This mad world was a creation of Noorlythin. His was the wild brain that dreamed the sands and the rocks and the awful desolation. His dream, that sun that cooked while it shone. Sobbing, he ran. He fell to his knees, and he crawled. With bleeding fingers he clawed at the rocks, making himself rise and run again. It seemed to the man that had once been Kael McCanahan that he was running around a planet. The pain was part of him, now. His muscles jerked in agony at every step, yet always he forced himself to run faster, faster, gulping down the hot desert air. That siren call was strong in his ears. _Run, Terran! Run to me!_ He ran on and on, and now he saw the others, men like himself, running on bleeding feet, crawling when those feet were worn to cracked stumps. And before each of those men, or before Kael McCanahan's own eyes, gleamed-- _The eye of Lirflane!_ A globe of a red jewel it was, the eye. Imprisoned in its faceted surface were the dreams of a billion people. The man that looked on it saw the happiness he sought, and he fought to join himself to it, that his own dreams would add to the total of all the others. And on the dreams and on the flesh of these men who came to it, drawn by its siren voice and by the eternity of delight it promised, the eye of Lirflane feasted, waxed and swelled. A man tried to claw at his legs as Kael McCanahan ran past him. Red eyes in a bloated face hurled hate at him, as his hand closed on his ankle. The McCanahan shook himself free and ran on. The eye was closer now. It grew massive, transparent. In its redness, the redness of the hair of flaming Flaith beckoned. Her white body swayed and danced, and her throaty voice summoned him. The McCanahan's arms shook as he put them out, trying to pull himself forward with handfulls of hot, desert air. Now the Eye of Lirflane was before him, and all he could see was Flaith moving toward him, her arms wide and beckoning-- One step he moved, and another. His hand went out, toward the gleaming red side of the monstrous jewel. _Come to me, Kael McCanahan! Come to the peace and the forgetfulness you have earned. Take me in your arms. Drink kisses from my lips!_ The McCanahan sobbed. He shook in torture more vivid than the agony in his feet and muscles. "Not Flaith!" he cried. "Not Flaith! You--woman of the jewel! Witchwoman of Lirflane! Not Flaith!" He went to his knees, to anchor himself the better to the ground, against the siren call of the mighty Eye. "No. Got to fight! Get free. Free...." He fought there on his knees, while men streamed past him, rushing with insane desire into the red heaven of the jewel. Their eyes were mad with the greed or the lust that shook them, for every man saw in the Eye of Lirflane what his own eyes wanted most to see. Their bodies were torn and gaunt from their struggle across the sand and rock desolation. But they would lose their pain, within the bosom of the red eye.