VI

To have it all to do over again annoyed me. But more than annoyance, there was a certain fear. Shandon had slipped up, selling himself to his emotions once. He would not be likely to make the same mistake again. He was a tough, dangerous man, and now he apparently had a piece of something which made him even more dangerous. Also, he had to be aware of my presence on Illyria, after my sending to Green Green earlier in the evening.

"You have complicated my problem," I said, "so you are going to help me resolve it."

"I do not understand," Green Green said.

"You baited a trap for me and it has grown more teeth," I told him, "but the bait is just as much an inducement now as it was before. I'm going after it, and you're coming along."

He laughed.

"I am sorry, but my path leads in the opposite direction. I will not go back willingly, and I would be of no use to you as a prisoner. In fact, I would represent a distinct impediment."

"I have three choices," I said. "I can kill you now, let you go your way, or allow you to accompany me. You may dismiss the first for the time being, as you are of no use to me dead. If you go your way, I will proceed as I began, on my own. If I obtain what I wish, I will return to Megapei. There, I will tell how you failed in your centuries-long plan of vengeance on an Earthman. I will tell how you dropped your plan and fled, because another man of that same race had scared the hell out of you. If you wish then to take wives, you must seek them from among your people on other worlds--and even there, the word may reach them eventually. None would call you _Dra_, despite your wealth. Megapei would refuse your bones when you die. You will never again hear the ringing of the tidal bells and know that they ring for you."

"May the blind things at the bottom of the great sea, whose bellies are circles of light," he said, "recall with pleasure the flavor of your marrow."

I blew a smoke ring. "... And if I should proceed as I began, on my own," I said, "and be slain myself in the coming encounter, do you think that you will escape from harm? Did you not look into the mind of Mike Shandon as you fought him? Did you not say that you hurt him? Do you not know that he is a man who will not forget such a thing? He is not so subtle as a Pei'an. He does not consider it necessary to proceed with finesse. He will simply turn and seek you, and when he finds you he will cut you down. So whether I win or lose, your end will be disgrace or death."

"If I elect to accompany you and assist you, what then?" he asked.

"I will forget the vengeance which you sought upon me," I said. "I will show you that there was no _pai'badra_, no instrument of affront, so that you may take leave of this vengeance with honor. I will not seek recompense, and we may go our ways thereafter, each freed of the hooks of the other."

"No," he said. "There was _pai'badra_ in your elevation to a Name. I do not accept what you propose."

I shrugged. "Very well," I said, "then how does this sound? Since your feelings and intentions are known to me, it would be useless for either of us to plot vengeance along classical lines. That fine, final moment, where the enemy realizes the instrument, the mover and the _pai'badra_ and knows then that his entire life has been but a preface to this irony--that moment would be diminished, if not destroyed.

"So let me offer you satisfaction rather than forgiveness," I went on. "Assist me, and I will give you a fair opportunity to destroy me afterwards. I, of course, will require an equal chance to destroy you. What do you say to that?"

"What means did you have in mind?"

"None, at the moment. Anything that is mutually agreeable will do."

"What assurance may I have of this?"

"I swear it by the Name that I bear."

He turned away and was silent for a time, then, "I agree to your terms," he said. "I will accompany you and assist you."

"Then let us move back to my campsite and become more comfortable," I said. "There are things you have hinted at which I must know more fully."

I turned my back upon him then and walked away. I knocked down the tent and spread the ffimsy then for us to sit upon. I rekindled the campfire.

The ground shook very slightly before we seated ourselves upon.it.

"Did you do that?" I asked him, gesturing toward the northwest.

"Partly," he replied.

"Why? Trying to frighten me?"

"Not you."

"And Shandon wasn't scared either?"

"Far from it."

"Supposing you tell me precisely what has happened."

"First, concerning our agreement," he said, "a counterproposal has just occurred to me--one in which you will be interested."

"What is it?"

"You are going there to rescue your friends." He gestured. "Supposing it were possible to recover them without peril? Supposing Mike Shandon could be avoided completely? Would you not prefer to do it that way? --Or do you require his blood immediately?"

