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  "Stay put. There's nothing you can do. It's too late."

  Lopakhin had closed the distance between himself and the shimmering cloud. He walked up to it, into it, froze as it closed around him.

  "God!" Massak lifted his gun. "It's eating him!"

  "Don't shoot!" Dumarest slammed down the weapon. "It's too late."

  "I can give him an easy out."

  "He doesn't need it. Look at his face."

  It was calm, peaceful, the artist smiling a little as if he saw something which pleasured him. Smiling as his clothing dissolved into the mist, as his skin followed, the fat, the muscle and sinew, the bones and internal organs. Smiling still with bared teeth as his skull sat on the livid horror which had once been his body.

  Then that too had vanished and there was only the mist which sang and pulsed and glided away down the facing tunnel to send murmurs and whispers of itself back in diminishing cadences.

  "God!" Massak shook his head. "What the hell is it? A leech? A parasite of some kind? Why didn't it it take us all?"

  "It had fed." Dumarest looked at the tunnel down which it had gone. "Lopakhin ran to it, remember. It didn't have to search."

  But it would find them in its restless drifting, scenting them with alien organs, responding to the heat of their bodies, the electromagnetic activity of their brains. Or perhaps simply their bulk and composition, one different from rock. As were the things they had discarded. The debris which must have been left by others. All gone, cleared away, converted to basic energy to keep the thing alive.

  "So we found it," said Mirza. "Or it found us. The thing I felt must be waiting. The guardian," she explained looking at them. "There's one in every legend. The monster which guards the treasure-but where the hell is it?"

  "We'll find it," said Dumarest.

  "When?"

  "Soon." He looked at the casket, the flash of warning lights. It would have to be soon. "In a few hours, maybe."

  Massak saw it first.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was a bowl set in a cavern and centered by a column of lambent blue. Impressions fined as Dumarest studied it; the bowl was filled with a thinner mist the same color as the column, which was twenty feet high and half as large in diameter.

  "It's like a fountain," said Massak. He stood in the opening from which he had discovered the column. "A fountain of mist, water, smoke-what the hell is it?"

  Radiation made visible; energies trapped in a revealing medium which showed their writhing complexity as the beam of a flashlight was made to look solid in a dusty atmosphere. Forces which twisted, weaved, following a pattern impossible to grasp. Forming a substance which hovered between that of solid and gas. One alien in its fabrication.

  It rested in a cavern shaped like the interior of an egg, the rock bearing a polished sheen. Stone shaped and worn by unknown years of attrition from the force it contained. The glow from it was caught, reflected, emphasized, enhanced by the near-mirror finish. The bowl formed a shallow pool, the edge resting ten feet from where they stood.

  "We've found it!" The gun trembled in Massak's hands. "The thing Chenault dreamed of finding. The secret of Ryzam. Look at it, Earl! The source of renewed youth. Of health. Of life itself. You can feel it. Feel it!"

  Dumarest inhaled, feeling the tingle coming from the column, hearing the soft susurration which could have been the rustle of breaking atoms. Material created, changed, recreated to form a continuous cycle of pulsing energy.

  One which held the same hypnotic fascination as the shining predator.

  "Wait!" Dumarest caught the mercenary's arm as he stepped toward the pool. "Let's check it out."

  "What's there to check? We've found it."

  "As others must have done. Where are they?" Dumarest looked around the chamber; it held two other openings, each, like the one they stood in, fashioned like a soaring arch. "We can walk around the pool and see what's behind those openings. You take the left and I'll go right."

  He strode forward before Massak could argue, seeing him hesitate, then, shrugging, following his example. The opening gave on a passage with a peaked roof, the walls smooth and glowing with patches of brilliance. A twin to the one which had led them to the chamber. As he stepped back into it Dumarest saw Massak's arm waving in a signal.

  "What is it?"

  "Look." The mercenary pointed. "Another skeleton."

  One traced in the smooth rock as had been the other, the only difference being in size. The first had been that of a mature woman. This was of a child.

  "Barely three feet tall," said Massak. "How old would that make it, Earl? Ten? Twelve?" His tone hardened. "Who the hell would bring a child down here?"

