"You dared not move before you knew the one weapon that might defeat you!"
The radiant energy in the thing that was Noorlythin was awful. It beat and flared redly through the whiteness. The McCanahan shuddered as its heat beat out at him, chilling even as it seared.
_Courage, Terran! Courage for what lies ahead!_
And now the voices shrank and whispered, piping like elfin horns within his head, that none but he could hear.
_Through you, we may destroy him! Courage! With your help, he dies--forever!_
He knew what he had to do. Of his free will he had to offer himself to Noorlythin! Of his free will, he had to fling himself into the mad embrace of those pulsing tendrils, that had turned Lunol the peddler to black and drifting dust!
_He gave you to the Eye of Lirflane! He gave you to the cat-woman and her whip!_
The McCanahan snarled. "Destroy him, and I save the Solar Combine! I hear you, Doyen. I hear and I--obey!"
And Kael McCanahan flung himself headlong, forward into the white whirlwind of force that was Noorlythin.
In the Chamber of Living Death, she who had been Slyss of Aakan quivered fitfully. A bubble of froth broke from her red lips. She moaned and stirred. A hand lifted, struggled feebly, fell back to her side, limp and waxen.
Slyss opened brown eyes. She lay silent, staring upward at the ceiling. A sob fought its way upward from her throat.
"Noorlythin is dead! His control over me and the others--gone forever!"
She rolled off the dais and stared around her, at the dead bodies. She shivered. She went to the doors and pulled them open. In the distance, she could hear the frightened roaring of terrified men. She began to run.
Flaith shook the bars of the cell that held her. Her red hair made a living flame about her shoulders.
"What is happening? What is it?" she screamed.
A terrified jailer paused in his heavy run past her cell.
"The palace is falling in! The High Mor is dead. His body has been found!"
"Let me out! Please, please! Give me a chance to save myself!"
The jailer licked his lips. He glanced up and down the corridor, then slid the key into the lock. The door opened under a push from his hand. "If the High Mor is dead," he told the girl, "maybe the sfarri won't stay here on Senorech! Maybe the Senn can rule themselves, now."