Sandra woke to feel the pressure of a great hand across her face. She could not see or cry out.

"Make no sound, or you die!" said the Turk.

There was a horrible pressure across the back of her neck. She ceased struggling. Then the Turk lifted her, blankets and all, tucker her under his right arm and ran easily across the sand, still keeping his left hand clapped over her mouth. For several minutes he carried her thus, finally stopping and setting her on her feet.

Sandra stood dazed, clad only in her brief kirtle, as the blanket slipped from her and fell to the sand. The afternoon sun was hot on her legs and shoulders. Al Hassim stood nearby, holding the bridles of four camels, and Sandra saw that the American's brief case rested at his feet.

"You needn't have brought her along, Suleiman," he said.

"She is mine," grunted the Turk. "No one ever paid me for her."

"She will only get in our way."

Lammerding offered four thousand dollars for her. Perhaps someone else will. I'll not let that amount of money slip away from me."

"Your reasoning is moth-eaten, Suleiman, and there are more important things ahead of us ... Oh, very well -- don't scowl so. Put the blanket over her so she does not dry out, and set her up on one of the supply camels. Good -- now, let us be away before that American devil wakes. He almost did when I filched his bag and turned his camel loose. According to the map in here, we haven't much further to go."

They cantered off across the sands for awhile, then moved more slowly under the westering sun which threw out long shadows ahead of them. Sandra felt sick. She had no chance to escape, as her camel was roped to the Turk's mount just ahead of her. Al Hassim sat hunched as he rode, reading the great old book he had taken from the brief case. Occasionally he muttered aloud.

"Aha! The Will-crystal, is it? Wormius makes no mention of that. And what's this Stone of Yog ... ? Mishallah! -- is that what lay under Petra on that altar? I wish I'd had more time to discuss things with Herr Mueller. You were rather hard on him, Mrs. Helgeson; I shall take great care to see that you have access to no more pistols. But perhaps you can help me. Has that so gallant friend of yours, Mr. Taggart, mentioned the Five-angled Gate to you?"

"He mentioned something -- or maybe he did. I don't know. Nothing makes any sense."

"Ah, yes -- I fear we educated ones seem a bit esoteric to most people." He turned back to the ancient book. "Hmmm ... I see. There are two 'components' of this Will-crystal. The Fire of Assurbanipal is only the nucleus. Evidently there is an energy-bond between them ... Poor Lammerding -- ha! ha! And no wonder Heinrich was puzzled -- this sort of thing was utterly beyond his limited imagination. Too bad I couldn't steal Mr. Taggart's pack as well, but the American devil was sleeping on it ... Ah -- what's this? A demon guarding the nuclear component! Well, we shall have to go carefully. As long as we leave the jewel alone we should have no problem. The main thing is to find the Five-angled Gate. If Abd' ul Hazrât speaks truly, it may well be the road to power beyond the dreams of all mankind."

He lapsed into a language Sandra could not understand and continued to mumble to himself for some time. Presently he slipped the huge book back into the brief case and rode on in silence, hunched thoughtfully in his high saddle.

It was nearly dusk when they spied a dark irregularity on the horizon, and by the time the sun touched the sands in the west they had drawn near the black ruins of a massive stone city. It lay half buried in the rolling dunes, and its architecture was of a grim and ponderous sort, the walls and buildings rearing square-angled and bleak out of the naked desert.

"By Allah, the legends spoke truth!" said al Hassim. "Who would have guessed the Assyrians had built a city so far from the heart of their empire, and in so desolate a region!"

They passed through a wide gate adorned with rugged bas-reliefs which depicted giant bulls, lions and powerfully-built men with braided beards. In silence they continued down a wide, sand-covered avenue between lowering buildings of black stone. The stillness of the desert became absolutely tomblike among these ancient, megalithic structures. From the tops of massive columns the eyes of man-headed stone bulls seemed to watch them haughtily as they passed, like the eyes of cruel, judging gods.

At length they reached the end of the avenue and dismounted before a vast edifice, perhaps the principle fane or place of the city. Drifted sand lay banked against the lower portions of its massive walls.

"Is the treasure in there?" grunted the Turk.

"Yes," said al Hassim. "The treasure -- you might call it that. This is the king's palace. Have you heard of the Fire of Assurbanipal, Suleiman?"

"I have heard foolish old storytellers in my country speak of Kara-Shehr -- the Black City -- and of a demon-guarded treasure therein. But I have never believed them."

"Ah -- you Turks are becoming too Westernized! Well, at least that keeps you from being afraid. No Bedouin would have ever come this far. They have often spoken to me of this place, but never did I think to see it. Come -- dismount!"

They entered the massive stone building through a high entrance whose threshold was covered with drifted sand. The sand sloped down to the floor of a wide and many-columned hall that stretched away before them into darkness. Very little light filtered in from the outside dusk. Al Hassim produced a small flashlight from beneath his robes and led Sandra and the Turk down the long hall, past a huge and hideous idol that seemed to loom menacingly, and through a narrow door to more pillared corridors. The silence in these dark, stone-enclosed spaces was oppressive.

