The lofty space was full of men, newly wakened from their heavy sleep
and as nervous as so many bears. Thanis struggled in the grip of two of
them. Her scarlet kirtle was torn, her hair flying in wild elf-locks,
and her face was the face of a mad thing. The whole story of the doom of
Kushat was written large upon it.

She screamed again and again, and would not be silenced.

"Tell her, the witch that leads you! Tell her that she is already doomed
to death, with all her army!"

Otar opened up the door of Ciara's room.

Thanis surged forward. She must have fled through all that castle before
she was caught, and Stark's heart ached for her.

"You!" she shrieked through the doorway, and poured out all the filth of
the quarter upon Ciara's name. "Balin has gone to bring doom upon you!
He will open wide the Gates of Death, and then you will
die!--die!--_die!_"

Stark felt the shock of a terrible dread, as he let the curtain fall.
Mad with hatred against conquerors, Balin had fulfilled his raging
promise and had gone to fling open the Gates of Death.

Remembering his nightmare vision of the shining, evil ones whom Ban
Cruach had long ago prisoned beyond those gates, Stark felt a sickness
grow within him as he went down the stair and out the postern door.

It was almost dawn. He looked up at the brooding cliffs, and it seemed
to him that the wind in the pass had a sound of laughter that mocked his
growing dread.

He knew what he must do, if an ancient, mysterious horror was not to be
released upon Kushat.

_I may still catch Balin before he has gone too far! If I don't--_

He dared not think of that. He began to walk very swiftly through the
night streets, toward the distant, towering Gates of Death.

VII

It was past noon. He had climbed high toward the saddle of the pass.
Kushat lay small below him, and he could see now the pattern of the
gorges, cut ages deep in the living rock, that carried the spring
torrents of the watershed around the mighty ledge on which the city was
built.

The pass itself was channeled, but only by its own snows and melting
ice. It was too high for a watercourse. Nevertheless, Stark thought, a
man might find it hard to stay alive if he were caught there by the
thaw.

He had seen nothing of Balin. The gods knew how many hours' start he
had. Stark imagined him, scrambling wild-eyed over the rocks, driven by
the same madness that had sent Thanis up into the castle to call down