In a way Tharn's choice of a point to break into this palace was an unfortunate one. He would have preferred to enter on the side where Uda's rays did not reach. But four guards instead of one were stationed at that gate and an attempt to pass them would have been foolhardy at best.
Now, indeed, he must wait—wait until he could learn how much time would elapse between appearances of those six guards. He settled himself firmly into the branch's fork, using this period of enforced idleness by attempting to locate some means of ingress in that section of palace wall visible to him.
All windows of the first two floors appeared to be guarded by slender columns of stone. He had seen such forms of protection on some of Sephar's structures and he knew that even his own great strength would be unable to force them.
The windows of the top two floors were shielded only by drapes of soft material, with here and there a balcony dotting the white stone surface. Could he but reach one of the former, entry would be simple. But nowhere on the smooth sheer surface could he make out hand- and foot-holds for that purpose.
Half an hour dragged by. Nobody passed by, no light showed at any of the windows, no sound broke the tomb-like silence. He wondered at the failure of the six-man patrol to appear a second time.
Well, he could not remain in this leafy retreat forever. With a slight shrug of his giant shoulders, Tharn descended to the lower branches, took a long and cautious look around, his ears and nose alert for some sign of life. Nothing.
Dropping to the ground, the cave lord ran lightly toward that corner of the palace around which those six guards had disappeared more than half an hour before. He was within feet of his goal when a sudden chorus of shrill cries from behind him broke the silence.
A single glance over his shoulder told him the story. The ground patrol had chosen this particular moment to reappear!
Once Dylara had been thrust not ungently within a room off a fourth floor corridor and its door barred from the outside, Trakor was turned over to a single guard to be taken to one of the slave dormitories. From the cave youth's appearance of utter hopelessness, the dispirited droop of his shoulders, it was clear all fight had gone out of him since Ammad's gates had closed at his back. He shuffled wearily along the hall ahead of his yawning guard, down a flight of stairs to the third level and along a lengthy corridor, lined with doors and completely deserted at this hour.