"Good luck to you, Eric."
He turned, and they walked back together to where the three men waited.
Ashton nodded, and they began to dismantle the Banning. Neither they
nor Ashton looked back, as they rode away.
Stark watched them go. He filled his lungs with the cold air, and
stretched. Then he roused the beast out of the sand. It had rested, and
was willing to carry him again as long as he did not press it. He set
off again, across the desert.
The ridge grew as he approached it, looming into a low mountain chain
much worn by the ages. A pass opened before him, twisting between the
hills of barren rock.
He traversed it, coming out at the farther end above the basin of
a dead sea. The lifeless land stretched away into darkness, a vast
waste of desolation more lonely even than the desert. And between the
sea bottom and the foothills, Stark saw the lights of Valkis.