With enough power to blast the place open, Lord-One Krip returned. Perhaps they will so trigger that as to destroy all of this wholly.

She shook her head. They want this too much. Or what they think it holds. Remember Sehkmet. They have traced us - some of them - believing we can uncover such another cache for their taking. Now on Tha.s.sa world they have found this. Their first defeat was a small one in their eyes. They will be ready to follow through.

Look you - Farree gave a tug to the rope against which he had been pitting his full strength - can you use this to swing across and land by the tower, then climb?

Lord-One Krip stood up and eyed the rope and its tower anchor with narrowed eyes. One can try.

His hand twitched the rope out of Farree's hold and bent its own strength in a grip which kept it taut, then jerked at it.

The rope held. He clasped it tightly and swung down and out across the treacherous pavement, descending so far that Farree was afraid his feet would sc.r.a.pe across the inlaid stones.

Then he was at the foot of the tower and was climbing. His feet set to the wall itself, his arms extending one above the other, he used the rope to raise him. They watched him, tense and frozen, until he was at the parapet and over. Then Farree leapt into the air and spanned the distance between them with the aid of his wings, caught the end of the rope, and bore it back to the Lady Maelen.

For the second time he witnessed the dangerous swing past the dead and saw her being drawn up by the man on the tower. He whirred across and was there to meet her.

For a long moment she leaned against the parapet until her breath steadied, but she was staring down at the patterns now revealed below her.

The third ring, she said slowly. These are markings very old - if I had time I could perhaps trace a key to this locking. But we must have Sotrath above us when we try.

Lord-One Krip looked to the sky. There are hours before we shall have that. They may well be back long before the third ring shines.

She shrugged. In that we must take our chance. If they Come - He will come. Farree knew that as well as if it had been announced out of the air above his head. Their leader will make this his own venture.

Lord-One Krip nodded. That it seems we must chance. If he is the regular Guild Veep he will make sure of his armament, of no more losses such as he has suffered here. And - Toggor suddenly turned from the place he had climbed to on the parapet, his eyestalks out to their full limit, his gaze on the sh.o.r.e from whence they had come. If Farree had caught that message, so had the Tha.s.sa. Beyond the maze ring of vegetation the enemy moved. Those who had followed them through the mountain were now prepared to batter a way through the tangled growth.

Yes. The Lady Maelen nodded. However - She, too, had wheeled about to face the growing barrier and now she planted both hands palm down on a curling line of vivid green set with yellow stars of gems which crawled toward them as part of the tower pattern. She knelt so, unable to see now above the parapet, though she faced in the same direction as Toggor.

Feed me! she commanded fiercely. Feed! The Lord-One Krip went down on one knee, his hand cupping the point of her shoulder, his other hand reaching out toward Farree. Not knowing just what was to be done, the winged man settled down, awkwardly now because of his wings, but placing one hand within those groping fingers which caught on his with a painful grasp.

Farree gasped. Something was being drawn from his body, flowing on to Lord-One Krip, then presumedly to the Lady Maelen. Her face was so tense and set the flesh seemed but a shallow covering to her bones. She began to sing, first in the low hum he had heard her use to force a path from the growth - then the notes scaled up, grew louder, some ringing out as if she had beaten a gong rather than used her voice to shape them. In the day she sang - would the power without the moon answer?

Though Farree had knelt to take Lord-One Krip's hand, he could see above the parapet against which his shoulder rubbed. Suddenly it was as if a storm cloud had released a wave of wind instead of water. The growth tossed. He could see branches move, vines writhe, some even appearing to unknot themselves and toss loose ends in the air, darting about like the heads of scaled things. This wild rippling ran in both directions. He believed he could even sight bits of leaf and vine which broke loose and wafted along on the surface of that wind out of nowhere.

Farree felt the energy drain from him. Something he had never known existed was being tapped and going through his hold upon the Tha.s.sa to sustain that desperate song. He put his other hand to the parapet where Toggor crouched. Now he saw that the smux was rocking back and forth, clacking his larger claws together in part rhythm with the song.

For a while it held loud and steady, and then it began to slow. He could see the drops of sweat running down the Lady Maelen's cheeks, felt her fight to keep on. However, there came an end at last. She swayed and would have fallen had not Lord-One Krip seized her, s.n.a.t.c.hing his hand from Farree and pulling her back against him for her support. A last bit of song, hardly above a whisper, came from her lips and then, eyes closed, mouth gaping, she lay limp in his hold.

The wind or stirring out of nowhere died. Farree tried hard to pick up that nothingness which was the mark of the shielded enemy. There! He had touched one - quickly he searched but there seemed to be no others. Toggor had sunk down, drawn in his eyestalks as he did when he must rest.

