"They refused to go through with it. They revoked their decision. They said—they said Mars was a hotbed of trouble, that it had no competent ruler to make its decisions, and enforce them!"
"Guantra," said Kortha bitterly, "wants to be that ruler. As Premier he stands an excellent chance of fulfilling his ambition."
Ilse came close to him, touched his hands with hers and clung. Her blue eyes stared anxiously up to his green ones.
"If you were to come back, and be that ruler," she breathed. "Kortha, Kortha, don't you see Mars needs you?"
Kortha looked past Ilse, out toward the red desert. Far in the haze of distance, against the black and jagged Mountains of Eternity, there was something white that shook and eddied in the heat waves rising from the sands. Kortha knew it for forgotten Yassa, the city beyond recall. A dead city, that ate up travelers that went to it.
Kortha sighed, and looked at Ilse. Always had Kortha wanted to go to Yassa. There was a mystery about Yassa, a mystery that Kortha meant to solve. The time was now come when he could.
"Give me time," he said to Ilse. "I need time to think."
She looked at him and in the depths of her blue eyes there was an infinite sadness, a yearning.
"You lie, Kortha," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "You do not ever intend to return. Tell me why?"
He looked down at her and smiled. How could he tell her? The long uncut blonde hair that hung to his naked brown shoulders swayed a bit as he shook his head.