It was shallow and warmer than the spring, as she discovered when she took off her shoes and waded into it. She stood for a long time with the sun on her head and her body, relishing the cool mud under her feet and the cold flow of springwater around her calves. She and the golden monkey moved on quickly, climbing great staircases, crossing bridges, always moving upward. The higher they went, the more they felt that sense of invisible activity all around them, until finally they turned a corner into a wide space like a misthung piazza, and found themselves confronted by an angel with a spear. She was profoundly exhausted, but she focused on him at once and sat up, rubbing her eyes. He was following the little darting movements here and there. Then before they knew how it happened, they were clinging together, blindly pressing their faces toward each other. Will sprang forward and slashed the knife at the nearest of them. The creature howled and thrashed as she fell into the mud, and the nearest one looked stupidly at the stump of his arm, and then in horror at his own ankle, which his slicedoff hand had seized as it fell. A second later the knife was in his breast. Will felt the handle jump three or four times with the dying heartbeats, and pulled it out before the cliffghast could twist it away in falling. They were so still, so pale, that they might have been dead. Hunger had drawn the skin over their faces, pain had left lines around their eyes, and they were covered in dust and mud and not a little blood. And from the absolute passivity of their limbs, they seemed in the last stages of exhaustion. Behind her and above, over the lip of the ravine and in the full force of the wind, stood the generating station. Have it ready for transportation as soon as you can. The weather changes quickly in the mountains, and there is a storm on the way. But without the trees it would just vanish again. With the wheels and the oil, it stays among us. You are making a mistake, though you give us no choice. We shall help you find this child. It sounded familiar, like an intrusion from his own world, and then he recognized the clatter of a helicopter. Then there was another and another, and more lights swept across the evermoving trees outside, in a brilliant green scatter of radiance. Then it became suddenly quieter, though it had been very quiet already. The two of them were still gazing in the same direction, and shortly afterward they saw the movement start up again. And a few moments later came the sound. The two nuns bowed their heads and left. He laughed and uncorked the bottle, filling each glass to the rim. What should he do? How could he refuse to drink without discourtesy? Then he blinked and shook his head. Her wound had opened again, and fresh blood was trickling down her cheek, but she wiped it aside. What happens there, no one knows. And we can see now, at least. So just keep going, just keep on moving. The engineers from the generating station had brought their cable right down to it, and the technicians were busy securing the clamps and making ready the terminals. Brings goo d fortun e. He was still trying to understand what had happened. She was sobbing quietly. It was a vast black emptiness, like a shaft into the deepest darkness. The golden light flowed into it and died. To their right, a slope of rough stones, loose and precariously balanced, rose high into the dusty gloom. He closed that one, too, and came back to himself. He felt a little dizzy. For the first time he understood some of the true power of the knife, and laid it very carefully on the rock in front of him. The shadow particles knew what was happening and were sorrowful. An idea came, and he ran out onto the quayside, right into the empty space between the gunners and the bear. Their daemons slipped through the bars and flowed ahead of them into the garden.