidly growing dusk. Though she had closed her mind and the noise from above was ear-splitting, Elossa caught the moan of pain.

On the top of the highest of those rocks something half arose, to fall back again and lie, one arm dangling down the side of the stone. Elossa set her staff against a shorter outcrop of rock and scrambled up. There was still enough light to see the limp body with a spreading stain down left side and shoulder.

She moved cautiously, for his body near covered the top of the perch he had found as his only hope of life. Then she knelt beside him to examine a wound which had slashed downward from shoulder to rib, tearing away flesh as easily as one might peel the skin from a ripe fruit.

At her girdle was a small bag holding Yurth remedies. But first, though he had not moved at her coming, she knew she could not work while consciousness remained. Not only was intense pain a barrier to what she must do-and the Raski knew no form of inner control to that-but also she could not heal where a conscious mind could well impede her out of ignorance. Drawing a deep breath the girl sat back on her heels. What she must do (for this hurt was her work) went against custom and law of the Yurth. Yet the obligation laid upon her was also ruled by even higher law. What she had harmed, she must try to help.

Slowly, with deliberation and great caution, as she was engaged in a forbidden thing, one she was not trained for, Elossa began to insert her mind-send.

Sleep, she ordered, be at rest.

There was a response. His head jerked against her knee, his eyes half opened. She had touched something, yes. He was still on the borderland of consciousness and was partly aware of her invasion.

Sleep. . . sleep. . . .

That fraction of consciousness faded under deliberate mental command. Now she inserted another order, willing away pain. It was still there, yes, but like a far-off thing. This she had done with animals found injured, with a Yurth child who had fallen and broken an arm. But the animals had trusted her, the child knew what she would do and was prepared to surrender to her. Would it also work for the Raski who looked upon her kind with hatred and suspicion?

Sleep. . . .

Elossa was sure he was past the threshold of consciousness. She could find in her delicate search no further alert against her invasion.

Now she drew her belt knife to cut away the rags of his leather jerkin, the shirt stiff with blood underneath that, laying bare a frightful wound which tore shoulder to hip. Out of her belt bag she took a folded cloth to spread flat upon her knee. Across it was a thick layer of ground, dried herbs mixed with pure fat.

With infinite care she worked to bring together the strips of torn flesh, holding them with one hand while with the other she laid the cloth, bit by bit, over the wounds. Though the blood had been flowing, yet, when that sealing cloth went on, there was no more seepage. In the end the wound was covered from end to end.

Elossa must release her mind-hold upon him now. All her power and skill with the talent had to be centered elsewhere. Slowly, as slowly as she had entered his thoughts, she withdrew. Luckily he did not rouse, at least not yet.

She laid her fingertips along the cloth. Focusing her will, she built a mental picture of healing flesh, clean healing. She must assume that Raski bodies were not too different from those of the Yurth. Blood, she commanded, cease to flow. Cells she stimulated to begin growth of new connecting tissue.

The drain of energy was such that she could actually feel it flowing out of her fingertips into the hurt. Heal! Back and forth her fingers passed, touching lightly the surface of the cloth, sending through that the force of the Upper Sense aimed at this one task alone.

She had reached the end of her endeavor, weariness was about her as an outer skin. Her hands dropped to her sides, her shoulders were bent. The dark had now so enclosed them that she could not see the face of the sleeping man save as a white blue. But he slept, and for him she could do no more.

Elossa raised her head with a great effort. Now she was aware that the clamor of battle was stilled. Her concentration relaxed. She wanted to seek out through the night, but the power was far spent, her whole body was so drained that she could not even move, only sat hunched beside the sleeper, waiting and listening in a dull way.

No sound. Nor did the feeling of aroused fury sweep toward her. She could not seek to penetrate the dark with mind-send. It might be a full day and night, or more, before she might draw back into her even a fraction of the talent she had used.

There was a sigh out of the night. Once more that head moved against her knee. Elossa tensed. She had paid her debt to the Raski but she did not believe that her care of him would in any way mitigate the inborn hatred of his kind for hers. Though she had nothing to fear from him in his present weakened state, still his emotions, if he roused fully, would shatter the peace and quiet she must have to recover her own necessary strength.

Very slowly she pushed away from the man. In spite of her great fatigue she knew that she must make an effort to get away, out of his sight. She slipped down from the rock perch, steadied herself against that while she picked up her staff.

With that to lean on, Elossa turned once more to the slope. Out of the veiling brush she caught the scent of blood, the reek of rog and sargon intermingled. There in the open rested a mass of torn fur, splintered bone, from which all life had fled. Here two monsters, equally matched, had fought to the death of both.

The girl pulled herself past that horrible battlefield, digging the staff in to support herself. There was the sound of sliding gravel, a hoarse clack of bird, a patter of feet Scavengers were coming out of the night. None of that noisome crew need she fear. They would find a feast awaiting.

Up and up. She had to pause often to gather her forces and settle her will the firmer. But, at length, she came into the cup of grass and growth where the spring pool lay. Wavering over, she plunged her face and hands into the sharp chill of the water. Then she fumbled with her provision bag, hunger gnawing within her.

She drank from the stream, chewed food she hardly tasted, straggling to keep awake while she ate. At last she could battle no longer. Around her neck she settled the chain of the seeing disc and that she put by her ear. Though she did not know the reason or the method by which that worked, it was tuned to her personally alone, and, when she set it so, it would rouse her against the coming of any danger.

Thus protected as well as she could be in this wilderness, Elossa stretched out on the tough grass, her traveling cape about her. There was no time tonight for the daily meditation upon all happenings which was a part of Yurth training. Instead she dropped into almost instant slumber as she relaxed her conscious hold on her mind.

Dreams could warn, could instruct, were of importance. For long Yurth minds had investigated, recorded, shifted and judged dreams. They had learned to control them, to pick from perhaps a muddling and puzzling sequence of dream pictures a scrap here, a fragment there, which could be carried over into waking and there answer some question, or propose one to be investigated in the future.

Elossa was very used to dreams, some vivid and alive, some so tenuous they were floating wisps she could not capture even with her training.

But. . . .

She stood on a road, a road of stone blocks fitted together with expert precision and art. Smooth and solid under her feet was that road. It wound on, arose by expert engineering into heights, until her questing eyes could no longer follow it. She began to move along the road, headed toward those heights. Behind her came another presence, but she could not look over her shoulder, she only sensed that it followed behind.

Her feet did not quite touch the surface of that stone way. Rather, she swiftly skimmed above the stones. Up and up the road led, and she went, that other always following.

Distances were lessened by the speed with which she moved. Elossa thought that she must have come a long way since she had first seen the road. Now she was among the mountains. Mists clung to her body, but with the road as a guide she could not lose her way. She passed so swiftly that all around was a blur. There was some need, some desperate need, that she reach a point ahead, though, what was that need and where lay that point, she could not understand.

There were no other travelers along the road. Save for that one who came behind, whose speed was less than hers so he did not catch up. But the urgency which filled her was shared by him also. This much she knew.

Up and up, and then came a pass with mountain walls rearing high and dark on either hand. When she stood in the pass the force which had carried her hither abruptly vanished. Below the mists clung and veiled the lower slopes, the road which lay farther on.

Then, as if a curtain had been drawn aside, those mists were pulled from immediately before her. She did indeed look down, and down, over such a drop as made her dizzy. Still she could move neither forward nor back.

Below were lights sparkling, as if a handful of cut gems had been spilled out. They shone from reaching towers, along walls, outline great houses and buildings. This was a city far larger, far more majestic and imposing than any she had seen. The sweep of the towers was so marked that she thought at ground level they must seem to reach the sky.

There was life there but it was far away, dim in some fashion, as if another dimension besides distance lay between her and it.

Then. . . .

She heard no sound. But in the air there came a burst of flame as brilliant as an unshielded sun. This flame descended toward the city. Not to its heart, but at the far edge. The flaring outburst reached the wall there, spread over, to lick out at the nearest buildings.

Something hung above those flames. The fire sprouted from the bottom and a little up the sides of a dark globular mass. Down that came. The flames swept out, caught between the ground and the mass, fanning farther and farther.

She was too far away to see what must be happening to the city dwellers as this fate descended to crush and burn. Lights went out. She saw three towers break and fall as the mass riding the flames drew nearer. Then that rested part on the city, part without. Wall, tower, and buildings must have been crushed under it.

More flames arose, spreading farther over the city. Elossa wavered where she stood, fighting against the compulsion which held her there. In her there arose a keening sorrow, yet she could not give voice to the great sadness which tore at her. This catastrophe-it was not intended-but it happened and from it came a sense of guilt which made her cringe.

Then. . . .

Elossa opened her eyes. She did not stand in any pass watching the death of a city. No, she blinked and blinked again. For the space of several heartbeats she had difficulty in correlating the here and now with the then and there. There had carried over from the dream the sense of guilt, akin to that which had possessed her when she had realized that she had unwittingly sent death to stalk another.

The first of Zasar’s twin moons was well up in the sky, its sister showing on the horizon. The beams silvered the water of the pool, made all within the cup of that small mountain meadow either shadow black or moon white. One of the scavenger birds croaked as it arose sluggishly from its feast.

Elossa settled into a deliberate pattern of even breathing to steady her nerves. That her dream had been one of the important ones she did not doubt. Nor did it begin to blur and fade from her mind after the fashion of most dreams. She had witnessed the destruction of part of a city. But the reason why she had been given this vision she did not know.

She took into hands the seeing disc, being half minded to try a search. Did that city-or had it-ever existed here? Had that road she followed to the pass been the one time had nearly erased? She longed to know. Yet prudence counseled no, she must not again use her talent until she was sure within herself that she had an ample supply of energy.

Slowly she settled back, her hands crossed upon her breast under the folds of her cloak, and clasped in her right one the disc. But she did not fall again into slumber. The memory of her dream was like the dull aching of a tooth, prodding at her mind, plucking at her imagination.

Why and where, when and how? There was nothing in all the teaching she had absorbed from early childhood which suggested the existence of any such city, either past or present. The Yurth did not gather in large cities. Their life, to the outer eye, was primitive and rough. What they did inwardly was something very different. While the Raski, for all their liking to gather in towns and the city of the King-Head, had certainly produced nothing to equal what she had seen in her dream.