Presently they came to the foot of a broad stairway that led upward into total gloom.

"We are not the first here," commented the Arab, shining his light on the stone steps. Sandra saw that several human skeletons lay sprawled upon them, their white bones gleaming in the flashlight's beam.

Al Hassim set his foot on the lowest step. "Wait for me here," he said.

"Not I," grumbled Suleiman, clutching Sandra's wrist and following after the Arab. "I mean to be there when you find the treasure."

"You don't trust me, eh?"

"No."

Al Hassim laughed. "Very well -- come along, then. But you must do exactly as I say."

It was a long, steep climb before they reached the top of the stairway. There a black doorway confronted them, dark as a cave. Al Hassim motioned the others to a halt. Suddenly, Sandra thought she saw a spark of red light gleaming in the darkness beyond the door.

"There!" whispered al Hassim.

He switched off his flashlight, and for a moment they stood in almost total darkness. The red spark glowed feebly as a dying coal, and Sandra could not tell whether it was near or far away. But at length her eyes adjusted to its dim light, and she could make out the outlines of the door.

"It is as the Bedouins say," breathed al Hassim. "Follow me."

They moved through the doorway, and Sandra saw that they had entered a large, circular stone chamber. A great marble throne on a ponderous dais stood facing them -- and on the throne sat a skeleton, upright and grinning, its eye-sockets pools of blackness. Its left hand lay palm-upward on the arm of the throne, and in its bony palm rested a great, red-gleaming jewel that seemed to be the source of the dim light that filled the room.

"By Allah!" exclaimed Suleiman.

"The Fire of Assurbanipal!" muttered al Hassim, his dark eyes gleaming back the red light of the gem. "The Gate is near ..."

Suleiman strode forward, releasing Sandra as he did so. "A ruby like this one is worth millions," he grunted.

"No!" cried al Hassim, his voice waking long-dormant echoes. "Don't touch it!"

Suleiman faced the Arab. "It's half mine," he said.

"Keep away from it! There's a guardian demon ..."

"You can't scare me," growled the Turk, advancing threateningly toward al Hassim. "You think to have it all for yourself, eh? Well, I can play that game, too!"

Al Hassim reached into the folds of his robe and his hand came out clutching a Luger pistol. But he was not quick enough. The Turk's fist lashed out in one lightning blow and smacked resoundingly into the Arab's face. Al Hassim reeled back and fell heavily to the floor, and his pistol went spinning and clattering across the stone flags. For an instant he flopped and twitched in his robes, blood rilling from his nostrils and gurgling in his throat as he breathed, and then he lay still.

Sandra ran for the fallen Luger, but the Turk was too quick. He grabbed her even as she snatched up the pistol, and knocked it from her grasp with the edge of his hand. Then he held her by the shoulders with his huge, rough fingers, laughing at her struggles. She felt helpless as an infant in his grip.

"You are soft," Suleiman rumbled approvingly. "There is no one to protect you now. You are not strong enough to last long, but there is no need to spare you any more -- this jewel will bring me a hundred times more money than you will."

Sandra struggled frantically but the Turk held her easily as if she were a rag doll. He laughed and pushed her away -- almost gently, it seemed -- and she was hurled back to fall heavily to the floor, skinning her elbows painfully on the stones. Suleiman picked up the Luger, thrust it into his sash alongside his great scimitar, and approached the skeleton on its throne.

Sandra sat up shakily and began to crawl along the wall toward the doorway. She saw Suleiman climb the stone steps of the dais, pause for a brief gloating instant, and then reach forth to pluck the great red jewel from the skeleton's hand.

A high, keening wail suddenly rang out, like an elfin cry of alarm. The crimson gem seemed to slip from the Turk's fingers like a cake of wet soap. Suleiman cursed. The jewel went bounding down the steps and rolled across the dusty floor, its gleaming facets making the shadows dart and shift. A high-pitched tinkling filled the air. Then the gem fetched up against the far wall of the room and ceased to roll. Suleiman was already striding down the steps of the dais in pursuit of it.

Suddenly the sound of stone sliding smoothly against metal whispered through the great circular chamber. A black opening was widening in the far wall near the gleaming gem. The Turk stopped as if frozen. Then something massive stirred in the blackness beyond the opening door.

Sandra stared as if hypnotized. Her skin pimpled with cold goose flesh. She opened her mouth to scream but was unable to utter more than a choking cry. A wave of fear seemed to wash over her from outside. She had faced the horrors of combat and capture and slavery, but these all paled before the sudden realization that she was in the presence of something beyond all human understanding.

Suleiman leaped back with a bellow of terror -- and Sandra found voice to scream as a monstrous ovoid hulk strode ponderously out of the shadows into the dim red light emitted by the crystal. The stone floor actually trembled to its massive tread. It bulked up huge and black, dwarfing even the giant Turk. Sandra had a fleeting impression of great scales that glinted like dark iron -- massive black tentacles and smaller, bifurcated appendages -- a great, curved beak that opened like shears of black steel -- two round, luminous, staring eyes that were focused on the Turk with relentless purpose.

