Witch World

I THE RIVING OF THE BORDER

A column of smoke penciled into the air, broken by puffs as more combustible materials caught. Simon reined up on the rise to gaze back at the site of another disaster for the Karsten forces, another victory for his own small, hard-riding, tough-punching troop. How long their luck would hold, none of them could guess. But as long as it did, they would continue to blast into the plains, covering up the escape lines of those set-faced, dark-haired people from the outlands who came in family groups, in well armed and equipped bodies, or singly at a weaving pace dictated by wounds and exhaustion. Vortgin had done his work well. The old race, or what was left of it, was withdrawing over a border the Falconers kept open, into Estcarp.

Men without responsibilities for families or clans, men who had excellent cause to want to meet Karsten levies with naked blades, stayed in the mountains, providing a growing force to be led by Koris and Simon. Then by Simon alone, as the Captain of the Guard was summoned north to Estcarp to recommand there.

This was guerilla warfare as Simon had learned it in another time and land, doubly effective this time because the men under him knew the country as those sent gainst them did not. For Tregarth discovered that these silent, somber men who rode at his back had a queer affinity with the land itself and with the beasts and the birds. Perhaps they were not served as the Falconers were by their trained hawks, but he had seen odd things happen, such as a herd of deer move to muddle horse tracks, crows betray a Karsten ambush. Now he listened, believed, and consulted with his sergeants before any strike.

The old race were not bred to war, though they handled sword and gun expertly. But with them it was a disagreeable task to be quickly done and forgotten. They killed cleanly with dispatch and they were incapable of such beastliness as the parties from the mountains had come upon where fugitives had been cut off and captured.

It was once when Simon left such a site, white, controlling his sickness by will power alone, that he was startled by a comment from the set-faced young man who had been his lieutenant on that foray.

“They do not do this of their own planning.”

“I have seen such things before,” Simon returned, “and that was also done by human beings to human beings.”

The other who had held his own lands in the back country and had escaped with his bare life from that holding some thirty days earlier, shook his head.

“Yvian is a soldier, a mercenary. War is his trade. But to kill in such ways is to sow black hate against a future reaping. And Yvian is lord in this land; he would not willingly rip apart his own holding and bring it to ruin — he is too keen-witted a man. He would not give orders for the doing of such deeds.”

“Yet we have seen more than one such sight. They could not all be the work of only one band commanded by a sadist, or even two such.”

“True. That is why I think we now fight men who are possessed.”

Possessed! The old meaning of that term in his own world came to Simon — possession by demons. Well, that a man could believe having seen what they had been forced to look upon. Possessed by demons — or — the memory of the Sulcarkeep road flooded into his mind; possessed by a demon — or emptied of a soul! Kolder again?

From then on, much as it revolted him, Simon kept records of such finds, though never was he able to catch the perpetrators at their grisly work. He longed to consult with the witch, only she had gone north with Briant and the first wave of fugitives.

He launched through the network of guerrilla bands a request for information. And at nights, in one temporary headquarters after another, he pieced together bits and patches. There was very little concrete evidence, but Simon became convinced that certain commanders among the Karsten forces did not operate according to their former ways, and that the Duke’s army had been infiltrated by an alien group.

Aliens! As always that puzzle of inequality of skills continued to plague him. Questioning of his refugees told him that the energy machines which they had always known had come from “overseas” ages past: “overseas” energy machines brought by the Sulcar traders, adapted by the old race for heat and light, the Falconers also from “overseas” with their amazing communicators borne by their hawks. And the source of the Kolder was also “overseas” — a vague term — a common source for all?

What he could learn he dispatched by messenger to Estcarp, asking for anything the witches might have to tell in return. The only thing he was sure of was that as long as his own force was recruited from those of old race, he had no need to fear infiltration himself, for that quality which gave them kinship with the land and the wild things granted them in addition the ability to smell out the alien.

Three more false hawks had been detected in the mountains. But all had been destroyed in their capture and Simon had only broken bits to examine. Where they came from and for what purpose they had been loosed was a part of all the other mystery.

Ingvald, the Karstenian lieutenant, pushed up beside him now to look down upon the scene of destruction they had left.

“The main party with the booty is well along the hill track. Captain. We have plundered to some purpose this time, and with that fire laid to cross our trail, they will not even know how much has come into our hands! There are four cases of darts as well as the food.”

“Too much to supply a flying column.” Simon frowned, his mind snapping back to the business at hand. “It would seem that Yvian hopes to make a central post somewhere hereabouts and base his foray parties there. He may be planning to move a large force borderwards.”

“I do not understand it,” Ingvald said slowly. “Why did this all blow up so suddenly out of nothing? We are not — were not — blood brothers of the coastwise people. They drove us inland when they came from the sea. But for ten generations we have been at peace with them, each going our way and not troubling the other. We of the old race are not inclined to war and there was no reason for this sudden attack upon us. Yet when it came it moved in such a way as we may only believe that it had long been planned.”

“But, not, perhaps, by Yvian.” Simon set his horse to a trot matched by Ingvald’s mount so they rode knee to knee. “I want a prisoner, Ingvald, a prisoner of such a one as has been amusing himself in those ways we saw in the farm meadow of the fork roads!”

A spark gleamed deep in the dark eyes meeting his. “If such a one is ever taken. Captain, he shall be brought to you.”

“Alive and able to talk!” Simon cautioned.

“Alive and able to speak,” agreed the other. “For it is in our minds too, that things can be learned from one of that sort. Only never do we find them, only their handiwork. And I think that that is left deliberately as a threat and a warning.”

“There is a puzzle in this,” Simon was thinking aloud, playing once more with his ever-present problem. “It would seem that someone believes we can be beaten into submission by brutality. And that someone or something does not understand that a man can be fired to just the opposite by those methods. Or,” he added after a moment’s pause, “could this be done deliberately to goad us into turning our full fury against Yvian and Karsten, to get the border aflame and all Estcarp engaged there, then to strike elsewhere?”

“Perhaps a little of both,” Ingvald suggested. “I know, Captain, that you have been seeking for another presence in the Karsten forces, and I have heard of what was found at Sulcarkeep and the rumors of man-selling to Gorm. We are safe in this much: no one who is not truly human can come among us without our knowledge — just as we have always known that you are not of our world.”

Simon started, but turned to see the other smiling quietly. “Yes, Outlander, your tale spread — but after we knew you were not of us — though in some strange way your own akin to our blood. No, the Kolder cannot sneak into our councils so easily. Nor can the enemy venture among the Falconers, for the hawks would betray them.”

Simon was caught by that. “How so?”

“A bird or an animal can sense that kind of alien quicker than even one who has the Power. And those like now to the men of Gorm would find both bird and beast against them. So the Hawks of the Eyrie serve their trainers doubly and make safe the mountains.”

But before the day was behind them Simon was to leam that that vaunted safety of the mountains was only as strong as those frail bird bodies. They were examining the supplies looted from the train and Simon set aside a portion intended for the Eyrie, when he heard the hail of a camp sentry and the answer of a Falconer. Welcoming the chance to let the latter transport the hawkmen’s share and so save his men a trip, Simon came forward eagerly.

The rider had not followed custom. His bird-head helm was closed as if he rode among strangers. It was not that alone which stopped Simon before he gave greeting. The men of his band were alert, drawing in a circle. Simon felt it, too, that prickle of awaking surmise, just as he had known it before.

Without stopping to reason, he hurled himself at the silent rider and his hands caught at the other’s weapon belt. Simon knew fleeting wonder that the hawk perched on the saddle horn did not rouse as he attacked its master. His lunge caught the Falconer by surprise and the fellow had no time to draw his arms. But he made a quick recovery, slumping his whole weight on Simon, bearing him under him to the ground, where mailed gloved hands tore for Tregarth’s throat.

It was like tangling with a steel-muscled, iron-fleshed thing, and within seconds Simon knew that he had attempted the impossible — what was encased in the Falconer’s covering could not be subdued with bare hands. Only he was not alone; other hands plucked that fighter off him, held the man pinned to the ground, though the stranger struggled wildly.

Simon, rubbing his scratched throat, got to his knees. “Unhelm!” He gasped the order, and Ingvald worked at the helm straps, jerking them free at last.

They gathered around the men who held the captive down, for his struggles did not stop. The Falconers were an inbred race with a dominate physical type — reddish hair and brown-yellow eyes like their feathered servants. By his looks this was a true man of the breed. Yet Simon and every man in that clearing knew that what they held was no normal member of the mountain country.

“Rope him tight!” Simon ordered. “I think, Ingvald, we have found what we have been wishing for.” He went over to the horse which had carried the pseudo-hawkman into their camp. The animal’s hide glistened with sweat, threads of foam spun at the bit hooks; it might have been ridden in a grueling race. And its eyes were wild, showing rims of white. But when Simon reached for the reins it did not try to escape, standing with a drooping head as great shudders moved its sweat-soaked skin.

The hawk had remained quiet, no flap of wings or hissing beak to warn Simon off. He reached up and plucked the bird from its perch, and the minute his fingers closed upon that body he knew he did not hold a living creature.

With it in his hand he turned to his lieutenant. “Ingvald, send Lathor, Kara,” he named the two most accomplished scouts in his command. “Let them ride to the Eyrie. We must know how far the rot has spread. If they find no damage done there, let them give warning. For proof of their tale,” he stooped to pick up the bird helm of their prisoner, “let them take this. I believe it is of Falconer making, yet,” he walked over to the bound man, still silent, still watching them with eyes of mad hate,”I cannot quite believe that this is one of them.”

“We do not take him also?” asked Kam, “or the bird?”

“No, we open no doors which are not already breached. We need safe disposal for this one for a space.”

“The cave by the waterfall, Captain.” Waldis, a boy of Ingvald’s homestead who had tracked his master to the mountains, spoke up. “One sentry at the entrance can keep it safe and none know of it save us.”

“Good enough. You will see to it, Ingvald.”

“And you, Captain?”

“I am going to backtrail this one. It may be that he did ride from the Eyrie. If that is true, the sooner we know the worst the better.”

“I do not think so. Captain. At least if he did, it was not by any straight trail. We are well to the westward of the hold. And he entered from the path leading to the sea. Santu,” he spoke to one who had helped to rope the prisoner, “do you go and take outpost on this trail and send in Caluf who first challenged him.”

Simon threw the saddle on his own horse, and added a bag with rations. On top he thrust in the dummy falcon. Whether this was one of the counterfeit flying things, he could not tell as yet, but it was the first intact one they had. He finished just as Caluf ran in.

“You are sure he came from the west?” Simon pressed the question.

“I will swear it on the Stone of Engis if you wish, Captain. The hawkmen do not care greatly for the sea, though they serve the traders at times as marines. And I did not know they patrolled the shore cliffs. But he rode straight between those notched rocks which give upon the way to the cove we mapped five days ago, and he moved as one who knew the trail well.”

Simon was more than a little disturbed. The cove of their recent discovery had been a ray of hope for the establishment of better communication with the north. It was not endangered by reefs and shoals such as fanged too much of the coastline and Simon had planned for the use of small vessels to harbor there, transporting north refugees, and returning with supplies and arms for the border fighters. If that cove was in enemy hands he wanted to know it, and at once.

As he left the clearing, with Caluf and another riding behind him, Simon’s mind was again working on two levels. He noted the country about him with an alert survey for landmarks and natural features which might be used in future defensive or offensive action. But beneath that surface activity he was pushing under the constant preoccupation with safety, food, shelter — the job at hand — his own private concerns.

Once, in prison, he had had time to explore the depths within himself. And the paths he had hewn had been bleak, freezing him into a remoteness of spirit which had never thawed since that day. The give and take of barracks life, of companionship in field service he could assume as a cover, but nothing ate below that cover — or he had not allowed it to.

