ad
through it. Hellish glare was a roaring torrent of musical color. Red
stains spread swiftly, dying the crystal columns, the glassy sward,
seeping into the reeling brain.

There was blood. The taste of it in his mouth, the hot, salt smell, the
sound of its dripping. He swam in seas of ruby light, crashing and
plunging wildly, sinking into its crimson depths. Red light thickened
around him, deepened, smothering.

The darkness was red, fire-shot, roaring....

Then pain and timeless darkness.

Newlin awakened slowly, to ugly tension in his mind. Shadows like
beating wings disturbed his memory.

The churning light and sound were gone. He drifted idly, body and mind
coming softly to rest upon a bank of soft grass.

Someone knelt beside him. Someone cried softly, to the same murmurous
rhythms of the crystalline forest. Without opening his eyes he sensed
this, and knew also that he was still within the eery precincts of the
maze. He opened his eyes, painfully.

This time, there were tears, glistening and falling slowly, glistening
like crystal dewdrops in sunlight, and falling in softly tinkling shower
like spilled jewels.

"Songeen!" he cried.

"Yes," murmured a tympany of glass bells, "I am here."

It was Songeen--almost, again, as he remembered her, almost human. It
was Songeen, small, delicate, unreal, but sweetly feminine--almost
human. It was Songeen, but with something added, changed, oddly blended
into both form and personality.

"I tried to save you," she murmured. "I tried, but could not reach you.
My knowledge is incomplete. I thought you were weak, confused, too
frightened and disturbed to be changed easily. But you were strong, and
your violence was a challenge to it. Only the Masters could understand.
They saved you--not I. They intervened in time."

"The Masters!" Newlin glanced round, quickly, warily. "They are here?"

"Not here--now. But they saved you. I did not know all the dangers.
They--not I--"

"Saved me from what--death?"

"No--worse. And now they say you must go back. At once. The Masters urge
haste."

* * * * *

Newlin tasted bitterness on his lips. "Orders from headquarters. Well,
I've been kicked out of better places--but few more interesting. Too bad
I forgot my brass knuckles."

Physically, he tried to rise. Every bone and muscle ached. But it could
have been worse. He seemed intact. Hints of vagrant color rippled over
his visible skin, but