No, this was a mystery, and mysteries both drew and repelled her. Something lay within the mountains which was of importance-the very fact of the Pilgrimage testified to that. What would she find? Elossa looked upon the rising moon and strove to put her mind into the serene order demanded by her kind.

4.

With the coming of day Elossa filled her water bottle, ate sparingly of her supplies, and began to climb again. The freshness of the mountain air drove away some of the shadow which had overhung the day before. There was only fleeting thought of the man below. She had done for him all that she could, the rest depended upon his own strength. To attempt to contact him now might betray herself and her mission.

On and on, the climb was a sharp one. She did not set a fast pace, conserving her energy by seeking out those places which were most easy to pass. Here the wind was chill. Already there were scarves of white snow along the upper peaks. Late summer, early autumn on the plains turned to winter here.

Once when she paused to rest, surveying curiously what lay about her, there was a quick flash of memory. Not too far ahead the rise of rock walls was such as she had seen before. She crouched on a narrow ledge she had been following because it gave good footholds and arose along the slope as if it had been chiseled there to offer a path.

However, this ledge was of natural formation. What lay beyond her perch came from the hands of men, or at least it had been built to answer the demands of intelligence equal to human. There stretched the remains of a roadway.

Surely this could be the same road she had seen leaving the foothills, while before it now lay the pass of her dream. Elossa hesitated. A dream of guidance, showing her where she must go? Or a dream of warning, to say this is not your path? She had no hint of which it might be. To try to learn she summoned the memory of the dream.

In that the road had not been a tumble of broken stone, but firm and whole. Though she had not actually trod upon it, yet it furnished her with a guide. Also a dream, for all the horror of the burning, dying city, had not seemed a threat to her. It was a sending, she decided. Though it had not been beamed by any one of her people, she would have recognized instantly the technique. Therefore. . . . A past shadow?

The theory and explanation of those was as familiar to her as her own name. Acts which aroused great emotion on the part of the actors could impress upon the scene of those acts pictorial representation of the events. These emanations might be picked up a long time later by any whose nature left them open to such reception. She had seen in the past the shadows of three of the King-Head’s forces who had gone to then: death from a rog attack. Yet those deaths had occurred generations before her own birth. And how much greater the death of a city would be-to imprint the agony of that loss upon the site!

Elossa dropped her head into her hands, forcing away the dream memory, reaching out for the compulsion tie which had brought her on the Pilgrimage. That was there, and it pointed her to the mountain gap! Gathering up her bag and staff, she descended to the ancient road and doggedly continued along that to the pass. She was farther than the length of her staff along that way before she swayed, set her teeth grimly upon her lip.

Though she retreated behind a thought barrier, that was no safe refuge as far as emotion was concerned. It was as if she were now buffeted by unseen blows, all sent to force her into retreat. What lay here had no substance, but to approach was like forcing a way through a knee-high swift current designed to sweep her from her feet.

More than wind flowed through the pass. Anger came, as deep and fierce as the mindless rage of the rog and the sargon, a cry for-for vengeance. Elossa was not aware that her progress became unsteady, that she reeled from one side of the way to the other.

Pulled forward, pushed back-it would seem that the forces here were near evenly balanced and she was the plaything of them both. But she did win forward, even though it was but a step, a half step, length at a time. Breath filled her lungs only in painful gasps. The entire world had narrowed to the broken road, and on that only a few lengths ahead.

Elossa fought. She was so enmeshed now in those two forces she could sense that she dared not even attempt to free herself. No, this she must see until the end.

On and up. Her own breathing filled her ears. Pain looped around her ribs ever more tightly. She would plant her staff in some crack a little before her, and then, by main effort, drag herself to that spot, look ahead for another anchor.

Time itself left her. This might have been morning, or hours near sunset, one day or the next. Beyond and around her now flowed life and time. She was near spent with every step.

At last she stumbled into a pocket of absolute stillness. So quick was the cessation of those two forces which had used her as an arena that she collapsed against a rock, hardly able to keep on her feet.

The girl was only aware of the heavy pounding of her heart, the rasping sound of her breathing. She felt as emptied of strength as she had after she had expended the talent to aid the Raski hunter.

At length Elossa raised her head. Then that harsh, heavy breathing caught in her throat. She was not alone!

Her efforts had brought her to the other end of the pass. As in her dream, mist curdled on the down slope, cutting out all view of the way below and beyond. But, stark against that mist, fronting her. . . .

In spite of control Elossa uttered a cry of terror, fear welled in her. She clutched the staff which could be her only weapon. A length of wood to use against-that?

In form it was roughly human. At least it stood erect on two limbs, held two more before it. One of those was half hidden behind the oval of a shield which covered it near throat to thighs. The other, a seared paw, still possessed enough charred bone of fingers to clasp a sword hilt. A skull, blackened by fire, to which strips of burnt flesh still clung here and there, was overshadowed by a helm.

It-it had no eyes left-yet it saw! Its helmed head was turned in her direction. Nothing, no one of her species who had been so burned could live! Yet this, this thing stood erect, the teeth of that horrible skull bared in what seemed to Elossa to be a grin of mockery, born from recognition of her own fear and loathing.

Nothing could live so! She drew several short breaths to steady her nerves. If this thing could not live (and reason came flooding back to her to make that assurance) then it was a thought form. . . .

The thing had moved. To her eyes it was three dimensional, as solid as the hand she herself raised in a gesture of repudiation. Thought form-from whose brain-and why? The shield had swung up to a position of defense, so now only the hollows of the skull’s eye sockets appeared above its smoke-darkened rim. The sword was held steady. It was coming toward her. . . .

A thought form-if it followed the pattern of such things-then what it fed upon, to give it more and more solid substance, was her own fear and sickness. It was not alive-save in as much as it could build itself life out of her own emotions.

Elossa licked her lips. She had dealt with illusions all her life. But then she, or those of her kin, had built those. This was totally alien, born of a mind she could not understand. How then could she find the key to it?

It was an illusion! She caught and held that thought to the fore of her mind. Yet it moved toward her, its stained sword raising slowly, ready to cut her down. Every instinct urged her to defend herself with her staff as best she could. But to yield to that demand would be her loss.

Thought form. . . Beneath her first horror and revulsion another emotion stirred. Perhaps that had been born out of her dream. It was not the skeleton apparition before her which caused terror now. No, it was her memory of the destruction of the city which she had witnessed.

Some guard or warrior who had died there. But in whose memory had such a thing lingered to be thrown against her now? And why?

Guard, of course! A guard who had died at his post Maybe not a thought form born of any living mind, but rather a lingering of pain and rage so great that it could be projected long after the brain which had given it birth was dead.

“It is over.” Elossa spoke aloud. “Long over.” Words, what had words to do with this? They could not reach the dead.

But this was only a projection, knowing that she was safe-safe. . . .

Gathering assurance about her as she might the billows of her journey cloak she stood away from the rock against which she had sheltered. The guard was only the length of a sword thrust from her now. Elossa stiffened herself against any flinching, any belief that this might do her harm.

She went forward, straight in the way the dead blocked. It was the most dreadful test she had ever faced. On, one step, two. She was up against the figure now. One more step. . . .

It was. . . . She stumbled as that wave of raw emotion filled her, ate into her confidence, her sanity. Somehow she was through, one hand to her head which felt as if it were bursting with utter terror, terror which was all filling, which overwhelmed her thoughts, left only sensation.

Elossa had walked through!

Now she looked back. There was nothing. It was even as she had guessed. Both hands on her staff, leaning on that as her legs felt so weak that they might give way under her at any moment, the girl tottered on into the wet embrace of the mist which cloaked the descent from the pass.

There were-sounds. Visual had been the first attack, audible was the second. Screams, faint as if from some distance, but not from any animal; rather the last cries of torment and overriding fear too great for any mind to face without breaking. Elossa wanted to cover her ears, to do anything which would shut out that clamor of the dying. But to do that was again to acknowledge that these projections had power over her. She. . . .

Elossa saw a stir within the mist, movement near the ground. She halted as a figure crawled into clear sight. This one went on all fours, had no shield nor sword. Nor were the signs of fire anywhere on it.

Though its progress was that of a stricken animal, slow, painful, yet, it, too, was human. One leg ended in a blob of crushed flesh from which seeped blood to leave a broad trail upon the rocks. The head was raised, forced back upon the shoulders as if the crawler sought ahead of her some goal which was the only hope of survival.

For this titling coming out of the fog was a woman, the long hair, sweat plastered to temples, did not fall forward enough to hide what ripped clothing displayed, while that clothing bore no resemblance to the few scorched rags the guard had worn. Blood-stained and torn though it was, it had been a close-fitting body suit of a green shade, unlike any garment Elossa had ever seen.

The crawling woman reached forward to draw herself on. Then her mouth opened in a soundless cry and she fell, still striving to hold up her head, looking at Elossa. In her eyes there was such a plea for aid that the girl wavered, almost losing control of her own determination not to be misled.

The silent plea from the woman struck into Elossa’s mind. This was no figure out of nightmare, but rather one to pluck at her pity in a way as deeply demanding of action as the fear generated by the guard had been. There was a feeling of kinship between them. Though this stranger was not of Yurth, or not of the Yurth blood, Elossa knew.

Help, help me! Unspoken, faint, those words in Elossa’s head vocalized out of the emotion rising swiftly to fill her. Help. Unconsciously she knelt, stretched out her hand. . . .

No! She froze. Almost, this illusion had won!

To be caught in an illusion, the primary fear of the Yurth choked her. She hid her eyes with her hand, swayed to and fro. She must not yield! To do so was to surrender all she was!

But hiding her eyes was not the way. As she had done with the guard, she must face squarely this thing born from emotion, face it and treat it for what it was-nothing but a shadow of what once might have been. As the guard had been fed from her fear (and perhaps the terrors of others who had been drawn into this way before her) so would this other be fed by her pity and wish to aid. She must rein that in and not be moved.

Elossa got to her feet The woman on the ground had raised herself a little, levering her body up with one arm, one hand planted palm down against the stone. The other hand she held out to the girl beseechingly, her need open in her staring eyes, her mouth working vainly, as if she could not force out words, but needs must try.

