'Dear children,
if you love me--and I think you do, in dreams and out of
them--prepare the mystic circle and consult the Amulet!'
They did. As once before, when the sun had shone in August
splendour, they crouched in a circle on the floor. Now the air
outside was thick and yellow with the fog that by some strange
decree always attends the Cattle Show week. And in the street
costers were shouting. 'Ur Hekau Setcheh,' Jane said the Name of
Power. And instantly the light went out, and all the sounds went
out too, so that there was a silence and a darkness, both deeper
than any darkness or silence that you have ever even dreamed of
imagining. It was like being deaf or blind, only darker and
quieter even than that.
Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a
voice. The light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice
was too small for you to hear what it said. But the light and
the voice grew. And the light was the light that no man may look
on and live, and the voice was the sweetest and most terrible
voice in the world. The children cast down their eyes. And so
did everyone.
'I speak,' said the voice. 'What is it that you would hear?'
There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak.
'What are we to do about Rekh-mara?' said Robert suddenly and
abruptly. 'Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time,
or--'
'No one can pass through the Amulet now,' said the beautiful,
terrible voice, 'to any land or any time.
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