There was a burst of the flame within the globe, and all sight of Maelen was seared away. From somewhere sounded a piercing note, sharp and jarring, bearing no resemblance to the tinkling music of the flute; this was an alarm. The globe moved in Farree's hold, seeming almost to twist itself into freedom. It forced itself between his fingers and fell, not to the top of the table but to the floor beneath.

A thunderous sound followed. The ball had splintered at impact, shards flying. The light it had held vanished and the pieces on the floor turned a dull black as if a real fire had burned within it. Only for a moment or two they lay so, then crumbled, becoming a pile of dust. There puffed from those last remains a strong odor of burnt meat. Then that, too, was gone. Farree stood, his smarting hands to his mouth as he blew upon them, trying to abate the pain, though there was no sign of any burns on his flesh.

Suddenly there was more light, this time snapping into life in the clear crystal which had accompanied the murky one. This pulsed irregularly as once more sounded that piercing note. Farree dared not try to take the other one into his hands, but he leaned forward, staring into its flutter of light, striving with all his might somehow to summon again Maelen or the Zacanthan—to no avail.

However, the light began to take on form. He was again looking into eyes, but, though they were in a woman's face, they were not Maelen's. There was no age to her; she might have been young or old, for her skin was as fair as it was unmarked. What he could see of her hair was part of a dull brown braid which formed a crown above her wide brow. Her eyes were dark, so dark Farree could not have named their true color, while her lips were a brown-red, thin and tight at the corners. There was no brightness of welcome in her, only something of a faint expression which spoke of cold curiosity. Inwardly, Farree shivered. Even if he could not read her thoughts, there was a strangeness there. She was so alien he could not even think of a meeting mind to mind.

Still that was what followed, shaking him as if each word was a blow aimed at rocking him. Once more he saw only through a haze which clouded sight, and even cloaked his mind.

"You are not Langrone—" It was not a question but a statement. "Throstle?" That was a question but he had no time to answer it if indeed he could. Instead he felt as if he had been gathered up bodily and hurled through time and space in an instant.

Again he crouched in all his filth and rags against the wall in an alley of the Limits, suffering the hurt of Togger as the smux was disciplined by the master of that unsavory show of pitiful wild things beaten into submission. Once more Maelen and Vorlund came to him. Memory spun on—he was reliving in a series of flashes his life with those to whom compassion of the heart was abiding. He was in Yiktor seeking out some needful thing. There was Maelen about to fall from the mountain trail. His hand went forth once more, just as it had on that real moment in the past. He felt the split of that thick growth on his shoulders which had pressed him forward through all the time he could remember as one who went hump backed. He had a flashing moment of wonder once again, as that tightened, itching skin broke, releasing the wings he had never known he carried.

Once more he crouched in the stinking alley and now he was shot backwards from his meeting with the space people into the days before. He endured blows, starvation, all the evils one who was small and handicapped might know in the Limits. Now he arrived with a rush at the earliest memory of all—of looking out from his hiding place in Land's tent to watch the renegade spacer killed, which freed him from the first of his bonds.

Perhaps he screamed then—if so he did not hear his own cries. It was as if a great force was pushing him back against a wall which would not give, that he was about to be crushed, flattened against that hard surface. The force which inexorably thrust him so hard was crushing– He screamed again as pain burst in his head. Then, mercifully, he was in the dark—he was nothing within nothing and there was nothing—

"—Throstle?" Far away that sounded. "Selrena—"

"Tricks again. Do you doubt he should be dragon meat? Where is the globe of storms?"

Memory stirred, willing him back once again. There was an urgency to the attack upon him.

"He is empty—gone. It is of these others we must think now. In him there is no thought of harm—"

"You grow simple, Vestrum. Thoughts can be erased; they might also be inspired to confuse. We have learned much; through the same generations they have also. He is of the blood, yes. That could not be faked. But of what clan– Langrone? We can account for all of that kin."

"Atra has been brought to serve them. Why could this one not be shaped anew as she was?"

"His memories say that is not so. But you are right. Many things have been learned by those, our ancient enemies. We cannot count this one as any but a danger.

"He can be taken by the Hoads—"

There came a sense of outrage or strong denial.

"We do not waste the blood. What has come to you, Vestrum, that you would suggest that? Is it that the old blood has run so thin that we can think even as those do—to slay for safety? Do we not know of old that that would be a deed to break us forever apart?

"Are we then so great again that we can move mountains and roll up seas to confuse our enemies? If they have learned through the centuries, have we been in exchange dull of mind? Should he be their proposed key to our gate, then since he is in our hands let us study how they would use him. But he is not part of those in Dakar's Valley."

"True. So what do you make of this other ship?"

"Have you not read the answer to that, wrung out of this one?"

"They trouble the inner sight. There is among them such power as we have not found in the enemy for ages. They seek him now, their thoughts running here and there until they are a torment to all Listeners. It is true that they are not openly akin to the dark ones, and so far they remain a puzzle. It may be they who placed this one among us—"

"And he broke the Globe of Ummar."

There was a pause. In vain Farree tried to trace the thought pattern back to the last speaker, only to face a wall once more. There was a coldness in these words which shifted through to him—mind words. If they realized he could hear them, they did not care.

"You think then that that is what he was ordered to do?"

The asking came to him again, growing easier and easier to understand with every mind touch.

"There is no shadow of the Restless One on him. It might have been chance only—"

"If there is only a small doubt that it was not– Yes, you are right. Let him be prisoned—near the Hoad Ways. If he receives enough of their probing he will be weakened, the better for our purpose. Let it be done!"

That last was a sharp command. Farree expected some action on it, only he was aware of nothing at all. The darkness held him as tightly as if he were the meat within an uncracked nut shell. He was, however, gaining some strength of mind and that he hoarded. He could not understand the nature of the bonds which they had laid upon him. Yet it was plain he was again a helpless captive.

He was once more able to see by physical means, but dark first met his eyes. About him was a sourish smell, combined with that of fresh turned earth. For one moment of heart-thumping fear he thought he had been buried. Then, putting his body to the test, he strove to sit up and was able to do so. His upper wing curves scraped painfully along a rough surface and soil shifted down on his face from the hands he had put out to judge the size of his cell—if cell this was.