The sizzling, crackling of the flames—the gibbering baying of the fire-mimes mingling with the incantations of the old priest—it was all a blurred chaos.... Then suddenly I was aware that Jan, coughing, choking, had struggled half erect on the slab. There was just an instant when I saw his contorted face, painted lurid by the flames. Wild despairing desperation was stamped there. But there was something else. An exaltation....
"You—run—" he gasped.
And then he jumped. A wild, desperate leap, upward and outward.... It carried him through the curtain of flame and out some ten feet to the temple floor. The thud of his crashing body mingled with the gibbering yelps of the fire-mimes as they whirled and pounced upon him—all of them in a second, merged into a great blob of flame out there on the temple floor where they fought, scrambling over him, ripping—tearing—
Gruesome horror.... I knew in that second that already Jan was dead.... And then I was aware that the other side of the altar, behind the gargoyle image, was momentarily completely dark. All the flaming creatures were fighting over Jan's body. Torrence, too, had realized it. I saw him stagger up and jump into the darkness. I shoved at Ama; rolled and tumbled her off the slab. We fell in a heap and scrambled erect. The pawing, snarling group of fire-mimes, twenty feet away with the big altar slab intervening, intent upon their scattering fragments, for that moment did not heed us. On his little dais by the wall, the old priest had turned and was standing numbed, confused. There was no one else in the sacred temple. The single doorway was a vertical slit of darkness. Already Torrence was running for it. I clutched at Ama and we ran.
Out into the rocky blackness. I recall that I had the wits to turn us away from where the Org village lay nearby, behind the hillock.... Then, suddenly, from behind a crag, a dark figure rose up. Tahg! Tahg, who had been crouching here, evidently impatient for his feast so that he would be the first to see us as we were brought from the temple....
He stood gasping, startled; and in that same second I was upon him, my fist crashing into his face so that he went backward and down. With desperate haste I caught up a rock from the ground—pounded it on his head—wildly pounding until his skull smashed.... Then I was up, clutching Ama. Torrence already was ten or twenty feet ahead of us in the darkness. We ran after him; he heard us coming and waited.
"Which way?" he gasped. "She ought to know. Our spaceship—that would be best—"
At the door of the temple the old priest now was standing screaming. From behind the little hill, answering shouts were responding....
"Is it closer to your village, or to our ship?" I demanded of Ama.