The heavy, two-handed sword slashed into the very center of the baleful jewel reposing on its ebony pedestal. If a mountain had collapsed the thunder could have been no greater. Staggering, Duar perceived the precious fragments flying into a thousand disintegrated bits, while death winds blew into his face and the walls shook with their mad forces. Even the corpses seemed to rustle and stir as the elemental being that had guarded the Rose of Gaon departed the Black Tower for ever. Bit by bit the skeletons were crumbling into dust, released from the eternal slavery of the fatal Rose. Through their shifting dust Duar stumbled toward the passageway. The shimmering form of his mystifying ally stood in his path; he halted, eager to depart but unwilling to desert even a sorceress in the loathsome chamber holding the remains of dead felons. "I owe you thanks. My eyes were blinded like those who came before me. Alone, I would not have thought of striking the jewel." "No mortal man could have touched that stone, O Duar! It was not even a jewel--but the heart of a demon. If the blood of the Elder Race did not flow in your veins you could never have approached so near to it." "What is your interest in me, witch-woman?" queried the barbarian, stubbornly. "Why did you free me in the Pits? I have no friends. I am Duar, the Accursed! I fight for no cause but my own, and my only power is the sword I hold!" "You are mistaken!" Shar's voice rose to a higher pitch with the eloquence of her plea. "Duar, you admit that, even to yourself, your life has been a mystery. I can explain the mystery and bring back to you your past, the age-old past when you were a priest of the Elders and all these peoples now inhabiting the earth were only things crawling in its mud. Of all the Elders I am the last. Only you, Duar, have some of the ancient blood, mixed with mankind's, in your human flesh. I watched you throughout your re-incarnations until, at last, I determined to arouse your sub-consciousness to the point where you could remember. I need your help! You were a priest of the Race once--you can be again! We will rule again, with the aid of the ancient powers, supreme and undefeatable, over the entire world! Think, my lord! Remember!" Once again the witch-fires burned in his brain, rose and swirled and fell, and when his brain revolted against the torture of their passage his sight was cleared. All he could recall was the haunted underground pit, dust-laden and befouled with cursed souls. "I am Duar." Shar sighed. "Go then, Duar. When you are reborn I will come again--and again! Some day----" Her voice grew dim.