and terrified by what his mad passion had led him into, here beyond the
Gates of Death. But he was not afraid to die.

He said so, and even Ciara knew that he spoke the truth.

But the seven were not dismayed. Stark knew that when their
thought-voice whispered in his mind,

"It is not death alone you humans have to fear, but the manner of your
dying. You shall see that, before you choose."

* * * * *

Swiftly, silently, those of the ice-folk who had borne the captives into
the city came up from behind, where they had stood withdrawn and
waiting. And one of them bore a crystal rod like a sceptre, with a spark
of ugly purple burning in the globed end.

Stark leaped to put himself between them and Ciara. He struck out,
raging, and because he was almost as quick as they, he caught one of the
slim luminous bodies between his hands.

The utter coldness of that alien flesh burned his hands as frost will
burn. Even so, he clung on, snarling, and saw the tendrils writhe and
stiffen as though in pain.

Then, from the crystal rod, a thread of darkness spun itself to touch
his brain with silence, and the cold that lies between the worlds.

He had no memory of being carried once more through the shimmering
streets of that elfin, evil city, back to the stupendous well of the
tower, and up along the spiral path of ice that soared those dizzy
hundreds of feet from bedrock to the glooming crystal globe. But when he
again opened his eyes, he was lying on the wide stone ledge at
ice-level.

Beside him was the arch that led outside. Close above his head was the
control bank that he had seen before.

Ciara and Balin were there also, on the ledge. They leaned stiffly
against the stone wall beside the control bank, and facing them was a
squat, round mechanism from which projected a sort of wheel of crystal
rods.

Their bodies were strangely rigid, but their eyes and minds were awake.
Terribly awake. Stark saw their eyes, and his heart turned within him.

Ciara looked at him. She could not speak, but she had no need to. _No
matter what they do to me...._

She had not feared the swordsmen of Kushat. She had not feared her red
wolves, when he unmasked her in the square. She was afraid now. But she
warned him, ordered him not to save her.

_They cannot force you. Stark! Don't let them._

And Balin, too, pleaded with him for Kushat.

They were not alone on the ledge. The ice-folk clustered there,