Fear he understood. But that was a transitory emotion which usually spurred him into action of one sort or another. In Kars he had been attracted in another way, and had fought free. Once he had believed that when he took Petronius’ gate he would be a complete man again.

But so far that was not true. Ingvald had spoken of demon possession, but what if a man did not possess himself?

He was always a man standing apart watching another occupied with the business of living. Alien — these men he led knew it in him. Was he another of the odd mistaken pieces strewn about this world, pieces which did not fit, one with the machines out of their time and the riddle of the Kolder? He sensed that he was on the brink of some discovery, one which would mean much to not only himself but to the cause he had chosen.

Then that second, prying, stand-aside self was banished by the Captain of raiders as Simon caught sight of a branch of a tree, warped by mountain storms, as yet lacking leaves. It was stark against the afternoon sky and the burden it bore, dangling in small, neatly fashioned loops, was starker yet.

He spurred ahead and sat gazing up at the three small bodies swaying in the breeze, the gaping beaks, the glazed eyes, the dangling, crooked claws still bearing their bracelets of scarlet jesses and small, silvery discs. Three of the true falcons, their necks wrung, left to be found by the next traveler along the way. “Why?” Caluf asked.

“A warning, maybe, or something more.” Simon dismounted and tossed his reins to the other. “Wait here. If I am not back within a reasonable time, return to Ingvald and report. Do not follow, we cannot afford to waste men uselessly.”

Both men protested, but Simon silenced them with a decisive order before he entered the brush. There was evidence in plenty of those who had been there, broken twigs, scraps of boots on moss, a piece of torn jess strap. He was moving closer to the shore; the sound of the surf could be heard, and what he sought had certainly come from the cove.

Simon had been over that path twice, and he set himself to recall a mental picture of the country. Unfortunately the small valley which gave on the shore was lacking in cover. And the crags on either side were as bald. He would have to try one of those, which meant a roundabout route and some tough climbing. Doggedly he got to it.

As he had crept up to Volt’s Hole so did he travel now, crevice, ledge, hand and foothold. Then he crawled on his belly to the edge and looked down into the cove.

Simon had expected many things — a bare strip of sand with no sign of any invasion, a party from Karsten, an anchored ship. But what he saw was very different. At first he thought of the illusions of Estcarp — could what lay below be projected from his own mind, some old memory brought to life for his bafflement? Then a closer inspection of that sharp, clean curve of metal told him that, while it bore some faint resemblance to craft he had known, this was as different from anything in his previous experience as the counterfeit hawk was from the real.

The thing was clearly a sea-going craft, though it had no sign of any superstructure, mast, or method of propulsion. Sharply pointed both fore and aft, it was shaped as might be a cross section, taken length-wise, of a torpedo. There was an opening on its flat upper surface and men stood by that, three of them. The outline of their heads against the silver sheen of the ship were those of the Falconer bird helms. But Simon was equally sure no true Falconers wore them.

Once again the eternal mystery of this land, for the traders’ ships at Sulcarkeep had been masted vessels of a nonmechanical civilization; this ship could be taken out of the future of his own world! How could two so widely differing levels of civilization exist side by side?

Were the Kolder responsible here also? Alien, alien — once more he was on the very verge of understanding — of guessing—

And for that instant he relaxed his vigilance. Only a stout helm plundered from Karsten stores saved his life. The blow which struck at him out of nowhere dazed Simon. He smelled wet feathers, something else — half blinded and dizzy he tried to rise — to be struck again. This time he saw the enemy wing out to sea. A falcon, but true or false? That question he carried with him into the black cloud which swallowed him up.

II TRIBUTE TO GORM

The throbbing beat of a pain drum filled his skull, shaking on through his body. At first, Simon, returning reluctantly to consciousness, could only summon strength enough to endure that punishment. Then he knew that the beat was not only inside him, but without also. That on which he lay shook with a steady rhythmic pound. He was trapped in the black heart of a tom-tom.

When he opened his eyes, there was no light, and when he tried to move Simon speedily discovered that his wrists and ankles were lashed.

The sensation of being enclosed in a coffin became so overpowering that he had to clamp teeth on lips to prevent crying out. And he was so busy fighting his own private war against the unknown that it was minutes before he realized that wherever he might be, he was not alone in captive misery.

To his right someone moaned faintly now and again. On his left another retched in abject sickness, adding a new stench to the thick atmosphere of their confinement. Simon, oddly reassured by those sounds, unpromising as they were, called out:

“Who lies there? And where are we; does anyone know?”

The moaning ended in a quick catch of breath. But the man who was sick either could not control his pangs, or did not understand.

“Who are you?” That came in a weak trail of whisper from his right.

“One from the mountains. And you? Is this some Karsten prison?”

“Better that it were, mountain man! I have lain in the dungeons of Karsten. Yes, I have been in the question room of such a one. But better there than here.”

Simon was busy sorting out recent memories. He had climbed to a cliff top to spy upon a cove. There had been that strange vessel in harbor there, then attack from a bird which might not have been a bird at all!

Now it added up to only one answer — he lay in the very ship he had seen!

“Are we in the hands of the man-buyers out of Gorm?” he asked.

“Just so, mountain man. You were not with us when those devils of Yvian’s following gave us to the Kolder. Are you one of the Falconers they snared later?”

“Falconers! Ho, men of the Winged Ones!” Simon raised his voice, heard it echo hollowly back from unseen walls.”How many of you lie here? I, whom am of the raiders, ask it!”

“Three of us, raider. Though Faltjar was borne hither limp as a death-stricken man, and we do not know if yet he lives.”

“Faltjar! The guard of the southern passes! How was he taken — and you?”

“We heard of a cove where ships dared land and there was a messenger from Estcarp saying that perhaps supplies might be sent to us by sea if such could be found. So the Lord of Wings ordered us to explore. And we were struck down by hawks as we rode. Though they were not our hawks who battled for us. Then we awoke on shore, stripped of our mail and weapons, and they brought us aboard this craft which has no like in the world. I say that, who am Tandis and served five years as a marine to Sulcarmen. Many ports have I seen and more ships than a man can count in a week of steady marking, yet none kin to this one.”

“It is born of the witchery of Kolder,” whispered the weak voice on Simon’s right. “They came, but how can a man reckon time when he is enclosed in the dark without end? Is it night or day, this day or that? I lay in Kars prison because I offered refuge to a woman and child of the old race when the Horning went forth. They took all of us who were young from that prison and brought us to a delta island. There we were examined.”

“By whom?” Simon asked eagerly. Here was some one who might have seen the mysterious Kolder, from whom he might be able to get some positive information concerning them.

“That I cannot remember.” The voice was the merest thread of sound now and Simon edged himself as far as he could in his bonds to catch it at all. “They work some magic, these men from Gorm, so that one’s head spins around, spilling all thoughts out of it. It is said that they are demons of the great cold from the end of the world, and that I can believe!”

“And you, Falconer, did you look upon those who took you?”

“Yes, but you will have little aid from what I saw, raider. For those who brought us here were Karsten men, mere husks without proper wits — hands and strong backs for their owners. And those owners already wore the trappings they had taken from our backs, the better to befool our friends.”

“One of them was taken in his turn,” Simon told him. “For that be thankful, hawkman, for perhaps a part of the unraveling of this coil may lie with him.” Only then did he wonder if there were ears in those walls to listen to the helpless captives. But if there were, perhaps that one scrap of knowledge would serve to spread uneasiness among their captors.

There were ten Karsten men within that prison hold, all taken from jails, all caught up for some offense or other against the Duke. And to them had been added the three Falconers captured in the cove. The majority of the prisoners appeared to be semi-conscious or in a dazed condition. If able to recall any of the events leading up to their present captivity, such recollections ended with their arrival at the island beyond Kars, or on the beach of the cove.

As Simon persisted in his questioning however, a certain uniformity, if not of background, then of offenses against the Duke and temperament among these prisoners began to emerge. They were all men of some initiative, who had had a certain amount of military training, ranging from the Falconers who lived in a monastic military barracks for life and whose occupation was frankly fighting, to his first informant from Kars, a small landowner in the outlands who commanded a body of militia. In age they were from their late teens to their early thirties, and, in spite of some rough handling in the Duke’s dungeons, they were all able-bodied. Two were of the minor nobility with some schooling. They were the youngest of the lot, brothers picked up by Yvian’s forces on the same charge of aiding one of the old race who had been so summarily outlawed.

None of those here were of that race, and everyone declared that in all parts of the duchy men, women and children of that blood had been put to death upon capture.

It was one of the young nobles, drawn by Simon’s patient questioning from his absorption with his still unconscious brother, who provided the first bit of fact for the outworld man to chew upon.

“That guard who beat down Gamit, for which may the Rats of Morc forever gnaw him night and day, told them not to bring Renston also. We were blood brothers by the bread from the days we first strapped on swords, and we went to take him food and weapons that he might try for the border. They tracked us down and took us, though we left three of them with holes in their hides and no breath in their bodies! When one of the scum the Duke’s men had with him would have bound Renston too, he told it was no use, for there was no price for those of the old blood and the men buyers would not take them.

“The fellow whined that Renston was as young and strong as we and that he ought to sell as well. But the Duke’s man said the old race broke but they would not bend; then he ran Renston through with his own sword.”

“Broke but would not bend,” Simon repeated slowly.

“The old race were once one with the witchfolk of Estcarp,” the noble added. “Perchance these devils of Gorm cannot eat them up as easily as they can those of another blood.”

“There is this,” the man beside Simon added in his half-whisper, “why did Yvian turn so quickly on the old race? They have left us alone, unless we sought them out. And those of us who companied with them found them far from evil, for all their old knowledge and strange ways. Is Yvian under orders to do as he did? And who gives such orders and why? Could it be, my brothers in misfortune, that the presence of those others among us was in some manner a barrier against Gorm and all its evil, so that they had to be routed out that Gorm may spread?”

Shrewd enough, and close to Simon’s own path of thought. He would have questioned still further but, through the soft moans and wordless complaints of those still only half conscious, he heard a steady hissing, a sound he strove hard to identify. The thick odors of the place would make a man gag, and they provided a good cover for a danger he recognized too late — the entrance of vapor into the chamber with a limited air supply.

Men choken and coughed, fought for air with strangling agony and then went inert. Only one thought kept Simon steady: the enemy would not have gone to the trouble of loading fourteen men in their ship merely to gas them to death. So Simon alone of that miserable company did not fight the gas, but breathed slowly, with dim memories of the dentist’s chair in his own world.

“… gabble… gabble… gabble…” Words which were no words, only a confused sound made by a high-pitched voice — carrying with them the snap of an imperative order. Simon did not stir. As awareness of his surroundings returned, an inborn instinct for self-preservation kept him quiet.

“… gabble… gabble… gabble…”

The pain in his head was only a very dull ache. He was sure he was no longer on the ship; what he lay upon did not throb, nor move. But he had been stripped of his clothing and the place in which he lay was chill.

He who spoke was moving away now; the gabble retreated without an answer. But so clearly had the tone been one of an order that Simon dared not move lest he betray himself to some silent subordinate.

Twice, deliberately, he counted to a hundred, hearing no sound during that exercise. Simon lifted his eyelids and then lowered them again quickly against a stab of blazing light. Little by little his field of vision, limited as it was, cleared. What he saw in that narrow range was almost as confounding as had been his first glimpse of the strange ship.

His acquaintance with laboratories had been small, but certainly the rack of tubes, the bottles and beakers on shelves directly before him could be found only in a place of that nature.

Was he alone? And for what purpose had he been brought here? He studied, inch by inch, all he could see. Clearly he was not lying at floor level. The surface under him was hard — was he on a table?

Slowly he began to turn his head, convinced that caution was very necessary. Now he was able to see an expanse of wall, bare, gray, with a line at the very end of his field of vision which might make a door.

