The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

of grain porridge and a cluster of fruit, still fastened to a leafy branch. This the Ana eyed so wistfully that Garin gave it to the creature.
    The Folk ate silently and arose quietly when they had finished, their trays vanishing back through the wall. Garin noticed only males in the room and recalled that he had, as yet, seen no females among the Folk. He ventured a question.
    Urg chuckled. “So, you think there are no women in the Caverns? Well, we shall go to the Hall of Women that you may see.”
    To the Hall of Women they went. It was breath-taking in its richness, stones worth a nation’s ransom sparkling from its domed roof and painted walls. Here were the matrons and maidens of the Folk, their black forms veiled in robes of silver net, each cross strand of which was set with a tiny gem, so that they appeared to be wrapped in glittering scales.
    There were not many of them—a hundred perhaps. And a few led by the hand smaller editions of themselves who stared at Garin with round yellow eyes and chewed black finger tips shyly.
    The women were intrusted with the finest jewel work, and with pride they showed the stranger their handiwork. At the far end of the hall was a wonderous thing in the making. One of the silver nets which were the foundations of their robes was fastened there and three of the women were putting small rose jewels into each microscopic setting. Here and there they had varied the pattern with tiny emeralds or flaming opals so that the finished portion was a rainbow.
    One of the workers smoothed the robe and glanced up at Garin, a gentle teasing in her voice as she explained:
    “This is for the Daughter when she comes to her throne.”
    The Daughter! What had the Lord of the Folk said? “This youth is fit to mate with the Daughter.” But Urg had said that the Ancient Ones had gone from Tav.
    “Who is the Daughter?” he demanded.
    “Thrala of the Light.”
    “Where is she?”
    The woman shivered and there was fear in her eyes. “Thrala lies in the Caves of Darkness.”
    “The Caves of Darkness!” Did she mean Thrala was dead? Was he, Garin Featherstone, to be the victim of some rite of sacrifice which was designed to unite him with the dead?
    Urg touched his arm. “Not so. Thrala has not yet entered the Place of Ancestors.”
    “You know my thoughts?”
    Urg laughed. “Thoughts are easy to read. Thrala lives. Sera served the Daughter as handmaiden while she was yet among us. Sera, do you show us Thrala as she was.”
    The woman crossed to a wall where there was a mirror such as Urg had used for his language lesson. She gazed into it and then beckoned the flyer to stand beside her.
    The mirror misted and then he was looking, as if through a window, into a room with walls and ceiling of rose quartz. On the floor were thick rugs of silver rose. And a great heap of cushions made a low couch in the center.
    “The inner chamber of the Daughter,” Sera announced.
    A circular panel in the wall opened and a women slipped through. She was very young, little more than a girl. There were happy curves in her full crimson lips, joyous lights in her violet eyes.
    She was human of shape, but her beauty was unearthly. Her skin was pearl white and other colors seemed to play faintly upon it, so that it reminded Garin of mother-of-pearl with its lights and shadows. The hair, which veiled her as a cloud, was blue-black and reached below her knees. She was robed in the silver net of the Folk and there was a heavy girdle of rose shaded jewels about her slender waist.
    “That was Thrala before the Black Ones took her,” said Sera.
    Garin uttered a cry of disappointment as the picture vanished. Urg laughed.
    “What care you for shadows when the Daughter herself waits for you? You have but to bring her from the Caves of Darkness—”
    “Where are these Caves—” Garin’s question was interrupted by the pealing of the Cavern gong. Sera cried out:
    “The Black Ones!”
    Urg shrugged. “When they spared not the Ancient Ones how could we hope to escape? Come, we must go to the Hall of Thrones.”
    Before the jade throne of the Lord of the Folk stood a small group of the lizard-men beside two litters. As Garin entered the Lord spoke.
    “Let the outlander come hither that he may see the work of the Black Ones.”
    Garin advanced unwillingly, coming to stand by those struggling things which gasped their message between moans and screams of agony. They were men of the Folk but their black skins