uflecting as she did so, and Forrester dropped
to one knee behind her, looking at the doorway.

It was filled with a pale blue haze that looked like the clear summer
sky on a hot day. Except that it wasn't sky, but a curtain that wavered
and shimmered before his eyes. Beyond it, he could see nothing.

The High Priestess rose from her genuflection and Forrester followed
suit. There was a sole second of silence.

Then the High Priestess said: "You are to step through the Veil of
Heaven, William Forrester."

Forrester said: "_Me?_ Through the _Veil of Heaven_?"

"Don't be afraid," she said. "And don't try to touch the Veil. Just walk
through as if nothing at all were there."

Forrester filled his lungs as though he were going to take a very high
dive. He thought: _Here goes nothing_. That was all; there wasn't time
for anything else.

He stepped into the blue haze, and had a sudden sensation of falling.

CHAPTER FIVE

There was a tingle like a mild electric shock. Forrester opened his
mouth and then closed it again as the tingle stopped, and the sense of
falling simply died away. He had closed his eyes on the way into the
curtain, and now he opened them again.

He closed them very quickly, counted to ten, and took a deep breath.
Then he opened them to look at the room he was in.

It was unlike any room he had ever seen before. It didn't have the
opulence of the High Priestess's rooms. I am a room, it seemed to say,
and a room is what I was meant to be. I don't have to draw attention to
myself like my poorer sisters. I am content merely to exist as the room
of rooms, the very type and image of the Ideal Enclosure.

The floors and walk of the place seemed to blend into each other at odd
angles. Forrester's eyes couldn't quite follow them or understand them,
and judging the size of the room was out of the question. There was a
golden wash of light filling the room, though it didn't seem to come
from anywhere in particular. It was, in fact, as if the room itself were
shining. Forrester blinked and rubbed his eyes. The light, or whatever
it was, was changing color.

Gradually, he realized that it went on doing that. He wasn't sure that
he liked it, but it was certainly different. The colors went from gold
to pale rose to violet to blue, and so on, back to gold again, while
little eddies and swirls of light sparkled into rainbows here and there.

Forrester began to feel dizzy again.

There were various