So much for that side of the room. Now the other. Once more he turned his head and discovered new wonders. Five more bodies, bare as his own, were laid out, each on a table. All five were either dead or unconscious, and he was inclined to believe the latter was true.

But there was someone else there. The tall thin figure stood with his back to Simon, working over the first man in line. Since a gray robe, belted in at the waist, covered all of his, her, or its body, and a cap of the same stuff hid the head, Simon had no idea of race or type of creature who busied himself with quiet efficiency there.

A rack bearing various bottles with dangling tubes was rolled over the first man. Needles in those tubes were inserted into veins, a circular cap of metal was fitted over the unresisting head. Simon, with a swift jolt of pure fear, guessed that he was watching the death of a man. Not the death of a body, but that death which would reduce the body to such a thing as he had seen slain on the road to Sulcarkeep and had helped to slay himself in defense of that keep!

And he also determined that it was not going to be done to him! He tested hand and arm, foot and leg, moving slowly, his only luck being that he was the last in that line and not the first. He was stiff enough, but he was in full control of his muscles.

That gray attendant had processed his first man. He was moving a second rack forward over the next. Simon sat up. For a second or two his head whirled, and he gripped the table on which he had lain, prayerfully glad it had neither creaked nor squeaked under his change of position.

The business at the other end of the room was a complicated one, and occupied the full attention of the worker. Feeling that the table might tip under him, Simon swung his feet to the floor, breathing strongly again only when they were firmly planted on the smooth cold pavement.

He surveyed his nearest neighbor, hoping for some sign that he too, was rousing. But the boy, for he was only a youngster, lay limp with closed eyes, his chest rising and falling at unusually slow intervals.

Simon stepped away from the table toward that set of shelves. There alone could he find a weapon. Escape from here, if he could win the door unhindered, was too chancy a risk until he knew more of his surroundings. And neither could he face the fact that in running he would abandon five other men to death — or worse than death alone.

He chose his weapon, a flask half filled with yellow liquid. It seemed glass but was heavy for that substance. The slender neck above the bulbous body gave a good handhold, and Simon moved lightly around the line of tables to the one where the attendant worked.

His bare feet made no sound on the material on the flooring as he came up behind the unsuspecting worker. The bottle arose with the force of Simon’s outrage in the swing, crashing upon the back of that gray-capped head.

There was no cry from the figure who crumpled forward, dragging with it the wired metal cap it had been about to fit on the head of the waiting victim. Simon had reached for the fallen man’s throat before he saw the flatness on the back of the head through which dark blood welled. He heaved the body over and pulled it free of the aisle between tables to look down upon the face of one he was sure was a Kolder.

What he had been building up in his imagination was far more startling than the truth. This was a man, at least in face, very like a great many other men Simon had known. He had rather flat features with a wide expanse of cheekbone on either side of a nose too close to bndgeless, and his chin was too small and narrow to match the width of the upper half of his face. But he was no alien demon to the eye, whatever he might house within his doomed skull.

Simon located the fastenings of the gray robe and pulled it off. Though he shrank from touching the mess in the cap, he made himself take that also. There was a runnel of water in a sink at the other end of the room and there he dropped the head gear for cleansing. Under the robe the man wore a tightfitting garment with no fastenings nor openings Simon could discover, so in the end he had to content himself with the robe for his sole clothing.

There was nothing he could do for the two men the attendant had already made fast to the racks, for the complicated nature of the machines was beyond his solving. But he went from one man to the next of the other three and tried to arouse them, finding that, too, impossible. They had the appearance of men deeply drugged, and he understood even less how he had come to escape their common fate, if these were his fellow prisoners from the ship.

Disappointed, Simon went to the door. The closed slab had no latch or knob he could see, but experimentation proved that it slid back into the right-hand wall and he looked out upon a corridor walled, ceilinged and paved in the same monotone of gray which was in use in the laboratory. As far as Simon could see it was deserted, though there were other doors opening off its length. He made for the nearest of these.

Inching it open with the same caution with which he had made his first moves upon regaining his senses, he looked in upon a cache of men the Kolder had brought to Gorm, if this was Gorm. Lying in rows were at least twenty bodies, these still clothed. There were no signs of consciousness in any, though Simon examined them all hurriedly. Perhaps he could still gain a respite for those in the laboratory. Hoping so, he dragged the three back and laid them out with their fellows.

Visiting the laboratory for the last time Simon rummaged for arms, coming up with a kit of surgical knives, the longest of which he took. He cut away the rest of the clothing from the body of the man he had killed and laid him out on one of the tables in such a way that the battered head was concealed from the doorway. Had he known any method of locking that door he would have used it.

With the knife in the belt of his stolen robe, Simon washed out the cap and gingerly pulled it on, wet as it was. Doubtless there were a hundred deadly weapons in the various jars, bottles, and tubes about him, only he could not tell one from the others. For the time being he would have to depend upon his fists and his knife to remain free.

Simon went back to the corridor, closing the door behind him. How long would the worker he had killed be left undisturbed? Was he supervised by someone due to return shortly, or did Simon have a better allowance of time?

Two of the doors in the corridor would not yield to his push. But where the hall came to a dead end he found a third a little way open and slipped into what could only be living quarters.

The furniture was severe, functional, but the two chairs and the box bed were more comfortable than they looked. And another piece which might be either a desk or a table drew him. His puzzlement was a driving force, for his mind refused to connect the place in which he stood with the same world which had produced Estcarp, the Eyrie and crooked-laned Kars. One was of the past; this was of the future.

He could not open the compartments of the desk, though there was a sunken pit at the top of each in which a finger tip could be handily inserted. Baffled, he sat back on his heels after trying the last.

There were compartments in the walls also, at least the same type of finger hole could be seen there. But they, too, were locked. His jaw set stubbornly as he thought of trying his knife as a prying lever.

Then he spun around, back against the wall, staring into a room still empty of all but that severely lined furniture. Because out of the very empty air before him came a voice, speaking a language he could not understand, but by the inflection asking a question to which it demanded an immediate answer.

III GRAY FANE

Was he under observation? Or merely listening to something akin to a public address system? Once Simon had assured himself that he was alone in the room, he listened closely to words he could not understand and must interpret by inflection alone. The speaker repeated himself — at least Simon was convinced he recognized several sounds. And did that repetition mean that he was seen?

How soon before an investigation would be launched by the unseen speaker? Immediately, when no reply was made? It was clearly a warning to be on his way, but which way? Simon went back into the corridor.

Since this end of the passage was a blank wall he must try the other, re-passing the other doors. But there again he met with unbroken gray surface. With memories of the hallucinations of Estcarp, Simon ran his hands across that blank expanse. But if there was any opening there it was concealed by more than eye-confusing skill. His conviction — that the Kolder, who or whatever they might be, were of a different breed altogether from the witches, achieving their magic according to another pattern — became fixed. They based their action on skills without, rather than a Power within. To the men of Estcarp much of the technical knowledge of his own world would have ranked as magic. And perhaps alone among the Guards of Estcarp at this moment was Simon fitted to rationalize and partly understand what lay here in Gorm, better prepared to face those who used machines and the science of machines than any witch who could call a fleet up out of wooden ships.

He crept along the hallway, running his hands along first one wall and then the other, seeking any irregularity which might be a clue to an exit. Or did that door lie within one of the rooms? His luck certainly could not hold much longer.

Again from the air overhead came a ringing command in the strange tongue, the vehemence of which could not be denied. Simon, sensing danger, froze where he was, half expecting to be engulfed by a trapdoor or trapped in some suddenly materializing net.

In that moment he discovered his exit, but not in the way he had hoped, as on the other side of the corridor a portion of the wall slipped back to show lighted space beyond. Simon pulled the knife from his belt and faced that space, ready for an attack.

The silence was broken again by that bark of disembodied voice; he thought that perhaps his real status had not yet been suspected by the masters of this place. Perhaps, if they did see him, the robe and cap he wore tagged him as one of their own who was acting oddly and had been ordered to report elsewhere.

Deeming it best to act in his chosen role as long as he could, Simon approached that new door with more outward assurance and less commando caution. He nearly panicked, however, when the door closed behind him and he discovered that he was neatly imprisoned in a box. It was not until he brushed against one of the walls and felt through it that faint vibration, that he guessed he was in an elevator, a discovery which for some reason steadied him. More and more he accepted the belief that the Kolder represented a form of civilization close to that he had known in his own world. It was far more steadying to the nerves to be ascending or descending to a showdown with the enemy in an elevator than to stand, for example, in a mist-filled room and watch a friend turn to a hideous stranger in a matter of moments.

Yet, in spite of that feeling of faint familiarity with all this, Simon had no ease, no relaxation of a certain inward chill. He could accept the products of Kolder hands as normal, but he could not accept the atmosphere of this place as anything but alien. And not only alien, for that which is strange need not necessarily be a menace, but in some manner this place was utterly opposed to him and his kind. No, not alien, one part of him decided during that swift journey to wherever the Kolder waited, but unhuman, whereas the witches of Estcarp were human, no matter whatever else they might also be.

The thrumming in the wall ceased. Simon stood away from it, unsure as to where the door would open. His certainty that it would open did not waver and was justified a moment later.

This time there were sounds outside, a muted humming, the snap of distant voices. He emerged warily to stand in a small alcove apart from a room. Partial recognition outweighed strangeness for him once again. A wide expanse of one wall was laid out as a vast map. The trailing, deeply indented shorelines, the molded mountain areas he had seen before. Set here and there upon the chart were tiny pinpoints of light in various colors. Those along the shore about the vanished hold of Sulcar and the bay in which Gorm lay were a dusky violet, while those which pricked on the plains of Estcarp were yellow, the ones in Karsten green, and those of Alizon red.

A table, running the full length of that map, stood below it, bearing at spaced intervals machines which clattered now and then, or flashed small signal lights. And seated between each two of such machines, with their backs toward him, their attention all for the devices they tended, were others wearing the gray robes and caps.

A little apart was a second table, or outsized desk, with three more of the Kolder. The center one of this trio wore a metal cap on his head from which wires and spider-thread cables ran to a board behind him. His face was without expression, his eyes were closed. However, he was not asleep for, from time to time, his fingers moved with swift flicks of the tips across a panel of buttons and levers set in the surface before him.

Simon’s impression of being in a central control of some concentrated effort grew with the seconds he was left to view the scene undisturbed. The words which were barked at him this time did not come from the air, but from the man on the left of that capped figure. He gazed at Simon, his flat face with its overspread of upper features, displaying first impatience and then the growing realization that Simon was not one of his own kind. Simon sprang. He could not hope to reach that end table, but one of those who tended the machines before the map was in his range. And he brought his hand edge down in a blow which might have cracked backbone, but instead rendered the victim unconscious. Holding the limp body as a shield, Simon backed to the wall of the other doorway, hoping to win to that exit.

To his amazement the man who had first marked his arrival there made no move to obstruct him, physically. He merely repeated slowly and deliberately in the language of the continental natives:

“You will return to your unit. You will report to your unit control.”

As Simon continued his crabwise advance upon the door, one of the men who had been a neighbor of his captive returned an astounded face from Tregarth to the men at the end table, then back to Simon. The rest of his fellows looked up from their machines with the same surprise as their officer got to his feet. It was clear they had expected only instant and complete obedience from Simon.

“You will return to your unit! At once!”

Simon laughed. And the result of his response was startling indeed. The Kolder, with the exception of the capped man who took no notice of anything, were all on their feet. Those of the center table still looked to their two superiors at the end of the room as if awaiting orders. And Simon thought that if he had shrieked in agony they would not have been so amazed — his reaction to their orders had completely baffled them.

The man who had given that command dropped his hand on the shoulder of his capped companion, giving him a gentle shake, a gesture which even in its restraint expressed utmost alarm. So summoned to attention, the capped man opened his eyes and looked about impatiently, then in obvious amazement. He stared at Simon as if sighting at a mark.

