A face such as he had never seen upon any living creature . . . yet there could be no mistaking the humanness of it . . . the humanness which lay over the incredible visage like a veil. He thought he saw a red rod dart out of air and touch the face—the red rod of Sierra's motley-garbed attendant. Whether he saw it or not, the clutching claws opened and slid away. The gray face vanished.
Up from the hidden slope arose a wailing, agonized shriek, and a triumphant hissing. Then out into the range of his vision bounded the black dinosaur, its golden-haired rider shouting. Behind it leaped the pack. They crossed the plain like a thunder cloud pursued by emerald and sapphire lightnings. They passed into the forest, and were gone.
Sierra stepped out of the tree shadows, the three adventurers close behind her, white-faced and shaking. She stood looking where the dinosaurs had disappeared, and her face was set, and her eyes filled with loathing. "Sierra!" gasped Graydon. "That thing—the thing that ran—what was it? God—it had the face of a man!" "It was no man," she shook her head. "It was a—Weaver. Perhaps he had tried to escape. Or perhaps Lantau opened a way for him that he might be tempted to escape. For Lantau delights in hunting with the Xin—" her voice shook with hatred—"and a Weaver will do when there is nothing better!" "A Weaver? It had a man's face!" It was Soames, echoing Graydon. "No," she repeated. "It was no—man. At least no man as you are. Long, long ago his ancestors were men like you—that is true. But now—he is—only a Weaver."
She turned to Graydon. "Yu-Atlanchi by its arts fashioned him and his kind. Remember him, Graydon—when you come to our journey's end!" She stepped out upon the path. There stood the scowled figure, waiting as tranquilly as though it had never stirred. She called to the white llama, and again took her place at the head of the little caravan. Soames touched Graydon, arousing him from the troubled thought into which her enigmatic warning had thrown him. "Take your place, Graydon," he muttered. "We'll follow. Later I want to talk to you. Maybe you can get your guns back—if you're reasonable." "Hurry," said Sierra, "the sun sinks, and we must go quickly. Before tomorrow's noon you shall see your garden of jewels, and the living gold streaming for you to do with it as you will—or the gold to do as it wills with you."
She looked the three over, swiftly, a shadow of mockery in her eyes. Soames' lips tightened. "Get right along, sister," he said, sardonically. "All you have to do is show us. Then your work is done. We'll take care of the rest." She shrugged, carelessly. They set forth once more along the rimmed path. The plain was silent, deserted. From the far forests came no sound. Graydon strove for sane comprehension of what he had just beheld. A Weaver, Sierra had named the scarlet thing— and had said that once its ancestors had been men like themselves. He remembered what, at their first meeting, she had told him of the powers of this mysterious Yu-Atlanchi. Did she mean that her people had mastered the secrets of evolution so thoroughly that they had learned how to reverse its processes as well? Could control—devolution!