He almost snarled. The thing was ruined. Ruined beyond repair. His great inspiration, the best in his life—and he’d messed it up. To hell with it; he’d never be a good painter. To hell with Bianka and her damned family and the three lousy meals a day they gave him. He even had to eat with the farmhands.

It was Bianka’s fault for tempting him to begin with, keeping his mind from his work. In a rage he shouted and kicked the bedside chair across the room. Then, to Oversoul Seven’s utter disbelief, he grabbed the landscape and sent it flying to the floor with sudden fury.

At first Seven thought that the landscape had come to life in some mysterious fashion. What he saw before him was a landscape, but different, a three-dimensional one that stretched all around him. He looked around, trying to get his bearings.

Cyprus and Josef were gone. He was Ma-ah again. She stood gripping Rampa’s hand. Before them were acres of green trees and flowering bushes, such as they’d never seen before. The entire area was ringed by immense sheer cliffs, obviously impossible to climb. They were in a secret valley. A group of robed people stood in a circle on a small grassy knoll, and Ma-ah and Rampa were being led toward them.

Seven felt himself falling headlong into Ma-ah’s experience again. Yet oddly enough, descending into the body almost seemed like coming home.

Chapter Six

Josef’s Second Dream

Josef felt alone, as if his soul had left him, or as if part of his soul had been in the painting that he’d just destroyed. He hadn’t the heart to look at it again. One glimpse of the smeared topcoating of glaze had been enough. In portions, the paint had been gouged out right down to the bare canvas.

Memory of the painting’s initial, almost blinding inspiration rose up to mock him. He hadn’t lived up to it, of course. The one great inspiration of his life, and he’d ruined it in a fit of anger. Or had it been flawed beyond repair even before he destroyed it? Had he known all along that he’d never be able to paint the masterpiece that he saw so vividly in his mind?

Josef didn’t like to examine his feelings. He just liked to give in to them, or paint them. Self-examination made him nervous. Yet these thoughts kept returning as he grappled with quite unpleasant practical considerations. He had to get out of there as quickly as possible. Jonathan would give him the beating of his life, and with the painting gone, he had nothing to bargain with. He could fight Jonathan if he had to—they were about the same size—but Jonathan would be self-righteous about it, furious, and he’d just be out to protect himself.