He never found the bird he chased, nor did he find his way back to town.

Now, many springs had withered and many others had bloomed. His youth, apart from the detailed remembrance of that very first day, was but a broken net of disconnected fragments. His face was not as smooth as it once had been, though his eyes still kept the same fiery gleam of his lost years. Much did he learn from Nature and its children -- his sole companions for long, unfathomable years. Occasionally, however, flashes of his forgotten days came to him, faces long unknown, distant voices and fading whispers, as familiar as his solitude, often to be confounded with silence.

He knew the day would come he would return to what he had left behind. Behind the wings of a long-chased bird were his fears, his dreams, his past and future. Now, that day had finally come. That morning a strange noise awoke him. It came from the river, where it flows into the ocean. Somehow he already knew what he would meet even before he went there. Somehow he knew each of his days were like rivers which were born only to flow into the great ocean of Today. Before him, lying silent and magnanimous in the quiet water, stood a wooden majestic ship. People could be seen within, yet they said nothing. A sign, worn out by time, showed the timeless words: ‘To the Isle of Kinnis’.

A feeling half of fear, half of awe and curiosity lighted in him. Once again, the fascination of the unknown acted upon Galen, and, without looking back, he stepped forth…