aged on some mission. And what would happen if he,
Shann, suddenly stopped being the other's obedient underling and
demanded a few explanations here and now?

Only Shann knew enough about men to also know that he would not get any
information out of Thorvald that the latter was not ready to give, and
that such a showdown, coming prematurely, would only end in his own
discomfiture. He smiled wryly now, remembering his emotions when he had
first seen Ragnar Thorvald months ago. As if the officer ever considered
the likes, dislikes--or dreams--of one Shann Lantee. No, reality and
dreams seldom approached each other. Dreams....

"On any of those shoreline maps," he asked suddenly, "do they have
marked a mountain shaped like a skull?"

Thorvald thrust with his pole. "Skull?" he repeated, a little absently,
as he so often did in answer to Shann's questions unless they dealt with
some currently important matter.

"A queer sort of skull," Shann said. Just as vividly as when he had
first awakened, he could picture that skull mountain with the flying
things about its eye sockets. And that, too, was odd; dream impressions
usually faded with the passing of waking hours. "It has a protruding
lower jaw and the waves wash that ... red-and-purple rock----"

"What?"

He had Thorvald's complete attention now.

"Where did you hear about it?" That demand followed quickly.

"I didn't hear about it. I dreamed of it last night. I stood there right
in front of it. There were birds--or things flying like birds--going in
and out of the eyeholes----"

"What else?" Thorvald leaned across his pole, his eyes alive, avid, as
if he would pull the reply he wanted out of Shann by force.

"That was all I remember--the skull mountain." He did not add his other
impression, that he was meant to find that skull, that he _must_ find
it.

"Nothing...." Thorvald paused, and then spoke slowly, with a visible
reluctance. "Nothing else? No cavern with a green veil--a wide green
veil--strung across it?"

Shann shook his head. "Just the skull mountain."

Thorvald looked as if he didn't quite believe that, but Shann's
expression must have been convincing, for he laughed shortly.

"Well, there goes one nice neat theory up in smoke!" he commented. "No,
your skull doesn't appear on any of our maps, and so probably my cavern
does not exist either. They may both be smoke screens----"

"What--?" But Shann never finished that query.

A wind was rising in