The Willing Spirit by Piers Anthony

Author:Piers Anthony [Anthony, Piers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497658417
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-06-30T21:00:00+00:00

The top of the hill was flat, and looking about, he could see no sign of danger. Then he looked up and his heart leapt to his throat. There, staring down at him from the low-lying cloudbank, was a giant demon face. Trembling, he gaped in frozen silence at the monstrous visage. It floated just above him in the cloud shadows, its features ugly and distorted, altering constantly into myriad grotesque shapes. Unable to move or tear his eyes away, Hari waited for death to strike him.

But nothing happened. His wits returned to him, and he wondered if the cloud demon might not be harmful after all. Then a bizarre thought came to him. Could it be?

In a sudden leap he dived backward to a position just below the top of the hill. He crouched down so that his body would not be visible to the gaze of the demon. He waited several minutes, then slowly raised his head just far enough to get a clear view of the hovering cloud-bank. The monster was gone! He had guessed right.

To confirm his theory, he stood once more upon the hilltop, only to find that the monster had also returned— as he had expected. He stepped to the left and the demon moved with him. He jumped to the right and the demon mimicked him again. He clapped his hands and laughed out loud, and the demon seemed almost to smile. He was right: the monster was nothing more than an apparition, a phenomenon of nature. The explanation was simple. The sun was low on the horizon, and so looked up at the crest upon which he stood. Like a great projector, it cast his shadow onto the cloudbank, as it would anyone's who stood upon the hill. The distortions were created by the convoluting movements of the clouds themselves.

He grimaced and shook his head from side to side, which the shadow-image faithfully imitated, and it was not until darkness threatened that he gave up the game and made his way down the far side of the hill.

He found a shallow crevice to rest in for the night. Though hardly comfortable, it shielded him for the turmoil of the heavenly fireworks. As he munched on a mushroom, he thought about home, especially his mother's wonderful cooking and his own soft bed, and he wondered if he would ever escape this unfriendly land.

The next day he made good headway. The land became flat and sandy and the surrounding mountains closer. His eyes ached from the bright sand, which shimmered in waves of yellow-gold like a great phantom lake. In the distance a dark band appeared in the sand, stretching the full width of the land from mountain to mountain. He wondered what it could be. When he reached the darkened area his heart sank. A great chasm split the land, impossible to cross, as though some angry god had run a finger across the earth and cut it open. He fell to his knees, too benumbed to cry out or weep.

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