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real one, I moved through it like a spirit, autonomous. I could have formed food and drink from the air-as I had formed that sword to fight off the Minotaur, for I still contained the same level of psychic energy. But it would have been a charade with but a single purpose: to make this world less alien and more like the one I had left. And I had decided that I could only survive by forgetting that other reality and accepting this one fully.
        There was no need to rest as I walked, for my analogue body did not tire. I could run, letting the wind whip my hair, for hours on end, without feeling a sore muscle, the tugging fingers of gravity.
        I came out of the caves onto a ledge no more than two feet wide that wound out of sight along the side of an immense gray mountain studded with shrubs and gnarled, weathered trees whose extensive roots tangled through the rocks like tentacles. Above, mists obscured the skies, thick roiling masses of gray clouds that moved fast from horizon to horizon. Fingers of the fog came down now and then, slithered along the mountainside, touched the trees and wrapped my legs so that I could not even see my feet I walked upward along the trail, deeper into the darkness that lingered there. At places, the trail disappeared, and I had to climb across to where it started again. I feared nothing, for I could not be hurt. As long as Child lived and as long as I was trapped within him, I was invulnerable.
        Days or perhaps weeks later, I had gained the summit of the great mountain. It was constructed of four pinnacles, each as tall as a man, which formed, between them, a nest large enough to stand in. I nestled there, hunched over, and looked out across the world that was his tortured mind.
        The mists hung all about me and shrouded the path I had walked up on. It was cold and wet and left glistening droplets on my skin. I went naked, though, for cold could not harm me and was not a discomfort. It was merely a quantity now, much like light or darkness. I accepted it and watched the dew bead on the hairs on my arms and legs, like pearls in the shimmering gloom.
        I looked out from the peak in all directions. At times, the curtains of gray would part, present a flash of some strange scenery. It was as if all parts of the world were equally near at hand from this summit-but a mile at most. I saw green fields and a silver river cutting through them like the winding body of a python. I saw a cold white plain where there was snow and where slabs of ice jutted upwards like broken teeth. I saw what seemed to be stretches of impenetrable jungle, black flowers blooming on the dark green foliage. I saw endless miles of sand, burnt white beneath a relentless sun, columns of the dried earth stirred upwards into the sky and winding erratically across the barren landscape. There was a land of broken ebony mountains where sunlight was reflected from polished Stygian surfaces and came back brown.
        It was clear that I would have to explore all these places if I were ever to find the way out-if there happened to be a way out. I rose from the earth and left the four stone pillars, began the trek down the mountainside once more.
        I was a third of the way down when the dark-winged creatures descended through the fog, swept by me, cutting the air with a sharp and unpleasant whine. I looked down where they had disappeared through the lowest layers of the mist. As I watched, they reappeared, rising gracefully toward me. There was a smooth coating of black down over their large, batlike bodies, giving them a warm, smooth, gentle look. Set in each of their faces were two wide eyes, deep brown things which looked back at me with an almost unbearable melancholy.
        They settled onto the trail before me, their wings curling in on themselves, rolling into closed scrolls on their backs.
        Distorted, many-fingered hands reached on tiny arms from the point where their shoulders