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they began to fight. One tried to strangle the other. The second put up fists and feet, kicking and punching at his friend. They choked each other with mud. They hit each other with stones. They shouted and screamed and roared. They did not stop until one of them was dead and the other was lying beside him, bruised and exhausted.
    Still, neither noticed the colors that continued to fall from the sky and soak away into the earth.
    â€œThe human mind turned inside out,” said Sammael. “Madness. Violence. Chaos. Was that the kind of revenge you were imagining?”
    â€œHah!” screamed the stoat, her blood hot with excitement. “That’s better! But it’s only two of them. More must die! Do more! Do it to all of them, right now!”
    â€œPatience,” said Sammael, turning away from the hole. If only the earth didn’t absorb the colors of Chromos as fast as they fell. If only they would spread about its surface like a flood, then no more holes would be needed. But that wasn’t the way things worked. He needed more holes. A hole as big as the world itself.
    â€œMore!” shrieked the stoat. “I want to see more!”
    Sammael’s fingers reached up to his collar. He closed them around the stoat and held her little brown body in front of his face, looking into the glinting black eyes.
    â€œI said, patience. I need exactly the right sand to make these kinds of holes. It doesn’t grow on beaches.”
    â€œWell, find more! Come on!”
    The long fingers clenched, and the stoat squirmed in a spasm of pain.
    â€œSoftly, softly,” murmured Sammael. “I’ll be getting a whole lot of it, quite soon.” He contemplated the angry animal, and then his impassive face softened. “But maybe you’ve got a point. No harm in trying to hurry things along a bit, is there?”
    He put the stoat back inside his collar and began to walk through the floor of Chromos, down and down, as smoothly as if he were striding down the long slope of a hill toward the solid earth below.

 

    CHAPTER 6
    NATURE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
    Tom was mending the fences around Hangman’s Wood. Sweat ran between his shoulder blades as he slammed the mallet down onto post after post. The rain had stopped for a moment, but a stifling thickness in the air spoke of a coming storm. Still, the sky was now pleasantly blue with white clouds scudding across it, and even if the fence line did stretch on ahead of him and there were a hundred more fence posts to beat into the ground, it was good to be working. And to have something to hit.
    Johnny— thud! —what a coward— thud! —running away and leaving him to it— thud! —those dogs leaping on the badger— thud! thud! —those men laughing— thud! —and he, Tom, had run away— thud! Running away— thud! —what kind of a thing was that to do?— thud! thud! thud!
    Sometimes, in the pauses between thuds of the mallet, he heard the rapid rattle of a woodpecker in the wood, and earlier there’d been a few soft hoots from an owl, unwilling to close its eyes against the morning. The skylark had grown used to the sharp bangs too, and was hovering high above him bellowing a crazy jumble of tumbling song. Crows and magpies were cawing irritably at one another as they prowled the corners of the empty field.
    He stopped hammering for a moment to let his arms and back recover a bit. As he leaned against one of the new fence posts, a woodpecker fluttered down from a tree at the edge of the wood. It began poking its beak into the ground to look for grubs, so silent and focused that he thought it must be alone until he heard a squeak behind it and saw another, younger woodpecker tumbling down the tree.
    â€œMum!” the squeak clearly said. “Mum! Mum! Feed me!” The young woodpecker bounced up to its mother with its beak open. “Mum! Feed me! I’m hungry!”
    The mother