"Do you now see that you are wholly in my power; you can even only think as I will. Here is water."
He showed her a few trees that overshadowed a well. Sorrow fell down beside it and drank eager draughts. Then she sank into a deep sleep. When she woke the trees were withered, the well dried up, and there was again nothing but sand as far as the eye could reach.
"Do you see," said Pain, "we are stronger than the sun and the desert wind; all must vanish before our might. Wherever we have passed pestilence has broken out, towns and villages are burnt; and where we set up our dwelling the earth grows a desert."
Sorrow wrung her hands. She sprang up and hurried forward. A whole long day she sped on, on, and did not see that he followed. At evening he came towards her and laughed, and laughed so long that the whole desert grew noisy, and hyenas and jackals began to howl, and lions approached roaring. But Pain held them in check with his look of fire, so that they only walked round them from afar off all the night. When day dawned the wild beasts withdrew.
"Oh," said Sorrow, "I die of fear. Take me away from here, wherever you will, only away from this heat, these horrid beasts."
"Do you want coolness, love? You shall have it."
He took her in his arms and bore her fast as the wind towards the north, ever further, past the homes of men, past fields and cities, across the ocean, which he waded through, up to the North. There lay a lovely islet, and birches shook their tender foliage in the fresh breezes.
"Here we will found our happy valley," said Pain, and beckoned.
And as he beckoned the wind blew colder and sharper, the grass crackled under his feet as it withered and froze, and from the ocean there neared crystal mountains that came closer and closer to the land, and the wind that drove them to shore howled dismally. Soon the whole air was filled with snow that whirled from above, from below, from all sides, choking like fine sand. Ice-blocks were piled upon ice-blocks, there was much thundering and crackling, but at last all was still, wrapped in snow and awful silence. The transparent rocks stared up to the heavens like frozen joy. Pain flung a lightning dart into the ice. It bored a blue-green glistening cave in which he laid Sorrow.