"My brother," he said, "do you recall that yesterday, when you had slain the bull of Shamar, I said to you that Bel-Ar would be as little likely to forgive you that deed as to forgive one who confessed himself a follower of the Goddess Glorian of Ruthar?"
Polaris nodded. "I remember," he answered, "but understand not."
"That is my crime," said Oleric. "I am of Ruthar, a follower of the Goddess Glorian, and a faithful one. I will make clear to you what you do not understand. Listen. I will make the tale brief.
"In the long ago, the very long ago—so long that most of the world you know was wilderness and its peoples barbarians—a mighty people flourished on an island in the ocean that you name Atlantic. They called themselves the Children of Ad, or Adlaz, after the eldest of the ten kings that once ruled in that land. Tradition has it that their island was the first cradle of civilization; for they, because of their isolation, alone of all the peoples of the earth, dwelt in peace and plenty, and were not wasted by wars.
"If the ancient maps were truly drawn, that island of Adlaz lay opposite and southward from the straits of a fair sea, and the straits were known as the Pillars of Heracles. With time and the growth of the nation of Ad came greed upon her children, greed and the love of conquest. Great navies carried their armies east and west. Along both shores of that blue sea, which you know as Mediterranean, they gained a foothold, and made the nations bend to their yoke. Westward they sailed to another continent across the ocean, conquering the red men of the wildernesses there, and founding provinces and building cities.
"Then in the flower of her pride and conquests, Adlaz was cut down. Both sides of the Mediterranean she held as far as the gates of Egypt and the islands of the Hellenes. But the nation of the Hellenes was the rock on which the fortunes of Adlaz split. A wise and crafty king led the Hellenes in battle to withstand the flood of invasion from the island empire. He beat their army and nearly destroyed it. He trapped the mighty navy that had sailed from Adlaz against the Hellenes. While Egypt sat quaking, waiting to bend the neck to the heel of the invader, the Hellenes, under their wise leader, turned the tide.
"Balked and broken, those who had gone forth to conquer returned to their island. But the great sea-god whom they worshiped must have been sorely angered at their failure. For in one day he arose and swallowed their island. The land heaved and split; the mountains were rent, and vomited up both fires and waters, and the entire island disappeared into the depths of the sea. East and west on the two continents, the barbarians rose against the colonies of Adlaz, and they too perished. O'Connell, the slave, who was learned, told me that so utterly was the race of Adlaz wiped from the earth that naught remains, excepting the half-buried ruins of some of their cities, which stand in the jungles of the western continent, concerning the very origin of which the minds of men are vague. And of the island of Adlaz itself, he told that it was only a dim tradition, a myth, the truth of which is doubted even by the learned.
"But all of Adlaz did not perish. A part, a small part, of the mighty fleet which had sailed against the Hellenes was not lost, but was driven southward in the tidal-waves of the inundation which swallowed the island.
"Afloat, but with every hand in the world turned against them, their colonies crumbling before the wrath of the barbarians, those chiefs of Adlaz turned for guidance to the son of one of their princes who was on one of the ships. Of his wisdom that prince told them that since they were hated of all the world, and that even the hand of the sea-god was set against them—why, they would sail to the end of the world to find them an abiding place, until in the fulness of time they should once more rule the earth. So they passed like a flame down the coasts of the western continent until they reached this place; and here they stopped and stayed, maintaining the old traditions of their race, keeping themselves apart—a hateful people, waiting for the day of which their leader told them, when they shall once more conquer the world.