“World-Maker became World-Saver. Sky-Walker became Tree-Walker. The eternally old became eternally young. And we will never be the same, no never again the same.”

I’d never been much of a singer, but when I heard my voice singing those songs, I liked what I heard. Somehow the meaning of the song redeemed the shaky voice that sang it. Perhaps I’d never been much of a singer because I’d never had much of a song to sing.

Shadrach came close to me and pointed westward to lights in the distance. “What do you see?”

I turned in the darkness and beheld Charis, the glowing City of Light. The joy of that place was like a volcanic explosion, spectacular and thrilling, never subsiding. I could feel it from here.

“I see … my home.”

I laughed aloud. All my life I’d been a wanderer, a man without a home. Now I was a returning traveler—a man headed home. I considered the joyous irony—the places I’d always been were never my home. And my true home was a place I’d never been.

I went to my tent, still sorting out what had happened to me. I’d lived my life in a dim labyrinth of drudgery disguised as fun and pleasure. I’d sung songs I didn’t like, gone down dead-end streets I didn’t enjoy, doing things that later haunted me, all in the name of fulfillment. I’d nearly been asphyxiated by the odorless fumes of Erebus.

I knew now that the surest road to Erebus was the gradual one, the one with subtle slopes and turns, without mile markers and signposts. This was the road I had walked, telling myself that around the next corner I might at last find happiness and truth and peace, when all the while they lay in an entirely different direction, a direction I’d always fought against.

But now I knew what it was all about. Surely I would never lose these feelings that now washed over me like a hot bath. I went to sleep with a smile still on my face.

In the middle of the night, jolted by the old man’s snoring, I woke up in a cold sweat. I lay there under my blanket, trembling. What was going on? I felt almost strangled by dread.

I’ve crossed the chasm. There’s no reason to fear.

“Maybe you didn’t cross it,” a voice whispered to me.

“Who are you?” I whispered back.

“Even if you crossed the chasm, what does that mean? You’re still who you were. The beasts that walk the night can still devour you—your agony will be just as great, and you will end up just as dead!”