I would have dearly loved to turn around, to catch up with him and hold him fast in order to stop him from drawing any closer to the edge of the cliff. But I was waiting for the miracle the sky was bound to send me. The weight of the burden pulling me to the ground only increased my defiance. So I crouched on my knees, grew stiff nd stubborn, and waited.

It ended when I broke down. All of a sudden I fell forward on the sandy gravel. It was good to feel the solid ground supporting my stiff, numb arms, and equally good to feel the cool rock touching my hot face. I threw off my burden, struggled to get up, and rushed over to Arsylang, who had teetered all the way over to the edge. When I got to him, the blue void seemed to reach for me. I could clearly feel my hair stand on end, and the next moment I felt jerked up into the air. I let out a cry, threw myself backward, and fell on my buttocks. I could not decide whether to open my eyes—which I had closed without intending or even knowing I had done so when I fell backward—but I opened them anyway. I saw Arsylang right in front of me and quickly reached for him, grabbed his neck, and pulled. He was as heavy as a rock, and I realized that I could no longer keep him where he was, let alone pull him close. I sensed a weight that I could not match. Only then did it occur to me that I should have turned Arsylang around earlier so that, being constantly pulled backward, he would have stumbled away from this cliff. I might even have managed to take him home. As it was, I was afraid to get up. The mere idea paralyzed me and hurt me to the roots of my hair. I felt cheated, and I was sorry I had been so rash to take on the sky without knowing beforehand if word about his helpfulness was true. The thought came as a shock. I tried to drive it away and to conjure up a different thought to prove the sky’s omnipotence and mercy: The rain He sent to earth year after year, almost always at the exact same time—what would have come of us without it? And the sun He gave us each day, and the moon and the stars He gave us each night! Oh, it was good that I instantly had all sorts of evidence at my command. The grave, terrible thought had been suppressed—though not wiped out. Indeed, no thought can ever be wiped out. Now I knew.