“I am at your service, Exalted Lord.”

But the farsensor dithered. “Where are we to go? The route to House Velteyn is cut off!” His abstracted expression showed that he was scanning about with his mind’s eye.

“Well, we can’t go back inside,” said the most petite of the pleasure dome inmates, a black woman of exquisite contours and sharp voice. “The damn muffers are crawling out of the woodwork!”

“Oh, Lord Kolitcyr,” squealed a teary blond. “Save us!”

“Silence!” commanded the Tanu. “I’m attempting to, but no one will respond to my summons!”

The third woman, thin and empty-eyed, her provocative attire half torn from her bony shoulders, sank down on the pavement and began to laugh.

Kolitcyr gasped. “The dome is surrounded! I call, but Lord Velteyn’s knights are in the thick of battle!… Hah! The invaders cringe and retreat before the coercive might of Tanu chivalry! The Goddess be thanked, there are many more powerful than I!”

A great jarring thump came from inside the pleasure dome. Distant cries became louder. More glass broke and a rhythmic pounding began.

“They’re coming! The monsters are coming!” Once again, the blonde burst into hysterical tears.

“Soldier, you must lead us…” The Tanu scowled, shook his head as if to clear it. “Lead us to the Northern Watergate! There may be a boat…”

But it was too late. Across the garden, trampling flowerbeds and hurtling through the bushes came a force of twenty-odd Lowlife humans led by a half-naked red man of heroic stature.

Marshak’s hand poised above his quiver, frozen. Most of the invaders had compound bows as good as his own held at the ready.

“Surrender!” shouted Peopeo Moxmox Burke. “Amnesty for all humans who yield freely to us!”

“Stand back!” cried the Tanu farsensor. “I, I will burn out your minds! Strike you mad!”

Chief Burke smiled, and his painted face, framed in straggling gray hair, was more menacing than the Firvulag phantasm had ever been. The exotic man knew that his bluff was useless, just as he knew there would be no amnesty for those of his race.

Commanding Marshak to defend to the death, Koliteyr tried to flee. The iron tomahawk spun and split the exotic’s skull before he had taken two steps.

Marshak relaxed. He let the bow and arrow fall to the flagstones and watched the approaching Lowlives in numb silence.

The strategic importance of the barium mine had been made clear to Sharn-Mes at the Lowlife briefing session prior to the invasion. Humiliation of the hated Foe, the Firvulag general was made to understand, must take second place to the complete destruction of the mine and its trained personnel. It was vital to Madame Guderian’s grand design that the supply of the precious element, indispensable in the manufacture of torcs, be cut off. Shortly before noon, when Sharn was taking a breather with Bles and Nukalavee in a makeshift command post well supplied with liberated beer, a Firvulag scout arrived with important news. The Mighty Ayfa and her Warrior Ogresses had made a successful thrust from the eastern breach and now invested the sector around the mine workings. They had ascertained that molten rock, triggered by Claude’s blast from the Spear, had plugged the mine entrance, buried the main refinery and the complex that housed the human and rama workers, and flowed some distance into the streets of the upper city before congealing. However, the mine administration building with its store of purified barium stood firm. The place was completely surrounded by black and steaming lava, now sheathed in a clinkery skin of cooled rock except where cracks revealed the red glowing interior. There were still Tanu engineers in the building, and among them a creator of the first rank. Ayfa and her force had gleaned this intelligence when an unexpected bolt of psychoenergy zapped one of the investigating ogresses to a cinder, narrowly missing the Dreadful Skathe. She of the snaggleteeth and dripping talons had spun a psychic shield over the survivors that sufficed for a disorderly retreat out of mindbolt range.

“And so the Mighty Ayfa,” the scout concluded, “now awaits your suggestions, Great Captain.”

Bles uttered a hoarse bleat of ironic laughter. He tipped half a barrelful of beer into his maw. “Ahh, let’s go help the poor little ladies save their honor.”

“Honor, my left testicle!” hissed Nukalavee. “If the Foe-man’s creative force strained the defenses of Skathe, then he is a worthy antagonist to any of us at a distance. We would expend our mind-power simply in the erection of screens and have little left for offense.”

“Even the approach is fraught with danger,” Sharn noted. “The crust of cooling lava, as this scout says, is fragile and may crack under the weight of a stalwart. You know our minds cannot penetrate dense rock deeply enough to strengthen the crust. And to fan through into the magma below is certain doom.” He addressed himself to the dwarf messenger. “Pliktharn, how broad is the expense of lava that would have to be crossed?”

“At least fivescore giant steps, Great Captain.” Pliktharn’s face became eager. “The crust would bear my weight easily!”

“You could send me and Nukalavee to mind-guard him, along with Ayfa and Skathe,” Bles suggested. “The four of us working together have the range.”

“And what happens when our brave gnomish brother reaches the mine building?” Nukalavee sneered. “How will he attack the Foe through our own mental screens? Four-Fang, you’ve worn that reptile suit so long that your wits are shrinking to fit your illusory brainpan!”

“The Great Captain Ayfa,” cautioned the scout, “has perceived that the Tanu engineers are calling upon Lord Velteyn for help.”

Sharn smacked a great hand onto the table. “Te’s tonsils! And when he responds, he’ll airlift them out, barium and all! We can’t take that chance. I hate like hell to resort to Lowlife tactics, but there’s only one way to handle this.”

“Easy does it, lads!” Ayfa called out “Don’t lose your nerve now that you’re almost there.”

Homi, the Little Singhalese iron-smelter, clutched Pliktharn’s neck tighter. The lava crust bent as the Firvulag approached the lee of the mine building. There the flow was thicker and had held heat longer, which meant that the skin of cooled rock might crack and let them fall through to the magma at any moment.

About the incongruous pick-a-back figures shone a radiant hemisphere, the mental screen conjured by the joint power of Ayfa, Skathe, Bles, and Nukalavee. The four heroes, and most of the force of Warrior Ogresses, were concealed behind the sturdy walls of burnt-out townhouses, well back from the edge of the lava flow and a full 200 meters from the mine headquarters. Energy bolts flung by the trapped Tanu creator blazed from an upper-storey window, disintegrating into a web of lightnings as they were neutralized by the screen’s potential. At length, Pliktharn and Homi reached a lower window and climbed inside. Ayfa, who was strong in the farsensing talent, observed what happened next.

“The three Foemen descend to the lower chamber, armed with vitredur geology picks! One of them has considerable coercive power. He’s trying to force Pliktharn to lower the screen, but that won’t work, of course. The mindbolt flinger now gathers his strength for one mighty thrust at point-blank range! He uses steady pressure rather than abrupt projection. Our screen wavers! It goes spectral, into the blue! The yellow! It will surely fail! But now the Lowlife has his arbalest ready and aims at the creator. Ah! The missile of blood-metal passes through our weakening shield as through a curtain of rain! The Foeman falls! A second shot, and a third, and all of the Foe are downed!”

The four heroes leapt and the Warrior Ogresses whooped with joy in the triumph. All of their minds, even at the great distance, felt the death-flare of first one Tanu mind, then a second.