go quickly down the stairway, rapier ready. Zend was running toward him, his gray face a mask of fear. The dwarf hesitated at sight of him, spun about as a low rumble of voices came from near by. At the foot of the stairway Elak waited.
From the passage by which Elak had entered the great room a horde of nightmare beings spewed. In their van came Gesti, gray garments flapping, white face immobile as ever. Behind him sheer horror squirmed and leaped and tumbled. With a shock of loathing Elak remembered the whispering voices he had heard in the underground cavern—and knew, now, what manner of creatures had spoken thus.
A race that had not sprung from human or even earthly loins. . . .
Their faces were hideous staring masks, fish-like in contour, with parrot-like beaks and great staring eyes covered with a filmy glaze. Their bodies were amorphous things, half solid and half gelatinous ooze, like the iridescent slime of jellyfish; writhing tentacles sprouted irregularly from the ghastly bodies of the things. They were the offspring of no sane universe, and they came in a blasphemous hissing rush across the room. The rapier stabbed out vainly and clattered to the stones as Elak went down. He struggled futilely for a moment, hearing the harsh, agonized shrieks of the wizard. Cold tentacles were all about him, blinding him in their constricting coils. Then suddenly the weight that held him helpless was gone. His legs and arms, he discovered, were tightly bound with cords. He fought vainly to escape; then lay quietly.
Beside him, he saw, the wizard lay tightly trussed. The nightmare beings were moving in an orderly rush toward the room in which Elak had sensed the surges of tremendous power, where lay; the little brown stone. They vanished beyond the curtain, and beside Elak and the wizard there remained only Gesti. He stood looking down at the two, his white face immobile.
"What treachery is this?" Elak asked with no great hopefulness. "Set me free and give me my gold."
But Gesti merely said, "You won't need it. You will die very soon."
"Eh? Why"
"Fresh human blood is needed. That's why we didn't kill you or Zend. We need your blood. We'll be ready soon."
An outburst of sibilant whispers came from beyond the silver drape. Elak said unsteadily, "What manner of demons are those?"
The wizard gasped, "You ask him? Did you not know"
Gesti lifted gloved hands and removed his face. Elak bit his lips to choke back a scream. Now he knew why Gesti's face had seemed so immobile. It was a mask.
Behind it were the parrot-like beak and fish-like eyes Elak now knew all too well. The gray robes sloughed off; the gloves dropped from the limber tips of tentacles. From the horrible beak came the sibilant whisper of the monster:
"Now you know whom you served."
The thing that had called itself Gesti turned and progressed—that was the only way to describe its method of moving—to die curtain behind which its fellows had vanished. It joined them.
Zend was staring at Elak. "You did not know? You served them, and yet did not know?"
"By Ishtar, no!" Elak swore. "D'you think I'd have let those—those—what are they? What are they going to do?"
"Roll over here," Zend commanded. "Maybe I can loosen your bonds."