What came was no physical attack, but a blow of force, unseen, not to be defined by the untutored outworlder. But a blow which held Simon pinned breathless to the wall unable to move.

The body he had been using as a shield slid out of his heavy-weighted arms to sprawl on the floor, and even the rise and fall of Simon’s chest as he breathed became a labor to which he had to give thought and effort. Let him stay where he was, under the pressure of that invisible crushing hand, and he would not continue to live. His encounters with the Power of Estcarp had sharpened his wits. He thought that what trapped him now was not born of the body, but of the mind, and so it could only be countered by the mind in turn.

His only taste of such power had been through the methods of Estcarp and he had not been trained to use it. But setting up within him what strength of will he could muster, Simon concentrated on raising an arm which moved so sluggishly he was afraid he was doomed to failure.

Now that one palm was resting flat against the wall where the energy held him, he brought up the other. With complaining muscles as well as will of mind, he strove to push himself out and away. Did he detect a shade of surprise on the broad face below the cap?

What Simon did next had the backing of no conscious reasoning. It was certainly not by his will that his right hand moved up level with his heart and his fingers traced a design in the air between him and that capped master of force.

It was the third time he had seen that design. Before the hand which had drawn it was one of Estcarp, and the lines had burned fire bright for only an instant.

Now it flashed again, but in a sputtering white. And at that moment he could move! The pressure had lessened. Simon ran for the door, making good a momentary escape into the unknown territory beyond.

But it was only momentary. For here he faced armed men. There was no mistaking that rapt concentration in the eyes turned to him as he erupted into the corridor where they were on duty. These were the slaves of the Kolder, and only by killing could he win through.

They drew in with the silent, deadly promise of their kind, their very silence heavy with menace. Simon chose quickly and darted to meet them. He skidded to the right and tackled the man next to the wall about the shins, bringing him down in such a way as to guard his own back.

The smooth flooring of the passage was an unexpected aid. The impact of Simon’s tackle carried both past the man’s two companions. Simon stabbed up with his knife and felt the sear of a blade across his own ribs under his arms. Coughing, the guard rolled away, and Simon snatched the dart gun from his belt.

He shot the first of the others just in time and the stroke of the sword aimed for his neck sank instead into the wounded man. That brought him a precious second to sight on the third and last of the enemy.

Adding two more dart guns to his weapons he went on. Luckily this hall ended in no concealed doors but a stair, cut of stone and winding up against a wall also of stone, both of them in contrast to the smooth gray surfacing of the passages and rooms through which he had already come.

His bare feet gritted on that stone as they took the steps. At a higher level he came out in a passage akin to those he had seen in the hold of Estcarp. However functional-futuristic the inner core of this place might be, its husk was native to the buildings he knew.

Simon took cover twice, his gun ready, as detachments of the Kolder-changed natives passed him. He could not judge whether a general alarm had been given, or whether they were merely engaged in some routine patrol, for they kept to a steady trot and did not search any side ways.

Time in these corridors where there was no change of light had no meaning. Simon did not know whether it was day or night, or how long he had been within the fortress of the Kolder. But he was keenly conscious of hunger and thirst, of the cold which pierced the single garment he wore, of the discomfort of bare feet when one had always gone shod.

If he only had some idea of the inner plan of the maze through which he was trying to escape. Was he on Gorm? Or in that mysterious city of Yle which the Kolder had founded on the mainland coast? In some more hidden headquarters of the invaders? That it was an important headquarters he was certain.

Both a desire for a temporary hiding place and the need for supplies brought him to explore the rooms on this upper level. Here were none of the furnishings he had seen below. The carved wooden chests, the chairs, the tables were all of native work. And in some of the chambers there were signs of hurried departure or search, now overlaid with dust as if the rooms had been deserted for a long time.

It was in such a one that Simon found clothing which fitted after a fashion. But he still lacked mail or any other weapons than those he had taken from the fighters in the hall. He craved food more than anything else and began to wonder if he must return to the dangerous lower levels to find it.

Though he was considering descent Simon continued to follow up any ramp or set of steps he chanced upon. And he saw that in this sprawling pile all the windows had been battened tight so that only artificial light made visible his surroundings, the light being dimmer in ratio to the distance he put between him and the quarters of the Kolder.

A last and very narrow flight of stairs showed more use and Simon kept one of the guns ready as he climbed to a door above. That swung easily under his hand, and he looked out upon a flat rooftop. Over a portion of this a second sheltering awning had been erected and lined up under which were objects which did not astonish Simon after what he had seen below. Their stubby wings were thrust back sharply from their blunt noses and none could carry more than a pilot and perhaps two passengers, but they were surely aircraft. The mystery of how Sulcarkeep had been taken was solved, providing the enemy had a fleet of those to hand.

Now they presented Simon with a way of escape if he had no other chance. But escape from where? Watching that improvised hangar for any sign of a guard, Simon stole to the nearest edge of the roof, hoping to see something in the way of a landmark to give him a clue to his whereabouts.

For a moment he wondered if he could be back in a restored Sulcarkeep. For what was spread below was a harbor, with anchored ships and rows of buildings set along streets which marched to the wharves and the water. But the plan of this city was different from the town of the traders. It was larger and where the Sulcarmen had had their warehouses with fewer living quarters, these streets reversed that process. Though it was midday by the sun there was no life in those streets, no sign that any of the houses were inhabited. Yet neither did they show those signs of decay and nature’s encroachment which would mark complete desertion.

Since the architecture resembled that of Karsten and Estcarp with only minor differences, this could not be that Yle erected by the Kolder. Which meant that he must be now on Gorm — maybe in Sippar — that center of the canker which the Estcarp forces had never been able to pierce!

If that city below was as lifeless as it appeared, it should be easy enough for him to get to the harbor and locate some means of boat transportation to the eastern continent. However with the building below him so well sealed to the outer world, perhaps this roof was the only exit, and he had better explore its outlets.

The pile on which he stood was the highest building in the whole small city; perhaps it was the ancient castle where those of Koris’ clan had ruled. If the Captain were only with him now the problem might be simplified by half. Simon toured three sides and discovered that there were no other roofs abutting on this one, that a street, or streets, fronted each side.

Reluctantly he came to the shelter which housed the planes. To trust to a machine he did not know how to pilot was foolhardy. But that was no reason not to inspect one. Simon had grown bolder since he had gone unchallenged this long. However he took precautions against surprise. Wedged into the latch of the door, the knife locked it to all but a battering down.

He returned to the plane nearest him. It moved into the open under his pushing, proving to be a light craft, easily handled. He pulled up a panel in its stub nose and inspected the motor within. It was unlike any he had seen before, and he was neither engineer nor mechanic.

But he had confidence enough in the efficiency of those below to believe that it could fly — if he were able to control it.

Before he explored farther Simon examined the four other machines, using the butt of one of the dart guns to smash at their motors. If he did have to trust to the air he did not want to be the target for an attack-chase.

It was when he raised his improvised hammer for the last time that the enemy struck. There had been no battering at the wedged door, no thunder of guard feet on the stairs. Again it was the silent push of that invisible force. It did not strive to hold him helpless this time, but to draw him to its source. Simon caught at the disabled plane for an anchor. Instead he drew it after him out into the open — he could not halt his march down the roof.

And it was not taking him back to the door! With a stab of panic Simon realized now that his destination was not the dubious future of the levels below, but the quick death which awaited a plunge from the roof!

With all his will he fought, his reluctant steps taken one at a time, with periods of agonizing struggle between. He tried again the trick of the symbol in the air which had served him before. Perhaps because he was not now fronting the person of his enemy it gave him no relief.

He could slow that advance, put off for seconds, minutes, the inevitable end. A try for the doorway failed; it had been a desperate hope that the other might take his action for a gesture of surrender. But now Simon knew they wanted him safely dead. The decision he would have made had he commanded here.

There was the plane he had meant to use in a last bid. Well, now there was no other escape! And it was between him and the roof edge towards which he was urged.

It was such a little chance, but he had no other.

Simon yielded two steps to the pressure, he gave another quickly as if his strength were waning. A third — his hand was on the opening to the pilot’s compartment. Making the supreme effort in this weird battle he threw himself within.

The pull brought him against the far wall and the light craft rocked under his scrambling. He stared at what must be the instrument board. There was a lever up at the end of a narrow slot, and it was the only object which seemed to be movable. With a petition to other Powers than those of Estcarp, Simon managed to raise a heavy hand and pull that down its waiting slot.

IV CITY OF DEAD MEN

He had perhaps childishly expected to be whisked aloft, but the machine ran straight forward, gathering speed. Its nose plowed across the low parapet with force enough to somersault the whole plane over. Simon knew he was falling, not free as his tormenter had intended, but encased in the cabin.

There was another swift moment of awareness that that fall was not straight down, that he was descending at an angle. Hopelessly, he jerked once more at that lever, pulling it halfway up the slot.

Then there was a crash, followed by nothing but blackness without sight, sound, or feeling.

A spark of red-amber watched him speculatively out of the black. It was matched by a faint repetitive sound — the tick of a watch, the drip of water? And thirdly there was the smell. It was that latter which prodded Simon into action. For it was a sweetish stench, thick and sickening in his nostrils and throat, a stench of old corruption and death.

He was sitting up, he discovered, and there was a faint light to show the wreckage which held him in that position. But the hounding pressure which had battered him on the upper roof was gone; he was free to move if he could, to think.

Save for some painfully bruised areas, he had apparently survived the crash without injury. The machine must have cushioned the shock of landing. And that red eye out of the dark was a light on the board of the lever.

The drip was close by. So was the smell. Simon shifted in his seat and pushed. There was a rasp of metal scraping metal and a large section of cabin broke away. Simon crawled painfully out of his cage. Overhead was a hole framed with jagged ends of timbers. As he watched, another piece of roofing gave way and struck on the already battered machine. The plane must have fallen on the roof of one of the neighboring buildings and broken through that surface. How he had escaped with life and reasonably sound limbs was one of the strange quirks of fate.

He must have been unconscious for some time as the sky was the palid shade of evening. And his hunger and thirst were steady pains. He must have food and water.

But why had not the enemy located him before this? Certainly anyone on the other roof could have spotted the end of his abortive flight. Unless — suppose they did not know of his try with the plane — suppose they only traced him by some form of mental contact. Then they would only know that he had gone over the parapet, that his fall had ended in a blackout which to them might have registered as his death. If that were true then he was indeed free, if still within the city of Sippar!

First, to find food and drink, and then discover where he was in relation to the rest of the port.

Simon found a doorway, one which gave again on stairs leading downward toward the street level, as he had hoped. The air here was stale, heavily tainted with that odor. He could identify it now and it made him hesitate — disliking what must lie below to raise such a stench.

But down was the only way out, so down he must go.

The windows here were unsealed and light made fading patches on each landing. There were doors, too, but Simon opened none of them, because it seemed to him that around them that fearsome, stomach-churning smell was stronger.

Down one more flight, and into a hall which ended in a wide portal he thought must give on the street. Here Simon dared to explore and in a back room he found that leathery journey bread which was the main military ration of Estcarp, together with a pot of preserved fruit still good under its cap. The moldering remains of other provisions were evidence that no one had foraged here for a long time. Water trickled from a pipe to a drain and Simon drank before he wolfed down the food.

It was difficult to eat in spite of his hunger for that smell clung to everything. Although he had been only in this one building outside the citadel Simon suspected that his monstrous suspicion was the truth; save for the central building and its handful of inhabitants, Sippar was a city of the dead. The Kolder must have ruthlessly disposed of those of the conquered of no use to them. Not only slain them, but left them unburied in their own homes. As a warning against rebellion of the few remaining alive? Or merely because they did not care? It would appear that the last was the most likely, and that odd feeling of kinship he had for the flat-faced invaders died then and there.

