They went through a big open doorway, like that of a cathedral, into a great entrance hall. It was broad and high-arched, a dusky, empty immensity ill-lit by torches of resinous wood that flamed in rude sockets hacked in the walls.
Torches in this shimmering lofty hall of faery-like black glass? The sight of them startled Eric Nelson. It was like finding tallow candles in a modern New York apartment.
He noted other incongruities as they were led through corridors to a suite of small rooms. Dust clung to the floors everywhere. And in the rooms assigned them were wooden chairs and bedframes, clean in workmanship but primitive compared to the palace itself.
Shan Kar, as the grunting warriors piled up the heavy packs and left, told them, "Food will be brought soon. You will want to sleep. In the morning we will talk."
Nick Sloan's flat voice broke in. "Yes, in the morning we will talk-about platinum."
The other's face tightened a little, but he nodded. "That and other things." He went out, and Nick Sloan stared after him with suspicion hardening his flat brown face.
He muttered, "He's too cursed cagey to suit me. I've an idea there's a joker in his offer."
Eric Nelson almost envied Sloan's hard singleness of purpose. The increasingly disturbing mystery of this strange valley of men and beasts had not deviated the other a hair from his goal. Lack of imagination and of sympathy served Sloan well.
A frightened-looking olive-skinned girl in silk brought them food in earthenware bowls and platters-coarse wheaten cakes, a mush of cooked vegetables and a jar of yellow wine.
Nelson drank heavily. Then fatigue crushed him down like a giant, gentle hand onto one of the low beds.
Time unreeled backwards as his tired brain sank into darkness. L'Lan was a dream and ten years of Asia were a dream and he was back in his old slant-walled bedroom under the eaves of an Ohio farmhouse.
He did not awaken until sunlight splashed his face. The others were waking, rubbing bleared eyes and unshaven faces, looking wonderingly around the black, glassy rooms.
The bearlike warrior captain, Hoik, came in as they finished breakfast. He said curtly, "If you're ready to come we'll talk now."
"Talk with whom?" Eric Nelson demanded. "Who, exactly, runs things here?"
Hoik shrugged big shoulders. "We Humanites are not a government yet. We're a faction that seceded from the rest of L'Lan. Shan Kar and I and Diril and old Jurnak have been the leaders."
The two called Diril and Jurnak, a thoughtful-looking younger man and a bearded oldster, were waiting for them outside the room and went with them through the curving glass corridors.
The place was all of black glass. But not ordinary glass. That, Nelson knew, could not have supported such stresses and strains. This city was of an unknown material. A miracle-city, a city that might have come from another planet, hidden here in deepest Asia and inhabited by a semi-civilized people! It didn't make sense.
Hoik paused, Nelson and the others with him, at the entrance of a spacious hall like the heart of a huge black pearl. But here too dust dimmed the gracious curves, the furniture was primitive.
"What's Shan Kar doing?" demanded Nick Sloan as they looked into the hall.
"He's still talking with Tark," said Hoik.
Eric Nelson felt a shock of astonishment as he looked at the strange scene in the dusty glimmering glass hall.
Near the far wall of the room, secured by a heavy throat-chain to a massive staple in the wall, crouched the giant wolf Tark. Shan Kar sat in front of the wolf, looking silently down into the brooding, smoldering green eyes of the beast.
"Talking? But no one is saying anything!" exclaimed Lefty Wister, his thin face puckered puzzledly.
"It's supposed to be telepathy, I guess," said Sloan, jeering. "The same as he claimed to use with that eagle."
Shan Kar heard and got up and came toward them. He looked at them with a flash of impatience.
"You still don't believe? In spite of your powerful weapons you outlanders have things to learn."
He spoke to the younger Humanite leader. "Get thought-crowns for them, Diril."
Diril went out of the room and came back with five of the ancient-looking platinum circlets, each one mounted with two quartz disks.
Shan Kar handed them to Nelson and his comrades. "Put them on. Then you can hear."
Nelson hesitated and Li Kin handled his circlet in obvious nervous fright.
"They won't hurt you," said Shan Kar sardonically. "We of L'Lan do not need them for talk like this. Our minds and the beasts' can converse easily.
"But at a distance these thought-crowns our forefathers made let us hear thought more loudly. They should enable your minds to hear."
They put on the platinum crowns, looking oddly like hard-faced saints in haloes.
"Well, can you hear now?" asked Shan Kar.
Eric Nelson was startled by realization that Shan Kar's lips had not moved, that he had not spoken that question.
"Blimy, it works!" whispered Lefty Wister, with awe. "You can hear the blighter think!"
"Only when the thought is projected by an effort of will," the Humanite assured. "You can't pick up a man's inner mental reverie."
"These crowns must be amplifiers-telepathic amplifiers," Nelson muttered. "The scientists say telepathy is a transmission of electric thought-waves and I suppose the right instrument could set up the power. But how did these people get such instruments?"
"The things are platinum!" said Nick Sloan avidly in English. "The first platinum we've seen here. Try to find out where they keep the stuff, Nelson!"
That Shan Kar heard Sloan's thought was proved by his quick answer. "We shall talk later of the metal you want. Now I want you to speak to Tark."
The great green eyes of the wolf had a cold flare in them as they steadily met Nelson's gaze. Here was no blind brute fury, but unmistakable intelligence, poise and hatred.
Yet this was a wolf. The white fangs behind those half-drawn lips had almost had his throat out that night in Yen Shi. The great body, crouched on the chain, was the hairy body of a wild beast.
"Tell him," said Shan Kar to Nelson, "how many guns you've brought. He knows their power. He saw them in action in the outworld."
Again, it took Nelson a moment to realize that Shan Kar had spoken telepathically and not vocally.
The green wolf-eyes flashed from Nelson to Shan Kar, and back again. Then Nelson heard the oddly fibred, oddly husky mental voice of Tark, as he had heard it in sleep that first night weeks ago.
"I am your prisoner," was the wolf's thought. "You're going to kill me. Why try to impress me now?"
"Because," Shan Kar answered quickly, "we may not kill you, Tark."
"Mercy from a Humanite?" jeered Tark. "Ice from the sun, warmth from the snow, good hunting from the storm!"
Nelson's skin crawled, with an uncanny feeling that matched the horror in Li Kin's gasping exclamation behind him. The wolf was speaking, was jeering, even though those mighty jaws did not part. Brain speaking to brain, wolf brain to human brain, without need of the medium of vocal sound!
"We have you and Kree's son," Shan Kar reminded. "But you both might live. We could make a bargain, Tark."
"A bargain?" cried Tark's thought. "Such a bargain as you've offered these ignorant outlanders, promising them pay you can't give?"
"What's that?" cried Sloan, aloud. The man instantly forgot the incredulous amazement that had held him speechless till now and spoke directly to the wolf. "What do you mean he can't pay us?"
"Keep silent!" flared Shan Kar to the animal. "Hoik, have the guard take Tark out!"
"Just a minute," said Eric Nelson sharply. "What he says concerns us. I intend to know what he means."