brings her
alive, to me. Death to all of you unless she is found! Go!"

They went. They went as though the hounds of hell were at their heels.
Within seconds every floor of the palace was alight with torches, every
hall crowded with warriors, every room being searched. Guards at the
palace gates were alerted, patrols were set to scouring the grounds
between palace and outer wall.

There was no sign of the missing girl.

* * * * *

Tharn, sleeping soundly as a man does whose conscience is clear and
whose bed is no more uncomfortable than a hundred others he has
occupied, awakened suddenly. For a brief moment he lay without moving,
his ears searching for some indication of what had awakened him.

There! The barest whisper of leather against stone from down the
corridor that ran past his cell door. A sandaled foot had made that
sound. Other ears--even the ears of a man already awake--would have
missed what his sleeping brain had caught.

Soundlessly he left his stone bench and moved to the door. But the
darkness was such that even his unbelievably sharp eyes were helpless to
penetrate it. But if his eyes were useless, his ears were not. Fifty
feet further down the corridor a man was standing; he could hear his
breathing and the rustle of garments. A few seconds later Tharn's eyes
caught a tiny glow of light--a glow that soon swelled to a flickering
light strong enough for him to see the opposite row of barred cell
doors.

Again came the whisper of sandaled feet. Presently an Ammadian guard
came into view, a heavy spear in one hand, a small torch of flaming wood
in the other. The guard was peering into each of the cells across from
Tharn, pausing at length at some, passing others quickly. Tharn wondered
at the man's attempt at stealth; since it was impossible for any of the
prisoners to get at him, such precautions could serve no evident ends.

When the man reached a cell almost exactly across from Tharn, the cave
man saw him toss something through the opening framing the bars. He
heard the unseen prisoner sigh ... and then the guard raised his spear
and inserted its head through the same opening.

Tharn was on the point of crying out a warning, his reason dictated only
by a desire to thwart as far as possible the hated symbol of authority
represented by this white-tunicked assassin. But in that moment he saw a
second figure steal into the outer periphery of light thrown by the
tor