Closer it drew; behind it glided Yolara at the head of a company of
her dwarfs, and at her side was the hag of the Council whose face was
the withered, shattered echo of her own.
Slower grew the Dweller's pace as it drew nearer. Did I sense in it a
doubt, an uncertainty? The crystal-tongued, unseen choristers that
accompanied it subtly seemed to reflect the doubt; their notes were
not sure, no longer insistent; rather was there in them an undertone
of hesitancy, of warning! Yet on came the Shining One until it stood
plain beneath us, searching with those eyes that thrust from and
withdrew into unknown spheres, the golden gateway, the cliff face, the
castle's rounded bulk--and more intently than any of these, the dome
wherein sat the Three.
Behind it each face of the dead-alive turned toward it, and those
beside it throbbed and gleamed with its luminescence.
Yolara crept close, just beyond the reach of its spirals. She
murmured--and the Dweller bent toward her, its seven globes steady in
their shining mists, as though listening.
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