e sword, out of the frozen hands of Ban Cruach.

As though it were his own, he knew the secret of the metal rings that
bound its hilt, below the ball of crystal. The savage throb of the
invisible radiation beat in his quickening flesh. He was warm again, his
blood running swiftly, his muscles sure and strong. He touched the rings
and turned them.

The fan-shaped aura of force that had closed the Gates of Death narrowed
in, and as it narrowed it leaped up from the blade of the sword in a
tongue of pale fire, faintly shimmering, made visible now by the full
focus of its strength.

Stark felt the wave of horror bursting from the minds of the ice-folk as
they perceived what he had done. And he laughed.

His bitter laughter rang harsh across the valley as he turned to face
them, and he heard in his brain the shuddering, silent shriek that went
up from all that gathered company....

"_Ban Cruach! Ban Cruach has returned!_"

They had touched his mind. They knew.

* * * * *

He laughed again, and swept the sword in a flashing arc, and watched the
long bright blade of force strike out more terrible than steel, against
the rainbow bodies of the shining ones.

They fell. Like flowers under a scythe they fell, and all across the ice
the ones who were yet untouched turned about in their hundreds and fled
back toward the tower.

Stark came leaping down the cairn, the talisman of Ban Cruach bound upon
his brow, the sword of Ban Cruach blazing in his hand.

He swung that awful blade as he ran. The force-beam that sprang from it
cut through the press of creatures fleeing before him, hampered by their
own numbers as they crowded back through the archway.

He had only a few short seconds to do what he had to do.

Rushing with great strides across the ice, spurning the withered bodies
of the dead.... And then, from the glooming darkness that hovered around
the tower of stone, the black cold beam struck down.

Like a coiling whip it lashed him. The deadly numbness invaded the cells
of his flesh, ached in the marrow of his bones. The bright force of the
sword battled the chill invaders, and a corrosive agony tore at Stark's
inner body where the antipathetic radiations waged war.

His steps faltered. He gave one hoarse cry of pain, and then his limbs
failed and he went heavily to his knees.

Instinct only made him cling to the sword. Waves of blinding anguish
racked him. The coiling lash of da