I sat there and thought about it. If I let him live, he would come after me again sooner or later. On the other hand, if I could get what I wanted now without having to face him, I could find a thousand safe ways of taking him out of the game, afterwards. Still, I'd come to Illyria ready to face a deadly man. What difference did it make if the names and faces were changed? Still .

"Let's hear your proposal."

"The people you seek," he said, "are there only because I recalled them. You know how I did it. I used the tapes. These tapes are intact, and only I know where they are located. I told you how I obtained them. That which I did before I can do now. I can transport the tapes here immediately, if you so bid me. Then we can depart this place, and you can recall your people as you would. Once we are aloft in your vessel, I can show you where to burn or bomb to destroy Mike Shandon without danger to ourselves. Is this not simpler and safer? We can settle our own differences later, by agreement."

"There are two holes in it," I said. "One, there will be no tape for Ruth Laris. Two, I would be abandoning the others. Whether I can recall them again is unimportant, if I leave them behind me now."

"The analogues you recall will have no memory of this."

"That is not the point. They exist right now. They're as real as you or I. It does not matter that they can be duplicated. --They're on the Isle of the Dead, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"Then if I were to destroy it to get Shandon, I'd get everybody, wouldn't I?"

"That would necessarily follow. But--"

"I veto your proposal."

"That is your privilege."

"Have you any other suggestions?"

"No."

"Good. Now that you've exhausted everything you have to change the subject, tell me what happened between you and Shandon back there."

"He bears a Name."

"What?"

"The shadow of Belion stands behind him."

"That's impossible. It doesn't work that way. He's no worldscaper--"

"Bide a moment, Frank, for I know it requires explanation. Apparently there are some things _Dra_ Marling never saw fit to tell you. He was a revisionist, however, so it is understandable.

"You know," he continued, "that being a Name-bearer is not essential for the design and construction of worlds--"

"Of course it is. It is a necessary psychological device to release unconscious potentials which are required to perform certain phases of the work. One has to be able to feel like a god to act like one."

"Then why can I do the work?"

"I never heard of you before you became my enemy. I've never seen any of your work, save that which stands about me here, grafted onto my own. If it is representative, then I would say that you can't do the work. You're a lousy craftsman."

"As you would have it," he said. "Nevertheless, it is obvious that I can manipulate the necessary processes."

"Anybody can learn to do that. You were tallthig about creative design, of which I see no indication on your part."

"I was talking about the pantheon of Strantri. It existed before there were worldscapers, you know."

"I know. What of it?"

"Revisionists, like _Dra_ Marling and his predecessors, used the old religion in their trade. They did not take it for its own sake, but, as you say, as a psychological device. Your confirmation as the Shrugger of Thunders was merely a means of coordinating your subconscious. To a fundamentalist, this is blasphemous."

"You are a fundamentalist?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you apprentice yourself to what you consider a sinful trade?"

"In order to be confirmed with a Name."

"I'm afraid you've lost me."

"It was the Name that I wanted, not the trade. My reasons were religious, not economic."

"But if it is only a psychological device--"

"That is the point! It is not. It is an authentic ceremony, and its results--personal contact with the god-- are genuine. It is the ordination rite for the high priests of Strantri."

"Then why didn't you take holy orders, rather than world engineering?"

"Because only a Name may administer the rite, and the twenty-seven Names who live are all revisionists. They would not administer the rite for the old reasons."

"Twenty-six," I said.

"Twenty-six?"

"_Dra_ Marling is under the mountain, and Lorimel of the Many Hands dwells in the happy nothing."

He lowered his head and was silent for a time. Then, "One less," he said. "I can remember when there were forty-three."

"It is sad."

"Yes."

"Why did you want a Name?"

"In order to be a priest, not a worldscaper. But the revisionists would not have one like me among them. They let me finish the training, then rejected me. Then, to insult me further, the next man they confirmed was an alien."

"I see. That is why you marked me for vengeance?"

"Yes."

