Then out of that vast darkness and silence came a light and a voice. The light was too faint to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to hear what it said. But the light and the voice grew. And the light was the light that no man may look on and live, and the voice was the sweetest and most terrible voice in the world. The children cast down their eyes. And so did everyone.
“I speak,” said the voice. “What is it that you would hear?”
There was a pause. Everyone was afraid to speak.
“What are we to do about Rekh-marā?” said Robert suddenly and abruptly. “Shall he go back through the Amulet to his own time, or—”
“No one can pass through the Amulet now,” said the beautiful, terrible voice, “to any land or any time. Only when it was imperfect could such things be. But men may pass through the perfect charm to the perfect union, which is not of time or space.”
“Would you be so very kind,” said Anthea tremulously, “as to speak so that we can understand you? The Psammead said something about Rekh-marā not being able to live here, and if he can’t get back—” She stopped, her heart was beating desperately in her throat, as it seemed.
“Nobody can continue to live in a land and in a time not appointed,” said the voice of glorious sweetness. “But a soul may live, if in that other time and land there be found a soul so akin to it as to offer it refuge, in the body of that land and time, that thus they two may be one soul in one body.”
The children exchanged discouraged glances. But the eyes of Rekh-marā and the learned gentleman met, and were kind to each other, and promised each other many things, secret and sacred and very beautiful.
Anthea saw the look.
“Oh, but,” she said, without at all meaning to say it, “dear Jimmy’s soul isn’t at all like Rekh-marā’s. I’m certain it isn’t. I don’t want to be rude, but it isn’t, you know. Dear Jimmy’s soul is as good as gold, and—”