"Patience, little ones." Strangely soft and clear, this thought,
ringing like delicate silver chimes.
At the edge of his field of vision, through eyes he could no longer
control, Bryan saw movement--the sweep and flutter of great wings.
Then a slim figure moved into his sight, a figure in a simple draped
garment, walking as lightly and gracefully as though on air.
[Illustration: There was danger in the presence of this girl--and yet
somehow, Terry Bryan knew he must reach her....]
Leeta, he knew. Wonder rose in him--and sudden fascination.
Spectre? Witch? He could not decide. His eyes told him that she was
woman--a woman like few he had seen, slender yet softly rounded,
dainty yet with a suggestion of strength. Her small features held an
odd startling loveliness, elfin, somehow ... _other-race_. Her eyes
were tilted and strangely large, the nostrils of her tiny nose deeply
indented and flaring, her chin pointed. Her gleaming black hair was
long, thick, gently curling, a contrasting frame for flawless white
skin.
She glowed luminously. And--he could see through her. Like the
mosquito-men, like the giant bird, she was mistily transparent,
inexplicably unsubstantial.
* * * * *
She stood before him, then. Her great liquid eyes gazed at him in
wonder, with a searching curiosity. There was a tenseness and urgency
about her, as though she were driven by some desperate all-important
purpose. And there was an air of tragedy about her, a despair,
a quality of wistful yearning like that Bryan had sensed in the
child-like piping thoughts. The mystery of this woman caught at him,
drew him.
Witch? Again he wondered. He could find nothing evil in her face,
nothing of cruelty or guile. Behind the compelling anxiety in her eyes,
the sadness that touched her full lips, was ... innocence.
The curiosity faded from her face. The tenseness and urgency that had
been lurking in her abruptly became dominant.
Her hands lifted. Bryan saw now that she held an object in them, a
globe of cloudy gray crystal, within which seemed to lay a core of
pale rose light. And the light, he noticed, waxed and waned in a slow
pulsing.
Bryan detected a sudden eagerness in the winged shapes that hovered
beyond. And with the eagerness came the child-like piping.
"Take him, Leeta! He has courage. This time you may succeed."