Nightmare journey

of desire. Beneath the soft blanket she lay back raising and spreading her legs as Jask found and entered her. They rolled and tossed as they made love; they 'pathed their happiness back and forth, permitted each other to slide into their neural systems to sense the sex act from the opposite viewpoint, moving, moving, into several long explosions of sensation and then, late in the afternoon, into a short sleep.
    Later, as they coupled once more, he 'pathed, I love you.
    She 'pathed the same.
    You and me.
    She 'pathed, Us.
    The two of us, always.
    The five of us! she 'pathed back at him. He was certain that her projection had been augmented by other minds-precisely, three other minds-but he did not care about the intrusion. An esper might never have total privacy-but then, being an esper, he no longer required it.
    Melopina and Jask slept little that day, but were ready to begin the trek again after nightfall. Chaney, Kiera and Tedesco were also in a very good mood. Triumphs had been shared.
    Three weeks after they entered the Plains of Hammerau they left them once again, climbing down into that Wildlands sector known as the Smoke Den and, in past ages, as Satan's Balls, the Stone Kettle and Ghosts' Cauldron. The rounded stones were smooth underfoot, wet and treacherous. They reached the floor of Smoke Den without casualty, however, their breath labored in that humid atmosphere.
    Here there was no plant life.
    Here no animals prowled. At least none they could see.
    Here the air was still, stale.
    All that moved, aside from the espers, was the fog, which was everywhere and thick. It clung heavily to the ground, thinned as it rose, but still obscured the stars and made a fuzzy blotch of the sun.
    They slept in a fog blanket.
    They walked through veils of mist.
    They breathed it in and out, ate it with their food, made love with it pressed over and between them.
    The land in Smoke Den was a jumbled mass of rocks, impossible shapes and textures of stone. They made a game of identifying images that some of the stones presented: Here a horse reared onto its hind feet, there the head of a man, to the right a spaceship rising on a column of smoke, to the left a winged man poised for flight. This was the first time during their journey, that they were able to relax- pursued neither by Pures nor tainted nor beasts-and they were in high good humor when, two weeks from the Plains of Hammerau, they came over a stony rise and looked down on the fogless black plain that had, for so long, been their goal.
    The field of black glass was four kilometers in diameter, as shiny as if it were diligently polished every day, ringed by stones but containing none within it, like an enormous dance floor dropped down in the middle of nowhere. The “craters” referred to on Tedesco's map were actually faults in the glass. It appeared as if, when the glassy pool was solidifying after whatever disaster had caused it, bubbles of gas had risen to the surface in steady streams, forming tunnels and jagged openings.
    I don't see anything that looks like a spaceship. It seems as lifeless as a cemetery-Chaney.
    You would know about cemeteries, Kiera 'pathed.
    Chaney grinned wolfishly. I used to be a grave robber.
    Not really, Melopina 'pathed, shivering.
    Yes, really. Sometimes a traveling musician runs across a town of tin ears and doesn't earn his daily bread. When that happens, he either uses his wits or starves. I've never starved- not so long as there was a cemetery nearby, and a local church of Resurrectionists.
    Those who believe the actual corpse is revived and made to live again, come Judgment? Tedesco asked.
    The same, Chaney 'pathed. They bury their dead with possessions-often jewels, silver and expensive leather goods. I've bought many a meal with the proceeds from grave robberies-and if the Resurrectionists are right and some of my victims come to life again without the advantage of personal wealth to set them up, I trust their god will see to it that they're properly compensated for their misfortune.
    Well, Tedesco 'pathed, there are no graves to rob down there. But there might be a fortune to be found if this proves to be the station of the Presence.
    They searched the tunnels for an entire day, carrying hand torches, walking along slick-floored corridors, shadow images of themselves reflected in the onyx walls, twisted and sinister in duplication. A soft, cool breeze poured constantly through the subterranean avenues, though they never