"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
If she was surprised, no less was I; for old age was something I had never before seen in Amtor. Her voice awakened the girls, and I heard them rising to their feet behind me.
"What are you doing here?" repeated the old woman querulously. "Get out of my house, accursed corpses! I'll have none of the spawn of Skor's evil brain in my house!"
I looked at her in astonishment. "Aren't you dead?" I demanded.
"Of course I'm not dead!" she snapped.
"Neither are we," I told her.
"Eh? Not dead?" She came closer. "Let me see your eyes. No, they do not look like dead eyes; but they say that Skor has found some foul way in which to put a false light of life into dead eyes."
"We are not dead," I insisted.
"Then what are you doing in Kormor? I thought that I knew all of the living men and women here, and I do not know you. Are the women alive too?"
"Yes, we are all alive." I thought quickly. I wondered if I might trust her with our secret and seek her aid. She evidently hated Skor, and we were already in her power if she wished to denounce us. I felt that we could not be much worse off in any event. "We were prisoners of Skor. We escaped. We want to get out of the city. We are at your mercy. Will you help us?—or will you turn us over to Skor?"