It had not occurred to Delaney for an instant that none of her companions would immediately follow her and beg, or at least nicely ask, her to return. These were Tishaarans after all. Kind and considerate to a fault, although Hummer did not quite fit the standard profile. She had no intention of going anywhere by herself, much less into a new realm that seemed certain to pose some exceptional challenges. She would walk until someone caught up with her and then, with just the right combination of reluctance and grace, she would do them the favor of yielding to their decision.

But they did not come.

Delaney slowed down to a crawl; she did not want to get too far ahead of them that they would have difficulty catching or finding her. Not that she was making a great deal of progress anyway, for she had not the Tishaarans’ ability to find path. As she picked her way down a wooded ravine that spilled out onto a dry plain, it dawned on her that they were calling her bluff. For a moment she stopped, and a wave of panic washed over her as she realized the stupid thing she had done. She could not go anywhere in the realms on her own and they knew it. She imagined the other three sitting back at camp in solidarity against her, laughing at her childish tantrum.

The vision egged her on in cold fury. She would not come crawling back to them, begging their forgiveness. She would show them. She would find a way through Morp, by herself, if necessary.

. . . . . . . . .

Torn between his two feuding travelmates, Windglow groped to reach a decision. No Tishaaran in his right mind, and with time to consider the consequences, would willingly set foot in the land of Morp. He had only been wondering aloud when he had raised the possibility, which was why he abandoned the idea so easily. But in the end, he realized he could not abandon Delaney no matter how badly she had acted.

Having made his choice to retrieve her, he led them on at great speed, leading Shaska by the hand. The sooner they found her, the sooner they could get out of Morp. With luck, they might even be able to grab her before she reached Morp.

Occasionally, they had to hack their way through stands of undernourished birch saplings that choked the hillside. Hummer lagged behind, nursing a smoldering resentment that stifled his usual chattiness. He all but begged disaster to strike so he could throw this foolish decision in all their faces. Puddles’ behavior was unchanged. Whenever Windglow put him down, he waddled far behind, whining like a lost puppy until someone picked him up.

Wearing his stoniest expression, Windglow took longer and longer strides, his pace accelerated by frustration, which made matters difficult for blind Shaska as she tried to hold on to him.

“The Chamber entrusted me with the leadership of the expedition,” he muttered just loudly enough for her to hear. “I try my best to wield it lightly and judiciously in a manner befitting a Tishaaran. And what is my reward? Unanimous disrespect! I might as well be their pet goat! Why, they feel perfectly at ease to discard whatever directive I offer. ‘You say to avoid Death Falls, Windglow? Then by all means let us go there at once! You point us to the mountains, Windglow? Then we shall cross the valley. You wish the valley, Windglow? Then off to the mountains.’”

Shaska said nothing. She was in no mood to offer any words of conciliation.

Exactly when they crossed into the First Realm, no one knew. They observed no sudden switch from a color screen to black-and-white. Rather, the hues bled away almost imperceptibly, as if rinsed away by repeated washings.

If not for his own anxieties, Windglow would have laughed at how Hummer kept testing himself for symptoms of physical deterioration. He could hardly take five steps without hopping and clicking his heels. Once, when he thought Windglow was too far ahead to notice, he even performed a handspring to reassure himself that he was still a whole and functioning person.

As the woods thinned and the trail began to slope downward, Windglow’s hopes of soon locating Delaney rose. Summoning his most assertive voice, he called a halt. “If we were to climb a tree, we could look out over the land and perhaps spot Delaney. She cannot be far ahead. One of us shall have to go up and have a look around.”

“Brilliant idea. Help yourself to a tree,” said Hummer. He brushed some loose bark off a fallen elm and sat down heavily on the trunk. “Females!” he scoffed, easing his pack off his shoulders. “Of all the baggage to bring on a trip! We should have left her to find her own way. And you,” he griped, nodding at Shaska. “We should have left you at the falls. That is what we should have done.”

