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There seemed nothing from which he could improvise even a simple weapon. With both hands, he mighthave thrown his jacket at the old man and managed to smother him with it. They seemed to be guardingagainst the Comyn telepathic tricks, but they had not tried to guard against ordinary attack… and yetthere was nothing in the room that could be used as a weapon.

He sat, scowling, considering, for a long time. If he could have smashed the window, perhaps a longsplinter of glass might serve.

He heard shuffling footsteps down the hall, and a thought —almost too late!—occurred to him. Hedropped to the floor and, with his one free hand, fumbled to unlace his boot. It was heavy, a Darkovanriding-boot, and if it struck the man on the back of the head—

But it was slow work with one hand and before he had it off, a key moved in the lock, the door cameopen in one burst, as if the man had stood back and kicked it open without coming inside. Then the manappeared in the door. He had a tray with food balanced in one hand; the other held a long,wicked-looking riding whip. He held it poised to strike, saying in his barbarous dialect, “None of yourtricks, boy!”

Larry jerked off the boot, clumsily with his right hand, and hurled it at the man’s head.

As soon as he had thrown it, he knew that the throw, with the wrong hand, would go wild: he saw theold man start slightly, the dishes on the tray clashing together. The whip, as if with a life of its own, flickedout and wrapped round Larry’s free wrist, with a stinging slap; the man jerked the whip free, laughingharshly.

“I thought you might have some such little trick,” he jeered, raised the whip again and brought it down, not very hard, across Larry’s shoulders. Tears started to Larry’s eyes, but really it was more of a warning than a blow—for Larry knew that a blow with such a whip, given seriously, would cut through his clothes and an inch into the flesh.

“Want some more?” the man asked, with a grin.

Furious with frustration, Larry bent his eyes on the ground.

The man said good-naturedly, “Eat your dinner, lad. You don’t try any tricks and I won’t hurtyou—agreed? No reason we can’t get along very nicely while the Master is away—is there?”

When the man had gone, Larry turned dispiritedly to the tray. He didn’t feel like eating; yet he had eatenso little in the last four days that he was tormented with hunger. The final ignominy was that he couldn’teven get his boot on with one hand. He took the dishes off the tray, listlessly. Then he raised hiseyebrows; instead of the usual dried meat strips and coarse bread, there was some sort of grilled fish,smoking hot, and a cup of the same chocolate-like drink he had had in the Trade City.

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Awkwardly, with his free hand, but hungrily, he gobbled down the fish, even gnawing on the bones. Itwas an unfamiliar fish and had a strange tang, but he was too hungry to be particular. He leaned back,sipping the drink slowly. He wondered about the change. Perhaps Cyrillon— who obviously wassomewhat afraid of him since the episode with the crystal—considered him valuable as a hostage and,seeing the coarser food left uneaten, had decided he had to feed him better, and keep him in good healthand good spirits.

The light from the high window crept across the floor. The shadows were pale purple, the light pink andsparkling. Strange motes danced in the pink beam.

Larry, feeling full and comfortably sleepy, leaned back, watching the motes. He realized suddenly that oneach of the motes a tiny man rode, pink and purple and carrying an infinitesimal spear that looked like afiber of saffron. Fascinated, incurious, he watched the tiny men slide down the sunbeam and mass on thefloor. They formed into regiments, and still they kept sliding down the beam of pink light, until their smallforms covered the floor. Larry blinked and they seemed to merge and melt away.

A huge black insect, almost the width of Larry’s hand, stuck his quivering head from a hole in the floor. He waggled huge phosphorescent whiskers at Larry and spoke… and to Larry’s listless interest, the bugwas speaking perfect Terran.

“You’re drugged, you know,” the bug said in a high, shaky voice. “It must have been in the food. Of

course, that’s why it was so much better than usual this time, so you’d be sure to eat it.”

The pink and purple men reappeared on the floor and swarmed over the bug, shrilling inincomprehensible voices, nonsense syllables: “
 
An chrya morgobush! Travertina fo mibbsy
!”