Suleiman's scimitar flashed out, and all his rage and fear burst forth in a mighty roar as he charged. He swung with all his might at the looming hulk -- and his blade sparked and shattered as if it had struck an anvil. Then the vast black tentacles swept out, encircling the Turk and drawing him in.

Suleiman screamed and struggled madly, striving to break away, but he could not. His mighty arms strove to their utmost to hold the dark titan away, then folded helplessly against the being's front as the python-like tentacles drew tighter. His frenzied bellows woke mocking echoes from the darkness. His feet ceased to touch the floor as he was lifted in the monster's embrace; his screams ceased as the breath left his flattened lungs in a rush -- and then the loud snapping of bones and cartilage sounded horribly in the gloom.

The great metallic beak opened widely, then clamped down slowly onto the Turk's neck.

Abruptly Sandra found the strength to move. She crawled frantically from the red-lit chamber into the outer darkness. Behind her sounded a brief, high-pitched squeal of agony. Then black silence enfolded her.

She crawled and crawled, like a frightened child seeking to escape punishment. The thing she had just seen had driven all thought, all memory from her mind. One idea filled her with a feeling of terrible urgency:

"I didn't touch the jewel!" she muttered to herself without understanding why. "I didn't touch the jewel!"

Then she plunged over the edge of the world -- into a darkness beyond the dark itself.

She found herself lying at the base of a great stone stairway, bruised and shaken, not remembering how she had gotten there or how long she had been huddled there in the blackness. Her whole body ached. A dim red light filtered down indistinctly from far above, too faint to allow her to see anything but the merest highlights of her body and the stone steps. Her left arm was numb from lack of circulation -- she had evidently been lying on it awkwardly for a long time. She massaged it for awhile till life came back into it with agonizing pricklings. Vaguely she wondered where she was. There was something frightening far away in the back of her mind -- something she did not want to remember.

Then she saw a point of white light far away down the inky passageway that led away from the foot of the stairs. It became brighter and brighter, evidently drawing near, and now she saw that it was accompanied by a faint orange spark. Finally it stopped only a few yards away, illuminating the stone floor and the base of the steps where she crouched.

"Oh -- it's you!" said a voice from beyond the circle of light. "What happened?"

"I didn't touch the jewel!" muttered Sandra. "Please -- I didn't touch it!"

"The jewel? Listen -- it's only me."

Sandra saw the face of Taggart as he turned the small penlight he carried toward himself. The light, coming from beneath his face as it did, gave his features a weird, Satanic aspect.

"Oh -- turn it off!" gasped Sandra.

Taggart did so, and Sandra now saw that the orange spark came from the great black crystal which he carried in his hands. To its glow was added the dim blue luminescence of the man's belt-clasp.

"Where's al Hassim?" asked Taggart.

Memory trickled back into Sandra's brain. She shuddered.

"Up there -- dead, I think -- and so is that Turk. Something came out of a wall. I can't remember ... It was horrible!"

"What about the jewel?"

"I didn't touch it!"

"Don't be afraid -- you're safe. Where is that red light coming from?"

"Up there," said Sandra, pointing. "It's the jewel. Suleiman tried to pick it up, and then something ... something ..."

"What was it like?"

"I can't remember. It was horrible!"

Taggart rose and started to climb the stairs. The spark at the center of the crystal he carried glowed like a star in the darkness.

"Don't go up there!" cried Sandra.

"I'll be back shortly."

"No!" Sandra hurried up after him. "Don't leave me alone -- please don't go up!"

"It's all right."

"No!" She clutched at his arm.

Taggart sat down on the steps, the crystal in his lap. Sandra knelt beside him.

"There's nothing to worry about," said Taggart. "The Kothian is only there to guard the jewel. I'm not going to touch it."

"Let's get out of this place!"

"We will -- very soon."

"Now!"

"Calm down! You're quite safe here."

Sandra suddenly noticed that for the first time since she had met him, the man's belt-clasp was glowing with its usual blue phosphorescence. There was no invisible shield around him -- he had turned it off. The observation strangely calmed her and brought back a measure of self-control.

"Please don't think I'm hysterical," she said, "but you must not go up into that room. I saw something there that ... that ..."

"I know what you saw -- but I'm going up."

Full sanity returned to Sandra's mind. Shaken though she was by the horror above, Taggart's manner gave her hope that it might have a rational explanation -- and that it might be coped with.

"You know," she said. "Then what do you hope to gain? What is it you're after?"

"Power," said Taggart evenly.

"I see. So you can destroy the world?"

"No. The entire universe."

Sandra sighed. "Even if that were possible," she said, "you couldn't do it."

"Why not?"

"Because you're not an evil person.

"How do you know that?"

"Why ... you're just not!" said Sandra. "You try to appear cold and indifferent, but you're not. There's something else ..."

