"For the last time they went to the Three—to pass sentence upon them. This was the doom—that here they should remain, alone, among the Akka, served by them, until that time dawned when they would have will to destroy the evil they had created—and even now—loved; nor might they seek death, nor follow their judges until this had come to pass. This was the doom they put upon the Three for the wickedness that had sprung from their pride, and they strengthened it with their arts that it might not be broken.
"Then they passed—to a far land they had chosen where the Shining One could not go, beyond the Black Precipices of Doul, a green land—"
"Ireland!" interrupted Larry, with conviction, "I knew it."
"Since then time upon time had passed," she went on, unheeding. "The people called this place Muria after their sunken land and soon they forgot where had been the passage the Taithu had sealed. The moon king became the Voice of the Dweller and always with the Voice is a woman of the moon king's kin who is its priestess.
"And many have been the journeys upward of the Shining One, through the Moon Pool—returning with still others in its coils.
"And now again has it grown restless, longing for the wider spaces. It has spoken to Yolara and to Lugur even as it did to the dead Taithu, promising them dominion. And it has grown stronger, drawing to itself power to go far on the moon stream where it will. Thus was it able to seize your friend, Goodwin, and Olaf's wife and babe—and many more. Yolara and Lugur plan to open way to earth face; to depart with their court and under the Shining One grasp the world!
"And this is the tale the Silent Ones bade me tell you—and it is done."
Breathlessly I had listened to the stupendous epic of a long-lost world. Now I found speech to voice the question ever with me, the thing that lay as close to my heart as did the welfare of Larry, indeed the whole object of my quest—the fate of Throckmartin and those who had passed with him into the Dweller's lair; yes, and of Olaf's wife, too.
"Lakla," I said, "the friend who drew me here and those he loved who went before him—can we not save them?"
"The Three say no, Goodwin." There was again in her eyes the pity with which she had looked upon Olaf. "The Shining One—feeds—upon the flame of life itself, setting in its place its own fires and its own will. Its slaves are only shells through which it gleams. Death, say the Three, is the best that can come to them; yet will that be a boon great indeed."