sailors shivered.
Shorzona, Chryseir, Coruna, and Imam walked up toward them with all the slow dignity they could summon. The Conahurian's eyes sought the huge wrinkled form of Tsatha, queen of the Xanthi. The monster's gaze brightened on her and the fanged mouth opened in a bass croak:
'So you have returned to us. You may not leave this time.'
'Your majesty's hospitality overwhelms me,' said Coruna ironically.
A stooped old Xanthian beside the queen plucked her sleeve and hissed rapidly: 'I told you, sire, I told you she would come back with the ruin of worlds in her train. Cut them all down now, before the fates strike. Kill them while there is time!'
'There will be time,' said Tsatha.
Her unblinking eyes locked with Shorzona's and suddenly the twilight shimmered and trembled, the nerves of women shook and out in the water the sea-beasts snorted with panic. For a long moment that silent duel of wizardry quivered in the air, and then it faded and the unreality receded into the background of dusk.
Slowly the Xanthian monarch nodded, as if satisfied to find an opponent she could not overcome.
'I am Shorzona of Achaera,' said the woman, 'and I would speak with the chiefs of the Xanthi.'
'You may do so,' replied the reptile. 'Come up to the castle and we will quarter your folk.'
At Imaza's order, the sailors began unloading the gifts that had been brought: weapons, vessels and ornaments of precious metals set with jewels, rare tapestries and incenses. Tsatha hardly glanced at them. 'Follow me,' she said curtly. 'All your people.'
'I'd hoped at least to leave a guard on the ship,' murmured Imaza to Coruna.
'Would have done little good if they really wanted to seize him,' whispered the Conahurian.
It did not seem as if Tsatha could have heard them, but she turned and her bass boom rolled over the mumbling surf: 'That is right. You may as well relax your petty precautions. They will avail nothing.'
In a long file, they went up a narrow trail toward the black palace. The Xanthian rulers went first, with deliberately paced dignity, thereafter the human captains, their women, and a silent troop of armed reptile soldiery. Hemmed in, thought Coruna grimly. If they want to start shooting...
Chryseir' hand clasped hers, a warm grip in the misty gloom. She responded gratefully. He came right behind her, his other hand on the nervous and growling erinye.
The castle loomed ahead, blacker than the night that was gathering, the gigantic walls climbing sheer toward the sky, the spear-like towers half lost in the swirling fog. There was always fog here, Corm remembered, mist and rain and shadow; it was never full day on the island. She sniffed the dank sea-smell that blew from the gaping portals and bristled in recollection.
They entered the cavernous doorway and went down a high narrow corridor which seemed to stretch on forever. Its bare stone walls were wet and green-slimed, tendrils of mist drifted under the invisibly high ceiling, and she heard the hooting and muttering of unknown voices somewhere in the murk. The only light was a dim bluish radiance from fungoid balls growing on the walls, a cold unhealthy shadowless illumination in which the white humans looked like drowned corpses. Looking behind, Coruna could barely make out the frightened faces of the Umlotuans, huddled close together and gripping their weapons with futile strength.
The Xanthi glided noiselessly through the mumbling gloom, tall spectral forms with faint golden light streaming from their damp scales. It seemed as if there were other presences in the castle too, things flitting just beyond sight, hiding in lightless corners and fluttering between the streamers of fog. Always, it seemed, there were watching eyes, watching and waiting in the dark.
They came into a cavernous antechamber whose walls were lost in the dripping twilight. Tsatha's voice boomed hollowly between the chill immensities of it: 'Follow those who will show you to your quarters.'
Silent Xanthi slipped between the human ranks, herding them with spears—the sailors one way, their driers another. 'Where are you taking the women?' asked Imaza with an anger sharpened by fear. 'Where are you keeping them?' The echoes flew from wall to wall, jeering her—keeping them, keeping them, them, them...
'They go below the castle,' said a Xanthian. 'You will have more suitable rooms.'
Our women down in the old dungeons. Coruna's hand whitened on the hilt of her sword. But it was useless to protest, unless they wanted to start a battle now.
The four human leaders were taken down another whispering, echoing tunnel of a corridor, up a long ramp that seemed to wind inside one of the towers, and into a circular room in whose walls were six doors. There the guards left them, fading back down the impenetrable night of the ramp.