As she had done with the guard the girl gathered her force of will and determination. Staff in hand she walked deliberately forward. Nor did she look aside from the woman, for such an illusion must be faced in its entirety and without flinching.

On. . . on. . . .

Once more she was engulfed in a flood of feeling, pain, need, fear, above an the plea for aid, for comfort. . . .

She was through, shaking, spent. Once more the mist closed about her as she pulled herself on, striving to shake from her that upheaval of emotion which had attempted to net her a second time and in another and, to her, more deadly fashion.

It was well that Elossa had the road for a guide here as the mist was so blinding that otherwise she could have wandered from her path unknowingly. The badly broken way was sometimes hidden by slides of earth and rock, but ever, as she pushed ahead, she would find it again. Then the fog began to thin. She was coming out of that when again she halted, half turned to face up slope, toward the pass now hidden from her.

That was not illusion! She had been only half consciously casting about with the mind- search to make sure that other things beside the illusions did not hide here. So she had touched another mind, instantly withdrew.

Who?

She must know, even if probing would reveal her to Whatever lurked above.

With the extreme caution she must use, Elossa stood on the moisture-slicked rock where the fog condensed some of its substance in drops, and reached out. . . .

It was. . . . He! The Raski she had thought left far behind. Why had he followed her? In spite of the healing she had brought to his wound, he surely had not recovered enough to make such a journey easy. But there was no deception possible in the contact she made. This was the same mind she had touched before. He was here-above. . . .

And. . . . She felt the wash of his fear. The guard-he must be confronting the guard. Without any defense against illusion (for he could not have that by his very nature) how was he going to fare?

Elossa bit hard upon her lower lip. Before, she had been to blame in part for his hurt and therefore she was bound by her honor to come to his aid. This time the situation was different He had chosen this path of his own free will, not through any control set by her. Therefore she was not responsible for what might issue from his folly.

5.

Go forward, commanded logic reinforced by all her training from birth. Still Elossa lingered, unable to break that tenuous contact with the other’s fear. Go forward! This is none of your concern. This you did not bring upon him. If he chose to come skulking behind, then he must face the result of his folly.

She forced herself to take one step, two, resolutely closing her mind to any more emanation, even though a buried part of her fought that decision. The last tatters of the mist drifted away; now she could see the country below.

And. . . .

Against all logic Elossa had expected to see what her dream had shown her-a city-the thing from the sky which had brought ruin to it. There was indeed the plateau which stretched near as wide as part of the plains she had crossed. At a far distance she could distinguish shadow shapes of other mountains. This range must encircle as a wall on three sides, like arms curved out in protection.

There was no city as such. But when she sighted certain hollows and rises in the plateau (all now cloaked in withering grass) the girl knew that there lay long lost and forgotten nuns. There even arose piles of stones which might be the last vestiges of walls.

She turned her head a little to the north, to follow the winding of such a wall. What lay there was not in the city, rather farther away then her dream had shown it. Only a portion of it now arched above the surface, but a dome of top showed still. That was the thing which had descended from the heavens to wreck destruction here.

It was toward that that the Pilgrimage compulsion clearly drew her. The force of that was stronger, urging her to complete her journey as swiftly as she might.

Here the road angled along the wall of the mountain, taking a turn to the left. It was much broken, large portions of it shorn away by sideslips or avalanches. This path was not one for the unwary; one foot misplaced could send her sliding to destruction.

Elossa concentrated all her attention on that descent, taking care, her staff often an anchor over a treacherous bit of path. The journey was longer than she had thought when she had viewed her goal from the heights.

So the sun was well up and it was midday before she reached the level of the plateau. There she paused to eat and drink before she turned from those grass-matted stones toward the dome.

Just as the trail had been longer than she had expected, so now did the ruins loom larger. In many places the mounds topped her head. While from their mass below a chill wind which made her wrap her cloak more tightly about her.

As the ruins had grown taller so did the curve of the buried globe rise higher. In her dream the whole globe had been great enough to blot out a goodly portion of the city; now she could understand how. Judging by the dream, all which remained above the soil now was perhaps a quarter of its entire bulk. Still that stood as high as perhaps three of the Raski dwellings set one atop another to form a tower.

It was uniformly gray in color, not the gray of a natural rock, but lighter, resembling the hue of the sky before the approach of a summer rainfall. As Elossa moved toward it a sighing of wind, blowing through the rums, produced an odd wailing note. Dared she loose her fancy she could believe that filled with the far-off keening of voices lamenting the dead.

No, she had had enough of illusion! Elossa paused long enough to tap one of the half-buried stones with the end of her staff. It was satisfyingly solid under that contact-no illusion. Wind often had its own voice when it blew around and through rock formations, whether those were natural or man-made.

As she went the ruins grew yet higher, threw their own broken-edged shadows here and there. She found that she must alter her path and go farther in among those mounds in order to reach her goal Doing so made every nerve shrink, protest.

Death-this was the way of death.

For a long minute the very air curdled, became a curtain, drew apart She saw shapes with more substance than the mountain mist, still they might have been born of that. One such shape fled, the others were hounds behind it, wisps of arms raised. . . . While the shape which fled dodged and turned. . . . There was that in her which answered to it, knew the fear and torment which possessed it.

No! At once she clamped down her mind barrier. The shapes were gone, but Elossa never doubted that once such a hunt had crossed the path she must now follow.

Her energy had been drained, more than was normal, even though she had made that perilous descent of the mountain. She found she must lean more and more on her staff, even pause and rest, breathing fast to draw air into her lungs. She, too, might have been running at the desperate speed of that fog tiling.

Her head jerked. The sensation that had come out of the air might have an unexpected blow, pulling her to the left. Now she saw a path winding westward among the mounds. In spite of her efforts at control the ordering of her own body was mercilessly rift from her. She turned, not by her will, but by a compulsion strong enough to override that other she had followed so far and long.

Elossa fought with every weapon of the Upper Sense she could summon. But there was no winning of this battle. She moved along that faint path, pulled by a cord she could not break. Still she also was very much aware that this was nothing of Yurth spinning-rather a contact totally alien to all she knew.

On she went. Now she no longer straggled to break free. The caution in which she had been drilled suggested that both her will and strength might be put to a stronger test in the immediate future and it was well to conserve them now.

The mounds of ruins grew ever larger, loomed over her, shutting out the view of the half- buried dome, sometimes closing off all but a ribbon of sky well over her head. It was in such circumstances that the path ended in a dark opening at the side of one of the mounds. Seeing that ahead and guessing full well that whatever (or whoever) drew her intended that she enter that threatening doorway, Elossa braced herself for a final struggle. So intent was she on marshalling her forces, that she was unaware of what crept behind her.

There came a blow, landing to numb her shoulder so that she dropped her staff. Before she could turn or disengage thought power to defend herself, a light burst in her head and she fell forward into dark nothingness.

Sounds first aroused her from that nothingness. There was the deep tone which made the very air vibrate, and that came at spaced intervals. Her body answered to that beat, quivering as the tone slowly died away, shrinking before the coming of the next deep sound. It was so hard to think again.

Elossa opened her eyes. No sky, no daylight. Here was dark, battled only feebly by a flickering of flame she could see from eye corner. Always that beat of sound enwrapped her, keeping her off balance as she strove to use mind-touch, discover where she might be and who had brought her here.

Now the girl strove to move her body, but she could not stir. She was not held in mind- thrall-very real bonds entrapped her. Rings prisoned her wrists, her ankles, a large one about both her legs at slightly above knee level, and one binding her breast. She was fastened to a hard surface over which she moved fingertips, to learn she lay on stone.

The pound of the sound ceased. Elossa turned her head toward the light. That issued from a lamp, the metal of which was wrought in the form of a monstrous creature sitting up on hind quarters, while the light within it streamed from open mouth and eyes.

So limited was the range of that radiance she could not see beyond the lamp. There lay a darkness as thick as the mist had been in the mountains. However, with that overpowering beat at last stilled, she found that she could gather strength enough to send forth a mind- probe.

The Raski!

There would be no question now of what she must do. Those on the Pilgrimage were pledged and conditioned that nothing must interfere with their quest. Successful accomplishment of such was needful to the Yurth as a whole, for each one who made it and returned added new vigor and strength to the clan. She, herself, had felt that inflow of shared power on past occasions when the Pilgrimage feast was given after a return.

She must complete what she was sent to do. If her success meant the taking over of this inferior and “blind” mind, then that she would do also.

Having located her quarry, Elossa used a strong probe to follow the light contact she held. And. . . .

What she found made her gasp. A layered mind-a double life lying side by side! The one which she sought to reach was guarded by the other. Guarded, or in thrall to? That was only a guess, however, something impressed her that the full truth might well be so.

But the Raski had no mind control, none of the Upper Sense! What stronger mind could be here? She dismissed at once the belief that another Yurth was present. Not only was it against all custom, except in the most dire occasions (such as the one she faced), but what she had probed in the quick instant before her snap of withdrawal had not been Yurth. Nor was it Raski to the extent of the man who had followed her. The possessor was another- another species?

She marshalled her defense, expecting a fierce return probe which would have been natural under the circumstances. What the Raski feared the most was not the tangible weapons a Yurth held but had discarded, rather the mind-send which the plains people considered unnatural and a kind of evil magic. Only now there came no return stroke. Nor did the Raski either move or speak.

Slowly once more Elossa sent out a tendril of mind-seek, not a strong probe, more like a scout sent to estimate the forces of the enemy. The Raski was quiet in body, in mind she touched a seething of force. Hate and vengeance-such as the illusion guard had broadcast on the mountain. A hate which had passed beyond the point of any reason. To all purposes the Raski was now mad, or rather held in the grip of a madman’s thoughts.

There were those among the Yurth who could enter into the chaos now whirling in that other mind, bring to it the peace of unconsciousness, until the cause for its trouble could be remedied. But those were old in learning and far more powerful than she.

Elossa dared not maintain contact for more than an instant or so at a time, lest she be caught in that mad whirl of hate and lack of logic, infected in turn. She could not be sure of what she dealt with now. This matter of two different personalities which she was sure were present was unlike ordinary mental unbalance.

