He looked up at the far-off peaks. What had they to offer him? Romantic towers, magic fastnesses, mystic havens? Cold, craggy, misery. He trod carefully between the vines; perhaps he could reach the next hill before they tripped him once again.
He heard an angry, outraged, murderous squealing and grunting as a horde of wild boars, tiny eyes half-closed, tusks glinting with saliva, shaggy bristles standing out, charged with pounding hooves. He was directly in their path, there was no shelter he could take, and it was clearly useless to run.
He waited, quaking, as they came closer. The foremost animal, the leader, the most ferocious, became enmeshed in the loose vines and began struggling and jerking. His companions shouldered, shoved, worried and bit him; those behind attacked the ones in front. They fell upon their stupefied leader, tore him to pieces and devoured him. Then those who chanced to be bitten or slashed were treated the same way, finally those who had merely been bloodspattered.
Lampley ran from the scene and splashed through a wide stream he hoped would at least deter the frantic beasts. He climbed over sticky clayish plants with long, tongue-like petals pulling and sucking at his shoes, and bloated grass whose watery blades split apart under his weight, giving out vile fumes to make him sick and giddy. On a rise he looked back at the boars, milling in directionless knots. Far beyond he caught brief, elusive sight of the lake and island. Reluctantly he started up a spur bare of all vegetation, grim and desolate.
The yellowish rock on which he trod was smooth and firm underfoot at first; he climbed over a ridge and began a fairly easy ascent of an escarpment biting into the mountainside. The hard rock gave way to brittle, friable material that broke and crushed underfoot. He came to outcroppings, miniature buttes which crumbled and rolled at a touch. He found himself walking in a mass of shifting stone, loose and unpredictable.
Ahead, the slope became a series of shoulder-high cliffs, mounting like steps. Very carefully he approached the first and put his hands on the edges to pull himself up. The rock disintegrated under his fingers. He stretched his arms forward and tried to lever himself up with his elbows. The entire face broke off to go sliding and tumbling past him.
He was too far up to retreat and seek a less treacherous way, the best he could do was strike out for the adjoining ridge. He moved cautiously but the strata seemed to shift so that he was faced by a palisade high as his head. He reached up to grasp the ledge. It too split and shattered. He looked in vain for an easier ascent or a crevice where he could work his way up.
Now the cliff towered over him, far above his reach, menacing, sullen. He followed it, searching for a place where it was lower. His feet slipped on the loose stone; it was like walking on marbles. He tried to run, to defeat the restlessness of the rock by speed. His ankle turned; pain and weakness fought each other; he became part of a plunging, toppling, sinking, downward slide, with gravel, debris and boulders crashing around him. The only way he could keep his feet was to run with the avalanche, to embrace the illusion that he was surfboard riding. By a tremendous effort he retained his balance.