Cliff. The blackness almost drove me mad. I
wanted to scream, but I was afraid to. Some terrible weight seemed to
be crushing my lungs. If I followed those undead things, they might
capture me, but it seemed worse to stay there in that dreadful dark.

"I got out of there somehow, though it seemed to take hours. Then I
didn't know what to do. I stood at the edge of the dead forest trying
to decide; trying, too, to keep myself from shrieking and
running--anywhere. Then Corio's horn blew again--a sound, Cliff, worse
than anything I've ever heard. It--it was a wicked sound, promising to
fulfill every foul desire that ever tainted a human mind. It repelled,
yet it lured irresistibly. And--I answered!"

She stopped, and buried her face in her hands. After a moment she went
on. "The sound stopped just as I found myself crawling on hands and
knees up the stone stairway on the other side. Another started--that
awful groaning--music--but it didn't draw me. I ran down the steps and
scurried away like a rabbit trying to find a place to hide.

"After a while I came back--I thought you must be in there--and I
climbed up to the window. And--and--Cliff, it's hellish!"

Her eyes, boring into his, widened in the same rigid terror he had
seen in them when he joined her.

"We could go back to the cove and get away on the _Ariel_, Vilma,"
Cliff said stonily. "And if you think we should, we will. But--I
brought our friends here, and--well, I want to get them out if I can."

With an effort Vilma nodded. "Of course. We can't do anything else."

He released her and stepped up to the wall.

"I'm going to see what's going on in there," he said. "You wait here
till I come down."

In sudden dread Vilma seized his arm. "No, Cliff. I couldn't stand
waiting here alone. I'll go with you."

He nodded understandingly. And together they began climbing the
precipitous wall, fitting hands and feet in step-like crevices that
made progress fairly rapid. Soon they were crouching on a wide stone
ledge, clinging to thin, rusted bars, staring into the black castle.

_3. The Steps of Torture_

A gigantic hall lay before them, a single chamber whose walls were the
walls of the castle, whose arched ceiling rose far above them.
Directly below their window a stone platform jutted from the wall,
spreading entirely across the chamber. A stone altar squatted in the
center of the platform, a strangely phosphorescent fire smoldering on
its top. And from the