From a curb of carved and figured stone a sculptured ramp swept up and out and down in graceful arch onto an island of black rock set within the pit. Harshly outlined, its detailed fretwork sharp and clear, the island rose solidly from the pool of glittering light. But on the island was sheer madness. From a pedestal block of faceted stone thrust upward two mighty curved horns of fluted jade resembling the frames of an ancient lyre. Thirty feet in the air they soared, and pendant between them was a sparkling veil, gossamer as the finest spider-silk, dusted with incandescent moonfire. Meshed in this sheer fabric, prisoned like a silvery moth caught upon a great spiderweb, was a figure of terrible beauty. Seething in witchflames, netted in a tumult of frosted lightnings, was the white, graceful body of a woman. Naked in body and stripped of soul, limbs and trunk rigid, her figure was tortured into the attitude of a hieratic symbol. The face was bowed but calm, blending sinister serenity with an expression of impassive anguish. Staring, the eyes were chill with some unholy suspension between death and life. Soft glory of hair flowed upward to mingle inextricably in the weave of silvered veiling, and the slender arms stretched up and outward, cruciform, as if to suggest a hideous sacrifice. A beautiful soulless nympthon! "Annelle!" He cried aloud, stared in wildest frenzy, shouted her name, shook his fist in impotent fury at the dead gods set about in their sculptured niches. Light gathered in awesome brilliance on the ledge about the pit, thickening like a solid substance, so that the pit, the island, with its great curving horns, and the prisoner upon the draping silvery veil seemed frozen within glittering crystal. The scene was fantastic nightmare ensorcelled into hideous permanence. One sharp glimpse, then scurrying shadows flowed upward from the pool, dim, shapeless beings in mad conflict with the flooding splendors of alien quicksilver. Alston was barely conscious of Kial's screaming. Tranced, he stumbled down the remaining steps to the ledge. He was dimly aware of Kial's voice, her hands clawing at him, restraining. Then he was beside the pit, standing, staring up the ramp. In his arms was a limp body--Kial's. A faintly glowing nimbus outlined her features, congealed them into an echo of that same unearthly coldness, that same calm horror and impassive anguish of the other's. Something had flowed from her, withdrawn, and the shell that remained was not Kial. Alive, she had meant nothing to him, but dead, or worse, she became a symbol of the tortured loneliness and frustration of his life. She was dead. This thing in his arms was no more Kial than that other being was-- Annelle! White agony of memories burned through his veins, became a madness. His sense of double loss was unbearable. He dropped the limp thing in his arms. * * * * *