"I try to avoid human entanglements," said Taggart matter-of-factly.

"Yes -- you certainly do!" Sandra felt a sudden anger that submerged the last of her fear. "You almost manage, too! I think you actually tried to avoid helping me at first -- but you couldn't. You didn't need to hold me back that time Lammerding got killed -- you could have let me take my chances with the rest. You needn't have given me a gun to defend myself against Mueller, either -- but he got to be just too much for you, didn't he! You needn't have taken me on this desert trek at all -- you could have let me find my own way through Arab country from al Jauf -- but you didn't. You've helped me in spite of yourself. You think it's weak to show concern and compassion, but your values just won't let you avoid 'human entanglements.' Isn't that so?"

Taggart shrugged. His features were set in an expression of grim hardness.

"Oh, don't give me that!" Sandra found her fury giving way to tears. "You're not cruel. You could have treated me like Mueller did -- you had the power -- but you were kind and respectful instead, though you've done your damnedest not to show it! I could hate you for that, if I didn't think the part you've been playing has been painful. What I don't understand is why you have to play the part."

Taggart studied the backs of his hands but said nothing.

"Look at me," said Sandra, moving closer till she looked directly into the man's face. "If you could reach out and push a button that would somehow destroy everyone -- now -- would you be able to do it, knowing that among the millions you destroyed there might be a few like ourselves, capable of the same thoughts and feelings and compassions?"

"I -- I've thought about things like that."

"Then put it this way: suppose that in order to destroy the world you had to point a gun at me and pull the trigger. Could you do it?"

"No," said Taggart.

"Then I doubt you'll be able to destroy the world if you ever get the chance."

"I don't know. I've got to try."

"But -- why?" demanded Sandra. "It isn't even your role. You're forcing yourself -- you're not like Mueller or al Hassim ..."

Taggart rose. "If I were like Mueller or al Hassim," he said, "I would not want to destroy the world."

He began to ascend the stairway. Sandra felt a sense of alarm. She leaped to her feet and quickly caught up with the man, then climbed the steps alongside him. "Don't be a fool!" she said anxiously. There swept over her a sudden fear that the situation she had postulated might not be entirely hypothetical. "It will kill you!" she added urgently. "That thing ..."

"It was black and scaly, wasn't it? With tentacles and a beak?"

"Why -- yes," said Sandra, surprised.

"I thought so. Don't worry. Kothians have powerful minds but little imagination. This one has been stationed to guard the Fire of Assurbanipal for the last twenty-five hundred years or so, to preserve it until the return of the Great Old Ones. But if the components are recombined, it won't know what to do. It will be curious, of course, but not malignant. Watch!"

They had reached the top of the stairs and entered the red-litten chamber, and Sandra saw that the great red jewel rested once again in the hand of the skeleton. There was no sign of the dark, hulking demon or the hidden doorway in the wall -- but Sandra's skin crawled as she beheld upon the stone flags the body of the giant Turk, ripped and crushed and headless ... and, at the base of the stone altar, the missing head with its mustachios trailing in the pool of blood about its neck, its eyes rolled up at the ceiling in the idiot expression of death.

Without hesitation Taggart climbed the dais to the throne and set the huge black crystal he carried on the wide arm, just in front of the skeleton's upturned hand. Then slowly, slowly, he tipped the crystal up on end, so that its faceted orifice nearly faced the glowing gem. "if Abd' ul Hazrât had the right information," he muttered, "this should effect the recombination."

"Be careful ... !" cried Sandra instinctively.

Taggart let the crystal topple forward so that its faceted hole swallowed up the bright jewel.

Immediately there was a blinding crimson flash -- a brilliant coruscation of many colors that for an instant abolished all shadows from the room.

Sandra cried out and covered her eyes. When she opened them again the chamber was lit with a mellow, golden light. She rubbed her eyelids again upon seeing that the light emerged from the heart of a deep-blue, thousand-faceted crystal a yard in diameter that hung poised above the throne. Even as she watched, it rose slowly into the air until it touched lightly against the ceiling. There it stayed, motionless, blue, almost spherical, pouring out its gentle amber light upon the dusty chamber.

"Oh -- how beautiful!" cried Sandra involuntarily.

"The Will-crystal," said Taggart. "Let's see if it works."

He walked directly beneath the thing and stood still. "That Turk is very unsightly," he commented, pointing to the crushed and ruptured body of Suleiman. Instantly the body faded to a gaseous nebulosity -- and was gone. A rotten stench filled the chamber.

"Ugh! that's no good," Taggart exclaimed. "A molecular recombination is necessary -- there!" Immediately the room was pervaded by the smells of flowers, pine-pitch and leaf mold.

"Good heavens! What are you doing?" cried Sandra.

"Abracadabra!" For the first time, Sandra saw the American laugh openly.

"Stop it!" Sandra felt frightened. For an incredulous instant she stared at the empty space where the Turk's body had been. When she looked up again she was astounded to see Taggart standing casually on the ceiling beside the crystal, his body projecting downward into the room.

