The net fell away. She stood up on her tiny pink feet. Slowly, like a swirl of mist straightening in a little breeze. She threw her head back and smiled. Her mouth was red and sulky, her teeth whiter than new snow. Her lowered lids had faint blue shadows traced on them.
She began to glow, in the golden shaft of light, like a pillar of cloud rising toward the sun. Lundy's heart stood still. The clear gleam of her skin, the line of her throat and her young breasts, the supple turn of her flank and thigh....
You worship me, too.
Lundy stepped back, two lurching steps. "I worship you," he whispered. "Let me see your eyes."
She smiled and turned her head away. She stepped off the altar block, floating past him through the black water. A dream-thing, without weight or substance, and more desirable than all the women Lundy had seen in his life or his dreams.
He followed her, staggering. He tried to catch her. "Open your eyes! Please open your eyes!"
She floated on, through the crack of the stone door. The kelp-things didn't see her. All they saw was Lundy, coming toward them.
"Open your eyes!"
She turned, then, just before Lundy had stepped out to death in the hall beyond. He stopped, and watched her raise her shadowed lids.
He screamed, just once, and fell forward onto the black floor.