nd upon its polished surface weaved the
same unnameable symbols. The Golden Girl pressed upon its side; it
slipped softly back; a torrent of opalescence gushed out of the
opening--and as one in a dream I entered.

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.

They were thrice the size of the human eye and triangular, the apex of
the angle upward; black as jet, pupilless, filled with tiny, leaping
red flames.

Over them were foreheads, not as ours--high and broad and visored;
their sides drawn forward into a vertical ridge, a prominence, an
upright wedge, somewhat like the visored heads of a few of the great
lizards--and the heads, long, narrowing at the back, were fully twice
the size of mankind's!

Upon the brows were caps--and with a fearful certainty I knew that
they were _not_ caps--long, thick strands of gleaming yellow, feathered
scales thin as sequins! Sharp, curving noses like the beaks of the
giant condors; mouths thin, austere; long, powerful, pointed chins;
the--_flesh_--of the faces white as the whitest marble; and wreathing
up to them, covering all their bodies, the shimmering, curdled, misty
fires of opalescence!

Olaf stood rigid; my own heart leaped wildly. What--what were these
beings?

I forced myself to look again--and from their gaze streamed a current
of reassurance, of good will--nay, of i