Out of the mist ahead of us appeared a huge black bat with a body as big as a man's. Venger and I turned and ran the way we had come, but there was another bat behind us. Somehow, Venger managed to pin the second one to the road; the first kept its distance flying around us.

This second bat had the head of a man. His face was pale and his hair was long and very red. It seems we asked him where we were and why they were chasing us. I don't remember his answer, but whatever he said alarmed me. I suddenly wanted very much to know how much time had passed. It seemed clear that we had traveled far into the future without knowing it.

I said, "How many years have passed since�" I realized I needed a point of reference. I thought for a second, and then looked at Venger, figuring that surely his name would be remembered through the ages. Venger then looked up at me in such a way that it was like he knew what I was thinking, and then he nodded ever so slightly as if agreeing with my reasoning and giving permission to use his name. "�since the days of Venger?" I finished.

The man with a bat's body, whose attention had been fixed upon the black-winged (and one-horned) being holding him down, finally looked over at me with a shocked expression. I knew he recognized the name, though he obviously didn't know him by sight. With his eyes moving repeatedly from me to Venger, he said, "It has been...over 300 years."