"I am no longer god of the Trylla," he rasped bitterly, looking down at her. "I am hated by them. Now I am--nothing!" She was very round and soft on his ribs. Tyr tightened his arm, watching her mouth. Katha made a face and mocked him. "Man or god--you hurt!" He eased his arms a little, still holding her tightly. He went down the corridor of the arches as Fay and the others watched from the shadows. His footfalls were soft, but deadly. It was as though his feet intoned a _danse macabre_ for the Tryllan race. Tyr carried the girl to her jet plane that had been hidden among the rocks. He lifted her into it and swung up, both hands on the smooth plasticine handles. The door clicked behind him. Katha dropped into a red leather seat before an intricate control-board. Her white fingers touched pins. The ship rumbled and shuddered. Slowly it trundled forward, gathering momentum. From the port window, Tyr watched the white dome of the Barrow falling away below. He turned his eyes to the front, seeing her lift the plane over a fringe of _hibithus_-trees to arrow into the cloudless sky. "Katha, I am homeless." Homeless and a wanderer, without a people. The Trylla had been his people, if a god ever had people. Now they had turned against him, broken with him, even tried to kill him. There was bitterness on his tongue and in his heart. A bitterness that burned and galled. From the depths of his anguish, he cried, "I want to be a part of something, Katha! I am neither Tryllan nor _ardth_. What am I?" The woman caught his hand and pressed it to her lips. She whispered softly, "To me you are always a god, Tyr. I love you. You love me." "I have you. Yes, that makes up for everything else." He sighed, "But I keep telling myself that I have failed. That I have not done all I could to free the Trylla." "What of the tower, Tyr? You said it had strange things in it. Perhaps it is a laboratory, of sorts. I might make tests there, of you, seek to know your purposes, your abilities." "Yes, the tower. I'd forgotten that. It could be a home to us. An _ardth_-woman and a--an unknown!" "I am _ardth_ no longer. I gave that up when I came after you. I knew what I was doing." He knelt and caught her to him, saying, "There is no place for either of us, except with the other. Two wanderers." "Two wanderers," she sighed. "With a purpose. A mad, insane belief in themselves. To fight even when there is no chance of victory!" * * * * * The tower stood gaunt and lonely, rising up into a blue sky. Baked dirt powdered into clouds under their feet as they walked toward it. The tower was strong and thickly built, and it towered above the flat earth in its loneliness. In that respect, it was a little like Tyr himself, Katha thought. She studied the flat buttresses and arched windows. "An _ardth_-man built that," she said. "If he did, he made it a laboratory and home at the same time."