He looked over Shaska's head to see how Windglow was progressing in his climb up a knobby, stunted box elder. “What is the matter? Have you forgotten how to climb a tree?”

For there stood Windglow with one foot high in the crotch of the tree, the other still on tiptoes, bouncing lightly on the ground. He remained in that position for some time, his hamstring stretched to the limit, before Shaska, leaning against the same tree, finally asked, “Is something wrong?”

Windglow grunted while continuing to hop on his foot. Although he was accomplishing nothing he was laboring so hard that sweat beaded up on his brow. Quite out of breath, he sighed and admitted, “My foot is stuck.”

Hummer approached him warily. He studied Windglow's foot as if it were a rare and ancient artifact. "It's true!" he suddenly blurted. "Another trick of this accursed land! We have walked into a trap. Run! Run before they get us all!"

This triggered immediate, white-hot panic in its purest form. The flight reflex blasted clear into the stratosphere what little sense remained in their heads. Hummer and Shaska shot off in different directions. Absence of sight in no way inhibited her flight reflex. She was fortunate to slam into a tree three steps into her escape, before she had built up the speed to do herself any real damage. She tottered back a few steps in confusion.

Vision proved no more of an asset in Hummer's case. With his long legs splaying in an awkward gait, he tore through the sparse wood when he came to an abrupt halt, courtesy of a large, overhanging oak branch. He rammed his forehead into it at such speed that his feet flew up the air, nearly into a back flip, and he landed heavily on his back.

Windglow stared at him curiously. "I thought you said to run."

"Ohhhh!" moaned Hummer. "I did."

"But you are just crawling around. Begging your pardon, but crawling is not a particularly effective means of flight."

"You are a fine one to talk!" snapped a whoozy Hummer, rubbing his forehead. "I see that you have not moved at all."

"I am stuck."

"Which is the very thing we are trying to avoid. Come here, will you, so I can get you unstuck."

“How can I come to you with my foot caught in the tree?”

“Must you always be so difficult?” demanded Hummer. "Can you not see that I am in pain?"

"Ow! Where are you? I cannot see," called Shaska. "Help!"

Desperate to come to her aid, Windglow yanked hard on the trapped leg, and nearly snapped the ligaments in his ankle. “Aaah!” he yelled. The tree held fast to his throbbing foot, and still he struggled, refusing to ask for help.

Hearing the genuine pain in his voice, Shaska carefully worked her way to him. She found his leg and felt her way down to his foot. After tenderly probing the wedged extremity, she suddenly stood, wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled.

“Ow! Let go! Let go!” screamed Windglow. Before Shaska could react, both lost their balance. Shaska fell hard to the ground. She felt Windglow’s elbow waving over her face from where he hung by his trapped foot, in worse pain than before. He thrashed and kicked his free leg in an effort to right himself. Shaska tried to help but lost her grip on him. Suddenly unsupported, Windglow’s head swung down and struck the base of the trunk.

“This is no time for playing around, either of you,” said Hummer, sternly, still rubbing the knot on his forehead. He tottered over to them and, with considerable difficulty, pushed Windglow into an upright position. He then stumbled back to his pack and yanked on a hatchet handle with such carelessness that the blade slit one whole side of the pack and spilled most of its contents on the ground.

Oblivious to the mess he had created, he bowed with a flourish and cried, “Hummer to the rescue!”

“Are you insane?!” shouted Windglow as Hummer approached with the hatchet. “Stay away from me with that blade!”

“I understand now!” cried Shaska. “We must have entered . . . you know that place that we did not want to go!”

Windglow looked around and noticed for the first time that all color had bleached away, leaving behind an ash of various shades of gray. The leaves of the box elder took on a blackish hue; the soft blue of Shaska’s tunic a silvery gray. The sky appeared overcast, although, upon closer examination, there was no cloud in it. Flowers had surrendered their brilliant garments and dissolved into the dull color of the soil. Most stunning of all, Hummer’s strawberry hair had aged into gray and his hazel eyes turned steel-gray that made him look as though he had been possessed by a spirit. Shaska’s blond tresses faded into nondescript dullness.

