"I wonder," mused Duar aloud, "if you'd scream." Twice in their journey through the streets they were halted by an inquisitive night patrol, but each time the sight of the Queen's personal ring gave them free passage and each time Duar chuckled quietly at the amazed expressions on the faces of the captains confronted by the royal seal. The second time, as the patrol with its dim hand-lights passed on, he laughed aloud. Nione deliberately kicked his shin in a most unqueenly manner. "If a Queen is ridiculed, no one laughs!" she reminded him fiercely. "You are the most marvelous of Queens!" swore Duar devotedly. At the northwestern corner of the city of Ygoth, where the ancient walls rose against the invaders of centuries ago and the possible ones of tomorrow, stood the Black Tower, alone in all its majestic solitude, with no other building or dwelling to share its vicinity. No one cared to live within the shadows of its evil memories. Once in a decade the feet of men approached its portals carrying some drugged wretch to be cast inside the doors that stood always open, like the gates of Hell; some creature in the form of man who had committed a monstrous crime. What horrible fate they met within or below the black walls no living soul ever knew, and only the priests guessed. None ever returned from the forbidding, evil tower whose ebony turrets rose against the pure sky like the clutching fingers of a demon from the lowest pits. Once close to the grim walls the woman who was a Queen and the man who had been a king halted in silence to survey their goal. Not even a bat stirred the ghostly stillness. All was darkness, still and remote. Here in the shadow of the tower the moonlight was gone as if a hand from Hell had stricken the silvery orb from the heavens. A monument to the shadowy God of Death. "Wait for me here, O Nione," said Duar. "If I come back I'll bring you a king's ransom--if I find you here to lead me again through the guards. If I find you not--I'll come through the guards alone and drape the dead demon over your palace walls!" "My will prevailing, I will be here." "I'll bring back a share of the Rose for you," promised Duar as he vanished into the night. An answering whisper came from behind, momentarily checking his stride: "Bring back yourself, O Duar!" * * * * * At the threshold, where the great dark portals swung wide, he paused in a fruitless attempt to peer down the long flight of carven steps he knew lay before him. The dim reflection of moonlight showed only the gaping entrance and the rubble and debris of passing centuries; the time-worn descent to unknown punishment was blotted from the eye. Barbarian though he was, Duar muttered a prayer to the Seven Gods before he descended the topmost step, after which he ventured downward, surely the only man in eons to come upright and not falling in screaming terror from the hands of executioner priests.