Warmth.

No water. No cold. Just warmth.

The freezing stillness had been replaced by a comforting warmth. This was the first thing of which Zantheus became aware.

Despite himself, he lay for a while where he was, with his eyes closed, and allowed his body to drink in the soothing heat.

This was forbidden by the Order –as soon as you could hear yourself thinking you were supposed to open your eyes, get up from your mat and recite the Articles.

But for once Zantheus found that he simply could not be bothered...

Zantheus! Get up, Zantheus!

Checking himself for his unthinkable thought, he jolted upright and opened his eyes.

Unfortunately this sudden movement brought with it the revelation that he had been lying with his head pointing down a very steep incline, and so he immediately fell down again.

He tumbled backwards at length, armour clanging as he went, and lay once more in a heap at its bottom.

Confronted by a beautiful cloudless blue sky above him, he let out a long sigh. He got to his feet and was surprised at once.

Where he had expected to be on the sea-shore, somehow he was standing instead at the foot of a cluster of featureless grassy hills which barred him from seeing any further.

What was going on? Had he been transported somewhere new again? There was no sign of the boy he had rescued anywhere.

Mountain, sky, ship, sea, hills; he was beginning to grow exasperated with these sudden changes of scene.

He resolved to climb the hill he had just rolled down to try to work out exactly where he was.

The race up the hill was light and easy, he had been oddly rejuvenated by his sleep in the sun, and yet at the same time he was plagued by a growing sense of unease.

The vision that greeted him as he reached the top of the hill shocked him to his core.

As far as his keen eyes, which now threatened to fill with tears, could see, a great length in the sunshine, were hills of grass.

On every side they rolled, all the way into the horizon, until they shrank gradually away beyond it.

Terrifyingly, they were completely bare. There was not a single tree, building or animal, let alone human being, to be seen.

The only thing moving was the grass. Its countless blades rippled in the breeze in waves so that the landscape seemed to shimmer slightly; a delicate sea of green quietly washing over the barren hills.

Where was this? He had arrived in some strange new country, uncharted by any map he had seen, unvisited by any traveller of whom he had heard.

There was only one thing to do. Zantheus chose a point on the horizon and, eyes firmly fixed, set off.

He had to hope that somehow his legs would carry him to somebody who could provide food for him and tell him where he was.

So he walked.

Minutes faded into hours, and from the movement of the sun he saw that he was heading roughly east, so he thought he might as well line himself up to travel in that direction.

All the time questions were going round and round in his head.

Where was he? How had he arrived in this uncharted country? Why was he so far away from the sea all of a sudden? What had happened to Tromo?

They reeled through his mind one after the other, stirring up anxiety on each pass, but no answers ever came to resolve them.

After some time of unbroken travel, soon Zantheus was begging the terrible country just to change.

A rock. A tree. A river. Anything! Anything to bring some variety to these never-ending hills.

Anything to break up the unceasing monotony.

Time stretched. He became so used to the same questions playing over and over in his mind that they flowed together into one great ebb of desperation, which mingled with his desire to see some sort of a change in the landscape.

When the day began to dim and he still felt no physical fatigue, the desperation rose to the pitch of a silent scream, reverberating around inside his head.

He did not even try lying down to go to sleep, but carried on at his constant pace, plodding along in the darkness.

New questions were added to his catalogue of worries, questions that took their turn in his mind with every alternate step, questions that he would never normally dare to ask, questions that were not worth asking.

Was he being punished for acting improperly at the top of Mount Awmeer somehow? Had he drowned while swimming to shore with Tromo –was he dead?

He was afraid that he had receded into some sort of limbo, some borderless land in which he was doomed to wander forever...

By the dawn of the next day, his shouts had become audible.

Roars of sound started to burst forth from his lips without warning whenever his mind buckled under the strain of the tedium and fear.

But they rang out over the hills uselessly and no reply came. No-one in any direction was around to issue any kind of a reply.

Even if he just came across one tree, one rock, one stream, anything, any point of change to let him know that he was not alone, that he was still in the world that he was used to, that would be enough.

That was all he wanted.

He must have covered miles by now.

