him and saw him sway on his feet.
Fear caught her. “Are you well?” She seized both his hands. They felt
cold and rough. Where had Sambo gone? Her eyes searched beneath
the cowl. In this brighter illumination, she ought to have seen her
man’s face clearly. But it was blurred, it kept changing. “What’s wrong,
oh, what’s happened?”
He smiled. Was that the smile she had cherished? She couldn’t
completely remember. “I-I must go,” he stammered, so low she could
scarcely hear. “Our time is not ready.” Ile drew free of her grasp and
leaned on a robed form which had appeared at his side. A haziness
swirled over both their heads. “Don’t watch me go . . . back into the
earth,” he pleaded. “That’s death for you. Till our time returns- There,
our son!”
She had to fling her gaze around. Kneeling, she spread wide her arms.
Jimmy struck her like a warm, solid cannonball. She rumpled his hair;
she kissed the hollow of his neck; she laughed and wept and babbled
foolishness; and this was no ghost, no memory that had stolen off
when she wasn’t looking. Now and again, as she turned her attention to
yet another hurt which might have come upon him-hunger, sickness,
fear-and found none, she would glimpse their surroundings. The
gardens were gone. It didn’t matter.
“I missed you so, Mother. Stay?”
“I’ll take you home, dearest.”
“Stay. Here’s fun. I’ll show. But you stay.”
A sighing went through the twilight. Barbro rose. Jimmy clung to her
hand. They confronted the Queen.
Very tall she was in her robes woven of northlights, and her starry
crown and her garlands of kiss-me-never. Her countenance recalled
Aphrodite of Milos, whose picture Barbro had often seen in the realms
of men, save that the Queen’s was more fair and more majesty dwelt
upon it and in the night-blue eyes. Around her the gardens woke to
new reality, the court of the Dwellers and the heaven-climbing spires.
“Be welcome,” she spoke, her speaking a song, “forever.”
Against the awe of her, Barbro said, “Moonmother, let us go home.”
“That may not be.”
“To our world, little and beloved,” Barbro dreamed she begged, “which
we build for ourselves and cherish for our children.”
“To prison days, angry nights, works that crumble in the fingers, loves
that turn to rot or stone or driftweed, loss, grief, and the only sureness
that of the final nothingness. No. You too, Wanderfoot who is to be,
will jubilate when the banners of the Outworld come flying into the
last of the cities and man is made wholly alive. Now go with those who
will teach you.”
The Queen of Air and Darkness lifted an arm in summons. It halted,
and none came to answer.
For over the fountains and melodies lifted a gruesome growling. Fires
leaped, thunders crashed. Her hosts scattered screaming before the
steel thing which boomed up the mountainside. The pooks were gone
in a whirl of frightened wings. The nicors flung their bodies against the
unalive invader and were consumed, until their Mother cried to them
to retreat.
Barbro cast Jimmy down and herself over him. Towers wavered and
smoked away. The mountain stood bare under icy moons, save for
rocks, crags,. and farther off a glacier in whose depths the
auroral light pulsed blue. A cave mouth darkened a cliff. Thither folk
streamed, seeking refuge underground. Some were human of blood, some
grotesques like the pooks and nicors and wraiths; but most were lean, scaly,
long-tailed, long-beaked, not remotely men or Outlings.
For an instant, even as Jimmy wailed at her breast-perhaps as much because
the enchantment had been wrecked as because he was afraid-Barbro pitied
the Queen who stood alone in her nakedness. Then that one also had fled,
and Barbro’s world shiver ered apart.
The guns fell silent; the vehicle whirred to a halt. From it sprang a boy
who called wildly, “Shadow-of-a-Dream, where are you? It’s me, Mistherd.
Oh, come, come!”-before he remembered that the language they had been
raised in was not man’s. He shouted in that until a girl crept out of a
thicket where she had hidden. They stared at each other through dust,