Simon took with him all the bread he could find and a bottle filled with water. Curiously enough the door leading to the street was barred on the inside. Had those who had once lived here locked themselves in and committed mass suicide? Or had the same pressure methods driven them to their deaths as had been used to send him over the upper roof?

The street was as deserted as he had seen it from that same roof. But Simon kept close to one side, watching every shadowed doorway, the mouth of every cross lane. All doors were shut; nothing moved as he worked his way to the harbor.

He guessed that if he tried any of those doors he would find them barred against him, while within would lie only the dead. Had they perished soon after Gorm had welcomed Kolder to further the ambitions of Oma and her son? Or had that death come sometime later, during the years since Koris had fled to Estcarp and the island had been cut off from humankind? It would not matter to anyone save perhaps a historian.

This remained a city of the dead — the dead in body, and in the keep, the dead in spirit — with only the Kolder, who might well be dead in another fashion, keeping a pretense of life.

As he went Simon memorized route of street and house. Gorm could only be freed when the central keep was destroyed, he was certain of that. But it seemed to him that leaving this waste of empty buildings about their lair had been a bad mistake on the part of the Kolder. Unless they had some hidden defenses and alarms rigged in these blank walled houses, it might be no trick at all to bring a landing party ashore and have them under cover.

There were those tales of Koris’ concerning the spies Estcarp had sent to this island over the years. And the fact that the Captain himself had been unable to return because of some mysterious barrier. After his own experience with Kolder weapons Simon had an open mind. Only he had been able to break free, first in that headquarters room and secondly by the use of one of the planes. The mere fact that the Kolder had not tried to hunt him down was proof of a kind they must believe him finished for good.

But it was hard to think that someone or something did not keep watch in the silent city. So he kept to cover until he reached the wharves. There were ships there, ships battered by storms, some driven half ashore, their rigging a rotting tangle, their sides scored and smashed in, some half waterlogged, with only their upper decks above the surface of the harbor. None of these had sailed for months, or years!

And the width of the bay lay between Simon and the mainland. If this dead port was Sippar, and he had no reason to believe that it was not, then he was now facing that long arm of land on which the invaders had built Yle, ending in the finger of which Sulcarkeep had been the nail. Since the fall of the traders’ stronghold it was very probable that the Kolder forces now controlled that whole cape.

If he could find a manageable small craft and take to the sea, Simon would have to take the longer route eastward down the bottle-shaped bay to the mouth of the River Es and so to Estcarp. And he was plagued by the idea that time no longer fought upon his side.

He found his boat, a small shell stored in a warehouse. Though Simon was no sailor he took what precautions and made what tests he could to ensure its seaworthiness. And waited until full dark before he took oars, gritting his teeth against the pain of his bruises, as he pulled steadily, setting a crooked course among the rotting hulks of the Gormian fleet.

It was when he was well beyond those and had dared to step his small mast, that he met the Kolder defense head on. He saw or heard nothing as he fell to the bottom of the boat, his hands over his ears, his eyes closed against that raging tumult of silent sound and invisible light which beat outward from some point within his brain. He had thought his ordeal with the will pressure had made him aware of the Kolder power, but this scrambling of a man’s brain was worse.

Was he only minutes within that cloud, or a day, or a year? Dazed and dumb, Simon could not have told. He lay in a boat which swung with the waves but obeyed sluggishly the wind touch on its sail. And behind him was Gorm, dead and dark in the moonlight.

Before dawn Simon was picked up by a coastal patrol boat from the Es, and by that time he had recovered his wits, though his mind felt as bruised as his boat. Riding relays of swift mounts he went on to Estcarp city.

Within the keep, in that same room where he had first met the Guardian, he joined a council of war, retelling his adventures within Gorm, his contacts with the Kolder to the officers of Estcarp, and those still-faced women who listened impassively. As he spoke he hunted for one among the witches, without finding her in that assembly.

When he had done, they asked few questions, allowing him to tell it in his own way, Koris tight-lipped and stone-featured as he described the city of the dead, then the Guardian beckoned forward one of the other women.

“Now, Simon Tregarth, do you take her hands, and then think upon this capped man, recall in your mind every detail of his dress and face,” she ordered.

Though he could see no purpose in this, Simon obeyed. For one generally did obey, he thought wryly, the witches of Estcarp.

So he held those hands which were cool and dry in his, and he mentally pictured the gray robe, the odd face where the lower half did not match the upper, the metal cap, and the expression of power and then of bafflement which had been mirrored on those features when Simon had fought back. The hands slipped out of his and the Guardian spoke again:

“You have seen, sister? You can fashion?”

“I have seen,” the woman answered. “And what I have seen I can fashion. Since he used the power between them in the duel of wills the impression should be strong. Though,” she looked down at her hands, moving each finger as if to exercise it in preparation for some task, “whether we can use such a device is another matter. It would have been better had blood flowed.”

No one explained and Simon was not given time to ask questions for Koris claimed him as the council broke up, and marched him off to the barracks. Once within that same chamber he had had before they left for Sulcarkeep, Simon demanded of the Captain:

“Where is the lady?” It was irritating not to be able to name her whom he knew; that peculiarity of the witches irked him more now than ever. But Koris caught his meaning.

“She is checking the border posts.”

“But she is safe?”

Koris shrugged. “Are any of us safe, Simon? But be sure that the women of Power take no unnecessary risks. What they guard within them is not lightly spent.” He had gone to the western window, his face turned into the light there, his eyes searching as if he willed to see more than the plain beyond the city. “So Gorm is dead.” The words came heavily.

Simon pulled off his boots and stretched out on the bed. He was weary to every aching bone in his body.

“I told you what I saw and only what I saw. There is life walled into the center keep of Sippar. I found it nowhere else, but then I did not search far.”

“Life? What sort of life?”

“Ask that of the Kolder, or perhaps the witches,” returned Simon drowsily. “Neither are as you and I, and maybe they reckon life differently.”

He was only half aware that the Captain had come away from the window, was standing over Simon so that his wide shoulders shut away the daylight.

“I am thinking, Simon Tregarth, that you are different too.” Again the words were heavy, without any ring. “And seeing Gorm, how do you reckon its life — or death?”

“As vile,” Simon mumbled. “But that shall also be judged in its own time,” and wondered at his choice of words even as he fell asleep.

He slept, awoke to eat hugely, and slept again. No one demanded his attention nor did he rouse to what was going on in the keep of Estcarp. He might have been an animal laying up rest beneath his hide as the bear lays up fat against hibernation. When he awoke thoroughly once again it was alertly, eagerly, with a freshness he had not felt for so long, since before Berlin. Berlin — what — where was Berlin? His memories were curiously overlaid nowadays with new scenes.

And the one which returned to haunt him the most was that of the room of that secluded house in Kars where threadbare tapestries patterned the walls and a woman looked at him with wonder in her eyes as her hand shaped a glowing symbol in the air between them.

Then there was that other moment when she stood sick at heart and curiously alone after she had made her sordid magic for Aldis, tarnishing her gift for the good of her cause.

Now as Simon lay tingling with life in every nerve and cell of him, the ache of his bruises, the strain of his hunger and his striving gone out of him, he moved his right hand up until it lay over his heart. But beneath it now he did not feel the warmth of his own flesh; rather did he cradle in memory something else, as a singing which was no song drew from him, into the other hand he had grasped, a substance he did not know he possessed.

Over all else, the life in the border raiding parties, the experience of Kolder captivity, did those quiet and passive scenes hold him now. Because, empty of physical action though they had been, they possessed for him a hidden excitement he shrank from defining or explaining too closely.

But he was summoned soon enough to attention.

During his sleep Estcarp had marshalled all its forces. Beacons on the heights had brought messengers from the mountains, from the Eyrie, from all those willing to stand against Gorm, and the doom Gorm promised. A half dozen Sulcar vessels, homeless, had made port in coves the Falconers charted, the families of their crews landed in safety, the ships armed and ready for the thrust. For all were agreed that the war must be taken to Gorm before Gorm brought it to them.

There was a camp at the mouth of the Es, a tent set up in it on the very verge of the ocean. From its flap of door they could see the shadow of the island appearing as a bank of cloud upon the sea. And, waiting signal beyond that point where the broken ruins of their keep were sea-washed and desolate, hovered the ships, packed with the Sulcar crew, Falconers, and border raiders.

But the barrier about Gorm must be broken first and that was in the hands of those who welded Estcarp’s Power. So, not knowing why he was to be one of that company, Simon found himself seated at a table which might have been meant for a gaming board. Yet there was no surface of alternate colored blocks. Instead, before each seat there was a painted symbol. And the company who gathered was mixed, seemingly oddly chosen for the high command.

Simon found that his seat had been placed beside the Guardian’s and the symbol there overlapped both places. It was a brown hawk with a gilded oval framing it, a small, three pointed cornet above the oval. On his left was a diamond of blue-green enclosing a fist holding an ax. And beyond that was a square of red encasing a horned fish.

To the right, beyond the Guardian, were two more symbols which he could not read without leaning forward. Two of the witches slipped into the seats before those and sat quietly, their hands palm down upon the painted marks. There was a stir to his left and he glanced up to know an odd lift of spirit as he met a level gaze which was more than mere recognition of his identity. But she did not speak and he copied her silence. The sixth and last of their company was the lad Briant, pale-faced, staring down at the fish creature before him as if it lived and by the very intensity of his gaze he must hold it prisoner in that sea of scarlet.

The woman who had held Simon’s hands as he thought of the man on Gorm came into the tent, two others with her, each of whom carried a small clay brazier from which came sweet smoke. These they placed on the edge of the board and the other woman set down her own burden, a wide basket. She threw aside its covering cloth to display a row of small images.

Taking up the first she went to stand before Briant.

Twice she passed the figure she held through the smoke and then held it at eye level before the seated lad. It was a finely wrought manikin with red-gold hair and such a life-look that Simon believed it was meant to be the portrait of some living man.

“Fulk.” The woman pronounced the name and set the image down in the center of the scarlet square, full upon the painted fish. Briant could not pale, his transparent skin had always lacked color, but Simon saw him swallow convulsively before he answered. “Fulk of Verlaine.”

The woman took a second figure from her basket, and, as she came now to Simon’s neighbor, he could better judge the artistic triumph of her work. For she held between her hands, passing it through the smoke, a perfect image of she who had asked for a charm to keep Yvian true.

“Aldis.”

“Aldis of Kars,” acknowledged the woman beside him as the tiny feet of the figure were planted on the fist with the ax.

“Sandar ofAlizon.” A third figure for the position farthest to his right.

“Siric.” A potbellied image in flowing robes for that other right-hand symbol.

Then she brought out the last of the manikins, studying it for a moment before she gave it to the smoke. When she came to stand before Simon and the Guardian she named no names but held it out for his inspection, for his recognition. And he stared down at the small copy of the capped leader in Gorm. To his recollection the resemblance was perfect.

“Gorm!” He acknowledged it, though he could not give the Kolder a better name. And she placed it carefully on the brown and gold hawk.

V GAME OF POWER

Five images set out upon the symbols of their lands, five perfect representations of living men and woman. But why and for what purpose? Simon looked right again. The tiny feet of the Aldis manikin were now encircled by the hands of the witch, those of the Fulk figure by Briant’s. Both were regarding their charges with absorption, on Briant’s part uneasy.

Simon’s attention swung back to the figure before him. Dim memories of old tales flickered through his mind. Did they now stick pins in these replicas and expect their originals to suffer and die?

The Guardian reached for his hand, caught it in the same grip he had known in Kars during the shape changing. At the same time she fitted her other hand in a half circle about the base of the capped figure. He put his to match so that now they touched finger tips and wrists enclosing the Kolder.

“Think now upon this one between whom and you has been the trial of power, or the tie of blood. Put from your mind all else but this one whom you must reach and bend, bend to our use. For we win the Game of Power upon this board in this hour — or it — and we — fail for this time and place!”