"I was hardly responsible, you know. In fact, this is the first time I've heard the story. I had always thought that denominational differences meant very little within Strantri."

"Now you know better. You also must understand that I bear you no personal malice. By avenging myself on you, I strike back at those who blaspheme."

"Why do you indulge in what worldscaping you do, if you consider it immoral?"

"Worldscaping is not immoral. It is the subjugation of the true religion to this end that I find objectionable. I do not bear a Name in the orthodox sense of the term, and the work pays me well. So why should I not do it?"

"No reason I can think of," I told him, "if someone's willing to pay you to try. But what then is your connection with Belion, and Belion with Mike Shandon?"

"Sin and retribution, I suppose. I undertook the confirmation rite myself one night, in the temple at Prilbei. You know how it is, when the sacrifice is made and the words are spoken and you move along the outer wall of the temple, paying homage to each of the gods--how one tablet lights up before you and you feel the power come into you, and that is the Name you will bear?"

"Yes."

"It happened to me at the Station of Belion."

"So you confirmed yourself."

"He confirmed me, in his own Name. I did not want it to be him, for he is a destroyer, not a creator. I had hoped that Kirwar of the Four Faces, Father of Flowers, would come to me."

"Each must abide by his disposition."

"That is true, but I had gotten mine wrongly. Belion would move me even when I did not summon him. I do not know but that he may even have moved me in my vengeance-design for you, because you bear the Name of his ancient enemy. I can feel my thinking changing, even now as I speak of these things. Yes, it may be possible. Since he left me, things have been so different ..."

"How could he leave you? The disposition is for life."

"But the nature of my confinnation may not have bound him to me. He is gone now."

"Shandon ..."

"Yes. He is one of the rare ones among your people who can communicate without words, such as yourself."

"I was not always so. The power grew in me slowly, as I studied with Marling."

"When I recalled him to life, the first thing that I saw in his mind was the anguish of his passing by your hand. But then, quickly, very quickly, he cast this off and became oriented. His mental processes intrigued me and I favored him above the others, some of whom had to be maintained as prisoners. I talked with him often and taught him many things. He came to assist me in the preparations for your visit."

"How long has he been around?"

"About a _splanth_," he said. (A _splanth_ is around eight and a half Earth-months.) "I called them all back at approximately the same time."

"Why did you kidnap Ruth Laris?"

"I thought that perhaps you did not believe your dead had been recalled. There followed no massive search on your part after I began sending the pictures. It would have been enjoyable had you searched for a long while to find that this was the place. Since you did not respond, I decided to become more obvious. I kidnapped one of various people who meant something to you. Had you not responded after that, when I even took the trouble of leaving you a message, then I would have taken another, and another--until you saw fit to come looking."

"So Shandon became your prot_g_. You trusted him."

"Of course. He was a very willing pupil and assistant. He is intelligent and possesses a pleasing manner. It was pleasant having him about."

"Until recently."

"Yes. It is unfortunate that I misread his interest and cooperativeness. Quite naturally, he shared my desire for vengeance upon you. So, of course, did your other enemies, but they were not so clever and none of them telepaths. I enjoyed having someone here with whom I could communicate directly."

"What then caused the falling-out between two such fine friends?"

"When it happened yesterday, it seemed that it was the matter of the vengeance. Actually, though, it was the power. He was more devious than I had allowed for. He tricked me."

"In what fashion?"

"He said that he wanted more than your death as we had planned it. He said that he wanted _personal_ vengeance, that he wanted to kill you himself. We argued over this. Finally, he refused to follow my orders and I threatened to discipline him."

He was silent for a moment, then continued: "He struck me then. He hit me with his hands. As I defended myself, the fury grew in me and I decided to hurt him badly before I destroyed him. I called upon the Name that I had taken and Belion heard and came to me. I reached a power-pull, and standing in the shadow of Belion I burst the ground at our feet and called up the vapors and flames that dwell at the heart of the world. This was how I almost slew him, for he tottered for a moment on the brink of the abyss. I scalded him badly then, but he recovered his balance. He had achieved his intention; he had forced me to summon Belion."

