The air was, if anything, getting worse. It smelled worse, tasted more acrid and seemed to be getting a great deal more turbulent. They were definitely slowing now, and the going was becoming more and more difficult. The hammer was clearly pointing downwards now, and finding its way along rather than surging ahead.
Down still further they went, battling through the thickening clouds that swirled round them till it seemed that they must now reach all the way down to the ground.
Their speed had dropped to the point where Kate felt able to look ahead now, though the acridity of the air was such that she was only able to manage a very brief glance. In the moment that she glanced, Thor released the hammer. She couldn't believe it. He released it only for a fraction of a second, just to change his grip on the thing, so that they were now hanging from the shaft as it flew slowly forward, rather than being pulled along by it. As he redistributed his weight into this new posture he hoisted Kate firmly upwards as if pulling up a sock. Down they went, and down further and further.
There was now a roaring crashing sound borne in on them by the wind from up ahead, and suddenly Thor was running, leaping over rocky, sandy scrubland, dancing through the knotted tussocks, and finally pounding and drumming his feet to a halt.
They stood still at last, swaying, but the ground on which they stood was solid.
Kate breathed for a few seconds, bending over to catch her breath. She then pulled herself up to her full height and was about to deliver a full account of her feelings concerning these events at the top of her voice, when she suddenly got an alarming sense of where she was standing.
Though the night was dark, the wind whipping at her and the pungent smell of it told her that some kind of sea was very close by. The sound of wild crashing breakers told her that in fact it was more or less beneath her, that they were standing very near to the edge of a cliff. She gripped the arm of the insufferable god who had brought her here and hoped, vainly, that it hurt him.
As her reeling senses began gradually to calm down she noticed that there was a dim light spreading away before her, and after a while she realised that this was coming off the sea.
The whole sea was glowing like an infection. It was rearing itself up in the night, lunging and thrashing in a turmoil of itself and then smashing itself to pieces in a frenzy of pain against the rocks of the coast. Sea and sky seethed at each other in a poisonous fury.
Kate watched it speechlessly, and then became aware of Thor standing at her shoulder.
'I met you at an airport,' he said, his voice breaking up in the wind. 'I was trying to get home to Norway by plane.' He pointed out to sea. 'I wanted you to see why I couldn't come this way.'
'Where are we? What is this?' asked Kate fearfully.
'In your world, this is the North Sea,' said Thor and turned away inland again, walking heavily and dragging his hammer behind him.
Kate pulled her wet coat close around her and hurried after him.
'Well, why didn't you just fly home the way we just did but in, well, in our world?'
The rage in her had subsided into vague worries about vocabulary.
'I tried,' responded Thor, still walking away.
'Well, what happened?'
'I don't want to talk about it.'
'What on earth's the point of that?'
'I'm not going to discuss it.'
Kate shuddered in exasperation. 'Is this godlike behaviour?' she shouted. 'It bothers you so you won't talk about it?'
'Thor! Thor! Is it you?'
This last was a thin voice trailing over the wind. Kate peered into the wind. Through the darkness a lantern was bobbing towards them from behind a low rise.
'Is that you, Thor?' A little old lady came into view, holding a lantern above her head, hobbling enthusiastically. 'I thought that must be your hammer I saw. Welcome!' she chirruped. 'Oh, but you come in dismal times. I was just putting the pot on and thinking of having a cup of something and then perhaps killing myself, but then I said to myself, just wait a couple of days longer, Tsuliwa..., Tsuwila..., Swuli..., Tsuliwansis - I can never pronounce my own name properly when I'm talking to myself, and it drives me hopping mad, as I'm sure you can imagine, such a bright boy as I've always maintained, never mind what those others say, so I said to myself, Tsuliwansis, see if anyone comes along, and if they don't, well, then might be a good time to think about killing myself. And look! Now here you are! Oh, but you are welcome, welcome! And I see you've brought a little friend. Are you going to introduce me? Hello, my dear, hello! My name's Tsuliwansis and I won't be at all offended if you stutter.'
'I... I'm, er, Kate,' said Kate, totally flummoxed.
'Yes, well I'm sure that will be all right,' said the old woman sharply. 'Anyway, come along if you're coming. If you're going to hang around out here all night I may as well just get straight on with killing myself now and let you get your own tea when you're quite ready. Come along!'
She hurried on ahead, and in a very few yards they reached a terrible kind of ramshackle structure of wood and mud which looked as if it had become unaccountably stuck while half way through collapsing. Kate glanced at Thor, hoping to read some kind of reaction from him to give her a bearing on the situation, but he was occupied with his own thoughts and was clearly not about to share them. Thene seemed to her to be a difference in the way he moved, though. In the brief experience she had of him he seemed constantly to be struggling with some internal and constrained anger, and this, she felt, had lifted. Not gone away, just lifted. He stood aside to allow her to enter Tsuliwansis's shack, and brusquely gestured her to go in. He followed, ducking absurdly, a few seconds later, having paused for a moment outside to survey what little could be seen of the surrounding landscape.
Inside was tiny. A few boards with straw for a bed, a simmering pot hung over a fire, and a box tucked away in the corner for sitting on.
