with your own eyes. It was my purpose in coming
to waken you--my purpose, when your beauty led me into weakness
incredible.... Get up, Lady Elza."

She stared. With folded arms he stood emotionless regarding her.

"Get up, I tell you. Put on those garments you wore when we arrived. We
are going travelling again."

He stood waiting; and beneath his gaze she shrank back, drawing the fur
rug over her.

A smile of contempt parted his lips. "You hesitate? You think I am still
a weakling? You over-rate your beauty, Lady Elza.... Make haste, I
command you. We must start very soon."

She summoned her voice. "Start? Where? What are you--"

"No questions, Lady Elza. Not now. Make haste--"

He jerked from her the fur covering, flung it across the room, and with
the same gesture turned away impersonally. Trembling, she rose from the
couch and donned the garments he had indicated, while he stood brooding
by the window, gazing through its transparent pane at the glistening
frozen city which was all that remained of his empire.

CHAPTER XXVIII

_Thing in the Forest_

"All in good time, Lady Elza, you will know where we are."

Alone, unnoticed, they had departed from the City of Ice on a small
flying platform similar to the one they had used before. The night had
passed; day, with a new warmth to the sun, came again. Flying low, with
Tarrano in a grim, moody silence, and Elza staring downward.

The aural lights were overhead when at the last Tarrano brought the
platform to rest. A thick, luxuriant forest. Huge trees with rope-like
roots and heavy vines. Others with leaves like the ears of an elephant.
And the ground hidden by almost impenetrable underbrush.

They had landed in a tiny glade beside a dank marsh of water, where
ferns shoulder high were embanked. It was dark, the stars and the tints
of the auroral lights were barely distinguishable through the mass of
foliage overhead. Elza gazed around her fearsomely. The air was heavy,
oppressive. Redolent with the perfume of wild flowers and the smell of
mouldering, steaming soil.

"All in good time. Lady Elza," Tarrano repeated. "You will know where we
are presently; we are closer to human habitation than you would think."

Elza's heart pounded. As they were descending she had noticed a glow of
light in the sky ahead. As though by intuition now, she seemed to
realize that they were not far from the Great City. Her thoughts leaped
to me--Jac Hallen--there in M