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Updated: June 10, 2025
"Those who die before are supposed to spend the balance of their allotted time in the image of a plant man, and it is for this reason that the plant men are held sacred by the therns, since they believe that each of these hideous creatures was formerly a thern." "And should a plant man die?" I asked.
Several times we passed the entrances to other chambers similarly peopled, and twice again we were compelled to cross directly through them. In others were chained prisoners and beasts. "Why is it that we see no therns?" I asked of Thuvia. "They seldom traverse the underworld at night, for then it is that the great banths prowl the dim corridors seeking their prey.
During these experiments Woola had been standing at my side gazing intently at the door, and as my glance fell upon him it occurred to me to test the correctness of my hypothesis, that this portal had been the means of ingress to the temple used by Thurid, the black dator, and Matai Shang, Father of Therns. Turning away abruptly, I called to him to follow me.
"You are my superior," he said; "I cannot do other than you sanction, though I still believe that we are foolish to remain." I, too, thought that they were foolish to remain, for I saw from Woola's actions that the trail led through the room where the two therns held guard.
I was on duty in other parts of the palace during the audience of the early morning, and knew nothing of what transpired then, so that when the Father of Therns summoned me and explained that it was your wish that his party be hastened from the city because of the presence here of a deadly enemy who sought the Holy Hekkador's life I did only what a lifetime of training has taught me was the proper thing to do I obeyed him whom I believed to be the ruler of us all, mightier even than thou, mightiest of jeddaks.
Faint rumors of the atrocities reported to have been committed by the therns upon those who for countless ages have floated down the mighty Iss came to my ears. "I heard that thousands of prisoners had been released, few of whom dared to return to their own countries owing to the mandate of terrible death which rests against all who return from the Valley Dor.
Beyond the therns several doorways opened off the guardroom, and toward the one upon the extreme right Lakor motioned. "That way leads to Thurid," he said. But when I would have called Woola to follow me there the beast whined and held back, and at last ran quickly to the first opening at the left, where he stood emitting his coughing bark, as though urging me to follow him upon the right way.
As I crossed the chamber to attack the Kadabrans from the rear a small doorway at my left opened, and, to my surprise, revealed the figures of Matai Shang, Father of Therns and Phaidor, his daughter, peering into the room. A quick glance about they took.
"Now don his harness, Prince," she said, "and you may pass where you will in the realms of the therns, for Sator Throg was a Holy Thern of the Tenth Cycle, and mighty among his kind." As I stooped to the dead man to do her bidding I noted that not a hair grew upon his head, which was quite as bald as an egg. "They are all thus from birth," explained Thuvia noting my surprise.
Not in horror, however, for since my recently acquired knowledge of the Holy Therns I was prepared for anything in this still less accessible heaven, where all was evidently dictated by a single omnipotence; where ages of narrow fanaticism and self-worship had eradicated all the broader humanitarian instincts that the race might once have possessed.
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