She could only continue to pick delicately, striving to find a way into the personality she knew from the mountain trail, discovering a path past the other to reach that. To so strengthen the man she had touched earlier might be a way to defeat the mad thing which had settled into his mind.

Hate, that was like a fire fanned into her face, burning her mind as real flames could reduce her flesh to that which still clung to the charred skeleton of the pass.

No! Do not think of the guard, such memories strengthened the mad thing. As did the illusion form, it could feed on such a memory, grow stronger. Was that what happened to the Raski? Had he made contact with the thought form, and in some way absorbed thereby what rode him now?

Do not speculate! There was not time for anything but to marshal her will against an invasion of hate and fear. Elossa stared up into the darkness over her, unable to see the Raski to focus upon him. She reluctantly withdrew mind-touch lest that other use her own bridge as a path for counterattack.

Emotion charged this space in which she lay securely captive. It pressed in upon her like the beat of the sound which had drawn her from unconsciousness.

She had done nothing to give rise to such loathing. No, that reached from the past, the far past. And it had fed on fear for a long time. Now it was feeding upon the Raski, and it would feed on her also-unless she could hold her guard against it-for a space.

In the dark above her formed a head, the charred bone head of the guard. Skeleton jaws opened: Not with her ears but her mind she heard the cry:

“Death to the sky devils! Death!”

Elossa stared back at the illusion. It began to fade, its jaws still moving to mouth the soundless words. She did have a tie with the Raski who lent his strength, willingly or unwillingly, to this manifestation. Her healing had gone into his body, she had touched his flesh, sending into him the force which was hers to give.

Deliberately she closed her eyes. With one portion of the Upper Sense she kept watch for any sly attack on the mind-touch level. With the rest she began to build an illusion of her own, concentrating into it most of her strength. She had never tried this action before, but when one is faced with a new form of danger one must accordingly change one’s defense.

Slowly her eyes opened. There was movement in the air above her where the death’s head had hung. But this was her doing. As a worker with colored clay might project upon a stone wall some vision which had before lain only in his mind, Elossa built upon the air the form of her illusion.

There stood the rock on which she had found the Raski, firm and sturdy, gaining solidity with every breath she drew. On it now her imagination, well harnessed and schooled, laid the body of the Raski as she had seen him, the torn flesh, the freely running blood. Then she brought herself into the scene to straightway relive those moments when she had fought to save his life, using all the skills she knew. It was clear, that picture.

As the woman in the vision worked, so did Elossa gather up within her the emotion which such a healer uses-sympathy, pity, the wish for skill to aid what she would do. All the emotions naturally opposed to that burning hate. In the vision she labored to save a life, not blast it.

So, as was always true, emotion fed emotion. The woman strove as she had done to aid the man. Now Elossa turned her head to face the corner in which he lurked. The woman in the vision arose-her hand rested on her breast and then moved outward, as if bestowing some gift freely and gladly. From the outstretched hands of that illusion Elossa strove indeed to make sympathy and good will speed to the one who crouched in the dark.

6.

The girl continued to beam a sense of healing and that good will with all her strength. In return came only the flame of the mad rage rising higher as if it were fed anew. She could no longer hold her pictured illusion. It winked out as might a lamp puffed by the wind. But the emotion which it had contained she still broadcast.

Friend. . . aid. . . peace. . . freedom from hurt and pain. . . Her whole being was absorbed in sending forth that message.

There was only the very dim lit space above her, empty of any illusion. Into that came a head-not building up slowly as had the skull of her own vision. So dun was the lamp by her side that she could see only half a face, and that was drawn into a grimace which resembled the rictus of the dying.

No vision. This was the Raski who had shuffled to her side, and now stood looking down at her. She saw the working of his mouth, the one eye staring dully in the lamp light.

Peace. . . peace. . . .

A hand came into view, its fingers crooked into the form of talons, held about her as if to rake the flesh from her bones.

Peace-there is peace between us. . . .

That hand wavered, clawed down at her, the nails scraping feebly at her tunic. There was little of the human in the face. Elossa was tempted to use the probe, thought better of it. That which possessed this man was alert to what she did. There could be no hope of a victory fighting on its level. She must rather hold fast to her own, perhaps ineffectual, way of counterattack.

Peace-peace between us, man of the Raski. No harm from me-I have tended your wound, perhaps given you life. Peace between you and me now-peace!

His hand relaxed, fell to lie limply on her breast. Another form of contact! Such could carry a greater charge than thought alone. Now his head bent forward farther into the light. The terrible mad grin which had stretched his mouth began to ease away. That dull stare of the eye which was completely visible changed. Deep in it, she was sure, shone a measure of intelligence.

Elossa gathered all her force for a final attack upon the thing buried in him.

Peace! Though the word was but thought, it held all the power of a shout.

His head jerked as it might from a blow in his face. Now that eye closed, his features went utterly slack as he fell across her, his weight pressing her painfully against the stone on which she lay.

Elossa tried the probe. The rage had drained out of him, or else it had been pushed so deep that she could not reach him without giving that insanity a new gateway to the surface. He lay unconscious-open. Now she could do what would give her an only chance.

Into that open mind she beamed a command. His body arose by degrees, not easily, rather as if he resisted her even though he had no control. She had implanted a single order, and that with all the strength left in her.

Wavering, he swung away from her sight. She thought from a faint sound he must have gone to his knees beside the slab she was prisoned on. There came a metallic sound like unto the click of a shot bolt, the turn of some reluctant locking device. The bands which held her slipped away and she sat up.

The Raski huddled beside that table (or perhaps it was an altar of sacrifice; she suspected that the latter was the truth). He did not stir to impede her as she slipped over the edge of the opposite side and stood up, feeling stiff and sore as if her ordeal in that place had lasted longer than she knew.

But she was unharmed and she was free! Though how long? If she went on her quest a second time, leaving him behind, what was the chance that he would not again be claimed by the spirit which had used his body to bring her down? Very great, Elossa thought. Therefore she dared not go and leave him behind, little as she wanted to take him with her.

She was again breaking custom and the Law of her clan to contemplate such action, yet she could see no choice other than killing a helpless man. That deed would bring on her such a burden of wrong doing that she would be changed irrevocably into someone who could never more be any but an outcast wanderer.

Rounding the table she caught the Raski’s head between her two hands, turned his face up into the dim light. The eyes were open, but without any spark of intelligence in them. His features seemed oddly shrunken as if some portion of his life force had drained away.

Elossa drew upon all remnants of her will. There were only remnants now, for the ordeal of her battle with the mad thing had near exhausted her. Holding him so, and looking down into his unseeing eyes, she loosed that which remained of her trained will in a second sharp command.

His body stirred. She held him fast for several breaths more, giving to this all she had left. Then, as she stepped back, he put his hands on the edge of the table altar. Bracing himself against that he got to his feet, stood, his blind eyes on her, his arms now dangling loosely by his side.

Then he turned, stumbling. On into the dark beyond the reach of the lamp he lurched, Elossa after him.

It would seem that this thick dark did not hinder him. She caught at one of the dangling tatters of the jerkin she had cut away from his body to tend his wound. With that tugging in her hand she could not lost contact.

She thought that they were traversing a passage underground, for a dank smell filled her nostrils. Then that ribbon of leather which united them pulled upward at a new angle. A moment later her toes stubbed against a step.

Up he climbed and she followed. The dark so pressed in upon them that it was an almost tangible thing. What if her hold on the Raski’s mind failed while they went this way, and the madness would possess him again here in the blackness? No, do not even think of that, for such thoughts could perhaps unloose in turn just that which she must keep at bay.

On and up-until at last they came to another level hallway. Ahead Elossa saw a grayish glimmer which gave her an instant of excitement and triumph. That must be a door to the outer world!

The Raski went more and more slowly. She read his reluctance. Still she did not try mind contact again. A probe, no matter how delicately used, could well break her hold on him.

They emerged from the fetid and musky darkness into the gray light of early day. Around them hunched the mounds, dark and menacing, like rog and sargon waiting to pull down those who invaded their jealously held territory.

With these so tall about her Elossa was not sure in what direction stood the dome which had drawn her here.

For a moment she hesitated. The Raski wavered on, free of the hold she had kept upon him in the dark ways. He did not turn his head or show any awareness of her. Elossa, with no better guide, came behind.

The mounds ceased abruptly to exist. Here instead was a section where the only signs of the one-time city were lines on the ground. Then even those ceased to be, and they were out in the open traversing an empty space.

Looming above was the dome, its surface dull in this subdued light The Raski stopped short. His hands came up with one swift movement to cover his eyes. It could be that he refused to look upon the structure ahead, that it implied a threat to which he had no answer.

Elossa caught him by the upper arm. He did not drop his hands nor look at her. Though when she strove to draw him on he resisted her feebly. She had to guide him for he did not change the position of that blindfold of flesh and blood he had raised.

So they came to the foot of the dome. Elossa dropped her hold on her companion. Now. . . . She licked her lips. Though she had not been told what she would find here, she had carried one aid in the quest. She had been given a single word and told that when the time came for its use she would know it.

The time was here-and now.

Raising her head high, the girl fastened her eyes upon the swell of the dome and cried aloud.

There was no meaning in the word-sound-at least none that she knew. The sound itself re- echoed in the air about her.

Then came the answer. First with a harsh grating as if long rusted or deep set metal moved against bonds laid by time. On the surface of the dome, well above her, appeared an opening. That continued to enlarge until wide enough to admit a body. From that doorway sounded another complaint of metal, continuing, as there issued out a curving strip like a tongue aimed to lick them up.

Elossa retreated warily, drawing the Raski with her. The tongue of metal, which had issued with such effort, now curved down, touched end to earth a little to her right. She saw that it was a stepped way. So was she bidden to enter.

Again she dared not release the man with her. What lay within the dome must be the great mystery of the Yurth. But to allow this one free, perhaps waiting as a receptacle for returning madness, would be like setting a weapon edge to her own throat.

She laid hands on him once more only to meet stronger resistance. He voiced a word in a voice so faint that it might have come from a far distance:

“No!”

As she pushed him to the foot of the ladder ramp, wondering how she could force him to climb if he set all his strength against her, he cried out, to be echoed hollowly:

“Sky devil! No!”