As each little man touched the bug’s phosphorescent tendrils, he burst into a puff of green smoke.

The door swung open, invitingly. Someone said in the distance, “No tricks this time, hah?”

The man was standing there, and the twilight in the room darkened, brightened again into dawn. The manwith the whip jeered from a corner. The little pink and purple men were crawling all over him and Larrylaughed aloud to see his jailer covered with the swarming creatures; one of them disappeared into hispocket, another did a hornpipe on the man’s bald head. Dimly he felt someone bend over him, shove uphis closed eyelid. How could he see with closed eyes? He laughed at the absurdity of it.

“No tricks,” said the jailer again; and all the little pink and purple men shouted in chorus, “ ‘No tricks,’

he said!”

Behind the man the door opened and Kennard Alton, in dark-green cloak and a drawn dagger in hishand, stood there. The little pink and purple men swarmed up his legs and nearly blotted out his figure. He raised the dagger and it turned into a bunch of pink tulips as he brought it down toward the oldbandit’s back. Larry heard himself laugh, but the laugh came out like a trumpetblast as the pink tulipsplunged into the man’s back and a great flight of blackbirds gushed out, screaming wildly. Kennardkicked the fallen man, who disappeared into a swarming regiment of little pink and purple men laughing inisolated notes like small bells. Then Kennard strode across the room. The purple men swarmed up him,sat astride his nose, soared down the sunbeams, as Kennard stood over Larry.

“Come on! Every minute we’re here, there’s danger! Somebody might come. I’m not sure that old

fellow’s the only guard in the castle!”

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Larry looked up at him and laughed idly. The little pink and purple mannikin on Kennard’s nose wasclimbing up, digging footholds in Kennard’s chin with a tiny ax of green light. Larry laughed again.

“Brush the gremlins off your chin first.”

“Zandru!” Kennard bent over, pink tulips cascading from the front of his shirt. His hands clasped on

Larry’s shoulders like nutcrackers. “I want some nuts,” Larry said, and giggled.

“Damn you, get up and come with me.”

Larry blinked. He said clearly, in Terran, “You’re not really here, you know. Any more than the littlepink and purple gremlins are here. You’re a figment of my imagination. Go away, figment. A figment withpurple pigment.”

The figment bent over Larry. In his hands there seemed to be a bowl of chili with beans. He beganthrowing it at Larry, handful by handful. It was unpleasant; Larry’s head hurt and the beans, dripping offhis chin, hurt like hard slaps. He yelled in Darkovan, “Save the beans! They’re too hard! We might bettereat them!”

The vision-Kennard straightened as if he had been knifed. He muttered, “
 
Shallavan
! But why did theygive it to Larry?
 
He’s
 
no telepath! Did they believe—”

Larry protested as Kennard turned into a steamshovel and lifted him sidewise. The next thing he knew,water was streaming down his face and Kennard Alton, white as a sheet, was standing and staring at him.

It was Kennard. He was real.

Larry said shakily “I—I thought you were a—a steamshovel. Is it—”

He looked down at the floor of the room. The old man lay there, blood caked on his leather jacket, and

Larry hastily turned away. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Kennard said grimly, “but we’ll
 
both
 
be dead unless we get out of here

before the bandits get back. Where’s your other boot?”

“I threw it at him.” Larry’s head was splitting. “I missed.”

“Oh, well—” Kennard said, deprecatingly, “you aren’t used to this sort of thing. Get it on again—” he broke off. “What in the devil—” He surveyed the leather harness, anger in his eyes. “Zandru’s hells, what a filthy contrivance!” He drew his dagger and cut through the leather. Larry’s hand, numb and cramped, fell lifeless to his side. He could not move the fingers, and Kennard, swearing under his breath, knelt to help him with the boot.

Larry realized that he had no idea how long he had been drugged. He had a vague sort of memory of hisjailer having come in once or twice before, but was not sure. He was still too dazed to do more thanstand, swaying and weak, before Kennard.

