He caught a grip on himself, fighting the fantasies of his mind, and
took another breath of air. This time it burned less, and he could force
an awareness of the smells around him. But there was none of the pungent
odor of the hospital he had expected. Instead, his nostrils were
scorched with a noxious odor of sulfur, burned hair and cloying incense.

He gagged on it. His diaphragm tautened with the sharp pain of
long-unused muscles, and he sneezed.

"A good sign," a man's voice said. "The followers have accepted and are
leaving. Only a true being can sneeze. But unless the salamander works,
his chances are only slight."

There was a mutter of agreement from others, before an older voice broke
in. "It takes a deeper fire than most salamanders can stir, Ser Perth.
We might aid it with high-frequency radiation, but I distrust the
effects on the prepsyche. If we tried a tamed succubus--"

"The things are untrustworthy," the first voice answered. "And with the
sky falling, we dare not trust one."

The words blurred off in a fog of semiconsciousness and half-thoughts.
The sky was falling? Who killed Foxy Loxy? I, said the spider, who sat
down insider, I went boomp in the night and the bull jumped over the
moon....

"Bull," he croaked. "The bull sleeper!"

"Delirious," the first voice muttered.

"I mean--bull pusher!" That was wrong, too, and he tried again, forcing
his reluctant tongue around the syllables. "Bull _dosser_!"

Damn it, couldn't he even pronounce simple Engaliss?

The language wasn't English, however. Nor was it Canadian French, the
only other speech he could make any sense of. Yet he understood it--had
even spoken it, he realized. There was nothing wrong with his command of
whatever language it was, but there seemed to be no word for bulldozer.
He struggled to get his eyes open.

The room seemed normal enough, in spite of the odd smells. He lay on a
high bed, surrounded by prim white walls, and there was even a chart of
some kind at the bottom of the bedframe. He focused his eyes slowly on
what must be the doctors and nurses there, and their faces looked back
with the proper professional worry. But the varicolored gowns they wore
in place of proper clothing were covered with odd designs, stars,
crescents and things that might have been symbols for astronomy or
chemistry.

He tried to reach for his glasses to adjust them. There were no glasses!
That hit him harder than any other discovery. He must