However, he was still subject enough to her mind-command that he could not escape and so began to climb, every tense line of his body arguing his struggle to be free. They went slowly. Elossa could see nothing beyond that opening. Nor did she try to use the mind- search to learn what might await them there.

For now she was aware of something else; around her gathered and grew that mad hate she had twice faced and which now began a third assault. The Raski suddenly threw back his head, lifting his face to the sky. He howled, mouthing a cry which held no human note in it.

She feared he would break the mental bond, turn and rend her with the brainless ferocity of a sargon. But, though he howled once more and his fear and rage enveloped her, still her will subdued that in him which struggled for freedom and he continued to climb.

They came to the door. The Raski flung out both, arms, caught at the sides of that portal, bracing his body as if this were his last stand against unnamable terror and despair.

“No!” he screamed.

Elossa, now afraid that he would swing around, throw her down the incline of that ramp- ladder, did not wait to send a mind-probe. Instead she thrust vigorously, her hands striking him waist high. Perhaps the speed of that physical attack made it successful. He stumbled, his head falling forward on his chest. Then that stumble continued and he crumpled, to lie motionless.

Elossa squeezed past him, turned and stooped, hooked her fingers in the belt which held his torn clothing to his body. Exerting her strength, she pulled him well into the hall.

Then. . . .

Instinctively she braced her body as one preparing for defense. For out of the air-not in her mind, but rather in words she could understand, though they had a different accent from true Yurth speech-there came a message.

“Welcome, Yurth blood. Take up the burden of your sin and shame and learn to walk with it. Go you forward to the place of learning.”

“Who are you?” Her voice was shaken, thin. There came no answer to her question. Nor would there be, some sense within her knew.

The Raski rolled over on the floor, lay staring up at her. There was no cloudiness in his eyes now, rather a fierce, demanding intelligence. He pulled away, to sit up, looking about him as a trapped animal might search for a way out of a cage.

From the doorway sounded once more the scraping of metal. The Raski whirled but he did not even have time to get to his feet. Inexorably the door slid shut, they were sealed into this place.

“Where are we?” He used the common tongue forged between Raski and Yurth.

Elossa answered with the truth. “I do not know. There was a city. . . in ruins. . . but that you know. . . .” She watched him carefully. It was true that sometimes some inner safeguard could wipe from memory all trace of the immediate past-if that memory threatened the well-being of the mind. To her ear his bewilderment suggested this might have happened to him.

He did not answer at once. Instead he surveyed what lay about them, the smooth walls which stretched away to form a narrow hall, no break in them. He frowned as his gaze returned to her.

“City-” he repeated. “Do not tell me we are in Coldath of the King.”

“Another place, older, far older.” She thought that the King-Head’s capital which he named might have been lost in this place when it had been a home for men.

He put his hand to his head. “I am Stans of the House of Philbur.” He spoke to himself, she knew, rather than to her, reassuring himself of his own identity. “I was hunting and. . . .”

His head came up again. “I saw you pass. I was warned that when any Yurth sought the mountains I must be prepared to follow. . . .”

“Why?” she asked, disturbed and surprised. This was a breaking of an old tradition and had an ominous sound.

“To discover whence comes your devil-power,” he replied without hesitation. “There was. . . surely there was a sargon.” His hand went to his side where her plaster still clung to his flesh. “That I did not dream.”

“There was a sargon,” Elossa assented.

“And you tended this.” His hand continued to rest upon his side. “Why? Your people and mine are ever unfriends.”

“We are not unfriends enough to watch a man die when we might aid him.” There was no need to explain her own part in his wounding.

“No, you are content to be murderers!” He spat the words into her face.

7.

“Murderers?” Elossa echoed. “Why do you name us that, Stans of the House of Philbur? When has any of the Yurth brought death to your people? When your King-Head came hunting us, swearing to kill us all, man, woman, child, we defended ourselves, not with drawn steel, but with illusion which clouds the mind for a space, yes, but does not kill.”

“You are the Sky Devils.” He arose, bracing his shoulders against the wall of that hall, facing her as a man might face great peril when his hands were empty of any weapon.

“I do not know your sky devils,” she returned. “Nor do I mean any harm to you, Stans. I have come hither by the custom of the Yurth and for no reason which means ill to you and yours.” She was eager to get on, to obey the voice which had welcomed her here. That compulsion which had led her to the mountains, and, in turn to the dome, had become an overwhelming urge to go on to some inner place which would show to her what she must learn.

“The custom of the Yurth!” His mouth moved as if he would spit upon her even as had the girl in the town. Anger blazed out of him, but it was not that madness which had controlled him in the ruins. This was natural and not the result of possession.

“Yes, the custom of the Yurth,” Elossa returned quietly. “I must complete my Pilgrimage. Do I go in peace to do that? Or is it that I must set mind-bonds upon you?”

She believed that she really could not do so. Her energy was far too sapped by what she had called upon to aid her in escape. But she must not let him realize that, and she knew that, above all else, the Raski feared mind-touch for any reason.

However, she could not read any fear in him now. Had he realized in some manner that her threat was an empty one?

“You go.” He stood away from the wall. “I also come.”

To refuse him would mean a confrontation either at mind level (which she was very dubious about winning) or on the physical plane. Though her thin body could endure much, the though of such a contact by force was one any Yurth would find revolting. Touch, except for very special reasons and at times when one was completely relaxed, no Yurth could long endure.

She did not know what lay before her; that it was an ordeal, a testing of her kind she did not doubt. What might it be for a Raski intruder? She could envision traps, defenses against one of another race or species which could slay-either mind or body or both. All she could do was warn.

“This is a sacred place of my people.” She used the term which he must understand. Though the Yurth had no temples, worshipped no gods that had any symbols, they recognized forces for good and evil, perhaps too removed from human land to be called upon. The Raski did have shrines, though what gods or goddesses those harbored the Yurth neither knew nor cared. “Do your temples not have sites of Power which are closed to unbelievers?”

He shook his head. “The Halls of Randam are open to all-even to Yurth, should such come.”

She sighed. “I do not know what barriers for a Raski may be raised here. I warn, I cannot foresee.”

His head was held proudly-high. “Warn me not, Yurth woman! Nor believe that where you go I fear to follow. Once my House dwelt in Kal-Nath-Tan.” He made a gesture toward the door through which they had come.

“Kal-Nath-Tan which the sky-devils slew with their fire, their wind of death. It is told in the Hearth-room on my clan house that we once sat in the High Seat of that city and all within raised shield and sword when they cried upon our name. I am the last to bear the sword and wear the name that I do. It would seem that Randam has ordained that I be the one to venture into the heart of the sky-devil’s own place.

“Other men of the clan have come seeking. Yes, we have followed Yurth hither. One in each generation has been bred and trained to do so.” He stood away from the wall, straight and tall, his pride of blood enwrapping him as might the state cloak of the King-Head. “This was my geas set upon me by the very blood within my veins. Galdor rules in the plains. He sits in a village of mud and ill-laid stone. While his House of Stitar was even not numbered in the shrine of Kal-Nath-Tan. I am no shieldman of Galdor’s. We of Philbur’s blood raise no voice in his hall. But it is said in the Book of Ka-Nath which is our treasure: there shall rise a new people in the days to come and they will rebuild what once was. Thus we have sent the Son of Philbert each generation to test the worth of that prophecy.”

Oddly he seemed to grow before her eyes, not in body but in that emanation of spirit to which the Yurth were sensitive. This was no hunter, no common plains dweller. There was that in her which recognized a quality which she had not been aware any Raski possessed. That what he said he believed to be the truth she did not question. Nor was it beyond possibility. The very fact that he had been so possessed by the hatred and need for vengeance which hung like a cloud of swamp fog here could be because of some ancient blood tie with the long dead.

“I do not deny your courage, nor that you are of the blood of those who once dwelt in this place you give name to, but this is Yurth.” She gestured to what lay about them. “Yurth may have set defenses. . . .”

“The which may act against me,” he interrupted her quickly. “That is true. Yet it is set upon me-a geas as I have said-that I must go where the Yurth who comes here goes. Never before has one of us been able to penetrate within this place. Yurth has died, and so have those of the House of Philbur, but none of my clan have won so far. You cannot keep me from this now.”

She could, Elossa thought. It was plain that this Raski did not understand the breadth and depth of Yurth mind control. Only in her at this moment there was not enough strength to take him over or immobilize him against his will. She schooled herself against any concern. He swore he would do this thing; very well, let any ill results from his folly be upon his own head. This time she was in no manner to be held in blame.

Elossa turned and started down the hall. She was aware, without turning to look, that Stans followed. It was time to forget about him, to concentrate all which remained of her near- exhausted Upper Sense on what lay ahead.

She opened her mind fully, waiting to pick up a guide. Elossa fully expected to find such, but nothing came in reply to her questing. The dome might be as sterile and dead as the ruins her companion had named Kal-Nath-Tan. The hall ended in what appeared to be blank wall.

Still this was the only way and she must follow it to the end. However, as she was still a step or two away from that dead end, the wall broke open along a line she had not seen, a part of it moving to her left and leaving the way open.

There was a light within this place which came from no bowl lamp or torch, rather from the ways themselves. So now she did not face darkness, rather a well in which a stair wound around to a center pole. Part of it went down, the rest climbed to disappear through a hole above. Elossa hesitated and then made her choice to go up.

The climb was not too long, bringing her out in a room where she stood looking around her with a heart which suddenly beat faster. This chamber was totally unlike the bare caves of the Yurth or their summer-time huts of woven branches, just as it was different from the squat, dull dwelling of the Raski.

It was not bare. Around the circular walls stood set boards covered with opaque plates. Before these, at intervals, were seats. While one section of the wall itself was a huge plate, much larger than all the rest, confronted by two seats side by side. Directly behind these twin seats was a taller one of such importance that it drew her eyes in compelling way.

Hardly knowing why she did, Elossa crossed to stand with her hand resting on the back of the chair. Her touch alerted at last what she had been seeking-a guide. Once more there rang the deep “voice” which had greeted their entrance.

“You of Yurth, you have come for the knowledge. Be seated and watch. No longer shall one of you look upon the stars which were once your heritage, now you shall see rather what was wrought on this world and what part those of your blood played in it. For it was recorded and it comes from out of memory banks-that you may learn. . . .”

