She tells him, via his own language, that she has heard of his healings, as well as the cruel thing the Kolumbians did to him, and she wants to help him, since he has already healed some of her people living outside the mountain. But why has he come to the lodges of the tribes of mountain people? she asks. This is the only safe place for tribal people, she adds. Is he intending to take his Shos-Shone people away from the Mountain?

No, he says. He is not going to lead anyone into danger. He tells her he is searching for the Creator, the One he believes is seated on the top of the Shouting Mountain. The whole world is sick and dying, poisoned by the flying serpents that once flew all over the earth, striking all the big villages that once held many people, he explains further, as she nods in agreement, lifting her stumps. He has been gifted with powers to heal (and no man has greater powers than his), but they are not enough to heal the whole world. He could use them to destroy the whole world if he wanted, but he could not use them to make a whole new man without death and dying in his limbs. That is the medicine of the Creator alone. So he has come all this way from his own village far to the south, just to learn from the One he has heard lives on the highest rocks of the earth--those that crown Shouting Mountain, the holy place of the Ancients.

The wise woman replies that she has never been to the crown of the mountain. No one of the Mountain's confederated tribes has yet dared to try it. It cannot be done by climbing the mountain's skin, she added. There is nothing for a man to breathe--the birds themselves die and fall to the ground if they venture into those terrible heights. But there is a way--the mountain itself has provided it, leading up through the heart of the mountain--the paths of God's breath, they call them, blasted long, long ago by His mighty nostrils. They are full of good air to breathe. Yet no one has gone up them, even though they are the ways to the summit. Will you still be going since you must go alone? she asks. Quinn nods. She turns away to disguise her sadness for his soon death, and a man-servant close to her beckons for him to follow, and leads him to the path of God's breath that they hope will lead him to the top and not off into some tangle of tunnels leading to places he will never find his way out of.

Quinn enters a vent created by superheated gas and steam long ago. It blew a hole all the way to the top, and there are hundreds of such vents riddling the mountain, though this one is the largest and, hopefully, will lead him to the mountain crest.

Quinn has not yet reached the top when he encounters a large lake. The mountain woman has already told him he would find such a lake, but there would be a canoe there. Where exactly? He doesn't have to look around, for it is left for anyone who to use at the terminus of the lake where the excess flows through cracks and becomes a thousand thousand springs and streams that, joined by others running down from the skin of the mountain, water the whole kingdom of Kolumbia. That is exactly where the vent brings him. He will have to sail to the other side of the lake to reach the remaining section of the vent.

One cavern opens on another. Quinn sails a glowing necklace of lakes lit by blue and green algae phosphorescence on the overhead rocks of the caverns:

Quinn reaches what he thinks should be the opposite section of the steam vent, but discovers it is underwater, for the level of the lakes has risen. How is he going to find the entrance by diving for it, and then find his way up it without drowning? Perhaps the whole vent is flooded or blocked with rocks, for all he knows. He realizes he will have to go back and find another way up the mountain. Before he can begin his return journey the caverns shake and rocks rain down--a dread sign that Shouting Mountain, long asleep, has awakened at last and is going to shout into the sky with fire and melting rocks.

There is a roaring sound in the distance, and then Quinn sees the lakes foam and leap, as a great wave races across them, all the waters gathered together and rushing toward the vent that leads downward.

Quinn makes a mad dash to the shore and scrambles out onto the rocks just as the monster wave sweeps by the shore. His boat vanishes, and as he covers his head with his hands against the falling rocks the lakes themselves vanish before his eyes--cascading straight down the steam vent as he watches horrified, realizing that everyone below is doomed. Even Sealtown will not escape as the waters shoot out of the mountain and leap without any warning upon everything below.

Only minutes before a high-speed lahar erupts from the mountainside overhanging the Kolumbian capital of Sealtown, the Sultan's golden-domed, thousand-roomed palace appears splendid and unshakable as ever beside the slums and warrens that make up most of the city.

Feeling the agony of the world as never before, Quinn staggers into the vent and has only taken a few despairing steps when he is stopped by the appearance of a giant hoop hanging in midair. What sacred hoop could it be? His tribe's? No, this has two feathers, and his tribe has six, for the six winds of the southern plains. The world's? As if in response to his question, the twin feathers begin to wave back and forth on the great hoop. Then the Hoop of the World begins to withdraw from him, forcing him to follow or he will lose sight of it. He has not gone far when a thought comes to him, "Star Boy, your pilgrimage is soon ending. Those who seek Me will find Me."

Strengthened by the thought when he most badly needed strength, almost blinded by his tears, Quinn continues on after the Hoop, as it climbs higher and higher in the steam vent. Finally, the Hoops stops, just where Quinn faces two impossible barriers, a wide, deep lake, and a sheer cliff hundreds of feet high.