"If we can stay alive that long." Fatigue had made the woman sharp. "There's something crazy about this place. We've been walking for miles and seem no closer now than we did at the start. Maybe we'll never get closer. We could be moving in a giant circle."

"No," said Dumarest. "Not that."

"Then why are we so far? We-" She broke off and then said, wonderingly. "Look, Earl. Birds."

"The first we have seen," said Yalung quietly. "But -are they birds?"

They came from the direction in which they were head shy;ing, winged motes against the sky, wheeling and circling before swooping down at the travelers. There was something odd about them. Dumarest watched as they came, eyes like jewels and feathers rustling like metal, wide wings throwing shadows on the ground. They were big, their wings ex shy;tended fully twenty feet, their bodies as long as the height of a man. Their beaks were glinting spears and their clawed feet stretched as if to engulf barrels. From halfway down their bodies stretched limbs ending in long, prehensile finger-like claws. Three of them landed just ahead, the rest circling watchfully above.

The guardians?

Dumarest studied them as they stood, wings folded, ap shy;parently waiting. Mutated biological mechanisms, he thought, fed on a diet heavy in metallic oxides and silicon. That would account for the rasping of the feathers, the sparkling gleam of bone and scale. Multilimbed creatures produced in order to fly, to walk, to grip and tear. Or perhaps they were a natural sport of this peculiar world. It didn't matter. To resist them would be suicide.

"They are barring our path," said Yalung. "A warning?"

"We can't turn back!" Lallia's voice held near-hysteria. "Earl, we can't turn back!"

Dumarest looked at the other winged shapes circling over shy;head. Reenforcements, perhaps, if they should somehow manage to overcome the three ahead. With lasers they could have killed them all but they had no weapons aside from his knife. And, even if they could have destroyed the birds, would that end their danger?

Slowly he walked forward to stand before the three silent images. They were like statues of burnished metal and shin shy;ing crystal, the idols of some ancient temple, utterly remote from human comprehension. The light of the rising sun shone redly from their eyes, beyond them the enigmatic shimmer quivered in the silent air.

Dumarest said, "We are survivors of a wrecked vessel. We wish to go to the field, there to obtain passage from this world."

A voice, cold, emotionless, echoed wordlessly in his mind, in the minds of them all.

"It is understood. Do not resist."

Wings lifted, flexed as they beat the air, the rustle of feathers a tintinnabulation. Lallia gasped as she was picked from the ground, hair flying as she turned in the grip of prehensile fingers. Yalung was next, his yellow face impassive as he was carried away. Dumarest followed, feeling the firm grip on his body, the sighing rush of air past his face. Around the three the other birds formed an escort as they first climbed then leveled in whispering flight.

Far below the ground swept past like an unrolling carpet.

The bushed plain, dotted with tiny lakes few and far be shy;tween. A circle of spine-bearing trees, a swampy morass suc shy;culent with livid grasses steaming with oozing mud, a rear shy;ing mound of stone surrounding a mass of scree and then, finally, a thick growth of timber at the side of which rested the unmistakable expanse of a landing field.

It swelled as they plummeted towards it, the bare ground torn and scarred from the impact of tremendous energies, tiny figures working to level the surface. Dumarest looked at them as the ground hit his feet and the bird which had carried him winged away. They were simple creatures with wide jaws and spadelike forepaws, clawed feet and a flat tail. Where they passed freshly turned soil rested flat and smooth behind them.

He lifted his eyes. The perimeter fence was high and stronger than any he had previously seen. A mesh of thick bars fifty feet high, so close that it was almost a solid wall. A single gate broke it where it faced the expanse of timber beyond.

As Dumarest watched it opened and a figure passed through.

"God!" Lallia's voice was a whisper at his side. "Earl, what is it?"

"A guardian." Yalung had no doubt. "One of those the navigator mentioned. It can be nothing else."

From the tip of the cowl to the hem of the trailing robe the figure was twelve feet tall, incredibly broad, the figure bulking beneath the muffling robe of glinting metallic fiber. The face was shadow in which transient gleams of varie shy;gated color flashed and died in winking splendor. The hands, if the creature had hands, were hidden in wide sleeves. There were no signs of feet or locomotive appendages.

Dumarest had the impression that the thing was entirely unhuman. That the robe was worn for concealment and that the figure bulking beneath was completely alien.

Again the cold, emotionless voice echoed wordlessly in his mind.

"You have come to the Place. You are welcome"

"Thank you," said Dumarest quickly before the others could answer. "We had misfortune. Our vessel crashed on some hills far from here. It was kind of you to send your servants to give us aid."

The birds could be nothing else. They shared the alien shy;ness of the tall figure but they could not be the masters. Nothing could be the master of the enigmatic being which stood before them. It was wrapped in an aura of power al shy;most as tangible as the metallic robe covering its body.

Yalung stirred and said, "We require little. Some food and water while we wait for the arrival of a ship to carry us from this world."

Lallia added, "And somewhere to bathe. Is that possible?"

Colored sparkles flashed and died in the shadow of the cowl.

"In the Place all things are possible. Ask and you shall be given."

The figure turned and glided towards the open gate, the mystery of the area beyond. Dumarest followed, the others just behind.

He stepped into a cathedral.

X

it was a place of mystery and awe-inspiring majesty, the still air hanging like incense, tiny motes of dust glinting in the shadowed sunlight like tiny candles set before incredible altars. Dumarest felt Yalung bump into him, heard Lallia's low voice at his side.

"Earl," she said. "It's beautiful!"

A wide avenue stretched before them, floored with soft, close-cropped grass and flanked by the slender boles of soar shy;ing trees. They reared like columns, a tuft of branches high overhead fanning to meet and form a natural arch through which streamed the ruby light of the sun. Ahead, shadowed in the distance, more columns sprang from the tended soil, circling a clearing about an indistinguishable structure, a boulder, perhaps, an outcrop of natural stone wreathed and hung with living garlands.

Down the avenue, diminished in the distance, the tall figure of the strange Guardian, seemed to flicker and then to abruptly vanish.

Slowly Dumarest walked down the avenue.

It was the pilgrim's way, he guessed, the path which those seeking the miracle of healing followed as they made their way to the holy place. There would be attendants to carry those unable to walk, others to help those who could barely stand, a motley thronging of deformity and pain each united by a common hope. But now there was nothing but the three of them, the quiet susurration of their footsteps on the springy grass, the sound of their breathing.

And it was warm, the temperature that of living blood.

"Earl." Lallia turned to him, her face beaded with per shy;spiration. "I can't stand this heat. I've got to get rid of these clothes."