Simon’s eyes were on that capped figure. He did not know if he could turn them away if he wished. He supposed that he had been brought into this curious procedure because he alone of those of Estcarp had seen this officer of Gorm.

The tiny face, half shadowed by the metal cap, grew larger, life size. He was fronting it across space as he had fronted it across that room in the heart of Sippar.

Again the eyes were closed, the man was about his mysterious business. Simon continued to study him, and then he knew that all the antagonism he had known for the Kolder, all the hate born in him by what he had found in that city, by their treatment of their captives, was drawing together in his mind, as a man might shape a weapon of small pieces fitted together into one formidable arm.

Simon was no longer in that tent where sea winds stirred and sand gritted on a brown painted hawk. Instead he stood before that man of the Kolder in the heart of Sippar, willing him to open his closed eyes, to look upon him, Simon Tregarth, to stand to battle in a way not of bodies, but of wills and minds.

Those eyes did open and he stared into their dark pupils, saw lids raise higher as if in recognition, of knowledge of the menace which was using him as a gathering point, a caldron in which every terror and threat could be brought to a culminating boil.

Eyes held eyes. Simon’s impressions of the flat features, of the face, of the metal cap above it, of everything but those eyes, went, bit by bit. As he had sensed the flow of power out of his hand into the witch’s in Kars, so did he know that which boiled within him was being steadily fed by more heat than his own emotions could engender, that he was a gun to propel a fatal dart.

At first the Kolder had stood against him with confidence; now he was seeking his freedom from that eye-to-eye tie, mind-to-mind bond, knowing too late that he was caught in a trap. But the jaws had closed and struggle as he might the man in Gorm could not loosen what he had accepted in an arrogant belief in his own form of magic.

Within Simon there was a sharp release of all the tension. And it shot from him to that other. Eyes were fear-submerged by panic, panic gave way to abject terror, which burned in and in until there was nothing left for it to feed upon. Simon did not have to be told that what he faced now was a husk which would do his bidding as those husks of Gorm did the bidding of their owners.

He gave his orders. The Guardian’s power fed his; she watched and waited, ready to aid, but making no suggestions. Simon was certain of his enemy’s obedience as he was of the life burning in him. That which controlled Gorm would be crippled, the barrier would go down, as long as this tool worked unhindered by his fellows. Estcarp now had a robot ally within the fortress.

Simon lifted his head, opened his eyes, and saw the painted board where his fingers still clasped the Guardian’s about the feet of the small figure. But that manikin was no longer perfect. Within the hollow of the metal cap the head was a shapeless blob of melted wax.

The Guardian loosened her clasp, drew back her hand to lie limp. Simon turned his head, saw on his left a strained and blanched face, eyes dark smudged, as she who had centered the power upon Aldis fell back in her seat. And the lady before her was also head ravaged.

That image named for Fulk of Verlaine lay flat and Briant was huddled in upon himself, his face hidden in his hands, his lank, colorless hair sweat-plastered to his skull.

“It is done.” The silence was first broken by the Guardian. “What the Power can do, it has done. And this day we have wrought as mightily as ever did the blood of Estcarp! Now it is given to fire and sword, wind and wave, to serve us if they will, and if men will use them!” Her voice was a thin thread of exhaustion.

She was answered by one who moved to the board to stand before her, accompanied by the faint clink of metal against metal which marked a man in full war gear. Koris carried on his hip the hawk crested helm; now he raised the Ax of Volt.

“Be sure, lady, that there are men to use each and every weapon Fortune grants us. The beacons are lighted, our armies and the ships move.”

Simon, though the earth under his feet had a tendency to sway when he planted his feet upon it and levered himself up, arose. She who had sat on his left moved quickly. Her hand went out, but it did not touch his before it fell back upon the board once more. Nor did she put into words that denial he could read in every tense line of her body.

“The war, now completed according to your Power,” he spoke to her as if they were alone, “is of the fashion of Estcarp. But I am not of Estcarp, and there remains this other war which is of my own kind of power. I have played your game to your willing, lady; now I seek to play to mine!”

As he rounded the table to join the Captain, another arose and stood hesitating, one hand on the table to steady him. Briant regarded the image before him and his face was bleak, for the figure, though fallen, was intact.

“I never claimed the Power,” he said dully in his soft voice. “And in this warfare it would seem I have been a failure. Perhaps it will not be so with sword and shield!”

Koris stirred as if he would protest. But the witch who had been in Kars spoke swiftly:

“There is a free choice here for all who ride or sail under Estcarp’s banner. Let none gainsay that choice.”

The Guardian nodded agreement. So the three of them went out from the tent on the sea shore: Koris, vibrant, alive, his handsome head erect on his grotesque shoulders, his nostrils swelling as if he scented more than sea salt in the air; Simon, moving more slowly, feeling a fatigue new to his overdriven body, but also buoyed by a determination to see this venture to its end; and Briant, settling his helm over his fair head, coiling the metal ring scarf about his throat, his eyes straight ahead as if he were driven, or pulled, by something far greater than his own will.

The Captain turned to the other two as they reached the boats waiting to pull out to the ships. “You come with me on the flagship, for you, Simon, must serve as a guide, and you—” he looked to Briant and hesitated. But the youngster, with a lift of chin and stare of eye which was a challenge, met that appraisal defiantly.

Simon sensed something crosswise between the two which was of their own concern as he waited for Koris to meet that unvoiced defiance. “You, Briant, will put yourself among my shield men and you will stay with them!”

“And I, Briant,” the other answered with something approaching impudence, “shall stay at your back, Captain of Estcarp, when there is good cause to do so. But I fight with my own sword and wield my own shield in this or any other battle!”

For a moment it seemed that Koris might dispute that, but they were hailed from the boats. And when they splashed through the surf to board, Simon noted that the younger man took good care to keep as far from his commander as the small craft allowed.

The ship which was to spearhead the Estcarp attack was a fishing vessel and the Guards were jammed aboard her almost shoulder to shoulder. The other mismatched transports fell in behind her as they took to the bay waters.

They were close enough to see the fleet rotting in Gorm harbor when the hail from the Sulcar vessels crossed the water and the trading ships with their mixed cargo of Falconers, Karsten refugees, and Sulcar survivors rounded a headland to draw in from the sea side.

Simon had no idea of where he had crossed the barrier on his flight from Gorm, and he might be leading this massed invasion straight into disaster. They could only hope that the Game of Power had softened up the defense in their favor.

Tregarth stood at the prow of the fishing smack, watching the harbor of the dead city, waiting for the first hint of the barrier. Or would one of those metal ships, protected past any hope of attack from Estcarp, strike at them now?

Wind filled their sails, and, overladen as the ships were, they cut the waves, keeping station as if drilled. A hulk from the harbor, still carrying enough rags aloft to catch the wind, its anchor ropes broken, drifted across their course, a wide collar of green weed lying under the water line to slow it.

On its deck there was no sign of life as it bore on its wallowing way. From a Sulcar ship arched a ball, rising lazily into the air, dropping down to smash upon the deck of the derelict. Out of that ragged hole in the planking came red tongues of clean flame, feasting avidly on the tinder dry fittings, so the ship, burning, drifted on to sea.

Simon grinned at Koris, a brittle excitement eating at him. He could be sure now that they were past the first danger point.

“We have overrun your barrier?”

“Unless they have moved it closer to land, yes!”

Koris rested his chin on the head of Volt’s Ax as he surveyed the dark fingers of wharves before what had once been a flourishing city. He was grinning too, as a wolf shows its fangs before the first slash of the fight.

“It would appear that this time the Power worked,” he commented. “Now let us be about our part of the business.”

Simon knew a twinge of caution. “Do not underestimate them. We have but passed the first of their defenses, perhaps their weakest.” His first elation was gone as quickly as it had come. There were swords, axes, dart guns about him. But in the heart of the Kolder keep was a science centuries ahead of such weapons — which might at any moment produce some nasty surprise.

As they came farther into the harbor, faced now by the need for finding passage to the wharves in and among the vessels moldering at anchor, there continued to be no sign of any life in Sippar. Only some of the brooding and forbidding silence of the dead city fell upon the invaders, dampening their ardor, taking a slight edge off their enthusiasm and their feeling of triumph at having passed the barrier.

Koris sensed that. Working his way back through the mass of men waiting to be landed, he found the captain of the ship and urged a quick thrust at the shore. Only to be reminded tartly that while the Captain of Estcarp’s Guard might be all powerful on land, he should leave the sea to those who knew it, and that the master of this particular ship had no intention of fouling his vessel with any of the hulks before them.

Simon continued to eye the shoreline, studying the mouth of each empty street, glancing now and then aloft to that blind hulk which was the heart of Sippar in more ways than one. He could not have said just what he feared — a flight of planes, an army emerging from the streets to the quays. To be met by nothing at all was more disconcerting than to face the high odds of Kolder weapons carried by hordes of their slaves. This was too easy, and he could not find full faith in the Game of Power; some core of him refused to believe that because a small image had ended with a melted head, they had defeated all that lay in Gorm.

They made the shore without incident, those of Sulcar landing farther down the coast to cut off any reinforcements which might be drawn from other points on the island. They scouted up the streets and lanes down which Simon had come days earlier, trying locked doors, investigating dark corners. But as far as they could discover nothing lived nor moved within the husk of Gorm’s capital.

And they were well up to the center hold when the first resistance came, not from the air, nor from any invisible wave, but on foot with weapons in hand as the men of this world had fought for generations.

Suddenly the streets were peopled with fighters who moved swiftly, but without sound, who voiced no battle cries, but came forward steadily with deadly purposes. Some wore the battle dress of Sulcarmen, some of Karsten, and Simon saw among them a few of the bird helms of Falconers.

That silent rush was made by men who were not only expendable, but who had no thought of self-protection, just as those in the road ambush had fought. And their first fury carried them into the invasion force with the impact of a tank into a company of infantrymen. Simon went to his old game of sniping, but Koris charged with the Ax of Volt, a whirling, darting engine of death, to clear a path through the enemy lines, and another back again.

The slaves of the Kolder were no mean opponents, but they lacked the spark of intelligence which would have brought them together to reform, to use to better advantage their numbers. They knew only that they must attack while any strength was left in them, while they still kept on their feet. And so they did, with the insane persistence of the mindless. It was sheer butchery which turned even the veteran Guardsmen sick while they strove to defend themselves and to gain ground.

Volt’s Ax no longer shone bright, but, stained as it was, Koris tossed it in the air as a signal for the advance. His men closed ranks leaving behind them a street which was no longer empty, though it was without life.

“That was to delay us.” Simon joined the Captain.

“So do I think. What do we expect now? Death from the air such as they used at Sulcarkeep?” Koris looked into the sky, the roofs above them gaining his wary attention.

It was those same roofs which suggested another plan to his companion.

“I do not think you will be able to break into the hold at ground level,” he began and heard the soft rumble of laughter from within the Captain’s helm.

“Not so. I know ways herein which perhaps even the Kolder have not nosed out. This was my burrow once.”

“But I have also a plan,” Simon cut in. “There are ropes in plenty on the ships, and grappling hooks. Let one party take to the roofs, while you search out your burrows, and perhaps we can close jaws upon them from two sides.”

“Fair enough!” Koris conceded. “Do you try the sky ways since you have traveled them before. Choose your men, but do not take above twenty.”

Twice more they were attacked by those silent parties of living-dead, and each time more of their own men were left as toll when the last of the Kolder-owned were cut down. In the end the Estcarp forces parted ways. Simon and some twenty of the Guard broke in a door and climbed through the miasma of old death to a roof. Tregarth’s sense of direction had not betrayed him; the neighboring roof showed a ragged hole, the mark of his landing in the plane.

