Kortha looked past Ilse, out toward the red desert. Far in the haze of distance, against the black and jagged Mountains of Eternity, there was something white that shook and eddied in the heat waves rising from the sands. Kortha knew it for forgotten Yassa, the city beyond recall. A dead city, that ate up travelers that went to it. Kortha sighed, and looked at Ilse. Always had Kortha wanted to go to Yassa. There was a mystery about Yassa, a mystery that Kortha meant to solve. The time was now come when he could. "Give me time," he said to Ilse. "I need time to think." She looked at him and in the depths of her blue eyes there was an infinite sadness, a yearning. "You lie, Kortha," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "You do not ever intend to return. Tell me why?" He looked down at her and smiled. How could he tell _her_? The long uncut blonde hair that hung to his naked brown shoulders swayed a bit as he shook his head. "I will, perhaps. But not yet." Not yet you cannot tell her, Kortha. It is for her sake that you have buried yourself alive. But she would not understand. She is turning now and going away from you, perhaps forever. Kortha walked across the sands behind her toward the 'copter. Once his great hands went out hungrily, then fell listlessly at his sides. Ilse was not for him. She was part of his brooding, the part that ached and stabbed with loneliness. Ilse was what made him a coward. In the shadows of the flier the girl faced him once again. She stood perilously close, her eyes beseeching silently, and the fragrance of her hair and her curving body steamed in his nostrils. "You are no hermit, Kortha. You need life. You need a woman. You need--me." He nodded, staring at her face, drinking it in. He did not ever intend to see Ilse again, Ilse whom he loved, Ilse of the fair hair and the blue eyes and the body tanned brown by Sol. Kortha stepped back and his shadow fell from hers. He lifted a hand, saying softly, "Goodbye." With arms hanging to his thighs, he stood on the desert, watching until the dot that was the 'copter in the sky passed beyond the horizon. Wearily he swung about and went back to his hut. He yanked down a gigantic steel hammer from the wall, breaking the thong that held it to its nail. Gripping the hammer in his great hands, he swung it around his head, once, twice, in a flashing circle of blue-white light. The walls crumpled when he hit them. The roof caved in and became the floor. Scraps of brick and metal fell to dance on the shuddering tiles. Fire leaped from the forge, caught hold and grew in a red frenzy. Red and huge in its crimson heat, Kortha battered and slammed his sledge, buckling even the wrought metalwork of his dwelling. This was his past, here before him. Sobbing, he fought it; and sobbing, watched as the fire came to consume it. When the place lay black and smouldering, Kortha lifted his head and looked with his green eyes across the desert to Yassa.