there was no other of the unknown race to be discovered within Gorm. And of those who had served the Kolder there were only dead men left. Found, those were in squads, in companies, or by twos and threes in the corridors and rooms of the keep. All lay as they had dropped, as if what had kept them operating as men had suddenly been withdrawn and they had fallen into the nothingness which should have been theirs earlier, the peace which their masters had denied them.
The Guards found other prisoners in the room beyond the laboratory, among them some who had shared captivity with Simon. These awoke sluggishly from their drugged sleep, unable to remember anything after they had been gassed, but thanking such gods as each owned that they had been brought to Gorm too late to follow the sorry path of the others the Kolder had engulfed.
Koris and Simon guided Sulcar seamen to the underground harbor, and in a small boat, explored the cavern. They found only rock wall. The entrance to the pool must lie under surface, and they believed it had been closed to the escape of the derelict ships.
“If he who wore the cap controlled it all,” surmised Koris, “then his death must have sealed them in. Also, since he is the one you battled from afar through the Power, he might have already been giving muddled orders to lead to confusion here.”
“Perhaps,” Simon agreed absently. He was thinking of what he had learned from that other in his last few seconds of life. If the rest of the Kolder force were sealed into those ships, then indeed Estcarp had good reason to rejoice.
They got a line to one of the vessels and brought it alongside the wharf. But the fastenings of the hatch baffled them and Koris and Simon left the Sulcarmen to puzzle it out, returning to the keep.
“This is another of their magics.” Koris slid the door of the lift closed behind them. “But seemingly one the capped man did not control, seeing as how we can use it now.”
“You can control this as well as he ever did,” Simon leaned back against wall, weariness washing over him.
Their victory was inconclusive; he had an inkling of the chase yet before him, but would those of Estcarp believe what he had to tell them now? “Think upon the corridor where you met me, picture it in your mind.”
“So?” Koris pulled off his helm; now he set his shoulders against the opposite wall and closed his eyes in concentration.
The door opened. They looked out upon the laboratory corridor and Koris laughed with a boy’s amusement at an exciting toy.
“This magic I can work also, I, Koris, the Ugly. It would seem that among the Kolder the Power was not limited only to women.”
Simon closed the door once again, pictured in his mind the upper chamber of the wall map. Only when they reached that did he answer his companion’s observation.
“Perhaps that is what we now have to fear from the Kolder, Captain. They had their own form of power, and you have seen how they used it. This Gorm may now be a treasure house of their knowledge.”
Koris threw his helm on the table below the map, and leaning on his ax regarded Simon levelly.
“It is a treasure house you warn against looting?”
He picked that out quickly.
“I don’t know,” Simon dropped heavily into one of the chairs, and resting his head on his fists, stared down at the surface on which his elbows were planted.”I am no scientist, no master of this kind of magic. The Sulcarmen will be tempted by those ships, Estcarp by what else lies here.”
“Tempted?” Someone had echoed that word and both men looked around. Simon got to his feet as he saw who seated herself quietly a little from them, Briant beside her as if playing her shieldman.
She was helmed and in mail, but Simon knew that she could disguise herself with shape-changing and still he would know her always.
“Tempted,” again she repeated. “Well do you choose that word, Simon. Yes, we of Estcarp shall be tempted; that is why I am here. There are two edges to this blade and we may cut outselves on either if we do not take care. Should we turn aside from this strange knowledge, destroy all we have found, we may be making ourselves safe, or we may be foolishly opening a way for a second Kolder attack, for one cannot build a defense unless he has a clear understanding of the weapons to be used against him.”
“Of the Kolder,” Simon spoke slowly, heavily, “you will not have to fear too much. There was but a small company of them in the beginning. If any escaped here, then they can be hunted back to their source and that source closed.”
“Closed?” Koris made a question of that.
“In the last struggle with their leader he revealed their secret.”
“That they are not native to this world?”
Simon’s head swung around. Had she picked that out of his mind, or was that some information she had not seen fit to supply before?
“You knew?”
“I am not a reader of minds, Simon. But we have not known it long. Yes, they came to us — as you came — but, I think, from other motives.”
“They were fugitives, fleeing disaster, a disaster of their own making, having set their own place aflame behind them. I do not think that they dared to leave their door open behind them, but that we must make sure of. The more pressing problem is what lies here.”
“And you think that if we take their knowledge to us the evil which lies in it may corrupt. I wonder. Estcarp has lived long secure in its own Power.”
“Lady, no matter what decision is made, I do not think that Estcarp shall remain the same. She must either come fully into the main stream of active life, or she must be content to withdraw wholly from it into stagnation, which is a form of death.”
It was as if they two talked alone and neither Briant nor Koris had a part in the future they discussed. She met him mind to mind with an equality he had not sensed in any other woman before.
“You speak the truth, Simon. Perhaps the ancient solidity of my people must break. There shall be those who will wish for life and a new world, and those who shall shrink from any change from the ways which mean security. But that struggle still lies in the future. And it is only a growth of this war. What would you say should be done with Gorm?”
He smiled wearily. “I am a man of action. Out of here I shall go to hunt down that gate which the Kolder used and see that it is rendered harmless. Give me orders, lady, and they shall be carried out. But for the time being I would seal this place until a decision can be made. There may be an attempt on the part of others to take away what lies here.”
“Yes. Karsten, Alizon, both would relish the looting of Sippar.” She nodded briskly. Her hand was at the breast of her mail shirt and she drew it away with the jewel of power in it.
“This is my authority. Captain,” she spoke to Koris. “Let it be as Simon has said. Let this storehouse of strange knowledge be sealed, and let the rest of Gorm be cleansed for a garrison, until such time as we can decide the future of what lies here.” She smiled at the young officer. “I leave it in your command, Lord Defender of Gorm.”
VII
A VENTURE OF NEW BEGINNINGS
A dusky red spread slowly up from the collar of Koris’ mail shirt, reaching the line of his fair hair. Then he answered and the bitter lines about his well-cut mouth were deep, adding years to his young face.
“Are you forgetting, lady,” he brought the blade of Volt’s Ax down flatwise on the table with a clang, “that long ago Koris the Misshapen was driven from these shores?”
“And what happened to Gorm thereafter, and to those who did that driving?” she asked quietly. “Have any said ‘misshapen Captain of Estcarp’?”
His hand tightened on the haft of his weapon until the knuckles were white and sharp. “Find another Lord
