The Dying Earth

3. T'SAIS

T'SAIS CAME riding from the grove. She checked her horse at the verge as if in indecision, and sat looking across the shimmering pastel meadow toward the river ... She stirred her knees and the horse proceeded across the turf.

She rode deep in thought, and overhead the sky rippled and cross-rippled, like a vast expanse of windy water, in tremendous shadows from horizon to horizon. Light from above, worked and refracted, flooded the land with a thousand colors, and thus, as T'sais rode, first a green beam flashed on her, then ultramarine, and topaz and ruby red, and the landscape changed in similar timings and subtlety.

T'sais closed her eyes to the shifting lights. They rasped her nerves, confused her vision. The red glared, the green stifled, the blues and purples hinted at mysteries beyond knowledge. It was as if the entire universe had been expressly designed with an eye to jarring her, provoking her to fury. ... A butterfly with wings patterned like a precious rug flitted by, and T'sais made to strike at it with her rapier. She restrained herself with great effort; for T'sais was of a passionate nature and not given to restraint. She looked down at the flowers below her horse's feet—pale daisies, blue-bells, Judas-creeper, orange sunbursts. No more would she stamp them to pulp, rend them from their roots. It had been suggested to her that the flaw lay not in the universe but in herself. Swallowing her vast enmity toward the butterfly and the flowers and the changing lights of the sky, she continued across the meadow.

A bank of dark trees rose above her, and beyond were clumps of rushes and the gleam of water, all changing in hue as the light changed in the sky. She turned and followed the river bank to the long low manse.

She dismounted, walked slowly to the door of black smoky wood, which bore the image of a sardonic face. She pulled at the tongue and inside a bell tolled. There was no reply. "Pandelume!" she called. Presently there was a muffled answer: "Enter." She pushed open the door and came into a high-ceilinged room, bare except for a padded settee, a dim tapestry.

"What is your wish?" The voice, mellow and of an illimitable melancholy, came from beyond the wall.

"Pandelume, today I have learned that killing is evil, and further that my eyes trick me, and that beauty is where I see only harsh light and evil forms."

For a period Pandelume maintained a silence; then the muffled voice came, replying to the implicit plea for knowledge.

"That is, for the most part, true. Living creatures, if nothing else, have the right to life. It is their only truly precious possession, and the stealing of life is a wicked theft. ... As for the other, the fault is not with you. Beauty lies everywhere free to be seen by all—by all except you. For this I feel sorrow, for I created you. I built your primal cell; I stamped the strings of life with the pattern of your body and brain. And in spite of my craft I erred, so that when you climbed from the vat, I found that I had molded a flaw into your brain; that you saw ugliness in beauty, evil in good. True ugliness, true evil you have never seen, for in Embelyon there is nothing wicked or foul ... Should you be so unfortunate to encounter these, I fear for your brain."

"Cannot you change me?" cried T'sais. "You are a magician. Must I live my life out blind to joy?"

The shadow of a sigh penetrated the wall.

"I am a magician indeed, with knowledge of every spell yet devised, the sleight of runes, incantations, designs, exorcisms, talismans. I am Master Mathematician, the first since Phandaal, yet I can do nothing to your brain without destroying your intelligence, your personality, your soul—for I am no god. A god may will things to existence; I must rely on magic, the spells which vibrate and twist space."

Hope faded from T'sais' eyes. "I wish to go to Earth," she said presently. "The sky of Earth is a steady blue, and a red sun moves over the horizons. I tire of Embelyon where there is no voice but yours."

"Earth," mused Pandelume. "A dim place, ancient beyond knowledge. Once it was a tall world of cloudy mountains and bright rivers, and the sun was a white blazing ball. Ages of rain and wind have beaten and rounded the granite, and the sun is feeble and red. The continents have sunk and risen. A million cities have lifted towers, have fallen to dust. In place of the old peoples a few thousand strange souls live. There is evil on Earth, evil distilled by time... . Earth is dying and in its twilight..." he paused.

T'sais said doubtfully: "Yet I have heard Earth is a place of beauty, and I would know beauty, even though I die."

"How will you know beauty when you see it?"

"All human beings know beauty ... Am I not human?"

"Of course."

"Then I will find beauty, and perhaps even—" T'sais faltered over the word, so alien was it to her mind, yet so full of disturbing implication.

Pandelume was silent. At last:

"You shall go if you wish. I will aid you as I may. I will give you runes to ward you from magic; I will strike life into your sword; and I will give you advice, which is this: Beware of men, for men loot beauty to sate their lust. Permit intimacy to none ... I will give you a bag of jewels, which are riches on Earth. With these you may attain much. Yet, again, show them nowhere, for certain men will slay for a copper bit."

A heavy silence came, a weight was gone from the air.

"Pandelume," called T'sais softly. There was no reply.

After a moment Pandelume returned, and the sense of his presence reached to her mind.

"In a moment," he said, "you may enter this room."

T'sais waited a period; then, as she was bid, entered the next room.

"On the bench to the left," came Pandelume's voice, "you will find an amulet and a little sack of gems. Clasp this amulet upon your wrist; it will reflect magic intended evilly against him who utters the spell. This is a most powerful rune; guard it well."

T'sais obeyed, and tied the jewels inside her sash.

"Lay your sword upon this bench, stand upon the rune in the floor and close your eyes tightly. I must enter the room. I charge you, do not attempt to see me—for there are terrible consequences."

T'sais discarded her sword, stood upon the metal rune, locked her eyes. She heard a slow step, heard the clink of metal, then a high intense shrilling, dying slowly.

"Your sword lives," said Pandelume, and his voice sounded strangely loud, coming from so near. "It will kill your enemies with intelligence. Reach your hand and take it."

T'sais sheathed her slim rapier, now warm and quivering.

"Where on Earth will you go?" asked Pandelume. "To the land of men, or to the great ruined wildernesses?"

"To Ascolais," said T'sais, for the one who had told her of beauty had spoken of this land.

"As you wish," said Pandelume. "Now hark! If you ever seek to return to Embelyon—"

"No," said T'sais. "I would rather die."

