They had been walking slightly uphill in a sort of trough between two
parallel, gently sloping downs. The trough now deepened, while the
hills on either side grew steeper. They were in an ascending valley
and, as it curved this way and that, the landscape was shut off from
view. They came to a little spring, bubbling up from the ground. It
formed a trickling brook, which was unlike all other brooks in that
it was flowing up the valley instead of down. Before long it was
joined by other miniature rivulets, so that in the end it became a
fair-sized stream. Maskull kept looking at it, and puckering his
forehead.

"Nature has other laws here, it seems?"

"Nothing can exist here that is not a compound of the three worlds."

"Yet the water is flowing somewhere."

"I can't explain it, but there are three wills in it."

"Is there no such thing as pure Thire-matter?"

"Thire cannot exist without Amfuse, and Amfuse cannot exist without
Faceny."

Maskull thought this over for some minutes. "That must be so," he
said at last. "Without life there can be no love, and without love
there can be no religious feeling."

In the half light of the land, the tops of the hills containing the