We were, I knew, just under the dome; but for the moment, caught in
the flood of radiance, I could see nothing. It was like being held
within a fire opal--so brilliant, so flashing, was it. I closed my
eyes, opened them; the lambency cascaded from the vast curves of the
globular walls; in front of me was a long, narrow opening in them,
through which, far away, I could see the end of the wizards' bridge
and the ledged mouth of the cavern through which we had come; against
the light from within beat the crimson light from without--and was
checked as though by a barrier.
I felt Lakla's touch; turned.
A hundred paces away was a dais, its rim raised a yard above the
floor. From the edge of this rim streamed upward a steady, coruscating
mist of the opalescence, veined even as was that of the Dweller's
shining core and shot with milky shadows like curdled moonlight; up it
stretched like a wall.
Over it, from it, down upon me, gazed three faces--two clearly male,
one a woman's. At the first I thought them statues, and then the eyes
of them gave the lie to me; for the eyes were alive, terribly, and if
I could admit the word--_supernaturally_--alive.
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