Rest! Parree leaned sidewise against the stone, his wings together and folded, an ache in his head and a feeling of emptiness inside him. He was as hollow now as if he had been squeezed by some great hand and flung aside to lie without substance.

For how long that lasted he could not tell. There was a feeble stirring in his mind that they must be again on guard ready for death coming from the skies. Yet he must have slept, for he awoke from that place of nothingness with a hand shaking him, and then Lord-One Krip forced into his hold some of the rations which they had relied upon so long - dry and tasteless, yet he choked mouthfuls down.

The sun no longer burned down upon them but sped across the sky into red sunset clouds, and the Lady Maelen was sitting up, turning her head slowly from one side to the other as if she had awakened out of a dream and could not recognize where she was. Then recognition came back to her eyes and she smiled wearily.

Let Sotrath rise, she said slowly, then we shall see whether, though I am wandless, I am still too lacking in the Gift to do what must be done. At least this day past I have wrought more than 1 would have believed possible. This is truly a place of power.

Lacking! Lord-One Krip burst out. When you awoke the woods rang ...

Her smile grew a little stronger. Yes, that I did. I am still a Singer.''

One of the mighty ones! Lord-One Krip said forcibly.

Let them try to deny you your due now!

Hush. She put her hand to his lips. I do what I can, but to claim full mastery is false. She reached out to touch that line set in the stones, to fit fingertip to each of the stones in it. That this answered the three of us after all the lost time - that is not my mastery but that of those great ones who set it here.

And those who hunt us? Farree sputtered through dry crumbs.

Ask that of them. She pointed toward the wood. They are a greater barrier than even I could guess. Look!

She pointed now to the eastern sky where the dusk crept down like a curtain. Showing just a tip about it was a thing of glitter which he had come to cherish. The third ring was beginning to rise - the time of the Tha.s.sa power at its height was coming!

It seemed to Farree that the dusk came more swiftly than usual. As if the very longing of the Lady Maelen had the power to summon up Sotrath and the moon rings. Yet she did not look to the sky but ran her hands up the curving side of one pattern and down the arabesque of another as if her touch could find what she sought quicker than her sight. Perhaps that was so far; just as she had chosen certain stones to rub when she sang their partnership to the woods, now did she settle at last at the farther side of the roof, waving the other two to the blank border beside the parapet while she settled herself on her knees, leaning well forward so that the palms of her hand each cupped a series of three greenish stones which gleamed the brighter as the third ring crept up the sky behind her head.

Once more she began to sing - this time no hum without words, but rather a chant that accented some syllables with the beat of a drum. That sound gripped Farree and perhaps also the Lord-One Krip, for Farree noted that the s.p.a.ceman's hands were opening and closing, where they hung by his sides, in time to that beat in words.

Farree had begun to believe that indeed she could accomplish great things by her words alone. He had seen sound shatter crystals once or twice in the Limits, when some sleight-of-hand dealer was showing off skills. Why then could such not pick up the resonance of a voice at proper pitch and be moved by it as was a lock with a key laid into its proper slot?

By the time Sotrath itself was showing on the horizon and the arc of the third ring well advanced, bringing rainbows of light from the pavement, she did indeed achieve what she had set to do. There was another sound across the beat of her voice and before her a dark outline framed a good section of the roof.

Her voice arose in a triumphant crescendo and the block so outlined was sucked downward out of their sight.

Farree gave a cry, clapping his hands to his head. Into his mind there burst such a flash or lash of sights and sounds, of places and people, he felt that his very head would split open, not being able to hold or control this wave of otherness. Lord-One Krip likewise doubled near over as if some mighty blow had sent him reeling, and his hands also clawed over his ears; while the Lady Maelen crouched low, her face drawn and contorted into grimaces, her whole body tensed and resisting.

It was, Farree decided, as if a whole world of different thought had been launched at them. He fought, trying to set in his mind a wall behind which that that was he himself could crouch protected.

Half expecting a company of Tha.s.sa or their like to come boiling up through the door, a company the Lady Maelen had sung into their defenses, Farree could see only the dark oblong at their feet, and in that nothing moved nor climbed to meet them.

Wall! Think a wall! Farree's wings moved without conscious thought and he was up-into the night, soaring above the top of the tower. Yet those hundreds, thousands of thoughts (though they were a little m.u.f.fled) beat at him. He thought a wall, barrier so tight set that nothing could breach it. As he circled on wings about the tower, unwilling to desert those two who did not have his advantage for a quick escape, he was aware that the thought stream was thinning, that now only a trickle of such came through.

