rkness encircled him, and its touch
was the abysmal cold of outer space, striking deep into his heart.

_Hold the sword close, hold it closer, like a shield. The pain is great,
but I will not die unless I drop the sword._

Ban Cruach the mighty had fought this fight before.

Stark raised the sword again, close against his body. The fierce pulse
of its brightness drove back the cold. Not far, for the freezing touch
was very strong. But far enough so that he could rise again and stagger
on.

The dark force of the tower writhed and licked about him. He could not
escape it. He slashed it in a blind fury with the blazing sword, and
where the forces met a flicker of lightning leaped in the air, but it
would not be beaten back.

He screamed at it, a raging cat-cry that was all Stark, all primitive
fury at the necessity of pain. And he forced himself to run, to drag his
tortured body faster across the ice. _Because Ciara is dying, because
the dark cold wants me to stop...._

The ice-folk jammed and surged against the archway, in a panic hurry to
take refuge far below in their many-levelled city. He raged at them,
too. They were part of the cold, part of the pain. Because of them Ciara
and Balin were dying. He sent the blade of force lancing among them, his
hatred rising full tide to join the hatred of Ban Cruach that lodged in
his mind.

Stab and cut and slash with the long terrible beam of brightness. They
fell and fell, the hideous shining folk, and Stark sent the light of Ban
Cruach's weapon sweeping through the tower itself, through the openings
that were like windows in the stone.

Again and again, stabbing through those open slits as he ran. And
suddenly the dark beam of force ceased to move. He tore out of it, and
it did not follow him, remaining stationary as though fastened to the
ice.

The battle of forces left his flesh. The pain was gone. He sped on to
the tower.

He was close now. The withered bodies lay in heaps before the arch. The
last of the ice-folk had forced their way inside. Holding the sword
level like a lance, Stark leaped in through the arch, into the tower.

* * * * *

The shining ones were dead where the destroying warmth had touched
them. The flying spiral ribbons of ice were swept clean of them, the
arching bridges and the galleries of that upper part of the tower.

They were dead along the ledge, under the control bank. They were dead
across the mechan