Garth's mouth felt dry. "We _are_ messengers from the gods--" he declared.
"It is not true." Kharn began to walk forward. "Take them!"
It was like a nightmare, the steady, relentless approach of the monstrous beings. Garth held his gun leveled. His arm tightened around Paula's shoulders.
"Keep back," he commanded, conscious of the uselessness of the words.
Instead, Kharn and the others walked on. The creature's shining arm lifted, clamped on Garth's shoulder. He fired.
Kharn did not seem to feel the bullet, though it had not missed. Garth squeezed the trigger again. The pistol jolted against his palm.
Garth fought, nevertheless. He could see the silicate men lifting his companions like sacks of meal, hoisting them to gleaming shoulders, and carrying them, unresisting, through the forest. Paula was torn from his grasp. Cursing, he struck out at Kharn's impassive, inhuman face with the revolver-butt. Useless! Nothing could harm these creatures of living stone.
Ignoring his struggles, Kharn prisoned Garth's arms and lifted him. Helpless, Garth was carried after the others. He forced himself to relax. A fury of impotent rage flooded him.
He battled it down. Better wait. A chance might come later; just now, there was none. Wait--
Through the forest they went, a score of the silicate creatures, striding like armored giants in the darkening red glow. Not far. A pillar of black metal loomed before them soon, broken by an archway. Two of the monsters guarded it. For a moment Garth mistook the monolith for one of the ebony trees; then he realized his error as they crossed the threshold and began to descend a spiral ramp.
Now there was light, a cool, silvery radiance that seemed to come from the walls. Kharn's footsteps thumped hollow, tirelessly. Sudden weakness made Garth dizzy. He caught a glimpse of a well around which the ramp wound, a pit dropping away to the heart of a world, it seemed.
Utter exhaustion struck him like a physical blow.
He remembered, dimly, what happened after that. It was like a series of fantastic visions, nightmare flashes of memory. At the bottom of the spiral was a cave, reminiscent of Chahnn and the other cities of the Ancients Garth had seen. Enigmatic machines loomed here and there. Unlike Chahnn, this city was lighted with the pale glow that came out of the walls and high-domed ceilings.