Carse made a supreme desperate mental effort. His sensation of falling seemed to lessen and then he felt solid rock slipping under his hands and feet. He scrambled frantically forward, in physical effort this time.
He found himself quite suddenly outside the dark bubble again on the floor of the inner chamber of the Tomb.
“What in the Nine Hells…” he began shakily and then stopped because the oath seemed so pitifully inadequate for what had happened.
The little krypton-lamp hooked to his belt still cast its reddish glow, the sword of Rhiannon still glittered in his hand.
And the bubble of darkness still gloomed and brooded a foot away from him, flickering with its whirl of diamond motes.
Carse realized that all his nightmare plunging through space had been during the moment he was inside the bubble. What devil’s trick of ancient science was the thing anyway? Some queer perpetual vortex of force that the mysterious Quiru of long ago had set up, he supposed.
But why had he seemed to fall through infinities inside the thing? And whence had come that terrifying sensation of strong fingers groping eagerly at his brain as he fell?
“A trick of old Quiru science,” he muttered shakenly. “And Penkawr’s superstitions made him think he could kill me by pushing me into it.”
Penkawr? Carse leaped to his feet, the sword of Rhiannon glittering wickedly in his hand.
“Blast his thieving little soul!”