"Please yourself in that regard."

T'sais remained silent.

"Now I will touch you. You will be dizzy a moment— and then you will open your eyes on Earth. It is almost night, and terrible things rove the dark. So seek shelter quickly."

In high excitement T'sais felt the touch of Pandelume. There was a wavering in her brain, a swift unthinkable flight ... Strange soil was under her feet, strange air at her face with a sharper tang. She opened her eyes.

The landscape was strange and new. There was a dark blue sky, an ancient sun. She stood in a meadow, encircled by tall gloomy trees. These trees were unlike the calm giants of Embelyon; these were dense and brooding, and the shadows were enigmatic. Nothing in sight, nothing of Earth was raw or harsh—the ground, the trees, the rock ledge protruding from the meadow; all these had been worked upon, smoothed, aged, mellowed. The light from the sun, though dim, was rich, and invested every object of the land, the rocks, the trees, the quiet grasses and flowers, with a sense of lore and ancient recollection.

A hundred paces distant rose the mossy ruins of a long-tumbled castelry. The stones were blackened now by lichens, by smoke, by age; grass grew rank through the rubble—the whole a weird picture in the long light of sunset.

T'sais slowly approached. Some of the walls yet were standing, stone on weathered stone, the mortar long since dissolved. She moved wonderingly around a great effigy, mouldered, chipped, cracked, almost entirely buried; puzzled a moment at the characters carved in the base. Wide-eyed she stared at what remained of the visage —cruel eyes, sneering mouth, a nose broken off. T'sais shuddered faintly. There was nothing here for her; she turned to go.

A laugh, high-pitched, gleeful, rang across the clearing. T'sais, mindful of Pandelume's warnings, waited in a dark recess. Movement flickered between the trees; a man and woman lurched into the failing sunlight; then came a young man treading light as air, singing and whistling. He held a light sword, which he used to prod the two, who were bound.

They halted before the ruins, close by T'sais, and she could see the faces. The bound man was a thin-faced wretch with a ragged red beard and eyes darting and desperate; the woman was short and plump. Their captor was Liane the Wayfarer. His brown hair waved softly, his features moved in charm and flexibility. He had golden-hazel eyes, large and beautiful, never still. He wore red leather shoes with curled tops, a suit of red and green, a green cloak, and a peaked hat with a red feather. T'sais watched without comprehension. The three were equally vile, of sticky blood, red pulp, inner filth. Liane seemed slightly less ignoble—he was the most agile, the most elegant. And T'sais watched with little interest.

Liane deftly threw loops around the ankles of man and woman and pushed them so that they fell among the flints. The man groaned softly, the woman fell to whimpering..

Liane made a gay flourish of his hat and sprang away to the ruins. Not twenty feet from T'sais he slid aside a stone in the ancient flags, came forth with tinder and flint, and kindled a fire. From his pouch he took a bit of meat, which he toasted and ate daintily, sucking his fingers. No word had yet passed. Liane at last stood up, stretched, and glanced at the sky. The sun was dropping below the dark wall of trees, and already blue shadows filled the glade.

"To business," cried Liane. His voice was shrill and clear as the call of a flute. "First," and he made a solemnly waggish gesture, "I must assure that our revelations are weighted with soberness and truth."

He ducked into his lair under the flags and brought forth four stout staffs. He laid one of these across the thighs of the man, passed the second across this, through the crotch of his captive's legs, so that with slight effort he could crush down at the thighs and up at the small of the back. He tested his device and crowed as the man cried out. He adjusted a similar arrangement upon the woman. T'sais watched in perplexity. Evidently the young man was preparing to cause his captives pain. Was this a custom of Earth? But how was she to judge, she who knew nothing of good or evil?

"Liane! Liane!" cried the man. "Spare my wife! She knows nothing! Spare her, and you may have all I possess, and I serve you my lifetime!"

"Ho!" laughed Liane, and the feather of his cap quivered. "Thank you, thank you for your offer—but Liane wants no faggots of wood, no turnips. Liane likes silk and gold, the gleam of daggers, the sounds a girl makes in love. So thank you—but I seek the brother of your wife, and when your wife chokes and screams, you will tell where he hides.

To T'sais the scene began to assume meaning. The two captives were concealing information the young man desired; hence he would hurt them until in desperation they did as he asked. A clever artifice, one which she would hardly have thought of herself.

"Now," said Liane, "I must ensure that lies are not artfully mingled into the truth. You see," he confided, "when one is under torment, he is too distraught to invent, to fabricate—and hence speaks naught but exactness." He snatched a brand from the fire, wedged it between the man's bound ankles, and instantly leapt to ply the torture lever upon the woman.

"I know nothing, Liane!" babbled the man. "I know nothing—oh, indeed!"

Liane stood away with dissatisfaction. The woman had fainted. He snatched the brand away from the man and flung it pettishly into the blaze.

"What a nuisance!" he said, but presently his good spirits reasserted themselves. "Ah well, we have much time." He stroked his pointed chin.

"Perhaps you speak truth," he mused. "Perhaps your good wife shall be the informant after all." He revived her with slaps and an aromatic which he held under her nose. She stared at him numbly, her face twisted and bloated. "Attend," said Liane. "I enter the second phase of the question. I reason, I think, I theorize. I say, perhaps the husband does not know where he whom I seek has fled, perhaps the wife alone knows."

The woman's mouth opened slightly. "He is my brother—please—"

"Ah! So you know!" cried Liane in delight, and strode back and forth before the fire. "Ah, you know! We renew the trial. Now attend. With this staff I make jelly of your man's legs, and bring his spine up through his stomach— unless you speak." He set about his task.

"Say nothing—" gasped the man, and lapsed into pain. The woman cursed, sobbed, pleaded. At last: "I tell, I tell you all!" she cried. "Dellare has gone to Efred!"

Liane relaxed his efforts. "Efred. So. In the Land of the Falling Wall." He pursed his lips. "It might be true. But I disbelieve. You must tell me once more, under the influence of the truth-evoker." And he brought a brand from the fire and adjusted it at her ankles—and set to work on the man once more. The woman spoke not.

