Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 5 (1927-05).djvu/19

 The youth shook his head uncomprehendingly.

"I do not understand you. The Earthband and the Master have existed forever. But we—his people—were created by him only in recent times. It has been only a little over five hundred years since—why, what is the matter?"

Graham's face had gone ashen and he was trembling visibly.

"Five hundred years," he muttered in a broken voice. "God help me—that fiend has succeeded, and the world is gone."

He fell silent in utter despair. The youth stared down at him with a puzzled frown.

"You speak of 'God' and of a fiend," he observed. "I have never heard of the first, and the Master teaches that fiends die quickly, once they are found out. Either that, or they are sent to the northern boundary of the First Region, where they are forgotten."

Graham roused himself from his apathy.

"Have you no rights of your own?" he inquired. "Must you do everything the Master says?"

A strangely bitter expression came into the youth's face.

"A regionite must never dispute the word of even a sub-counselor," he answered, and there was a sudden hopelessness in his voice. "Even now I am breaking a law in being here. No one is permitted to leave the walls of the Plaza except by order of a counselor."

"Then why are you here?" queried Graham.

The youth searched his face for a long interval before replying.

"You may be a spy—but I do not think so. I will tell you the reason. Perhaps it will help for a little while to talk of my trouble, though nothing can ever help me after tonight.

"My name is Latta, though no regionite's name means anything. We go by numbers and ratings. I am third officer of the Palace Guards, though I would have been a painter of pictures if I had had the right to choose. But all artists and musicians come from the Fourth Region, and such things are forbidden subjects here. Until a short time ago I had no reason to be unhappy, though I have always been different from other regionites I know. Few ever dare to question in their own minds the power by which the counselors and the Master rule over us."

He paused and cast a nervous glance over his shoulder, as though even here he feared being overheard.

"I have always had queer dreams—dreams of being free to do as I wished, but not a person knew of this except Rosita. She understood and sympathized—for we had made our pledges before the sub-counselor and were to be approved in union in a month from yesterday. But now"—his voice faltered and tears sprang to his eyes—"she has been taken from me. Tonight she becomes the chief wife of a counselor."

Dropping down upon the ground, he buried his face in his hands. Graham shook his head sympathetically.

"Isn't there any way around it?" he inquired. "Do you mean that these counselors can pick any woman in their region for a wife?"

"They have many wives," said Latta dully. "All that is necessary is approval of their choice by the Master. My poor Rosita dreads this night as well as I, but she can not change the decree. Even a hint of her feelings would bring great trouble upon her parents, who are faithful regionites. No, there is nothing to do. I came here to be alone—to brace myself against displaying my emotions tonight, when I shall be forced to watch the sacrifice of the one I love."

A question about Betty had been trembling on Graham's lips for some