I was blind to all who still tormented me. I was blind to the sky. In my ears, I heard the old God of the Grove on the night of my making telling me that I was immortal, that I could only be destroyed by the sun or by fire. For life, I reached with all my remaining power. And in this state, I willed myself to reach the proper railing of the roof garden and to plummet down into the canal.

"Yes, down, down, into the water, under the water," I said aloud, forcing myself to hear the words, and then through the fetid waters I swam as fast as I could, clinging to the bottom, cooled and soothed and saved by the filthy water, leaving behind the burning palazzo from which my children had been stolen, in which my paintings had been destroyed. An hour, perhaps longer, I remained in the canal. The fire in my veins had been quenched almost immediately, but the raw pain was almost unendurable, and when at last I rose it was to seek that gold-lined chamber where my coffin lay. I was unable to walk to this room.

Fearfully, on hands and knees, I sought the back entrance of the house, and managed by means of both the Mind Gift and my fingers to unlatch the door. Then moving slowly through the many chambers I came at last to the heavy barrier which I had made to my tomb. For how long I struggled with it I do not know, only that it was the Mind Gift which finally unfastened it, not the strength of my burnt hands. At last I crept down the stairs to the dark quiet of the golden room. It seemed a miracle when at last I lay beside my coffin. I was too exhausted to move further, and with every breath I felt pain.

The sight of my burnt arms and legs was stultifying. And when I reached to feel my hair, I realized that most of it was gone. I felt my ribs beneath the thickened black flesh of my chest. I needed no mirror to tell me that I had become a horror, that my face was gone.