av with him unhurt, alive, at
least for a while.

Shann covered his face with his now empty hands. To see a nightmare
flicker out after facing squarely up to its terror, that was no great
task. To give up a dream which was part of a lost heaven, that cut
cruelly deep. The Terran dragged himself to his feet, drained and weary,
stumbling on.

Was there no end to this aimless circling through a world of green
smoke? He shambled ahead, moving his feet leadenly. How long had he been
here? There was no division in time, just the unchanging light which was
a part of the fog through which he plodded.

Then he heard more than any shuffle of foot across sand, any crooning of
a long dead seraph, the rising and falling of a voice: a human
voice--not quite singing or reciting, but something between the two.
Shann paused, searching his memory, a memory which seemed bruised, for
the proper answer to match that sound.

But, though he recalled scene after scene out of the years, that voice
did not trigger any return from his past. He turned toward its source,
dully determined to get over quickly the meeting which lay behind that
signal. Only, though he walked on and on, Shann did not appear any
closer to the man behind the voice, nor was he able to make out separate
words composing that chant, a chant broken now and then by pauses, so
that the Terran grew aware of the distress of his fellow prisoner. For
the impression that he sought another captive came out of nowhere and
grew as he cast wider and wider in his quest.

Then he might have turned some invisible corner in the mist, for the
chant broke out anew in stronger volume, and now he was able to
distinguish words he knew.

"... where blow the winds between the worlds,
And hang the suns in dark of space.
For Power is given a man to use.
Let him do so well before the last accounting--"

The voice was hoarse, cracked, the words spaced with uneven catches of
breath, as if they had been repeated many, many times to provide an
anchor against madness, form a tie to reality. And hearing that note,
Shann slowed his pace. This was out of no memory of his; he was sure of
that.

"... blow the winds between the worlds,
And hang the suns in ... dark--of--of--"

That harsh croak of voice was running down, as a clock runs down for
lack of winding. Shann sped on, reacting to a plea which did not lay in
the words themselves.

Once more the mist curled back, prov