While Windglow was taking all this in, Hummer drew near, wielding his hatchet. “Morp, eh? What did I tell you people? ‘A cursed land,’ I said. Winglow, I will chop your foot free on one condition. You will cease your obstinance and flee. Flee this Godforsaken place. Leave Delaney. She has chosen her fate.”

“Get away from me!” shrieked Windglow as Hummer lifted his blade high over his head, teetered for a moment, and brought it down in a slashing arc. The hatchet bit deep into the wood next to Windglow’s foot, which he, fueled by adrenaline, finally wrenched free, at considerable cost to a ligament. In doing so, he fell into Shaska, and this time it was he who sprawled over her.

“What did you think I was going to do?” said Hummer to the fallen pair. “Chop off your foot? I was chopping the wood. Now get up from there and help me get my blade out.”

Shaska coughed amid the suspended dust. Her entwined partner blushed as he pulled free and dusted himself off. Gingerly, he tested his swollen foot to see how much weight, if any, he could trust to it.

Hummer, who took great pride in his woodcutting abilities, found to his dismay that he could not extract the hatchet from the tree. Despite their best, or considering their state of coordination, worst efforts, none of them could budge the blade. Hands raw and bubbling with blisters from the effort, Hummer conceded that they had no choice but to abandon his prized tool to the tree.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“I believe we have set some kind of record for efficient incompetence,” said Shaska. “In one morning we have managed to lose Delaney, a hatchet, the use of Windglow’s foot, and most of our brains.”

“And now to top it all, I cannot seem to find the path we were following,” said Windglow.

Hummer raised an eyebrow at Windglow and then at the broken branches and trodden ground they had been following. “As my departed friend, Delaney would say, `Hello!’ The path lies before us as clear as day.”

“But which trail is it?” asked Windglow. “Is it the fleeing trail or the finding one?”

“What are you talking about?”

“It seems to me we were searching for someone. Then when I got stuck, you said to flee. Well, which are we doing?”

“Fleeing?” guessed Hummer.

“No, we are not,” Shaska insisted, with authority. “We came here to find someone; not to flee.”

Hummer stood rubbing his chin, searching his memory. “You raise a good point. Who or what would we be looking for again?”

Although she had just said Delaney's name moments ago, Shaska was stumped.

“Female, I believe. About this high,” offered Windglow, in all seriousness. He held his hand at varying levels, never quite satisfied he had accurately reproduced their quarry’s dimensions.

The effect of the First Realm was so debilitating that Windglow could scarcely analyze what was happening. His emotions and instincts had dulled along with his powers of reason and coordination. He felt drugged.

“I warned against this,” said Hummer. “But now that we are here, we shall just have to put our best foot forward.”

Windglow stared at his feet. “Which one would that be?”

Hummer stared at his feet and then looked blankly at Windglow. “I am not altogether certain.”

What followed was possibly the stupidest debate ever conducted in the history of any realm--so utterly banal and devoid of sense that it went unrecorded and unremembered by any of the party. Windglow later compared the application of reason to a problem in Morp to trying to paint a mural on a spinning top. Identifying Windglow’s best foot was no problem, as he was limping badly with the other. But at the end of three-quarters of an hour, neither Hummer nor Shaska had yet made a final determination as to which which of their feet rated the honor of going first. The debate ended only when none of them could remember what it was about.

Among them, the three cobbled together just enough sense to stay more or less on task. They followed Delaney’s trail down to where a hill dotted with scrub pine and mullen emptied onto the open plain. Almost immediately, all three staggered and fell head over heels down the slope. Windglow managed better on one foot than Hummer, who pitched over an eroded bank and caromed off one tree after another, then pinballed his way to the bottom where he landed in a heap of dust and soot. Close behind tumbled Shaska, kicking up even more ash. Windglow had managed to stop himself early in the fall and now hobbled cautiously down the rest of the slope on his hurt foot.

