The figure smiled at him. "The only living--yes. But I am Shar, who knows everything save the knowledge locked in your spirit that belongs to another greater than common men, the knowledge of the high priest you once were and which you do not know you possess." "Indeed you are a demon," grunted Duar. "No demon. You have forgotten the arts. Demons are my slaves. It is a demon who guards the Rose of Gaon in the northwestern tower of Ygoth. If you must, go strike him down. Maybe combat with the evil forces will shrink this human flesh of yours and the true spirit will escape to join me and end my quest. Perhaps! Even I, Shar, cannot tell! Go." "Go?" roared Duar. "You may go, you devil sent here from Hell to torture me! You may be as beautiful as the Devil's mistress, but if I could get my fingers on that white neck of yours----" He rattled the mocking chains in an agony of despair. "Those?" Shar smiled. Suddenly a portion of the light circle broke away from the revolving main mass, and darting like a flash of steel in campfire light it touched the heavy chains on the prisoner's body. Amazed, the barbarian leapt to his feet as a hundred severed links of iron that had been his fetters clattered about his ankles. "Go," said Shar, "to the Rose of Gaon and the demon in the tower. I will be watching, my lord, even as when I blinded your enemies in battle and guided your ship at sea. Perhaps even Time will relent its waywardness!" Abruptly Duar stood alone in the blackness of the Ygoth Pits. "Accursed witch!" he exclaimed aloud. "Rescue it may be, but no good will come of it! In another hour or two Nione would have been curious enough to send for me. Now where in the name of the Seven Gods is that door?" * * * * * The Queen of Krall braided her golden hair in preparation for retirement to the royal bed and smiled an appreciative commendation to her reflection in the jewel-studded mirror. She was fully aware of her beauty and exercised it on occasions before visiting diplomats. Before the nobles of her own court she retained the masculine manners of her dead father, and although she knew they penetrated her bruskness, she cared little. In her judgment there was no one in the kingdom of Ygoth fit to share the double throne. As she completed the last plait and thrust the braids back, a vision arose before her of the statuesque adventurer she had that day committed to the Pits. He _was_ a handsome man; obviously interesting. A bold warrior, also, with a hundred legends to his record. Apparently a temper to match her own. Her thoughts strayed. If _he_ had been a noble of the court instead of the vagrant, dispossessed ruler of a buried kingdom!... A tinge of pink embellished her fair complexion. Nione, thinking like a courtezan!