Here in this crowded room the torch of freedom still burned, despite the hell of slavery under which the worlds toiled now. He hesitated. "It won't be easy, Stuart," the man warned. "A sword--blade must be hammered on the anvil, heated in flame, before it's tempered. The Protectors will test you--so that your mind may be toughened to resist the attacks of the Aesir later. You will suffer...." He had suffered. Those agonizing, nightmare dreams in the forest, the phantoms that had tortured him--other trials he did not want to remember. But there had been no flaw in the blade. In the end--the Protectors had been satisfied, and had entered his mind--maintaining the contact that still held, though thinly now. And the voices he heard still whispering within him were the voices of his mentors.... "We took your memories from you. So that the Aesir could not read too much in your mind, and be forewarned. Now that does not matter, and you will be stronger with your memory restored. But when you let the girl clasp the cloak about you--that was failure." "If I could move," Stuart thought. "If I could rip it off--" "It is part of you. We do not know how it can be removed. And while you wear it, we cannot give you our power." Stuart said bitterly. "If you'd given me that power in the first place--" * * * * * "We did. How do you think you survived the first testing by the Aesir? And it is dangerous. We must gauge it carefully, so that we do not transmit too much of our mental energy to you. You are merely human--if we let you draw on a tenth of our power, that would burn you out like a melting wire under a strong current." "So--what now?" "We have lost again. You have lost, and we are sorry. All we can do is give you an easy death. We possess you now, mentally; if we should withdraw from your brain, you would die instantly. We will do that whenever you ask. For the Aesir will kill you anyhow now, and not pleasantly." "I'm not committing suicide. As long as I live, I can still fight." "We also. This has happened before. We have chosen and possessed other champions, and they have failed. We withdrew from their minds before the Aesir ... killed ... so that we could survive to try again. To wage another battle. Some day we will win. Some day we shall destroy the Aesir. But we dare not cling to our broken swords, lest we too be broken." "So when the going gets tough you step out!" Stuart sensed pity in the strange twin voice. "We must. We fight for the race of man. And the greatest gift we can give you now is quick death." "I don't want it," Stuart thought furiously. "I'm going to keep on fighting! Maybe that's why you've always failed before--you were too ready to give up. So I'll die if you step out of my mind? Well--it's a lousy bargain!" There was no anger, only a stronger overtone of pity in the still voice. "What is it you want, Stuart?"