the Archvicar was saying, “there’s an intricate hollow darkness behind this door: first biggish caves, then a labyrinth, with a center to it. The labyrinths of legend have two difficulties about them: first, once in, the adventurer can’t get out; and second, a guardian of the mysteries hangs about. We are about to penetrate, gentlemen, the womb of Time.” Coriolan was working the great key in the lock of the little bronze door: this was cramped labor, and although they had oiled lock and key, bolts would not yield. Held by Phlebas, a big electric torch shone on the affrighting bronze face of Kronos the Devourer, with the serpent pendent alongside his nose and touching his open lips. Sweeney and the Archvicar waited in the vestibule itself, necessarily idle for the moment; had it not been for their own miners’ lamps, neither could have guessed the presence of the other, though there they stood face to face, such was the blackness of this chamber. Sweeney kept running his torch beam over the walls and ceiling of the vestibule, as if to reassure himself that they had more space about them than a coffin would afford.
