No light defiled the sacred darkness of the chamber cruelly gouged from the mountain's interior. With a sense that was not sight, the gathered worshippers knew the presence of their priest and leader, resplendent in his long robes of pallid, fine-textured leather and headdress of obsidian and iridescent green metal. They perceived not the colors of Light, which were a lie; they knew the subtle shades of blackness.

The priest raised a strong hand and spoke to heads bowed in dark communion.

'In the secret places of the Mountain,' he intoned, 'pent in the stone that flows like water, that burns without the foulness of Light, the mother fluid of our race, there beats…' Ritually, he paused. At once came back the ringing answer; 'A Heart!' 'Our Heart.' Another pause, then, 'And it is lost to us.'

'Lost!' The word scored the soul with a keening of pain honed fine by the grinding centuries. 'But when shall we forget?' 'When the Great Dark ceases to fill the space between the stars.'

He nodded gravely. The blackness he wore like a shroud about him brightened in the non-vision of the faithful as he built to the climax of the ancient ceremony.

'But know you it shall be returned to us, and its power will again pulse through the veins of our People.' 'So shall it be!'

'And when that time comes, what will be our destiny?' 'To conquer!' The intensity of the shout caused the cavern walls to tremble. 'And when,' he asked, growing in size and power as he spoke the climactic words of liturgy, 'shall our time come?'

Eleven-score and ten mouths opened to give the final response. But no sound came. The subterranean chill of the chamber grew colder still, and an icy wind swept over the worshippers, a wind from nowhere, like the wind that blows between the stars.