On the world of Nehwon and the land of Simorgya, six days fast sailing south from Rime Isle, two handsome silvery personages conversed intimately yet tensely in a dimly and irregularly lit hall of pillars open overhead to the darkness. Very strange was that illumination — greenish and yellowish by turns, it seemed to come chiefly from grotesquely shaped rugs patching the Stygian floor and lapping the pillars’ bases and also from slowly moving globes and sinuosities that floated about at head height and wove amongst the pillars, softly dimming and brightening like lethargic and plague-stricken giant fireflies.

Mordroog said sharply, “Caught you that thrill, sister? — faint and far north away, yet unmistakably ours."

Ississi replied eagerly, “The same, brother, as we felt two days agone — our mystic gold dipped deep in the sea for a space, then out again."

“The same indeed, sister, though this time with a certain ambiguity as to the out — whether that or otherwise gone,” Mordroog assented.

“Yet the now-confirmed clue is certain and bears only one interpretation: our chiefest treasures, that were our most main guards, raped away long ages agone — and now at long last we know the culprits, those villainous pirates of Rime Isle!” breathed Ississi.

“Long, long ages agone, before ever Simorgya sank (and the fortunate island kingdom became the dark infernal realm) — and their vanishment the hastener or very agent of that sinking. But now we have the remedy — and who knows when our treasure's back what long-sunken things may rise in spouting wrath to consternate the world? Your attention, sister!” snapped Mordroog.

The abysmal scene darkened, then brightened as he dipped his hand into the pouch at his waist and brought it out again holding something big as a girl's fist.