Her scream sent cold horror into his spine. Her white feet were almost in the fire. How could it be dark to her? Unless these fiends who came and went were blinding her-- Thor roared. He lowered his head and charged, as some Viking ancestor might have charged a longboat's deck. His fists hammered and clubbed. He blasted a path through cursing, sobbing men. Karola was in front of him. He reached out for her. Karola disappeared. Thor felt his hands sink through empty space where Karola should have been; where she was standing, one instant before. On spraddled legs he stood, naked chest gulping in cool air, staring at the darkness. "Karola!" he cried. The androids were all fading. Thor dimly understood that it was Karola they had been after, seeing them drop into nothingness, one after the other. The fire flared brighter. In its red beams, one still sat, fumbling a little dazedly at the jewel on his chest. Thor knew his own thoughts were fumbling, just as the other's fingers were. Karola was gone. The androids were going, only one was left. There was no way to follow. The firelight hung in the ruby jewel for one bursting moment, like red blood bursting. Red jewel. Fumbling fingers clawing at it. Three androids with Karola also clawing at their jewels. And Karola disappearing-- Thor leaped. His big right hand stabbed for the ruby. He closed his fingers on it and tugged. The chain resisted, and then the android came awake to what Thor wanted and pounded at him. Thor lowered his head and chin until his jaw rested against his chest and hunched his shoulders. He rode the buffets, swaying as he did in the ring. Tug, tug. Tug and tear with that right hand, his mind kept telling him. Get that jewel! It broke and came loose in his hand. The android screamed, reaching out. Slag came over the fire with a tremendous bound and his club swung. It caved in the android's head and toppled him forward into the fire. Thor stared at the dying green fire that spilled from the android's head. That was a part of Aava, that fire. It was the life-force. He looked at the jewel throbbing soft red fire in his palm. He grinned. II The ruby was the size of a small egg. It was cut and polished until its burnished sides threatened to obscure the inner fires with their glimmerings. But deep inside the jewel was a core of flame that would never be extinguished. That flame looked purple. Thor wondered. Purple heart of red ruby. Suppose Aava had imprisoned a jot of his immortal fire inside the ruby, as he had with the androids! He turned it over. There was a rocking instant of vertigo, of pitch blackness and cold. The meadowlands were gone. He was standing on a rocky escarpment that brooded over a small valley. And set in the middle of the valley, like a vision from an Arabic nightmare, was a city of elfin loveliness. Towers pointed slender spires to the sky, and hemispheric domes glowed softly in pale moonlight.