one that in a
mental contact? Ross would simply have to accept everything with a
certain amount of cautious skepticism.

Anyway, there were the Wreckers of the castle--petty lordlings setting
up their holds along the coasts, preying upon the shipping which was the
lifeblood of this island-water world. The Terrans had seen them in
action last night and today. And if the captive's information was
correct, it was not only the storm's fury which brought the waves'
harvest. The Wreckers had some method of attracting ships to crack up on
their reefs.

Some method of attraction.... And that force which had pulled the
Terrans through the time gate; could there be a connection? However,
there remained the Wreckers on the cliff. And their prey, the seafarers
of the ocean, with an understandably deep enmity between them.

Those two parties Ross could understand and be prepared to deal with, he
thought. But there remained the Foanna. And, from their prisoner's
explanation, the Foanna were a very different matter.

They possessed a power which did not depend upon swords or ships or the
natural tools and weapons of men. No, they had strengths which were
unearthly, to give them superiority in all but one way--numbers. Though
the Foanna had their warriors and servants, as Ross had seen on the
beach, they, themselves, were of another race--a very old and dying race
of which few remained. How many, their enemies could not say, for the
Foanna had no separate identities known to the outer world. They
appeared, gave their orders, levied their demands, opposed or aided as
they wished--always just one or two at a time--always so muffled in
their cloaks that even their physical appearances remained a mystery.
But there was no mystery about their powers. Ross gathered that no
Wrecker lord, no matter how much a leader among his own kind, how
ambitious, had yet dared to oppose actively one of the Foanna, though he
might make a token protest against some demand from them.

And certainly the captive's description of those powers in action
suggested a supernatural origin of Foanna knowledge, or at least for its
application. But Ross thought that the answer might be that they
possessed the remnants of some almost forgotten technical know-how, the
heritage of a very old race. He had tried to learn something of the
origin of the Foanna themselves, wondering if the robed ones could be
from the galactic empire. But the answer had come that the Foann