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"They bear the Curse of Phutka heavy on them. To live under such a curse is worse than a clean, quick dying. Listen, it has come upon me that better this curse not only eat them up but be carried by them to rot those who sent them " Together the Foanna nodded. "There has been enough of killing," said Ynlan. "No, warriors, we do not say this because we shrink from rightful deaths.
He did not turn his head to look at the cloaked figure. "It is still my mind!" Ross could be firm on that point. The Terran backed out of the vantage place from which he had been studying the canyonlike valley cupping the Baldy spaceship. Now he got to his feet and faced Ynlan, his own gray cloak billowing out in the wind to reveal the Rover scale armor underneath.
You all right?" "I think so." Her voice was weak. "The Foanna ... Ynlan ... Ynvalda " Steadying herself against him, she tried to look around. The place which had once been a narrow room, then a balcony, was now a perch above stomach-turning space.
She whom Ashe had named Ynlan, whose eyes had entrapped and almost held what was Ross Murdock, made a small gesture with her ivory hand. And in that gesture as well as in the words witches' meat the Terran read the unhappiness which was as much a part of this room as the rest of its mystery. "The Foanna are now but three.
But a sense of amusement tinged with respect came to him. "You are very right, Gordoon. This one is also of your kind. He is not witches' meat." Ross caught the distaste, the kind of haunting unhappiness which colored those words, remnants of an old hurt. "These are the Foanna," Ashe's voice broke more of the spell. "The Lady Ynlan, The Lady Yngram, the Lady Ynvalda." The Foanna these three only?
"Evil has been wrought here, Ynlan, but not by your seeking. And those who died here helplessly may be only a small portion of those yet to be sacrificed. Have you forgotten the slaughter at Kyn Add and those other fairings where women and children were also struck down to serve some purpose we do not even yet know?"
"If that's what they're hunting" there was amusement in Ashe's tone "they won't find much. The Foanna have better locks than their enemies have keys. You heard Ynlan before we left any secrets left will remain secrets." "But there's bait bait for a trap!" argued Ross. "You're right!" To the younger man's joy Ashe's enthusiasm was plain.
Ross's hands moved under the envelope of the robe, unloosing the two hidden clasps which held it. That bank of controls before which the commander sat to silence that would cause trouble. And he depended upon Ynlan. The Rovers should now be massed at either end of the canyon waiting for the force field to fail and let them in. Ross steadied himself, poised for action.
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