"Yes? Ah! Now, if I were to tie one end of this rope about the apex of that rod, and someone else were to stand upon the altar and take out the fork, then I could control which direction the rod would fall by pulling it toward me. Or allowing it to go away from me. And the person who had taken the fork out would then have plenty of time to get down from the altar and back to the region of safety, where the rope-wielder and his friends would be stationed. Alas, the poor fellow sitting in the chair! Yes, I see it all now." He looked up from the rope he held in his hand. "Aga!" he said sharply. "Get away from that wall!" The tall, lean woman was walking past the altar, holding her bare cutlass in her hand. When she heard Green she paused in her stride, gave him an astonished look, then continued. "You don't understand," she called back over her shoulder. "This wall isn't solid earth. It's fluffy, like a young chick's feathers. It's dust, dust. I think we can knock it down, cut our way through. There must be something on the other side...." "Aga!" he yelled. "Don't! Stop where you are!" But she had lifted her blade and brought it down in a hard stroke that was to show him how easy the stuff would be to slash away. Green grabbed Amra and Paxi and dived to the floor, pulling them with him. Thunder roared and lightning filled the room, dazzling and deafening him! Even in its midst he could see the dark figure of Aga, transfixed, crucified in white fire. 19 Then Aga was blotted out by the dense cloud of dust that billowed out over her and filled the whole room. With it came an intense heat. Green opened his mouth to cry out to Amra and Paxi to cover their faces and especially their noses. Before he could do so his own open mouth was packed with dust and his nostrils were full. He began sneezing and coughing explosively, while his eyes ran tears in their efforts to wash out the dirt that caked and burned them. Clods of dirt struck him, hurled by the blast. They didn't hurt because they were so small and so fluffy. But they fell so swiftly and in such numbers that he was half-buried under them. Even in the midst of his shock he couldn't help being thankful that he'd been breathing out when the heat struck him. Otherwise he'd have sucked in air that would have seared his lungs, and he'd have dropped dead. As it was, wherever his skin had not been covered by cloth he felt as if he were suffering a bad case of sunburn.