"Sooner or later it would have happened," said Elai dully. "Unless Earth waned and died first. . ."

Ulan Dhor picked up the two tablets. "And here is what I sought to attain—the tablets of Rogol Domedonfors. They pulled me a thousand leagues across the Melantine; I have them in my hands now, and they are like worthless shards of glass . . ."

The boat floated high, and Ampridatvir became a setting of pale crystals in the starlight. In the luminescence of the instrument panel, Ulan Dhor fitted the two tablets together. The marks merged, became characters, and the characters bore the words of the ancient magician:

"Faithless children—Rogol Domedonfors dies, and so lives forever in the Ampridatvir he has loved and served! When intelligence and good will restore order to the city; or when blood and steel teaches the folly of bridled credulity and passion, and all but the toughest dead:—then shall these tablets be read. And I say to him who reads it, go to the Tower of Fate with the yellow dome, ascend to the topmost floor, show red to the left eye of Rogol Domedonfors, yellow to the right eye, and then blue to both; do this, I say, and share the power of Rogol Domedonfors."

Ulan Dhor asked, "Where is the Tower of Fate?"

Elai shook her head. "There is Rodeil's Tower, and the Red Tower the Tower of the Screaming Ghost, and the Tower of Trumpets and the Bird's Tower and the Tower of Guans—but I know of no Tower of Fate."

"Which tower has a yellow dome?"

"I don't know."

"We will search in the morning."

"In the morning," she said leaning against him drowsily.

"The morning . . ." said Ulan Dhor, fondling her yellow hair.

When the old red sun rose, they drifted back over the city and found the people of Ampridatvir awake before them, intent on murder.

The fighting and the killing was not so wild as the night before. It was a craftier slaughter. Stealthy groups of men waylaid stragglers, or broke into houses to strangle women and children.

Ulan Dhor muttered, "Soon there will be none left in Ampridatvir upon whom to work Rogol Domedonfors' power." He turned to Elai. "Have you no father, no mother, for whom you fear?"

She shook her head. "I have lived my life with a dull and tyrannical uncle."

Ulan Dhor turned away. He saw a yellow dome; no other was visible: The Tower of Fate.

"There." He pointed, turned down the nose of the air-car.

Parking on a high level, they entered the dusty corridors, found an anti-gravity shaft, and rose to the top-most floor. Here they found a small chamber, decorated with vivid murals. The scene was a court of ancient Ampridatvir. Men and women in colored silks conversed and banqueted and, in the central plaque, paid homage to a patriarchal ruler with a rugged chin, burning eyes, and a white beard. He was clad in a purple and black gown and sat on a carved chair.