"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 power
beyond human understanding? My mind wondered what the adult Alien must
be.
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 Other
created fog and warmth to protect itself. Now it is dead and your
world reclaims its own."
From the outer door of the temple I could see the fog being driven
away by a swift wind. Snow was falling slowly, great white flakes that
blanketed the blue moss and lay like caps on the red shards that
dotted the valley.
"I shall die swiftly and easily now, instead of slowly, by
starvation," Lhar said.
A moment later a thought crossed my mind, faint and intangible as a
snowflake and I knew Lhar was saying goodbye.
I left the valley. Once I looked back, but there was only a veil of
snow behind me.
And out of the greatest adventure the cosmic gods ever conceived--only
this: For a little while the eternal veil of time was ripped away and
the door to the unknown was held ajar.
But now the door is closed once more. Below Huascan a robot guards a
tomb, that is all.
The snow fell faster. Shivering, I ploughed through the deepening
drifts. My compass needle pointed north. The spell that had enthralled
the valley was gone.
Half an hour later I found the trail, and the road to safety lay open
before me. Fra Rafael would be waiting to hear my story.
But I did not think that he would believe it....
* * * * *