  "Maybe it was a midget."

  "Like Baglioni?" Massak shook his head. "No, it was a child. Dying, maybe. Brought here to be cured. Then that shining thing caught it-and turned it into lines on a wall. One of those who never came back." He looked at the gun in his hands. "If I see it again I'm going to shoot. Don't try to stop me."

  It would be like trying to kill the air but Dumarest didn't argue. "Let's get back to the others." He added, "Don't tell them about this."

  The casket lay fifty yards from the opening at the junction of galleries, too narrow to permit of easy passage. Mirza sat with her back against a wall. Her skin was gray and she breathed through her open mouth. Toyanna was almost as exhausted and sat, crouched against the casket, her fingers busy on the keyboard. The red gleams of warning lights illuminated her face and hair with touches of false comfort.

  "The power's gone," she said as Dumarest halted at her side. "The antigrav units are dead."

  "It doesn't matter. We haven't far to go."

  "You've found it?" Relief washed some of the fatigue from her face, her eyes. "Tama! You heard? We've found it!"

  The surrogate at the end of its cable stirred, lifting its head, its hands. Self-powered it fed energy back through the wires to the pads transmitting Chenault's muscular impulses.

  "How far?"

  "Too far to carry the casket. We'll have to take you out."

  "No!"

  "And there's something else." Dumarest faced the surrogate as it rose to its feet. "You know what it is. Give me the coordinates."

  "No. Not yet. Not until… until…" Chenault broke off, the surrogate jerking. "Must be sure that… that…"

  Toyanna said, sharply. "We have no time to waste. Tama is dying."

  And would die if left in the casket. A coffin which would hold more than the withered corpse of an old man. Dumarest looked at the surrogate, at the casket, at the machine again.

  He said, harshly, "Listen to me, Chenault. I get the coordinates or I'll leave you to rot. I swear it."

  "You can't!" Toyanna looked at his face and knew she was wrong. "Please, Earl, you mustn't!"

  "It's his choice."

  "Tell him!" Mirza had risen to her feet and now stumbled toward the surrogate. "Tell him, you fool! Tell him!"

  "No."

  "Then to hell with you." Dumarest turned. "Come on, Mirza, let me show you what we've found."

  "What about Tama?"

  "Forget him."

  Dumarest heard the rustle of clothing, the scrape of feet, the touch of air compressed beneath a moving object. Warnings which triggered his instinctive reaction and he ducked, lunging to one side, dodging the swing of the metal hand which smashed into Mirza's face.

  Sending her down to lie sprawled on the floor, blood streaming from her nose, her mouth, the empty socket of an eye.

  Toyanna screamed, a shrill sound followed by Massak's roar of anger.

  "You bastard! Earl! Watch him! He's gone crazy!"

  He jumped to one side as the surrogate lunged toward him, gun lifting, finger poised on the trigger as he sought a clear field of fire. One blocked by the casket, the woman, Dumarest himself as he dodged, weaving, ducking to avoid the murderous swings of the surrogate's fist.

  "Chenault! Cut it out! Chenault!"

  A man driven ins
ane by his own stubbornness now finding an anodyne in action. To attack and destroy the man who had defied him. The obstacle in his way. A rage in which logic had no part.

  And the surrogate was strong.

  The proof lay on the floor and Dumarest had already experienced the strength of the artificial limbs. Then Chenault had intended no harm but now he meant to kill.

  "Earl! Down!" Massak bared his teeth in a snarl of impatience. "Down!"

  Fire blasted from the muzzle of his gun and a hail of bullets slammed into the massive torso of the surrogate. A natural error and one he corrected, swinging the gun to aim at the casket, lifting the barrel to rip apart the man it contained.

  "No!" Toyanna threw herself forward. "No!"

  A cry of protest drowned by the roar of the gun, the slamming impact of the bullets which churned her body to a broken, oozing ruin. A mistake; she had moved as the mercenary had closed his finger. As he went to fire again the surrogate was on him. Fist lifted, swinging down in a vicious arc.

