To search for Tara of Helium in the vast, dim labyrinth of the
pits of O-Tar seemed to the Gatholian a hopeless quest,
foredoomed to failure. It would be wiser to seek the streets of
Manator where he might hope to learn first if she had been
recaptured and, if not, then he could return to the pits and
pursue the hunt for her. To find egress from the maze he must
perforce travel a considerable distance through the winding
corridors and chambers, since he had no idea as to the location
or direction of any exit. In fact, he could not have retraced his
steps a hundred yards toward the point at which he and Tara had
entered the gloomy caverns, and so he set out in the hope that he
might find by accident either Tara of Helium or a way to the
street level above.
For a time he passed room after room filled with the cunningly
preserved dead of Manator, many of which were piled in tiers
after the manner that firewood is corded, and as he moved through
corridor and chamber he noticed hieroglyphics painted upon the
walls above every opening and at each fork or crossing of
corridors, until by observation he reached the conclusion that
these indicated the designations of passageways, so that one who
understood them might travel quickly and surely through the pits;
but Turan did not understand them.
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