in the shield's
centre, full ten feet across, glowing, flickering, shining
out--coldly, was a rose of white flame, a "flower of cold fire" even
as Rador had said.

Now swiftly the Thing upreared, standing like a scaled tower a hundred
feet above the rift, its eyes scanning that movement I had seen along
the course of its lair. There was a hissing; the crown of horns fell,
whipped and writhed like the tentacles of an octopus; the towering
length dropped back.

"Quick!" gasped Rador and through the fern moss, along the path and
down the other side of the steep we raced.

Behind us for an instant there was a rushing as of a torrent; a
far-away, faint, agonized screaming--silence!

"No fear _now_ from those who followed," whispered the green dwarf,
pausing.

"Sainted St. Patrick!" O'Keefe gazed ruminatively at his automatic.
"An' he expected me to kill _that_ with this. Well, as Fergus O'Connor
said when they sent him out to slaughter a wild bull with a potato
knife: 'Ye'll niver rayilize how I appreciate the confidence ye show
in me!'

"What was it, Doc?" he asked.

"The dragon worm!" Rador said.

"It was Helvede Orm--the hell worm!" groaned Olaf.

"There you go again--" blazed Larry; but the green dwarf was hurrying
down the path and swiftly we followed, Larry muttering, Olaf mumbling,
behind me.

The green dwarf was signalling us for caution. He pointed through a
break in a grove of fifty-foot cedar mosses--we were skirting the
glassy road! Scanning it we found no trace of Lugur and wondered
whether he too had seen the worm and had fled. Quickly we passed on;
drew away from the _coria_ path. The mosses began to thin; less and
less they grew, giving way to low clumps that barely offered us
shelter. Unexpectedly another screen of fern moss stretched before us.
Slowly Rador made his way through it and stood hesitating.

The scene in front of us was oddly weird and depressing; in some
indefinable way--dreadful. Why, I could not tell, but the impression
was plain; I shrank from it. Then, self-analyzing, I wondered whether
it could be the uncanny resemblance the heaps of curious mossy fungi
scattered about had to beast and bird--yes, and to man--that was the
cause of it. Our path ran between a few of them. To the left they were
thick. They were viridescent, almost metallic hued--verd-antique.
Curiously indeed were they like distorted images of dog and deerlike
forms, of birds--of _dwarfs_ and here and there th