Would it ever be possible to map it all? This was a three-dimensional world, level upon level, climate upon climate, teeming with variety. A lifetime would hardly suffice.

Hour after hour. Progress slowed as the ascent became steep. The glow from the walls faded and was gone, leaving him blind. Round rocks clattered away and down, dislodged by feet now blind and clumsy. This was the strangest section of all—too remote for illumination. It frightened him. He was helpless.

“The animals cannot stand the light of day,” the half-woman’s voice came from ahead. “We must stop.”

The light of day!

“On foot. Another turn,” she said. Aton could hear her dismounting, along with the zombies. He joined them. The animals, released, decamped, eager to get away from this area. “We shall not go beyond this point,” she said. “You must go alone.”

Alone! To the fate Chthon planned for him.

The loose boulders banged his bare feet. Aton maneuvered around them painfully, groped his way along the ragged wall, found the dread corner. He turned.

Light came down, not green but white. It was bright and beautiful, the bleak cave ugly. Freedom!

As he stared upward, he saw a silhouette. It was an animal of some sort passing between him and the light—an odd birdlike creature with a very long, cutting bill, hooked slightly at the tip. It had terrible talons on the wings, as they spread momentarily, and solid, pincer-like feet.

The chimera.

Was this the freedom Chthon had promised?

He could turn back, rejoin the zombies, give up his dream. Give up the minionette. Worship Chthon.

Or he could advance upon the chimera, a creature he could not hope to overcome, and die the death it offered. Eyeless and gutless, he would live for a few moments in freedom, on the surface of Chthon-planet: lovely Idyllia.

“I forgot LOE!” Aton exclaimed. “I left my book in the caverns, where the sieges of Myxo began.” Yes, he would have to go back for it—

Some other time. Behind the chimera he saw the minionette, beckoning. He went to her.

The great wings fluttered silently. The creature disappeared, and with it the other image, and the way was clear. Chthon had let him go.

“How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS,
“Among School Children”

EPILOG

Yes—we let him go.
We allow Aton to revisit life.
He was dead when he came to us,
His culture says.
But he was unfinished,
And we require him—complete.
We give him to our half-sane minion, Bedside,
And wait for his return.