The two towers met with a jarring crash. Travis was already in midair,
leaping through the gap. Stones met and tumbled. The roof of Rudra's
blackened tower was caving in. Travis swept through the air, aimed for
a crumbled section of roofing. His hands went out to fasten on smashed
tile. Through the rent, he saw Rudra at his visiscreen, laughing at the
twisted, helpless thing that was Nuala in the calyx--
* * * * *
Travis went mad. He leaped for Rudra, leaped from the roof. His fist
caught him beside the cheek, drove his head back. His knees hit the
man's chest as he fell, toppled him backward. Sobbing, Travis went for
him even before he hit the floor.
They rolled across the tiling, bounced off the metal leg of a table,
rammed into the base of the great visiscreen. Travis fought with
the strength of a hundred men, thinking of the crumpled loveliness
of Nuala. His fists were as ten. His endurance seemed drawn from a
bottomless well of energy. He fought and hammered and sobbed, a red
haze of fury floating before his eyes.
And Rudra weathered the storm. The stars that circled about his head
glowed brighter and brighter. Strength grew and grew in Rudra's body.
He broke free of Travis, thrust him back with a vicious kick: laughed
at him. He moved his hands in the fluid motion and there was blind,
stabbing pain in Travis's guts, an agony that lanced red-hot needles
from the roots of his hair to his toenails.
Travis rolled on the floor, clutching his broken body. He saw legs, hit
them. Rudra fell over him.
Travis summoned all his strength, tore loose from the pain inside him,
fell on Rudra. The revolving stars cut his lip, blinded him with their
brilliance.
It was a voice whispering inside him, like Nuala's voice. "_The
star-girdle is his weakness. Break the stars and you break Rudra.
Without the stars, Rudra is_--nothing!"
Travis lifted his hands and closed them on the stars. Rudra whispered.
For the first time, Travis detected fear in the man's eyes. He tried to
wrench free, brought his hands back from inside Travis, scrabbled for
his wrists.
Silently they struggled there. The pain was gone and Travis knew that
this was it. He had to win now, or not at all. Now ... _now_....
The stars came free. They whispered sibilantly, loosening in their
orbit, shooting wildly across the room. They stung and bit into
Travis's hands. They whirled, exploding into puffs of silvery dust.
The dust showered down on Rudra, on Travis. It stung the nostrils, the
eyeballs....
"Rudra!" whispered Travis.
There was no Rudra, only a widening glob of black wetness, melting away
as wax melts from a candle in fierce heat. Travis rolled free, slapped
at the blackish stains on spaceslacks and jacket.
The blob of jelly loosened rapidly, went to liquid as a breeze swept
over the ruined city and into the blasted tower. The liquid ran freely,
went down the cracks, dripped wetly on the rafters and the stones far
below.
_Ancient! Ancient! So old the tongues of men had no word for it. From
the beginning he was, and was no more...._
Travis turned away from the stench. He stumbled across the room toward
the control levers on the wall. With trembling hands he shut them off.
* * * * *
It was easy, going back. Through the nacre curtain, as the tower
settled down, Travis saw Nuala standing beside the shattered calyx.
Both hands were plunged in her thick golden hair. Her blue eyes were
blank and staring.
Her memory is gone, Travis thought, running toward her. The pain and
the magnetic flux did it. She isn't Nuala of the crystal crypt any
longer. She is only a girl.
His dream of Nuala cooking a _jalanadon_ steak in his little apartment
at Mars Port would come true. This Nuala he could marry.
Travis caught her in his arms. Her lips were sweet as he bent and
kissed her.