He bent down and pushed the flowers apart. Their roots grew in twinkling, winking emeralds and rubies of all sizes and cuts. They were packed loosely enough for air and water to seep in, tightly enough to make it not easy to work them free and gather a handful. He tried to select the largest stones, discarding one for another, moving deeper into the field. His hands and cradled arms full, he let them drop and chose the smaller, more evenly matched gems. He threw all these away also and began all over; whatever combinations of size, cut or color he picked up did not equal the possibilities of this profusion.
Dissatisfied, he turned from the poppies. They had called to him, promising, then promised again and yet again. He could not—with a handful of stones such as these—say the promise had not been kept; he could not say it had.
He paused to bathe his bruised feet in the pool. The lotus plants had disappeared completely, the rushes drooped brokenly, the lilies floated like scraps of worthless paper, the lilypads were limp and soggy. The little people had lost their hair and much of their flesh, their skins stretched over protruding bones. They did not move save to turn over a weary hand or draw up a cramped leg.
He came to the temple. The persistent vines had again begun their climb up the pillars. The woman stood on the couch, her hands over her breasts, fingers open around the nipples. Her head was level with his chest; she tilted it to look at him with the same inexorable hate. He poured the rubies and emeralds at her feet. She glanced down, kicked a fur casually over them.
"I thought you might like them," he mumbled. "They ... they—"
She hunched up one shoulder. He was sure she understood his words.
"Are you hungry?" he asked, then he saw she had eaten more of the fish. "Are you thirsty?"
She threw herself down on the furs, buried her face in her elbow. Resentfully he took the ax and cut back the vines. Those he had chopped down at first were dry and brittle; they would burn if he had some way of making fire. He gathered a trailing handful and brought them inside. Her back was turned as he arranged them on the mosaic. He laid the flat stone next to them and struck it slantwise with the ax. Some of the blows resulted in futile sparks but the stems did not ignite.
He gave up; with the fishing rod he returned to the lake. He pushed the boat into the water and rowed with the current past the pier, heading for the deeper parts. He laid the rod over the stern and let the way of the boat pull the line slowly from the reel. The fly stayed on the surface.
His eyes searched the further shore. Some of the distant mountain peaks were bare, others were forested to the top. Some fell in palisaded steps down to the plain, some descended in series of rounded hills, some sloped evenly. Nearly all carried rivers to the lake. There were no signs of any way out of the cavern.