"I'm magic," he said.

"Come down!" cried Sandra, bewildered.

"No. You come up."

"But ..."

"Just try it. Walk up the wall -- or fly up."

"I can't!"

Taggart floated down to the floor and landed on his feet. "You simply have no imagination," he said.

"I can't help it -- I can't walk up walls!"

Taggart shrugged. "Well, back to business, then. Where did the Kothian you saw come from?"

"The what?"

"The scaly thing with the beak. They're minions of Koth, one of the Great Old Ones. I see no door but the one we entered by."

"That far wall opened up -- when Suleiman touched the crystal."

"I see." Taggart gazed at the blank section of wall Sandra had indicated. For an instant he seemed to concentrate -- and then a black square of stone pivoted and turned inward with a sound of sliding metal. An dank air swirled into the room.

"Stay here," said Taggart. "I'll be back soon."

"Don't go in there ... !" exclaimed Sandra -- but before she could move to stop him, the man had crossed the chamber and stepped into the blackness. For a moment Sandra stood petrified; then she rushed to the dark aperture and tried to peer within.

"Come back!" she called; but only a muffled echo of her voice answered her.

A wave of fear like a tangible coldness swept over her, and she drew back from the yawning hole in the wall as from the edge of an abyss. She was alone -- and never had she felt so alone in her life. All the weight of the horrible megalithic stone city seemed to be pressing down on her heart. She wanted to cry out, to run from this silent, age-lost chamber and flee to the clean open sand and sky. But something held her -- the same fear that kept her from entering the black rift in the wall -- the primeval fear of darkness after nightmare. Only here in this chamber was there light -- the soft, comforting golden light streaming from the heart of the azure crystal overhead. Everywhere else there was darkness.

The silence and the shadowy stare of the enthroned skeleton were unnerving. A cold tension seemed to fill the air. Sandra knew she must get a grip on herself. She picked up Taggart's brief case, sat down against the wall as far from the black aperture as possible and opened it. She tried to ignore the body of al Hassim lying against the altar like a pile of laundry, and the dead-idiot stare of the head of Suleiman. From the brief case she drew forth the massive Azif and assorted papers, plus a small bottle or vial containing pills -- the same pills Taggart had offered her in al Jauf. She worked up enough saliva to swallow one, knowing that it would give her nerves a much-needed soothing.

Then she tried to read some of the papers -- evidently translations from the ancient, ebony-covered book valued so highly by the American. But the first passage she chance upon was disturbing:

... and in that Day (it read) shall the Great Old Ones return from the dark places wherein They lurk; and the earth shall feel Their awful tread, and Their hands shall clutch the throats of all mankind. Then shall the followers of Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth and Hastur the Unspeakable -- yea, the followers of all the Great Old Ones -- then shall they dance and howl and slay their enemies to the beating of drums and the piping of mad flutes. And all the earth shall revel in Chaos before its dust is blown away ...

Sandra flung the papers aside and buried her face in her hands. She was frightened , bewildered, caught between a painful and shattered past and an ominous, indefinite but impending future. She wanted to cry out in her loneliness, but tears would not come. She glanced up at the crystal, but its amber light and blue-faceted beauty were too impersonal to bring her any comfort. She was alone.

"Our Father Who are in Heaven ..." she muttered quaveringly -- but her words woke whispering echoes so frightening that she desisted. Then she began to feel the soothing effects of the pill she had taken, and tears began to well from her eyes. She put her head on her knees and cried silently, finding release of a sort from the tensions and fears that she had endured for so long. But she found no release from the loneliness -- the awful loneliness.

She seemed to be whirling giddily down a funnel of blackness, down to a focus where tiny motes of blue and golden light were congregating from all angles of space. There was a strange sense of warmth -- of comfort -- all about her. And at the focus of whirling light a face formed out of the blue-golden mist -- the face of a girl in her teens, framed by silky dark hair tied in a single loose bunch behind her head -- a face startling in its vividness and familiarity.

"Carole!"

Sandra was suddenly awake, sitting against the wall of the stone chamber, wondering how long she had dozed. She realized she had cried aloud -- the dream had been so vivid! Instantly all the hopelessness of reality rushed in upon her.

"Oh Carole! Carole!" she sobbed.

"Don't cry, Sandy -- please don't cry!"

Sandy froze, terrified. For the voice she heard was not the lingering voice out of a dream. It had come from within the stone chamber.

"What's wrong, Sandy? Please tell me."

Sandra raised her head slowly. The tears cleared from her eyes -- and she saw, distinctly, the slim young form of Carole Friedman standing before her.

"Carole ..." Her voice choked. "Carole!"

The girl knelt before her, a concerned look in her wide, blue eyes. "Oh, Sandy -- you're so white! What's the matter ... ?"

Sandra rose to her knees. Sadness strove with fear in her breast. This couldn't be real ... She reached out toward the girl. Carole wore the blue khaki shorts and blouse of the kibbutzim, just as Sandra had seen her last ... Then her fingers gripped the girl's shoulders -- and felt firm, warm flesh under the rough khaki.

