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As they swayed the rippling arpeggios grew louder, and suddenly the slender pinnacles of moon fire bent, dipped, flowed to the floor, crept in a shining ring around those two and began to rise, a gleaming, glimmering, enchanted barrier rising, ever rising hiding them! With one swift movement Yolara unbound her circlet of pale sapphires, shook loose the waves of her silken hair.
His eyes were stern, cold and now and then, as he turned them toward the Russian, filled with a curious speculation. Yolara watched him, frowned, gave a low order to the Hebe behind her. The girl disappeared, entered again with a ewer that seemed cut of amber. The priestess poured from it into Larry's glass a clear liquid that shook with tiny sparkles of light.
The hand at his side made a swift, surreptitious gesture, so fleeting that I hardly caught it. The red dwarf stared at the Russian, and there was amazement upon his face. Swiftly as Marakinoff, he returned it. "Yolara," the red dwarf spoke, "it would please me to take this man of wisdom to my own place for a time. The giant I would have, too." The woman awoke from her brooding; nodded.
"Why, the handmaiden passed with her Akka nigh a va ago!" "Passed!" The astonishment of the green dwarf was so real that half was I myself deceived. "You let her pass?" "Certainly I let her pass " But under the green dwarf's stern gaze the truculence of the guardian faded. "Why should I not?" he asked, apprehensively. "Because Yolara commanded otherwise," answered Rador, coldly.
"Wait!" he said. "You can do nothing now and it may be there will be no need to do anything," he added; but I could feel that there was little of conviction in his words. The Madness of Olaf Yolara threw her white arms high. From the mountainous tiers came a mighty sigh; a rippling ran through them.
The triumph died from her face and for a space she was silent; brooding. "Next," whispered O'Keefe to me. "Lots of surprises in the little box; keep your eye on the opening and see what comes out." We had not long to wait. There was a sparkle of anger about Yolara, something too of injured pride.
"There came no command to me." Little beads of sweat stood out on Serku's forehead. "Serku," interrupted the green dwarf swiftly, "truly is my heart wrung for you. This is a matter of Yolara and of Lugur and the Council; yes, even of the Shining One! And the message was sent and the fate, mayhap, of all Muria rested upon your obedience and the return of Lakla with these strangers to the Council.
"He is not dead; and the Three have wondrous healing. They can restore him if they will and they will, they will!" For a moment she was silent. "Now their gods help Lugur and Yolara," she whispered; "for come what may, whether the Silent Ones be strong or weak, if he dies, surely shall I fall upon them and I will slay those two yea, though I, too perish!" "Yolara and Lugur shall both die."
"There are, second, we the soldiers; and last, the mayia ladala, who dig and till and weave and toil and give our rulers and us their daughters, and dance with the Shining One!" he added. "Who rules?" I asked. "The fair-haired, under the Council of Nine, who are under Yolara, the Priestess and Lugur, the Voice," he answered, "who are in turn beneath the Shining One!"
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.
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