As Tara was departing from the chamber with E-Thas and the guard,
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 him the
girl passed out of the banquet hall, her head high 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 Helium. He
utilized the spiral runway in passing from level to level until
he knew every foot of it from the pits to the summit of the high
tower, and into what apartments it opened at the various levels
as well as the ingenious 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 chamber
sharing the dais with the dead foot of the ancient jeddak.
In the palace about him seethed, all unknown to Gahan, a vast
unrest.
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