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“I am Bhengarn the Traveler, bound toward Crystal Pond, and I think that I conjured you by accident out of your proper place in time while seeking to thwart that monster.” Bhengarn indicates the fallen Eater, now half dissolved. The other, who evidently had not looked that way before, makes a harsh choking sound at the sight of the giant creature, which still struggles sluggishly. Bhengarn says, “The time-flux has seized you and taken you far from home, and there will be no going back for you. I offer regrets.”

“You offer regrets? A worm with legs offers regrets! Do I dream this, or am I truly dead and gone to Hell?”

“Neither one.”

“In all my sailing round the world I never saw a place so strange as this, or the likes of you, or of that creature over yonder. Am I to be tortured, demon?”

“You are not where you think you are.”

“Is this not Hell?”

“This is the world of reality.”

“How far are we, then, from Holland?”

“I am unable to calculate it,” Bhengarn answers. ‘A long way, that’s certain. Will you accompany me toward Crystal Pond, or shall we part here?”

Noort is silent a moment. Then he says, “Better the company of demons than none at all, in such a place. Tell me straight, demon: am I to be punished here? I see hellfire on the horizon. I will find the rivers of fire, snow, toads, and black water, will I not? And the place where sinners are pronged on hooks jutting from blazing wheels? The ladders of red-hot iron, eh? The wicked broiling on coals? And the Arch-Traitor himself, sunk in ice to his chest—he must be near, is he not?” Noort shivers. “The fountains of poison. The wild boars of Lucifer. The aloes biting bare flesh, the dry winds of the abyss—when will I see them?”

“Look here,” says Bhengarn. Beyond the Plain of Teeth a column of black flame rises into the heavens, and in it dance creatures of a hundred sorts, melting, swirling, coupling, fading. A chain of staring lidless eyes spans the sky. Looping whorls of green light writhe on the mountaintops. “Is that what you expect? You will find whatever you expect here.”

“And yet you say this is not Hell?”

“I tell you again, it is the true world, the same into which you were born long ago.”

“And is this Brazil, or the Indies, or some part of Africa?”

“Those names mean little to me.”

“Then we are in the Terra Australis,” says Noort. “It must be. A land where worms have legs and speak good Dutch, and rocks can bite, and arms once lost can sprout anew—yes, it must surely be the Terra Australis, or else the land of Prester John. Eh? Is Prester John your king?” Noort laughs. He seems to be emerging from his bewilderment. “Tell me the name of this land, creature, so I may claim it for the United Provinces, if ever I see Holland again.”

“It has no name.”

“No name! No name! What foolishness! I never found a place whose folk had no name for it, not even in the endless South Sea. But l will name it, then. Let this province be called New Utrecht, eh? And all this land, from here to the shores of the South Sea, I annex hereby to the United Provinces in the name of the States-General. You be my witness, creature. Later I will draw up documents. You say I am not dead?”

“Not dead, not dead at all. But far from home. Come, walk beside me, and touch nothing. This is troublesome territory.”

“This is strange and ghostly territory,” says Noort. “I would paint it, if I could, and then let Mynheer Brueghel look to his fame, and old Bosch as well. Such sights! Were you a prince before you were transformed?”

“I have not yet been transformed,” says Bhengarn. “That awaits me at Crystal Pond.” The road through the plain now trends slightly uphill; they are advancing into the farther side of the basin. A pale-yellow tint comes into the sky. The path here is prickly with little many-faceted insects whose hard sharp bodies assail the Dutchman’s bare tender feet. Cursing, he hops in wild leaps, bringing him dangerously close to outcroppings of teeth, and Bhengarn, in sympathy, fashions stout gray boots for him. Noort grins. He gestures toward his bare middle, and Bhengarn clothes him in a shapeless gray robe.

“Like a monk, is how I look!” Noort cries. “Well, well, a monk in Hell! But you say this is not Hell. And what kind of creature are you, creature?”

“A human being,” says Bhengarn, “of the Traveler sort.”

“A human being!” Noort booms. He leaps across a brook of sparkling bubbling violet-hued water and waits on the far side as Bhengarn trudges through it. “A human under an enchantment, I would venture.”

“This is my natural form. Humankind has not worn your guise since long before the falling of the Moon. The Eater you saw was human. Do you see, on yonder eastern hill, a company of Destroyers turning the forest to rubble? They are human.”

“The wolves on two legs up there?”

“Those, yes. And there are others you will see. Awaiters, Breathers, Skimmers—”

“These are mere noises to me, creature. What is human? A Dutchman is human! A Portugal is human! Even a Chinese, a black, a Japonder with a shaven head. But those beasts on yon hill? Or a creature with more legs than I have whiskers. No, Traveler, no! You flatter yourself. Do you happen to know, Traveler, how it is that I am here? I was in Amsterdam, to speak before the Lords Seventeen and the Company in general, to ask for ships to bring pepper from the Moluccas, but they said they would choose Joris van Spilbergen in my place—do you know Spilbergen? I think him much overpraised—and then all went dizzy, as though I had taken too much beer with my gin—and then—then—ah, this is a dream, is it not, Traveler? At this moment I sleep in Amsterdam. I am too old for such drinking. Yet never have I had a dream so real as this, and so strange. Tell me: when you walk, do you move the legs on the right side first, or the left?” Noort does not wait for a reply. “If you are human, Traveler, are you also a Christian, then?”