same angle, by the same camera, and so cunningly fused into a whole that
the effect was beyond mere artifice. For a moment, Newlin had stood
within the strange world, its crystalline forms and strange jeweled life
as tri-dimensional and real as himself.

It was a large screen, alive with light, alive with dancing, flickering
figures. There was no visible projector, and the images were
disturbingly solid and real. There was depth, without any perception of
perspective. It was a reflection of reality, cast upon the plane of
circling walls.

Then a man stepped from the screen. He had been invisible, because the
projected images had flowed and accommodated themselves to his
metal-cloth smock. For the moment, he had been part of the screen.

Newlin could not tear his eyes from that glaring plane of illusion.
Something about the glare played havoc with nerves, and a faint hint of
diabolical sound tortured his brain. No such world could exist in a sane
universe. Not even with its terrible and heartbreakingly poignant
beauty. It was a vision of Hell, bright with impossible octaves of
light, splendid with raging infernos of blinding color, some of it
beyond the visible range of human sight. And there was sound, pouring in
maddening floods, sound in nerve-shattering symphonies like the tinkling
clatter of many Chinese windbells of glass, all pouring out cascades of
brittle, crystalline uproar.

Sound and light rose in storming crescendos, beyond sight and beyond
hearing. They ranged into madness.

* * * * *

Newlin screamed, tried to cover eyes and ears at once. He tried to run,
but nerve-agony paralyzed movement. He was chained to the spot.

Sound and color descended simultaneously into bearable range.

He stared at the man he had come to see. He stared and the man stared
back.

"Genarion?" Newlin asked, his voice thin and vague among the tumultuous
harmonies bursting from the screen.

"Who are you that calls me by _that_ name?" cried Genarion. He spoke in
the same curious manner as the girl. He showed amazement, mixed with an
ugly kind of terror. "You're not one of _them_!"

"Them?" Newlin said, striving for sanity as sound and light swelled
again. His brain reeled. "Songeen sent me--!"

Speech itself was a supreme effort.

Genarion was beyond speech. Tigerishly, he moved. He leaped upon Newlin
and thrust him back. Newlin sprawled painfully, his back arched and
twisted by invisibl