"What end did this serve?"

"He knew my story, even as I have told it to you. He knew how I had obtained the Name, and he had a plan concerning it which he had been able to conceal from me. Had I known of it, however, I would have been amused. Nothing more. When I saw what he was attempting, I laughed. I, too, believed that such things could not be. But I was mistaken. He made a pact with Belion.

"He had aroused me to anger and placed my life in jeopardy, knowing I would summon Belion if these things occurred and I was given sufficient time. He fought poorly, to give me that time. Then, when the shadow came over me and I stood as one apart, he reached out with his mind and there was communion. In this fashion did he gamble with his life for power. He said, had he spoken with words, 'Look upon me. Am I not a superior vessel to he whom You have chosen? Come number the ways of my mind and the powers of my body. When You have done this thing, You may choose to forsake the Pei'an and walk with me all the days of my life. I invite You. I am better suited than any man alive to serve Your ends, which I take to be fire and destruction. This one who stands before me is weak and would have consorted with the Father of Flowers had he been given a choice. Come over to me, and we both shall profit by the association.'"

Here he paused again.

"And?" I said.

"Suddenly I was alone."

Somewhere a bird croaked. The night manufactured moisture and began to paint the world with it. Soon a light would begin in the east, fade away, come again. I stared into the fire and saw no faces.

"Seems to shoot hell out of the autonomous complex theory," I said. "But I have heard of transferred psychoses among telepaths. It could be something like that."

"No. Belion and I were bound by confirmation. He found a better agent and he left me."

"I am not convinced that he is an entity in his own right."

"You--a Name-bearer--do not believe ... ? You give me cause to dislike you."

"Don't go looking for new _pai'badra_, huh? Look where your last one got you. I only said that I'm not wholly convinced. I don't know. --What happened after Shimdon made his pact with Belion?"

"He turned slowly from the fissure which had opened between us. He turned his back on me, as if I no longer existed. I reached out with my mind to touch him, and Belion was there. He raised his anns and the entire isle began to tremble. I turned and fled then. I took the boat from its mooring and headed for the shore. After a time, the waters boiled about me. Then the eruptions began. I made it across to the shore, and when I looked back the volcano was already rising from the lake. I could see Shandon on the isle, his arms still upraised, the smoke and the sparks coloring the air about him. I went then in search of you. After a time, I received your message."

"Was he able to use the power-pulls before this thing happened?"

"No, he could not even detect their presence."

"What of the others who have been recalled?"

"They are all of them on the isle. Several of them are drugged, to keep them tranquil."

"I see."

"Perhaps you will now change your mind and do as I suggested?"

"No."

We sat there until light came into the world about fifteen minutes later. The fog was beginning to lift, but the sky was still overcast. The sun set clouds on fire. The wind came cool. I thought of my ex-spy, playing with his volcano and communing with Belion. Now was the time to hit him, while he was still intoxicated with his new strengths. I'd have liked to draw him away from the isle, into some section of Illyria Green Green had not corrupted, where everything that lived would be my ally. He would not respond to anything that obvious, though. I wanted to get him away from the others, if possible, but I could not figure a way to accomplish it.

"How long did it take you to crap this place up?" I asked.

"I began altering this section about thirty years ago," he said.

I shook my head, stood and kicked dirt into the fire until I'd smothered it.

"Come on. We'd better get moving."

Ginnunga-gap, according to the Norsemen, existed in the center of all space in the morning of time, shrouded with perpetual twilight. Its northern rim was ice and its southern was flame. Over the ages, these forces fought and the rivers flowed and life stirred within the abyss. Sumerian myth has it that En-ki did battle with and subdue Tiamat, the dragon of the sea, thus separating the earth and the waters. En-ki himself, though, was sort of like fire. The Aztecs held that the first men were made of stone, and that a fiery sky portended a new age. And there are many stories of how a world may end: Judgment Day, Gotterdammerung, the fusion of atoms. For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It's always fire and water.

No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you're an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is grafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water.

