“I am not afraid of the dark, goddess,” he replied, chuckling.
“Then your brains are indeed in your gonads. Lord, as hath often been said before—to stand lost and blinded in the midst of Kaniburrha, whose denizens need not to strike—and not to be afraid—I think this somewhat foolhardy. Good-bye, Dark One. Perhaps I’ll see you at the wedding.”
“Wait, lovely lady! Will you accept my apology?”
“Certainly, for I deserve it.”
“Then lift this night you have laid upon this place.”
“Another time, Krishna—when I am ready.”
“But what shall I do until then?”
“It is said, sir, that by your piping you can charm the most fearsome of beasts. I suggest that if this be true you take up your pipes at this moment and begin your most soothing melody, until such a time as I see fit to let the light of day enter again into Heaven.”
“Lady, you are cruel,” said Krishna.
“Such is life. Lord of the Pipes,” and she departed.
He began to play, thinking dark thoughts.
They came. Out of the sky, riding on the polar winds, across the seas and the land, over the burning snow, and under it and through it, they came. The shape-shifters drifted across the fields of white, and the sky-walkers fell down like leaves; trumpets sounded over the wastes, and the chariots of the snows thundered forward, light leaping like spears from their burnished sides; cloaks of fur afire, white plumes of massively breathed air trailing above and behind them, golden-gauntleted and sun-eyed, clanking and skidding, rushing and whirling, they came, in bright baldric, wer-mask, fire-scarf, devil-shoe, frost-greaves and power-helm, they came; and across the world that lay at their back, there was rejoicing in the Temples, with much singing and the making of offerings, and processions and prayers, sacrifices and dispensations, pageantry and color. For the much-feared goddess was to be wed with Death, and it was hoped that this would serve to soften both their dispositions. A festive spirit had also infected Heaven, and with the gathering of the gods and the demigods, the heroes and the nobles, the high priests and the favored rajahs and high-ranking Brahmins, this spirit obtained force and momentum and spun like an all-colored whirlwind, thundering in the heads of the First and latest alike.
So they came into the Celestial City, riding on the backs of the cousins of the Garuda Bird, spinning down in sky gondolas, rising up through arteries of the mountains, blazing across the snow-soaked, ice-tracked wastes, to make Milehigh Spire to ring with their song, to laugh through a spell of brief and inexplicable darkness that descended and dispersed again, shortly; and in the days and nights of their coming, it was said by the poet Adasay that they resembled at least six different things (he was always lavish with his similes): a migration of birds, bright birds, across a waveless ocean of milk; a procession of musical notes through the mind of a slightly mad composer; a school of those deep-swimming fish whose bodies are whorls and runnels of light, circling about some phosphorescent plant within a cold and sea-deep pit; the Spiral Nebula, suddenly collapsing upon its center; a storm, each drop of which becomes a feather, songbird or jewel; and (and perhaps most cogent) a Temple full of terrible and highly decorated statues, suddenly animated and singing, suddenly rushing forth across the world, bright banners playing in the wind, shaking palaces and toppling towers, to meet at the center of everything, to kindle an enormous fire and dance about it, with the ever-present possibility of either the fire or the dance going completely out of control.
They came.
When the secret alarm rang in the Archives, Tak seized the Bright Spear from out its case on the wall. At various times during the day, the alarm would alert various sentinels. Having a premonition as to its cause, Tak was grateful that it did not ring at another hour. He elevated to the level of the City and made for the Museum on the hill.
It was already too late, though.
Open was the case and unconscious the attendant. The Museum was otherwise unoccupied, because of the activity in the City.