A girl, a bird, a world, a drink of water, and Dango the Knife riven from head to foot.
The cycles of recollection place pain beside thought, sight, sentiment and the always who-what-why? Sleep. the conductor of memory, keeps me sane. More than this I do not know, really. But I did not think I was callous by arising the following morning more intent upon what lay before me than behind.
What it was, was fifty to sixty miles of progressively difficult terrain. The ground was rockier, drier. Leaves possessed sharp, serrate edges.
The trees were different, the animals were different, from what I had left behind. They were parodies of the things in which I had taken such pride. My Midnight Warblers here emitted harsh croaking sounds, the insects all had stings and the flowers stank. There were no straight, tall trees. They were all of them twisted or squat. My gazelle-like leogahs were cripples. Smaller animals snarled at me and ran. Some of the larger ones had to be stared down.
My ears cracked with the increasing altitude and the fog was still with me, but I pushed on, steadily, and I made perhaps twenty-five miles that day.
Two more days, I figured. Perhaps less. And one to do the job.
That night I was awakened by one of the most godawful explosions I'd heard in years. I sat up and listened to the echoes--or perhaps it was only the ringing in my ears. I sat there with my gun in my hand and waited, beneath a large, old tree.
In the northwest, despite the fog, I could see a light. It was a sort of generalized orange glow. It began to spread.
The second explosion was not so loud as the first. Neither was the third or the fourth. By then, however, I had other things to think about.
The ground was trembling beneath me.
I stayed where I was and waited. The shocks increased in intensity.
Judging from the sky, a quarter of the world was on fire.
Since there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment, I reholstered my pistol, sat with my back against the tree and lit a cigarette. Something seemed out of whack. Green Green was sure as hell going to a lot of trouble to impress me when he should have known I wasn't that impressionable. That kind of activity could not be natural in this region, and he was the only one other than myself who was on the scene and able to do it. Why? Was he just saying, "Look, I'm tearing up your world, Sandow. What are you going to do about it?" Was he demonstrating the power of Belion with hopes of frightening me?
I toyed for a moment with the notion of seeking out a power-pull and unleashing the worst electrical storm he'd ever seen, over the entire area, just to show him how impressed I was. But I shelved the idea quickly. I did not want to fight him from a distance. I wanted to meet him face to face and tell him what I thought of him. I wanted to confront him and show myself to him and ask him why he was being such a bloody fool--why my being a homo sap had aroused such a hatred that he'd gone to such lengths to hurt me.
He obviously knew I had already arrived, was there on the world somewhere--else there would have been no will-o-the-wisp to take me to Dango. So I betrayed nothing by what I did next.
I closed my eyes and bowed my head and summoned up the power. I tried to picture him somewhere near the Isle of the Dead, a gloating Pei'an, watching his volcano rise, watching the ashes spew forth like black leaves, watching the lava glow and boil, watching the snakes of sulfur crawl through the heavens--and with the full power of my hatred behind it, I sent forth the message:
"Patience, Green Green. Patience, Gringrin-tharl. Patience. In but a few days, I will be with you for a short time. A short time only."
There was no reply, but then I hadn't expected one.
In the morning, the going was rougher. A black snowfall of ashes descended through the mist. There was still an occasional temblor, and animals fled past me, heading in the opposite direction. They ignored me completely, and I tried to ignore them.
The entire north seemed to be on fire. If it were not that I possess a sense of absolute direction on all my worlds, I would have thought that I was heading into a sunrise. I found it quite disillusioning.
Here was a Pei'an, almost a Name, a member of the most subtle race of avengers who had ever lived; and here he was acting like a clown before the abominable Earthman. Okay, he hated me and he wanted to get me. That was no reason to be sloppy about it and to forget the fine old traditions of his race. The volcano was a childish display of the power I fully expected to meet, eventually. I felt a bit ashamed for him, for such a crude exhibition at this point in the game. Even I, in my brief apprenticeship, had learned sufficient of the fine points of vengeanceship to know better than that. I was beginning to see why he'd flunked his test.
I chewed some chocolate as I walked, putting off lunch-break until later in the afternoon. I wanted to cover sufficient ground so that I'd only have a few hours' hike in the morning. I maintained a steady pace, and the light grew and grew before me, the ashes came more densely down, the ground gave a good shake about once every hour.
Around midday, a wart-bear attacked me. I tried to control it, but I couldn't. I killed it and cursed the man who had made it into what it was.
The fog had let up a good deal by then, but the drifting ash more than compensated. It was a constant twilight through which I walked, coughing. I didn't make good time because of the rearrangements of the terrain, and I added another day to my hiking schedule.
By the time I turned in that night I'd covered a lot of ground, though. I knew I'd reach Acheron before noon of the following day.
I found a dry spot for a campsite, on a small rise with half-buried boulders jutting at odd angles about its crown. I cleaned my equipment, pitched the flimsy, kindled a fire, ate some rations. Then I smoked one of my last cigars, to do my bit for air pollution, and crawled into the sack.
I was dreaming when it happened. The dream eludes me now, save for the impression that it was pleasant at first, then became a nightmare. I remember tossing about on my bed of rushes, then realizing I was awake. I kept my eyes closed and shifted my weight as though moving in my sleep. My hand touched my pistol. I lay there and listened for the sounds of danger. I opened my mind to impressions.
I tasted the smoke and cold ashes that had filled the air. I felt the damp chill in the ground beneath me. I got the impression of someone, something, nearby. Listening, I heard the tiny click of a dislodged stone, somewhere off to my right. Then silence.