As they circled to avoid passing too close to the mountainous cubical fortress, Ethan glimpsed groups of the red Masters inside its myriad torchlit chambers.
"All the Masters of Luun must dwell in that fortress," muttered Ptah. "We have seen none of them elsewhere in the city, and no other place here is so heavily guarded."
Ethan nodded. He told the little Egyptian tautly, "Let me do the talking when we enter the prison."
In a few minutes they rode up to the entrance of the low, oblong prison. It was a great archway closed by barred metal gates. Inside the bars, in a torch-lit anteroom, four of the white Luunian guards were stationed.
"A message from the Masters!" Ethan called peremptorily in their tongue. "Summon your officer."
He hoped fervently that they would not notice the different accent and stumbling way in which he used their language. If that gave him away, all was lost.
But the warriors inside seemed to notice nothing. One ran to call their officer, while the others opened the barred gates for Ethan and Ptah to enter. The American and Egyptian did so, dismounting inside the gates as they swung shut again.
The officer of the Luunian guards appeared, rubbing his eyes sleepily and adjusting his metal helmet.
"What word from the Masters?" he asked respectfully.
"Our sacred rulers have sent me to fetch to them the old man and the girl captured today in the forest," Ethan stated sharply. "The Masters would question them."
"But the girl is not here—only the old man is here!" protested the Luunian captain. "Surely the Masters know that?"
Ethan's heart sank like lead. The Luunian was staring at him perplexedly, and he rallied himself.
"Of course they know that!" he snapped. "I did not say I had come for the old man and girl—I said I was here to fetch the old man who was captured with the girl."
"Your pardon—I understood you wrongly," the Luunian replied. "I will take you to him."
Ethan and Ptah followed him along torchlit corridors of stone, gloomy, chill passageways that breathed the mustiness of ages. Then the Luunian captain stopped and unlocked a door with a clumsy metal key.
"Your man is inside," he told Ethan.
It seemed to Ethan that the officer was staring at him too sharply, with too much sudden interest.
"Very well, you may return to your couch," Ethan said with assumed friendliness. "We will take the prisoner to the Masters."
The officer left them, returning along the stone corridors. And at once Ethan and Ptah sprang into the dark stone cell. Thin hands clutched Ethan's arm from the darkness.
"I recognized your voice!" gasped Kim Idim. "You are mad to take this chance!"
"Where's Chiri?" Ethan exclaimed tensely. "If she's not in this building, where are they keeping her?"
"She is in the dungeons of the fortress of the Masters," Kim Idim answered, his voice agonized. "Yes, because she is young and beautiful, the Masters have sentenced her to take part in the monthly Feast of Life, tomorrow noon."
"The Feast of Life—what is that?" demanded Ptah.
