room, passed under the archway. Instantly I was incomplete, stygian darkness. But I was not alone!
The power of the Other struck me like a tangible blow. I have no wordsto tell of an experience so completely disassociated from humanmemories. I remember only this: my mind and soul were sucked down intoa black abyss where I had no volition or consciousness. It was anotherdimension of the mind where my senses were altered....
Nothing existed there but the intense blackness beyond time andspace. I could not see the Other nor conceive of it. It was pureintelligence, stripped of flesh. It was alive and it had power--powerthat was god-like.
There in the great darkness I stood alone, unaided, sensing theapproach of an entity from some horribly remote place where all valueswere altered.
I sensed Lhar's nearness. "Hurry!" her thought came to me. "Before itwakens!"
Warmth flowed into me. The blackness receded....
Against the farther wall something lay, a thing bafflingly human.... agreat-headed thing with a tiny pallid body coiled beneath it. It wassquirming toward me....
"Destroy it!" Lhar communicated.
The pistol in my hand thundered, bucking against my palm. Echoesroared against the walls. I fired and fired again until the gun wasempty....
"It is dead," Lhar's thought entered my mind.
I stumbled, dropped the pistol.
"It was the child of an old super-race--a child not yet born."
Can you conceive of such a race? Where even the unborn had powerbeyond human understanding? My mind wondered what the adult Alien mustbe.
I shivered, suddenly cold. An icy wind gusted through the temple.Lhar's thought was clear in my mind.
"Now the valley is no longer a barrier to the elements. The Othercreated fog and warmth to protect itself. Now it is dead and yourworld reclaims its own."
From the outer door of the temple I could see the fog being drivenaway by a swift wind. Snow was falling slowly, great white flakes thatblanketed the blue moss and lay like caps on the red shards thatdotted the valley.
"I shall die swiftly and easily now, instead of slowly, bystarvation," Lhar said.
A moment later a thought crossed my mind, faint and intangible as asnowflake and I knew Lhar was saying goodbye.
I left the valley. Once I looked back, but there was only a veil ofsnow behind me.
And out of the greatest adventure the cosmic gods ever conceived--onlythis: For a little while the eternal veil of time was ripped away andthe door to the unknown was held ajar.
But now the door is closed once more. Below Huascan a robot guards atomb, that is all.
The snow fell faster. Shivering, I ploughed through the deepeningdrifts. My compass needle pointed north. The spell that had enthralledthe valley was gone.
Half an hour later I found the trail, and the road to safety lay openbefore me. Fra Rafael would be waiting to hear my story.
But I did not think that he would believe it....
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