"Speak, woman," snarled Liane, panting. "I am in perspiration with this work." The woman spoke not. Her eyes were wide, and stared glassily upwards.

"She is dead!" cried her husband. "Dead! My wife is dead! Ah—Liane, you demon, you foulness!" he screamed. "I curse you! by Thial, by Kraan—" His voice quavered into high-pitched hysteria.

T'sais was disturbed. The woman was dead. Was not killing wicked? So Pandelume had said. If the woman were good, as the bearded man had said, then Liane was evil. Things of blood and filth all, of course. Still, it was vile, hurting a live thing till it died.

Knowing nothing of fear, she stepped out from her hiding place and advanced into the fire-light. Liane looked up and sprang back. But the intruder was a slender girl of passionate beauty. He caroled, he danced.

"Welcome, welcome!" He glared in distaste at the bodies on the ground. "Unpleasant; we must ignore them." He flung his cloak back, ogled her with his luminous hazel eyes, strutted toward her like a plumed cock.

"You are lovely, my dear, and I—I am the perfect man; so you shall see."

T'sais laid her hand on her rapier, and it sprang out by itself. Liane leapt back, alarmed by the blade and likewise by the blaze which glowed deep from the warped brain.

"What means this? Come, come," he fretted. "Put away your steel. It is sharp and hard. You must lay it away. I am a kind man, but I brook no annoyance."

T'sais stood over the prone bodies. The man looked up at her feverishly. The woman stared at the dark sky.

Liane sprang forward, planning to clasp her while her attention was distracted. The rapier sprang up by itself, darted forward, pierced the agile body.

Liane the Wayfarer sank to his knees coughing blood. T'sais pulled away the rapier, wiped the blood on the gay green cloak, and sheathed it with difficulty. It wished to stab, to pierce, to kill.

Liane lay unconscious. T'sais turned away, sick. A thin voice reached her. "Release me—"

T'sais considered, then she cut the bonds. The man stumbled to his wife, stroked her, flung off the bonds, called to her uplifted face. There was no answer. He sprang erect in madness and howled into the night. Raising the limp form in his arms he stumbled off into the darkness, lurching, falling, cursing ...

T'sais shivered. She glanced from the prone Liane to the black forest where the flickering circle of the firelight failed to reach. Slowly, with many backward glances, she left the tumbled ruins, the meadow. The bleeding figure of Liane remained by the dying fire.

The glimmer of flame waned, was lost in the darkness. T'sais groped her way between the looming trunks; and the murk was magnified by the twist in her brain. There never had been night in Embelyon, only an opalescent dimming. So T'sais continued down the sighing forest courses, stifled, weighed, yet oblivious to the things she might have met—the Deodands, the pelgrane, the prowling erbs (creatures mixed of beasts, man and demon) the gids, who leaps twenty feet across the turf and clasped themselves to their victims.

T'sais went unmolested, and presently reached the edge of the forest. The ground rose, the trees thinned, and T'sais come out on an illimitable dark expanse. This was Modavna Moor, a place of history, a tract which had borne the tread of many feet and absorbed much blood. At one famous slaughtering, Golickan Kodek the Conqueror had herded here the populations of two great cities, G'Vasan and Bautiku, constricted them in a circle three miles across, gradually pushed them tighter, tighter, tighter, panicked them toward the center within his flapping-armed sub-human cavalry, until at last he had achieved a gigantic squirming mound, half a thousand feet high, a pyramid of screaming flesh. It is said that Golickan Kodek mused ten minutes at his monument, then turned and rode his bounding mount back to the land of Laidenur from whence he had come.

The ghosts of the ancient populations had paled and dissolved and Modavna Moor was less stifling than the forest. Bushes grew like blots from the ground. A line of rocky crags at the horizon jutted sharp against a faint violet afterglow. T'sais picked her way across the turf, relieved that the sky was open above. A few minutes later she came to an ancient road of stone slab, cracked and broken, bordered by a ditch where luminous star-shaped flowers grew. A wind came sighing off the moor to dampen her face with mist. She went wearily down the road. No shelter was visible, and the wind whipped coldly at her cloak.

A rush of feet, a tumble of shapes, and T'sais was struggling against hard grasping hands. She fought for her rapier, but her arms were pinioned.

One struck a light, fired a torch, to examine his prize. T'sais saw three bearded, scarred rogues of the moor; they wore gray pandy-suits, stained and fouled by mud and filth.

"Why, it's a handsome maid!" said one, leering.

"I'll seek about her for silver," said another and slid his hands with evil intimacy over T'sais' body. He found the sack of jewels, and turned them into his palm, a trickle of hundred-colored fire. "Mark these! The wealth of princes!"

"Or sorcerers!" said another. And in sudden doubt they relaxed their holds. But still she could not reach her rapier.

"Who are you, woman of the night?" asked one with some respect. "A witch, to have such jewels, and walk Modavna Moor alone?"

T'sais had neither wit nor experience to improvise falsehood.

"I am no witch! Release me, you stinking animals!"

"No witch? Then what manner of woman are you? Whence do you come?"

"I am T'sais, of Embelyon," she cried angrily. "Pandelume created me, and I seek love and beauty on Earth. Now drop your hands, for I would go my way!"

The first rogue chortled. "Ho, ho! Seeking love and beauty! You have achieved something of your quest, girl—for while we lads are no beauties, to be sure, Tagman being covered with scab and Lasard lacking his teeth and ears—still we have much love, hey, lads? We will show you as much love as you desire! Hey, lads?"

And in spite of T'sais horrified outcries, they dragged her across the moor to a stone cabin.

They entered, and one kindled a roaring fire, while two stripped T'sais of her rapier and flung it in a corner. They locked the door with a great iron key, and released her. She sprang for her sword, but a buffet sent her to the foul floor.

"May that quiet you, fiend-cat!" panted Tagman. "You should be happy," and they renewed their banter. "Admitted we are not beauties, yet we will show you all the love you may wish."

