owed and
wove about them, cascading down shoulders, rippling about their arms,
was silver, too, and it swirled, moved as if it had a separate life of
its own. While their eyes.... Ross looked into those golden eyes and was
lost for seconds until panic awoke in him, forcing him after sharp
struggle to look away.

Laughter? No, he had not heard laughter. But a sense of amusement tinged
with respect came to him.

"You are very right, Gordoon. This one is also of your kind. He is not
witches' meat." Ross caught the distaste, the kind of haunting
unhappiness which colored those words, remnants of an old hurt.

"These are the Foanna," Ashe's voice broke more of the spell. "The Lady
Ynlan, The Lady Yngram, the Lady Ynvalda."

The Foanna--these three only?

She whom Ashe had named Ynlan, whose eyes had entrapped and almost held
what was Ross Murdock, made a small gesture with her ivory hand. And in
that gesture as well as in the words witches' meat the Terran read the
unhappiness which was as much a part of this room as the rest of its
mystery.

"The Foanna are now but three. They have been only three for many weary
years, oh man from another world and time. And soon, if these enemies
have their way, they will not be three--but none!"

"But--" Ross was still startled. He knew from Loketh that the Wreckers
had deemed the Foanna few in number, an old and dying race. But that
there were only three women left was hard to believe.

The response to his unspoken wonder came clear and determined. "We may
be but three; however, our power remains. And sometimes power distilled
by time becomes the stronger. Now it would seem that time is no longer
our servant but perhaps among our enemies. So tell us this tale of yours
as to why the Rovers would make one with the Foanna--tell us all,
younger brother!"

Ross reported what he had seen, what Tino-rau and Taua had learned from
the prisoners taken at Kyn Add. And when he had finished, the three
Foanna stood very still, their hands clasped one to the other. Though
they were only an arm's distance from him, Ross had the feeling they had
withdrawn from his time and world.

So complete was their withdrawal that he dared to ask Ashe one of the
many questions which had been boiling inside him.

"Who are they?" But Ross knew he really meant: What are they?

Gordon Ashe shook his head. "I don't really know--the last of a very old
race which possesses powers and knowledge different from