the Ryzgas drank in the light and
gave nothing back.

Below their feet the slope fell away into an opaque sea of fog, filling
a mile-wide gorge. There was a sound of turbulent water, of a river
dashed from rock to rock in its struggle toward the plain, but the
curling fog hid everything.

"You have an alternative," said the Watcher crisply. The two took their
eyes from the black mountain and gazed at him in sudden hope, but his
face was unsmiling. "It is this. You, Var, can flee up the canyon to the
north, by a way I will show you, disguising your thoughts and masking
your presence as well as you are able, while the girl goes in the other
direction, southward, without seeking to conceal herself. Your pursuers
will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will
be too late for them to overtake Var."

That possibility had not occurred to them at all. Var and Neena looked
at one another. Then by common consent they blended their minds into
one.

They thought, in the warm intimacy of unreserved understanding: "_It
would work: I-you would make the sacrifice of shame and mockery--yet
these can be borne--that I-you might be saved from death--which is alone
irreparable.... But to become_ I _and_ you _again--that cannot be
borne._"

They said in unison, "No. Not that."

The Watcher's face did not change. He said gravely, "Very well. I will
give you what knowledge I have that may help you when you enter the
Ryzga mountain."

Quickly, he impressed on them what he had learned of the structure of
the mountain and of its guardian machines. Var closed his eyes, a little
dizzied by the rapid flood of detail.

"You are ready to go," said the Watcher. He spoke aloud, and his voice
was cracked and harsh. Var opened his eyes in surprise, and saw that the
Watcher had become again the hoary ancient of last night.

Var felt a twinge of unfamiliar emotion; only by its echo in Neena's
mind did he recognize it as a sense of guilt. He said stiffly, "You
don't blame us?"

"You have taken life in your own hands," rasped the Watcher. "Who does
that needs no blessing and feels no curse. Go!"

* * * * *

They groped through the fog above blank abysses that hid the snarling
river, crept hand in hand, sharing their strength, across unstable dream
bridges from crag to crag. Groz and his pack, in their numbers, would
cross the gorge more surely and swiftly. When Var and Neena set foot at