As he sat groaning and spluttering in the pile of rubble they had skimmed off the hill, Hummer rubbed the dust from his eyes. He then went about testing various muscles to see if any were still in working order. Content that he could still function, he nodded sagely as he reflected on the freshly scarred landscape behind them. “There are not many trees on that hill. You would think, law of averages and everything, that I could have missed one of them on the way down.”

For a long time they sat, trying to grasp where they were, how they had gotten there, and what they were supposed to be doing. Finally, Shaska rose ponderously to her feet. She offered a hand toward one of the two blurred shapes. But just as Hummer grabbed it and started to pull himself up, she suddenly yanked it away. Hummer fell back heavily on his rear with a shout of dismay.

“Why did you do that? asked Windglow.

Shaska shook her head as if trying to clear the fog. “I am not certain. I think it might be because I’m tired of men falling on me. That seems to be what happens whenever I try to help someone in Morp.”

“What happens when you try to whip someone in Morp?” snarled an angry Hummer, as he pulled out his tishaarat. But as he drew his hand back and aimed the blow at Shaska, the backswing caught Windglow in the eye.

“Ow! Hummer, why did you hit me?” he yelped.

“I, uh, hmmm. That is a difficult question. I sincerely hope you deserved it, although I cannot for the life of me remember what prompted it. I confess I am not certain whether to apologize or to hit you again to reinforce the drubbing you so richly deserve."

“Put that away,” cried Windglow, rubbing his sore eye. “We must get on with our task.”

“Which was?” asked Hummer.

Windglow stared blankly at him. Something in the back of his head told him they were engaged in some kind of activity, possibly even something important. But he could not remember what it was.

“Shaksa, can you help us out here?” Hummer finally asked.

“We were looking for someone, were we not? A young woman?”

“Ah, that was it,” said Hummer. He peered into the dull, dusty horizon. Without turning his head, he asked Windglow, “This female we seek; do you remember what she was wearing?”

“Tishaaran clothing, if I remember rightly.”

Hummer pondered this a moment. “Which means it is probably some shade of blue or green. Do you remember which it was, Shaksa?”

“Certainly. She was wearing the opposite of what I have on.”

Windglow studied her outfit. “I forget, what is the opposite of gray?”

Shaska racked her brain trying to come up with the suitable answer.

“Now I declare we are getting somewhere!” exclaimed Hummer, suddenly. “Who says this Morp realm drags you down to their level?”

“I believe you said that,” noted Windglow. “I cannot help but suspect there might be some truth to it, too.”

“Well, I was wrong. By the simple process of using our wits we have already eliminated a possible decoy. A red herring. A blue donkey.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Shaska.

“Look out there,” said Hummer, squinting into the harsh glare of the bleached land.

“Is that not a female? And in fact clad in Tishaaran clothing? But she is not wearing the opposite of Shaska’s color. In fact, she appears to wearing the same color--gray. Thus, she cannot be the young woman we seek. Hence, we shall waste no time in pursuit of her.”

Shaska congratulated him on his good sense.

“What are you saying?” cried Windglow. “That is Delaney! All colors are gray in this realm.”

Hummer stared at the ground as if working out a complex equation in his head. All at once his face lit up. “Brilliant! Well done! Yes, I believe you have put your finger on it.” He stood grinning with his arms across his chest like a proud parent watching his child accept an award. “Why that is what's her name!"

"Delaney!" shouted Shaska, as the name suddenly came to her.

"Delaney. That's it. Why, there she is. What a coincidence meeting her in this realm! I wonder if she has seen the woman we seek.”

“Perhaps we could ask her,” suggested Windglow.

“Coincidence?” squawked Shaska. “You big ape! Delaney is the woman for whom we are looking. Do not just stand there like idiots. We must catch her.”

