“Thus speak the Silent Ones⁠—through Lakla, their handmaiden,” the golden voice was like low trumpet notes. “At the threshold of doom is that world of yours above. Yea, even the doom, Goodwin, that ye dreamed and the shadow of which, looking into your mind they see, say the Three. For not upon Earth and never upon Earth can man find means to destroy the Shining One.”

She listened again⁠—and the foreboding deepened to an amazed fear.

“They say, the Silent Ones,” she went on, “that they know not whether even they have power to destroy. Energies we know nothing of entered into its shaping and are part of it; and still other energies it has gathered to itself”⁠—she paused; a shadow of puzzlement crept into her voice “and other energies still, forces that ye do know and symbolize by certain names⁠—hatred and pride and lust and many others which are forces real as that hidden in the Keth; and among them⁠—fear, which weakens all those others⁠—” Again she paused.