The Lady Maelen was on her feet, though Lord-One Krip still crouched low, his head swinging from side to side as if the very weight of that storm of thought was launched against him in one wave after another. The Lady Maelen held forth the light globe which had guided them through the mountain pa.s.sage, and that gathered to it the ring's glory until she had cupped a great ball of fire. With that hand stretched before her, she approached the opening, looking down into the depths beneath.

What she saw there Farree could not imagine. When he watched her prepare to descend through that opening he swooped, determined to catch her before she was swallowed up by that maelstrom of mind speech. But he was too late, and, in spite of all his efforts, the clamor caught him again, driving him in self-protection to the edge of the parapet where he strove to shake the Lord-One Krip into action.

Only, it would appear that the man was also still caught in the invisible storm they had loosed. He moaned a little, and his eyes had turned upward in his head so that the whites were visible.

Had he been able to manage the other's weight Farree would have hoisted him up, gotten him away from that perilous open door. Now he could only stay beside him, strive to move in his own mental picture of a wall set against the flood.

The light beamed upward from the opening. He did not think he could have entered, even with his mind at rest. It was not big enough to take his spread of wings no matter how much he could try to compress those. But for the Lady Maelen to go alone into that place! Urgently he shook Lord-One Krip until the other's head flopped forward and backward on his shoulders. Then he felt the other begin to gain control, and a moment later the man's eyes were turned up to meet his.

The . . . m-minds, he stammered, they are - Can such a place hold an army? demanded Farree.

Whence comes all this?

Memories, all the thoughts - of a race! Lord-One Krip straightened in his hold, and Farree released him.

She's gone - down there! I cannot reach her. Can you?

Farree demanded.

Not now. If I loose - I am lost.

Yet they both crept on hands and knees, one on either side of the trapdoor, striving to see what did lie below. Whether that wave of mind touch that had been building for generations could be loosed suddenly without disaster Farree did not know, but he felt that the pressure against his mental wall was less than it had been. And now he could see.

The Lady Maelen stood below a short ladder, and around her body there was an aura of the light from the globe - perhaps that served as her defense.

About her also were racks towering side to side, leaving only the small s.p.a.ce where the ladder had given her entrance. And the racks were filled with a series of blocks which pulsated with rainbow colors in a mixture that hurt the eyes almost as much as the wave of mind touch had near toppled their other senses. Scarlet, vivid orange, green in five or six violent shades, blue the same - violet to purple. It was unbelievable.

She was just standing there, her head slowly swinging from side to side, her face a mask in which not even her eyes moved - like one asleep who yet walked.

Before either of them could move, she shifted the ball into her left hand and with the right she reached out toward one of the racks.

No! Lord-One Krip cried out, and Farree could have echoed him. But if she heard, that protest had no meaning for her. Her fingers closed about a cube which was gem-bright in green, and she plucked it out of the serried ranks of its like and held it to the level of her eyes. It was as if she both saw and heard something in its heart which kept her mazed. Then swiftly she stored it back with its fellows and turned to the ladder, coming up to them in haste.

Under the light of the third ring her own gleaming hair, her ivory-pale skin, took on ripples of the lights, but she still walked as one in a trance. Lord-One Krip reached for her as she came within grasping distance, pulled her up toward him as if he needs must draw her out of some great trap.

She did not try to throw off his hold, but she turned with it, holding her globe up to the glory of the third ring and then lowering it to focus its beams on the very stones she had used to open the door. And her chant sounded clear in the night air, the drumbeat of the unknown words harsher and faster as if now she worked against time itself.

Even as that aperture had opened so now it closed. Only when that was done did she look to the two of them as if she knew them again.

Down. We must get down. To the courtyard! She pushed away from Lord-One Krip and indicated that treacherous pavement below.

It is - Farree swinging upward dared to look again at the two huddled bodies below - a trap.

Yes, she agreed. And it must be reset - reset for greater prey! I must do that, by the third ring!

With the aid of the vine rope they made it. She waved Lord-One Krip away and pointed to certain lines of the patterns.

Walk so and so. She motioned. Get to the other wall and up! We may have very little time. Those others will come. It was as if she had knowledge they did not share.

Lord-One Krip stared at her for a long moment and then did as she had told him. Farree flew to give them an escape route, knotting the vine this time to a hard rock near the sh.o.r.e and feeding the free end into the courtyard. But Lord-One Krip would retreat no farther than the wall itself.

The Lady Maelen was singing again. She did not approach the part of the designs where lay the dead off-worlders, but she paced other sections, showing great care where she trod, and sang the same harsh song she had used to close the door above. Three times she rounded the tower and each time the uneasiness in Farree rose. He felt Toggor crowd tightly against him, and the fear in the smux fed his own.

