After hours of walking, they felt no closer to the great plains than they were when they started. They'd passed spires and arches and even swam in the sapphire waters of the canyon river. The golden dust of the alien planet coated their hair as it dried and gave it the same sweet smell as their air.

​

"Should we stop to rest?" Ray asked, as they neared some rocky spires. 

​

"Actually, I'm not tired. Are you?" She asked.

​

"No, I'm not. That's odd. We should be tired..." he mused.

"Maybe it's something in the air here," she said. "Shall we test it?"

​

"What do you mean?" he asked, perplexed.

​

"Race you!" she said, as she darted back up the canyon wall. Her fingers gripped stone with a reptilian strength, and her breaths stayed steady as she scaled tens and hundreds of feet up the wall. She could hear him yelping with joy behind her, as he did the same.

 

When they finally crested the canyon's edge, the moons had set and a pink glow bled into the horizon. For the first time in days or months or years, they sat like statues and admired the sunrise. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, letting the dust dance in his lungs.

 

Suddenly, Marguerite gasped. "Oh, Ray! Look!"

 

Following her finger towards the sky, he saw an elongated shadow backlit by the sky's lightening hue. It looked like the prow of a great ship. Or a misshapen dirigible like the restaurants in Zelazny used for advertisements. It was impossible to tell how close it was... or how big. 

​

They sat, frozen, as the rising sun revealed the rest of the figure: Two flukes hung like wings. A massive tail with an underside that made the finest silks in Zelazny's best department stores look like rotted towels. And finally, a great eye that blinked slowly and serenely. The leviathan floated peacefully in the morning atmosphere. 

 

"Do you think she knows we're here?" Marguerite whispered.

 

"How do you know it's a she?" he whispered back. 

 

"I...I just know." She turned to him with tears in her eyes. "Oh, Ray, I don't want to go back. I don't even care if we die here--I don't want this to end."

 

"Nothing ends, Marguerite," he said as he took her hand. "Nothing ever ends."

​

They watched the giant float across the morning sky. Her dewy skin sparkled in the morning sun like a curtain of emeralds. When she sang, the golden dust vibrated into airborne ghostly fractals and like a billion joyous stars, it danced around the feet of the humans from Zelazny.