Elossa slipped into that throne-like seat. Before her stretched the wide screen. Now she collected her whirl of thought.

“I am ready.” But she was not; there was a rising sense of something far more potent than uneasiness, this was the beginning of fear.

On the opaque screen before her there was a flicker of light which spread out from a center point to cover the plaque. The light vanished. She looked out upon a vast stretch of darkness in which there were only a few clusters of tiny, brilliant points.

“The star ship Farhome, in the colony service of the Empire, Year 7052 A.F.” Impersonal that voice, with nothing of human in it. “Returning from placing a colonial group on the third planet of the Sun Hagnaptum, three months out in flight from base.”

A star ship! Elossa licked her lips. Stars there were to be seen, yes. Also she had been taught that far away and small as they looked in the night sky, they were in truth suns, each perhaps with worlds, such as this on which she now stood, locked in patterns of orbit about them. But never had it been suggested to her that man might actually cross the vast void of space to visit another of those planets.

“On the fifth time cycle,” continued the voice, “there was radar contact made with an unknown object This was identified as an artifact of unknown origin.”

On the surface of the picture before her came into view a small object which grew quickly larger and larger, leaping toward the screen she watched until she involuntarily flinched.

“Evasive tactics proved valueless. There was crippling contact made. A quarter of the crew of the Farhome were killed or injured by that encounter. It was necessary to set down on the nearest planet, since the matter transferer was completely wrecked.

“There was a planet just within range which offered a possible refuge.”

Now a globe snapped into view, grew larger and larger, until first it filled the screen, and then continued to enlarge in one portion, Elossa could see, until mountains and plains were thoroughly visible.

“A site away from any inhabited section was chosen for a landing. Unfortunately there was a human error in the data given the computer control. The landing was ill-chosen.”

Another change appeared in the picture. Rushing toward her now were mountains, cupping a piece of level territory. Situated there-the city! Surely that was, though strange when viewed from the air above and so, to her, out of focus, the same city she had seen in her dream.

Faster and faster the picture produced more details, spread out farther. They were coming down on the city! No!

Elossa cried that aloud and heard her voice ring around the chamber. Fire spread outward in a great fan, bit down into the city. Then all was fire, and, in that instant, the screen went dead.

“More of the ship’s people were killed by a bad landing,” the voice continued. “The ship itself could not be raised from where it had crashed. The city. . . .”

Once more the screen came alive and Elossa looked upon horror. She could not even control her eyes to close them against that view. Fire-the impact of the globe ship itself-death spread outward from where it had set down.

“The city,” continued the voice, “was slain. Those who survived were in shock. All they had left was mad hatred for what had been done to them. They were warped, maddened by the blow. Their condition was an infection, a disease.”

Elossa witnessed, unable to turn away, other terrors. The issuing forth of the ship’s people to try to aid, their hunting down and slaying by the insane natives. Then came degeneration of those natives, eaten by a trauma which spread outward from the dead city, infecting all that came in touch with its fleeing people, the fall of a civilization.

The people of the ship, the handful that remained, gathered together, accepted the burden of the wrong they had done. Though it was the fault of only one, yet they took upon them all the responsibility. The girl saw them using certain machines within the ship, deliberately turning upon themselves a power she could not understand, resulting in the punishment they sought. Never again could those so treated by the machines hope to rise to the stars. They were earthbound on the world they had ravished, whose people they had broken.

However, from the use of the machines which forbade them flight there came something else. Within them awoke the Upper Sense, as if some mercy had been so extended to lighten the burden of their exile.

“There is a reason for everything,” the voice continued. “As yet Yurth blood have not found the final path they must walk. It is laid upon them never to stop the seeking. It may be given to you, who have made the Pilgrimage now, to find that path, to bring into light all those who struggled in the darkness. Search-for some time there will be such a discovery.”

The voice was still. Elossa knew without being told that it would not speak to her again. There flowed in upon her such a sense of loss and loneliness that she cried out, bowed her head to cover her face with her hands. Tears flowed to wet the palms of those hands. It was such a loss which even the death of someone she was kin to could not equal. For among the Yurth there were no close ties, each was alone within himself, locked, she saw now, in a prison she had never understood before. Until this moment she had accepted this loneliness without being aware of it. That, too, the machine which had awakened the Upper Sense had left with them as dour punishment.

She could feel now, deep in the innermost part of her a glimmering of need. What need? Why must the punishment be laid upon them over and over, generation after generation? What was it that they must seek in order to be entirely free? If not to reach the stars from which they had been exiled, then here, that they need not always walk apart-even separate always from their own kind?

“What must we do?” Elossa dropped her hands, and stared at the dark and lifeless screen. She had not used mind-speech, her demand had been aloud, delivered to the dead silence of the room.

8.

Elossa did not expect any answer. She was certain she would never hear that voice again. Whatever result might come from this widening of her knowledge would be born from her thoughts and actions alone. Slowly she arose from the chair. Just as the Upper Sense had been drained by her exertions to reach this end of her quest, so now was hope and belief in the future ebbing from her.

What was left for the Yurth? They, whose blood had once dared the star ways, were planted forever on a world which hated them-outcasts and wanderers. Of what purpose were they? Better that they take steps now to erase their existence. . . .

Bleak and bitter thoughts, yet they clung to her mind, made the world look gray and cold.

“Sky-devil!”

Elossa turned to meet the eyes of the Raski. She had forgotten him. Had he seen what she had been forced to witness, the destruction of the world which had been that of his blood and kin?

She held up her hands, empty and palm out. “Did you see?”

Had the pictures on the screen been for her alone, cast there by a mental force denied his kind?

Now he tramped forward. The madness did not haunt his eyes, he was all man, not possessed by any emanation from the dead. His face was sternly set-and she could no longer use a mind probe to read his thoughts! It was as if he, too, had one of the barriers the Yurth could set about them.

“I saw.” He broke the small moment of silence which had fallen. “This-” He slapped the back of the chair in which she had sat with force enough to make it quiver a little as if it were not firmly fastened to any base. “This-ship-of yours gave death to the city. But not only to the city.” He paused as if searching for words to make his meaning very clear to her.

“We were a great people-did you not see? We were not then dwellers in ill-made huts! What were we, what might we have been had this not come to us?”

The girl moistened her lips with the point of her tongue. For that she had no answer. It was true that the city she had seen both in her dream and on the screen was something greater than any existing now on this world. Just as, and now she would admit it, in her eyes this Stans was different from the Raski she knew. In him must linger something of the ability which built Kal-Nath-Tan.

“You were a great people,” she acknowledged. “A city died, a people were left in shock and despair. But-” She moistened her lips again. “What happened after?” Her own mind began to throw aside the heavy load of sorrow and despair which had clouded her thoughts.

“What happened here was long and long ago. Not in a few years does nature so overlay ruins- or this ship be buried so deeply. Why have your people not found again their stairway upward? They live in their mud huts, they fear all which is different from them, they do not try to be other than they are.”

His frown was black, his lips parted as if he would shout her down, she felt his rage building. Then. . . . The hand which had been deep clenched upon the back of the chair loosened its hold a trifle. “Why?” he repeated. She thought he did not ask that of her in return, but rather of himself. The moment of silence between them stretched even longer this time. His intent stare had shifted from her to the now dead screen behind her shoulders.

“I never thought-” His voice was lower, the anger in him was yielding. “Why?” Now he demanded that of the screen. “Why did we sink into the mud and remain there? Why do our people bow knee to a King-Head such as Galdor who cares nothing save to fill his belly and reach for a woman? Why?”

Now his eyes came once more to her. There was a fierceness rising in him as if he would have the answers out of her by the force of his will.

“Ask that of the Raski,” Elossa answered him, “not the Yurth.”

“Yes, the Yurth!” She had made a mistake, focusing on her once again his attention. Still, though there was still anger in him, it was not so great.

“What have you of the Yurth?” He watched her warily as if he expected her at any moment to produce some weapon. “What have you that we hold not? You live in caves and branch huts, no better housed than the rog or the sargon. You wear rough cloth such as cover our laborers in the fields. You have nothing of outward show-nothing! Yet you can walk among us and each and every one, even full of hate, will not raise hand to you. You weave spells. Do you then live among those spells, Yurth?”

“We might. We do not choose to do so. If one deceives himself then he loses everything.” Elossa had never really talked to a Raski except on small matters, such as chaffering for food in some market place. What he said, yes, it was a puzzle. She glanced around her at the chamber in which they stood.

This had been made by Yurth, the same Yurth who now lived, as Stans had pointed out, in caves and huts far more primitive than the dwellings of the Raski. Cloth of her own weaving was on her body, and it was coarse and near colorless. She had never really looked upon herself, her people. She had accepted all as part of life. Now, drawing even a little apart, she wondered for the first time. Their life was deliberately austere and grim. Part of the punishment laid upon them?

The same years had passed for Yurth as for Raski. Even as the Raski had not regained what they had lost, so did the Yurth make no move to better the punishment laid upon them. Were both races to live ever so?

“Deceive himself?” Stans broke into her thoughts. “What is deceit, Yurth? Do we inwardly say, we of the Raski, great things were taken from us, so we dare not try to rise to such heights again? Is this our deceit? If so it is time that we face the truth and do not flee from it And you, Yurth-you who had the stars, because one of your blood made a mistake long ago-are you to walk in penance forever?”

Elossa drew a deep breath. He had challenged her. Perhaps Yurth had gained much with the awakening of the Upper Sense. But, also, perhaps they had accepted that as much of life as they could expect. Now she had a question of her own.

“Have you never asked such questions before, Stans of the House of Philbur?”

He still frowned, but not at her, she guessed. Rather he was seeking some thought he had not tried to capture before.

“I have not, Yurth.”

“My name-” Oddly irritated at his form of address, the girl interrupted him, “-is Elossa-we count no Houses in our reckoning.”

He looked startled. “I thought-it was always said among us-that the Yurth never spoke their names.”

It was her turn to be surprised. What he said was true! She had never known a Yurth to talk so easily to a Raski that names were exchanged. Thought the Raski, by custom, were always ready to give their own and that of the First Ancestor of their House. Yet to her now it seemed needful that he stop calling her “Yurth,” perhaps because she knew that among his own land that was a term which was unpleasant.

