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did not seem worthwhile to battle for his life; why not go out pleasantly? At least his death would not be
useless. There was something noble in giving his body so that these little beings could fill their bellies and
be well-fed and happy for a few days.
A light burst into the cave. Through the warm haze, he saw the batfaces leap away from him and run to
the extreme end of the cave, where they cowered together. The light became stronger and was revealed
as a torch of burning pine. An old man's face followed the light and bent over him. He had a long white
beard, a sunken mouth, a curved sharp nose, and huge supraorbital ridges with bristling eyebrows. A
dirty white robe covered his shrunken body. His big-veined hand held a staff on the end of which was a
sapphire, large as Wolff's fist, carved in the image of a harpy.
Wolff tried to speak but could only mutter a tangled speech, as if he were coming up out of ether after
an operation. The old man gestured with the staff, and several of the batfaces detached themselves from
the mass of fur. They scurried sideways across the floor, their slanted eyes turned fearfully toward the old
man. Quickly, they untied Wolff. He managed to rise to his feet, but he was so wobbly that the old man
had to support him out of the cave.
The ancient spoke in Mycenaean Greek. "You'll feel better soon. The venom does not last long."
"Who are you? Where are you taking me?"
"Out of this danger," the old man said. Wolff pondered the enigmatic answer. By the time that his mind
and body were functioning well again, they had come to another entrance to a cave. They went through a
complex of chambers that gradually led them upward. When they had covered about two miles, the old
man stopped before a cave with an iron door. He handed the torch to Wolff, pulled the door open, and
waved him on in. Wolff entered into a large cavern bright with torches. The door clanged behind him,
succeeded by the thud of a bolt shooting fast.
The first thing that struck him was the choking odor. The next, the two green red-headed eagles that
closed in on him. One spoke in a voice like a giant parrot's and ordered him to march on ahead. He did
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so. noting at the same time that the batfaces must have removed his knife. The weapon would not have
done him much good. The cave was thronged with the birds, each of which towered above him.
Against one wall were two cages made of thin iron bars. In one was a group of six gworl. In the other
was a tall well-built youth wearing a deerskin breechcloth. He grinned at Wolff and said, "So you made
it! How you've changed!"
Only then did the reddish-bronze hair, long upper lip, and craggy but merry face become familiar. Wolff
recognized the man who had thrown the horn from the gworl-besieged boulder and who called himself
Kickaha.
VI
WOLFF DID NOT have time to reply, for the cage door was opened by one of the eagles, who used
his foot as effectively as a hand. A powerful head and hard beak shoved him into the cage; the door
ground shut behind him.
"So, here you are," Kickaha said in a rich baritone voice. "The question is, what do we do now? Our
stay here may be short and unpleasant."
Wolff, looking through the bars, saw a throne carved out of rock, and on it a woman. A halfwoman,
rather, for she had wings instead of arms and the lower part of her body was that of a bird. The legs,
however, were much thicker in proportion than those of a normal-sized Earth eagle. They had to support
more weight, Wolff thought, and he knew that here was another of the Lord's laboratoryproduced
monsters. She must be the Podarge of whom Ipsewas had spoken.
From the waist up she was such a woman as few men are privileged to see. Her skin was white as a
milky opal, her breasts superb, the throat a column of beauty. The hair was long and black and straight
and fell on both sides of a face that was even more beauti- ful than Chryseis', an admission that he had
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not thought it possible to evoke from him.
However, there was something horrible in the beauty: a madness. The eyes were fierce as those of a
caged falcon teased beyond endurance.
Wolff tore his eyes from hers and looked about the cave. "Where is Chryseis?" he whispered.
"Who?" Kickaha whispered back.
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