T'sais crouched in a corner. "I know not what love is," she panted. "In any event I want none of yours!"

"Is it possible?" they crowed. "You are yet innocent?" And T'sais listened with eyes glazing as they proceeded to describe in evil detail their concept of love.

T'sais sprang from her corner in a frenzy, kicking, beating her fists at the moor-men. And when she had been flung into her corner, bruised and half-dead, the men brought out a great cask of mead, to fortify themselves for their pleasure.

Now they cast lots as to who should be the first to enjoy the girl. The issue was declared, and here an altercation arose, two claiming that he who won had cheated. Angry words evolved, and as T'sais watched, dazed in horror beyond the concept of a normal mind, they fought like bulls in a rut, with great curses, mighty blows. T'sais crept to her rapier, and as it felt her touch, it lofted into the air like a bird. It lunged itself into the fight, dragging T'sais behind. The three shouted hoarsely, the steel flickered—in, out, faster than the eye. Cries, groans—and three sprawled on the earthen floor, gaping-mouthed corpses. T'sais found the key, unlocked the door, fled madly through the night.

She ran over the dark and windy moor, across the road, stumbled into the ditch, dragged herself up the cold muddy bank and sank on her knees ... This was Earth! She remembered Embelyon, where the most evil things were flowers and butterflies. She remembered how these had aroused her hate.

Embelyon was lost, renounced. And T'sais wept.

A rustling in the heather aroused her. Aghast she lifted her head, listened. What new outrage to her mind? The sinister sounds again, as of cautious footfalls. She searched the darkness in terror.

A black figure stole into her sight, creeping along the ditch. In the light of the fireflies she saw him—a Deodand, wandered from the forest, a hairless man-thing with charcoal-black skin, a handsome face, marred and made demoniac by two fangs gleaming long, sharp and white down his lip. It was clad in a leather harness, and its long slit eyes were fastened hungrily on T'sais. He sprang at her with an exulting cry.

T'sais stumbled clear, fell, snatched herself up. Wailing, she fled across the moor, insensible to scratching furze, tearing thorn. The Deodand bounded after, venting eerie moans.

Over moor, turf, hummock, briar and brook, across the dark wastes went the chase, the girl fleeing with eyes starting and staring into nothing, the pursuer uttering his wistful moans.

A loom, a light ahead—a cottage. T'sais, breath coming in sobs, lurched to the threshold. The door mercifully gave. She fell in, slammed the door, dropped the bar. The weight of the Deodand thudded against the barrier.

The door was stout, the windows small and crossed by iron. She was safe. She sank to her knees, the breath rasping in her throat, and slowly lapsed into unconsciousness ...

The man who dwelt in the cottage rose from his deep seat at the fire, tall, broad of shoulder, moving with a curiously slow step. He was perhaps a young man, but no one could know, for face and head were draped in a black hood. Behind the eye-slits were steady blue eyes.

The man came to stand over T'sais, who lay flung like a doll on the red brick floor. He stooped, lifted the limp form, and carried her to a wide padded bench beside the fire. He removed her sandals, her quivering rapier, her sodden cloak. He brought unguent and applied it to her scratches and bruises. He wrapped her in soft flannel blanketing, pillowed her head, and, assured that she was comfortable, once more sat himself by the fire.

The Deodand outside had lingered, and had been watching through the iron-barred window. Now it knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" called the man in the black hood, twisting about.

"I desire the one who has entered. I hunger for her flesh," said the soft voice of the Deodand.

The man in the hood spoke sharply.

"Go, before I speak a spell to burn you with fire. Never return!"

"I go," said the Deodand, for he greatly feared magic, and departed into the night.

And the man turned and sat staring into the fire.

T'sais felt warm pungent liquid in her mouth and opened her eyes. Kneeling beside her was a tall man, hooded in black. One arm supported her shoulders and head, another held a silver spoon to her mouth.

T'sais shrank away. "Quietly," said the man. "Nothing will harm you." Slowly, doubtfully, she relaxed and lay still.

Red sunlight poured in through the windows, and the cottage was warm. It was paneled in golden wood, with a fretwork painted in red and blue and brown circling the ceiling. Now the man brought more broth from the fire, bread from a locker, and placed them before her. After a moment's hesitation, T'sais ate.

Recollection suddenly came to her; she shuddered, looked wildly around the room. The man noted her taut face. He stooped and laid a hand on her head. T'sais lay quiet, half in dread.

"You are safe here," said the man. "Fear nothing."

A vagueness came over T'sais. Her eyes grew heavy. She slept.

When she woke the cottage was empty, and the maroon sunlight slanted in from an opposite window. She stretched her arms, tucked her hands behind her head, and lay thinking. This man of the black hood, who was he? Was he evil? Everything else of Earth had been past thought. Still, he had done nothing to harm her ... She spied her garments upon the floor. She rose from the couch and dressed herself. She went to the door and pushed it open. Before her stretched the moor, fading far off beyond the under-slant of the horizon. To her left jutted a break of rocky crags, black shadow and lurid red stones. To the right extended the black margin of the forest.

Was this beautiful? T'sais pondered. Her warped brain saw bleakness in the line of the moor, cutting harshness in the crags, and in the forest—terror.

Was this beauty? At a loss, she twisted her head, squinted. She heard footsteps, jerked about, wide-eyed, expecting anything. It was he of the black hood, and T'sais leaned back against the door-jamb.

She watched him approach, tall and strong, slow of step. Why did he wear the hood? Was he ashamed of his face? She could understand something of this, for she herself found the human face repellent—an object of watery eye, wet unpleasant apertures, spongy outgrowths.

He halted before her. "Are you hungry?"

T'sais considered. "Yes."

"Then we will eat."

He entered the cottage, stirred up the fire, and spitted meat. T'sais stood uncertainly in the background. She had always served herself. She felt an uneasiness: cooperation was an idea she had not yet encountered.

Presently the man arose, and they sat to eat at his table.

