Arnsen stopped short, staring. His face changed.
"You kidding?" he demanded.
O'Brien flushed. "Okay, try it," he said, thrusting the stone at Arnsen, who took it rather reluctantly. "Shut your eyes and let your mind go blank. That does it, sometimes."
"I—all right." Arnsen squeezed his eyes closed and thought of nothing. Instantly a sick, horrible feeling swept through him—a terrible yearning such as he had never known before. So might the Assassins feel, deprived of the magic drug that took them to Paradise. An Assassin exiled, cast into outer darkness.
A face swam into view, lovely and strange beyond imagination. Only a glimpse he had, blotted out by rainbow, coruscating lights that darted and flashed like elfin fireflies. Then darkness, once more, and the frightful longing—for what?
He let go of the gem; O'Brien caught it as it fell. The boy smiled wryly.
"I wondered if you'd get it, too. Did you see her?"
"I saw nothing," Arnsen snarled, whirling toward the door. "I felt nothing!"
"Yet you're afraid. Why? I don't fear her, or the stone."
"The more fool you," Arnsen cast over his shoulder as he went out. He felt sick and weak, as though unnameable vistas had opened before him. There was no explanation for what he had felt—no sane explanation, at least.