The empty jug dropped and broke. Freka rose. He took the naked sword in his hand and crossed the open space to the cell. He lifted the outer bar away. It fell with a great echoing clang, and Freka entered. "Stand up, Outlander," he said. "Stand up and face the steel. After that you'll sleep in a coral pit, and not even the worms will find you." "Beast of Shanga!" Stark said contemptuously, and set his back against the wall, to give himself all the slack of the chain. He saw the bright steel glimmer in the air, up and down again, but when the blow fell he had leaped aside, and the point struck ringing against the stone. Stark darted in to grapple. His fingers slipped on hard muscle, and Freka wrenched away. He was a fighting man, and no weakling. The iron collar dug painfully into the Earthman's throat and the heavy chain threw him backward. Freka laughed, deep in his chest. The sword glinted hungrily. * * * * * Then, as though she had taken shape suddenly from the shadows, Fianna was in the doorway. The little gun in her hand made a hissing spurt of flame. Freka screamed once, and fell. He did not move again. "The swine," Fianna said, without emotion. "Delgaun ordered him to wait, until it was sure that Kynon would not come down to talk to you. Then the story was to be that you had escaped somehow, with Berild's aid." She stepped over the body and unlocked the iron collar with a key she took from her girdle. Stark took her slender shoulders gently between his hands. "Are you a witch-girl, that you know all things and always come when I need you?" She gave him a deep, strange look. In the dusk, her proud young face was unfamiliar, touched with something fey and sad. He wished that he could see her eyes more clearly. "I know all things because I must," she told him wearily. "And I think that you are my only hope--perhaps the only hope of Mars." He drew her to him, and kissed her, and stroked her dark head. "You're too young to concern yourself with the destinies of worlds." He felt her tremble. "The youth of the body is only illusion, when the mind is old." "And is yours old, little one?" "Old," she whispered. "As old as Berild's." He felt her tears warm against his skin, and she was like a child in his arms. "Then you know about her," said Stark. "Yes." He paused. "And Delgaun?" "Delgaun also." "I thought so," Stark said. He nodded, scowling at the barred moonlight in the well. "There are things I must know, myself--but we'd best get out of here. Did Berild send you?" "Yes--as soon as she could get the key from Kynon. She is waiting for you." She stirred Freka's body with her foot. "Bring that. We'll hide it in the pit he meant for you."