"Mider," Elak prayed. "Mider--aid me!" The mad planes swept about faster, in a frantic saraband of evil. The dark vision swept out, opening wider vistas before Elak. He saw unimaginable and blasphemous things, dwellers in the outer dark, horrors beyond earth-life-- The white shadow of Karkora grew larger. The crawling radiance shimmered leprously. Elak's senses grew dulled; his body turned to ice. Nothing existed but the now gigantic silhouette of Karkora; the Pallid One reached icy fingers into Elak's brain. The assault mounted like a rushing tide. There was no aid anywhere. There was only evil, and madness, and black, loathsome horror. * * * * * Quite suddenly Elak heard a voice. In it was the murmur of rippling waters. He knew Mayana spoke to him by strange magic. "In your hour of need I bring you the talisman against my son Karkora." The voice died; the thunder of the seas roared in Elak's ears. A green veil blotted out the mad, shifting planes and angles. In the emerald mists shadows floated--the shadows of Mayana. They swept down upon him. Something was thrust into his hand--something warm and wet and slippery. He lifted it, staring. He gripped a heart, bloody, throbbing--alive! The heart of Mayana! The heart beneath which Karkora had slumbered in the womb! The talisman against Karkora! A shrill droning rose suddenly to a skirling shriek of madness, tearing at Elak's ears, knifing through his brain. The bleeding heart in Elak's hand drew him forward. He took a slow step, another. About him the gray light pulsed and waned; the white shadow of Karkora grew gigantic. The mad planes danced swiftly. And then Elak was looking down at a pit on the edge of which he stood. Only in the depths of the deep hollow was the instability of the surrounding matter lacking. And below was a shapeless and flesh-colored hulk that lay inert ten feet down. It was man-sized and naked. But it was not human. The pulpy arms had grown to the sides; the legs had grown together. Not since birth had the thing moved by itself. It was blind, and had no mouth. Its head was a malformed grotesquerie of sheer horror. Fat, deformed, utterly frightful, the body of Karkora rested in the pit. The heart of Mayana seemed to tear itself from Elak's hand. Like a plummet it dropped, and fell upon the breast of the horror below. A shuddering, wormlike motion shook Karkora. The monstrous body writhed and jerked. From the bleeding heart blood crept out like a stain. It spread over the deformed horror. In a moment Karkora was no longer flesh-colored, but red as the molten sunset. And, abruptly, there was nothing in the pit but a slowly widening pool of scarlet. The Pallid One had vanished. Simultaneously the ground shook beneath Elak; he felt himself swept back. For a second he seemed to view the crag and tower from a distance, against the background of snow-tipped peaks.