That mist fluttered, a thing now of ragged, dissolving wisps. It drew back to the mound which had been crowned, but no farther than that, changing the direction of its advance, pointing rather to the ground than to the ship beyond. Once more it was rebuilding in shape and strength.

"Cold iron! That is truth then!" Zoror's hand fell upon Farree's right shoulder. The Zacanthan may have yielded to the strike of the original beam but now his voice was full and deep again. He was, to all appearances, his old self as he leaned past Farree to blink out into the night.

"Cold iron?" Vorlund demanded. "What do you mean?"

"Mean?" Zoror's voice carried all the force of one who has chanced upon a long-hunted treasure. "That once more there is a kernel of truth lying snug within legend, brother. It was said many times of the Little People that the one weapon they could not circumvent nor withstand was iron itself—iron which made man the master of the worlds where, one after another, they disputed his lordship."

There was a moan which was closer to a sigh. Farree swung around. Vorlund was down on his knees now, supporting Maelen. By the ship's lights her face was pale and drawn. She might have lain for long in the hold of some illness. Then her eyes opened and she looked up at the Zacanthan.

"They have power—such as even a Singer cannot summon—"

Zoror nodded. "It was always said of them that they were not to be easily overcome. There is something here, though, which we do not know—why should they attack without warning when we mean no harm?"

"Because of me!" Farree said bitterly. "And I do not have the knowledge to be able to discover the why of that either." Once more that ache in his head strengthened. There was something—something to be done—and the need for doing it gnawed within him; only he knew not what it was or why he must do that unknown act.

"We are safe within here," Zoror glanced around at them, his gaze lingering a moment on each as if he measured their strength and abilities. "Let us rest the night in iron-governed safety and see what the morning will bring."

Farree, half blind again from the pain in his head, lurched obediently into the corridor beyond the port. Somehow he got down to the level of his own cabin and there collapsed into his hammock, aware of nothing more than that his body rested and perhaps his head might follow. One hand moved restlessly. His palm felt sticky and not knowing nor caring what he was doing he brought up his hand and licked at it, so gathering into his mouth what was left of the bruised leaves and berries of ill-bane. He chewed and swallowed that harvest. The pain which had been a tight band about his head eased. He slid, as he might have on the ramp had he lost his footing, down into darkness.

There was a great hall, and panels in its walls were a-glitter with light, cold light, in spite of the fact that some of the colors were the red and yellow of flames. The pavement underfoot was silver, perhaps even true blocks of that metal. He did not tread there so much as waft above it, yet he did not feel any expansion of his wings.

Between the glittering panels were others of the same silver as was underfoot. Those were wrought with patterns in high relief. Some depicted strange creatures such as the fire-breathing snake which had hunted him back to the valley. Others were humanoid in form, yet differed one from the other. There were bodies like his own, winged and plainly traveling aloft. But there were also other things, grotesque, some monstrously so, and more merely strange, exuding no menace, as did a few.

There were no torches or lamps within the room—the radiance seemed to flow from the flooring beneath. Then he became aware of swirls of a milky mist which was coiling and recoiling, reaching every time farther out into the middle of the chamber. From somewhere there sounded a single trilling note. Two of the pictured wall blocks vanished sidewise into the flanking wall and there entered two whose wings were furled about them like colorful capes, even as he himself went where he trod the earth.

One was slightly taller than the other; since the wings sprang from the shoulders, they concealed most of the body, and were of a deep crimson shading into a silver as glinting as the pavement. His head (for the features on that calm and nearly expressionless face were ruggedly masculine, with a seam of scar across one cheek) was held high and there seemed to be flickers of fire in his large eyes.

His companion was just as plainly female. Her enclosing wings were the delicate ivory of the ill-bane flower, but they were also touched with silver which glinted gem-bright as she moved. Her long hair was braided about her head and woven in among the pale yellow of those coils were gem-set threads. Once in the room she loosed the tight covering of her wings to show that she wore a short, form-clinging robe of pure silver, girded by a wide belt of gold and brown gems. To the first glance she might look like a girl only on the verge of womanhood, but when one saw more closely, especially her eyes, there were signs of years of knowledge.

The man moved on into the center of that hall, his wings, too, now rising. While his body, even to arms and legs, was hidden in a glossy red mesh, he wore about his narrow waist a wide belt of silver scales which supported a weapon; Farree recognized it from pictures in Zoror's collection: it was known as a sword. The man's hands played with the buckle of the belt and he was frowning, his eyebrows near drawn together by a scowl. Now he stood staring down at the pavement as if he might find on the surface some answer to a problem which troubled him.

His companion did not come so far into the room. She held up her head as might one who was searching the sky and it was plain that her attention was caught by something which she sought aloft. Before either of them moved farther or spoke, if they did speak aloud, there sounded another note of summons, this time a double one which might come from within the earth. Two more of the panels opened, but those who entered thus were very different from the first comers.

They were small and they were wingless. Their shoulders were hunched a little forward, almost as if they were used to walking ways where the roofs pressed closer to the footing.

Both arms and legs to the knees were bare, showing rough brown skin, wrinkled and pocked with small dark splotches. Their bodies were covered with clothing almost the same shade as their flesh. And, far from being beardless, the faces of both were covered from the cheek bones down with mats of crinkled yellow-white hair, thatches of the same apparently covering their heads, as tufts appeared under the edges of dingy, rust-red caps. Their features—large hooked noses and deep-set eyes—were nearly masked, and as they drew nearer together and came forward a few steps, there was the air of suspicion about them, as if they were far from easy in this place or with such company.

The winged man looked about and jerked his head in a nod which both the gnarled creatures echoed. However, the woman continued to look aloft, now turning her head as if so to view the whole of the large chamber. She took no note of the newcomers.

A third sound followed speedily on those which had brought the bearded ones. A last panel opened and there came through a masked figure who, because of its muffling, could not be clearly named man or woman. The mask has been made to cover the whole head, fastened at the shoulders on either side of the throat with dull brown brooches. It had been fashioned to resemble the head of a beast, even to a covering of bristles, like needle spikes, planted along the large pointed ears and across the back, as well as along the drooping jowls, which helped to form the face (if one might term it that). There was no true nose, only a snout above a half open mouth. Small eyes were dark pits on either side of that snout, and there had been set in place within the jaw a full showing of greenish-yellow teeth with a rounded fore-fang sprouting out both to the right and the left.