He stood aside for the sailors who cast their grapples to the parapet of that other roof above their heads and across an expanse of street. Men tied their swords to them, made sure of the safety of their weapon belts, eyed that double line across nothingness with determination. Simon had recruited none who could not claim a good head for heights. But now when he faced the test he had more doubts than hopes.

He made that first ascent, the tough rope scraping his palms as he climbed, putting a strain on his shoulders he believed from moment to moment he could not endure.

The nightmare ended sometime. He uncoiled a third rope from about his waist, and tossed its weighted end back to the next man in line, taking a turn with the other end around one of the pillars supporting the hangar and helping to draw him up.

Those planes he had disabled stood where he had left them, but open motor panels and scattered tools testified to work upon them. Why the job had not been finished was another mystery. Simon told off four men to guard the roof and the rope way, and with the rest began the invasion of the regions below.

The same silence which had held elsewhere in the town was thick here. They passed along corridors, down stairs, by shut doors, with only the faint sound of their own quiet tread to be heard. Was the hold deserted?

On they went into the heart of the blind, sealed building, expecting at any moment to encounter one of the bands of the possessed. The degree of light grew stronger; there was an undefinable change in the air which suggested that if these levels were deserted now it had not long been so.

Simon’s party came to the last flight of stone steps which he remembered so well. At the bottom that stone would be coated with the gray walling of the Kolders. He leaned out over the well, listening. Far, far below there was a sound at last, as regular in its thump, thump as the beat of his own heart.

VI THE CLEANSING OF GORM

“Captain,” Tunston had moved up to join him, “what do we meet below?”

“Your foreseeing in that is as good as mine,” Simon answered half absently, for it was in that moment that he realized he did not sense any danger to come at all, even in this strange place of death and half life. Yet there was something below, or they would not hear that.

He led the way, his gun ready, taking those steps cautiously, but at a fast pace. There were closed doors which were locked against their efforts to open them, until they came into the chamber of the wall map.

Here that beat arose from the floor under their feet, was drummed out by the walls, to fill their ears and their bodies with its slow rhythm.

The lights on the map were dead. There remained no line of machines on the table, tended by gray-robed men, though metal fastenings, a trailing wire or two marked where they had rested. But at that upper table there still sat a capped figure, his eyes closed, immobile, just as Simon had seen him on his first visit to this place.

At first Simon believed the man dead. He walked to the table watching the seated Kolder alertly. To his best knowledge this was the same man whom he had tried to visualize for the artist of Estcarp. And he was fleetingly pleased at the accuracy of his memory.

Only — Simon halted. This man was not dead, though those eyes were closed, the body motionless. One hand lay upon the control plate set in the table top and Simon had just seen a fingertip press a button there.

Tregarth leaped. He had an instant in which to see those eyes open, the face beneath the metal twist in anger — and perhaps fear. Then his own hands closed upon the wire which led from the cap the other wore to the board in the wall behind. He ripped, bringing loose several of those slender cables. Someone cried out a warning and he saw a barreled weapon swing into line with his body as the Kolder went into action.

Only because that cap and its trailing veil of wire interfered with the free action of he who wore it was Simon to continue to live. He slapped out with his dart gun across the flat face with its snarling mouth which uttered no sound, its stark and hating eyes. The blow broke skin, brought blood welling from cheek and nose. Simon caught the other’s wrist, twisting it so that a thin film of vapor spurted up into the vault of the ceiling, and not into his own face.

They crashed back into the chair from which the Kolder had risen. There was a sharp snap, fire flashed across Simon’s neck and shoulder. A scream, muted and suppressed rang in his ears. The face beneath its sweep of blood was contorted with agony, yet still the Kolder fought on with steel-muscled strength.

Those eyes, larger, and larger, filling the hall — Simon was falling forward into those eyes. Then there were no more eyes, just a weird fog-streaked window into another place — perhaps another time. Between pillars burst a company of men, gray robed, riding in machines strange to him. They were firing behind them as they came, unmistakably some remnant of a broken force on the run and hardly pressed.

In a narrow column they struggled on, and with them he endured desperation and such a cold fury as he had not known existed as an emotion to wrack mind and heart. The Gate — once through the Gate — then they would have the time: time to rebuild, to take, to be what they had the will and force to be. A broken empire and a ravaged world lay behind them — before them a fresh world for the taking.

The beset fugitives were swept away. He saw only one pallid face flushed red about a wound where his first blow had landed. Clinging about them both was the smell of scorching cloth and flesh. How long had that vision of the valley lasted — it could not have been a full second! He was still fighting, exerting pressure so that he might crack the other’s wrist against the chair. Twice he struck it so, and then the fingers relaxed and the vapor gun fell out of their grip.

For the first time since that one scream the Kolder made a sound, a broken whimpering which sickened Simon. A second fading vision of those fleeing men — a moment of passionate regret which was like a blow to the man who involuntarily shared it. They thrashed across the floor to bring the Kolder up against a spitting wire. Simon slammed the other’s metal cap hard against the floor. For the last time a fragment of recognition reached from the man to him and in that scrap of tune he knew — perhaps not what the Kolder were — but from whence they had come. Then there was nothing at all, and Simon pulled away from the flaccid body to sit up. Tunston stooped and tried to pull the cap from the head which rolled limply on the gray-robed shoulders. They were all a little daunted when it became apparent that that cap was no cap at all, but seemingly a permanent part of the body it crowned.

Simon got to his feet. “Leave it!” he bade the Guard. “But make sure none touch those wires.”

It was then that he was aware that that throb in wall and floor, that feeling of life was gone, leaving behind it a curious void. The Kolder of the cap might himself have been the heart, which, ceasing to beat, had killed the citadel as surely as his race had killed Sippar.

Simon made for the alcove where the elevator had been. Had all power ceased so that there was no way to reach the lower levels? But the door of the small cell was open. He gave command here to Tunston, and taking two of the Guardsmen with him, pushed the door shut.

Again luck appeared to be with those out of Estcarp, for the closing of the panel put into action the mechanism of the lift. Simon expected to front the level of the laboratory when that door opened once again. Only, when the cage came to a stop, he faced something so far removed from his expectations that for a moment he stood staring, while both of the men with him exclaimed in surprise.

They were on the shore of an underground harbor, strongly smelling of the sea and of something else. The lighting which had prevailed elsewhere in the pile was centered upon a runway washed by the water on both sides, pointing straight out into a bowl of gloom and dark. And on that quay were the tumbled bodies of men, men such as themselves with no gray robes among them.

Where the living dead who had met them in the street battles had gone armed and fully clad, these were either naked or wore only the tattered rags of old garments about their bodies, as if a need for clothing had no longer concerned them for a long time.

Some had crumpled beside small trucks on which boxes and containers were still heaped. Others lay in line as if they had been marching in ranks when struck down. Simon walked forward and stooped to peer at the nearest. It was clear that the man was truly dead, had been so for a day at least.

Gingerly, avoiding the heaped bodies, the three from Estcarp made their way to the end of the quay, finding nowhere among the dead any armed as fighting men. And none were of Estcarp blood. If these had been the slaves of the Kolder, they were all of other races.

“Here, Captain.” One of the Guards lagging behind Simon had halted beside a body and was looking at it in wonder. “Here is such a man as I have never seen before. Look at the color of his skin, his hair; he is not from these lands!”

The unfortunate Kolder slave lay on his back as if in sleep. But his skin, totally exposed save for a draggle of rag about his hips, was a red-brown, and his hair was tightly curled to his scalp. It was plain that the Kolder had cast their man nets in far regions.

Without knowing why, Simon walked clear to the end of that wharf. Either Gorm had originally been erected over a huge underground cavern, or the invaders had blasted this out to serve their own purposes, purposes Simon could only believe were connected with the ship on which he had been a prisoner. Was this the secluded dock of the Kolder fleet?

“Captain!” The other Guard had tramped a little ahead, uninterested in the bodies among which he threaded a fastidious path. Now he stood on the end of that tongue of stone beckoning Simon forward.

There was a stirring of the waters; waves lapped higher on the wharf, forcing all three men to retreat.

Even in that limited light they could see something large rising to the surface.

“Down!” Simon snapped the command. They did not have time to return to the lift; their best hope was to play one with the bodies about them.

They lay together, Simon pillowing his head on his arm, his gun ready, watching the turmoil. Water spilled from the bulk of the thing. Now he could make out the sharp bow with its matching needle stem. His guess had been right: this was one of the Kolder ships come to harbor.

He wondered if his own breathing sounded as loud as that of his men beside him did to him. They were more fully clothed than the dead about them; could sharp eyes pick out the gleam of their mail and nail them with some Kolder weapon before they could move in defense?

Only that silver ship, having once surfaced, made no other move at all, rolling in the waves within the cavern as if it were as dead as the bodies. Simon watched it narrowly and then started, as the man beside him whispered and touched his officer’s arm.

But Simon did not need that admonition to watch. He, too, had sighted that second boiling upheaval of waves. In those the first ship was pushed toward the quay. It was plain now that she answered no helm.

Hardly daring to believe that the vessel was unmanned, they still kept in hiding. It was only when the third ship bobbed into sight and sent the other two whirling with the force of its emergence, that Simon accepted the evidence and got to his feet. Those ships were either unmanned or totally disabled. They drifted without guidance, two coming together with a crash.

No openings showed on their decks, no indications that they carried crews and passengers. The story that the quay told was different, however. It suggested a hasty loading of vessels, intended to attack, or to make a withdrawal from Gorm. And had only an attack been the purpose would the slaves have been killed?

To board one of those floating silver splinters without preparation would be folly. But it would be best to keep an eye upon them. The three went back to the cage which had brought them there. One of the ships struck against the wharf, sheered it off, and wallowed away.

“Will you remain here?” He asked a question of his men rather than gave an order. The Guard of Estcarp should be inured to strange sights, but this was no place to station an unwilling man.

“Those ships — we should learn their secrets,” one of the men returned. “But I do not think they will sail out from here again, Captain.”

Simon accepted that oblique dissent. Together they left the underground harbor to the derelicts and the dead. Before they took off in the cage, Simon inspected its interior for controls. He wanted to reach some level where he might contact Koris’ party, not return to the hall of the map once again.

Unfortunately the walls of that box were bare of any aid to direction. Disappointed they closed the door behind them waiting to be returned aloft. As the vibration in the wall testified to their movement, Simon recalled vividly the corridor of the laboratory and wished he could reach it.

The cage came to a stop, the door slid back, and the three within found themselves looking into the startled faces of other men, armed and alert. Only those few seconds of amazement saved both parties from a fatal mistake, for one of the group without called Simon’s name and he saw Briant.

Then a figure not to be mistaken for any but Koris shouldered by the others.

“Where do you spring from?” he demanded. “The wall itself?”

Simon knew this corridor where the Estcarp force was gathered: the place he had been thinking of. But why had the cage brought him here as if in answer to his wish alone? His wish!

“You have found the laboratory?”

“We have found many things, few of which make any sense. But not yet have we found any Kolder! And you?”

“One of the Kolder and he is now dead — or perhaps all of them!” Simon thought of the ships below and what they might hold in their interiors. “I do not believe that we have to fear meeting them here now.”

Through the hours which followed Simon was proved a true prophet. Save for the one man in the metal cap, there was no other of the unknown race to be discovered within Gorm. And of those who had served the Kolder there were only dead men left. Found, those were in squads, in companies, or by twos and threes in the corridors and rooms of the keep. All lay as they had dropped, as if what had kept them operating as men had suddenly been withdrawn and they had fallen into the nothingness which should have been theirs earlier, the peace which their masters had denied them.

The Guards found other prisoners in the room beyond the laboratory, among them some who had shared captivity with Simon. These awoke sluggishly from their drugged sleep, unable to remember anything after they had been gassed, but thanking such gods as each owned that they had been brought to Gorm too late to follow the sorry path of the others the Kolder had engulfed.