  One terminating at Massak's skull, breaking it open like a hammered nut, driving into the soft mass of the brain, causing it to spatter in a rain of red and gray particles.

  Before the hand could be freed Dumarest was on the tall, grim figure.

  To fight normally was to commit suicide and he took opportunity to leap on the machine's back, wrapping his legs around the thick waist, one hand reaching to probe at the eyes while the other lifted his knife and drove the point hard at the junction of neck and shoulder.

  A gamble which failed; the blade slipping from buried metal to cut a gash in the artificial flesh. As an arm rose to grasp his neck Dumarest struck again, this time sending the point into an eye, feeling the plastic covering yield, the lens beneath shattering under the blow.

  Half-blinded Chenault sent the extension of his body into a spinning whirl which threw Dumarest from his position to slam hard against the cabinet. That followed by a fist scraped against his head, tearing his scalp and filling his mouth with the taste of blood. A blow followed by another which he dodged, running toward the opening leading to the column of light, stumbling as his foot slipped on Toyanna's blood.

  As he recovered his balance Chenault was on him, fists pounding, swinging like sledges to smash his ribs and lacerate his lungs with their broken ends. To fill his throat with blood and his eyes with blazing, darting flashes.

  Dazed, Dumarest hit the edge of the opening, moved through it and, doubled, spitting blood, lurched toward the glowing light.

  Chenault followed, the connecting cable unreeling from its spool with a thin humming sound. One which stopped as the surrogate came to the end of its lead, its momentum tearing the connection from its body.

  It crashed to the ground, jerking, twitching as if the metal and plastic held a life of its own. Charged relays mimicking direct, human action. Responding to the power that was flooding into it from the column so that it looked like a helpless cripple striving to gain a safe refuge.

  When, finally, it stilled Dumarest moved slowly back to where the casket rested. He felt weak, giddy and every move filled his chest with the pain of tearing knives. He was dying, drowning in his own blood, every breath accentuating the internal damage.

  As he passed Mirza she groaned, lifting up a hand, her voice fogged with pain.

  "Earl! Earl, help me!"

  A plea he ignored, dropping to his knees beside the cabinet, fingers searching for the catch he had seen Toyanna use. A panel lifted to reveal a selection of drugs; measured doses in sting-ampoules. He selected two and drove the needles into his throat. The pain-killer acted almost instantly and he hoped the hormone-based cellular sealing compound was as effective. Emergency treatment but it enabled him to see clearly, to think free of pain, to select more drugs and to cross to where Mirza nursed her pain and fear.

  "Here." He sent the sting deep into the artery of her throat. "That'll take care of the pain."

  "I'm half blind. My eye-"

  "Is ruined." He injected another dose of drugs around the empty socket. "He knocked out the ball, pulped your nose and must have broken your cheek. The temple too, I think." He probed gently with his fingers. "Yes, I was right. Still hurt?"

  "No, it's just numb." She sat upright and leaned against his supporting arm. "The others?"

  "Dead."

  "Chenault?"

  "Hanging on." Dumarest glanced at the casket with its warning lights. "I misjudged him. I thought he'd yield when I threatened to leave him. Instead he went crazy."

  "He was obsessed. He should have trusted you but-" She broke off, listening. "Earl?"

  He had heard it too, a thin, high singing sound, accompanied by the ghost of bells. A sound they had heard before.

  "It's coming back!" Mirza strained against his arm and climbed to her feet. "Earl! That shining thing! It's coming back!"

  * * *

  It came with the beauty of a drifting cloud, of light and brightness and of sad, sweet songs. Seeming to pause as it entered the space where the casket rested then to glow even brighter as it moved slowly forward. Watching it Dumarest felt his muscles grow tense even as his eyes drank in the alien beauty. It would be good just to sit and watch and let himself be absorbed by the glittering shape. To rest and cease from struggle and surrender to the inevitable. Death was a termination for him as for all things and where was the point in struggling when the final passing could be so enjoyable? To die. To sleep. To let himself be enfolded in the majestic pattern of nature. To become a part of the shining thing as the food he ate became a part of his own body and mind.

