The trees are sad tonight my friend, and nothing is more haunting than the lamenting of trees. As they listened, the Swede and the Prince descended into an immense dark pit, and cold, lonely and lost, they began recounting their losses.

Strangler a victim of his own senseless rage.

Hague dead again.

Brother Arnold still gifted but wounded.

Mustapha forced to live a previous lifetime over and over and over.

Soze safe at the breast of one of his polypedal concubines.

Their quest abandoned.

The fair Nico unrescued still.

Their fingers and feet numbed with the cold, they wandered aimlessly, stumbling and slipping, shivering and shaking; until they spied a white spot near invisible on the great black canvas of the pit. As they drew closer they saw that the light was a candle in the hand of a strange young woman who they knew to be an angel. They approached her, trembling with the uncertainty of fear. The Swede met her eye to eye and knew that she was able to walk through his mind. "Picture her hair", she said. The Swede closed his eyes and thought of her hair, the rich golden auburn of the day's first urine as it danced through the rays of the springtime sun.

"Picture her eyes", she said and the Swede was afloat a great blue lake, still and safe. And ever so ever so warm. The waves gently caressed his body to rest there, there like a mother.

"Picture her embrace", she said and the Swede felt himself locked in her arms, protecting and protected. He felt their strength double as each absorbed the life of the other, building each other stronger, wiser, deeper. The embrace became closer as their bodies melted painlessly into one and the touch and melt spread. The lips, the breasts, the hands. The thighs.

"Picture her love", she said and though he stood in the darkest of pits with his eyes clamped shut tightly, he was cast into the brightest, most painless light. So many colours - so many shapes. Dancing, swirling, pulsating. Before him lay the universe and he could view it all, switching at will from the dazzling, awesome sweep of a galaxy to the intricate tick-tock mechanics of the atom. And then there was music, great choirs and joyful players who came from everywhere and from nowhere. The rhythms and harmonies flowed through his body touching each nerve in turn, lifting him upward and beyond the darkness, yet outside the light.

"Now picture her dead", she said and the Swede saw the lights still and the songs remained.

The angel touched his cheek and brought him into her light. A single, saltless tear rolled soft down his face and his fingers and feet were warmed by her hope. "Virtue", she said, "is its own reward".

The Swede sighed and whispered ,"Amen".

Beside him the Prince stood in wonder and bewildered; of all the things he had seen in his adventures, this was the darkest and the brightest, the lowest and the highest. The fields lay before him like an ocean. "This means nothing to me", he said.

"This means nothing at all", said the angel.

Thus ends the second tale of The Swede