He hung above the broad walls and ramparts of a queer city, whose domes and minarets were queerly bent and twisted. The broad avenues and narrow alleys were bare. It was a dead city. "Not a dead city. Listen!" The song was louder, richer. "Lower yourself. Think yourself down." Thor found himself sweeping in a gentle arc closer and closer to the towers and temple domes. Now the song was crashing out in ponderous triumph. "Go through the golden dome. You can do it." Yellow metal shone and glimmered as he dropped gently through opalescent hues of gold and amber and yellow. It was like thick water, with faint bubbles glistening, locked within. He broke free and hung in the groined ceiling above a great chamber. Hundreds of the androids with the glittering jewels on their chests stood arm to arm. Their rich voices boomed tribute toward a niche cut in the north wall, arched and wide, that held a squat black urn resting on a white alabaster pedestal. "The song is nearly done. Watch the urn." All sound and movement died away. A tongue of green fire stabbed upwards out of the black urn. For one long instant it hung there, quivering and pulsing. It broke and faded into green mist that the breezes blew out across the chamber. "That was the manifestation of Aava. Now we will see him as he really is." They swept through the air with the speed of light. Matter that was wall and stone and metal blurred into a liquescent dimness that darkened the further they went. From grey to black to grim jet went the colours. And still they went on. Now the colour grew light tan, like sand. "We are in the bowels of the Mountains of Distortion. The blackness is rock hidden forever from a glimpse of sunlight. We are nearly there. Go cautiously! This buried desert is right above him." It was a cave. From the high rock ceiling stalactites drooped like the fringes of a weeping willow eternally etched in stone. Amid a riotous profusion of clubshaped stalagmites thrusting up from the rough cave floor, lay a circle of red space. And in the red space stood Aava. Green light, flickering and flaring, now subdued, now pouring forth in a verdant shower of pride and strength, flooded the cave. Thor could feel its sentience through every beat and pulse of it. Like the tongue of some mighty star trapped in matter, it licked and thrust and strove to speak its greatness. The green fire lowered, hung brooding. "I smell men." "Careful," thought the Discoverer. Thor moved no muscle, took no breath in his spirit form. Yet the machinations of his mind slipped a cog. He thought, and the green flames knew. A sword of flame lunged outward, at him. He felt its heat, the wild life of it, the pride and all the cruelty. He tried to cry out. Then his mind went. The last he knew was the voice of the Discoverer. "Come!" * * * * *