Why was his body still coping? What was going on?

His thoughts were fragmenting.

He started to let out the shouts of frustration just to remind himself that he was still present, that he still existed, that he was still here.

But they only served to remind him of his impotence, of his total aloneness in this place, of his inability to change anything about this country.

The starkness of the hills only made the cries echo for longer.

The only answer they ever yielded to him was the sound of his own voice.

Until Zantheus saw something.

At first he was unsure as it was so far away, but in time he grew surer that he could see a little jut protruding unnaturally from one of the hills.

It was still just a dot, however. Each time he came down the side of one hill, he became worried that it would disappear, that he had just been tricking himself, that his mind was inventing things to stop itself from going mad.

But it was still there each time he resurfaced, bringing comfort coupled with a reluctance to move out of sight of it again.

Nevertheless, he always overcame this reluctance, pulled forward by the need to reach this dot, this chance.

It grew bigger. Eventually, when it was only ten or so rises and falls away, Zantheus began to make out what it was.

A house!

Finally he would be able to talk to another person!

By the time he was one hill away, he was running full pelt.

He leapt up the last slope and at last found himself in front of the structure.

‘House’ had been an exaggeration.

It was more of a shed, neatly constructed out of wooden planks, though Zantheus could still see no trees.

But that was the least of his worries! He knocked on the door and opened it.

Inside the shed were only a desk and, seated at it, a man who was craned over some parchment, scribbling furiously with a quill.

In the wall in front of him was a single window, which looked out over the endless hills.

“Where am I?” Zantheus blurted out, too frustrated by his hours of wandering to bother to greet the stranger properly.

At first, there was no response. The quill continued to scratch away.

Then: “Of course, the most difficult question has to come first,” said the stranger, who was not startled at all by this sudden intrusion into his shed.

If anything, he sounded slightly disappointed.

He stood up and turned round to face Zantheus.

He was not particularly handsome or ugly, though a little on the skinny side, and stood taller than Zantheus at a bit over six feet.

The only thing you might notice about him on passing him in the street was his hair. It was red, brown and in places blonde.

Wildly thick, it had the effect of lighting up the rest of him, a crown of messy dreams that elevated him still further above his height into some fragile world that other people could not see.

They locked gazes, and for a moment Zantheus met the most intense stare he had ever come across, except possibly for one other, but he could not remember from where.

“I suppose the best thing to tell you would be that you have strayed into some strange country uncharted by any map that you have seen and unvisited by any traveller you have spoken with.”

“Yes,” said Zantheus, “that is what I thought. These hills seem to go on forev-”

“They do,” the stranger interrupted.

Zantheus was a little confused by this man, and more than a little unsettled.

When he had stood up to greet him he had remained slightly craned over to carry on writing with his right arm.

Even now as he spoke to Zantheus the sound of the quill feverishly scratching ink into the parchment persisted underneath their conversation.

“Is it not so?” said Zantheus, ignoring the discourtesy. “But they must end somewhere.”

“No, you misunderstand me. They do go on forever. Endlessly. Perpetually. Infinitely.”

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence.

“Where are your family?” Zantheus asked, trying a different tack.

Maybe if he could talk to somebody else he would be able to find out where he was and how to get back to Qereth.

“I have none here,” said the man.

“Have you no friends? Associates? No-one at all?”

“I am entirely alone—you are the first other person I have ever encountered here.”

“I do not understand...” said Zantheus. He tried reasoning with the stranger. “If you have never encountered anyone else...” He searched around for a reasonable question, “...where did you get that ink?”

“How can I show you?” said the stranger ponderously. His eyes flashed. The pen picked up speed for a moment. “I am alone. I write. This is my existence.”

Zantheus was getting more and more disconcerted. An idea came to him.

“Look—what is your name?”

“You can call me Leukos.”

“Look, Leukos, you must eat. Where do you go to eat?” Maybe this would lead him to more reasonable people.

“Surely you have noticed,” said Leukos with quiet authority. “You don’t need to eat here.”

Just as Zantheus was about to lose his temper and tell Leukos how ridiculous he was being, the truth of his words struck him. He had been in this land for a long time and not eaten a single thing.

