Dumarest blinked and they were gone, but the mist remained, a fleecy cloud of bluish gray illuminated by the soaring height of the inverted cone. A kaleidoscope, devoid of color, replacing it with moving form and substance, whisps and tendrils forming patterns and hinting at familiar objects.
Had those who built the city worshiped here? Had they streamed from their chambers to stand in the colonnade, eyes toward the center, attention focused, adoring the mist? There were stranger objects of adoration. On Yulthan men knelt before a mass of meteoric iron chanting to the accompaniment of murmuring gongs. On Kaldarah women praised a mighty tree and wore bells which tinkled with delicate chimings as they danced.
One man's meat was another man's poison. One man's cross was another man's treasure.
Was Marek right? Was the mist all there was to be found in the city?
If so, what of his hopes of finding the location of Earth?
'Earl!' The cry was a scream cutting the air with the impact of edged steel. 'Earl! For God's sake! No! No!'
Embira's voice carrying a raw terror. Dumarest jerked, turned, saw the edge of the colonnade fifty feet away, reached it at a run, the gun cradled in his arms. Sufan Noyoka glared at him, fighting with Marek's aid, to hold a struggling figure.
'Earl!' he panted. 'Quickly! The girl's gone mad!'
She was like a thing possessed, her body arching, muscles taut beneath the skin, a thin rill of spittle running from her mouth. Her blind eyes were wide, starting, her face disfigured with pain.
'Embira!' Dumarest reached her, touched her face, her throat. There was no time for drugs. Already the tension of her muscles threatened to snap bone and tear ligaments. His fingers found the carotids, pressed, cutting off the blood supply to the brain. Within seconds she slumped, unconscious, relaxing as she fell. 'What happened?'
'I don't know.' Sufan Noyoka dabbed at his face. The girl's fingernails had drawn deep furrows over his cheek. 'I'd woken and was getting food when suddenly she screamed and went mad.'
'Not mad.' Pacula eased the girl's limbs and drew hair from her face and eyes. 'She must have had an attack of some kind. I was getting water from one of the canteens when I heard her cry out. The rest you know.' Pausing, she said bleakly. 'Did you have to hurt her?'
'I didn't.'
'But the way you gripped! There are bruises on her throat!'
'She will wake feeling no worse than if she had fainted.' Dumarest looked at Cognez. 'Marek?'
'I must have been dosing. I woke when she screamed. Sufan had hold of her.' He added meaningfully, 'Maybe that's why she screamed.'
'A lie! It happened as I said!' Sufan Noyoka's voice grew ugly. 'Is this another of your attempts at humor, Marek? If it is I warn you now. My patience is exhausted. Try me further and I will-'
'Kill me?' Marek spread his arms in invitation. 'Then do it now. Do it-and then wonder how you are to escape this maze. Unless the girl recovers who else can guide you? And who will help to carry your treasure?' His laughter held a naked scorn. 'The treasure. Sufan, you don't have to kill me. I give you my share willingly.'
'That's enough!' snapped Dumarest. He stood, watching the others. 'Why did you wake, Sufan?'
'Why?' The man blinked, baffled by the question. 'Because I had rested long enough, I suppose.'
'Nothing woke you? No sound?'
'No, but if there had been anything surely you would have heard it. You were on watch, remember?'
'Pacula, were the canteens disturbed?'
'No, and I heard nothing. Like Sufan I woke because I had slept long enough.'
'It's five hours since I woke you Earl,' said Marek quietly. 'You should have called me to take my turn on watch.'
'Five hours?' Dumarest said. 'Pacula, have sedatives ready, Embira may need them when she recovers. Sufan, if you want food you'd better get it ready. Some for the others also.'
'And you, Earl?'
'I'm not hungry.' It was true, he felt both fed and rested and had no thirst. Even the dull ache of the bruised flesh of his back had vanished.
As Sufan broke food from the packs, crumbling concentrates into water which he placed over a heating element and breaking more from a slab, Pacula said, 'What caused it, Earl?'
'Embira?'
'Yes.' She glanced at the limp figure. 'A fit? A seizure of some kind? But what triggered it? If I thought Sufan was responsible I'd kill him.'
A cold statement of fact, the more chilling because spoken without emotion.
'He wasn't,' said Dumarest. 'She must have caught his face by accident. Perhaps she'd lowered her guard. She was afraid of something lying within the city. I told her to blank it out if she could, but she was asleep and maybe couldn't maintain her defenses.' He glanced at the girl as she stirred. 'Have those sedatives ready, Pacula. She might need them.'
'You could do her more good than drugs, Earl. She needs you.'
'Perhaps-but so does Usan.'
She lay like a broken doll, her breathing ragged, her face flushed with an unhealthy tinge. As Dumarest touched her she stirred, her eyes opening, the corners crusted with dried pus, her lips spotted with dried saliva. Incredibly she smiled.
'Earl! I was dreaming-how did you know?'
'Know what?'
'That I'd want you beside me when I woke.' Her voice was husky. 'A drink?'
She gulped the water he fetched her, leaning hard against his supporting arm. With a damp cloth he laved her face and cleared her eyes. The stench of her breath signaled inner dissolution. Aware of it she turned her face.
'Here.' He handed her the open locket. 'You'd better take something.'
'For the pain?' Her smile was a travesty of humor. 'I'm getting used to it, Earl. You don't have to worry about me.' Her eyes moved, settled on where Pacula knelt beside Embira. 'What happened to the girl?'
'A fit, maybe. She screamed and went into convulsions.'
Without comment she rose and climbed to her feet, to stand swaying for a moment, gaining strength with a visible effort. Beads of sweat stood on the sunken cheeks and droplets of blood showed beneath the teeth biting her lower lip.
'You're ill, Usan. You should rest.'
'I'm dying, Earl, and we both know it. When the drugs are gone I'll be in hell and they won't last much longer. Maybe you should do me a favor. A bullet, your knife-you know how to do it.'
'Kill you, Usan? No.'
'Why not? Would you deny me that mercy?' Her voice was hard. 'Would you?'
'If it was necessary, no.' His voice was equally hard. 'But you've too much courage to plead for death. What's happened to your spirit? The determination to survive? Have you forgotten that young and lovely body you hope to gain?'
'A dream, Earl and one that's fading. If I leave this place it will be only because you carry me. And then there is the Cloud and the journey to Pane and how will I pay the surgeons? With mist?'
'There could be something.'
'Under the mist? Perhaps.' Her fingers fumbled at the locket and she lifted pills to her mouth. 'Water, Earl?' She drank and waited for the drugs to take effect. It had been a heavy dose, too heavy for safety, but what did that matter now? 'Sufan, when do we search?'
He looked up from where he sat, a container in his hand, a spoon lifted halfway toward his mouth.
'Later, Usan, when we have eaten. Then I-'
'Not you, Sufan. Me. I must be the first. You'll not deny me that?'
Dumarest said, 'It could be dangerous.'
'If so the more reason I should go first. What have I to lose? Earl, arrange it.' Then, as he hesitated, she added quietly, 'Please, Earl. At least let me be sure there is hope.'
The danger lay in the unknown. The mist thickened toward the center of the area, forming an almost solid wall of writhing fog, and once within it orientation would be lost and the woman could wander until she dropped.
