Riding double, we left the heela-infested forest behind. Darnad informed me that we had been lucky to meet only one of the beasts since there had been others of its pack about. Apparently it was quite common amongst heelas for the leader to attack the victim first and, if successful, lead the rest in for the kill, having tested the victim's strength. If, on the other hand, the heela-leader were killed, then the pack would skulk off, judging the enemy too strong to risk attacking. Besides which they would feed off their dead leader's corpse. In this case, the corpse of the dahara, too.

It seemed that, like hyaena, the heelas were strong but cowardly. I thanked providence for this trait, at any rate!

Now the air grew colder—we had been travelling for well over a month—and the skies darker. We began to cross a vast plain of black mud and obsidian rock, stunted, sinister shrubs and ancient ruins. The feet of our single dahara splashed in deep puddles or waded through oozing mud, slipped on the glassy rock or stumbled over great areas of broken masonry.

I asked Darnad if these were the ruins of the Sheev but he muttered that he did not think so.

"I suspect that these ruins were once inhabited by the Yaksha," he said.

I shivered as cold rain fell on us.

"Who were the Yaksha?"

"It is said they are ancient enemies of the Sheev but originally of the same race."

"That is all you know?"

"Those are the only facts. The rest is superstition and speculation." He seemed to shudder inwardly, not from the cold but from some idea that had occurred to him.

On we went, making slower and slower progress over that dark wasteland, taking shelter at night— scarcely distinguishable though it was from day!—under half-fallen walls or outcrops of rock. Strange, livid beasts prowled that plain; peculiar cries like the voices of lost souls; queer disturbances that we felt rather than heard or saw.

It was like that for another two weeks until the looming crags of Argzoon became visible through the dim, misty light of the Wastes of Doom.

The Mountains of Argzoon were tall and jagged, black and forbidding.

"Seeing their environment," I said to Darnad, "I can understand why the Argzoon are what they are, for such landscapes are not conducive to instilling a sense of sweetness and light into one."

"I agree," he replied. Then a little later: "We should reach the Gates of Gor Delpus before nightfall."

"What are they?"

"The entrance to the Caves of Darkness. They are, I've been told, never guarded, for few have ever dared venture into the Argzoon's own underground land—they let our normal fear of dark, enclosed spaces do their work for them."

"Are the Caves very dangerous?"

"I do not know," he said. "No one has ever returned to tell..."