* * * * *
Stark gave Helvi quick instructions and darted out, taking with him
one of the other men. With Treon, they hid among the shrubbery of the
garden that was outside the hall, patterned and beautiful, swaying its
lifeless brilliance in the lazy drifts of fire.
The guards came. Twenty of them, tall armed men, to turn out the slaves
for another period of labour, dragging the useless stones.
And the hidden weapons spoke with their silent tongues.
Eight of the guards fell inside the hall. Nine of them went down
outside. Ten of the slaves died with blazing collars before the
remaining three were overcome.
Now there were twenty swords among ninety-four slaves, counting the
women.
They left the city and rose up over the dreaming forest, a flight of
white ghosts with flames in their hair, coming back from the red dusk
and the silence to find the light again.
Light, and vengeance.
The first pale glimmer of dawn was sifting through the clouds as they
came up among the rocks below the castle of the Lhari. Stark left them
and went like a shadow up the tumbled cliffs to where he had hidden
his gun on the night he had first come to Shuruun. Nothing stirred.
The fog lifted up from the sea like a vapour of blood, and the face of
Venus was still dark. Only the high clouds were touched with pearl.
Stark returned to the others. He gave one of his shock-weapons to a
swamplander with a cold madness in his eyes. Then he spoke a few final
words to Helvi and went back with Treon under the surface of the sea.
Treon led the way. He went along the face of the submerged cliff, and
presently he touched Stark's arm and pointed to where a round mouth
opened in the rock.
"It was made long ago," said Treon, "so that the Lhari and their
slavers might come and go and not be seen. Come--and be very quiet."
They swam into the tunnel mouth, and down the dark way that lay beyond,
until the lift of the floor brought them out of the sea. Then they felt
their way silently along, stopping now and again to listen.
Surprise was their only hope. Treon had said that with the two of them
they might succeed. More men would surely be discovered, and meet a
swift end at the hands of the guards.
Stark hoped Treon was right.
They came to a blank wall of dressed stone. Treon leaned his weight
against one side, and a great block swung slowly around on a central
pivot. Guttering torchlight came through the crack. By it Stark could
see that the room beyond was empty.
They stepped through, and as they did so a servant in bright silks
came yawning into the room with a fresh torch to replace the one that
was dying.
He stopped in mid-step, his eyes widening. He dropped the torch. His
mouth opened to shape a scream, but no sound came, and Stark remembered
that these servants were tongueless--to prevent them from telling what
they saw or heard in the castle, Treon said.
The man spun about and fled, down a long dim-lit hall. Stark ran him
down without effort. He struck once with the barrel of his gun, and the
man fell and was still.
Treon came up. His face had a look almost of exaltation, a queer
shining of the eyes that made Stark shiver. He led on, through a series
of empty rooms, all sombre black, and they met no one else for a while.
He stopped at last before a small door of burnished gold. He looked at
Stark once, and nodded, and thrust the panels open and stepped through.