Instead they circled the palace until they found a side entrance, inside which they could scent no guards. They slipped into the building and paused, sniffing. Then on through the dusty deserted corridors of the sleeping pile they went and came at last to the rooms where Nelson and his comrades had been quartered.
It is very strange, thought Nelson, that now I creep into these rooms on four feet and that, before I enter, I know that only Li Kin is here.
One dim lamp burned in the room. The little Chinese lay on his cot, his face relaxed in sleep-the face, Nelson thought, of an unhappy child, hollowed with a long hunger of the soul. He felt a warm surge of affection for Li Kin.
"Wait," he told Tark. "I will wake him."
Tark waited, his nose wrinkling with disgust at the alien odors of the outlanders. Nelson padded over to the cot, wondering how to wake Li Kin without causing him to cry out in terror and bring the others running. He felt that he could talk to Li Kin alone of all these men he had fought and drunk with for so long.
He hesitated over the sleeping man and Li Kin stirred and moaned uneasily. Then Nelson saw the dull platinum circle of the thought-crown that lay with Li Kin's things beside the bed. He picked it up carefully in his jaws and laid it by Li Kin's head. At the touch of the cold metal the Chinese stirred again and sighed.
The thought-crown was not in place but Nelson hoped that the contact would enable him to get through a message to Li Kin's relaxed mind. He remembered how he had heard Nsharra and Tark all those centuries ago in Yen Shi.
"Li Kin," he sent his urgent thought, "Wake, Li Kin, and do not fear. It is I, Eric Nelson."
Over and over, soothingly, and presently Li Kin opened his eyes and said aloud in a startled voice. "Who calls?"
Then he saw the gray wolf standing over him and Tark's eyes burning green in the shadows and his mouth opened for a scream.