"
It is a long journey from London to World's End, and Pombo had no
money left, and yet within five weeks he was strolling along Last
Street; but how he contrived to get there I will not say, for it was
not entirely honest. And Pombo found the well at the end of the garden
beyond the end house of Last Street, and many thoughts ran through his
mind as he hung by his hands from the edge, but chiefest of all those
thoughts was one that said the gods were laughing at him through the
mouth of the arch-idolater, their prophet, and the thought beat in his
head till it ached like his wrists ... and then he found the step.
And Pombo walked downstairs. There, sure enough, was the gloaming in
which the world spins, and the stars shone far off in it faintly;
there was nothing before him as he went downstairs but that strange
blue waste of gloaming, with its multitude of stars, and comets
plunging through it on outward journeys and comets returning home. And
then he saw the lights of the bridge to Nowhere, and all of a sudden
he was in the glare of the shimmering parlour-window of Lonely House;
and he heard voices there pronouncing words, and the voices were
nowise human, and but for his bitter need he had screamed and fled.
Halfway between the voices and Maharrion, whom he now saw standing out
from the world, covered in rainbow halos, he perceived the weird grey
beast that is neither cat nor bird.
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