"Tell me of yourself," he said after a few moments. So T'sais, who had never learned to be other than artless, told him her story, thus;

"I am T'sais. I came to Earth from Embelyon, where the wizard Pandelume created me."

"Embelyon? Where is Embelyon? And who is Pandelume?"

"Where is Embelyon?" she repeated in puzzlement. "I don't know. It is in a place that is not Earth. It is not very large, and lights of many colors come from the sky. Pandelume lives in Embelyon. He is the greatest wizard alive—so he tells me."

"Ah," the man said. "Perhaps I see ..."

"Pandelume created me," continued T'sais, "but there was a flaw in the pattern." And T'sais stared into the fire. "I see the world as a dismal place of horror; all sounds to me are harsh, all living creatures vile, in varying degrees—things of sluggish movement and inward filth. During the first of my life I thought only to trample, crush, destroy. I knew nothing but hate. Then I met my sister T'sain, who is as I without the flaw. She told me of love and beauty and happiness—and I came to Earth seeking these."

The grave blue eyes studied her.

"Have you found them?"

"So far," said T'sais in a faraway voice, "I have found only such evil as I never even encountered in my nightmares." Slowly she told him her adventures.

"Poor creature," he said and fell to studying her once again.

"I think I shall kill myself," said T'sais, in the same distant voice, "for what I want is infinitely lost." And the man, watching, saw how the red afternoon sun coppered her skin, noted the loose, black hair, the long thoughtful eyes. He shuddered at the thought of this creature being lost into the dust of Earth's forgotten trillions.

"No!" he said sharply. T'sais stared at him in surprise. Surely one's life was one's own, to do with as one pleased.

"Have you found nothing on Earth," he asked, "that you would regret leaving?"

T'sais knit her brows. "I can think of nothing—unless it be the peace of this cottage."

The man laughed. "Then this shall be your home, for as long as you wish, and I will try to show you that the world is sometimes good—though in truth—" his voice changed "—I have not found it so."

"Tell me," said T'sais, "what is your name? Why do you wear the hood?"

"My name? Etarr," he said in a voice subtly harsh. "Etarr is enough of it. I wear the mask because of the most wicked woman of Ascolais—Ascolais, Almery, Kauchique—the entire world. She made my face such that I cannot abide my own sight."

He relaxed, and gave a weary laugh. "No need for anger any more."

"Is she alive still?"

"Yes, she lives, and no doubt still works evil on all she meets." He sat looking into the fire. "One time I knew nothing of this. She was young, beautiful, laden with a thousand fragrances and charming playfulnesses. I lived beside the ocean—in a white villa among poplar trees. Across Tenebrosa Bay the Cape of Sad Remembrance reached into the ocean, and when sunset made the sky red and the mountains black, the cape seemed to sleep on the water like one of the ancient earth-gods ... All my life I spent here, and was as content as one may be while dying Earth spins out its last few courses.

"One morning I looked up from my star-charts and saw Javanne walking through the portal. She was as young and slender as yourself. Her hair was a wonderful red, and strands fell before her shoulders. She was very beautiful, and—in her white gown—pure and innocent.

"I loved her, and she said she loved me. And she gave me a band of black metal to wear. In my blindness I clasped it to my wrist, never recognizing it for the evil rune it was. And weeks of great delight passed. But presently I found that Javanne was one of dark urges that the love of man could never quell. And one midnight I found her in the embrace of a black naked demon, and the sight twisted my mind.

"I stood back aghast. I was not seen, and I went slowly away. In the morning she came running across the terrace, smiling and happy, like a child. 'Leave me,' I told her. 'You are vile beyond calculation.' She uttered a word and the rune on my arm enslaved me. My mind was my own, but my body was hers, forced to obey her words.

"And she made me tell what I had seen, and she revelled and jeered. And she put me through foul degradations, and called up things from Kalu, from Fauvune, from Jeldred, to mock and defile my body. She made me witness her play with these things, and when I pointed out the creature that sickened me the most, by magic she gave me its face, the face I wear now."

"Can such women exist?" marvelled T'sais.

"Indeed." The grave blue eyes studied her attentively. "At last one night while the demons tumbled me across the crags behind the hills, a flint tore the rune from my aim. I was free; I chanted a spell which sent the shapes shrieking off through the sky, and returned to the villa. "And I met Javanne of the red hair in the great hall, and her eyes were cool and innocent. I drew my knife to stab her throat, but she said 'Hold! Kill me and you wear your demon-face forever, for only I know how to change it.' So she ran blithely away from the villa, and I, unable to bear the sight of the place, came to the moors. And always I seek her, to regain my face."

"Where is she now?" asked T'sais, whose troubles seemed small compared to those of Etarr the Masked.

"Tomorrow night, I know where to find her. It is the night of the Black Sabbath—the night dedicated to evil since the dawn of Earth."

"And you will attend this festival?"

"Not as a celebrant—though in truth," said Etarr ruefully, "without my hood I would be one of the things who are there, and would pass unnoticed."

T'sais shuddered and pressed back against the wall. Etarr saw the gesture and sighed..

Another idea occurred to her. "With all the evil you have suffered, do you still find beauty in the world?"

"To be sure," said Etarr. "See how these moors stretch, sheer and clean, of marvellous subtle color. See how the crags rise in grandeur, like the spine of the world. And you," he gazed into her face, "you are of a beauty surpassing all."

"Surpassing Javanne?" asked T'sais, and looked in puzzlement as Etarr laughed.

"Indeed surpassing Javanne," he assured her.

T'sais' brain went off at another angle.

"And Javanne, do you wish to revenge yourself against her?"

"No," answered Etarr, eyes far away across the moors. "What is revenge? I care nothing for it. Soon, when the sun goes out, men will stare into the eternal night, and all will die, and Earth will bear its history, its ruins, the mountains worn to knolls— all into infinite dark. Why revenge?"

