They went fast and lightly. They ate of red fruit hanging from round branches, and drank from silvery brooks gurgling among dark rocks. On the morning of the fourth day, they heard hoofbeats growing into a thundering tattoo behind them. Tlokine and Grim turned and looked at the same instant. A lovely girl with red hair waving in the breeze rode a big white stallion at the head of ten men clad in leather armor, with needle-like longswords dangling at their waists. Their horses' hooves pounded them up to the man and girl waiting tensely on the ground. The redhead reined in her horse, laughed mockingly down at the black-haired Tlokine. She cried, "I warned you, black one. I told you Kohonnes favored me." Grim saw despair on Tlokine's face, and fright beneath it. Althaya whispered, "Now I will give you back to the Breath ... on one of my own altars!" The redhead looked past Tlokine; saw Grim, and stared. Her puzzled green eyes raked him from the soles of his space-boots to his thick, tawny hair. Grim saw her eyes fill with curiosity over the gold and black Fleet uniform, over the stars-and-bars emblazoned in gilt thread on his chest and sleeve. "Who are you?" she asked suddenly. "Grim Thorssen. Commander in the Interstellar Fleet." She shook her head. She said, "I don't know what to do with you. Perhaps Ran--" Althaya paused and looked frightened. Biting her full lower lip, she looked quickly around her. Then she waved a hand at Tlokine and Grim, saying to her men, "Take them." Grim would have fought, but the odds were too great. He shrugged his shoulders philosophically and let his wrists be bound. Then he swung up behind one of the men-at-arms on the broad croup of his horse. * * * * * The sun drew golden glints from the smooth dun walls of the tiny castle on the black rocks. All around the base of the cliff was splashed the red color that denoted a zone of safety from the change and the storm that swept the countryside around it. The little cavalcade pounded across the wooden drawbridge that extended across the little red-splashed gully and into the dark cobblestoned courtyard beyond. Althaya looked at Grim as he slipped from behind the saddle. She said, "Come with me, man." Obediently he followed her beneath a broad archway, along a cool corridor and into a small room. She turned and walked up close to him. Her deep brown eyes were disturbing under the long red lashes. She saw his perturbation and smiled. She said, "You like Althaya?" Grim chuckled, "Any man would like you, gorgeous. But why the buildup? You're too pretty to need a sop for your vanity." She looked around her, came even closer so that Grim was assailed by her perfume and smooth white arms. She said, "There is a man living in my castle, a man called Black Randolph--ah, you know him?" "He is a pirate. I've followed him for eight years and never caught up with him."