Let's face it, air isn't very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I'd hate to be without it, but it's invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.

Not so fire and water, however. They're formless, colorful, and they're always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of ypur ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. Is it coincidence that we've filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don't think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.

Kathy and I had been that way. It had been a stormy, mobile, mysterious thing, full of the power to hurt, to give birth and to give death. She had been my secretary for almost two years before our marriage, a small, dark girl with pretty hands, who looked well in bright colors and liked to feed crumbs to the birds. I had hired her through an agency on the world Mael. In my youth, people were happy to hire an intelligent girl who could type, file and take shorthand. What with the progressive debasement of the academic machine and the upwardcreep of paper-requirements in an expanding, competitive labor market, however, I'd hired her on advice of my personnel office on learning she held a doctorate in Secretarial Science from the Institute of Mael. God! that first year was bad! She automated everything, screwed up my personal filing system and set me six months behind on correspondence. After I had a twentieth-century typewriter reconstructed, at considerable expense, and she learned to operate it, I taught her shorthand and she became as good as a twentieth-century high school graduate with a business major. Business returned to normal, and I think we were the only two people around who could read Gregg scribbles--which was nice for confidential matters, and gave us something in common. Her a bright little flame and me a wet blanket, I'd reduced her to tears many times that first year. Then she became indispensable, and I realized it was not just because she was a good secretary. We were married and there were six happy years--six and a half, actually. She died in the fire, in the Miami Stardock disaster, on her way to meet me for a conference. We'd had two sons, and one of them is still living. On and off, before and since, the fires have stalked me through the years. Water has been my friend.

While I feel closer to the water than the fire, my worlds are born of both. Cocytus, New Indiana, St. Martin, Buningrad, Mercy, Illyria and all the others came into being through a process of burning, washing, steaming and cooling. Now I walked through the woods of Illyria--a world I'd built as a park, a resort--I walked through the woods of an Illyria purchased by the enemy who walked by my side, emptied of the people for whom I had created it: the happy ones, the vacationers, the resters, the people who still believed in trees and lakes and mountains with pathways among them. They were gone, and the trees among which I walked were twisted, the lake toward which I headed was polluted, the land had been wounded and the fire her blood spurted from the mountain that loomed before, waiting, as the fire always is, waiting for me. Overhead hung the clouds, and between their matted whiteness and my dirty blackness flew the soot the fire sent, an infinite migration of funeral notices. Kathy would have liked Illyria, had she seen it in another time and another place. The thought of her in this time and this place, with Shandon running the show, sickened me. I cursed softly as I walked along, and those are my thoughts on alchemy.

We walked for about an hour and Green Green began complaining about his shoulder and fatigue in general. I told him he could have my sympathy so long as he kept walking. This must have satisfied him because it shut him up. An hour after that, I did let him take a break while I climbed a tree to check out the forward terrain. We were getting close, and it was about to become a steady downhill hike the rest of the way in. The day had lightened as much as it was going to and the fog had vanished almost entirely. It was already warmer than it had been at any time since my landing. The perspiration rolled down my sides as I climbed and the flaky bark bit into my hands, which had grown soft in recent years. With each branch that I disturbed a fresh cloud of dust and ashes appeared. I sneezed several times, and my eyes burned and watered.

I could see the top of the isle above the fringe of distant trees. To the left of it and somewhat back, I could see the smoldering top of a fresh-grown cone of volcanic rock. I cursed again, because I felt like it, and climbed back down.

It took us about two more hours to reach the shore of Acheron.

Reflected in the oily surface of my lake were the fires and nothing more. Lava and hot rocks spit and hissed as they struck the water. I felt dirty and sticky and hot as I looked out across what remained of my handiwork. Small waves left lines of scum and black crud upon the shore. The water was spotted with clouds of such stuff heading in toward the beach. Fishes rocked belly up in the shallows, and the air smelled like rotten eggs. I sat upon a rock and regarded it, smoking a cigarette the while.

