Niall observed that the colors of the woodland through which they were now making their way seemed in some way oddly faded and dim, as if seen on a cloudy day; he tried “looking sideways,” but was unable to glimpse any nature spirits. The chameleon men confirmed this; the presence of the unfriendly elemental had driven all other spirits away.
Niall was deeply interested in this insight; it was something he had often sensed intuitively, yet had never consciously grasped: that the life of nature depends on elemental spirits, and that without these spirits, the most beautiful scenery lacks some essence of vitality.
A mile or so farther on, the woodland came to an end, and the stream vanished underground into a cave with a low entrance. The grass here was rich and green, spotted with late buttercups, and the practice of “looking sideways” revealed once again the presence of nature spirits.
The path they had been following continued in a straight line toward a ridge of hills. Here Niall made another interesting observation. It was quite apparent to him that the stream continued to flow under his feet; it produced a distinct tingling sensation. Niall had always possessed this ability to sense underground water; it was part of the essential equipment of the desert dweller. But it had been merely a faint tingle in his legs. Now it was a curious, vibrant sensation that he could sense throughout his body.
Where the path curved to the left toward a gap in the hills, the tingling stopped; obviously, the stream and the path had diverged.
The grass they were walking on now was springy and green, bringing back a memory of the city of conical towers in his dream. The track they were following must at some time have been a road, for they passed large stones that were partly buried in the turf, and a few of these had some kind of writing carved on them, although Niall was unable to decipher it, or even make out the configuration of the letters. The chameleon men were unable to say who had placed the stones in position, or what they were intended for, although they believed they were thousands of years old. But they pointed out, on the moor they were now crossing, other stone monuments. One of these, a hundred yards off the road, was like a gigantic stone mushroom, whose top was at least six feet wide. Glancing sideways at this, Niall was startled to glimpse a figure like a little old man sitting on the top of it. When he turned his head to stare, the figure was no longer there.
Now, quite unexpectedly, a freezing wind blew from behind them, carrying rain. The gust was so powerful that it almost blew Niall onto his knees. He recognized immediately that this was not a natural wind, but that it was somehow connected with the elemental they had driven out of its home. This was the revenge the chameleon men had anticipated. It was not directed against them — since they could not be harmed by natural forces — but against Niall, who was vulnerable to wind and rain.
Niall’s companion indicated some kind of monument on the hillside, and they hurried toward it as black clouds turned the sunny afternoon into a kind of dusk and the wind caused Niall to stumble on the uneven turf. As they came closer, Niall saw that it consisted of six large upright megaliths placed close together, with another huge flat stone balanced on top of them. They hurried into this shelter as the storm broke, and the rain came down so hard that it turned the hillside into mist. Niall lost no time in flinging his pack on the ground and taking shelter from the wind against the largest of the great uprights. But although it was at least four feet in width, it seemed inadequate to protect Niall from the wind, which seemed to blow from all sides, or from the driving rain.
As Niall began to shiver, the chameleon men became increasingly concerned. A great crash of thunder sounded so close by that it made the stones vibrate, while lightning that struck the ground ten feet away gave Niall a distinct electric shock.
The chameleon men clearly felt it was time they did something. They made Niall stand up — he had been crouching behind the upright stone — so his head almost touched the triangular granite block that formed the roof, and then made a circle around him. Niall assumed they were trying to protect him from the wind, and that the maneuver was doomed to failure, since the powerful blasts blew straight through them. In fact, they went on to place their hands on Niall, some on his shoulders, some on his back, some on his head, which immediately induced the deep sense of calm that he had experienced in the underground cave. What they were actually doing was transmitting to Niall the vibrations of their physical being. For a few seconds, he instinctively resisted the force that was attempting to alter his rate of vibration. Then he realized that what they were trying to do could only be achieved with his help. It required a peculiar kind of mental effort, which involved using their energies and somehow blending them together by an act of will.
As soon as he did this, Niall felt himself dissolving, as if his body was turning into air. As the vibrational rate of his being increased, something fell around his feet, and he realized that it was his clothes; but his feet and legs had become invisible. He was standing there naked, and the wind and rain were blowing straight through him.
There was another vibrational change, and a wave of cold energy ran up his spine. As it reached his head, the chameleon men suddenly became visible, looking more solid than he had ever seen them before. And his own body was also clearly visible. But he could no longer feel the wind, which continued to howl past him, and which blew his clothes against the opposite wall. On the other hand, the stones around him seemed to turn into glass, so that he could see straight through them, and see the rain that ran down their sides like a shower down a windowpane.
With a tremendous final blast, the wind and rain suddenly stopped, banishing any notion that this might have been an ordinary storm. Within minutes, the sky was blue. But Niall was in no hurry to leave the rock shelter. In fact, he was in no hurry to do anything — his bodiless state brought a marvelous sense of freedom. He had never realized before how much the human body weighs, and how much effort it costs to carry it around. It suddenly struck him that if he had to carry a burden weighing as much as his own body, he would soon be exhausted. The lightness was intoxicating.
But it also brought a disconcerting sense of timelessness, rather like the relaxation that followed a large glass of wine. Time seemed merely another name for anxiety, and he felt glad to be rid of it. On the other hand, the world around him had never seemed so fascinating. To begin with, this strange building that had sheltered him from the storm was not merely a monument from the dawn of history; it was also a marker, placed upon this spot because it was the most important place for miles around. It was the place where many earth forces joined together. If Niall had chosen to sit there for a few days, he could have learned not only the history of this moor, but all the secrets of nature.
He was also aware that this place had a guardian, an old man who now seemed benevolent, but who once had been a brutal warrior king who had slain many enemies and dismembered others while they were still alive. This area of the moor had once been the site of a great battle, where the king had died of his wounds after putting his enemies to flight. Now he would have also gladly left, but memory of the cruelty he had inflicted bound him to this place.
Niall could have learned the king’s life story merely by staying there and absorbing what had been written in the stones. But his own memory told him this was no time to delay. They were close to the edge of the territory of his companions, and soon it would be time for him travel into the unknown.
The chameleon men, who were aware of all Niall’s thoughts and feelings, were saddened by his decision; it seemed incredible to them that anyone could want to leave their eternal realm of nature to return to the busy human world. Now that they had shared Niall’s thoughts and feelings for so long, they had become aware of the peculiar difficulties of being human, the narrow limits of human consciousness, the mechanicalness of the human body, and its need to struggle against the hard facts of physical reality, and they no longer found it all so fascinating.