There was no anger, only a stronger overtone of pity in the still voice.
"Nothing from you! Just let me go on living. I'll do my own fighting. There'll be time enough to take a powder when the axe falls. I'm asking you simply this--keep me alive until I've had another crack at the Aesir!"
A pause. "It is dangerous. Dangerous for us. But--"
"We will take the risk. But understand--we _must_ leave you if the peril grows too great. And will--inevitably."
"Thanks," Stuart said, and meant it. "One thing. What about Kari? Who is she?"
"A hundred years ago she was human. Then she was brought here, and the Aesir possessed her--as we possess you. She has grown less human in that time, as the alien grows stronger within her. She has only faint memories of her former life now, and _they_ will vanish soon. Contact with the Aesir is like an infection--she will grow more and more like them. Perhaps, eventually, become one of them."
Stuart grimaced. "If the Aesir should withdraw from her--"
"She would die, yes. Her own life-force has been sapped too far. You and she are kept alive only as long as the bond of possession holds."
Nice, Stuart thought. If the Aesir were destroyed, Kari would die with him. And if _he_ faced doom, he too would die, as the Protectors withdrew to avoid sharing his fate.
Hell--what did he care whether Kari lived or died? It was only the glamor of half-alienage that had drawn him to the girl. A dagger in her throat--
Besides, he was certainly facing doom now.
"All I can do--" he said--and stopped abruptly. He was speaking aloud. Patiently the twin voice in his brain waited for him to continue.
Slowly he flexed his arms. He tilted back his head, staring up at the rim of the pit fifty feet above him. He could see the titan pillars rising toward the roof of that mighty tower, incredibly far above. But there was no sign of life.
Struck by a new thought, he gripped the folds of the cloak. It was nauseously warm and vibrant. It seemed to move under his hands. He jerked at it, and felt a twinge of agonizing pain along his spine and about his throat, while a white-hot lance stabbed into his skull.
"If I could get rid of this--you could help me?"
"We could give you our power, to use against the Aesir. But we do not know how to remove the cloak."