“Now do you begin to see?”

Zantheus ran out of the shed in an effort to escape this realisation, but it followed him out. At once he was confronted by the grassy hills again.

The idea that they might go on forever hit him so hard that he sank to his knees with the weight of it. He started to shake slightly.

He was imagining all the places out past the horizon that had never been seen by human eyes, and never would be, and yet how they were still out there, just...being. It made him shudder.

“You’re afraid,” said Leukos from beside him. Zantheus would never admit this out loud, but for the first time he almost admitted it to himself. Leukos placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be. This is just a picture, like everything else.”

At this completely nonsensical remark something in Zantheus that had temporarily given way reasserted itself.

The hills did not go on forever, he decided. They could not. That was ridiculous. It was impossible.

He got up and, facing Leukos, grasped the hand that had been placed on his shoulder.

“You are quite sure that you are alone here?”

Fiery eyes met his own. “Certain,” was the mad word that formed.

The infuriating man was still writing with his other hand, the parchment pressed against his thigh.

Zantheus marched past him back into the wooden shed where he crossed the floor and began going through the drawers in the desk.

All he needed was one clue, one relic from the outside world to wrench him out of this nightmare.

There were six drawers built into the desk, three on each side.

The first three were filled with bottles of ink and spare quills. He could have guessed at the contents of the other three.

Sure enough, they were packed full of ream upon ream of the same brownish parchment that Leukos was writing on.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for in there.”

Leukos had sat down at the desk again without him noticing.

Zantheus felt a surge of anger well up inside of him but he fought it down.

There was no use getting distraught; one of them needed to be thinking clearly.

After all, the man might be of unsound mind.

He tried to think of a question that would help his cause, but the irritating quill scratched blankness into his mind.

“Leukos, stop writing for a moment, would you?”

“I can’t.”

“No, please, it is irritating me.”

“I can’t.”

“What are you writing, in any case?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Zantheus swallowed another surge. “Look man, how old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

Nineteen! Not a man then. Still a boy, really. Now a question fired in his mind.

“Do your parents live near here?”

Leukos looked him in the eyes again. “No,” he said, certain as he was sure he was alone here. Had Zantheus been more astute he might have detected the faintest note of melancholy in it. “I don’t remember my parents.”

“Oh. Neither do I,” he said to the boy, but with no emotion at all.

“I know,” said Leukos, eyes back on the page.

What intolerable nonsense! How in the world could he possibly know?

Zantheus wondered whether he could believe anything the stranger said if he was capable of making such ridiculous claims. The man was clearly insane.

Probably he had been banished to this barren land by his kinsmen as nobody was able to put up with him.

He decided to give up asking questions and lent on the desk, groping in his mind for a new strategy.

But as his gaze drifted out of the little window and settled on the endless hills once more, despite himself the words just escaped from his mouth as a whisper.

“...how can I go further?”

“Ah, I thought you’d never ask!” said Leukos, changing manner abruptly and standing up. “Yes, it’s about time now I suppose. Help me move this desk.”

He picked up the far side of the desk with his spare hand and pulled it towards the centre of the room, using Zantheus as a pivot.

Perplexed, Zantheus lifted his own end and dragged it into line with the other. Now he could see that the desk had been partially concealing a large trap door built into the floor.

“What you need”, said Leukos, “is to go on a journey.” He looked thoughtful. “Yes, a very long journey. I shall need a great deal of parchment.” He retrieved this great deal of parchment from one of the drawers. “Don’t just stand there. Aren’t you going to have a look?”

Too bewildered to comment or protest, Zantheus strode over to the trap door and crouched down. He placed his hand on its iron-ring handle and, not without a little hesitation, opened it.

As it thudded open against the wooden floor a bolt of shock surged through him. Where he had expected steps, or soil, or darkness, he saw a sky of almost the same colour as that which was stretched over the hills outside.

A couple of clouds drifted impossibly by.

He felt a shoe rest against his back. “That’s the spirit,” said Leukos.

“What--?” Zantheus began, and Leukos kicked him into the sky, and for the second time in not so very long he was somewhere between falling and flying, though he was not sure which.