craftily, "that you and I should become allies. Dral tells me your weapons are strange and powerful. Together we would have no trouble in winning to the Lake of Life."
"Never will you win to the Lake, Red dog!" lashed Lurain's silver voice suddenly. "Even if you conquered us of Dordona, there are still—the Guardians."
"The Guardians?" echoed Thargo, then uttered a deep laugh. "Why, the Guardians are but a myth, a legend. For ages that myth has kept you of Dordona from the lake, but it shall not keep us. No!"
His nostrils were flaring with abrupt passion, his black eyes suddenly all devil. Clark seemed to glimpse in the man's wolfish face a long- repressed, eating ambition, a desire of superhuman intensity, baffled and raging. Then Thargo smiled smoothly at him.
"We shall talk of these things later, strangers. Meanwhile, you are welcome in K'Lamm. Tonight we banquet here in your honor, and until then the finest rooms in this palace are yours."
"Our prisoner goes with us," Clark said coolly.
"Your prisoner goes with you, of course," Thargo agreed smoothly. "But guard the little wildcat well, I warn you. I do not think she could escape from this palace"—a gleam of mirth crossed his eyes— "no, I do not think that, but she might do harm if not guarded.
"Dral will conduct you to your rooms," he finished courteously. "Until tonight, strangers."
Clark bowed curtly. Then, taking Lurain's tensed arm, he followed the suave captain out of the great banquet hall. His five men strode after him, and Dral led the way up a broad stone stair to an upper floor of stone-walled corridors and rooms. He conducted them into a suite of four large rooms.
Tapestries depicting combats of red and black armored soldiers hung on the walls, and lay on the floor. There were chairs and couches, and a series of great windows whose unshuttered openings looked out on the flat red roofs of K'Lamm, gleaming in the sunset. Dral bowed and left them, closing the door. The girl Lurain went over to the window and stood, a slim figure, looking silently out over K'Lamm.
"Say, what was all the powwow about?" Blacky Cain asked Clark. "This moll seemed to get the big shot's goat."
Clark told them briefly what had passed between him and Thargo.
"As far as I can see," Clark finished, "our best course is to play along with Thargo until we find out where we stand. He wants to get to the lake, that's evident—he believes that stuff about its waters conferring immortality. It's also evident that Lurain's people, the Dordonans, prevent him from reaching the lake and would prevent us also. Our best chance to reach this Lake of Life may be to throw in with Thargo."
"Why didn't you give up this girl to the Red king, then?" asked Lieutenant Morrow. "It would put us in solid with him."
"But Thargo would likely have had her killed or tortured," Clark objected. "It's plain he'd like nothing better."
"Well, what if he did?" shrugged the young ex-army officer indifferently. And Morrow's face was bitter with memory as he added, "Keeping her our own prisoner may wreck everything—it won't be the first time a woman's done it."
"Why, ye heartless scut," said Mike Shinn wrathfully, "would ye give up a spunky girl like that to be killed?"
"We're not giving her up," Clark said decisively. "I want to question her about the Lake of Life."
He advanced toward Lurain, and the
