The sun had grown hot.

There was fragrance of flowers he could not see and a low murmur of a waterfall that was likewise invisible.

For most of the time his view was shut off, but occasionally he reached a point where through some break he saw towers gleaming red in the sun.

A strange place, a place of silence, and smoky veils in the distance.

Time passed swiftly.
Toward the waning of the afternoon he began to climb to what appeared to be a saddle of land, connecting the canyon wall on the left with a great plateau, gold-rimmed and pine-fringed, rising more and more in his way as he advanced.