"Here!" she cried.

I thrust her behind me and, my hand on the wall, climbed the dark stairs as rapidly as I could. At the top of the stairs I pressed against a trap and flung it open. Outside I could see the bright blue rectangle of the open sky. The light blinded me for a moment.

I caught the scent of a large furred animal and the odour of tarn spoor. I emerged onto the roof, my eyes half shut against the intense light. There were three men on the roof, two guardsmen and the man with the wrist straps, who had served as the master of the dungeons of Tharna. He held, leashed, the large, sleek white urt which I had encountered in the pit inside the palace door.

The two guardsmen were fixing a carrying basket to the harness of a large brown-plumaged tarn. The reins of the tarn were fixed to a ring in the front of the basket. Inside the basket was a woman whose carriage and figure I knew to be that of Dorna the Proud, though she now wore only a simple silver mask of Tharna.

"Stop!" I cried, rushing forward.

"Kill!" cried the man in wrist straps, pointing the whip in my direction, and unleashing the urt, which charged viciously toward me.

Its ratlike scamper was incomprehensibly swift and almost before I could set myself for its charge it had crossed the cylinder roof in two or three bounds and pounced to seize me in its bared fangs.

My blade enetered the roof of its mouth pushing its head up and away from my throat. The squeal must have carried to the walls of Tharna. Its neck twisted and the blade was wrenched from my grasp. My arms encircled its neck and my face was pressed into its glossy white fur. The blade was shaken from its mouth and clattered on the roof. I clung to the neck to avoid the snapping jaws, those three rows of sharp, frenzied white lacerating teeth that sought to bury themselves in my flesh.

It rolled on the roof trying to tear me from its neck; it leaped and bounded, and twisted and shook itself. The man with wrist straps had picked up the sword and with this, and his whip, circled us, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

I tried to turn the animal as well as I could to keep its scrambling body between myself and the man with wrist straps. Blood from the animal" s mouth ran down its fur and my arm. I could feel it splattered on the side of my face and in my hair.

Then I turned so that it was my body that was exposed to the blow of the sword carried by the man in wrist straps. I heard his grunt of satisfaction as he rushed forward. An instant before I knew the blade must fall I released my grip on the animal" s neck and slipped under its belly. It reached for me with a whiplike motion of its furred neck and I felt the long sharp white teeth rake my arm but at the same time I heard another squeal of pain and the grunt of horror from the man in wrist straps. I rolled from under the animal and turned to see it facing the man with wrist straps. One ear had been slashed away from its head and the fur on its left side was soaked with spurting blood. It now had its eyes fixed on the man with the sword, he who had struck this new blow.

I heard his terrified command, the feeble cracking of that whip held in an arm almost paralysed with fear, his abrupt almost noiseless scream. The urt was over him, its haunches high, its shoulders almost level with the roof, gnawing.

I shook the sight from my eyes and turned to the others on the roof. The carrying basket had been attached and the woman stood in the basket, the reins in her hands.

The impassive silver mask was fastened on me and I sensed that the dark eyes behind it blazed with indescribable hatred.

Her voice spoke to the two guardsmen. "Destroy him."

I had no weapons.

To my surprise the men did not raise their arms against me. One of them responded to her.

"You choose to abandon your city," he said. "Henceforth you have no city, for you have chosen to forsake it."

"Insolent beast!" she screamed at him. Then she ordered the other warrior to slay the first.

"You no longer rule in Tharna," said the other warrior simply. "Beasts!" she screamed.

"Were you to stay and die at the foot of your throne we would follow you and die by your side," said the first warrior.

"That is true," said the second. "Stay as a Tatrix, and our swords are bound in your service. Flee as a slave and you give up your right to command our metal."

"Fools!" she cried.

The Dorna the Proud looked at me those yards across the roof.

The hatred she bore me, her cruelty, her pride, were as tangible as some physical phenomenon, like waves of heat or the forming of ice. "Thorn died for you," I said.

She laughed. "He too was a fool, like all beasts."

I wondered how it was that Thorn had given his life for this woman. It did not seem it could have been a matter of caste obligation for this obligation had been owed not to Dorna but to Lara. He had broken the codes of his caste to support the treachery of Dorna the Proud.

I suddenly knew the answer, that Thorn somehow had loved this cruel woman, that his warrior" s heart had been turned to her though he had never looked upon her face, though she had never given him a smile or the touch of her hand. And I knew then that Thorn, henchman though he might have been, dissolute and savage antagonist, had yet been greater than she sho had been the object of his hopeless, tragic affection. It had been his doom to care for a silver mask.

"Surrender," I called to Dorna the Proud.

"Never," she responded haughtily.

"Where will you go and what will you do?" I asked.

I knew that Dorna would have little chance alone on Gor. Resourceful as she was, even carrying riches as she must be, she was still only a woman and, on Gor, even a silver mask needs the sword of a man to protect her. She might fall prey to beasts, perhaps even to her own tarn, or be captured by a roving tarnsman or a band of slavers.

"Stay to face the justice of Tharna," I said.

Dorna threw back her head and laughed.

"You too," she said, "are a fool."

Her hand was wrapped in the one-strap. The tarn was moving uneasily. I looked behind me and I could see that Lara now stood near, watching Dorna, and that behind her Kron and Andreas, followed by Linna, and rebels and soldiers, had ascended to the roof.

The silver mask of Dorna the Proud turned to Lara, who wore no mask, no veil. "Shameless animal," she sneered, "you are no better than they — beasts!"

"Yes," said Lara, "that is true." "I sensed this in you," said Dorna. "You were never worthy to be Tatrix of Tharna. I alone was worthy to be true Tatrix of Tharna."

"The Tharna of which you speak," said Lara, "no longer exists." Then as if with one voice soldiers, guardsmen and rebels lifted their weapons and saluted Lara as true Tatrix of Tharna.

"Hail Lara, true Tatrix of Tharna!" they cried, and as was the custom of the city, five times were those weapons brandished and five times did that glad shout ring out.

The body of Dorna the Proud recoiled as if struck by five blows. Her silver-gloved hands clenched in fury upon the one-strap and beneath those shimmering gauntlets I knew the knuckles, drained of blood, were white with rage.

She looked once more at the rebels and soldiers and guardmen and Lara with a loathing I could sense behind the impassive mask, and then that metal image turned once more upon me.

"Farewell, Tarl of Ko-ro-ba," she said. "Do not forget Dorna the Proud for we have an account to settle!"

The hands in their gloves of silver jerked back savagely on the one-strap and the wings of the tarn burst into flight. The carrying basket remained a moment on the roof and then, attached by its long ropes, interwoven with wire, it slid for a pace or two and lurched upward in the wake of the tarn. I watched the basket swinging below the bird as it winged its way from the city.