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at the bracelets on his own wrist. “The throws—” he repeated for the second time. “It means . . . it means . . . !”
    His face twisted and he beat upon the table board with one calloused fist, so mighty a blow that the horn cup leaped though it did not overturn. “What throws?” The scowl he turned upon Milo now was as grim as a battle face.
    â€œI don’t know.” Milo wet his lips with his tongue. He had no fear of the berserker even though the huge man might well be deliberately working himself into one of those rages that transcended intelligence and made such a fighter impervious to weapons and some spells.
    Once more he struggled to turn the dice on the bracelet. Far back in his mind he knew them. They had a very definite purpose. Only here and now he was like a man set down before some ancient roll of knowledge that he could not read and yet knew that his life perhaps depended upon translating it.“These,” he said slowly. “One turned just before you joined me. They are like gamers’ dice, save that there are too many shapes among them to be ordinary.”
    â€œYes.” Naile’s voice had fallen again. “Still I have thrown such—and for a reason, or reasons. But why or where I cannot remember. I think, swordsman, that someone thinks to play a game with
us
. If this be so, he shall discover that he has chosen not tools but men, and therefore will be the worse for his folly.”
    â€œIf we are bespelled . . .” Milo began. He wanted to keep the berserker away from the battle madness of his kind. It was useful, very useful, that madness, but only in the proper place and time. And to erupt, not even knowing the nature of the enemy, was rank folly.
    â€œThen sooner or later we shall meet the spell caster?” To Milo’s relief, Fangtooth seemed well able to control the power of were-change that was his by right. “Yes, that is what I believe we wait for now.”
    The druid, without a single glance in their direction, had set by his now empty bowl and got to his feet, ringing down on the table top a small coin. He wore, Milo noted as he turned and his robe flapped up a little, not the sandals suitable for city streets, but badly cured and clumsily made hide boots such as a peasant might use for field labor in ill weather. The bag marked with the runes of his training was a small one and as shabby as his robe. He gave a jerk to bring his cowl higher over his head and started for the outer door, nor did he make any attempt to approach their table. Milo was glad to see the last of him. Druids were chancy at best, and there were those who had the brand of Chaos and the powers of the Outer Dark at their call, though this one was manifestly lowly placed in that close-knit and secret fraternity.
    Fangtooth’s lips pursed as if he would spit after the figure now tugging aside the door curtain.
    â€œCooker of spells!” he commented.
    â€œBut not the one who holds us,” Milo said.
    â€œTrue enough. Tell me, swordsman, does your skin now prickle, does it seem that, without your helm to hold it down, your very hair might rise on your head? Whatever has netted us comes the closer. Yet a man cannot fight what he cannot see, hear, or know is alive.”
    The berserker was far more astute than Milo had first thought him. Because of the very nature of the bestial ferocity such fighters fell into upon occasion, one was apt to forget that they had their own powers and were moved by intelligence as well as by the superhuman strength they could command. Fangtooth had the right of it. His own discomfort had been steadily growing. What they awaited was nearly here.
    Now the five whisperers also arose and passed one by one beyond the curtain. It was as if someone, or something, were clearing the stage for a struggle. Yet still Milo could not locate any of the signs of Chaos. On the berserker’s shoulder the pseudo-dragon chittered,