If it did not actually hear him, the giant bird saw him. Swiftly it descended. And as it dropped toward him, he saw it held an object in its beak--the crystal globe. His perplexity mounted. For added to all the other strangeness of this event, he now detected a desperation about the bird, a consuming anxiety. He sent his thought to meet the pulse that was reaching toward him. "Where is Leeta? Has something happened?" With a final sweep of its wings, the bird settled to the ground. Its answer came, then, holding an odd deep twittering quality. "The fire! Leeta is sending herself into the fire! Only you can stop her. She has commanded the winged ones not to interfere--a command we cannot disobey." "Leeta--planning to destroy herself? But why?" "It is because of this thing called love that you awoke in her. She felt that without you there was no longer any reason to live." Anxiety sharpened in the twittering thought. "Will you help to save Leeta, man of this aspect? Will you come with me through the veil?" "Yes," Bryan said. "Yes!" Eagerly he leaned close to the slowly pulsing globe that the bird held out to him in its beak ... felt himself drawn as though by immaterial hands that reached deep within him. From an increasing distance sounds came to him, the pounding of feet, shouts, the roar of a gun. Something struck his shoulder, but only dimly was he aware of it. The last physical bonds were parting. And then a pulsing darkness enclosed him. * * * * * Through the darkness came light, a flicker of motion and a flash of color, like the beating wings of a butterfly. The light grew, the darkness vanished. He floated in a gorgeous rainbow-hued brilliance that shimmered and swirled with the throb of a supernal laboring. Beyond the brilliance outlines were taking form. He had a sensation of swift movement--and found himself standing at the edge of the pool in that bizarrely beautiful other-world garden he remembered so well. "Haste! Haste!" "Leeta is going into the fire!" All around him the thoughts rose, beating at him. He saw the giant bird, then, and the smaller winged shapes that hovered beyond. "Haste! Haste!" The dread anxiety communicated itself to him, kindled a swift purpose. Sensing what was required of him, he hurried toward the waiting bird, leaped to its back. It sprang skyward, its huge wings beating. The garden dropped away, became a mere patch of bright color against the mottled pattern of the valley floor. "Haste! Haste!" Swifter and swifter the huge wings beat. Bryan clutched at the feathers under him, rocked by the surges of giant muscles, buffeted by the torrent of air that rushed past. The valley wall rose ahead, and through a deep cleft in the towering masses of rock he saw a deadly blue shimmer. The bird descended toward the cleft--and abruptly he felt its stunned dismay. "Leeta has gone through the portal! She has reached the fire!"