“But I recall the springtime of the world as though it were yesterday—those days when we rode together to battle, and those nights when we shook the stars loose from the fresh-painted skies! The world was so new and different then, with a menace lurking within every flower and a bomb behind every sunrise. Together we beat a world, you and I, for nothing really wanted us here and everything disputed our coming. We cut and burnt our way across the land and over the seas, and we fought under the seas and in the skies, until there was nothing left to oppose us. Then cities were built, and kingdoms, and we raised up those whom we chose to rule over them, until they ceased to amuse us and we cast them down again. What do the younger gods know of those days? How can they understand the power we knew, who were First?”
“They cannot,” he replied.
“When we held court in our palace by the sea and I gave you many sons, and our fleets swept out to conquer the islands, were those days not fair and full of grace? And the nights things of fire and perfume and wine? . . . Did you not love me then?”
“I believe those two loved one another, yes.”
“Those two? We are not that different. We are not that changed. Though ages slip away, there are some things within one’s being which do not change, which do not alter, no matter how many bodies one puts upon oneself, no matter how many lovers one takes, no matter how many things of beauty and ugliness one looks upon or does, no matter how many thoughts one thinks or feelings one feels. One’s self stands at the center of all this and watches.”
“Open a fruit and there is a seed within it. Is that the center? Open the seed and there is nothing within it. Is that the center? We are two different persons from the master and the mistress of battles. It was good to have known those two, but that is all.”
“Did you go to dwell outside of Heaven because you were tired of me?”
“I wanted a change of perspective.”
“There have been long years over which I have hated you for departing. Then there have been times when I sat in the room called Despair, but was too much of a coward to walk beyond Worldsend. Then again, there have been times when I have forgiven you and invoked the seven Rishi to bring your image before me, so that I looked upon you as you went about your day, and it was almost as though we walked together once again. Other times I have desired your death, but you turned my executioner into a friend as you turn my wrath into forgiveness. Do you mean to say that you feel nothing for me?”
“I mean to say that I no longer love you. It would be nice if there were some one thing constant and unchanging in the universe. If there is such a thing, then it is a thing which would have to be stronger than love, and it is a thing which I do not know.”
“I have not changed, Sam.”
“Think carefully. Lady, over all that you have said, over all that you have recalled for me this day. It is not really the man whom you have been remembering. It is the days of carnage through which the two of you rode together. The world is come into a tamer age now. You long for the fire and the steel of old. You think it is the man, but it is the destiny the two of you shared for a time, the destiny which is past, that stirs your mind, and you call it love.”
“Whatever I call it, it has not changed! Its days are not past. It is a constant thing within the universe, and I call you to come share it with me once again!”
“What of Lord Yama?”
“What of him? You have dealt with those who would be numbered as his peers, did they still live.”