* * * *

A circular panel in the wall opened and a woman slipped through. She was
very young, little more than a girl. There were happy curves in her full
crimson lips, joyous lights 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
reminded Garin of mother-of-pearl with its lights 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 disappointment as the picture vanished. Urg
laughed.

"What care you for shadows when 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? Come, we must go to the Hall of Thrones."

Before the jade throne of the Lord of the Folk stood a small group 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, coming to stand by those struggling things
which gasped their message between moans and screams of agony. They were
men of the Folk but their black skins were green with rot.

The Lord leaned forward on his throne. "It is well," he said. "You may
depart."

As if obeying his command, the tortured things let go 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 material for their laboratories. They
seek even to give the Daughter to their workers of horror!"

A terrible cry of hatred arose from the hall, and Garin's jaw set. To
give that fair vision he had just seen to such a death as this--!

"Jiv and Betv were imprisoned close to the Daughter and they heard the
threats of Kepta. Our brothers, stricken with foul disease, were sent
forth to carry the plague to us, but they swam through the pool of
boiling mud. They have died, but the evil died with them. And I th