bal legends, of that time
in the long ago when an angry sun god had driven his children inside
the earth; of how Gor, and the son of Gor, and his son's sons tried
always to return.

Rawson was listening only subconsciously. They were circling the white
mountain, ascending its lower slope. Now he could see beyond it as far
as the land extended, and he was startled to find this distance so
short. They were on an island, ten miles or so in length, and beyond
it was the sea; he must ask Gor about that.

"It is all that is left," said Gor, when Rawson interrupted his
narrative. "Once the land was great and the sea small--this also in
the long ago--but always it has risen. The air we breathe and the
water in the sea come from the central sun. The air rushes out, as you
know; the water has no place to retreat."

Again he took up his tale, but Rawson's eyes were following the upward
curve of that sea. They, seemed to be in the bottom of a great bowl;
he was trying to estimate, trying to gage distance.

"... and so, after many generations had lived and died, they found the
Pathway to the Light," Gor was saying. "It is our name for the shaft
through which you came. This was thousands of your years ago, when he
who was then Gor, and the bravest of the tribe, descended. Even then
they were workers in metal and they knew of Oro and Grah. They were
our fathers, the first People of the Light."

* * * * *

Rawson had a question ready on his tongue, but Gor's words suggested
another. "That shaft," he said, "the Pathway to the Light--do you mean
it extends clear up to the mole-men's world? Why don't they come
down?"

"To them the way is lost; the Pathway is closed above the zone of
fire. That other Gor did that. And those who remained--the
mole-men--have forgotten. They could break their way through if they
knew--they are master-workers with fire--but for them the Pathway
ends, and below is the great heat. But we know of a way around the
closed place, the hidden way to the great Lake of Fire."

"They could break their way through if they knew!" repeated Rawson
softly. For an instant he stood silent and unbreathing; he was
remembering the ugly eyes in a priest's hideous face. The eyes were
watching him as the White Ones took him away.

He forced his thoughts to come back to the earlier question. "What,"
he asked, "is the diameter, the distance across the inside world? How
far is it from here to y