They reached its base. Haral pulled himself erect amid the black shadows cloaking the foundation. Wearily, he leaned against a fallen column. The move brought fragments rattling down. At the sound, a coleopteron in a nearby hollow came to a sudden halt. For a moment it hesitated, then began to work its way warily towards the shaft. Kyla said, "Haral--!" in a voice choked with new panic. "Stay here. Don't move," Haral clipped tightly. "And don't shoot--not unless you have to!" As he spoke, he levered himself up onto the lowest beam. More broken stone clattered to the ground below him. The beetle came forward faster. * * * * * Awkwardly, the blue man climbed upward. His left arm was almost useless. The light-lance dragged and got in his way. Below, the great scarlet insect stopped short. Of a sudden its mandibles clacked wildly. Haral lifted his helmet a fraction. Vibrations poured into his brain: "Blood! Here, here, this way--!" Cursing, Haral whipped up the light-lance and triggered a beam at the beetle's thorax. The coleopteron wallowed backward, great wings threshing. Clutching a vertical girder, again the warrior clambered upward. Above him, and to one side, a gap that might once have housed a window loomed. Painfully, he worked towards it. His left arm dragged, less help than hindrance. He couldn't seem to get in air. His body rebelled at his brain's commands. Then, at last, he got a grip on a jagged fragment near the edge of the slot-like opening. With a final, spasmodic effort, he dragged himself up and sprawled on his belly across the masonry. On the other side of the wall, spread out before him in the shadowy purple of the Ulnese night, lay the heart of the dead city. From this height he could see its plan, its prospect. There, ragged strips that once had been broad avenues radiated out from a central park. There, a spider-web of cross streets showed, linking the great arteries together. And there, too, were the ruins Kyla called the Triad--the huge, three-winged structure that rose in the park's heart. Somewhere beneath it lay the shrine of Xaymar, queen of storms, living goddess of all Ulna. Awe gripped Haral. Silent, brooding, he stared across the fallen splendor. Such splendor, so far fallen. These others, who once had walked this mighty city in its day of greatness--they, too, had been strong. They, too, had felt the drive to power. Now they lay in dust beneath his feet. And here he sprawled, beset and wounded, driven by a dream on a madman's quest, mayhap to meet death himself in this silent city of the dead. His weariness welled up once more; engulfed him. How had Sark put it--"Why have you come so long a way to die?" Sark, and a dream turned nightmare. Yet he'd ridden other nightmares in his time, with less to gain and more to lose. That was the meaning of life; the challenge. There below lay a living goddess; and a priestess waited to guide him to her.