Then, having trod on the pattern before all the four walls, the Lady Maelen ran toward them. Lord-One Krip caught her and tossed her body a little upward so that she clutched the vine rope at a higher level. Then he was hard behind her as she climbed and slid down to the other side.

It is done. She was panting, her body sleekly wet with sweat, her face drawn and haggard. And none too soon - The rocks - those - take shelter - She did not have to utter any warning. They had already heard the beat of the flitter in the sky, saw riding lights like the eyes of a vast insect coming down the valley even as it had earlier flown.

They lay belly down behind the screen of rocks, Farree crimping his wings into the smallest possible s.p.a.ce. On the flitter came, and he heard the Lady Maelen: They know something. Surely they would not come under the ring. But no Tha.s.sa would deal with them. What secret has been betrayed that they hunt so? It was as if she asked that question of the world at large.

Over swung the air craft. It hung at hover, and this time dropped two from its belly onto the top of the tower. At least they had learned that much from their abortive earlier attempt.

Yes. The Lady Maelen's voice was only a breath of whisper, and then she added, Now, let it be now!

As to what followed Farree could never afterwards settle in his own mind. It was as if the rays of the third ring awoke to life every gemlike stone so that beams of raw and eye-burning color flashed out. Not only at the men who had landed on the roof but upwards far enough to transfix the flitter in turn. Farree thought he heard screams - he was never sure because it all happened so suddenly.

But the beams of gem light became flamelike and they licked about the flitter, drawing it down into their heart fire. Then the tower itself quivered and blazed until he dared not look at it any longer. It - it melted! There was no other way he could describe what happened, for its sides grew soft as thray wax under the sun and spun oddly outward in droplets - though none of those sped beyond the courtyard wall. But the tower sank and was gone, and the lights failed so only that of the third ring held. There came sobbing from where the Lady Maelen lay, and Lord-One Krip edged closer to take her into his arms.

They are ... dead, she stammered, they are dead and with them all their knowledge. It is a second death and one - one which I delivered to them!

Farree answered, But they were Guild and - Not the Guild, those are dead of their own greed. It was - the ancient memories - those stored lest Tha.s.sa need the weight of them again. But they had their own defense, and that I set. You do not understand. We were once so great a people that the Guild, all off-world could not have troubled us. Then it was chosen that we should take another path. But there were those who argued that all knowledge should not be wiped from the face of Yiktor. So they set the memory tower and each memory was stored there - all the knowledge of untold time which we cannot count in seasons or Sotrath rings anymore. All of it gone - and by my doing! She was weeping now, and her head fell forward onto Lord-One Krip's shoulder.

They stood again in the great hall that Farree had first seen after the landing on Yiktor. The Lady Maelen was a little before them, facing those leaders of her people, her head proudly high. There had been a reading of minds, and she it was who insisted upon judgment. Now it was the elder of the women who spoke.

Always you have gone your own way, Maelen. And always trouble and sorrow comes from it. So the great memories are gone. Well, none can bring them back. Nor - she spoke more slowly now - since there are those who would take them for a bitter use, can we wish them so. But we say to you a second time, Kinswoman, there is no place for you, by three rings or two. You are no longer Tha.s.sa but something else - we know not what. Nor can you slip within the sh.e.l.l of the people. Come to us when you desire but do not hope to stay - for there is that within you which cannot be fitted into our life again any more than a flower can be fitted back into the tight curl of a bud. We do not exile you - No, the Lady Maelen said slowly. That I have done for myself. I am grateful that you do not turn from me.

There is this - The woman held forth a wand which one of the men had handed to her.

No, that I leave also. I am no longer a Moon Singer, Elder. I sang death to the past - You did as it seemed fit. But, yes, the wand is not a part of the future for you. And you are wise in your own way. Where do you go now?

Out to the stars!

And the enemy who would trace you?

Perhaps dead, perhaps alive. But that is a matter for the future - And you, Krip Vorlund?

He took a step forward until he stood equal with Maelen to confront them all.

Where she goes thus do I also.

The Elder nodded and then looked to Farree, whose wings moved wide to show the gleaming patches on them.

And you, little brother?

He drew a deep breath and voiced it now, just as it had come to him from the moment that those spans of glory had broken from his ugliness.

I would find my world- So be it. And we wish you three well. You have done what was to be done - hold it not in your memories as any evil. Time turns awry and straight in many ways. We grant you time as a companion, and may it serve you well.

Farree opened and closed his wings, his head held high now. Time - there was time always ahead, even though a man could hold nothing but now in his two hands. He would have his chosen now - he vowed that. Suddenly he felt his hand taken by the Lady Maelen and he realized that his time would be their time also. For the first time in his life he was warmly content.