There was a shading of rose in the pearl arch of sky, deepening at the horizon meeting of sea and air in a rainbow tint of cloud. The lazy swells of the ocean held the same soft color, darkened with c...

Just under the surface of the water the sea was warm, weird life showed colors Ross could name, shades he could not. The corals, the animals masquerading as plants, the plants disguised as animals whi...

Another map spread out and this time pinned down with small stones on beach gravel. “Here, here, and here⁠—” Ashe’s finger indicated the points marked in a pattern which flared out from three sides of...

“We have to know.” Ashe leaned back against the crate they had just emptied. “Something was done here⁠—in two hundred years⁠—and then, an empty world.” “Pandora’s box.” Ross drew a hand across his for...

“Can we go back?” Karara was herself again, her voice crisp. “I don’t know.” Ross gave her the truth. The force which had drawn them through the gate was beyond his experience. As far as he knew, ther...

The wash of waves covered Ross’s advance until he came up against the wall not too far from the spy’s perch. Whoever crouched there still leaned forward to watch Karara. And Ross’s eyes, having adjust...

He might be recklessly endangering all of them, Ross knew. But if Ashe was immured somewhere in that rock pile over their heads, then the risk of trusting Loketh would be worth it. However, because Ro...

Twilight made a gray world where one could not trace the true meeting of land and water, sea and sky. Surely the haze about them was more than just the normal dusk of coming night. Ross balanced in th...

Babble of speech, cries, sounded muffled to Ross, made a mounting clamor on the deck. Had the raiders’ ship been boarded? Was it now under attack? He strove to hear and think through the pain in his h...

The hour was close to dawn again and a need for sleep weighted Ross’s eyelids, was a craving as strong as hunger. Still restlessness had brought him on deck, sent him to pacing, alert to this vessel a...

Jazia told her story with an attention to time and detail which amazed Ross and won his admiration for her breed. She had witnessed the death and destruction of all which was her life, and yet she had...

“Ohhhh!” Karara clutched at Ross, her breath coming in little gasps, giving vent to her fear and horror. They had not known what might come from this plan; certainly neither had foreseen the present c...

Ross raised a shell cup to his lips but hardly sipped the fiery brew it contained. This was a gesture of ceremony, but he wanted a steady head and a quick tongue for any coming argument. Torgul, Afruk...

“Ross!” Ashe’s hands gripped his shoulders as if never intending to free him again. “Then you did come through⁠—” Ross understood. Gordon Ashe must have feared that he was the only one swept through t...

Ross lay listening to the even breathing from across the cabin. He had awakened in that quick transference from sleep to consciousness which was always his when on duty, but he made no attempt to move...

It was not the general airlessness of the long-closed passage which wore on Ross’s nerves, made Karara suddenly reach out and clasp fingers about the wrists of the two men she walked between; it was a...

The corridor ended in a narrow slit of room, and the wall before them was not the worked stone of the citadel but a single slab of what appeared to be glass curdled into creamy ridges and depressions....

The day was dully overcast as all days had been since they had begun this sulk-and-march penetration into the mountain territory. Ross could not accept the idea that the Foanna might actually command ...