He found himself standing in a landscape that looked exactly like a 
giant chessboard. On every black square there was a monster: there were 
two-tongued snakes and lions with three rows of teeth, and four-headed 
dogs and five-headed demon kings and so on. He was, so to speak, 
looking out through the eyes of the young hero of the story. It was like 
being in the passenger seat of an automobile: all he had to do was watch, 
while the hero dispatched one monster after another and advanced up the 
chessboard towards the white stone tower at the end.