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Updated: June 12, 2025
Upon the platform from which sprang the smaller span over the abyss were Lakla, Olaf, and Rador; the handmaiden clearly acting as interpreter between them and the giant she had called Nak, the Frog King. "Come on!" shouted Larry. Out of the open portal we ran; over the World Heart Bridge and straight into the group. "Oh!" cried Lakla, "I didn't want you to wake up so soon, Larry darlin'!"
The coppery ramparts were close, not more than three or four miles distant; in front of us the plain lifted in a long rolling swell, and up this the corial essayed to go with a terrifying lessening of speed. Faintly behind us came shootings, and we knew that Lugur drew close. Nor anywhere was there sign of Lakla nor her frogmen.
Wondering, I glanced at Lakla's face and there was a dawn of foreboding and bewilderment. For a little she held her listening attitude; then the gaze of the Three left her; focused upon the O'Keefe. "Thus speak the Silent Ones through Lakla, their handmaiden," the golden voice was like low trumpet notes. "At the threshold of doom is that world of yours above.
Gasping, shaken, weak, I stood within the faceted oval chamber; arm still about the handmaiden's white shoulder; Larry's hand still clutching her girdle. The roaring, impalpable gale from the cosmos was retreating to the outposts of space was still; the intense, streaming, flooding radiance lessened died. "Now have you beheld," said Lakla, "and well you trod the road.
"I will take the tall one named Larree." It was the priestess's voice. "After the three tal, you may have him, Lugur, to do with as you will." "No!" it was Lugur's voice again, but with a rasp of anger. "All must die." "He shall die," again Yolara. "But I would that first he see Lakla pass and that she know what is to happen to him." "No!" I started for this was Marakinoff.
I came back to attention with a start, for Lakla was answering a question only heard by her, and, answering it aloud, I perceived for our benefit; for whatever was the mode of communication between those whose handmaiden she was, and her, it was clearly independent of speech. "He has been told," she said, "even as you commanded." Did I see a shadow of pain flit across the flickering eyes?
And thus it was that Lakla, the handmaiden of the Silent Ones, and Larry O'Keefe first looked into each other's hearts! Larry stood rapt, gazing at the stone. "Eilidh," I heard him whisper; "Eilidh of the lips like the red, red rowan and the golden-brown hair!" "Clearly of the Ranadae," said Marakinoff, "a development of the fossil Labyrinthodonts: you saw her teeth, da?"
"Wait," said Lakla, "there is one other thing they say we must answer before they will hold us to that promise wait " She listened, and then her face grew white white as those of the Three themselves; the glorious eyes widened, stark terror filling them; the whole lithe body of her shook like a reed in the wind. "Not that!" she cried out to the Three. "Oh, not that!
Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant, unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something offered her. "I go with you," said O'Keefe, this time in her own speech. "Come on, Doc!" He reached out a hand to me. But now Yolara spoke.
He was silent then: "They are of them the mighty ones why else would I have bent my knee to them as I would have to the spirit of my dead mother? Why else would Lakla, whose gold-brown hair is the hair of Eilidh the Fair, whose mouth is the sweet mouth of Deirdre, an' whose soul walked with mine ages agone among the fragrant green myrtle of Erin, serve them?" he whispered, eyes full of dream.
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