They staggered onto the sun-baked crust in front of them, a vast plain dotted with precariously balanced rock formations that the wind had carved out of sandstone. The ground was like a concrete floor covered with an inch or two of chalk dust.

Windglow, nursing his badly sprained knee, limped along behind Hummer, still guiding the sightless Shaska by the hand. “Are you certain there are apes in this realm? I have always thought them to be facetious characters. No, that's not the word. Factitious?"

Hummer saw another creature out in the center of the plain near Delaney--a thick, compact beast with curved tusks and a thick snout, snuffling along next to a stand of fleshy cactus. “I don’t know. Is that an ape?”

“That is no ape,” said Windglow. “At least not yet. I believe that is a wild boar.”

“Is it dangerous?” asked Shaska.

“If we leave it alone, I suspect it will leave us alone.”

Windglow may well have been right, but his theory was never tested, thanks to an astonishing lapse of judgment.

When Delaney had stumbled unto the plain of Morp, she had initially regarded the parched land as a Godsend. Mostly flat, dry, and with unlimited visibility, it promised far easier travel than the thick woods and brambles through which she had been fighting. All she had to do now was keep walking straight and she would eventually pass out of Morp and into the Second Realm. There was no way she could veer off course since she could mark her progress in the chalky ground. Quite unexpectedly, she found herself convinced she had made the right decision in coming this way. Unless some disaster struck, she would be in Orduna well ahead of the Tishaarans, with plenty of time to prepare a feast of crow for them.

Her confidence lasted until she went to drink from her canteen and discovered only a swallow left. She realized that she had seen no sign of water since entering Morp, and could not last long in this desert.

And now she found herself approaching a wild beast with savage-looking tusks. Her heart skipped a beat, and she backed off instinctively, looking for an escape. She could have gone behind the jigsawed, wind-swept pillar of sandstone stone next to which she was standing, and would never have encountered the animal. But the situation reminded her of her terror at the wolf approach in the August Mountains, and all that she could remember from that incident was that stones were thrown, with some effect. Throwing stones was how one dealt with wild beasts.

She stooped and collected some large chunks of rock, which she hurled anemically in the general vicinity of the boar. Her aim was so poor that the creature was in no danger of being struck. Indeed, it might never have noticed her had she not screamed in frustration at her ineptitude.

At this, the boar finally lifted its head and discovered various missiles striking the dirt around him. Discovering itself under attack, as it were, the beast squealed with rage and charged, his white tusks clearly outlined against the black of his snout.

“Delaney, run!” screamed Windglow, as the Tishaarans rushed to her aid.

Paralyzed with fear, however, she shut her eyes, curled up, and awaited the end.

Fortunately, the boar, a recent stray from the Second Realm, showed a haplessness the equal of its target. Delaney flinched ever so slightly to one side and the boar found itself unequal to the task of even this minute adjustment. It sailed past her shoulder. With a grunt that echoed across the plain, slammed face-first in the dirt, its tusks digging a furrow in the hard ground.

As the boar regained its feet and staggered backward on rubbery legs, a band of small, repulsive people with stringy, uncombed hair sprang out from behind the rock. They rushed the boar, shouting, leaping, stumbling, their stone weapons hurtling through the air in all directions. These creatures resembled a sort of prehistoric human, only more pathetic than brutish. They ran in comical fashion, with shoulders hunched around their jaws and arms hanging limp as noodles. Large ears with fleshy lobes protruded from their small heads, and their eyes were set deeply into their sloped foreheads. They carried a primitive arsenal of dull spears, arrows with broken shafts and missing feathers, rocks, and splintered clubs.

The boar churned frantically around the rock, legs splaying as if it were running on wet ice. The emaciated Neanderthal creatures chased it twice around the rock before the winded beast clattered up the one accessible slope on the north side of the formation. Upon reaching the top, it found itself trapped. Unable to stop its momentum, a fault that was evidently a characteristic of all First Realmers, it sailed over a ledge and fell heavily to the ground.

