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"When I stepped through the doorway, the Druids closed it And I realized that I stood at the top of a long stone stairs It was a configuration I was to see over and over again in the centuries that followed, and you have already seen it twice and you will see it again, the steps leading down into the Mother Earth, into the chambers where Those Who Drink the Blood always hide

"The oak itself contained a cha on the rude marks left everywhere in the wood by the chisels, but the thing that called ain, it told me that I must not be afraid

"I was not afraid I was exhilarated beyondto die as si to athan I had ever thought it would be

"But when I reached the bottom of the narrow steps and stood in the small stone chamber there, I was terrified by what I saw -- terrified and repelled by it, the loathing and fear so i to suffocate me or make me uncontrollably sick

"A creature sat on a stone bench opposite the foot of the stairway, and in the full light of the torch I saw that it had the face and limbs of a man But it was burnt black all over, horribly burnt, its skin shriveled to its very bones In fact it appeared a yellow-eyed skeleton coated in pitch, only its flowing main of white hair untouched It opened itsteeth, and I gripped the torch fir not to scream like a fool

" `Do not come too close to me,’ it said `Stand there where I may really see you, not as they see you, but as my eyes can still see’

"I sed, tried to breathe easily No hu could have been burnt like that and survived And yet the thing lived -- naked and shrunken and black And its voice was low and beautiful It rose, and then moved slowly across the chaer ata blood red tinge in the light

"`What do you want of me?’ I whispered before I could stop ht here?’

" `Calaenuine feeling -- not the rasping sound I had expected froive you od and you will be immortal But you must leave here when it is finished You o down into Egypt to find why thisthishas befallenin the darkness, his hair athe blackened leathery skin that clung to his skull as he spoke

" `You see, we are the eneods of darkness, we serve the Holy Mother and we live and rule only by the light of the moon But our eneht us out in darkness All over the north country where orshiped, in the sacred groves from the lands of snow and ice, down into this fruitful country, and to the east, the sun has found its way into the sanctuary by day or the world by night and burned the gods alive The youngest of these perished utterly, so like comets before their worshipers! Others died in such heat that the sacred tree itself beca served the Great Mother -- continued to walk and to talk as I do, but in agony, affrighting the faithful worshipers when they appeared

" `Thereand beautiful as I was, the lover of the Great Mother, but h to escape the worshipers, to get out of the oak soods and find why this calao into Alexandria and into the older cities, and you ods with the silent voice that you will have after I make you, and you must find who lives still and alks still, and why this calamity has occurred’

"It closed its eyes now It stood still, its light fra made of black paper, and I saw suddenly, unaccountably, a spill of violent i into fla Roes It tried to memorize and contain thees -- this thing-was patient and the iypt, the burnt yellow look to all things, the sand that overlies everything and soils it and dusts it to the same color, and I saw more stairways into the earth and I saw sanctuaries

"`Find them,’ he said `Find why and how this has coain Use your powers in the streets of Alexandria until you find the old ones Pray the old ones are there as I am still here’

"I was too shocked to answer, too humbled by the mystery And perhaps there was even a moment when I accepted this destiny, accepted it completely, but I am not sure