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Updated: May 14, 2025
While the frog-men, those late levies from the farthest forests, were clearing bridge and ledge of cavern of the litter of the dead, we listened to a leader of the ladala. They had risen, even as the messenger had promised Rador. Fierce had been the struggle in the gardened city by the silver waters with those Lugur and Yolara had left behind to garrison it.
Now upon the cavern ledge and over the whole length of the bridge there were none but the dead-alive, men and women, black-polled ladala, sloe-eyed Malays, slant-eyed Chinese, men of every race that sailed the seas milling, turning, swaying, like leaves caught in a sluggish current. The bell notes became sharper, more insistent.
Of all the rulers not twoscore had escaped, and these into regions of peril which to describe as sanctuary would be mockery. Nor had the ladala fared so well. Of all the men and women, for women as well as men had taken their part in the swift war, not more than a tenth remained alive. And the dancing motes of light in the silver air were thick, thick they whispered.
Had the Russian escaped, I wondered, or was he lying out there among the dead? But now the ladala were calling upon Lakla to come with them, to govern them. "I don't want to, Larry darlin'," she told him. "I want to go out with you to Ireland. But for a time I think the Three would have us remain and set that place in order."
Selective breeding this, with a vengeance, I thought; an ancient experiment in heredity which of course would in time result in the stamping out of the tendency to depart from type that lies in all organisms; resulting, obviously, at last, in three fixed forms of black-haired, ruddy-haired, and silver-haired but this, with a shock of realization it came to me, was also an accurate description of the dark-polled ladala, their fair-haired rulers and of the golden-brown tressed Lakla!
"Beyond this city of the Shining One and on the hither shores of the white waters dwell the mayia ladala the common ones." He took a deep draft from his flagon. "There are, first, the fair-haired ones, the children of the ancient rulers," he continued.
"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!"
Through some of the openings a rivulet of the green obsidian river passed. These were roadways to the farther country, to the land of the ladala, Rador told me; adding that none of the lesser folk could cross into the pavilioned city unless summoned or with pass. We turned the bend of the road and flew down that farther emerald ribbon we had seen from the great oval.
There was a ring of bitter satire in the last. "And those three who were judged?" this from Larry. "They were of the mayia ladala," he replied, "like those two I gave you. But they grow restless. They do not like to dance with the Shining One the blasphemers!" He raised his voice in a sudden great shout of mocking laughter.
Quietly we crept away; still silent, made our way to the little pavilion. But as we passed we heard a tumult from the green roadway; shouts of men, now and then a woman's scream. Through a rift in the garden I glimpsed a jostling crowd on one of the bridges: green dwarfs struggling with the ladala and all about droned a humming as of a giant hive disturbed!
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