"You're real!" Sandra breathed. "Oh, God -- you're real!"

"Of course I'm real. Sandy ... ?"

Then they were in each others' arms on their knees, on the floor of the grim stone chamber, and Sandra was sobbing almost hysterically as she held the girl close, not knowing how or why the miracle had taken place, not caring, only joying in the fact that it had come about.

"Please tell me what's wrong, Sandy!" The girl was crying now also. "I can't bear to see you so unhappy."

"Oh, Carole! I'm not unhappy," said Sandra, tearful and laughing at the same time. She held the girl away from her at arm's length, looking at her, trying to compose herself. "It's just that I ... I can't believe it! I wanted you more than anything in the world -- and now, suddenly, you're here. Something like this doesn't happen. It can't!"

Carole glanced about her at the dark stone walls, the skeleton slouched on its throne and the great blue crystal resting against the ceiling. "What is this place?" she asked uneasily.

Sandra glanced anxiously toward the yawning black aperture in the wall. "It's no place for us," she said resolutely. "We're getting out of here."

"But where are we?" demanded Carole. "And why are you dressed so strangely? I was at Beit Hanun and the Arabs were attacking -- and I can't remember any more. Am I dreaming?"

"I don't know, Carole. Just come with me."

"You sound frightened, Sandy. Where are we going?"

"I'll tell you later -- but we can't stay here."

There were footsteps on the stone floor beyond the black aperture. Sandra almost collapsed at the sound of them -- but it was only Taggart who walked out into the room. He stopped abruptly upon seeing Carole.

"Who's she?" he asked.

Before Sandra could answer she felt the floor vibrating to the rhythm of a monstrous tread, and once again felt goose flesh prickle all over her skin. She clutched Carole by the hand and began to draw her out the door toward the descending stairway, angry and frightened at the same time.

"Wait!" cried Taggart. "It's not dangerous now."

A moving blackness beyond the aperture suddenly hulked forth into the full light of the crystal. It moved ponderously on squat, cylindrical legs whose long, massive feet were webbed and clawed and covered with warts similar to a toad's. Small membranes like the wings of a bat sprouted from where its neck would have been had it had one. Its great, luminous eyes were round and expressionless, and its beak and scales gleamed like dull bronze in the amber light. Taggart's form seem dwarfed as he stood, apparently unafraid, in front of the gigantic being.

Carole shrieked at sight of the thing and flung herself into Sandra's arms.

"It's all right," said Taggart. "It won't harm you. All if wants is the Will-crystal."

The scaly hulk put forth two long tentacles and attempted to grab the glowing, multifaceted globe, but the snaky appendages slipped from its surface as if it were completely frictionless. Sandra gazed at the creature in awed fascination. Somehow it seemed less fearsome now in the clear amber light than it had earlier in the dim red-litten gloom.

Again the creature groped for the crystal, this time more carefully, making a small circle around the top of it with the tips of its tentacles and gently pulling it down. The shadows in the chamber shifted weirdly.

"That's what did it, isn't it?" Sandra could hardly speak, so numb was she with amazement. "That ... that crystal ... It brought her back."

"Sandy -- what's wrong?" cried Carole. "Don't tremble so -- I'm all right. I've upset you -- I won't be frightened any more."

"It's all right, Carole -- it's all right ... Only -- it can't be! You were dead -- you were killed by the Arabs ... !"

Carole's eyes widened in incredulous shock.

"Oh, Carole -- I'm sorry! We were mistaken -- it must have been someone else -- it had to be. We won't talk about it."

"Killed!" exclaimed Taggart. "Then ... my God!"

Both women turned at the vehemence in the man's voice. The expression on his face was one of open fear.

"You've brought her back!" he hissed. "You've reversed the process! We've got to get her out of here."

Even as Taggart spoke a strange, soft throbbing began to vibrate in the air like the pulsing of a gigantic heart. The man's face went white. In that instant Sandra felt an awful, soul-freezing horror unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Somehow she knew that monstrous, inimical forces were coalescing into being about her. Then Carole cried out in terror as pulsing veins of red light slowly began to appear upon the walls and ceiling and put forth slender filaments that groped eerily into the room.

"Run!" shouted Taggart.

Sandra knew instinctively that her only hope lay in following the man, and she raced after him as he dashed into the black aperture, pulling Carole along with her. The alien being had already fled and was propelling its great bulk with startling rapidity down the dark corridor that lay beyond; Sandra could see its demonic shape silhouetted blackly against the amber light of the crystal it carried.

Suddenly a terrible scream rang out from behind her -- the scream of a man in mortal agony. For an instant she and Carole involuntarily paused and glanced back into the chamber from which they had just fled -- and cried out simultaneously in horror. Through the door they could see that the entire room was filled with a complex mesh of glowing red tendrils -- and at the focus of that glowing web writhed and shrieked the robed form of al Hassim!

