im with no definite impression of where they were. The
ramp had led them out of the sea, but where they walked now, linked hand
to hand, Ross could not say. He could see the glimmer of the Foanna;
turning his head he could see his companions as shadows, but all beyond
that was utter dark.

"Ahhhh--" Karara's sobs gave way to a whisper which was half moan. "This
is a way of gods, old gods, gods who never dealt with men! It is not
well to walk the road of the gods!"

Her fear lapped to Ross. He faced that emotion as he had faced so many
different kinds of fear all his life. Sure, he felt that pressure on
him, not the pressure of past centuries now--but a power beyond his
ability to describe.

"Not our gods!" Ross put his stubborn defiance into words, more as a
shield against his own wavering. "No power where there is no belief!"
From what half-forgotten bit of reading had he dredged that knowledge?
"No being without belief!" he repeated.

To his vast amazement he heard Ashe laugh, though the sound bordered on
hysteria.

"No belief, no power," the older man replied. "You've speared the right
fish, Ross! No gods of ours dwell here, Karara, and whatever god does
has no rights over us. Hold to that, girl, hold tight!"

"Ah, ye forty thousand gods,
Ye gods of sea, of sky, of woods,
Of mountains, of valleys,
Ye assemblies of gods,
Ye elder brothers of the gods that are,
Ye gods that once were,
Ye that whisper. Ye that watch by night,
Ye that show your gleaming eyes,
Come down, awake, stir,
Walk this road, walk this road!"

She was singing, first softly and then more strongly, the liquid words
of her own tongue repeated in English as if what she strove to call she
would share with her companions. Now there was triumph in her singing
and Ross found himself echoing her, "Walk this road!" as a demand.

It was still there, all of it, the crushing weight of the past, and that
which brooded within that past, which had reached out for them, to
possess or to alter. Only they were free of that reaching now. And they
could see too! The fuzzy darkness was lighter and there were normal
walls about them. Ross put out his free hand and rubbed finger tips
along rough stone.

Once more their senses were assaulted by a stealthy attack from beyond
the bounds of space and time as the walls fell away and they came out
into a wide space whose boundaries they could not see. Here that which
brood