IIII MUST EXPLAIN NOW what was happening to Mack and Vivian as they afterward told it to me. Mack recalls quite clearly that moment of dazed, numbed anguish when he writhed on the ground with the horrible sapping gaze of the Radak Ruler upon him. Then he heard Vivian scream, saw her rushing at the shriveled old Radak.
He called, “Vivian! Run—they’ll kill you—”
He found himself staggering to his feet, stumbling until he was by her side. He felt her clutch him, both of them standing there, numbed and dazed, terrified, with the feeling that the rushing Radaks would instantly kill them. He remembers that the girl and himself took a stumbling step forward. To Mack it was like stumbling through a suddenly appearing black curtain of emptiness. Just an abyss of soundless nothingness, except that