Sandra froze in terror. Evidently the Arab had merely been rendered unconscious, not slain, by Suleiman's blow. Now he twisted and shrieked insanely as the filaments of fire wrapped him about and darted their needle-points into every square millimeter of his body, thrusting like writhing, glowing thorns even into his eyes, nostrils and mouth. The pitch of his screams rose unbearably; it was as if all the pain a human body could possibly experience were being pried out of his every nerve with red-hot needles.

Then there was a sound of stone sliding on metal. The great stone door closed ponderously -- and Sandra found herself clutching the shivering form of Carole in total darkness.

Footsteps approached rapidly. Sandra and Carole turned to see Taggart standing near them, his belt glowing with bluish phosphorescence.

"Hurry!" he said. "I've closed the door, but that won't stop the Elder Gods for long. They'll undoubtedly destroy this entire city to be sure they've erased the cause of reversal."

The three of them raced down the long, straight corridor as fast as the dim blue glow would allow. In the distance ahead they saw a misty gray source of light that appeared to be a pentagram-shaped door as they drew closer.

"The Five-angled Gate," said Taggart. "The Kothian has already gone through. He'll close it soon. Hurry!"

"Al Hassim -- something killed him ..." gasped Sandra.

"We're lucky! The Elder Gods needed compensation. You brought this girl back. She died in fear and pain, giving up her life-force to Them -- but when you reversed the process, you took that energy back and deprived Them of it. They can't stand that -- that isn't the way They designed the universe to run -- and now they're reacting."

The Five-angled Gate loomed closer now, glowing with a dim, pearly light. It was a mere twenty paces or so away. But now the stone walls of the corridor began to throb and glow with a network of dim red veins.

"Run!" yelled Taggart.

Gleaming tendrils of fire began to grope outward into the hall. Carole screamed with terror. And then the three of them were leaping blindly into the heart of the great, gray-glowing pentagon.

There was a brief sensation of falling through space. Sandra clutched Carole and held her close.

Then, abruptly, they were standing on a wide ledge of rock with huge boulders all about. Nearby stood the gigantic Kothian, the gleaming Will-crystal still clutched in its dark tentacles.

Taggart whirled and faced the glowing Five-angled Gate through which they had just come. Through the veil of its pearly iridescence Sandra glimpsed an intricate network of pulsing fiery tendrils that writhed like a nest of enraged serpents. An evil throbbing sounded in her ears -- or was it within her very brain? -- causing the hackles to rise on her neck. The stones of the corridor down which they had just fled were vividly illumined by a dancing pattern of red sparks that proliferated into a billion swirling corpuscles of light -- and then, incredibly, the corridor was gone and only a misty blackness remained, shot through with the writhing network of red tendrils.

The blackness slowly dissolved -- and, as it dissipated like a cloud of black dust, Sandra saw the dunes of the Nafud desert slowly appear, casting long shadows in the dawn. The black city, Beled el Djinn, was no more!

The network of fire now began to shift and slowly consolidate into a new pattern. Sandra gasped. For an instant it seemed to her that a gigantic, malevolent face was glaring at her through the Five-angled Gate. Then she saw that it was not a face in any sense that she knew -- and yet, somehow, the alien pattern conveyed to her all the dark, cold, indifferent cruelty of the inhuman cosmos.

"You've lost!" screamed Taggart. Sandra whirled to face him -- and was shocked at the fury in the man's face as he glared at the fiery pattern beyond the Five-angled Gate. "For billions of years you've fed on the pain and torment of trillions of worlds -- but now, for once in the history of your mad universe, you've lost!"

The strange, bulky pistol he carried was in his hand. With an abrupt, tense movement Taggart shoved a small knob on its side as far forward as it would go and clenched the grip in both his hands. A stream of violet power roared from the stubby barrel and lanced through the Five-angled Gate into the heart of the fiery network. For nearly a full minute Taggart held that beam of raging power steadily upon the pattern of red tendrils, his face tense with mad fury -- but there was no visible effect. Almost it seemed to Sandra that something analogous to a grim, cruel smile flickered across the visage of the flame-entity. And then, the tips of glowing filaments began to probe through the Gate.

But in the same instant the Gate itself seemed to twist and contract -- like the shutter of a giant camera closing, or so it seemed to Sandra. In less than a second it had vanished -- and Taggart's pistol was blasting a furious, glowing hole into a cliff of solid basalt.

Taggart released the trigger; the furious blue-white flame winked out. For a moment he stood there in silence, trembling and perspiring, glaring at the slowly-cooling stone, the pistol hanging limp in his hand.

"What happened?" said Sandra when she was finally able to speak.

Taggart slowly holstered his gun and turned to face her. "I didn't even faze it," he said. "It was one of the pain-minions of the Elder Gods, such as are set to watch over all life-bearing planets to see that the process of deterioration and death is never totally reversed. It would have destroyed us all -- including the girl you re-materialized with the aid of the Will-crystal -- if the Kothian had not closed the Gate in time."

"Let's get out of here!" said Sandra. "That thing seems able to come through rock like filter paper."