Presently they left the cottage and wandered across the moor, Etarr trying to show her beauty—the slow river Scaum flowing through green rushes, clouds basking in the wan sunlight over the crags, a bird wheeling on spread wings, the wide smoky sweep of Modavna Moor. And T'sais strove always to make her brain see this beauty, and always did she fail. But she had learned to check the wild anger that the sights of the world had once aroused. And her craving to kill diminished, and her face relaxed from its tense set.

So they wandered on, each to his own thoughts. And they watched the sad glory of the sunset, and they saw the slow white stars raise in the heavens.

"Are not the stars beautiful?" whispered Etarr through his black hood. "They have names older than man."

And T'sais, finding only mournfulness in the sunset, and thinking the stars but small sparks in meaningless patterns, could not answer.

"Surely two more unfortunate people do not exist," she sighed.

Etarr said nothing. They walked on in silence. Suddenly he grasped her arm and pulled her low in the furze. Three great shapes went flapping across the afterglow. "The pelgrane!"

They flew close overhead—gargoyle creatures, with wings creaking like rusty hinges. T'sais caught a glimpse of hard leathern body, great hatchet beak, leering eyes in a wizened face. She shrank against Etarr. The pelgrane flapped across the forest.

Etarr laughed harshly. "You shrink from the visage of the pelgrane. The countenance I wear would put the pelgrane themselves to flight."

The next morning he took her into the woods, and she found the trees mindful of Embelyon. They returned to the cottage in the early afternoon, and Etarr retired to his books.

"I am no sorcerer," he told her regretfully. "I am acquainted with but a few simple spells. Yet I make occasional use of magic, which may ward me from danger tonight."

"Tonight?" T'sais inquired vaguely, for she had forgotten.

"Tonight is the Black Sabbath, and I must go to find Javanne."

"I would go with you," said T'sais. "I would see the Black Sabbath, and Javanne also."

Etarr assured her that the sights and sounds would horrify her and torment her brain. T'sais persisted, and Etarr finally allowed her to follow him, when two hours after sunset he set off in the direction of the crags.

Over the heath, up scaly outcroppings, Etarr picked a way through the dark, with T'sais a slender shadow behind. A great scarp lay across their path. Into a black fissure, up a flight of stone steps, cut in the immemorial past, and out on top of the cliff, with Modavna Moor a black sea below.

Now Etarr gestured T'sais to great caution. They stole through a gap between two towering rocks; concealed in the shadow, they surveyed the congress below.

They were overlooking an amphitheater lit by two blazing fires. In the center rose a dais of stone, as high as a man. About the fire, about the dais, two-score figures, robed in gray monks-cloth, reeled sweatingly, their faces unseen.

T'sais felt a premonitory chill. She looked at Etarr doubtfully.

"Even here is beauty," he whispered. "Weird and grotesque, but a sight to enchant the mind." T'sais looked again in dim comprehension.

More of the robed and cowled figures now were weaving before the fires; whence they came T'sais had not observed. It was evident that the festival had just begun, that the celebrants were only marshalling their passions. They pranced, shuffled, wove in and out, and presently began a muffled chant.

The weaving and gesticulation became feverish, and the caped figures crowded more closely around the dais. And now one leapt up on the dais and doffed her robe —a middleaged witch of squat naked body with a great broad face. She had ecstatic glittering eyes, large features pumping in ceaseless idiotic motion. Mouth open, tongue protruding, stiff black hair like a furze bush, falling from side to side over her face as she shook her head, she danced a libidinous sidelong dance in the light of the fires, looking slyly over the gathering. The chant of the cavorting figures below swelled to a vile chorous, and overhead dark shapes appeared, settling with an evil sureness.

The crowd began to slip from their robes, to reveal all manner of men and women, old and young—orange-haired witches of the Cobalt Mountain; forest sorcerers of Ascolais; white-bearded wizards of the Forlorn Land, with babbling small succubi. And one clad in splendid silk was the Prince Datul Omaet of Cansapara, the city of fallen pylons across the Melantine Gulf. And another creature of scales and staring eyes came of the lizardmen in the barren hills of South Almery. And these two girls, never apart, were Saponids, the near-extinct race from the northern tundras. The slender dark-eyed ones were necrophages from the Land of the Falling Wall. And the dreamy-eyed witch of the blue hair—she dwelt on the Cape of Sad Remembrance and waited at night on the beach for that which came in from the sea.

And as the squat witch with the black ruff and swinging breasts danced, the communicants became exalted, raised their arms, contorted their bodies, pantomimed all the evil and perversion they could set mind to.

Except one—a quiet figure still wrapped in her robe, moving slowly through the saturnalia with a wonderful grace. She stepped up on the dais now, let the robe slip from her body, and Javanne stood revealed in a clinging white gown of mist-stuff, gathered at the waist, fresh and chaste as salt spray. Shining red hair fell over her shoulders like a stream, and curling strands hung over her breasts. Her great gray eyes demure, strawberry mouth a little parted, she gazed back and forth across the crowd. They called and crowed, and Javanne, with tantalizing deliberation, moved her body.

Javanne danced. She raised her arms, wove them down, twisting her body on slender white legs ... Javanne danced, her face shining with the most reckless passions. A dim shape dropped from above, a beautiful half-creature, and he joined his body to Javanne's in a fantastic embrace. And the crowd below cried, leapt, rolled, tossed, joined together in a swift culmination of their previous antics.

From the rocks T'sais watched, mind under an intensity no normal brain could understand. But—in strange paradox—the sight and sound fascinated her, reached below the warp, touched the dark chords latent to humanity. Etarr looked down at her, eyes glowing blue fire, and she stared back in a tumult of contradictory emotions. He winced and turned away; at last she looked back to the orgy below—a drug-dream, a heaving of wild flesh in the darting firelight. A palpable aura was cast up, a weft in space meshed of varying depravities. And the demons swooped like birds alighting and joined the delirium. Foul face after face T'sais saw, and each burnt her brain until she thought she must scream and die—visages of leering eye, bulbed cheek, lunatic body, black faces of spiked nose, expressions outraging thought, writhing, hopping, crawling, the spew of the demon-lands. And one had a nose like a three-fold white worm, a mouth that was a putrefying blotch, a mottled jowl and black malformed forehead; the whole a thing of retch and horror. To this Etarr directed T'sais' gaze. She saw and her muscles knotted. "There," said Etarr in a muffled voice, "there is a face twin to the one below this hood." And T'sais, staring at Etarr's black concealment, shrank back.

