elt
her body tense.

"What of Ban Cruach? What do you know, Stark? Tell me!"

He was silent, and she went from him angrily.

"You have the talisman," she said. "That I am sure of. And if need be, I
will flay you alive to get it!" She faced him across the room. "But
whether I get it or not, I will go through the Gates of Death. I must
wait, now, until after the thaw. The warm wind will blow soon, and the
gorges will be running full. But afterward, I will go, and no talk of
fears and demons will stop me."

She began to pace the room with long strides, and the full skirts of the
gown made a subtle whispering about her.

"You do not know," she said, in a low and bitter voice. "I was a
girl-child, without a name. By the time I could walk, I was a servant in
the house of my grandfather. The two things that kept me living were
pride and hate. I left my scrubbing of floors to practice arms with the
young boys. I was beaten for it every day, but every day I went. I knew
even then that only force would free me. And my father was a king's son,
a good man of his hands. His blood was strong in me. I learned."

She held her head very high. She had earned the right to hold it so. She
finished quietly,

"I have come a long way. I will not turn back now."

"Ciara." Stark came and stood before her. "I am talking to you as a
fighting man, an equal. There may be power behind the Gates of Death, I
do not know. But this I have seen--madness, horror, an evil that is
beyond our understanding.

"I think you will not accuse me of cowardice. And yet I would not go
into that pass for all the power of all the kings of Mars!"

Once started, he could not stop. The full force of that dark vision of
the talisman swept over him again in memory. He came closer to her,
driven by the need to make her understand.

"Yes, I have the talisman! And I have had a taste of its purpose. I
think Ban Cruach left it as a warning, so that none would follow him. I
have seen the temples and the palaces glitter in the ice. I have seen
the Gates of Death--_not with my own eyes, Ciara, but with his. With the
eyes and the memories of Ban Cruach!_"

He had caught her again, his hands strong on her strong arms.

"Will you believe me, or must you see for yourself--the dreadful things
that walk those buried streets, the shapes that rise from nowhere in the
mists of the pass?"

Her gaze burned into his. Her breath was hot and sweet upon his lips,
and she was lik