All of this was interesting, but the sight of Anotine standing there, still alive, diverted my attention and almost brought tears to my eyes. Her clothes were torn and there were scuff marks of grime on her cheeks and arms, but she was beautiful. The fact that we were now prisoners in this structure, adrift on a seemingly limitless expanse of silver ocean, did not faze me as long as I was with her.

I moved close in order to touch her, but as I approached, she put her hand on the back of the chair and pushed. It remained stationary, attached to the device that connected it to the rail, but it spun around so that the seat faced me. Sitting in it was an old man with a white beard. He was bald on top, and the same white hair grew at the sides of his head. His eyes were closed and his lips were drawn into a subtle grin. If I had any doubts that it was Below, the blue silken pajamas he wore erased them. It was the exact outfit he had been wearing back in the other world.

"The sentinel," said Anotine, and laughed horribly. "The judge of our lives on the island. I knew he must be sleeping.

It was all for nothing." She began to cry, then turned and slapped Below across the face, screaming for him to wake up.

She brought her hand back to strike him again, but I caught it and restrained her. "It won't do any good," I said, trying to put my arm around her. She shrugged it off and stepped away.

"This isn't even death, Cley. I should have given myself up to the Delicate. Where are we? What are we? This is forever."

"Easy, easy," I said to her. "We'll find a way out of this," but as I spoke, I could feel the crushing weight of loneliness that she was feeling. We had each other for the moment, but beyond us, there was nothing. I fought back my desire to tell her everything I knew.

"Look here," I said, noticing that the device that connected the chair to the rail also had another part, a console that, when the seat was turned toward the outside, could be controlled by the occupant. It was a black board with switches and dials and two long levers.

"This reminds me of your black box," I said. "Perhaps you could figure out what its purpose is."

She refused to take the bait I hoped would divert her attention from the deplorable state we were in. Turning her back, she moved away to the opposite side of the dome. I left her alone for the time being, knowing there was nothing I could say that might change our situation, and anything I could tell her would only serve to reveal greater depths of hopelessness.

The fact that Below, or some mnemonic representation of Below, was there in the dome did not surprise me all that much. From the beginning of my journey, I always expected that I would find the Master. And why not? It was his world. We were breathing his imagination. I only wished he had been in a condition that might have allowed me to reason with him. "If only I could awaken him," I thought, "I could simply ask him what the antidote is." At that point, though, I was uncertain if Misrix would be able to bring me out. It became clear to me as I stood there above the old man, staring down at him, that the demon had lost me.

I reached over to the console and slowly turned one of the knobs. As it spun, the light thrown off by the dome diminished in brightness. The more I moved the knob, the more the darkness of night outside became evident, and I realized then that my nap had lasted for an entire day. Wanting to see the extent of the device, I brought the glow to a bare minimum, then turned it out altogether.

"Cley," Anotine called.

"It's all right" I said. "I'm making it happen." Looking up through the clear crystal of the now extinguished dome, I could see a multitude of stars above. They shone with fierce clarity, and I wondered what they were in relation to Below's mnemonics. The absence of the light made the inner dome seem more still and quiet than before. Straight ahead, out through the transparent membrane, I saw the ocean rolling—shadowy hills on the move, glistening here and there in the wash of light from a half-moon that hung low, off to our left.

"It's pretty," said Anotine, who had found her way back to my side.

"Yes," I said.

"I suppose this is Below," she said, nodding toward the chair.

"I'm afraid so," I said.

"I have only one question, Cley. What is the point of all of this?"

I don't think she could have faulted me had I admitted that I had no idea, but I thought hard for an answer. After a long time of watching the waves moving in the night, I said, "It has something to do with Below's fear of uncertainty."

"I can taste that fear right now," she said.

"Rather bitter," I agreed, "but, believe me, I know from experience, not half as bad as the taste of its opposite."

She took my hand, and, leaving the light of the dome extinguished, we moved to the middle of the floor. I understand how impulsive it sounds given the circumstances, but there we undressed and lay down on the floor. We worked at finding the moment with all our might, as if trying to assert our reality. In the midst of making love, there was at least the illusion of freedom.

When we were finished, Anotine rolled over next to me, and whispered sleepily in my ear. "Do you still believe in me, Cley?"

I told her I did, and soon after that, I could tell from the easy measure of her breathing that she was asleep. That is when a familiar sensation began to move through my body. I sat up and turned my head as if listening, but in actuality I was trying to place in my memory the feeling of a flower blossoming in my solar plexus. I remembered, like an old friend, the circumstance of tiny bubbles bursting in my head. The transformation that was taking place in me was strange, but not unpleasant. I chanced a look back down at Anotine, and it became clear to me.

What my body was experiencing was the identical reaction that had been brought on, years earlier, by my injecting myself with the drug, sheer beauty. The tentacles of the hallucinogen began to wrap around my mind, and it all made perfect sense. I knew that Anotine's hidden essence was the formula for the beauty, and now it did not hide itself from me. It felt wonderfully warm and invigorating. Thoughts rushed through my mind like a bright stream, and one that leaped out was the question of how I had gone so long without an injection.

The ever-present sound of the waves organized themselves into music, and the stars above flew in erratic courses like fire flies. I began to laugh and couldn't stop. Everything became clear to me. The disintegration of the floating island was merely the first piece of Below's memory to go as the effects of the sleeping disease wasted him. The reason for this was because it was the most highly organized, what with its symbolic system. Anotine and I had escaped into another part of the memory, perhaps that part we acquire by merely going through our days with our eyes open.

As was the case with the drug when I had taken it by injection, an apparition began to appear before me. It solidified out of thin air, first appearing as a shimmering phantom, and then a mirage of flesh and bone. Four feet in front of me sat the black dog, Wood. There were scars on his flanks, and one of his ears was missing.

"Come, boy," I said, and held out my hands.

He walked over to sit right in front of me. I petted him and put my arms around him. His coat was smooth to my touch, and the place where his ear was missing was still wet with blood. It gave me the greatest comfort simply to pet him.

"You're alive, " I said.

He barked, and I opened my eyes to sunlight.