The whole thing started when the magician Volnar refused to leave Perenthines. He had been a most successful and prosperous sorceror until the deplorable case of the fishwife whose hair all fell out and took root in the ground before her house. This the people took to be an evil omen, and it was really quite difficult for them to break into his low, strange house after his refusal to depart. They were all disappointed he had gone. They did not know of the black tunnel beneath where he kept his magical supplies. So after searching hopefully around the house some one set it afire, and they made merry by the embers, diverting themselves lustily during the pale night while he fled with only his vengeful thoughts for company. The curious manner of his attire together with the black-edged mantle of crimson caused him to resemble a great moth flapping across the wasteland between the cities. By the time the last flagon of wine lay untidily upon the paving before where his house once was, and while yet his pet mondal moaned inconsolably about the ashes, for his persecutors had been unable to capture the highly edible pet, Volnar arrived at the gates of Zo. The brilliance had begun in the northern sky, and the three suns were nearly risen. Soon would the far mountains be illuminated in yellow light, and Zath shine its metal towers like the armor of a weary knight sprawled upon the hills. The black stone of the precipice directly under the fasthold served only to set it off. Soon too would the rich rice fields of cultivated vegetation gleam pleasingly and the jungle come to animated life. But not yet were the gates open, for it had been the rule in Zo to keep fast-closed, till full dawn, ever since the Night of The Monster in neighboring Droom, close unto the mountains. There was a smell of spice hanging in the air, for the breeze was small, but this loveliness was wholly wasted upon the angry little sorceror as he chaffed before the giant gate. His robe was bedraggled from the mud and he was wearied of no sleep. "Ho, guard!" he shouted irritably, "can you not let an honest traveler within your cursed village before high noon?" This was on the whole a misrepresentation for his traveling was unintentional and he was by no means honest but he did not consider the moral aspect of the matter. After a time sounds of distant shuffling reached his ears, and after prodigious squeakings and bangings a sleepy-faced man gave him entrance. Volnar entered the handsome city and made his way along the vast paving-stones of yellow and brown, and at length arrived at a lodging-house, the lighted lantern yet glimmering in the shadow of the sleeping town.