“They do not,” Elossa admitted now, “to those outside the clan.”

“But I am not of any clan of yours,” he persisted.

“I know.” She raised her fingers to press upon her temples. “I am confused. This-this is different.”

He nodded. “Yes, Yurth and Raski, by rights we should be in arms against each other. I-I was so earlier. Now I am not.” His astonishment was apparent. “In Kal-Nath-Tan there was a horror which entered into me and I did what that made me do. It was not me, and yet a part of me welcomed it. Now I can only wonder at that and see it for a part of the darkness which was, which has always lain there. I ask no forgiveness of you, Elossa.” He stumbled a little in pronouncing her name. “For a man who is bred to a task must see it through to the best of his ability. I failed in part, but I do stand where none of my kind have before. I have seen yonder-” He pointed to the screen. “-of the beginning of our hatred, and, also, for the first time seen what I cannot yet understand, the lack in us which keeps us what we are-dirt grabbers who do not dream.

“Are dreams illusions, Elossa? Your kind spin them to aid you. But it seems to me that dreams can in a way serve a man better. He must have something beyond dull thoughts centered on himself and the earth under him to become greater. You Yurth conquered the stars. You are not sky-devils as we think. Now I know that. Rather you are people such as ourselves who had a dream of far voyaging and lived to make it come true.”

“Where lies that dream within you now, Elossa? Has it been killed because of your feeling of sin and guilt? What do you think beyond yourselves and the ground under you?”

“Little,” she answered quietly. “True we seek purpose in all dreams, but we do not use them to change our lives. We are as bound by ancient fears and fates as you. We use our minds to store of knowledge but only within narrow limits. To us the Raski are alien. But why?” She hesitated.

“Why should that be so? In the beginning because you would have been hunted and slain by those maddened by the catastrophe we saw pictured. Later, when your power of mind changed, you-you no longer thought us of any more account than beasts of the woodland. We two speak the truth here and now-is not that the truth?”

“We were lesser beings, children, to move hither and thither at your bidding when we crossed your path or caught your notice in some fashion. Can you not see that by such an opinion of us you fostered and kept alive the shadow born in Kal-Nath-Tan?”

Elossa accepted the logic of what he said. The bitterness of the city’s destruction, the coming of a space-transversing race such as the Yurth destroyed and then replaced with another pattern of thinking. How-how arrogant the Yurth had been-were! They had locked themselves in that arrogance, seeking, they believed, to atone by their own self-exile and austerity. But what they did was sterile, worthless.

Granted that at first they could not live at peace with the Raski, granted that their employment of their machines had altered them irrevocably, yet as time passed they might have sought contacts, turned their talents to the service of the Raski instead of jealously using the Upper Sense for unproductive learning. Their pride of martyrdom was their abiding error. She recognized for the first time Yurth life for what it was. and knew sorrow that it had not been otherwise.

“It is so,” Elossa said sadly. “We judged you, and you have been right to judge us. Repentance is necessary, but there are other forms of righting a wrong. In choosing our selfish one we have only compounded the original act many times over. Why have we not seen this?” She ended with rising passion.

“Why have we not also seen that we lie in the dust because we have allowed the past to bury us so?” he countered. “We did not need Yurth to build anew. Yet no man reached for the first stone to set as a foundation. We have been locked in our pride also, we of the House of Philbur, looking always to the past and seeking only vengeance for what dashed us from our throne. We have been blind and groping.”

“We have been blind and not even groping,” she matched him. “Yes, we have talents but we use them only in a little. What might grow here if we harnessed them to a freed will and a living cause?” It was as if she were awaking in this instant from a drugged and drugging sleep in which she had lain all her life, awaking to understand the possibilities which could be ahead. But she was only one. Against her the weight of tradition and custom stood strong, perhaps too stout a wall for her to hope to break.

“Where do we go now, and what do we do?” She was at a loss, seeing this new-found enlightenment as perhaps an even more weighty burden to bear.

“That is a question for both of us,” he agreed. The tenseness had gone out of his body as he fronted her. “The blind do not always welcome sight thrust upon them. They must wish it or they will be frightened. And fear feeds anger and distrust. Between us lies too great a chasm.”

“One which can never be bridged?” There was a lost feeling in her. In part this emotion was like that which had come upon her when she witnessed the Yurth farewell to the stars. Were they to be ever imprisoned in the narrow cleft of their misreading or responsibility?

“Only, I think, when Yurth and Raski can speak one with the other face to face, setting aside the past with a whole heart and mind.”

“As we have done here?”

Stans nodded. “As we have done here.”

“If I,” she said slowly, “return to my clan and tell them what has happened, I am not sure I will be heard with any open minds. There are illusions here. We have both dealt with those, suffered from them. Those who made this Pilgrimage before me must have faced the same or their like. Therefore it can be said that I am suffering from a more subtle and deadly illusion. And,” she was being honest not only with him but herself now, “I think that that will be said. At least by those who have made the Pilgrimage and know the nature of this place.”

“If I,” he echoed her, “now return to my people and preach cooperation with the Yurth I shall die.” His words were blunt but that they were in truth she did not doubt.

“But if I return and do not share what I have learned,” Elossa continued, “then I am betraying that part of me which is the deepest and best, for I shall testify to a lie which I might have threatened with the truth. We cannot lie, not and remain Yurth. That is another part of the burden laid upon us by the Upper Sense.”

“And if I return and am killed for speaking the truth-” He smiled a faint shadow of a smile. “-then what profit do my people gain? So it would seem we must be liars in spite of ourselves, Lady Elossa. And if it be true that you indeed cannot lie, then you face even worse.”

“There are mountains here,” Elossa said musingly, “and I can live alone. Yurth blood has this-we are not bred to soft lying or over much food. Who can tell what may lie in the future? Another may come here on the Pilgrimage and see as clearly. A handful of such, from small seed do high-reaching trees eventually grow.”

“You need not be alone. Our own enlightenment is not yet old. Maybe some thinking together upon ways and means can show the two of us how we can do better than stay in perpetual exile. I know that the Yurth choose to dwell apart. Do you still hold to that, also, my lady?”

He was using the address of a high-born Raski to one of equal breeding. She looked at him in wonder as he raised his hand and held it out to her. What he suggested countered every teaching of her life to this minute. But was it not that teaching which had laid hampering bonds upon all her and her blood? Was it not that which must be broken?

“I do not hold to that which would imprison the mind in a false way of thought,” she replied. She put out her hand slowly, fighting the distaste for flesh meeting alien flesh. There was so much she would have to fight, and to learn, in the future. The time to begin was now.

9.

There was a bite in the wind which wailed and moaned around the last vestiges of Kal-Hath- Tan, raised grit of sterile earth to add to the mounding which already half hid the death ship from the sky. Elossa, in spite of her life among stark heights, knowing well the breath of winter there, shivered as she stood at the foot of the walkway which led up into the ancient Yurth ship.

It was not only the chill of that wind which troubled her, there was an inner chill also. She, who had come here to seek out the Secret of Yurth after the custom of her people, had made a hard choice indeed. Learning the manner of the burden which death had laid upon her land, she had deliberately thereafter chosen not to follow the years-old pattern and return to her clan but rather to try to think in a new way, to hunt a middle road in which Yurth might some day be at peace with Raski and the past be as buried as Kal-Hath-Tan and the ship.

“There is harsh weather to come.” Her companion’s nostrils quivered as if, like any of the feral dwellers in the heights, he could scent some change in wind which was a warning. “We shall need shelter.”

It was difficult for Elossa to believe, even now, that she and a Raski could speak together as if they were of one blood and clan. Most carefully she kept tight rein upon her thought- send, knowing that unless she was ever aware of that, she might unconsciously communicate, or try to, without words. While to the Raski such communication was a dire, abhorred invasion.

She must learn carefully, if not slowly, since they had made this uncertain alliance. Stans claimed to be of a House which had ruled in Kal-Hath-Tan, bred and trained himself for the task of revenge upon the Yurth. But he was also the first of his blood to enter the half- buried ship, and therein learn the truth of what had happened in the very long ago. Learning so, he had deliberately set aside his long-fostered hatred, being intelligent enough to understand that, grievous as the destruction of the city had been through an error of the Yurth space ship, yet upon his people also lay some of the fault. For what had happened since? They had allowed themselves to sink back from the civilization they had once known, choosing to be less than they might be.

Yurth and Raski-Elossa’s whole person shrank from any close contact with him, even as he must find in her much which to him was unnatural and perhaps even repulsive.

He did not look at her now, rather he stood gazing out across the mounded ruins of the city toward that distant rise of hills and heights on the other side of the cup-like valley in which Kal-Hath-Tan stood. As tall as she, his darker skin and close-cropped black hair was strange to her eyes. He wore the leather and thick wool of a hunter, and the weapons he carried were those of a roving plainsman.

Accustomed to the standards of the Yurth, Elossa could not truthfully judge, she decided fleetingly, whether he might even be termed fair appearing or not. But his determination, his strength of spirit and resolve, that she accepted as fact.

“There is still time,” she said slowly.

As if he, too, had the Yurth power of mind-speech, Stans answered her before she had put her thought entirely into words.

“To forget what we heard and saw, Lady? To go back to those who are willfully blind and who squat in the mud like children who are self-willed and resist all which they should learn? No.” He shook his head. “There is no longer any such time for me. Yonder-” With one hand he sketched a gesture to the distant hills. “We can find shelter. And it is best that we strive to do so. Winter comes early in these heights and bad storms strike sometimes with little warning.”

Stans did not suggest that they take refuge in the ship, or in that chamber in the mound where he had imprisoned her on her first coming into the ruins. In that choice he was right, Elossa knew. They must both be free of the ancient taint which stained all which lay here. Only away from the evidences of the past could they really confront the future.

Thus together they struck out from ruins and ship, while the star ship’s entrance closed behind them, sealing the secret once more to be ready at the coming of another Yurth seeker. Perhaps a seeker who might also be persuaded to realize the truth that what lay in the years behind must not be held about one as a cloak to deaden in turn the future.