A mile out stood my Isle of the Dead, still unchanged--stark, and ominous as a shadow with nothing to cast it. I leaned forward and tested the water with my finger. The lake was hot, quite hot. Far out and to the east, there was a second light. It seemed as if a smaller cone were growing there.

"I came to shore about a quarter mile to the west of here," said Green Green.

I nodded and continued to stare. It was still morning and I felt like contemplating the prospect. The southern face of the isle--the one I looked upon--had a narrow strip of beach following the curve of a cove perhaps two hundred feet across. From there, a natural-seeming trail zigzagged upwards, reaching various levels and, ultimately, the high, horned peaks.

"Where do you think he is?" I asked.

"About two-thirds of the way up, on this side," said Green Green, "in the chalet. That is where I had my laboratory. I expanded many of the caves behind it."

A frontal approach was almost mandatory, as the other faces of the isle possessed no beaches and rose sharply from the water.

Almost, but not quite.

I doubted that Green Green, Shandon or anybody else was aware that the northern face could be climbed. I had designed it to look unscalable, but it was not all that bad. I had done it just because I like everything to have a back door as well as a front door. If I were to employ that route, it would require my ascending all the way and coming down toward the chalet from above.

I decided I would do it that way. I also decided that I would keep it to myself until the last minute. After all, Green Green was a telepath, and for all I knew, the story he'd given me could be a line of _rouke_ manure. He and Shandon could be working together, and for that matter there might not even be a Shandon. I wouldn't have trusted him worth a plugged nickel, back when they still had nickels to plug.

"Come on," I said, rising and flipping my cigarette into the cesspool my lake. "Show me where you left the boat."

So we made our way to the left, along the shoreline, to the place where he remembered beaching the thing. Only it was not there.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

"Yes."

"Well, where is it?"

"Perhaps it was loosened by one of the shocks and drifted away."

"Could you swim as far as the isle, bad shoulder and all?"

"I am a Pei'an," he replied, which meant he could damn well swim the English Channel with two bum shoulders, then turn around and go back again. I'd only said it to irritate him.

"... But we won't be able to swim to the isle," he added.

"Why not?"

"There are hot currents from the volcano. They are worse farther out."

"Then we are going to build a raft," I said. "I'll cut the wood with my pistol while you locate something suitable for binding it together."

"Such as?" he inquired.

"You're the one who screwed up this forest," I told him, "so you know it better than I do now. I've seen some tough-looking vines, though."

"They are somewhat abrasive," he said. "I will need your knife."

I hesitated a moment.

"All right. Here."

"Waters can come over the edges of a raft. They may be very warm."

"Then the waters must be cooled."

"How?"

"Soon it will begin to rain."

"The volcanos--"

"There won't be that much water."

He shrugged, nodded and went off to cut vines. I felled and stripped trees, perhaps six inches in diameter, ten feet in length, paying as much attention as possible to my back.

Soon it began to rain.

For the next several hours, a steady, cold drizzle descended from the heavens, drenching us to the skin, poking holes in Acherori, washing some of the filth from the shrubbery. I shaped two broad paddles and cut us a pair of long poles while I waited for Green Green to harvest sufficient cordage to bind things. While I was still waiting, the ground heaved violently and a terrific eruption split the near side of the cone halfway up. A river the color of sunsets poured from the gap. My ears rang for minutes after the explosion. Then the surface of the lake picked itself up and rushed toward me--a baby tidal wave. I ran like hell and climbed the highest tree in sight.

The water reached the base of the tree, but did not get much higher than a foot. There were three such waves in twenty minutes; then the waters began to recede, trading me a lot of mud for the timber I'd cut, plus both oars.

I grew angry. I knew my rain could not put out his bloody volcano, might even exacerbate things a bit.

But I was mad as hell, seeing all that work washed away.

I began to speak the words.

From somewhere, I heard the Pei'an calling. I ignored him.

After all, I wasn't exactly Francis Sandow at that point.

