‘”I don’t tell you this because I ask for sympathy. I just want you to know who and what I am. How can you ask me to go out and preach when I could not convince my own children that my beliefs were right? And when my own wife died cursing God? How can I go out and talk to men who were scholars and statesmen and priests?’
“The visitor smiled and said, ‘Your wathan tells me that you can.’
“The visitor stood up. He lifted the silver cord from around his neck and past his head, and he placed it around La Viro’s neck. The golden helix now lay on La Viro’s chest.
‘”This is yours, Jacques Gillot. Do not dishonor it. Farewell. I may or may not see you again on this world.’
“La Viro said, ‘No! Wait! I have so many questions!’
“’You know enough,’ the visitor said. ‘God bless you.”
“He was gone. The rain and thunder and lightning were still making a tumult. Gillot went out a moment later. He could see no sign of the visitor, and after searching the stormy skies he returned to his hut. There he sat until dawn came up with the thunder of the grailstones. Then he went down to the plains to tell his story. As he had expected, those to whom he told his story thought he was crazy. But in time there were those who came to believe him.”
SECTION 8
The Fabulous Riverboats Arrive at Virolando
21
OVER THIRTY-THREE YEARS AGO, HE HAD ARRIVED IN VlROlando. It was his intention to stay only long enough to talk a few times to La Viro, if he were permitted to do so. Then he would go wherever the Church sent him. But La Viro had asked him to settle there, though he had not said why or how long he could remain. After a year there, Goring had adopted the Esperanto name of Fenikso (Phoenix).
Those had been the happiest years of his lives. Nor was there any reason to think he would not spend many more here.
This day would be much like the others, but its sameness was enjoyable and little varieties would garnish it.
After breakfast, he climbed up to a large building built on top of a rock spire on the left bank. Here he lectured his seminary students until a half-hour before noon. He went down swiftly to the ground and joined Kren at a grailstone. Afterward, they went up to another spire and strapped themselves into hang-gliders and launched themselves from the edge of the spire, six hundred feet above the ground.
The air above Virolando glittered with thousands of gliders which slanted up and down, turned, dipped, rose, swooped, danced. Hermann felt like a bird, no, a free spirit. It was an illusion of freedom, all freedom was illusion, but it was the best.
His glider was bright-red, painted so in memory of the squadron he had led after Manfred von Richthofen had died.
Scarlet was also the symbol for the blood of the martyrs of the Church. There were many such in the skies, mingling their color with white, black, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple craft. This land was blessed in having hematite and other ores from which pigments could be made. It was blessed in many things.
Hermann sped above and below the bridges holding houses, spanning the gap between the spires. He passed closely to the wooden and stone pylons, sometimes too closely. It was sinful to risk his life, but he could not resist it. The old thrill of flight on Earth had returned, doubling in ecstasy. There was no motor roaring in his ears, no fumes of oil in his nostrils, no sensation of being enclosed.
Sometimes he sailed by a balloon and waved at the people in the wickerwork baskets beneath them. During his holidays, he and Kren would board a balloon, rise to a height of a thousand meters, and let the wind carry them down The Valley. On long holidays, they would float for a whole day, talking, eating, making love in the cramped quarters while they rode without a bump, without a touch of the wind, since the balloon rode at the same speed as it did.