  Then the shape he held against him slipped a little and he stared at a dead, tormented face.

  Toyanna, her body smashed to pulp, blood marring her clothing, her face, her hair. A doctor who had tried to protect her patient and who had died in the attempt. Had she loved Chenault? If so she could still save him and others with him.

  Dumarest rose, the body of the woman held upright in his arms, her head lolling against his chest. A weight he carried from behind the casket to where the shining thing waited as if aware that nothing living could resist its glowing beauty. To hold it out before him, to press it against the gleaming radiance, to feel it held as if by a multitude of tiny, invisible hands, then to release his hold and step back and sag against the wall where Mirza waited tense with expectant dread.

  "God!" She closed her eye as if to shut out what she had seen. The feeding which stripped a victim layer by layer. One she had seen when Lopakhin had died and had now seen again. "Earl, will it come back?"

  He listened to the dying cadences of its passage. As before, when it had fed, it had moved on. Satisfied with a willing victim, perhaps, following some age-old pattern established on some alien world. Speculations he set aside as, rising, he dragged the woman to her feet.

  "I need your help. We've got to get Chenault out of the casket."

  Touching her face, she said, bitterly, "Let the bastard rot!"

  "Do as I say!" He was sharp; lifting the dead woman had filled his chest with the pain of new injuries. "I can't carry him, you'll have to do that. Hurry, now!"

  He coughed and spat a stream of blood, feeling his lungs fill with more of his life's fluid as he tore open the casket. Mirza reached within, lifted the frail shape, brushed away the wired pads.

  "You're a fool, Earl. If what you found can help you get to it. Forget Chenault. He deserves to die. In fact I think he's already dead. Leave him."

  "I can't." Not while there remained the chance that the information he held could be gained. No matter how slender that chance might be. "Hand me those drugs."

  They helped but not enough and Dumarest staggered as he led the way to the opening giving onto the column of light. It blazed brighter than he remembered, the soft susurration like voices calling from across vast distances, the tingle stronger now as if it were some form of atomic gas.

  Mirza said, "That? Are we supposed to walk into that?"

  "Have we any choice?" Again Dumare
st vented a carmine stream. Fighting for breath he said, "It's a chance but what can we lose? We'd never get out in the condition we're in. Move, now. Carry Chenault into the column. I can't help."

  "But you'll be able to manage?"

  "Yes."

  "To hell with Chenault. I'll drop him. Lean on me, Earl. We'll go in together."

  "Just do as I say." And hurry, woman! Hurry before the old man is dead and it's too late! "Please, Mirza. Do it for me. Please!"

  For a moment she stared at him and then she was gone, leaving him with the memory of her ruined face, the body of the old man held like a baby in her arms. Dumarest saw her step into the pool and walk without hesitation directly toward the central column. The mist-water-smoke-like blueness rose to her knees and, after she had reached halfway, he followed her as he had promised.

  Slowly for he was heading into the unknown and every instinct warned him against it. The column could consume everything within it to atomic ash. Like the shining thing it could exist only to feed and yet it still was the only chance they had. One they couldn't afford to ignore.

  Dumarest stepped into the pool.

  Something like a tingling perfume rose around him and he inhaled, doubling to cough his pain as agony tore into his lungs. Sacrificing Toyanna's dead body had negated the healing medication and now even the pain killers had lost their power. He coughed again, staggering as the column spun in his sudden giddiness. One which dominated his actions, causing him to sag, to fall, to immerse himself in the pool as Mirza and her burden reached the column and vanished inside.

  Too weak to move, Dumarest drifted like a dead fish in the lambent mist.

  One which held magic.

  The world was what a world should be with hard, clear seasons, a moon and stars a man could recognize and use to guide his way. A place where, at times, it was gentle and at others harsh. One where it was necessary to work and that was good, for to be idle was to grow weak. A planet which donated a heritage of pride.

  "Earl!" The woman was tall with hair the color of flame, pendulous breasts above a belly swollen with child. She smiled and waved as he looked at her. "Take care of your son, Earl. I've enough to do teaching our daughter to cook."