Tel and the Duchess screamed. The rest just drew breath quickly and staggered back. "He's in there," Arkor said. "That's where your Lord of the Flames is."
The landscape glowed with the encroaching light of the flaming torch, and they saw the blockhouse now with its whirling antennae on the roof. Before the plane hit, a darkness opened in the side of the blockhouse and three figures emerged and sprinted among the rocks.
"The middle one," said Arkor. "That's him, face him, concentrate on him...."
"What do you...?" Tel began.
"You ride along with me, kids," Arkor said, only he didn't move. Two of the figures had fallen now, but the middle one was running toward them. The torch hit, and his shadow was suddenly flung across the broken earth to meet them....
CHAPTER IX
The green of beetles' wings ... the red of polished carbuncle ... a web of silver fire, and through the drifting blue smoke Jon hurled across the sky.
Then blackness, intense and cold. The horizon was tiny, jagged, maybe ten feet away. He reached a metal out and crawled expertly (not clumsily. Expertly!) across a crevice, but slowly, very slowly. The sky was sharp with stars, though the sun was dim to his light-sensitive rind. Like a sliding cyst, he edged over the chunk of rock that spun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. Now he reached out with his mind to touch a second creature on another rock. Petra, he called. Where is he?