command Neena froze instantly. "Feel that!" he
muttered, and she, listening, sensed it too: the infinitesimal trickle
of currents behind what appeared to be a blank tunnel wall, a rising
potential that seemed to whisper _Ready ... ready.... _

The sun-globe floated behind them, casting light before them down the
featureless tunnel that sloped always toward the mountain's heart. Var
summoned it, and it drifted ahead, a dozen feet, a little more--

Between wall and wall a blinding spindle of flame sprang into being,
pulsed briefly with radiant energy that pained the eyes, and went out.
The immaterial globe of light danced on before them.

"Forward, before the charge builds up again!" said Var. A few feet
further on, they stumbled over a pile of charred bones. Someone else had
made it only this far. It was farther than the Watcher had gone into
these uncharted regions, and only the utmost alertness of mind and sense
had saved them from death in traps like this. But as yet the way was not
blocked....

Then they felt the mountain begin to tremble. A very faint and remote
vibration at first, then an increasingly potent shuddering of the floor
under their feet and the walls around them. Somewhere far below immense
energies were stirring for the first time in centuries. The power that
was in the Earth was rising; great wheels commenced to turn, the
mechanical servitors of the Ryzgas woke one by one and began to make
ready, while their masters yet slept, for the moment of rebirth that
might be near at hand.

From behind, up the tunnel, came a clear involuntary thought of dismay,
then a directed thought, echoing and ghostly in the confinement of the
dark burrow:

"_Stop!_--before you go too far!"

Var faced that way and thought coldly: "Only if you return and let us go
free."

In the black reaches of the shaft his will groped for and locked with
that of Groz, like the grip of two strong wrestlers. In that grip each
knew with finality that the other's stubbornness matched his own--that
neither would yield, though the mountain above them and the world
outside should crumble to ruin around them.

"Follow us, then!"

They plunged deeper into the mountain. And the shaking of the mountain
increased with every step, its vibrations became sound, and its sound
was like that of the terrible city which they had seen in the dream.
Through the slow-rolling thunder of the hidden machines seemed to echo
the death-cries of a billio