Before I dropped, Drake's body leaped toward me as though drawn by a lasso.

He fell at my side.
Then pursued by scores of the Things and like some mischievous boy bearing off the spoils, the block that held us raced away, straight for an open portal.

A blaze of incandescent blue flame blinded me; again as the dazzlement faded I saw Drake beside me--a skeleton form.

Swiftly flesh melted back upon him, clothed him.
The cube stopped, abruptly; the hosts of little unseen hands raised us, slid us gently over its edge, set us upright beside it.

And it sped away.
All about us stretched another of those vast halls in which on high burned the pale-gilt suns.