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Not knowing where she was going, she trudged on along the road.

The interruption came so suddenly that she was entirely taken by surprise. A gigantic shadow fell over her, so large that it blotted out the red sun. The creature was so huge that it could not possibly have noticed her, its gigantic feet coming down soundlessly on the rock of the road as it passed. And, walking alongside it, were demons of various types, warriors armed with spears of condensed fury and armour of distilled hate. More gigantic beasts followed the first, laden with bundles and boxes, with other demons riding their backs.

The Soul could not even find the time to hide. She stood where she was, beyond fear now, waiting to be recaptured and enslaved again, and this time for good, She waited for the spark of self that had wakened in her to be snuffed out – but she waited in vain. The caravan passed on, uninterested. Some of the demons glanced down at the Soul, the expression on their fanged faces unreadable. Souls were too common to bother tracking down a runaway. She was not worth their time.

Besides, she caught the backwash of a thought, she would be destroyed soon enough anyway.

That backwash gave her the impetus of fear. Waiting until the end of the caravan had passed, she clambered on to the road and followed in its tracks, walking behind the last of the gigantic beasts. Obscurely she hoped that the protection of the caravan might extend to her too, for as long as she might dare to walk along with it.

Overhead the red sun was at the zenith, the heat a live thing now, long past the point where she might have thought it unendurable. Such words had long since passed from her vocabulary. She had no choice but to endure. Therefore, she endured. It was that simple.

Once or twice the demon walking behind the last of the gargantuan beasts looked back at her. It was a fearsome creature, with a beaked face set with many eyes, but it made no acknowledgement of her existence or attempt to stop her from following.

She began to think about the life she no longer remembered. Had she had people who had loved her and still remembered her? Had she had children? How long had she been here? Were her children, if she had any, still alive? Were they down here, perhaps? How could she ever tell?

The journey went on as the red sun began to sink to their backs.

Once in the while something would hold up their progress, and the demons would become excited. The toothed thing at the end would stride to the edge of the road, and crane its neck to see what was happening, and others would stand up atop their beasts to have a better view. The Soul wondered if perhaps it was the Salamander devils the watch-demon had mentioned, but each time the delay was only temporary, and they went on once more.

She never realised just when the red sun finally sank, because the black sky had begun to light up with the dull flames of night. Distant orange and yellow flags of fire played and writhed along the horizon, and the caravan began to move faster, as though afraid. Dim things moved out on the plain, enormous and vaporous, and the Soul could not decide if they were real, or illusions.

The flames began crawling up the sky from the horizon, attenuating, growing dim, but meeting overhead in a flickering glow that cast shadows that wavered and shifted so much that it became impossible to tell what was real from what merely seemed to be. At times it seemed as though great mountains reared up from the horizon, and at other times, as though the road was at the bottom of a well, whose walls were made of fire.

She began to remember, a little of who she had been. She remembered sunlight making rainbows on falling water, the flash of colour of butterflies on the wing, the aroma of a rose on the thorn. She remembered the tartness of lime juice on a hot day, the warmth of a fire on a cold night while torrential rain fell outside. She remembered the feel of kisses and the sting of tears, and the pain grew of knowing she could never have them back again.

But, she thought, at least I have the memories. If they are all I can have, I can at least refuse to let them go.

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