Before him in the blackness there was—or perhaps there had been for some time—a blue glow, almost as lightless as the surrounding dark, but blue and physically deep for all that. Its depth increased rather than its light. It became the ghost of a grotto, the mouth of a nameless Place.
And in it was a person. A ... presence. It beckoned.
Paresi's face gleamed wetly. "Me?" he breathed. "You want—me?"
It beckoned.
"I—don't believe you," said Paresi. "You can't want me. You don't know who I am. You don't know what I am, what I've done. You don't want me...." His voice quavered almost to inaudibility. "... do you?"
It beckoned.
"Then you know," sang Paresi in the voice of revelation. "I have denied you with my lips, but you know, you know, you know that underneath ... deep down ... I have not wavered for an instant. I have kept your image before me."
He rose. Now Anderson watched him.
"You are my life," said Paresi, "my hopes, my fulfillment. You are all wisdom and all charity. Thank you, thank you ... Master. I give thee thanks oh Lord," he blurted, and walked straight into the blue glow.
There was an instant when the music was an anthem, and then it too was gone.