Light came next, a suffused soft glow. When he opened his eyes he saw high above him a rift of stars and below that was arching rock, crusted with crystalline deposits that gave back a gentle gleaming.
He was in a sea cave, a grotto floored with a pool of milky flame. As his sight cleared he saw that there was a ledge on the opposite side of the pool, with steps leading down from above. The Sea Kings stood there with shackled Ywain and Boghaz and the chief men of the Swimmers and the Sky Folk. All watched him and none spoke.
Carse found that he was bound upright to a thin spire of rock, quite alone.
Emer stood before him, waist deep in the pool. The black pearl gleamed between her breasts, and the bright water ran like a spilling of diamonds from her hair. In her hands she held a great rough jewel, dull gray in color and cloudy as though it slept.
When she saw that his eyes were open she said clearly, “Come, oh my masters! It is time.”
A regretful sigh murmured through the grotto. The surface of the pool was disturbed with a trembling of phosphorescence and the waters parted smoothly as three shapes swam slowly to Emer’s side. They were the heads of three Swimmers, white with age.
Their eyes were the most awful things that Carse had ever seen. For they were young with an alien sort of youth that was not of the body and in them was a wisdom and a strength that frightened him.
He strained against his bonds, still half dazed from Ironbeard’s blow, and he heard above him a rustling as of great birds roused from slumber.
Looking up he saw on the shadowy ledges three brooding figures, the old, old eagles of the Sky Folk with tired wings, and in their faces too was the light of wisdom divorced from flesh.
He found his tongue then. He raged and struggled to be free and his voice had a hollow empty sound in the quiet vault and they did not answer and his bonds were tight.