im, leaning out their vast bulk as though to crush
him, and the narrow mouth of the pass was full of evil laughter where
the wind went by.

He began to walk forward, into the pass. He was quite alone.

The light was dim and strange at the bottom of that cleft. Little veils
of mist crept and clung between the ice and the rock, thickened, became
more dense as he went farther and farther into the pass. He could not
see, and the wind spoke with many tongues, piping in the crevices of the
cliffs.

All at once there was a shadow in the mist before him, a dim gigantic
shape that moved toward him, and he knew that he looked at death. He
cried out....

It was Stark who yelled in blind atavistic fear, and the echo of his own
cry brought him up standing, shaking in every limb. He had dropped the
talisman. It lay gleaming in the snow at his feet, and the alien
memories were gone--and Camar was dead.

After a time he crouched down, breathing harshly. He did not want to
touch the lens again. The part of him that had learned to fear strange
gods and evil spirits with every step he took, the primitive aboriginal
that lay so close under the surface of his mind, warned him to leave it,
to run away, to desert this place of death and ruined stone.

He forced himself to take it up. He did not look at it. He wrapped it in
the bit of silk and replaced it inside the iron boss, and clasped the
belt around his waist. Then he found the small flask that lay with his
gear beside the fire and took a long pull, and tried to think rationally
of the thing that had happened.

Memories. Not his own, but the memories of Ban Cruach, a million years
ago in the morning of a world. Memories of hate, a secret war against
unhuman beings that dwelt in crystal cities cut in the living ice, and
used these ruined towers for some dark purpose of their own.

Was that the meaning of the talisman, the power that lay within it? Had
Ban Cruach, by some elder and forgotten science, imprisoned the echoes
of his own mind in the crystal?

Why? Perhaps as a warning, as a reminder of ageless, alien danger beyond
the Gates of Death?

Suddenly one of the beasts tethered outside the ruined tower started up
from its sleep with a hissing snarl.

Instantly Stark became motionless.

They came silently on their padded feet, the rangy mountain brutes
moving daintily through the sprawling ruin. Their riders too were
silent--tall men with fierce eyes and russet hair, weari