In his despair and his dizziness he cried soundlessly, "Help me, Protectors! Give me your power!" The still double-voice said, "You could not hold it. You would be burned out utterly." "I'll hold it long enough!" he promised desperately. "One second of power--only that! Enough to smash the Aesir. Then death--but not till then!" * * * * * There was one instant when time stopped. That cataclysmic horror that had risen a thousand years ago and raged through the worlds like a holocaust stood blazing before Stuart's eyes. It stooped toward him, poising for the hammer blow that would smash him to nothing-- Then a power like the drive of galaxies through space thundered into Stuart's mind. He had not expected this. Nothing in human experience could have taught him to expect it. For the Protectors were not human. No more human than the Aesir themselves. And the unleashed energy that roared soundlessly through Stuart rocked his very soul on its foundations. He could not stir. He could not think. He could only stay upon his knees facing the Aesir-thing as galactic power thundered through him and wielded him like a sword against man's enemies. Higher and higher rose the crashing tides of contest. The citadel shook ponderously upon the rocks of the god-made little world. Perhaps that world itself staggered in space as the titans battled together on its rocking surface. Faster spun the core of radiant light which was the Aesir. Faster raced the tides of power through Stuart's blasted body, seeming to rip his very flesh apart and blaze in his brain like hammers of cosmic fire. Terribly, terribly he yearned for surcease, for the end of this unthinkable destruction that was tearing his brain and body apart. And he knew he could end it in a moment, if he chose to let go.... Grimly he clung to the power that was destroying him. Second by second, counting each moment an eternity, he clung to consciousness. The crashing lances of the Protectors drove on upon the armor of the Aesir, and the cyclopean pillars of the great hall reeled upon their foundations, and the very air blazed into liquid fire around him. He never knew what final blow of cosmic violence ended that battle. But suddenly, without warning, the vast column of the Aesir pulsed with violent brilliance and the whole hall rang with a cry too shrill and terrible for ears or the very mind to hear, except as a thrilling of despair. The tower rocked. All the bright tapestries billowed and flowed against the walls. And the radiant thing that was the Aesir-- Went out like a blown flame. Stuart saw it darken in the quickness of a heartbeat from blinding brightness to an angry, sullen scarlet, and then to the color of embers, and then to darkness. There was nothing there at all.