He chuckled weakly, bitterly ... After a moment T'sais reached out and touched his arm. "Etarr."

He turned back to her. "Yes?"

"My brain is flawed. I hate all I see. I cannot control my fears. Nevertheless that which underlies my brain— my blood, my body, my spirit—that which is me loves you, the you underneath the mask."

Etarr studied the white face with a fierce intentness. "How can you love when you hate?"

"I hate you with the hate that I give to all the world; I love you with a feeling nothing else arouses."

Etarr turned away. "We make a strange pair . . ."

The turmoil, the whimpering joinings of flesh and half-flesh, quieted. A tall man in a conical black hat appeared on the dais. He flung back his head, shouted spells to the sky, wove runes in the air with his arms. And as he chanted, high above a gigantic wavering figure began to form, tall, taller than the highest trees, taller than the sky. It shaped slowly, green mists folding and unfolding, and presently the outline was clear—the wavering shape of a woman, beautiful, grave, stately. The figure slowly became steady, glowing with an unearthly green light. She seemed to have golden hair, coiffed in the manner of a dim past, and her clothes were those of the ancients.

The magician who had called her forth screamed, exulted, shouted vast windy taunts that rang past the crags.

"She lives!" murmured T'sais aghast. "She moves! Who is she?"

"It is Ethodea, goddess of mercy, from a time while the sun was still yellow," said Etarr.

The magician flung out his arm and a great bolt of purple fire soared up through the sky and spattered against the dim green form. The calm face twisted in anguish, and the watching demons, witches and necrophages called out in glee. The magician on the dais flung out his arm again, and bolt after bolt of purple fire darted up to smite the captive goddess. The whoops and cries of those by the fire were terrible to hear.

Then there came, the clear thin call of a bugle, cutting brilliantly through the exaultation. The revel jerked breathlessly alert.

The bugle, musical and bright, rang again, louder, a sound alien to the place. And now, breasting over the crags like spume, charged a company of green-clad men, moving with fanatic resolve.

"Valdaran!" cried the magician on the dais, and the green figure of Ethodea wavered and disappeared.

Panic spread through the amphitheater. There were hoarse cries, a milling of lethargic bodies, a cloud of rising shapes as the demons sought flight. A few of the sorcerers stood boldly forth to chant spells of fire, dissolution, and paralysis against the assault, but there was strong counter-magic, and the invaders leapt unscathed into the amphitheater, vaulting the dais. Their swords rose and fell, hacking, slashing, stabbing without mercy or restraint.

"The Green Legion of Valdaran the Just," whispered Etarr. "See, there he stands!" He pointed to a brooding black-clad figure on the crest of the ridge, watching all with a savage satisfaction.

Nor did the demons escape. As they flapped through the night, great birds bestrode by men in green swooped down from the darkness. And these bore tubes which sprayed fans of galling light, and the demons who came within range gave terrible screams and toppled to earth, where they exploded in black dust.

A few sorcerers had escaped to the crags, to dodge and hide among the shadows. T'sais and Etarr heard a scrabbling and panting below. Frantically clambering up the rocks was she whom Etarr had come seeking— Javanne, her red hair streaming back from her clear young face. Etarr made a leap, caught her, clamped her with strong arms.

"Come," he said to T'sais, and bearing down the struggling figure, he strode off through the shadows.

At length as they passed down upon the moor, the tumult faded in the distance. Etarr set the woman upon her feet, unclamped her mouth. She caught sight for the first time of him who had seized her. The flame died from her face and through the night a slight smile could be seen. And she combed her long red hair with her fingers, arranging the locks over her shoulders, eyeing Etarr the while. T'sais wandered close, and Javanne turned her a slow appraising glance.

She laughed. "So, Etarr, you have been unfaithful to me; you have found a new lover."

"She is no concern of yours," said Etarr.

"Send her away," said Javanne, "and I will love you again. Remember how you first kissed me beneath the poplars, on the terrace of your villa?"

Etarr gave a short sharp laugh. 'There is a single thing I require of you, and that is my face."

And Javanne mocked him. "Your face? What is amiss with the one you wear? You are better suited to it; and in any event, your former face is lost."

"Lost? How so?"

"He who wore it was blasted this night by the Green Legion, may Kraan preserve their living brains in acid!"

Etarr turned his blue eyes off toward the crags.

"So now is your countenance dust, black dust," murmured Javanne. Etarr, in blind rage, stepped forward and struck at the sweetly impudent face. But Javanne took a quick step back.

"Careful, Etarr, lest I mischief you with magic. You may go limping, hopping hence with a body to suit your face. And your beautiful dark-haired child shall be play for demons."

Etarr recovered himself and stood back, eyes smouldering.

"I have magic as well, and even without I would smite you silent with my fist ere you worded the first frame of your spell."

"Ha, that we shall see," cried Javanne, skipping away. "For I have a charm of wonderful brevity." As Etarr lunged at her she spoke a charm. Etarr stopped in mid-stride, his arms fell listless to his side, and he became a creature without volition, all his will drained by the leaching magic.

But Javanne stood in precisely the same posture, and her gray eyes stared dumbly forth. Only T'sais was free—for T'sais wore Pandelume's rune which reflected magic back against him who launched it.

She stood bewildered in the dark night, the two inanimate figures standing like sleep-walkers before her. She ran to Etarr, tugged at his arm. He looked at her with dull eyes.

"Etarr! What is wrong with you?" And Etarr, because his will was paralyzed, forced to answer all questions and obey all orders, replied to her.

"The witch has spoken a spell which leaves me without volition. Therefore I cannot move or speak without command."

"What shall I do. How can I save you?" inquired the distressed girl. And, though Etarr was without volition, he retained his thought and passion. He could give her what information she asked, and nothing more.

