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As Tara was departing frouard, O-Tar leaned close to her ear and whispered: "Consider well during these seven days the high honor I have offered you, and-its sole alternative" As though she had not heard hih and her eyes straight to the front

After Ghek had left him Gahan roamed the pits and the ancient corridors of the deserted portions of the palace seeking some clue to the whereabouts or the fate of Tara of Heliu from level to level until he knew every foot of it froh tower, and into what apartenious and hidden mechanism that operated the locks of the cleverly concealed doors leading to it For food he drew upon the stores he found in the pits and when he slept he lay upon the royal couch of O-Mai in the forbidden cha the dais with the dead foot of the ancient jeddak

In the palace about him seethed, all unknown to Gahan, a vast unrest Warriors and chieftains pursued the duties of their vocations with dour faces, and little knots of theer discussing some subject that was upper Tara's incarceration in the tower that E-Thas, the major-domo of the palace and one of O-Tar's creatures, came to his master upon some trivial errand O-Tar was alone in one of the smaller chambers of his personal suite when the major-domo was announced, and after the matter upon which E-Thas had coned him to remain

"From the position of an obscure warrior I have elevated you, E-Thas, to the honors of a chief Within the confines of the palace your word is second only to mine You are not loved for this, E-Thas, and should another jeddak ascend the throne of Manator ould beco the ed E-Thas "These last few days I have thought upon it ht to appease the wrath of ent with thee in the air?" demanded the jeddak

E-Thas was palpably uneasy and he did not reply

"Why did you not come to me with your apprehensions?" demanded O-Tar "Be this loyalty?"