The rooms were furnished with grotesque ornateness—huge hideously carved beds and tables, scaled tapestries and rugs, shells and jewels set in the mold-covered walls. Narrow slits of windows opened on the wet night. Darkness and mist hid Coruna's view of the ground, but the faintness of the surf told them they must be dizzyingly high up.
'Ill is this,' she said. 'A few guards on that ramp can bottle us up here forever. And they need only lock the dungeon gates to have our women imprisoned below.'
'We will treat with them. Before long they will be our allies,' said Shorzona. Her hooded eyes were on Chryseir. It was with a sudden shock that Coruna remembered. Days and nights of bliss, and then the violence of battle and the tension of approach, had driven from her mind the fact that she had never been told what the witch-pair was really here for. It was their voyage, not hers, and what real good could have brought them to this place of evil?
She shoved her big body forward, a tawny giant in the foggy chill of the central room. 'It is near time I was told something of what you intend,' she said. 'I have guided you and taught you and battled at your side, and I'll not be kept blindfolded any longer.'
'You will be told what I tell you—no more,' said Shorzona haughtily. 'You have me to thank for your miserable life—let that be enough.'
'You can thank me that you're not being eaten by fish at the bottom of the sea right now,' snapped Coruna. 'By Breannach Brannor, I've had enough of this!'
She stood with her back against the wall, sweeping them with ice-blue eyes. Shorzona stood black and ominous, wrath in the smoldering, sunken eyes. Chryseir shrank back a little from both of them, but Peria the erinye growled and flattened her belly to the floor and stared greenly at Coruna. Imaza shifted from foot to foot, her wide blue face twisted with indecision.
'I can strike you dead where you stand,' warned Shorzona. 'I can become a monster that will rip you to rags.'
'Try it!' snarled Coruna. 'Just try it!'
Chryseir slipped between them and the huge dark eyes were bright with tears. 'Are we not in enough danger now, four humans against a land of walking beasts, without falling at each other's throats? I think it is the witchcraft of Tsagu working an us, dividing us—fight hint!'
He swayed against the Conahurian. 'Coruna,' he breathed. 'Coruna, my dearest of all—you shall know, you shall be told everything as soon as we dare. But don't you see—you haven't the skill to protect yourself and your knowledge against the Xanthian magic?'
Or against your logic, beloved.
He laughed softly and drew her after him, into one of the rooms. 'Come, Coruna. We are all weary now, it is time to rest. Come, my dear. Tomorrow—'
VII
Day crept past in a blindness of rain. Twice Xanthians brought them food, and once Coruna and Imaza ventured down the ramp to find their way barred by spear-bearing reptiles. For the rest they were alone.
It ate at the nerves like an acid. Shorzona sat stiff, unmoving on a couch, eyes clouded with thought; her gaunt body could have been that of a Khemrian mummy. Imaza squatted unhappily, carving one of the intricate trinkets with whose making sailors pass dreamy hours. Coruna paced like a caged beast, throttled rage mounting in her. Even Peria grew restless and took to padding up and down the antechamber, passing Coruna on the way. The woman could not help a half smile.
She was growing almost fond of the erinye and her honest malevolence, after
the intriguing of humans and Xanthi.
Only Chryseir remained calm. He lay curled on his bed like a big beautiful animal, the long silken hair tumbling darkly past his shoulders, a veiled smile on his red lips. And so the day wore on.
It was toward evening that they heard slow footfalls and looked out to see a party of Xanthi coming up the ramp. It was an awesome sight, the huge golden forms moving with deliberation and pride under the shimmering robes that flowed about them. Some were warriors, with saw-edged pikes flashing in their hands, but the one who spoke was plainly a palace official.
'Greeting from Tsatha, queen of the Demon Sea, to Shorzona of Achaera,' the voice boomed. 'You are to feast with the lords of the Xanthi tonight.'
'I am honored,' bowed the sorcerer. 'The man Chryseir will come with me, for he is equal with me.'
'That is permitted,' said the Xanthian gravely.
'And we, I suppose, wait here,' muttered Coruna rebelliously.
'It won't be for long,' smiled Chryseir softly. 'After tonight, I think it will be safe to tell you what you wish to know.'
He had donned banqueting dress carried up with his from the ship, a clinging robe of the light-rippling silk of Hiung-nu, a scarlet cloak that was like a rush of flame from his slim bare shoulders, barbarically massive bracelets and necklaces, a single fire-ruby burning at his white throat. Pearls