The dark man laughed. "By my beginning! I am knowing the first interest I've had in a thousand million centuries. You've set yourself up against--me? Against the eternal one? The Werwile?" Nuala moved her white fingers in a queer pattern. They seemed to blur before Travis's eyes, become faint and shadowy. Her hand disappeared. Rudra moved suddenly, swore by a long-forgotten god. He said abruptly, "You'd pull my heart into a different space-time, would you? Leave me locked forever in some blackness?" His own hands moved, but Nuala was quicker. Her body swayed, twisted in odd manner. She disappeared. Rudra cried out. He brought his hand back to view again. There were teethmarks and blood on it. Nuala formed, laughed softly beside Travis; blood on her ruby mouth. "Am I a fit opponent, Rudra--not-long-to-be-eternal?" Rudra nursed his bitten hand in the black cloak. His black eyes glittered dangerously above the beaked nose, the ruddy mouth. Travis thought he looked like a cornered Saturnian vampire at that moment. Rudra laughed. It was, surprisingly, a pleasant laugh. He bowed, and there was no mockery in it. "You are a worthy opponent, Nuala. None that I know of could have done that to me--but you. You say you know my plans? Good! You know my thoughts, my sciences? Good again. Two equal opponents--you with that creature beside you to aid you, me with my _kovokodans_. Let us see who will turn the tide.... "I had the Lord Railan and others ease your way to me. I was--curious. Now I am glad. I will enjoy our duel, Nuala. Good--hunting!" He was gone. The silence was cold, as though his passing had taken a fire from the room. Nuala shivered, looked dubiously at Travis. He said tactlessly, "I thought you said you'd won." "I--underestimated him. I'd forgotten that Rudra smashed Flormaseron, that he has all the science that ever was at his fingertips. I thought that by taking his tower into another dimension I could strike at him before he knew where we were. Strike and annihilate! Now ... I do not know." [Illustration: "_I--I--underestimated him!_"] There was doubt in the blue eyes, and the old fear. Only the fear was stronger, now. It was a curiously tangible thing, beating out and around the room, running chilled tentacles down Travis's back. He shook himself, said savagely, "So we can't surprise him. Then let's slug it out, toe to toe. It's him or--us!" "But he has so many sciences ..." she wailed. "Sciences you know just as well!" Travis snapped. "And before we're over it'll be the first law of nature all over again. The survival of--the fittest!" "If I only knew what he meant to do--" Travis choked. He put out a hand, vised it on her arm. "The crypt! By the eternal! If you could move this tower into another dimension--move it to Flormaseron! Enter the calyx! Tap his mind! Checkmate him!"