I dropped to the ground and felt the tug of a powerpull from several hundred yards to my left. I moved in that direction, climbing a small rise to reach its nexus. From that point, I had a clear line of vision across the bothered waters out to the isle itself. Perhaps my visual acuity had increased. I saw the chalet quite clearly. I fancied that I also detected a movement of sorts at the place where the rail guarded the end of the courtyard that overlooked the waters. Human eyes are not as acute as a Pei'an's. Green Green had said he'd seen Shandon clearly after crossing over the waters.

I felt her pulse as I stood there above one of Illyria's larger veins or smaller arteries, and the power came into me and I sent it upward.

Soon the drizzle became a heavy downpour, and when I lowered my upraised hand the lightning flashed and the thunders skated round and round in the tin drum of the sky. A wind, sudden as a springing cat and cold as the Arctic's halations, struck me in the back and shaved my cheeks as it passed.

Green Green cried out again. From somewhere off to my right, I think.

Then the heavens began to sizzle, and they sent down rains so heavily that the chalet vanished from sight and the isle itself faded to a gray outline. The volcano was the faintest of sparks above the water. Soon the wind raced by like a freight train and its howling joined with the thunders to create a perpetual din. The shores of Acheron lengthened and the waters were buffeted until they moved, in waves like the ones we had received, back in that direction from which they had come. If Green Green called out again, I could not hear him.

The water ran in rivers through my hair, down my face and neck. But I did not need my eyes to see. The power enfolded me and the temperature plummeted; the rain came in sheets that cracked like whips now; the day grew dark as night. I laughed, and the waters rose up in spouts and swayed like genies, and the lightflings ran their gauntlets again and again, but the machine never said "Tilt."

_Stop it, Frank! He will know you are here!_ came the thoughts, addressed to that part of me which Green Green wished to address.

_He does already, doesn't he?_ I might have replied. _Take cover till this is over. Wait!_

And as the waters came down and the winds went forth, the ground began to rock beneath me once again. The spark that hovered before me grew and glowed like a buried sun. Then the lightnings walked about it; they tickled the top of the isle; they wrote names upon the chaos, and one of them was mine.

I was thrown to my knees by another shock, but I stood again and raised both arms.

... And then I stood in a place that was neither solid, liquid nor gaseous. There was no light, nor was there darkness. It was neither hot nor cold. Perhaps it lay within my own mind, and perhaps not.

We stared at one another, and in my pale green hands I held a thunderbolt at port arms.

He was built like a wide, gray pillar, was covered with scales. He'd a snout like a crocodile, and his eyes were fiery. His three pairs of arms assumed various attitudes as we spoke. Otherwise he, also, did not move from where he stood.

_Old enemy, old comrade_ ... he addressed me.

_Yes, Belion. I am here_.

... _Your cycle has ended. Save yourself the ignominy of ruin at my hands. Withdraw new, Shimbo, and preserve a world you made_.

_I doubt the world shall be lost, Belion_.

Silence.

Then, _Then there must be a confrontation_.

... _Unless you yourself choose to withdraw_.

_I will not_.

_Then there will be a confrontation_.

He sighed a flame.

_So be it_.

And he was gone.

... And I stood atop the small hill and lowered my arms slowly, for the power had gone out of me.

It was a strange experience, unlike anything I had known before. A waking dream, if you would. A fantasy born of tension and anger, if you wouldn't.

The rain was still descending, though not with its previous force. The winds had lost something of their intensity. The lightnings had ceased, as had the trembling of the ground. The fiery activity had diminished, shrinking the orange nest atop the cone, stopping the wound in its side.

I stared at all this, feeling once again the wetness and. the coldness and the firmness of the ground beneath my feet. Our long-distance battle had been cut short, our powers canceled. This was fine with me, though; the waters looked cooler and the slick, gray isle less forbidding.

Ha!

In fact, as I watched, the sun broke through the clouds for a moment and a rainbow unrolled itself amidst sparkling droplets, arcing through the air now clean and framing Acheron, the isle, the smoldering cone like a picture within a gleaming paperweight, miniature, contained and more than slightly unreal.

I departed the hillock and returned to the place I had left. There was a raft that needed building.