Something crackled beneath his foot. He stooped. It was a twig with a few dry leaves attached. It had been tumbled along by the wind. It was acacia, though he did not recognize it, never having seen the tree.

His heart leapt. Where trees grew there must be water. He limped faster, moving like a man dancing on coals.

Dawn came. He was stumbling and falling more than walking. His hands and knees were raw. The great stone beast loomed high ahead, up just a few hundred yards of slope.

It was larger than he had estimated. It reared at least two hundred feet into the air, and stretched back out of sight over the lip of the flat space surrounding it. It was very old and time-worn. The once deeply carven features were all but invisible now.

He paid little heed to the stone figure. His eyes were all for the scraggly trees around the fabulous creature's fore-paws.

The sun beat at his naked back, igniting new agonies. Though he fell more and more often, he pressed on. Crawling, he dragged himself onto the flat area.

Water! A shallow pool lay between the monster's feet... He heaved himself upright and tottered forward, fell on his face half in and half out of the moisture in the depression. He gulped the algae-thick, stagnant water till his belly ached.

Only minutes later he heaved it up again.

He waited, and drank more, though sparingly this time. Then he splashed across the pool into a shadow that looked like it would persist all day. He collapsed into a fetal ball and slept.

He dreamed strange and powerful dreams.

The woman in white came. She examined his hurts. Where her fingers touched the pain went away. He looked on himself and found that he had healed. He tried to mask his nakedness with his hands. She smiled gently and went to stand between the monster's paws. She stared at the moon lifting out of the sea, limning the fortress riding the spine of the island off the coast.