The shadows and the chill mountain air seemed to swallow Blade the moment he stepped into the pass. Before he'd gone a mile it was as if the barren, sun-baked slopes and the desert to the east had been a dream. Vast, rocky monoliths that seemed to brood were all around him. Blade had a sense of entering a world not made to human proportions, where he was an unwanted intruder.

Still, he would push on as long as he could. If the mountain men were the people of the poppy flower, they might have a short way with strangers, but that was a risk he'd have to face. Meanwhile, he would take special care to memorize his route and mark his trail. He might want to get out of the mountains much faster than he came in.

Blade strode on briskly, arms swinging to pump more air into his massive chest. The air around him was getting noticeably thinner. It would be cold tonight, but not dangerously so long as there was no wind.

The air was still all that afternoon as Blade plunged deeper and deeper into the mountains. Where the sun lit up the slopes and blazed from the snowcaps of the peaks, the scenery had a magnificent Alpine beauty. Blade found himself almost regretting that he wasn't going to be able to spend some time climbing a few of the mountains around him. For a while he amused himself with the fantasy of retiring here, when large-scale travel into Dimension X was perfected, and opening a resort. He was quite sure he could make this Dimension a popular tourist destination.

Twilight overtook him on the edge of a mountain meadow of coarse grass dotted with tiny yellow flowers. A stream leaped from the top of a black cliff to his left, to make a waterfall as it plunged and a clear cold pool where it landed. Blade drank, stretched out on the ground, and fell asleep with the splashing of the waterfall in his ears.