He consulted his gleaming chrono once again, confirming the time. Yes, his sleep-filled eyes had not misread it. Hours still remained before the dawn.

He rubbed his eyes and thought back upon her beauty. She had seemed so very quiet this time. Though he seldom remembered the words, it seemed that there had been fewer of them. Was it sadness that had marked the tenderness? He recalled a hand upon his brow and something moist that fell onto his cheek.

He shook his head and chuckled. Was he indeed mad, as he had expected lives ago, back in that Strantrian shrine? To consider her as a real person was an act of madness.

On the one hand ...

On the other... How do you explain a recurring dream, anyway? One that persists over a decade? Not the dream, exactly, though. Only the principals and the setting. The dialogue changed, the moods shifted. But each time he was taken with a sense of love and strength into a place of peace. Perhaps he should have seen a psychiatrist. If he had wanted to straighten himself out, that is. But he did not, he decided. Not really. Alone most of the time, who was there for him to harm? Awake when he dealt with others, he was not influenced by them. They gave him comfort and distraction. Why destroy one of the harmless pleasures of life? There seemed no progressive derangement involved.

So he lay there for several hours. He thought about the future. He watched the sky grow light, and one by one he saw the stars put away. He was curious as to the happenings on other worlds. It had been a long while that he had been away from News Central.

When dawn broke the world in two, he rose, sponged himself, trimmed his hair and beard, dressed. He breakfasted, packed his belongings, stowed his pack on his back and started downhill.

Half an hour later, he was passing through the outskirts of town.