The garden of names #3 (freewrite)

This is the third part of the story. You can find the first parts here:

The garden of names

The garden of names #2

'You should have quit while you still could. You made a grizzly mistake in coming here, I'm afraid,' the voice that waited for them on the other shore said. It was loud and towering, as if the person that spoke it was a tall, British gentleman of impeccable taste. But of course, the voice was bodyless. Nobody 'spoke' the voice, because the voice spoke itself. It was the way it had always been with voices and the way it always would be.
'But we had no other place to go,' the boy protested and it was true, in a way, because it had occurred to him, while halfway in the murky water, that if he spent one more day in the garden of names, he would go mad, if he wasn't already.
The voice puffed and the puff was most ceremonious.
'There is always a place to go, even if you have not managed to think it.'
And then, the voice considered things for a long while. A silence grew between the boy's ears whilst the girl, also frightened and lost, found her courage and remembered who she was before she was nameless.
And before that, she had been fearless and that was a much more fun 'less' to be, so she became that again, and while the voice seemed to mull things over, she stepped away from the shore where they'd arrived and started following down a path into the very heart of this new place.
'But it is of little matter,' the voice said eventually, 'for you are here already, and there is little to do about things that are done. You may stay on this island, at your peril. Hmmph. One of you, it seems, has come to that conclusion before me. Very well. Little nameless boy, you may stay as long as you wish, but only if you find your companion very soonly. Otherwise, very grave things will begin happening to my island and we most certainly cannot have that. Too much namelessness might drive the inhabitants of my own island to...confusion, at least. So, I most definitely cannot have you two wandering around.'
The boy set out to find the girl, looking for her where he could, although there were a great many portions of this island hidden to him. It was as if someone had drawn a thick hazy veil around some of the paths, like those were not available to him.
'Perhaps they are not,' the voice mused and then quieted once more.

The path itself was unique in its making,the girl felt certain, and she could've been right, since the architect of the path, who was also a nameless man, offered a solitary chance at redemption, had failed miserably in his attempt, thus making the road she was now treading on more or less unique in the whole island and indeed the whole Universe.
Although strange, it was densely populated. The girl wiggled her naked pink feet around the dirt, so as not to tread on any of the little creatures, that were somewhere in-between bugs, toads and angels. She shimmied her way along the path, ducking and diving, as all sorts of exotic birds – some with strange heads, some with no heads at all – waved above, then disappeared into thin air.
She'd wave after some, wondering where they'd gone. Somehow, the argument that there was 'nothing after death' was now seeming...unimaginative.
'Where did you go?'
She heard him long before she saw him approach. The echo of his words ran down the narrow path – for it could hardly fit more than one person at a time – and caught her by the tips of her hair.
'I just wanted to see where the path lead,' she said as the boy got his breath back.
'Well don't,' he said and he was more angry than he'd meant, 'he said we shouldn't wander around.'

'He?' she asked, trying to look back, although not quite managing to turn her head.
'The voice in the sky,' the boy replied.
'But there is no voice in the sky,' the same voice told them, but this time, it seemed to not come from the sky, but from the thick tree on their left. 'I am not a voice in the sky or the spooky woods, I am the voice of the island of Delirium and I am the island itself, at times. Now, you come from the garden of no names to seek refuge here.'
'The garden of no names?' the boy asks, as his eyes grow wide and his jaw drops a little, 'but I thought it was the garden of names.'
'And yet, you inside are nameless. How appropriate. You appear to be a poet, little one, and so I see what you're doing here. And, indeed, what you were doing in the garden of no names. A poet is acquainted both with delirium and the nameless, if he is to be a worthwhile poet.'
And here, the voice seemed to turn and slightly frown at the girl, 'and you, lively one, you are an adventurer, you are of the fearless, which is why you've journeyed here. Ah, it is indeed a pleasure to be your host. But, but, but. You see, little poet and adventurer, the nameless cannot very well mix with the inhabitants of madness because your very existence implies that one's name can be taken away, and that would strip them of their identity, whereas my loyal little monsters are what they are, regardless of name.'
'But we're what we are, too, it doesn't matter that we can't say our names,' the boy protested, filled with anger and rage.
'Yeah, that's unfair,' the girl barked.
'Life is rumored to be unfair, little girl,' the voice said in a tone of contempt, 'you were robbed of your name, after all. No, you cannot stay here.'
'But you said we could stay and just that we shouldn't wander 'cause that would cause confusion,' the boy argued.
'It would do more than cause confusion, little one, it would tear at the very fabric of myself and I cannot allow that.'
'But you said we could stay!' the boy cried, because he couldn't remember seeing any other island close by.
'I have changed my mind,' the voice said with an imperceptible shrug.
'You can't do that,' the girl said, almost threatening.
'Little girl, I am the island of Delirium. I can do whatever I like.'

Okay yeah, I went way over 5 minutes, shoot me. Actually don't, 'cause I'd really like to see where this is going. Thank you, very gracious. I shall write more about this. Meanwhile, today's prompt was 'quit'. Check out @mariannewest's blog to join the freewriting challenge!

Thank you for reading,

Photo my own.