On he went, opposed by many, reducing them to dust as he had the first, until, finally, he noticed that the ground sloped upward. He was climbing a hill. The air was almost opaque with dust. Something touched him on the leg and he struck in every direction with his sword, frantically.
At last he saw what the woman by the pool had bade him seek. The top of the hill was shaped into a living thing, a giant visible from the waist up, as tall as a castle’s tower, bloated in the belly like a toad, paste-colored, with the face of an i***t. The face loomed above him in the swirling dust, in the dim twilight of the Underearth. As he watched, the monster raised a bottle to its lips. The bottle was as big as the Water Dove and made of transparent glass. Inside, someone struggled in the thick liquor.
