LARRY STARLING was captured as an infant by a lost tribe of Aztecs. The barbarians killed his parents, who had wandered into an inaccessible part of mountainous Mexico with an American scientific expedition. They had been slaughtered to appease the wrath of Yaxob the Rain God, who had withheld his favors until the fertile fields that were once so green and lush were now withered and brown. Just as the child was placed on the sacrificial block, thunder pealed and lightning flashed. Rain—merciful, life-saving rain—poured from the skies in torrents. And Montezirka, aged king of the Aztecs, shouted to the high priest in charge of the sacrifice: "Spare him, O Tarx! It is written in the walls of the Golden Temple that a ruler shall come to Karnux—a fair god with skin like furbished silver, named Ozar the Aztec. Who knows but this babe is Ozar?" As the bloodthirsty Tarx scowled, the monarch continued: "He shall not be killed until twenty summers have passed—for then, if he be indeed Ozar the Aztec, he can prove his divinity by meeting the mightiest warrior in Karnux in the fabled Doom Duel. If victorious in that, stripling though he be, this ivory-skinned babe is indeed Ozar, sky king of the Aztecs!"