Peace-peace between us, man of the Raski. No harm from me-I have tended your wound, perhaps given you life. Peace between you and me now-peace!
His hand relaxed, fell to lie limply on her breast. Another form of contact! Such could carry a greater charge than thought alone. Now his head bent forward farther into the light. The terrible mad grin which had stretched his mouth began to ease away. That dull stare of the eye which was completely visible changed. Deep in it, she was sure, shone a measure of intelligence.
Elossa gathered all her force for a final attack upon the thing buried in him.
Peace! Though the word was but thought, it held all the power of a shout.
His head jerked as it might from a blow in his face. Now that eye closed, his features went utterly slack as he fell across her, his weight pressing her painfully against the stone on which she lay.
Elossa tried the probe. The rage had drained out of him, or else it had been pushed so deep that she could not reach him without giving that insanity a new gateway to the surface. He lay unconscious-open. Now she could do what would give her an only chance.
Into that open mind she beamed a command. His body arose by degrees, not easily, rather as if he resisted her even though he had no control. She had implanted a single order, and that with all the strength left in her.
Wavering, he swung away from her sight. She thought from a faint sound he must have gone to his knees beside the slab she was prisoned on. There came a metallic sound like unto the click of a shot bolt, the turn of some reluctant locking device. The bands which held her slipped away and she sat up.
The Raski huddled beside that table (or perhaps it was an altar of sacrifice; she suspected that the latter was the truth). He did not stir to impede her as she slipped over the edge of the opposite side and stood up, feeling stiff and sore as if her ordeal in that place had lasted longer than she knew.
But she was unharmed and she was free! Though how long? If she went on her quest a second time, leaving him behind, what was the chance that he would not again be claimed by the spirit which had used his body to bring her down? Very great, Elossa thought. Therefore she dared not go and leave him behind, little as she wanted to take him with her.
She was again breaking custom and the Law of her clan to contemplate such action, yet she could see no choice other than killing a helpless man. That deed would bring on her such a burden of wrong doing that she would be changed irrevocably into someone who could never more be any but an outcast wanderer.
Rounding the table she caught the Raski’s head between her two hands, turned his face up into the dim light. The eyes were open, but without any spark of intelligence in them. His features seemed oddly shrunken as if some portion of his life force had drained away.
Elossa drew upon all remnants of her will. There were only remnants now, for the ordeal of her battle with the mad thing had near exhausted her. Holding him so, and looking down into his unseeing eyes, she loosed that which remained of her trained will in a second sharp command.
His body stirred. She held him fast for several breaths more, giving to this all she had left. Then, as she stepped back, he put his hands on the edge of the table altar. Bracing himself against that he got to his feet, stood, his blind eyes on her, his arms now dangling loosely by his side.
Then he turned, stumbling. On into the dark beyond the reach of the lamp he lurched, Elossa after him.
It would seem that this thick dark did not hinder him. She caught at one of the dangling tatters of the jerkin she had cut away from his body to tend his wound. With that tugging in her hand she could not lost contact.
She thought that they were traversing a passage underground, for a dank smell filled her nostrils. Then that ribbon of leather which united them pulled upward at a new angle. A moment later her toes stubbed against a step.
Up he climbed and she followed. The dark so pressed in upon them that it was an almost tangible thing. What if her hold on the Raski’s mind failed while they went this way, and the madness would possess him again here in the blackness? No, do not even think of that, for such thoughts could perhaps unloose in turn just that which she must keep at bay.
On and up-until at last they came to another level hallway. Ahead Elossa saw a grayish glimmer which gave her an instant of excitement and triumph. That must be a door to the outer world!
The Raski went more and more slowly. She read his reluctance. Still she did not try mind contact again. A probe, no matter how delicately used, could well break her hold on him.
They emerged from the fetid and musky darkness into the gray light of early day. Around them hunched the mounds, dark and menacing, like rog and sargon waiting to pull down those who invaded their jealously held territory.
With these so tall about her Elossa was not sure in what direction stood the dome which had drawn her here.
For a moment she hesitated. The Raski wavered on, free of the hold she had kept upon him in the dark ways. He did not turn his head or show any awareness of her. Elossa, with no better guide, came behind.
The mounds ceased abruptly to exist. Here instead was a section where the only signs of the one-time city were lines on the ground. Then even those ceased to be, and they were out in the open traversing an empty space.
Looming above was the dome, its surface dull in this subdued light The Raski stopped short. His hands came up with one swift movement to cover his eyes. It could be that he refused to look upon the structure ahead, that it implied a threat to which he had no answer.
Elossa caught him by the upper arm. He did not drop his hands nor look at her. Though when she strove to draw him on he resisted her feebly. She had to guide him for he did not change the position of that blindfold of flesh and blood he had raised.
So they came to the foot of the dome. Elossa dropped her hold on her companion. Now. . . . She licked her lips. Though she had not been told what she would find here, she had carried one aid in the quest. She had been given a single word and told that when the time came for its use she would know it.
The time was here-and now.
Raising her head high, the girl fastened her eyes upon the swell of the dome and cried aloud.
There was no meaning in the word-sound-at least none that she knew. The sound itself re- echoed in the air about her.
Then came the answer. First with a harsh grating as if long rusted or deep set metal moved against bonds laid by time. On the surface of the dome, well above her, appeared an opening. That continued to enlarge until wide enough to admit a body. From that doorway sounded another complaint of metal, continuing, as there issued out a curving strip like a tongue aimed to lick them up.
Elossa retreated warily, drawing the Raski with her. The tongue of metal, which had issued with such effort, now curved down, touched end to earth a little to her right. She saw that it was a stepped way. So was she bidden to enter.
Again she dared not release the man with her. What lay within the dome must be the great mystery of the Yurth. But to allow this one free, perhaps waiting as a receptacle for returning madness, would be like setting a weapon edge to her own throat.
She laid hands on him once more only to meet stronger resistance. He voiced a word in a voice so faint that it might have come from a far distance:
“No!”
As she pushed him to the foot of the ladder ramp, wondering how she could force him to climb if he set all his strength against her, he cried out, to be echoed hollowly:
“Sky devil! No!”
However, he was still subject enough to her mind-command that he could not escape and so began to climb, every tense line of his body arguing his struggle to be free. They went slowly. Elossa could see nothing beyond that opening. Nor did she try to use the mind- search to learn what might await them there.