Sacnoth can, and the evil faithful life of Wong
Bongerok the dragon went out through the wide wound.

Then Leothric walked on past that dead monster, and the armoured
body still quivered a little. And for a while it was like all the
ploughshares in a county working together in one field behind tired
and struggling horses; then the quivering ceased, and Wong Bongerok
lay still to rust.

And Leothric went on to the open gates, and Sacnoth dripped quietly
along the floor.

By the open gates through which Wong Bongerok had entered, Leothric
came into a corridor echoing with music. This was the first place
from which Leothric could see anything above his head, for hitherto
the roof had ascended to mountainous heights and had stretched
indistinct in the gloom. But along the narrow corridor hung huge
bells low and near to his head, and the width of each brazen bell
was from wall to wall, and they were one behind the other. And as he
passed under each the bell uttered, and its voice was mournful and
deep, like to the voice of a bell speaking to a man for the last
time when he is newly dead. Each bell uttered once as Leothric came
under it, and their voices sounded solemnly and wide apart at
ceremonious intervals. For if he walked slow, these bells came
closer together, and when he walked swiftly they moved farther
apart. And the echoes of each bell tolling above his head went on
before him whispering to the others. Once when he stopped they all
jangled angrily till he went on again.

Between these slow and boding notes came the sound of the magical
musicians. They were playing a dirge now very mournfully.

And at last Leothric came to the end of the Corridor of the Bells,
and beheld there a small black door. And all the corridor behind him
was full of the echoes of the tolling, and they all muttered to one
another about the ceremony; and the dirge of the musicians came
floating slowly through them like a procession of foreign elaborate
guests, and all of them boded ill to Leothric.

The black door opened at once to the hand of Leothric, and he found
himself in the open air in a wide court paved with marble. High over
it shone the moon, summoned there by the hand of Gaznak.

There Gaznak slept, and around him sat his magical musicians, all
playing upon strings. And, even sleeping, Gaznak was clad in armour,
and only his wrists and face and neck were bare.

But the marvel of that place was the dreams of Gaz