The McCanahan said, "You aren't telling me all this just to talk."
_You are a poor servant. Your flesh is weak. Yet must we use you against Noorlythin!_
And then all space was shaking, flowing in a liquid stream, inward toward a whirlpool of light that swam around and around, sucking the stars and the black deeps of space into its maw. And as the stars and space flowed faster and faster, so flowed McCanahan stretched and lengthened and tortured....
He sat on the yellow tile of the ancient tower. A tumble of red hair shifted and tossed before him as Flaith's white hand shook him. Beyond her, near the open green marble door, stood the peddler. His eyes burned with the fright in his face.
"Kael! You were so still. I thought you dead!"
She helped him to his feet. He swayed, almost retching with the pain that spasmed his muscles. Flaith was a blur of white before him. He put his hands to her soft shoulders, and his fingers dug in. He held to her, as to reality.
Slowly the floor solidified and steadied beneath his buskined feet. The pain slid away, slowly, then with greater speed.
"Out there," he said thickly. "Things. Bright things. Maybe made of energy itself. They spoke to me. Told me about something named Noorlythin. It was as if I was suspended in space itself. Want me to help them."
Flaith came against him until the hard tips of her breasts burned his naked chest. Her voice was a flow of terrified sound.
"The Doyen! They are the Doyen! We on Senn always thought they were just a myth, like the balangs! They are gods, Kael! The gods of all space!"
The McCanahan grunted. "Well, gods or not, they want to make a servant out of me. They want me to help them round up some character named Noorlythin."
From the doorway the peddler groaned. His eyes rolled in his head. A white froth bubbled on his lips.
"Noorlythin, the evil! Noorlythin, who lived in the olden days, when all Senorech worshipped him with blood sacrifices. Even today, on the altar in the Temple of Krebb, the dark stains are still there!"
The McCanahan turned away to stare upward at the great metal machine that bulked monstrous in the dim light. It was formed of black steel and silvery chrome. Its tubes and power relays were inset under thin glass globules so that it resembled a gigantic, transparent-backed spider. High above its arching shell, reaching upward into the dimness of the tower itself, were half a hundred floating, glowing balls that danced and spun in the wind eddies.