The Doyen struck!
The very rocks of the palace misted and swirled under that awesome clutching. White fire flared and seared, and where it touched, all matter was destroyed! The walls of the palace shook and quivered. Beams groaned under the sudden stress.
Where the guardroom had been, was empty nothingness!
In a flame that lapped him protectingly as it flared fiercely and strongly at Noorlythin himself, the Doyen carried both men upward. So swift was their transmission through normal space that in one blinding surge of the white flame, the McCanahan found himself between the worlds, in some lost, dark blotch of empty space.
"No Doyen may slay another Doyen!"
That voice rang triumphantly in the abyss.
"There is a way, Noorlythin! That is why we have let you work your will on this man. He hates you with a deadly hate, Noorlythin. You put him in your worlds of subspace, and you abandoned him to the creatures of your own creation!"
"Aie! I abandoned him! Were it not for him and his harp, I would reign as a god on every planet in all inhabited space. The Solar Combine would have fallen to my sfarran battle fleet!"
"You dared not move before you knew the one weapon that might defeat you!"
"Now I know! Now! Now!"