Silently he called upon Dalan.
Dimly a golden flame flickered up, far away. Elak heard the Druid's voice whispering faintly, out of the abyss.
"Mider—aid him, Mider—"
Fires of Mider vanished. Elak felt again the sense of swift movement. He was lifted—
The darkness was gone. Gray light bathed him. He was, seemingly, in the tower on the summit of the crag—the citadel of Karkora. But the place was unearthly!
The planes and angles of the room in which Elak stood were warped and twisted insanely. Laws of matter and geometry seemed to have gone mad. Crawling curves swept obscenely in strange motion; there was no sense of perspective. The gray light was alive. It crept and shimmered. And the white shadow of Karkora blazed forth with chill and dreadful radiance.
Elak remembered the words of Mayana, the sea-witch, as she spoke of her monstrous son Karkora.
"He walks in other worlds, beyond unlit seas, across the nighted voids beyond earth."
Through the whirling chaos a face swam, inhuman, mad, and terrible. A man's face, indefinably bestialized and degraded, with a sparse white beard and glaring eyes. Again Elak recalled Mayana's mention of Erykion, the wizard who had created the Pallid One.
"Perhaps he dwells in his citadel yet, with Karkora. Not for years have I seen the sorcerer."