Once upon a time there was a world as bright and fair as youth. It spun its green and golden beauty in an envelope of blue sky while whirling around a blazing white sun.... But beneath the enchanting surface of this world, in a blackness as deep as the void of eternity, thirteen pairs of silvery eyes glowed at a great crystal sphere. The cold air was strung with a thin thrumming as twelve anciently quavering male voices rose and fell in echoing chant. " Great Prince Toka comes—down the river of