silver in the predawn chill. Across it Sanctuary rose, a Sanctuary none of its
habitues would have recognized-a Maze full of palaces, a Serpentine all snug
townhouses and taverns, everywhere light, contentment, splendor: a promise, and
a joke.
“It could be like this, the real world,” Mriga said as Ischade led them along
the riverside. “It will be, some day … though maybe not until time stops. But
it will, won’t it?” She turned to Ischade, her eyes shining in the growing day.
“Not being a goddess,” said Ischade, “I wouldn’t like to say.” She paused by a
little gate, swung it open. “Here is the barrier, all. What is-will reassert
itself. Beware the contrast.”
“But this is what is,” Mriga said, as first Siveni, then Harran, passed through
the gate, and the silver day flowed past them into Ischade’s weedy back yard.
Every tree burst into white blossom; the dank riverside air grew warm and sweet
as if spring and summer had rooted in that garden together. The black birds in
the trees looked down, and one opened its beak and, in a voice deep and
bittersweet as night and love, began to sing. The barren rosebush shook itself
and came out in leaves, then in a splendor of roses of every color imaginable
burning white, red like evening love, and the incomparable blue; silver and pink
and green and violet and even black.
“This is,” Mriga said, insisting, as Ischade paused by the gate and looked
through it in cool astonishment. “The waking world doesn’t need to be the way it
is … not for always. Neither do you. You could be more. You could be what you