The air filled with gray people leaping after the beast from the rock, some landing around it, a few landing directly on it. A huge commotion followed, partly obscured by an eddy of dust. The Morps flailed away at the boar, beating each other badly in the process. Eventually, they landed enough blows on the boar to kill it. The creatures ran off, singing something that sounded more like an off-key dirge than a celebration, and dragging the boar behind them. Half a dozen injured Morps hobbled after the pack, nursing bruises and, most likely, fractures. Despite the fact that these people had nearly trampled Delaney in their first rush, they seemed either unaware of or unconcerned with her presence.

“Delaney, are you all right?” cried Windglow.

She swiveled her head wildly for a few moments until she located the origin of the familiar voice calling her name. With a weary smile, she trudged toward them. It was Shaska who restrained her mates when they drew close, warning that “even at this speed, we may not be able to avoid a collision. Course correction seems a foreign concept in Morp.” She was right, for though they began to brake well in advance of reaching Delaney, they nonetheless ran into her like a blocking wedge converging on a single football opponent.

Again, Windglow took the brunt of the collision. Ever the gentleman, he ducked just enough so that Delaney sprawled on top of him instead of vice versa.

“Honestly, Windglow,” said Hummer, in disgust, “you have the morals of a mink. if you cannot keep your hands off these wenches, I shall have to report you to the Chamber.”

That prompted a lustful thought from Delaney. “I wonder what happens if someone tries to kiss in this awful land,” she said.

“Excellent question. I volunteer to conduct a test,” said Hummer, puckering up at Shaska. “Purely in the interest of science. Hah, and they said wit could not exist in the Realm.”

Shaska ignored him.

“For some reason, I keep thinking I should be terribly upset with you, Delaney,” said Windglow, knotting his brows.

“How strange; so do I!” exclaimed Hummer. “I cannot for the life of me think why. Go sit in a corner.”

“I seem to remember that you were all slime-sucking jerks and I hate your guts.” said Delaney.

“Shall we let bygones be bygones?” said Shaska. “I cannot help but think we would be wise to pass through this land as quickly as possible. Does anyone remember in which direction we were traveling?”

As with most questions in Morp, this produced a round of blank stares, none of which Shaska could see.

“Are you still here?” she called.

“Oh course,” said Delaney, disgustedly. “Like there’s anywhere to go!”

“Then why did you not answer? Are you telling me we are lost?”

“Oh, I would not worry,” said Windglow. “This should be easy enough to figure out. I mean, how many directions can there be?”

“True; there are only four,” agreed Shaska. “Surely one of them must be right.”

“Why, I can do you better than that,” said Hummer, proudly. “The sun was behind us as we walked into Morp. All we need do is keep the sun at our backs and we shall be going in the right direction.”

All agreed that Hummer was a genius, his steel-trap mind immune to the effects of Morp. Off they went across the Plain. Delaney led Shaska, Windspear hobbled along.

Three weeks later, they remained in much the same formation, still traipsing in circles across the ashen Plain of Morp with the sun always on their backs, traveling west in the morning, north in the midday, and east during the evening. They would have perished of thirst had they not stumbled across the only stream flowing through Morp, where they could refill their canteens, and then stumbled across the very same spot a week later.

At times they discussed why they were so far from home and what they were doing in Morp, without reaching any genuine consensus. They were very nearly spent from hunger and exhaustion when Delaney noticed a green tinge returning to grasses and leaves.

“We made it!” shouted Hummer, racing deeper into the vibrant colors. Their euphoria faded, however, when they finally regained their faculties and pieced together where they had come out. They were now, in fact, very near the point at which they had entered Morp weeks ago.

No one entertained for a second the notion of cutting back through Morp. Severely weakened and many pounds lighter after their long ordeal, they slowly began the long circuitous trek around the First Realm, a trek that would put them in Orduna nearly a full month behind schedule.