"How long have you known?"
"Not long. Perhaps two rains. It took many seasons to find the secret of this passage. I came here at night, when the others slept."
"And you didn't tell?"
"No!" said Treon. "You are thinking that if I had told, there would have been an end to the slavery and the death. But what then? My family, turned loose with the power to destroy a world, as this city was destroyed? No! It was better for the slaves to die."
He motioned Stark aside, then, between doors of gold that stood ajar, into a vault so great that there was no guessing its size in the red and shrouding gloom.
"This was the burial place of their kings," said Treon softly. "Leave the little one here."
Stark looked around him, still too numb to feel awe, but impressed even so.
They were set in straight lines, the beds of black marble—lines so long that there was no end to them except the limit of vision. And on them slept the old kings, their bodies, marvelously embalmed, covered with silken palls, their hands crossed upon their breasts, their wise unhuman faces stamped with the mark of peace.
Very gently, Stark laid Zareth down on a marble couch, and covered her also with silk, and closed her eyes and folded her hands. And it seemed to him that her face, too, had that look of peace.
He went out with Treon, thinking that none of them had earned a better place in the hall of kings than Zareth.