By nightfall we made out the Gates by means of Deimos's very dim moonlight. They were mainly natural cave-mouths widened and made taller by crude workmanship. They were dark and gloomy and I could understand what Darnad had told me.

Only my mission—to rescue the woman I loved but would never be able to make mine—would induce me to enter.

We left our faithful dahara outside to fend for himself until we returned—if ever we should.

And then we entered the Caves of Darkness.

Chapter Eleven

QUEEN OF THE ARGZOON

THEY were cold, those caves. A chill pervaded them greater than anything we had experienced on the Wastes of Doom.

Down and down we went, along a smooth, broad, winding track that had torches lighting it at wide intervals. We caught glimpses of vast grottos and caverns, as it were within the great caverns; of stalactites and stalagmites; of jumbled, black rock and rivulets of ice-cold water; of a bitter-smelling slime that clung to the rocks; of small, pallid animals that scuttled away at our approach.

And deeper down the sides of the path had been decorated with trophies of war—here a skeleton of an Argzoon in full armor, with sword, shield, spear and axe, grinning down at us from its great height; there several human skulls piled into a rough pyramid. Dark trophies, brought alive sometimes by the flickering torchlight, but fitting decoration for this strange place.

Then at length we felt the path turn sharply to the left. Following it round, we suddenly came upon a monstrous cave, its walls so far away they were invisible. We stood above it, looking down. The path led to it, we could see, twisting down for perhaps two miles. Huge fires flared at intervals on the floor of the cave and there were complete villages dotted across it. Fairly close to our side of the cave there was a stone city—a city that seemed piled on blocks of stone heaped almost haphazardly one upon the other. A heavy city, a cold, strong, bleak city. A city to suit the Argzoon.

Moving about in the city and the surrounding villages, we saw Argzoon men, women and children going about their business. There were also pens of dahara and some sort of small creature that seemed to be a domestic version of the heela.

"How can we get in there?" I whispered to Darnad. "They will realize who we are immediately!"

Just then I heard a noise behind us and pulled him into the shadows of the rock.

A few moments later a group of some thirty Argzoon warriors stumbled past. They looked as if they had been through an ordeal. Many bore untreated wounds, others had had their armor almost completely cut to shreds, and all were weary.

I realized that these were probably survivors of the 'mopping up' operation instituted from Varnal the day we had left.