Part 2 (2/2)

”The inner chahter,” Sera announced

A circular panel in the wall opened and a woirl There were happy curves in her full crihts in her violet eyes

She was human of shape, but her beauty was unearthly Her skin was pearl white and other colors seemed to play faintly upon it, so that it rehts and shadows The hair, which veiled her as a cloud, was blue-black and reached below her knees

She was robed in the silver net of the Folk and there was a heavy girdle of rose-shaded jewels about her slender waist

”That was Thrala before the Black Ones took her,” said Sera

Garin uttered a cry of disappointhed

”What care you for shadohen the Daughter herself waits for you? You have but to bring her from the Caves of Darkness--”

”Where are these Caves--” Garin's question was interrupted by the pealing of the Cavern gong Sera cried out:

”The Black Ones!”

Urg shrugged ”When they spared not the Ancient Ones how could we hope to escape? Coo to the Hall of Thrones”

Before the jade throne of the Lord of the Folk stood a sroup of the lizard-men beside two litters As Garin entered the Lord spoke

”Let the outlander come hither that he may see the work of the Black Ones”

Garin advanced unwillingly, coasped their ony They were reen with rot

The Lord leaned forward on his throne ”It is well,” he said ”Youhis coo of the life to which they had clung and were still

”Look upon the work of the Black Ones,” the ruler said to Garin ”Jiv and Betv were captured while on a mission to the Gibi of the Cliff It seems that the Black Ones needed ive the Daughter to their workers of horror!”

A terrible cry of hatred arose froive that fair vision he had just seen to such a death as this--!

”Jiv and Betv were ihter and they heard the threats of Kepta Our brothers, stricken with foul disease, were sent forth to carry the plague to us, but they swa mud They have died, but the evil died with them And I think that while we breed such as they, the Black Ones shall not rest easy

Listen now, outlander, to the story of the Black Ones and the Caves of Darkness, of how the Ancient Ones brought the Folk up froreat, and of how the Ancient Ones at last went down to their destruction”

_CHAPTER FOUR_

_The Defeat of the Ancient Ones_

”In the days before the lands of the outer world were born of the sea, before even the Land of the Sun (Mu) and the Land of the Sea (Atlantis) arose from molten rock and sand, there was land here in the far south A sere land of rock plains, and swamps where slimy life mated, lived and died