"After the manner of his people he seeks new things so that he may return and report to his Elders. Then he will receive the spear of manhood and be ready for the choosing of mates," Sssuri translated the reason for Dalgard's quest into the terms of his own people. "He has been my knife brother since we were cubs together, and so I journey with him. But here in the north we have found evil--" His flow of thought was submerged by a band of hate so red that its impact upon the mind was almost a blow. Dalgard shook his head. He had known that the merpeople, aroused, were deadly fighters, fearless and crafty, and with a staying power beyond that of any human. But their rage was something he had not met before. "_They_ come once again--_they_ burn with the fire--_They_ are among our islands--" A cub whimpered and a merwoman stooped to pat it to silence. "Here they have killed with the fire--" They did not elaborate upon that statement, and Dalgard had no wish for them to do so. He was still very glad that it had been dark when he had climbed to the top of that cliff, that he had not been able to see what his imagination told him lay there. "Do _they_ stay?" That was Sssuri. "Not so. In their sky traveler they go to the land where lies the dark city. There they make much evil against the day when this shall be their land once more." "But these lie if they think that." Another strong thought broke across the current of communication. "_We_ are not now penned for their pleasure. We may flee into the sea once more, and there live as did our fathers' fathers, and they dare not follow us there--" "Who knows?" It was Sssuri who raised that objection. "With their ancient knowledge once more theirs, even the depths of the sea may not be ours much longer. Do they not know how to ride upon the air?" The knot of mer-warriors stirred. Several spears thudded butt down into the sand. And Sssuri accepted that as an invitation to descend, summoning Dalgard after him with a beckoning finger. Later they sat in a circle in the cushioning gray powder, the two from the south eating dried fish and sea kelp, while Sssuri related, between mouthfuls, their recent adventures. "Three times have _they_ flown across these islands on their way to that city," the Elder of the pitifully decimated merman tribe told the explorers. "But this time," broke in one of his companions, "they had with them a new ship--" "A new ship?" Sssuri pounced upon that scrap of information. "Yes. The ships of the air in which _they_ travel are fashioned so"--with his knife point he drew a circle in the sand--"but this one was smaller and more in the likeness of a spear with a heavy point--thus"--he made a second sketch beside the first, and Dalgard and Sssuri leaned over to study it. "That is unlike any of their ships that I have heard of," Sssuri agreed. "Even in the old tales of the Days Before the Burning there is nothing spoken of like that."