Koris and Simon guided Sulcar seamen to the underground harbor, and in a small boat, explored the cavern. They found only rock wall. The entrance to the pool must lie under surface, and they believed it had been closed to the escape of the derelict ships.

“If he who wore the cap controlled it all,” surmised Koris, “then his death must have sealed them in. Also, since he is the one you battled from afar through the Power, he might have already been giving muddled orders to lead to confusion here.”

“Perhaps,” Simon agreed absently. He was thinking of what he had learned from that other in his last few seconds of life. If the rest of the Kolder force were sealed into those ships, then indeed Estcarp had good reason to rejoice.

They got a line to one of the vessels and brought it alongside the wharf. But the fastenings of the hatch baffled them and Koris and Simon left the Sulcarmen to puzzle it out, returning to the keep.

“This is another of their magics.” Koris slid the door of the lift closed behind them. “But seemingly one the capped man did not control, seeing as how we can use it now.”

“You can control this as well as he ever did,” Simon leaned back against wall, weariness washing over him.

Their victory was inconclusive; he had an inkling of the chase yet before him, but would those of Estcarp believe what he had to tell them now? “Think upon the corridor where you met me, picture it in your mind.”

“So?” Koris pulled off his helm; now he set his shoulders against the opposite wall and closed his eyes in concentration.

The door opened. They looked out upon the laboratory corridor and Koris laughed with a boy’s amusement at an exciting toy.

“This magic I can work also, I, Koris, the Ugly. It would seem that among the Kolder the Power was not limited only to women.”

Simon closed the door once again, pictured in his mind the upper chamber of the wall map. Only when they reached that did he answer his companion’s observation.

“Perhaps that is what we now have to fear from the Kolder, Captain. They had their own form of power, and you have seen how they used it. This Gorm may now be a treasure house of their knowledge.”

Koris threw his helm on the table below the map, and leaning on his ax regarded Simon levelly.

“It is a treasure house you warn against looting?”

He picked that out quickly.

“I don’t know,” Simon dropped heavily into one of the chairs, and resting his head on his fists, stared down at the surface on which his elbows were planted.”I am no scientist, no master of this kind of magic. The Sulcarmen will be tempted by those ships, Estcarp by what else lies here.”

“Tempted?” Someone had echoed that word and both men looked around. Simon got to his feet as he saw who seated herself quietly a little from them, Briant beside her as if playing her shieldman.

She was helmed and in mail, but Simon knew that she could disguise herself with shape-changing and still he would know her always.

“Tempted,” again she repeated. “Well do you choose that word, Simon. Yes, we of Estcarp shall be tempted; that is why I am here. There are two edges to this blade and we may cut outselves on either if we do not take care. Should we turn aside from this strange knowledge, destroy all we have found, we may be making ourselves safe, or we may be foolishly opening a way for a second Kolder attack, for one cannot build a defense unless he has a clear understanding of the weapons to be used against him.”

“Of the Kolder,” Simon spoke slowly, heavily, “you will not have to fear too much. There was but a small company of them in the beginning. If any escaped here, then they can be hunted back to their source and that source closed.”

“Closed?” Koris made a question of that.

“In the last struggle with their leader he revealed their secret.”

“That they are not native to this world?”

Simon’s head swung around. Had she picked that out of his mind, or was that some information she had not seen fit to supply before?

“You knew?”

“I am not a reader of minds, Simon. But we have not known it long. Yes, they came to us — as you came — but, I think, from other motives.”

“They were fugitives, fleeing disaster, a disaster of their own making, having set their own place aflame behind them. I do not think that they dared to leave their door open behind them, but that we must make sure of. The more pressing problem is what lies here.”

“And you think that if we take their knowledge to us the evil which lies in it may corrupt. I wonder. Estcarp has lived long secure in its own Power.”

“Lady, no matter what decision is made, I do not think that Estcarp shall remain the same. She must either come fully into the main stream of active life, or she must be content to withdraw wholly from it into stagnation, which is a form of death.”

It was as if they two talked alone and neither Briant nor Koris had a part in the future they discussed. She met him mind to mind with an equality he had not sensed in any other woman before.

“You speak the truth, Simon. Perhaps the ancient solidity of my people must break. There shall be those who will wish for life and a new world, and those who shall shrink from any change from the ways which mean security. But that struggle still lies in the future. And it is only a growth of this war. What would you say should be done with Gorm?”

He smiled wearily. “I am a man of action. Out of here I shall go to hunt down that gate which the Kolder used and see that it is rendered harmless. Give me orders, lady, and they shall be carried out. But for the time being I would seal this place until a decision can be made. There may be an attempt on the part of others to take away what lies here.”

“Yes. Karsten, Alizon, both would relish the looting of Sippar.” She nodded briskly. Her hand was at the breast of her mail shirt and she drew it away with the jewel of power in it.

“This is my authority. Captain,” she spoke to Koris. “Let it be as Simon has said. Let this storehouse of strange knowledge be sealed, and let the rest of Gorm be cleansed for a garrison, until such time as we can decide the future of what lies here.” She smiled at the young officer. “I leave it in your command, Lord Defender of Gorm.”

VII A VENTURE OF NEW BEGINNINGS

A dusky red spread slowly up from the collar of Koris’ mail shirt, reaching the line of his fair hair. Then he answered and the bitter lines about his well-cut mouth were deep, adding years to his young face.

“Are you forgetting, lady,” he brought the blade of Volt’s Ax down flatwise on the table with a clang, “that long ago Koris the Misshapen was driven from these shores?”

“And what happened to Gorm thereafter, and to those who did that driving?” she asked quietly. “Have any said ‘misshapen Captain of Estcarp’?”

His hand tightened on the haft of his weapon until the knuckles were white and sharp. “Find another Lord Defender for Gorm, lady. I swore by Noman that I would not return here. To me this is a doubly haunted place. I think that Estcarp has had no reason to complain of her Captain; also I do not believe this war already won.”

“He is right, you know,” Simon cut in. “The Kolder may be few, most of them may be trapped in those ships below. But we must trace them back to their gate and make sure that they do not consolidate shattered forces to launch a second bid for rulership. What about Yle? And do they have a garrison in Sulcarkeep? How deeply are they involved in Karsten and Alizon? We may be at the beginning of a long war instead of grasping victory.”

“Very well,” she stroked the jewel she held. “Since you have such definite ideas, become governor here, Simon.”

Koris spoke swiftly before Tregarth could answer.

“To me that is a plan to which I agree. Hold Gorm with my blessing, Simon, and do not think that I shall ever rise in the name of my heritage to take it from you.”

But Simon was shaking his head. “I am a soldier. And I am from another world. Let dog eat dog as the saying goes — the Kolder trail is mine.” He touched his head; if he closed his eyes now he knew he would see not darkness but a narrow valley through which angry men fought a rearguard action.

“Do you venture into Yle and Sulcarkeep and no farther?” Briant broke silence for the first time.

“Where would you have us go?” Koris asked.

“Karsten!” If Simon had ever thought the youth colorless and lacking in personality he was to doubt his appraisal at that moment.

“And what lies in Karsten which is of such moment to us?” Koris’ voice held an almost bantering note. Yet there was something else beneath the surface of that tone which Simon heard but could not identify. There was a game here afoot, but he did not know its purpose or rules.

“Yvian!” The name was flung at the Captain like a battle challenge and Briant eyed Koris as if waiting to see him pick it up. Simon glanced from one young man to the other. As it had been earlier when he and the witch had talked across the board, so was it now: these two fenced without thought of their audience.

For the second time red tinged Koris’ cheeks, then ebbed, leaving his face white and set, that of a man committed to some struggle he hated but dared not shirk. For the first time he left the Ax of Volt lying forgotten on the table as he came swiftly about the end of the board, moving with that lithe grace which always contrasted with his ill-formed body.

Briant, a queer expression of mingled defiance and hope giving life to his features, waited for his coming, stood still as the Captain’s hands fell on his shoulders in a grip which could not have been anything but bruising.

“This is what you want?” the words came from Koris as if jerked one by one by torture.

At the last moment perhaps Briant tried to evade. “I want my freedom,” he replied in a low voice.

Those punishing hands fell away. Koris laughed with such raking bitterness that Simon protested inwardly against the hurt that sound betrayed.

“Be sure, in time, it shall be yours!” The Captain would have stepped away if Briant had not seized in turn upon Koris’ upper arms with the same urgency of hold the other had shown earlier.

“I want my freedom only that I may make a choice elsewhere. And I have decided upon that choice — do you doubt that? Or is it again that there is an Aldis who has the power I cannot reach for?”

Aldis? A glimmering of what might be the truth struck Simon.

Koris’ fingers were under Briant’s chin, turning the thin young face up to his. This once was the Captain able to look down and not up at a companion.

“You believe in sword thrust for sword thrust, do you not?” he commented. “So Yvian has his Aldis; let them have the good of each other while they may. But I think that Yvian has made a very ill choice of it. And since one ax made a marriage, another may undo it!”

“Marriage in the gabble gabble of Siric only,” flashed Briant, still a little defiant, but not struggling in the Captain’s new hold.

“Need you have told me that,” Koris was smiling. “Lady of Verlaine?”

“Loyse of Verlaine is dead!” Briant repeated. “You get no such heritage with me, Captain.”

A tiny frown line appeared between Koris’ brows. “That you need not have said either. Rather is it that such as I am must buy a wife with gauds and lands. And never afterwards be sure of the bargain.”

Her hand whipped from his arm to his mouth, silencing him. And there was red anger in both her eyes and her voice when she replied:

“Koris, Captain of Estcarp need never speak so of himself, least of all to a woman such as I, without inheritance of lands or beauty!”

Simon moved, knowing that neither were aware of the other two in that room. He touched the witch of Estcarp gently on the shoulder and smiled down at her.

“Let us leave them to fight their own battle,” he whispered.

She was laughing silently after her fashion. “This talk of mutual unworthiness will speedily be a step to no talking at all and so to a firm settlement of two futures.”

“I take it that she is the missing heiress of Verlaine, wedded by proxy to Duke Yvian?”

“She is. By her aid alone I came scatheless out of Verlaine, I being captive there for a space. Fulk is not a pleasant enemy.”

Afire to every shade of her voice, Simon’s smile became grim.

“I think that Fulk and his wreckers shall be taught a lesson in the near future; it will curb their high spirits,” he commented, knowing well her way of understatement. It was enough for him that she admitted she owed her escape from Verlaine to the girl across the room. For a woman of the Power such an admission hinted of danger indeed. He had a sudden overwhelming desire to take one of the Sulcar ships, man it with his mountain fighters, and sail southward.

“Doubtless he shall,” she agreed to his statement concerning Fulk with her usual tranquillity. “As you have said, we are still in the midst of a war, and not victors at the end of one. Verlaine and Karsten, too, shall be attended to in their proper seasons. Simon, my name is Jaelithe.”

It came so abruptly, that for a full moment he did not understand her meaning. And then, knowing the Estcarpian custom, of the rules which had bound her so long, he drew a deep breath of wonder at that complete surrender: her name, that most personal possession in the realm of the Power, which must never be yielded lest one yield with it one’s own identity to another!

As Koris’ ax lay on the table, so she had left her jewel behind her when she had moved apart with Simon. For the first time he realized that fact also. She had deliberately disarmed herself, put aside all her weapons and defenses, given into his hands what she believed was the ordering of her life. What such a surrender had meant to her he could guess, but only dimly — and that he knew also, awed. He felt as stripped of all talents and ability, as misshapen, as Koris deemed himself.

Yet he moved forward and his arms went out to draw her to him. As he bent his head to hers, searching for waiting lips, Simon sensed that for the first time the pattern had changed indeed. Now he was a part of a growing design, his life to be woven fast with hers, into the way of this world’s. And there would be no breaking it for the remainder of his days. Nor would he ever wish to.