A second time he halted and looked back. All uncertainty was gone: four shapes bounded down the slopes. There could be no doubt as to their intent.

Reith caught up with Traz and Anacho. Traz ran with glaring eyes, mouth open so that his teeth showed. Reith took the heaviest bag from the lad's shoulder, threw it over his own. If anything, Traz slowed his pace a trifle. Anacho gauged the distance ahead, studied the pursuing Dirdir. "We have a chance."

The three ran, hearts pounding, lungs burning. Traz's face was like a skull.

Anacho relieved him of the remaining parcel.

The Portal of Gleams was visible: a haven of wonderful security. Behind came the hunters, by prodigious leaps.

Traz was faltering, with the Portal yet a half-mile ahead. "Onmale!" called Reith.

The effect was startling. Traz seemed to expand, to grow tall. He stopped short and swung about to face the pursuers. His face was that of a stranger: a person sagacious, fierce and dominant, the personification in fact of the emblem Onmale.

Onmale was too proud to flee.

"Run!" cried Reith in a panic. "If we must fight, let's fight on our own terms!"

Traz, or Onmale-the two were confused-seized a pack from Reith and one from Anacho and sprang ahead toward the Portal.

Reith wasted a half-second gauging the distance to the first Dirdir, then continued his flight. Traz soared across the barrens. Anacho, his face pink and distorted, pounded behind.

Traz gained the Portal. He turned and waited, catapult in one hand, sword in the other. Anacho passed through, then Reith, not fifty feet in advance of the foremost Dirdir. Traz backed to stand just beyond the boundary, challenging the Dirdir to attack. The Dirdir gave a shrill scream of fury. It shook its head, and its effulgences, standing high, vibrated. Then, curvetting, it loped south, after its comrades, already on their way back to the hills.

Anacho leaned panting against the Portal of Gleams. Reith stood with the breath rasping in his throat. Traz's face was vacant and gray. His knees buckled; he fell to the ground and lay quiet, giving not so much as a twitch.

Reith staggered forward, turned him over. Traz seemed not to breathe. Reith straddled his body and applied artificial respiration. Traz gave a throat-wrenching gasp. Presently he began to breathe evenly.

The solicitors, touts and beggars who normally kept station by the Portal of Gleams had scattered, aghast at the approach of the Dirdir. First to return was a young man in a long maroon gown, who now stood making gracious movements of concern. "An outrage," he lamented. "The conduct of the Dirdir! Never should they chase so close to the gate! They have almost killed this poor young man!"

"Quiet," snapped Anacho. "You disturb us."

The young man stood aside. Reith and Anacho lifted Traz to his feet, where he stood in something of a stupor.

The young man once again came forward, his soft brown eyes all-seeing, all-knowing. "Allow me to assist. I am Issam the Thang; I represent the Hopeful Venture Inn, which promises a restful atmosphere. Allow me to assist you with your parcels." Picking up Traz's pack he turned a startled gaze toward Reith and Anacho. "Sequins?"

Anacho seized his pack. "Be off with you! Our plans are established!"

"As you will," said Issam the Thang, "but the Hopeful Venture Inn is near at hand, and something apart from the tumult and gaming. While comfortable, the expense does not approach the exorbitant fees of the Alawan."

"Very well," said Reith. "Take us to the Hopeful Venture."

Anacho muttered under his breath; to which Issam the Thang made a delicate gesture of reproach. "This way, if you will."

They trudged toward Maust, Traz hobbling on his lame leg.

"My memory is a jumble," he muttered. "I recall crossing the Forelands; I remember that someone shouted into my ear-"

"It was I," said Reith.

"--then after, nothing real, and next I lay beside the Portal." And a moment later he mused: "I heard roaring voices. A thousand faces looked past me, warriors' faces, raging. I have seen such things in dreams." His voice dwindled; he said no more.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE HOPEFUL VENTURE Inn stood at the back of a narrow alley, a brooding, age-blackened structure, doing no great business, to judge from the common room, which was dark and still. Issam, it now appeared, was the proprietor. He made an effusive show of hospitality, ordering water, lamps and linen up to the "grand suite," which orders were effected by a surly servant with enormous red hands and a shock of coarse red hair. The three mounted a twisting stairway to the suite, which comprised a sitting-room, a wash-room, several irregular alcoves furnished with sour-smelling couches. The servant arranged the lamps, brought flasks of wine and departed. Anacho examined the lead and wax stoppers, then put the flasks aside. "Too much risk of drugs or poison. When the man awakes-if he awakes-his sequins are gone and he is bereft. I am dissatisfied; we would have done better at the Alawan."

"Tomorrow is time enough," said Reith, sinking into a chair with a groan of fatigue.

"Tomorrow we must be gone from Maust," said Anacho. "If we are not marked men now, we soon will be." He went forth and presently returned with bread, meat and wine.

They ate and drank; then Anacho checked the bars and bolts. "Who knows what transpires in these old piles? A knife in the dark, a single sound, and who is the wiser save Issam the Thang?"

Again checking the locks, the three prepared themselves for sleep. Anacho, declaring himself to be easily aroused, put the sequins between himself and the wall. Except for a single wavering night light the lamps were extinguished. A

few moments later Anacho slipped noiselessly across the room to Reith's couch.

"I suspect peepholes and listening pipes," he whispered. "Here are the sequins.

Put them beside you. Let us sit quietly and watch for a period."

Reith forced himself into a state of alertness. Fatigue defeated him; his eyelids drooped. He slept.

Time passed. Reith was aroused by a prod from Anacho's elbow; he sat up with a jerk of guilt. "Quiet," said Anacho in the ghost of a whisper. "Look yonder."

Reith peered through the darkness. A scrape, a movement in the shadows, a dark shape-a light suddenly flared up. Traz stood, crouched and glaring, arms concealed in the shadow of his body.

The two men by Anacho's couch turned to face the lamp, faces blank and startled.

One was Issam the Thang; the second was the burly servant who had been groping with his enormous hands for the neck of Anacho, presumably asleep on the couch.

The servant emitted a curious whisper of excitement and hopped across the room, hands clutching. Traz fired his catapult into the twisted face. The man fell silently, going to oblivion without apprehension or regret. Issam sprang for an opening in the wall. Reith bore him to the floor. Issam fought desperately; for all his slenderness and delicacy he was as strong and quick as a serpent. Reith seized him in an arm-lock and jerked him erect, squeaking in pain.

Anacho flipped a cord around Issam's neck and prepared to tighten the noose.

Reith grimaced but made no protest. This was the justice of Maust; it was only fitting that here, in the flaring lamplight, Issam should go to his doom.

Issam fervently cried out: "No! I am only a miserable Thang! Don't kill me! I'll help you, I swear! I'll help you escape!"

"Wait," said Reith. To Issam: "How do you mean, help us escape? Are we in danger?"

"Yes, of course. What should you expect?"

"Tell me of this danger."