Nevertheless, the brilliance in the ring held him and increasingly its seeming solidity reduced the image of the hand to something vague and distant, like a dull painting. More questions drifted to him idly. Was the light coming from the crystal or from that strange clear mirror-like mounting?
That too, was of no consequence. Let it go.
But the light was important. It seemed to be growing in intensity, swelling — the word ‘blossoming’ came to him — until it filled his entire vision, save for a darkness at its centre — small, circular and of a blackness so intense that he knew nothing could escape from it. That too was growing.
How was it that both the light and the darkness could simultaneously be so dominating?
He heard the question form as a low, mewling whine at the back of his thro
