"Not so!"

"You speak that like an Oath of Heart Blood, Ioque. Look out when below where that went out the window if you still tremble with fears. Bring your heel down on its head—"

"But, High One, was it not your saying that this creature might bring to us what we want? Did not the scout swear that the thing belonged to him we have been tracing?"

"At least your memory works, Ioque. But deal with it as you will. We no longer need it."

"How—?"

"With ease." Once more the voice went even higher as if to address a party. "Thus!"

Farree fell to his knees as if his bones had suddenly turned too soft to supply any support. As before he was helpless in the clutch of something invisible which enfolded him both without and within.

It was Maelen who caught and steadied him, once more with her hands on his shoulders. While from the fingers of those hands there poured into him new energy. With a gasp he stiffened and clung in spirit to what she gave him.

There was a new battle in him. He must seek the source of this weakness—if he crawled on his hands and knees to do so—which was a dark urging, and meet it with what remnants of power he still possessed, awakened and armed by Maelen as she fed into his mind belief in his ability.

The room was gone, as if wiped away by a giant hand. He was caught up in a swirl of color, and somehow that in itself made him able to think—or feel—or—what was it—a dream?

There were winged ones in the air. As they dipped and soared or alighted near him he felt a vast peace—or perhaps only the shadow of it—that he was a part of an enduring something which had no failure—which had been, was, and ever would be!

He could not see the faces of those who danced with and on the wind; there seemed ever to be a glittering mist which enshrouded them when he looked too closely. Yet he did not doubt that he was one of them and that this was his own place. He strove to use his own wings, to mount and become a true part of their game, or dance, or the ceremony which he knew was of great meaning and needed only concentration to give up a truth greater than anything he had known before.

How long was he in that place of color, life, and peace? If it were only a moment or two then it possessed a kind of energy which itself vanquished time—the time which ruled the world he knew.

There came a sudden flurry and the winged ones gathered together to face him as if they had but that moment become aware that he was there.

From them came wind-carried bands of color. These swirled around him yet did not touch his body. Instead they wove a pattern as among them spun in turn bits of gutter. This glitter did not float purposelessly but rather came to hang unsupported in the air until he looked upon something which was a distinct pattern and about which there glowed light of another kind, green and white. Each of the bits were stilled in turn and hung quietly before him while he knew, though he did not know why, that this was a thing he must use—

The color, the place, the dancers—gone! What had he seen—with his eyes, or with his mind? He could not have said. But he knew that what he had seen did exist; and there was growing now a new ache within him, an ache like the hunger his body had once known which had come to be a part of him, in the dark days of his previous life.

"Come—" Who said that? One of the winged ones whom he could not see? Or was it an actual voice in his ears? Come—to that place—Yes, with all his heart he would reach for it now.

He was suddenly as aware of a force restraining his body as he had been of the place beyond the darkness. But this was not a holding within him as that other had been, but rather the pressure of hands upon him. He blinked and then blinked again and saw that he was back in the room where Maelen stood behind him, Zoror before, looking down at him with what could only be concern in his large green-gold eyes. The terrible fatigue which had struck Farree was gone. Rather he was filled with an eagerness to be gone—where he was not yet sure, only that he must answer that new hunger which had come.

Without his willing it his right hand twitched. His hand rose and the index finger pointed to the door while the brand the scarf had left on his flesh warmed and there seemed to be even a faint glow from it. "What—" Vorlund spoke first.

"No!" Zoror shook his head, his neck frill extended to its full extent. "There will be time later for questions and answers. For now we shall find us a way back, one that no eyes shall light upon when we take it. You can go?" He addressed that last to Farree.

Shaking a little the other stirred in Maelen's hold. Her hands moved to help to draw him back to his feet.

He shook his head a fraction and fought for steadiness, for the world about him had a tendency to heave and to flicker. "I can go—but there is Togger."

"Call now," the Zacanthan returned. Farree sent forth that mental signal which had so long made a bridge between his mind and that of the smux. He hardly dared believe that he would be answered. Yet there came to him a clearer signal than any he had used to locate his companion before this evening.

"Out—wait—out. Big one—throw through hole—out—" A longer message than he had ever received and yet one he was certain was true meant, not sent to entice him into the hands of those others.

Vorlund had gone to the door. Now he opened it a crack and stood listening, perhaps for both any sound and with his mind for a hint that they were facing trouble once more. Looking over his shoulder he nodded and slipped quickly into the hall beyond.

There was no one to be heard or sensed. However, Vorlund did not withdraw to the stairs, as Farree saw as they followed the spacer. Rather he slipped along the wall towards the closed door of that other chamber. Maelen reached out and tapped Zoror on the wrist but the Zacanthan was already on his way. As they all wore soft-soled foot coverings and not the heavy metal-soled boots of the space borne, they did not raise a whisper of sound.

Once more Zoror planted his spy disc against the other door and stood statue still, the others as frozen behind him. Then with a quick nod he lingered the door itself and that portal opened, letting them look into a larger room. There was a slit of a window and through that came not only the seething smells of this muck heap, but also the sound of the settlement which was more alive at night than by day.

At first Farree thought the room was empty and he wondered how the inhabitants had gotten past their own hiding place without revealing their passage. Then he came two steps in on Maelen's heels and saw the crumpled body by the far wall. The man's face was swollen and flushed purple on one cheek, his eyes fastened in their direction. Dead eyes! It would seem that Togger's defense against this particular enemy had struck nearly twice as potently as Farree had ever seen it before.

The dead man held no interest for Vorlund. He was across the room in a hurry, edging by the body and coming to the wall against which it huddled. His hands were out and he traced with arm sweeps and the tops of his fingers that barrier itself.

"A hidden door, yes," Zoror nodded. "Though I would say he is long gone."

"Do we go hence also?" Maelen wanted to know. The Zacanthan reached above and beyond Vorlund's shoulder to rasp his talons along that stained and crumbling surface.

"I think not."

"Togger—" Farree had no intention of withdrawal until he was sure of the smux's safety. He certainly could have been flung through that slit of a window but that did not mean that he would otherwise be hidden from harm where he to fall to the way below.

Thought might have been a shout in summons. There was a hump which appeared at the sill of that window and the smux clambered through, taking off in one of the leaps his kind could make when they were forced to it. He reached Farree and a moment later was clinging to his chest, all but two of the spike-mounted eyes retreating into cover.