He threw back his head, and laughed a choked throaty laugh that was half sob. "Know, demon, or madman, or ancient prince of evil: for thirty centuries have I brooded alone, sealed from an empire by a single key!" I felt the shock rack through and through the invader mind. This was the opportunity I had hoped for. Quick as thought I moved, slashed at the wavering shield, and was past it-- Upon the mind-picture of Foster's face was now superimposed another: that of Qulqlan, Rthr of all Vallon, ruler of the Two Worlds! And other pictures, snatched from the intruder mind, were present now in the Earth-consciousness of me, Legion: the vaults, deep in the rock under the fabled city of Okk-Hamiloth, where the mind-trace of every citizen was stored, sealed by the Rthr and keyed to his mind alone; Ammaerln, urging the king to embark on a far-voyage, stressing the burden of government, tempting him to bring with him the royal mind-trace; Qulqlan's acquiescence and Ammaerln's secret joy at the advancement of his scheme; the coming of the Change for the Rthr, aboard ship, far out in space, and the vizier's bold stroke; and then the fools who found him at the lifeboat ... and the loss of all, all.... There my own lived memories took up the tale: the awakening of Foster, unsuspecting, and his recording of the mind of the dying Ammaerln; the flight from the Hunters; the memory-trace of the king, that lay for three millennia among neolithic bones until I, a primitive, plucked it from its place; and the pocket of a coarse fibre garment where the cylinder lay now, on a hip of the body I inhabited and as inaccessible to me as if it had been a million miles away. But there was a second memory-trace--Ammaerln. I had crossed a galaxy to come to Foster, and with me, locked in an unmarked pewter cylinder, I had brought Foster's ancient nemesis. I had given it life, and a body. Foster, once Rthr, had survived against all logic and had come back from the dead: the last hope of a golden age.... To meet his fate at my hands. * * * * * "Three thousand years," I heard my voice saying. "Three thousand years have the men of Vallon lived mindless, with the power that was Vallon locked away in a vault without a key. And now, you think to force this mind--that is no mind--to unseal the vault?" "I know it for a hopeless task," Ommodurad said. "At first I thought--since he speaks the tongue of old Vallon--that he dissembled. But he knows nothing. This is but the dry husk of the Rthr ... and I sicken of the sight. I would fain kill him now and let the long farce end." "Not so!" my voice cut in. "Once I decreed exile to the mindless one. So be it!" The face of Ommodurad twisted in its rage. "Your witless chatterings! I tire of them." "Wait!" my voice snarled. "Would you put aside the key?" There was a silence as Ommodurad stared at my face. I saw my hand rise into view. Gripped in it was Foster's memory-trace.