Chapter 17
The creature inside the Mountain woke up. It stretched out in sleepy languor, twisting its body in rings, opened its mouth, releasing a cloud of poisonous vapor, and slipped into a narrow dark passage. Dug out in time immemorial, the passage led to the outer side, to the Spacious Cave, where a warm fire always burned, small bipeds brought delicious food there. The creature hurried - His sleep lasted a long time, It got hungry.
But the Spacious Cave turned out to be nothing like it used to be. No fire burned, no two-legged fussed around the Being, no one reverently touched His beautiful scales, did not rub incense, did not offer food. The little bipeds did not come out to meet Him, only heaps of ashes stood out on the floor as gray bald patches.
There were no bipeds or food on the outside. This had never happened before, and for long hours the Creature either slid lostly through the cave, then froze in thought.
The Creature was hungry, The Creature was lonely, The Creature yearned… Then the Creature began to remember.
In previous years, memory was not needed, but now fragments of the past flashed before His mind's eye. The past was filled with bright colors and loud sounds, so unlike the reverent whispers of small bipeds. The past harbored sensations both pleasant and painful.
The Being hesitated - it hadn't felt pain in a very long time. The creature knew that pain was bad.
But the hunger returned with renewed vigor, and the Creature made up his mind. Although the exit from the cave was blocked, the melted pile of stones could not become a serious obstacle for the Creature.
A round warm fire hung on the vault of the outer world, and air waves enveloped the Being from all sides. Everything visible had names, but for so many years the Being had forgotten them and now perceived them only as a collection of images.
The outside world was rich in sounds, only none of them resembled the whispering voices of small bipeds. But the Creature did not despair — It knew that small bipeds came to the Spacious Cave from the outside world, and delicious food was brought from it. If the Creature searches long and hard, It will surely find the little bipeds. Then they will return together to the Spacious Cave, and the world will once again become correct...