Diane was at the head of the column, close behind Scratch, while Duncan was last in line, with Andrew just ahead of him. The hermit, it seemed to Duncan, was becoming tired. He stumbled every now and then and was doing a lot more splashing with his staff than seemed necessary. Before too long, Duncan knew, they would have to stop to rest. He hoped that soon they would reach another of the little rocky islands. Since they had left the first island, they had come to and passed over two others. He had no idea if there were more ahead. He hoped there were, for Andrew certainly had need of rest, and perhaps some of the others as well. Conrad, despite his rugged strength, must be experiencing heavy going with his injured arm.

The water was not deep, seldom more than above his knees, but the going was slow and laborious, for with each step it was necessary to reach out and feel for solid footing before putting down one's weight.

There had been no interruptions. Twice great bodies had hurled themselves out of the fen, but had been prevented from reaching those upon the ledge of rock by the shallowness of the water. One of them Duncan had not seen, since it had hurled itself at the head of the column. He had only heard the furious splashing as the creature fought to drive itself across the ledge. The other he had seen only momentarily and in the poor light had been unable to gain more than a fleeting impression of it. The body had been huge and thick, the head vaguely toadlike. His strongest impression had been of the single, list-sized eye that for a moment had been caught in the moonlight, blazing red like an angry jewel.

All the night they had heard the far-off wailing for the world, and now it seemed to Duncan that they must be getting closer to it. It was louder and did not fade in and out as it had before. Now it kept on and on, the wailing varying in pitch but never going away. If one concentrated on it, Duncan told himself, it could be not only an annoying, but an unnerving sound. In the last hour or so it had seemed to him that he was, in a degree, becoming accustomed to it. One can get used to almost anything, be thought. Or maybe he only hoped so.

Ahead of him Andrew stumbled and went to his knees. Moving quickly, Duncan seized him and pulled him to his feet.

"You're getting tired," he said.

"I am tired," whined the hermit. "Tired in body and in soul."

"I can understand about the body," Duncan said. "What's this business of the soul?"

"The good Lord," said Andrew, "has been pleased to show me that through all my years of unremitting and conscientious labor I have acquired some small measure of a certain holiness. And how have I used it? How have I put to use this feeble power of mine? I'll tell you how. By freeing a demon from his chains. By overcoming, or helping to overcome, a vicious and a devious heathen magic, but only with the aid of one sunk deep in witchery. It is an evil thing to collaborate with a witch or any other force or practitioner of evil, my lord. It is worse to take some credit to myself for something that well might have been done by witchery alone, for I have no way of knowing to what degree, if any at all, I was responsible for the opening of the path that freed us from the forest."

"One of these days," said Duncan harshly, "this overwhelming self-pity that you feel will be the death and the damnation of you. Remember, man, that you are a soldier of the Lord—self-proclaimed, perhaps, but still, in your mind, a soldier of the Lord."

"Yes," said Andrew, "a soldier of the Lord, but a poor one. A little fumbling, inept soldier who quakes inside himself with fear, who finds no joy in it, who drives himself to be what he may not be."

"You'll feel better," said Duncan, "once you've had a chance to rest. It has been a bitter day for us and you no longer young. You've shown the true spirit of a soldier in bearing up so well."

"It might have been better," said Andrew, "if I'd remained in my simple cell and not gone adventuring. This journey has revealed to me more of my true self than is comfortable to know. I have accomplished nothing and…"

"Now, hold up," Duncan told him. "It would appear to me that you have accomplished quite a lot. If you had not freed the demon he would not have been able to guide us across the fen."

Andrew brightened up. "I had not thought of that," he said, "although to accomplish that I gave aid and comfort to an imp of Satan."

"He doesn't belong to Satan any longer. Remember that. He ran away from Hell."

"But still he is a thing of wickedness. He has no grace within him and no possibility…"

"If by that you mean he is not a convert to Christianity, it is true. He's not. But in view of what he has done for us, we must count him as a friend and ally."

"My lord, at times it seems to me that you have strange values."

"Each of us," said Duncan, "must decide upon our own values. Take it easy now. If you should stumble once again, I'll be here to fish you out."

Following the still tottery, fumbling hermit, Duncan gazed out across the fen. It was a place of flatness, a great expanse of limpid water stretching out on every side, broken here and there by darker splotches that probably were beds of reeds growing in a patch of shallow water or small islands of willows rooted in a mud flat.

The wailing continued, rising, falling, a lonely sound that could twist the heart of one who allowed himself to listen to it and to nothing else. After a time, even listening to it peripherally, the sound seemed to acquire a weight, as if it were a physical substance that bore down upon one. Duncan found himself wondering if it might be the weight of the wailing, pressing on the fen, that made it so flat and featureless. Nothing, he told himself, not even a watery wilderness such as this, could stand unaffected beneath the weight of the wailing for the world.

Ahead of him loomed a pile of rocks, another island, with those ahead of him clambering over it. He increased his stride, caught Andrew's arm, assisting him over the great slabs of riven stone. He found a flat slab that made a good seat and swung Andrew around and sat him down upon it.

"You stay here and rest," he told him. "Don't move until I come to get you. You're all tuckered out."

Andrew did not answer. He hunched up his knees, put his arms down on them and bent his head to rest it upon the folded arms.

Duncan clambered up the rocks and found the rest of the company on the other side, settling down to rest. He said to Snoopy, "I think we should hold up for a while. Everyone must be tired. Andrew is about played out."

"So are the others," Snoopy said. "Big and tough as he may be, Conrad has almost had it. That arm is hurting him a lot. You'll have to talk with Scratch. Reason with him a little. He's hell-bent for going on. That demon is all whang-leather. He doesn't know what tired is. He could keep on forever. He'll want to go on after we rest only for a short while."

"What's his hurry?"

"I don't know. We must be better than halfway across by now. It is hard to judge. Everything looks the same here. There aren't any landmarks."

"I'll talk with him. He may have a reason. Have you seen anything of Nan?"

Snoopy made a face. "I think she's gone."

"You mean she left us?"

"I can't be sure, but I think maybe. She's not a good flyer. You know that. A flutterer rather than a flyer."

"Yes, I know."

"Over land, where she can come down anywhere or anytime she wishes, she wouldn't mind. But here, if she had to come down, there is nothing solid to set down on, only water. Banshees hate the water. Besides, there's danger here."

"You mean the things that rushed us."

"Well, yes, those. We're fairly safe from them so long as we are on the ledge. Here they can't get at us. The water is too shallow and they're too big. Otherwise, we'd have been gobbled up."