"Single-handed, Lady Elza. You shall see now how, single-handed, I make impossible any attack upon Tarrano."
In her abstraction Elza had almost forgotten herself and Tarrano; his voice reached her—his voice grim and with a gloating, sinister triumph in it. He was bending to the ground. Elza saw that they had come to an open space—an eminence rising above the forest. Underfoot was a stony soil; in places, bare black rock with an outcropping of red, like the cinnabar from which on Earth we melt the Heavy-metal.[23]
Tarrano faced her. "Nature, my Lady Elza, is fair to my purpose. I knew I would find some such deposit as this." He turned his face to one side attentively, and darted his light—harmlessly yellow now—to where a lone tree showed its great leaves beginning to waver in a night breeze.
"Nature is with us! See there, my Elza! A wind is coming—a wind from us to—them!"
The breeze grew—a breeze blowing directly over the forest to where in the distance the lights of the Great City showed plainly. Tarrano added:
"I had thought to create the wind." He tapped his belt. "Create the wind to carry our onslaught. But you see, it is unnecessary. Nature is kind, and far more efficacious than our man-made devices."
"Jac! Danger!" She stood there in the breeze, watching Tarrano—his purpose as yet no more than guessed—praying that I might receive her warning.
Tarrano selected his spot—a tiny little cone of rock no bigger than his thumb. He beckoned Elza.
"Stand close, and watch. You shall see how from the merest spark, a conflagration may ensue."
The cylinder in his hand darted forth a needle-like shaft—a light of intense purple. It touched the tiny cone of rock, and he held it there.