face was left again stiff and masklike, the lips twisted a
little into a cruel thinness, her eyes hard as agates on my own. She was
superb, and I silently applauded. Then she was gone.

As I stood there, musing on the nature and the strange life of Wananda,
a mocking, sultry laugh made me whirl, for I had thought I was alone.

Standing beside the tall, open window--a window I had examined and found
impossible of exit because beneath it was a straight drop of some
seventy or eighty feet--was my erstwhile companion and prisoner, the
Zoorph, Carna!

Still in her hand was the long, fantastically ornamented drape behind
which she had been concealed during my "secret" interview with the
puppet queen.

"You!" I exploded. "Where did you come from and what did you hear?"

"Very interesting things, friend Keele. She is a fascinating woman, is
she not?" Carna made a pretty mouth, as if kissing something, and with
her fingers a gesture new to me, but one unmistakable in meaning. "She
now has your simple heart in her hand, to do with as she wishes. You are
a fine fool, you!"

"I thought you had psychic powers. You claim to read minds and foretell
the future, and you do not understand that she is fine and honest and
utterly admirable! You are the fool, Carna!"

She laughed.

"You are right, and not so simple. I said that only to know if your
perceptions were keen enough to know that what she said was true."

"Now you know. How did you get here, what do you want, what have they
done to you?"

She snapped her fingers, and gave the Zerv equivalent of "pouf."

"They gave me their tongue, as they did you, I notice. They questioned
me much longer than you, as they thought I knew the Zervs might be
caught. I did not tell them much. But it was my fault that poor Holaf
was caught. I did know he was going to try to revive the Croen captive.
They wrung that out of me, and then put me in a room directly above this
one. I knew that you were below me from the talk of the guards. I made a
rope from the hangings and slipped down to see you. I may go back up
when I get ready."

She came toward me as she spoke, her hips undulating exquisitely, that
sultry smile of completely improper intent on her beautiful face. She
wore still the silkily gleaming black net in which I had first met her.
It was torn now and even more revealing.

I fixed my eyes on the wide web of linked emeralds at her throat to keep
my eyes from hers, for she had a