"You forget," muttered Doc, "that we saw some things, too."
I knew what he meant. You couldn't get around that buzzard tumbling out of the sky, nor the mullah's image and voice in that silver globe.
Rog Tanlu was walking a few yards ahead of us. Suddenly I saw a queer-looking object hanging in one of those scraggly trees that were having a hard time trying to grow there among the rocks. It looked like a heavy blanket or garment, the same fawn-color as Rog Tanlu's outfit.
He stopped just opposite the tree where the thing was hanging from a low branch.
"After emerging from the Ice Stone," he explained, "I had to discard my outer clothing. The sudden climatic change was almost shocking." Then he pointed upward and to the left along a broad ledge that seemed to zigzag down the rough face of a cliff, a hundred yards away.
I guess Doc Champ had already caught sight of the Ice Stone. But I hadn't; and now with my first glimpse of it, the thing did look exactly like ice. It was like a huge, square block, set flush with the face of the cliff, and with that ledge forming a pathway up to it.
"Queer," I heard Doc Champ muttering. "All the legends pertaining to the Ice Stone mention its black appearance. That stone doesn't look black—it looks transparent."
"Its color has recently changed," explained Rog Tanlu. "It isn't a stone, or any material substance. It is a peculiar kind of space—space with the third dimension, thickness in this instance, so twisted and curved as to allow the fourth dimension to emerge from nothingness into a certain hypostatic realness. Light has needed a long time to penetrate through it, and for that reason the cube has only recently assumed an apparent transparency. Now, if you will follow me, I will lead you to my laboratory."
He continued on around a shoulder of the cliff, so that we lost sight of the Ice Stone. Gigantic boulders all but blocked the way. However, our strange guide seemed to know where he was going and how to get there.
"All these rocks didn't used to be here," he said musingly. "They are evidently glacier débris carried down since—well, since my time. Ah! Here we are."