Part 47 (2/2)

She had flooven in her hair, and others in her hand, as if she rode fro for a plundered, butchered city They were headed northward noard distantcolu from the holocaust behind

Yasmini shook her head i's eyes were free

”I am tired of it,” she said ”I have seen that so many times I know they won I know they found their way to Khinjan I know they began to build an empire here I have seen all that a hundred times What I ? How did they coain!”

She never once let King's hands go, but pressed thehter until the circulation nearly stopped and they grew nurow rather than to wane in proportion as her yearning to look into the past grew Her attitude would have beento be reincarnations of those forgotten conquerors; but she was too original for that She had said the old Gods wished, and the ain, and she and King were Why then, if the old Gods were contriving it all, should she seek to steady the ark for theic connected with Gods ers as if to hold him there, and to make him see and understand the distant past, were the only way to save hiain!” And he obeyed her By this time obedience was much the easiest course Between times his eyes were so weary he could hardly hold theazed into the crystal that he could rest the control over hiri two rasped and overcome, a physical man who did not matter much, and another, mental man as free from her, who could understand her, whom she could not reach or touch

”Look!” she insisted ”Look!” And the crystal clouded over

He strode out of thelow and fists clenched tight at his sides Four of his own reeted him respectfully, yet not without a touch of irony

They spoke to him and pointed ard One laid a hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off and the man reeled back as if he had been struck Another uesticulating and growing angry; but he stood cal them, as a rock stands in a storm He folded his ar nothing

Then as if to end the arguood and all, he drew his sword and held it out toward theain to kill hihed at them, but they still refused; so he put his sword back in the sheath

One of the men stepped into the ain, with two others, helping a wounded ht be he was treated with respect Prouder than Lucifer, he who had struck another ive this wounded man a knee and seemed pained when the man refused hiued in short clipped-off sentences He had a day or two to live-certainly not longer, for the blood flowed slowly froued as a man who has lost no interest in life, but rather sees its problems truly now that his own are near an end

He de almost truculently He took his helrowing feeble the wounded man held it and traced out the letters S P Q R on the front

”Go hoht your way back home!” What he said was as distinct as if a voice in the cave had spoken it

Then, vision within a vision-dreaaunt grii with the remnant of his ht have been either man's

But instantly there was another vision, of ten thousand wolves baying down a Hie in winter-tiing Eye and fang flashed altogether and leam

”Choose!” said a voice

So he chose He nodded The men saluted him, and the wounded ry as a flash of lightning, to spring at hi, ordering, crying-abusing hi him in turn He shook his head She sobbed, but he shook his head again and pointed ard Then she took hiain

The crystal ball grew clouded Yas in a race, and her pressure on King's fingers was actually painful TheThe man in armor lay dead on his back in the cave on the wooden bed, and she bent over hier in hand

”Ah!” said Yas ”But what else could she do?” The rew opaque ”The future!” she begged ”It is the future I must know! Ye old Gods, tell me! Show me!”

The mist turned red The crystal ball beca within itself The fire turned to blood, and the blood to fire again The very cavern that they knelt in see's hands to cover her own eyes

And as she did that King sank, like a sack half-empty and toppled over sidewise on the floor asleep

He neither drea, but slept like a dead ainst her enerals, outlaws, all e to recover Very nearly always it is an apparently littleunnoticeable at the tieometrical proportion, minus instead of plus