"Don't worry -- it has no idea where we are now. There are at least eight hundred miles of solid rock between us and that particular entity. The pain-watchers are little more than energy reactions; they won't locate us unless we're foolish enough to reverse the process again."

Sandra felt a sudden fear. "But Carole -- just what is she? Is -- is she real?"

"Yes -- as real as you've ever known her to be, I imagine. She will live a brief time like the rest of us, then go down finally to death, giving up her life-energy to the Elder Gods once more. But for a brief moment, at least, they have lost her."

"Sandy, where are we?" cried Carole. "I don't like this place."

"We are in the Caverns of Yog," said Taggart, "far beneath lost Irem in the Rub' al Khali."

Sandra looked away from the cliff. From the edge of the rock ledge on which they stood a vast talus slope extended down, down to a boulder-strewn plain far below. Overhead arched the roof of a mighty cavern, vast beyond belief, vanishing away into a pearly gray haze of distance. Strange, phosphorescent growths resembling lichens and fungi grew upon the rocks and cliffsides and hung in weird festoons from the cavern-roof -- evidently this vegetation was what produced the eerie, all-pervading light. There was no horizon -- but afar off, barely perceptible as through a haze, strange forms suggestive of alien architecture clustered far out upon the plain.

"The city of Harag-Kolath," said Taggart, "where Shub-Niggurath is served by her thousand young and by many of the minions of Koth as well."

Sandra felt a strange, unreasoning fear as she gazed upon that far-off, indistinct geometry. Whatever lay within the depths of this monstrous cavern, she wanted nothing to do with it.

"Don't worry," said Taggart, evidently sensing her uneasiness. "The forces that generate the opening of the Five-angled Gate emanate from Harag-Kolath -- and with the help of the Will-crystal, we can amplify their power a million-fold. Where do you want to go?"

"Go? What ... what do you mean ... ?"

Taggart strode over to where the Kothian stood, like a great iron-scaled raven, still clutching the gleaming Will-crystal carefully in its black tentacles. Standing beneath the crystal, he turned and faced the cliff. Immediately the outline of the Five-angled Gate began to reform against the cliffside.

"Move closer to me, both of you," said Taggart. "Think -- where do you want to be most?"

The two women obeyed. Sandra felt a wild hope. It was fantastic -- but so was everything else that was happening. Then she saw movement beyond the Five-angled Gate -- ocean waves, rolling smoothly away from her to lap against a wide, sandy beach. In the distance rose many-tiered buildings with a multitude of balconies and wide windows, gleaming under the sun.

"Yes!" breathed Sandra. "I want to be there most -- more than anything."

"Sandy -- what is it? Where ... ?"

"It's America, Carole -- America!"

"Go, now," said Taggart. "Quick -- before you lose it!"

Sandra whirled. "What about you?"

"I'm going to Harag-Kolath, and then on to the Kothian headquarters of the Solar System -- the cavern-cities on Venus, where Koth himself dwells. You won't want to go there. Hurry, now!"

Carole glanced somewhat apprehensively at Taggart, then tugged at Sandra's hand. "Hurry, Sandy!"

The smell of a cool salt breeze was in Sandra's nostrils. She could not believe it -- but then Carole was pulling her through the Five-angled Gate, and she was obediently following.

And then there was the feel of cool ocean spray against her calves as she ran -- the fine graininess of shifting sand beneath her feet -- the warmth of the sun on her shoulders.

A balmy breeze blew across Sandra's face. She was walking out of the waves onto the beach -- and the soft sand under her bare feet was real. Carole walked at her side -- and she was real, too!

She turned and glanced back. Surf curled whisperingly upon the sand and washed over her bare feet. For an instant she glimpsed the outline of the Five-angled Gate, turning and closing like a giant camera-shutter -- and, within it, the form of Taggart against the looming black bulk of the Kothian, the Will-crystal glowing above him. And in that same instant she thought she heard him cry out, "They've lost once -- they shall someday lose all!"

Then the Gate dwindled to a tiny point -- and was gone.

"Where are we, Sandy?" asked Carole, looking around as if in a daze.

Sandra glanced about. People in swimsuits were scattered about the beach under the westering sun, some walking, some reclining on the sand. A few were staring with surprise at her and Carole. She realized that she in her exotic white kirtle and Carole in her blue sabra khakis must be making an odd impression in this place -- for she knew what place it was.

"Miami Beach," she answered softly. "Carole -- we're in America!"

"What happened, Sandy? How did we get here?"

"I don't know."

They walked slowly up the beach away from the sea, as if in a dream. But it was no dream.

The sun was low in the west. For an instant Sandra glanced back to the east where the blue of the sky had begun to darken subtly, and felt a cold breeze blow briefly across her bare skin -- and in that instant she realized how vast and dark the universe really was, and how varied and terrible might be the mysteries lurking in its black and silent depths.

Then, taking Carole's hand in her own, she turned and walked slowly away from the beach -- and the darkness.

Created: September 18, 1997; Updated: August 9, 2004