"They accomplished their purpose," he muttered. "I—I'm—"
"Where are you hurt?" I asked, my hands running over his shoulder and arm. That glove-fitting silk garment over his right arm and part of his chest felt strangely altered, brittle, charred.
"The healing ray," he muttered. "The orlex ray—only that could help me ... and I know that you do not have it."
A sound, the clump of heavy metal feet, caused me suddenly to jerk erect. My eyes tried to pierce the darkness.
A grotesque form was emerging from the gloom—Eyoaoc Eiioiei.
I drew back as that metal thing bent over Rog Tanlu.
There followed a moment of excited voice-sounds, and once or twice Rog Tanlu answered, faintly, words I could not understand.
Suddenly, reaching down, the thing picked him up in its jointed metal arms and started to carry him on up the passageway.
For a moment I stood there, saddened and appalled by this grim turn of fate. Then I began running up the slope after them. But so swiftly did that metal thing stride on before me that the blast of glacial air from the Ice Stone was hissing in my ears before I overtook them.
"Rog Tanlu!" I cried. "Where—?"