side the gray
mechanism reaching toward knurled knobs of ebonite affixed to its side,
beneath the spherical web of pulsing wires.

The chief priest, at the front of the dais, raised his hands. His voice
rolled out, heavy, commanding, reverberating again through all the
cavern.

_5. The Door Opens_

"Where leads the Door?" rolled the chief priest's voice.

Back up to him came the reply of hundreds of voices, muffled by the
hoods but loud, echoing to the roof of the cavern in a thunderous
response.

"_It leads outside our world!_"

The chief priest waited until the echoes died before his deep voice
rolled on in the ritual.

"Who taught our forefathers to open the Door?"

Ennis, edging desperately closer and closer to the line of victims, felt
the mighty response reverberate about him.

"_They Beyond the Door taught them!_"

Now Ennis was apart from the other priests on the dais, within a few
yards of the captives, of the small figure of Ruth.

"To whom do we bring these sacrifices?"

As the high priest uttered the words, and before the booming answer
came, a hand grasped Ennis and pulled him back from the line of victims.
He spun round to find that it was one of the other priests who had
jerked him back.

"_We bring them to Those Beyond the Door!_"

As the colossal response thundered, the priest who had jerked Ennis back
whispered urgently to him. "You go too close to the victims, Chandra
Dass! Do you wish to be taken with them?"

The fellow had a tight grip on Ennis' arm. Desperate, tensed, Ennis
heard the chief priest roll forth the last of the ritual.

"Shall the Door be opened that They may take the sacrifices?"

Stunning, mighty, a tremendous shout that mingled in it worshipping awe
and superhuman dread, the answer crashed back.

_"Let the Door be opened!"_

The chief priest turned and his up-flung arms whirled in a signal.
Ennis, tensing to spring toward Ruth, saw the two priests at the gray
mechanism swiftly turn the knurled black knobs. Then Ennis, like all
else in the vast cavern, was held frozen and spellbound by what
followed.

The spherical web of wires pulsed up madly with shining force. And up at
the center of the gleaming black oval facet on the wall, there appeared
a spark of unearthly green light. It blossomed outward, expanded, an
awful viridescent flower blooming quickly outward farther and farther.
And as it expanded, Ennis saw that he could look _through_ that green