“I’m still the same person,” I cried, clenching my fists. “It took me years to become what I was, and I just can’t shake it. I’m a walking bundle of habits. My mind has been programmed by a hundred thousand images, from magazines and television and movies, locker rooms and business luncheons. I’m the cumulative product of small choices, minute compromises, little frauds, and white lies. They added up to the big lie—my life. After I crossed the chasm, I felt so different, so changed and yet … images and thoughts and feelings of rage haunt me. I’m filled with doubts. It’s as if something calls me back to what I was before.”

“Something does call you back. You must refuse it.”

“But how?”

“The King has given you resources—the soaring bird within, the TravelGuide, the family of light.”

“The bird? Yes, I feel his presence inside me.” I hadn’t been aware of it since Quon’s death, but I felt a soft ripple under my skin. It didn’t hurt like the scorpion. It soothed me.

“The bird is stronger than the scorpion,” Marcus said. “He helps you understand and obey the book. The book is stronger than the words of men. The family of light is stronger than the web. The King is stronger than the Impostor. The King’s warriors are stronger than the turncoats.” When he said the word “turncoat” his lip curled, the only change in his poker face.

“There’s so much I hate here, so much that’s wrong,” I said.

“Not all is as it shall be. One day the silent planet will sing again.”

“I feel like turning back, leaving the group.”

“I know. But you must not do it, no matter what.”

No sooner had he said it than he disappeared. I picked up some more wood, then went to our meeting spot, the first to arrive. I sat and read the TravelGuide, then looked up the mountainside before us. Peirasmos was directly west, between us and Charis. It would be a hard climb, but its beauty drew me nonetheless.

Near the top was a raw edge of snow on an ice field. It looked like thick, untouched frosting on a huge cake. Perhaps that was where some of the barges on the lake had broken off. Pine trees decorated the snowy lower slopes, like birthday candles, some of them entirely covered in white, like tall vanilla ice cream cones, their ice-covered coating causing them to gleam in the sun. The effect was of a masterpiece, as if Mount Peirasmos had been perfectly fashioned by a skillful artist.

“I traded a pheasant, some oats, and powdered milk for more blankets,” David announced, pulling me back to the moment. “We’ll need them up on the mountain.”

Malaiki suggested we hold hands and ask the King’s help before we started the climb.