Rillop was beginning to doubt if there was an end to the world at all -- he had come beyond the mist, after all, and still there was no edge in sight -- yet he rowed on. He was completely out of food, and down to a gallon and a half of water, but he was determined not to stop until the memory, the spirit of Teelia that resided within him, was appeased.

"I will never stop," he said aloud, not defiantly, but simply as a statement of fact. He simply knew he would not relinquish his quest until he found the Creator, fell off the end of the world, or died. He had not been able to stop Teelia from dying; he would do this for her. Even though he knew she would not wish him to torture himself so, and die on the open sea, he would do this for her. He had to.

As his eyes filled with tears for the hundredth time upon his trek, a giant white rectangle appeared in front of him, hovering above the sea, black words scrolled across it in rows, and more words appearing at the left end of the bottom-most row. Startled, he back-paddled, stopping himself dead in the water.

Recovering his wits, he noticed that behind the rectangle, an enormous hand worked away, holding what at first looked like a twig, but was actually a long white staff of a smooth glossy material Rillop didn't recognize. Then, as if the whole person came into being upon discernment of the hand, the Creator's arm, body, and face appeared above the rectangle, above the page.

The Creator was a youngish man with dark hair and curious eyes, his brow creased in an attitude of thought or concentration, or both. He looked a lot like Ri11op, actually, or anyway what Rillop thought of himself as looking like, only at least forty times as large.

Rillop yelled, "Creator, I have a question for you!" It occurred to him, post- statement, that with those ears as large as apple barrels, the Creator could probably hear him if he were but to whisper; but he could not undue his temerity.

If the Creator was surprised by his boldness, he didn't show it. Instead, he thundered, "I know." (Actually, he spoke in a rather gentle voice, but it was as loud as thunder to the human man below).

Rillop had planned simply to ask, "Why?" but now that he was here, a hundred remonstrations and accusations flooded into his mind. Don't you know that of all the people of your Creation, she was the best, the most loving, the one who loved existence the most, this woman you chose to kill? Isn't there any compassion in the world of the gods? Haven't you ever loved someone? Hasn't anyone ever loved you?

But he stuck to his original plan. He called upwards, "Why did you kill Teelia?"

His voice echoing across sky and water, the Creator answered, "You, nor she, nor Pearthorn, nor the Valley of the Silver Star would have been created at all, without the inevitability of her death. I would be a poor writer, indeed, if I were to let her live simply because she were a beautiful soul."

Rillop did not understand. He knew only that Teelia was dead. Almost whispering now, he asked, "But isn't... when I looked into her eyes... the mist... I suppose everything is so real in your world, and communication between people, er, gods, so perfect that even Teelia seems dirty to you."

The Creator seemed to consider something. He scratched his chin. He mused, "No. .."

The human asked, "Isn't there love in the world of the gods?"

The Creator said, "No, not in the sense you speak of. There is love of a mother for a child, and sometimes of a father for his child, or a child for a parent; but not between a man and a woman. Sometimes we try to pretend there is, but ultimately such relationships are based on complex selfish fulfillment of agendas or needs or desires, and/or an obedience to a biological imperative of some sort."

Rillop hung his head. "Then... Well, what if there was? What would you think of a creator who sacrificed the rare instances of such love?"

The Creator raised his eyebrows. Against reason, it seemed to Rillop he was sad, or even lonely.

And then, he was gone, leaving Rillop alone on the vast gray sea. He didn't vanish, he just wasn't there anymore; and now that he wasn't, Rillop wasn't sure he'd ever been there, or that he'd remember him and his encounter with him past this day. Rillop couldn't say why — the sadness in his expression as he scratched his chin, perhaps, or a realization in his eyes, that creating was a different thing than building — but he thought he was probably withdrawing himself from Existence, and because he would no longer be a part of Existence, memories of him would fade from the world as well. Not belief, just memories.

A warm rain began to drop slowly, like goose feathers, from the heavens. Rillop drew a long swig from his flask, and scanned the endless horizon. Nodding, as if to say, "Yes, I'll go forward, instead of back into the mist," he swept the oar heads into the water, and bending his back into his strokes, sent his small but now sea-proven craft cleaving through the water.

He hadn't gone more than a hundred boat-lengths, when he spied another rower ahead, silhouetted against the horizon, skidding across the ocean towards him.

When they came abreast of each other, she told him he'd died, and she'd rowed across the sea and talked to the Creator, who'd then disappeared, leaving her alone on the sea. She'd rowed ahead then, she said, simply wondering what was farther on, and had found him, wandering like her.

He crossed into her boat, then, and the two of them embraced, there where they had found each other long ago, beyond the mist.