would depend in the air.
“More wine, Nath, by the ice needles of Ullarkor, more wine!”
I had feathered shafts into men like these and seen them screech and swing out to dangle from that restraining harness, the clerketer.
Each of these — Nath and Bargo — carried himself with a swagger, that was clear enough. On a bench near them lay the leem pelts with which they kept warm in flight. Their long narrow swords were tucked up, thrusting, important, intended to scare and impress by their very angles of attack when seen against the chunky body, the blunt head and those close-set narrow eyes, that luxuriant mane of indigo hair. I judged the time was ripe.
I entered the room very fast, and struck Nath upon that mane of indigo hair with the hilt of my sword, so that he dropped to the stone and blood burst from his nostrils and mouth. To the one called Bargo I showed the sword point, pushed against the leather over his heart. I leaned on the blade and it punctured leather and skin. Bargo’s square harsh mouth clamped down. He glared at me, and there was death in my face, and he read it there, and he scowled back in savage defiance.
“Where is the prisoner, Bargo?” I spoke roughly, yet in a normal voice. I believe that frightened him more.
He gave me back look for look; then he lowered indigo-stained eyelids over his eyes and said:
“Below-”
The wild leap of my heart must be quelled, instantly. .
There were no other occupants of the guardroom. Leaning against the wall behind the opened door stood two of the bamboo-hafted, gladius-bladed, and single-edge bitted toonons, the personal weapon of the Ullars, favored by them over all others when in the air. Each bamboo haft was twelve feet in length; with a two-handed grip on that, well-spaced, an Ullar could wield a wide swath of destruction about him in the air. The idea of carrying a short sword aloft was incongruous and ludicrous; what the Ullars had done was to mount the short sword upon this extended haft, reinforce it with a single ax-edge, narrow and deeply curved, and thus bring swordplay into a semblance of possibility aboard the back of a bird, albeit they had in reality constructed a kind of halberd.
Bargo’s narrow and deeply-set eyes were focused upon my sword as its point thrust against the leathers over his chest. He wore a brave gold-laced sash about his waist. His legs, clad in the bound leather and cloth that gave him protection when in flight, were quivering. I knew that a moment’s relaxation of watchfulness with him would be enough; he would be upon me like a plains leem.
“Lead, Bargo.” Again I spoke almost normally.
The only precaution I took with him as I shifted the sword so that he could precede me from the guardroom was to relieve him of his sword. The blade was exceptionally long and thin. It was steel, flexible, keen, suited to the kind of blows a man must deliver if he fights from impiter back. I threw it down into a corner. I fancied my Krozair long sword would overmatch these impiter blades. Bargo’s torch sputtered redly.
As we walked steadily down the winding stairs noises hitherto unheard became audible at the lower level. The distant sound of laughter, shouting, music from the single-bagpipes and the wilder, melancholy strains wrenched from the triple-bagpipes; I could even hear, I fancied now and then, the chink of bottles and the rattle of the dice cups, the tinkle of money. We went down the stairs in perfect silence. Bargo understood that his life meant nothing to me.
So confident was I of success that I could worry about Seg now, and hope he could keep clear of the impiter patrols the Ullars would have flying about Plicla.
The stones were old with that distinctive Rapa odor upon them still. We entered a corridor where dust lay thickly, marked by a central trail of darker footprints. At each cell door the dust lay undisturbed, at each one — save one!
To this Bargo unhesitatingly led.
“Open it, Bargo.”
This he did, in silence, with the keys from his belt; great clumsy wooden keys they were, each a good nine inches in length, cunningly cut from lenk. The door opened, creaking. I looked inside, my emotions held tightly under, and-
An old man rose from his filthy bed of straw, gazing up with weak eyes, blinking, his near-lipless wrinkled mouth working, trying to distinguish us in the torchlit gloom.
“I have told you, and told you,” he said in a voice that quavered as much from age as fear. “I cannot do it — you must believe me, Umgar Stro — there are some things forbidden and some things impossible for the Wizards of Loh.”
I took Bargo by the front of his leather tunic and I lifted his feet from the floor. My sword point nestled into his throat. He was very near death, then, and he knew it.
“Where is she, you fool? The prisoner, the girl — tell me, quickly!”
He gargled. He managed to spit out words. “This is the prisoner! By the snow-blind feister-feelt, I swear it!”
“There is another, rast! A girl — the fairest girl you have ever seen. Where?
He shook his head weakly, and his blunt snout wrinkled with his fear. His indigo hair hung lankly down his shoulders.
“There is no other!”
I threw him down and my sword struck like a risslaca; but in the instant of striking I turned the blade so that the flat took him across the head and he pitched forward and lay still without uttering a sound.
“You are not of the Ullars, Jikai.” The old man stood more firmly now, clutching his rags about him. His eyes in the random light from the fallen torch caught reflections and glowed like spilled wine drops in the wrinkled map of his face. His nose was long and narrow, his lips nonexistent, and the hair that wisped about his temples was still as red as any man of Loh’s. It looked blue-black in that half light, but I knew it was red.
“Have you seen another prisoner, old man, a girl, a girl so wondrous-”
He shook that head and I wondered why it did not creak as the cell door had creaked.
“There is only me, Lu-si-Yuong. Have you means to escape from this accursed tower, Jikai?”
“Yes. But I do not go without the girl for whom I came.”
“Then you will spend eternity here.”
In all the clamor of thoughts echoing in my skull I think I knew, then, that Delia was not here.
“You have been here long, old man?”
“I am Lu-si-Yuong, and you address me as San.”[3]
I nodded. The title of San was ancient and revered, bearing a meaning akin to master, dominie, sage. Clearly, this representative of the Wizards of Loh not only considered himself an important personage, but was indeed truly so. I do not mind using a title when it is earned.
“Tell me, San, please. Have you any knowledge of the girl captured by Umgar Stro and brought to this tower?”
“I, alone, of the prisoners was spared. The Ullars know of the powers of the Wizards of Loh and they thought to avail themselves of my services. All the other prisoners were slain.”
I stood there, I, Dray Prescot, and heard this old sage’s thin voice whispering words that meant the end of everything of importance to me in two worlds.
I wanted to leap forward and choke a denial from his narrow mouth, to grip his corded throat in my two hands and wrench words I must hear from him. I think he saw my distress, for he said, again: “I cannot help you in this, Jikai. But I can help in — other — ways if you will rescue me-”
For a moment I could not answer him, could not respond. My Delia — surely, she could not have been so wantonly killed? It did not make sense — who could callously snuff out so much beauty?
San Young was whispering again, bending stiffly to pick up Bargo’s spluttering torch. “They revel tonight, below. There are many of them, fierce, bold barbarians of the skies. To fight your way through them, Jikai, is a superhuman task-”
“We go up,” I said, and I was short with him. All my instincts clashed there, in that cobwebby tower cell of Umgar Stro, torturing me with indecision, with doubt, with a mad and futile rage. She must be here!
She must! But everything pointed to the opposite being true. This Wizard — why should he lie? Except, to cozen me into rescuing him!
I faced him. He had recovered his composure now, had drawn himself up so that the torchlight flowed over