“How did you come to be here? How did you find me?”

“You were taken for me,” Kennard said briefly. “Could I leave you to face the fate they meant for me?

It was my responsibility to find you.”

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“But how? And why did you come alone?”

“We were in rapport through the crystal,” Kennard said, “so I could trail you. I came alone, because we knew that with any assault in strength, they’d probably kill you at once. That can wait till later! Right now, we still have to get out of this place before Cyrillon and his devils come back!”

“I saw them ride away,” Larry said slowly. “I think they’re all gone except that one old man.”

“No wonder they doped you, then,” Kennard said. “They’d be afraid you’d play some telepathic trick. Most people are afraid of the Altons, though they wouldn’t know if you were old enough to have the
 
laran—
 
the power. I don’t have much of it myself. But let’s get out of here!”

Carefully he went to the door and opened it a fraction. “The way he yelled, if there was anyone withinshouting distance, they’d be all over us,” Kennard said. “I think maybe you’re right. They all must havegone.”

Carefully, they came out into the corridor; walking on tiptoe, stole down the long stairs. Once Kennardmuttered, “I hope we don’t meet anyone! If I don’t go out the way I came in, it would be damned easyto get lost in this place!”

Larry had not realized how immense this bandit stronghold was. He came out of the prison roomwavering, unsteady on his feet so that Kennard had to take hold of his arm and brace him until he couldstand without shaking. Still groggy from the drug, it seemed that they hurried through, miles of corridors,starting at every distant sound, flattening themselves against the walls when once something like a stepechoed at the bottom of a flight of stairs. But it had died in the distance and the old castle was silentagain, brooding.

A great gate loomed before them and Kennard, shoving Larry back against the wall, peered out, sniffingthe wind like a hunter. He said, tersely, “Seems quiet enough. We’ll chance it. I don’t know where theother gates are. I saw them ride away and took the chance.”

The fresh air, bitterly cold, seemed to bite at Larry’s bones, but it cleared the last traces of the drug fromhis head, and he stood staring around. Behind them, a high steep mountain face towered, rocky,speckled faintly with a scruff of underbrush and trees. Before them the narrow trail led away downward,through the valleys and hills, through the mountains where they had come.

Kennard said, swiftly, “Come on—we’ll make a dash for it. If anyone’s watching from thosewindows—” He made an edgy gesture upward toward the bleak castle face behind them. “If that oldfellow
 
isn’t
 
dead, and there
 
are
 
other guards, we’ve got maybe an hour before they start beating thewoods for us.”

He poised, said briefly, “Now—run,” and raced across the yard toward the gates, Larry following. Hisarm ached fiercely where it had been strapped, and he was shaky on his feet, but even so, he reached theedge of the forest only a few seconds after Kennard, and the Darkovan boy looked at him a little lessimpatiently. They stood there, breathing hard, looking at each other in wordless question. What next?

“There’s only one road through these mountains,” Kennard said, “and that’s the one the bandits used. We could follow it—keeping in sight of it, and hiding if we heard anyone. There’s an awful lot of forest between here and home—they couldn’t search it all. But”—he gestured—“I think they have watch-towers too, all through this country along the road. We ought to stay under cover of the trees,

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night and day, if we take that route. This whole stretch of country—” he stopped, thinking hard, and Larry saw vividly, in his mind’s eye, the terrible journey over chasms and crags which had brought him here. Kennard nodded.

“That’s why they don’t guard their stronghold, of course; they think themselves guarded well enough by the mountain trail. You need good, mountain-bred, trail-broken horses to make it at all. I left my own horse on the other side of the mountain ridge. Somebody’s probably picked her up by now. I’d hoped—”

The deep throat of an alarm bell suddenly clanged, raising echoes in the forest; a bird cried out noisilyand flew away, and Kennard started, swearing under his breath.

“They’ve roused the whole castle—there must have been some of them left there!” he said, tensely,