I was scared, and I let Balan Thok pull me back into the tent. The full intoxication took over. Balan Thok undid my trousers and aroused me to madness. Vlad and the old man were lying at the edge of the Thunder-God hole, staring down into the glowing blue light and screaming to it. I threw Balan Thok down between them, and we began coupling savagely. Each spastic twitch of our bodies was a coded message, a message that Vlad’s and Jif Gurd’s howls were reinforcing. Our filth and drug-madness had become a sacred ritual, an Eleusinian mystery. Before long, I could hear the voice of ...