"You must order me to a course which will defeat the witch."

"But how will I know this course?"

"You will ask and I will tell you."

"Then would it not be better to order you to act as your brain directs?"

"Yes."

"Then do so; act under all circumstances as Etarr would act."

Thus in the dark of night the spell of Javanne the witch was circumvented and nullified. Etarr was recovered and conducted himself according to his normal promptings. He approached the immobile Javanne.

"Now do you fear me, witch?"

"Yes," said Javanne. "I fear you indeed."

"Is in truth the face you stole from me black dust?"

"Your face is in the black dust of an exploded demon."

The blue eyes looked steadily at her through the slits of the hood.

"How can I recover it?"

"It is mighty magic, a reaching into the past; and now your face is of the past. Magic stronger than mine is required, magic stronger than the wizards of Earth and the demon-worlds possess. I know of two only who are strong enough to make a mold of the past. The one is named Pandelume, who lives in a many-colored land—"

"Embelyon," murmured T'sais.

"—but the spell to journey to this land has been forgotten. Then there is another, who is no wizard, who knows no magic. To get your face, you must seek it of one of these," and Javanne stopped, the question of Etarr answered.

"Who is this latter one?" he asked.

"I know not his name. Far in the past, far beyond thought, so the legend runs, a race of just people lived in a land east of the Maurenron Mountains, past the Land of the Falling Wall, by the shores of a great sea. They built a city of spires and low glass domes, and dwelt in great content. These people had no god, and presently they felt the need of one whom they might worship. So they built a lustrous temple of gold, glass and granite, wide as the Scaum River where it flows through the Valley of Graven Tombs, as long again, and higher than the trees of the north. And this race of honest men assembled in the temple, and all flung a mighty prayer, a worshipful invocation, and, so legend has it, a god molded by the will of this people was brought into being, and he was of their attributes, a divinity of utter justice.

"The city at last crumbled, the temple became shards and splinters, the people vanished. But the god still remains, rooted forever to the place where his people worshipped him. And this god has power beyond magic. To each who faces him, the god wills and justice is done. And let the evil beware, for those who face the god find no whit of mercy. Therefore few dare to bring their faces before this god."

"And to this god we go," said Etarr with grim pleasure. "The three of us, and the three of us shall face justice."

They returned across the moors to Etarr's cabin, and he searched his books for means to transport them to the ancient site. In vain; he had no such magic at his command. He turned to Javanne.

"Do you know of magic to take us to this ancient god?"

"Yes."

"What is this magic?"

"I will call three winged creatures from the Iron Mountains, and they will carry us."

Etarr gazed at Javanne's white face sharply.

"What reward do they demand?"

"They kill those whom they transport."

"Ah, witch," exclaimed Etarr, "even with your will drugged and your answer willy-nilly honest, you contrive to harm us." He stood towering over the beautiful evil of red hair and wet lips. "How may we get to the god unharmed and unmolested?"

"You must put the winged creatures under a charge."

"Summon the things," Etarr ordered, "and place them under the charge; and bind them with all the sorcery you know."

Javanne called the creatures; they settled flapping on great leather wings. She placed them under a pact of safety, and they whined and stamped with disappointment.

And the three mounted, and the creatures took them swiftly through the night air, which already smelled of morning.

East, ever east. Dawn came, and the dim red sun ballooned slowly upward into the dark sky. The black Maurenron Range passed under; and the misty Land of the Falling Wall was left behind. To the south were the deserts of Almery, and an ancient sea-bed filled with jungle; to the north, the wild forests.

All during the day they flew, over dusty waste, dry cliffs, another great range of mountains, and as sunset came they slowly sloped downward over a green parkland.

Ahead shone a glimmering sea. The winged things landed on the wide strand, and Javanne bound them to immobility for their return.

The beach, the woodland behind, both were bare of any trace of the wondrous city of the past. But a half-mile out to sea rose a few broken columns.

"The sea has come," Etarr muttered. "The city has foundered."

He waded out. The sea was calm and shallow. T'sais and Javanne followed. With the water around their waists, and dusk coming from the sky, they came through the broken columns of the ancient temple.

A brooding presence pervaded the place, dispassionate, supernal, of illimitable will and power.

Etarr stood in the center of the old temple.

"God of the past!" he cried. "I know not how you were called, or I would invoke you by name. We three come from a far land to the west to seek justice of you. If you hear and will administer us each our due, give me a sign!"

A low sibilant voice from the air: "I hear and will give each his due." And each saw a vision of a golden six-armed figure with a round, calm face, sitting impassive in the nave of a monstrous temple.

"I have been bereft of my face," said Etarr. "If you deem me fit, restore me the face I once wore."

The god of the vision extended its six arms.

"I have searched your mind. Justice shall be meted. You may remove your hood." Slowly Etarr doffed his mask. He put his hand to his face. It was his own.

T'sais looked numbly at him. "Etarr!" she gasped. "My brain is whole! I see—I see the world!"

"To each who comes, justice is done," said the sibilant voice.

They heard a moan. They turned and looked at Javanne. Where was the lovely face, the strawberry mouth, the fair skin?

Her nose was a three-fold white squirming thing, her mouth a putrefying blotch. She had dangling mottled jowls and a peaked black forehead. The only thing left of Javanne was the long red hair dangling over her shoulders.

"To each who comes, justice is done," said the voice, and the vision of the temple faded, and once more the cool water of the twilight sea lapped at their waists, and the broken columns leaned black on the sky.

They returned slowly to the winged creatures.

Etarr turned to Javanne. "Go," he commanded. "Fly back to your lair. When the sun sets tomorrow, release yourself from the spell. Never bother us henceforth, for I have magic which will warn me and blast you if you approach."

And Javanne wordlessly bestrode her dark creature and winged off through the night.

Etarr turned to T'sais, and took her hand. He gazed down at her tilted white face, into the eyes glowing with such feverish joy that they seemed afire. He bent and kissed her forehead; then, together, hand in hand, they went to their fretting winged creatures, and so flew back to Ascolais.