Fragon again occupied the throne of dusky crystal. He might not have moved since Farree had last seen him. There were others gathered about, some finding perches among the lighter crystal outgrowth. He saw Selrena seated so. Her head was upheld but her eyes were closed. On one side of her Maelen was also seated and she held one of the Darda's slim hands between the two of hers. Her eyes were open but there was a remoteness about her face which suggested that she had fastened thought elsewhere.

At their feet was Atra, so removed from the others of her race; they were clustered in a burst of color apart from the center of the cave chamber, their wings folded, their attention on the three they did not approach.

Well to the other side of Fragon's chosen seat stood the Beast Mask, but for the first time Farree saw that mask thrown back, to lie along the shoulders as a limp hood. The features so disclosed were not entirely unlike those of the Darda, save that the skin was dark—greyish—like unto Fragon's, and this was no skull head. That dark skin was puffed and so distended on the cheeks that the eyes seemed very small and near hidden by the rolls of the unpleasant-looking flesh. There was no hair on the puffy ball of the head. Male or female? Farree could not be sure. He felt an instant disgust and beyond that—fear. This one was as powerful as Fragon in his or her own way.

The other Darda, Vestrum, and his flutist were missing. However, even as Farree stepped into the crystal lighting, so did Zoror enter from another angle. He laid down the power conductor which he had carried up the slopes and, doing so, noticed Farree first, beckoning to him. Of Vorlund there was no sign; perhaps his mission to their own ship was not yet finished.

Atra opened her eyes, meeting Farree's with a strong compelling stare as if she had been waiting for him. Farree paused. She edged away from Maelen and Selrena, to cross the cavern toward Farree and the Zacanthan. Her torn and filthy clothing had long since been changed for a short robe of creamy white, girdled with a mesh belt of silver into which had been set small gems of green-blue. A circlet of the same material held her hair in place at the nape of her slender neck.

Farree noted that in her coming to him she made a short detour which took her away from close contact with the other winglings, those whose wings pulsed, rose or blue or yellow. Nor did he escape picking up a flash of thought—just as he had found himself aloof from their company so, it would seem, she, too, had been placed in exile. That she had been released from any enemy mind bond, he was sure, or she would not have been here. However, the shadow of what had been done to her, and through her unto others, still wrapped her in.

There was a small flare of anger in Farree. He moved out from beside the Zacanthan and held out both his hands in a welcome he had not consciously meant until that moment. Her delicate hands, still dark with bruises and rent by seams of scratches, lay palm downward for a moment, resting on his, and into his mind sang words.

"Welcome. Greater that the Seven Deeds of Malfor has been yours! We thought that the days of the Thrice Named were gone." For the first time she glanced away, her eyes sweeping over those of the company which were the closest. "Tallen can we of the Langrone claim, and Asdir, Tullusa, and Rond. You have joined a high and fair company, kinsman!"

At those names, very faint and broken memories stirred in him. He shook his head.

"You do me too much honor, kinswoman. It was not my own powers that I used." His hands dropped from hers and went to his belt to indicate what the smiths and Vorlund had made for him. "The Langrone—" He hesitated. What would it be to her that that word did not mean kin to him—that it was but a name?

"A name, yes." The words were in his mind. "And perhaps only a name—for the clan is gone. See?" She nodded towards the winglings in their ranks. Then her hand went up and smoothed the edge of one of her own wings and he caught her meaning. That color was not to be seen among the others gathered here, save in his own pinions.

"Lanquar and Lis, Lystal and Loyn." When she beamed him those names he knew them even as he would have known something long set in his mind. "But Langrone have no more to answer, unless those by the Far Rim scattered in time. And of those how many were there?" She held up one hand between them and extended the very slender fingers, once and then again.

In his mind he saw what she had willed—a threatening mountain, rock bare and radiating from it a gloom which was a leaden weight upon the heart. If any of the kin had been driven or had fled despairingly there—

"They have not answered the call—"

Farree was startled by that other mind voice breaking in almost harshly upon his thoughts. It was a wingling who wore red-white wings, and he had left his own people to come to them. Farree could sense no congratulation, nothing but a forbidding chill in his words.

"If they come not at the Great Summons, then they are either dead or overshadowed by thought far and faint. You have no true kin, Glasrant."

"So do you wish it!" flashed Atra. "Who closed the upper flight to Amassa when she was heavy with child? Who sent forth the Doom Singers in that hour?"

"What had to be done, was done. Sometimes one dies for many—"

"That I have heard before." This roused Farree. "Was it not that very thought which this kin-sister"—his hand touched Atra's shoulder and almost he gasped, for that touch had united him with a source of warmth he had not known could exist: it had nothing of the burn of fire but was rather a caressing, a healing—"Was it not that same thought which held you all," he began again, "when this sister lay in the hands of Them?"

"As bait—" the other returned. "Better she had taken up the fire metal and wreathed around—"

Farree moved. He stood between Atra now and the chief of Lystal, another scrap of memory supplying him with a use for that name.

"Do you speak now, Qua, for all?" he asked, narrow-eyed. Though he still felt apart from these who appeared so like himself, he was also aroused that they seemed so uneager to welcome him either. That denial angered him even more. Granted that he was mind blind, so he could not remember when he had been gathered close into the circle of kinship, warmed and sustained by this whole world. Yet that was a loss which he pushed aside. Nor could he fit into any other clan!

But that was it, he knew suddenly. There were the Lanquar and Lis, Lystal and Lyon– He saw them standing there. However, save for Qua, none had approached, nor was there any welcome mind send from them. Only Atra—

His hand slid down her arm to the wrist and there his fingers closed as if it were a matter of utmost importance that he keep her here. As it had been on the ship when he had depended on Vorlund's device, here was it now—she only was his anchorage and that which he had sought could be found only with and by her.

"I speak—" Qua hesitated and there was a shadow of a frown on his handsome face; his folded wings stirred a fraction as if he would expand them and so employ all the stature he could command. "Yes, I speak for all. You have both been within the shadow, the very hold of Them. They have blinded and bound you—therefore shall we not always wonder whether there can be any trust placed with you henceforth?"

"You speak well, Qua." Atra smiled coldly. "Have you in truth matched words with Slitha of Lis, Usern of Lystal, and Cambar of the Loyn?"

All the gathering of winglings was watching them now. Farree knew that those others had been following all which was said by mind touch. There was a stir among them at Atra's naming of names. Again his remnants of memory gave him what he needed. He did not wait for Qua to answer that, but instead took the lead for himself.