How long had it been here? Who had built it? And for what purpose? He could not even guess. There was a great oval screen on the wall above what seemed to be a control board, and there were other, more enigmatic devices.
And the screen was black—dead black, with a darkness that ate up the light in the room and gave back nothing.
Yet there was something—
"Sanfel," a voice said. "Sanfel. Coth dr'gchang. Sanfel—sthan!
"Sanfel ... Sanfel ... have you returned, Sanfel? Answer!"
It was a woman's voice ... the voice of a woman used to wielding power, quiet, somehow proud as the voice of Lucifer or Lilith might have been, and it spoke in a tongue that scarcely half a dozen living men could understand.... A whole great race had spoken it once; only the shamans remembered now, and the shamans who knew it were few. Dantan's godfather had been one. And Dantan remembered the slurring syllables of the rituals he had learned, well enough to know what the proud, bodiless voice was saying.
The nape of his neck prickled. Here was something he could not understand, and he did not like it. Like an animal scenting danger he shrank into himself, not crouching, but withdrawing, so that a smaller man seemed to stand there, ready and waiting for the next move. Only his eyes were not motionless. They raked the room for the unseen speaker—for some weapon to use when the time came for weapons.
His glance came back to the dark screen above the machine. And the voice said again, in the tongue of ancient Klanvahr:
"I am not used to waiting, Sanfel! If you hear me, speak. And speak quickly, for the time of peril comes close now. My Enemy is strong—"
Dantan said, "Can you hear me?" His eyes did not move from the screen.