Clouds gathered overhead and the wind grew stronger, pressing at their backs, as they crossed the valley, as if it moved to expel them from both ruins and ship. Stans went warily, continually eyeing the terrain ahead as if expecting some attack. Elossa allowed her mind-search to range a little. There was no life here. But she felt it was best not to bring to the attention of her companion the results of a gift so dreaded and hated by all his kind. This, save for them, was a barren land, left to the long dead.

The pace Stans set was one she could match with ease, since the Yurth had long since been a roaming people. He did not speak again, nor had she any reason to break the brittle silence lying between them. Their companionship was too new, too untested. And she had no desire to do that testing.

Twilight was upon them well before they had even reached the foothills-though those were clear-cut now, looking as stark and barren as the plain over which they journeyed. Stans halted at last, pointing to the left where some stones stood tall as if growing tree-like from the ground.

“Those can be a windbreak, unless that changes direction.” He spoke for the first time since they had left the ruins. “It is the best shelter we can find hereabouts.”

Elossa eyed those stones more doubtfully. She had good reason to believe that they were no natural feature of the earth and plain, rather more ruins. The illusions which might cling to such a place were ever in her mind. Even though such manifestations were only hallucinations to be controlled by Yurth training, still the very vividness with which they could paint themselves on the air could not but stir fear, and fear works upon the stability of the most disciplined mind.

Only Stans was very right, they could not keep on going through the night which was coming so fast. Even a faint promise of shelter away from the wind was to be sought. These are stones only, she told herself. If they hold aught of emotion, an imprint on them strong enough to summon illusions to torment the sensitive, she must armor herself with the truth and dismiss such visions for what they were.

As the Raski had pointed out, they did afford a windbreak. So when the two travelers hunkered down among the rocks they were, for the first time, out of the push of that cold. Elossa opened her journey bag.

Food, drink, both were problems they must face now. The supplies she had carried were scanty and not meant to serve more than one for a few days. She broke one of the coarse meal cakes carefully apart and offered half to Stans. There was water in her bottle, though they must limit themselves to sips until they discovered some river or spring in those heights ahead.

He did not refuse her bounty and he ate slowly as one mindful that every crumb must be found and munched. Of the water he took very little. When he had done he nodded to the hills ahead.

“The Naxes rises there. Water and game. . . . Also. . . .” Stans paused, frowning, as if his own thoughts had become a puzzle. He rubbed his hand across his forehead and continued, but it was as if he spoke more to himself than to the girl beside him. “There is the cave- the Mouth of Atturn.”

“The Mouth of Atturn,” she repeated when he again fell silent. “You have knowledge of this place?” The tradition of his House had made him in this generation the guardian of Kal- Hath-Tan. Did he also know more of what lay about the city?

His frown was more intense. “I know,” he said with such sharpness as to warn her off any further questioning.

So wrapped in their cloaks they slept behind the stones until Elossa was jerked suddenly out of slumber by some inner warning triggered by the Yurth talent. Over her crouched the Raski hardly visible in the night’s darkness. Some trick of the small starlight from overhead touched upon what he held-a bared knife.

Elossa rolled to one side as the knife struck down into the earth where she had lain. But the blow intended to bury steel in her flesh, now slicing into the ground instead, threw Stans off balance. She rolled again, setting between them one of the stones. Getting to her feet now, her staff in hand, the girl waited, her heart beating with force enough to shake her body.

Ruthlessly she reached out with mind-touch. The wildness of thought she so found was near as upsetting as that attack had been. This was like tapping a mind gone insane. Horror and fear held the Raski in tight grip. And she had a glimpse of a distorted monster. He-he thought that was she!

“Stans!” She cried aloud his name, striving to so awaken him. For it seemed to Elossa that only a man in the hold of a compelling nightmare could be so disoriented.

She heard an answering cry, wild and beast-like. Then she saw him beyond the stones. He was running, on into the darkness of the night. And he went like a man pursued by an unbelievable source of terror.

Shaking, Elossa put out one hand to the stone behind which she had taken refuge. What had happened? All she could guess in answer was that uneasy fear which had been hers earlier- that these stones might generate illusion and one such had worked upon the Raski strongly because of his very heritage.

There was no use in running after him. If the stones were the source of his terror, then once he was out of range, his sanity should again be in control. She opened her mind wide, sent out a questing which lasted only an instant or two since she had no desire to attract any influences which might abide here.

Stans-he was still in flight. She had no desire to try to compel his return. Such an attempt might only heighten his distortion of mind at present.

Once more Elossa settled down in the lee of the stones. To all her cautious probing these remained only rock. It would seem that if they did exude some illusions such were a menace to Raski only.

Though she was uneasy and wanted to stay on guard, she drifted once more into sleep. Then, for a second time, she awoke into dire danger. For she opened her eyes, instantly awake, only to believe for a second or two that she was still caught in some particularly vivid dream.

This was not the plain where she had fallen asleep by the rocks. Instead she stood leaning on her staff in a narrow valley between two rises of hills. There was a season-killed and dry looking brush about. But in the middle of that, directly before her, crouched a sargon, its snarling echoed from the hill walls as a heavy menace.

The beast was a young one, perhaps of this season’s litter. But even so immature a sargon was more than a match for any human. While the creature seemed somehow to guess that she must be helpless prey.

Frantically Elossa summoned the authority of mind control. But it was as if her trained thought was over-slow. She could not hold this raving beast nor turn it! She was going to be torn by those claws. She was. . . .

Out of the air came a shrill singing sound. The sargon’s flanks quivered as it gathered strength to launch itself upon her. But now it yowled and in its throat showed the shaft end of a crossbow bolt.

Elossa came to life. She unleashed at the creature the full power of her talent. While, at the same time, she flung herself to one side even as she had moved to escape Stans’ attack.

The sargon squalled, clawed with one paw at the wound in its throat from which poured a flood of dark blood. Elossa flattened her body tight against the wall of the hill. Between her and the wounded beast there was only a thin growth of brush which the creature could easily break through. But with her thought she prodded as best she could.

As if it had not seen her part-escape moments earlier, the sargon charged forward, breaking down brush. Blood spouted, as its exertions speeded the flow. Again that wailing in the air and a second bolt drove into the body of frantic beast, placed behind one of its forelegs.

Sprinkling blood widely, the sargon whirled around. Once more it did see her. It was readying for another spring. She could not control this raging alien mind. No one could make a sargon do other than its own will-or. . . .

Perhaps it was the feeling that death was very close to her which speeded Elossa’s own thought processes. She dropped her vain attempt to somehow divert the attention of the beast. Instead, with a burst of energy which she rose to only under the lash of fear, she created an illusion. A second Elossa (not too carefully depicted, but at least in the animal’s sight enough like its intended prey to draw its attention) now stood before the sargon. The illusion turned and ran. The sargon squalling aloud in its pain and blood lust swung its heavy body around once more to pursue.

It must have so presented the unseen bowman with a better target. For with a third shrilling of flight a bolt found its target. The sargon flung up its head, opened its jaw for a great roar. But it was not sound alone which burst from the beast. Rather a second outpouring of blood fountained down to earth. The creature took one step and a second, and then toppled. Though it still fought to regain its feet and its cries sounded strongly, the end had come.

Elossa needed the support of the bank against which she had taken refuge. That last outpouring of her talent had weakened her as she had seldom been since the earliest days of her training. It would take much rest until she could once more summon even the lightest of mind-power to her service.

She lifted her head as pebbles and earth cascaded down the hillside across the narrow valley. Stans half slid down in their wake. She could not test his mood by her only defense, not in her present condition. Though if he meant her harm now he need only have allowed the sargon to have its way. Or was it that some touch of the ancient revenge bred in him still worked to the point that he must take Yurth life by his own hand?

She stood quietly. In fact she could not have fled, even if she so wished, all the energy having seeped out of her. He paused, watching her across the body of the sargon. Then, without word he knelt to work his bolts out of the still quivering carcass, deliberately cleansing each in a fashion by driving it point down into the earth and plucking it forth again.

He no longer looked at Elossa. It was as if she were invisible. Nor did he speak. What would happen now? Her distrust of the Raski had awakened once again. Perhaps there was too great a gulf between their two races for any amount of good will to bridge.

Restoring his bolts to their quiver Stans got to his feet again. Now he did face her. There was a shade of expression on his dark face but she could not read it.

“Life for life.” He spoke those three words as if they had been forced out of him against his will. What did he mean? That this was in payment of the succor she had given him when he had been clawed by a similar beast on the journey to Kal-Hath-Tan? Or had he saved her now because his attempt in the night had failed and he would be quit of the memory of that? She felt blind when she could not mind-probe for the truth.

“Why,” she said at last, “why would you take knife to me? Is your hate from the old days still so strong, Stans of the House of Philbur?”

He opened his mouth as if about to answer and then closed it firmly once more. There was about him an aura of wariness as if he were fronting a possible enemy.

“Why must you take my life, Stans?” she asked again.

He shook his head slowly. “I do not kill,” he began and then his head came up proudly and he met her in a fast locking of eyes.

“It was not I. This is a haunted land. It had secrets of things we Raski have long forgotten, which perhaps even you Yurth, with all your dark powers, never knew. There was another will taking over my body. When it did not win what it wished, it left me. I-” Again he frowned. “I think it is different-not Raski as I know, not Yurth. . . . It is very dangerous-perhaps to the both of us.”

That this world might have secrets was, indeed, not impossible. Elossa turned her head to look up at the hills about them. They could go back, put into some corner of their minds to be walled there, all that had happened, all they had learned concerning themselves and their people. But she did not believe that was possible. To go on was to venture into the totally unknown. Yet she had a certainty growing within her that this was what could be the only road for her.

“We must go on,” Stans said. “There is that-it is like Kal-Hath-Tan-it draws. Or does not that drawing touch you, Lady? I know that you may have no trust in me now, yet in some manner we are bound together.”

Elossa tried to summon the talent-to judge-perhaps to feel what he said lay upon him. But she was too exhausted. If she went it would be going blind for a space until her energy was renewed. Resolutely she pushed away from her support.

“I have found water, also the path to the Mouth,” he said then. “It is not far.”

“Then let us go.” So she chose a new road for the second time.