y will not come--now." A knob-crowned wand stretched out in the air,
pointing to the upper reaches of the slope. "Nor can any of their
blood--unless we win."

"What is wrong?" Ashe asked.

"You were right, very right, men out of time! These invaders are not to
be lightly dismissed. They have turned one of our own defenses against
us. Loketh, Baleku, all of their kind, can be made into tools for a
master. They belong to the enemy now."

"And we have failed so early?" Karara wanted to know.

Again that piercing thrust of anger so vivid that it was no mere emotion
but seemed a tangible force.

"Failed? No, not yet have we even begun to fight! You were very right;
this is such an evil as must be faced and fought, even if we lose all in
battle! Now we must do that which none of our own race has done for
generations--we must open three locks, throw wide the Great Door, and
seek out the Keeper of the Closed Knowledge!"

Light, a sharp ray sighting from the tip of the wand. And the Foanna
following that beam, the three Terrans coming after ... into the
unknown.

16

The Opening of the Great Door

It was not the general airlessness of the long-closed passage which wore
on Ross's nerves, made Karara suddenly reach out and clasp fingers about
the wrists of the two men she walked between; it was a crushing
sensation of age, of a toll of years so long, so heavy, as to make time
itself into a turgid flood which tugged at their bodies, mired their
feet as they trudged after the Foanna. This sense of age, of a dead and
heavy past, was so stifling that all three Terrans breathed in gasps.

Karara's breaths became sobs. Yet she matched her pace to Ashe and Ross,
kept going. Ross himself had little idea of their surroundings, but one
small portion of his brain asked answerless questions. The foremost
being: Why did the past crush in on him here? He had traveled time, but
never before had he been beaten with the feel of countless dead and
dying years.

"Going back--" That hoarse whisper came from Ashe, and Ross thought he
understood.

"A time gate!" He was eager to accept such an explanation. Time gates he
could understand, but that the Foanna used one....

"Not our kind," Ashe replied.

But his words had pulled Ross out of a spell which had been as quicksand
about him. And he began to fight back with a determination not to be
sucked into what filled this place. In spite of Ross's efforts, his eyes
could supply h