"Nor Berla alone, O Helmor. These things be not of my seeking, nor of Tamarizia's design. Yet if I return not scatheless from this meeting, not only Berla but all Zollaria as well shall burn. If I return not safely that begun this night shall certainly continue, and Tamarizia shall hurl her total strength against a treacherous nation which seeks by unlawful methods to further her ends. And in that day Zollaria as a nation shall go down in a red ruin, from which she shall not rise.
"We sought not war, O Helmor, nor aught save only peace. Twice have you loosed your strength against us—and twice has it proved vain. Yet again you planned our undoing—and this third time you struck not as a man against men, but against the innocent, the weak and helpless—seeking through them to win what had been failed of through force of arms. Helmor of Zollaria struck not at the heart of a man as he hoped to Zollaria's and his own profit. But now must he face strength again.
"Yet even so we come not in war against thee or thy nation, save in so far as it be needful to prove resistance vain. War we make not against the defenseless, the weak, nor wish to—and we hold it a thing for sorrow, were the helpless, the innocent, to perish for Helmor's or another's sin. Wherefore we come before thee and offer thee peace, O Helmor—a peace which Helmor needs but say the word to win."
"Thy price? Name the ransom of Berla, Mouthpiece of Zitu." Suddenly Helmor appeared to find his tongue. His voice rose hoarsely. "By Bel, I would not see my people burn."
"Helmor knowest," Croft said slowly, "I but require of thee my own. Let Naia of Aphur and the blue girl, her attendant, and Jason, Son of Jason, be brought forth and placed unharmed aboard the machine Helmor sees before him."
"And afterward?" Croft's utterly controlled demeanor, the mildness of his demands, seemed in a way to disturb Zollaria's monarch, appeared to excite the suspicion of some hidden trap in his mind.
"Nay, nothing," the Mouthpiece of Zitu returned. "Have I not said that I come not in vengeance upon thee? Hark ye, Helmor, I am not driven by any such intent as that of the woman who having led thee into this position now plans to cast thee from a throne. Yet, if ye yield not, by Zitu, whose Mouthpiece men name me—thy throne itself and all it stands for shall be destroyed."
Helmor started. Croft's intimate knowledge of a plot against his tenure of his power seemed to shake him well-nigh as deeply as all else. He stood silent, once more lost to all seeming in a gloomy consideration, into which broke the rising voices of the crowd. For they too had heard from their places outside the ring of threatening spears in the hands of the guardsmen, and now they cried to him, "O Helmor—yield to him—grant him his demands nor seek to resist him, O Helmor. Let not Berla be destroyed!"
Those cries beat into his ears a very surge of plaint and entreaty. And hearing it Helmor threw up his head and turned to Croft.
"This is the sum of your requirement, Mouthpiece of Zitu, which being granted, shall lead to nothing else?"