She raised and lowered and stabbed it in and out as she spun, leaped, shuffled, whirled, sidestepped, bent, raised, and moved her lips. Now and then she seemed to be catching the neck of an invisible enemy in the hook at the end of her staff.
Lightning challenged the earth to a duel by slapping it in its face. He jumped, and his heart hammered. The bolt was unexpected; he had thought that the electrical fury was over. Also, the discharge had seemed to come so close to him that a cat's whisker could have measured the distance. Following the bolt, thunder rumbled as if the sky were trying to digest the spirit of anger. Lightning bridged cloud and ground again, though farther away this time.
The clearness of the sphere was gone. Something dark roiled inside it.
At the same time, the corners of the vast room darkened as if shadows were breeding in it. The blacknesses expanded like a cloud of ink shot out by an escaping octopus. It floated to the nearest lamps and passed over, but he could see the burning wicks faintly through the darkness.
A chill passed over him. His hairs felt as if they were rising.
"Jesus!" he muttered. He went back into his room and got his binoculars. Returning to the balcony, he directed the glasses towards the sphere, focussed them, and saw that there was within the sphere what looked like a miniature of the scene outside the castle. There were little black clouds and tiny threads of lightning shooting- among them and down from them.
Suddenly, six little glowing rolling balls formed on the lower part of the sphere.
The blackness filled half the room now and was sweeping towards the center where the redhead still danced like a maniac around the sphinx.
He could not keep the binoculars on her face; she moved too swiftly and erratically, though he had the impression that her movements were not erratic for her but were rigidly patterned.
He put down the binoculars and looked out over the forest. Seven fireballs gleamed now and then in the trees.
No. Eight. Another had burst through.
He looked back at the room and put the binoculars up. The sphere now held eight fireballs.
The redhead stopped before the sphere, arched her back, which was towards him, her left arm raised, and the corkscrew-shafted staff pointing upwards. Then the staff came down, and it was pointed at the sphere.
For some seconds, thirty perhaps, she held the staff steady. Then it stabbed at the sphere but stopped a few inches from it. The blackness, which had been a few feet from her, closed in. He swore. Now he could see her only dimly. But he saw clearly the dazzling light that spurted from the end of the staff and struck the sphere.
The darkness oozed back a few feet. He used the binoculars again. There were only seven fireballs. He looked out at the forest and counted seven.
Again the staff jabbed. A twisting bolt of light shot from the tip of the staff and struck one of the balls inside the sphere. It vanished in a gout of flame. He looked out at the woods. Six were left. The one that had been in the lead was gone.
Again and again, the red-haired woman threw light from the staff. Each time that a tiny ball in the sphere was discharged, a giant ball among the trees disappeared. The darkness shrank back towards the comers. When the final minute ball was gone, the shadows had also gone to wherever they had come from.
The rolling spheres on the border burst as if they were signals sent up for a retreat, and the spheres behind them rolled away. The thunder also moved away. Silence except for his heavy breathing enclosed him. He was cold and sweating; his pajamas were soaked. The odor of his fear was heavy around him.
As swiftly as they had been lit, the flames in the hundred lamps went out. The red-haired woman took the sphere from the top of the sphinx's head and put it on the table. She placed the tip of the single torch into the socket hidden on the sphinx's head. Stover used his binoculars to zero in on her face. Her expression was so forceful, so triumphant, and so savage that it scared him. He went into his room, closed the French windows, and drank more of the barley vodka. Even it did not make him go to sleep quickly, however.
The morning of April 30th, he showered and shaved and, after some consideration, put on his barnstorming outfit instead of his civilian go-to-Sunday-meeting clothes. He felt that a uniform of some sort would be best. This was a state occasion.
His breakfast was not brought in as usual. Shortly after the clock had struck nineteen—7:00 A.M. by his watch—Captain Lamblo and six women soldiers entered. He was marched down the hall and descended the winding staircase to the ground floor. Here he was conducted into the central part, the axis of the castle, and along a high-ceilinged, very broad, red marble hall with gold statuettes on silver pedestals by the walls and thence through an arch set with rubies as large as cabbage heads into an enormous room. Its domed ceiling was at least one hundred feet high at the apex, and it was one hundred feet wide. The floor and walls were of white marble, and gigantic tapestries bearing what seemed to be historical scenes hung from the walls. There was also much gold filigree on the walls.
A crowd, perhaps three hundred people, animals, and birds, was lined up to form two sides of an aisle. The humans were dressed in uniforms or splendid formal clothes, the women wearing long anklelength gofwns and the men colorful kilts. As he was to find out later, though males wore trousers for work or everyday dress, they donned kilts for formal occasions.
At the end of the aisle, near the far wall, was a platform of marble white with seven marble steps leading up to it. Its edges were set with rubies even larger than those in the hallway. In the center was a throne carved from a giant ruby. A woman sat on a cushion on it.
This was the queen, the highest, the wise-woman, the witch-ruler, Herself, Little Mother.
The soldiers lifted their spears in salute but did not accompany Stover and Captain Lamblo toward the throne. The little blonde led him to the foot of the platform, gave the queen a sword-salute, and stepped to one side.
No one had spoken while he had walked down the aisle; no one had even coughed or sneezed or cleared his or her throat.
Hank recognized the tiny, exquisitely beautiful, auburn-haired woman on the throne. He had seen her dancing naked in the enormous room during the storm. Now she was covered from ankle to throat in a loose white gown, and, instead of a conical hat, she wore a gold crown with nine points. Inset in its front were small rubies which formed the outline of an X inside a horseshoe-shape. Her hair was now coiled around her head. Her very dark blue eyes were fixed on him. The corners of her lips were slightly dimpled as if she were thinking, "You saw me that night."
Of course, she would have known that he had witnessed that strange frightening ritual or whatever it was. She could have drawn the curtains if she had not wished anyone to see her.
Stover felt awkward bowing to her, but he thought that he should.
She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement.
He said, "Glinda the Good, I presume?"
"Goodness is a relative quality," the queen said.
They were breakfasting on the balcony of her apartment. She sat on a chair and ate from dishes on a small table before her. He was in a chair and at a table which had been specially constructed for his size. Even the plates and the spoon, two-lined fork, and knife, had been made for him.
"Goodness is relative to what?" Hank said.
"Not to evil but to other goodnesses," she said. "However, I shouldn't be speaking in abstract terms. There is no such thing as goodness or evil in themselves. There are only good and evil persons. And in reality there are not even those. There are what humans have agreed among themselves to define as other good and evil persons. But the definition of good and evil by one person does not match, though it may touch or intersect, the definition of these by another person." Stover was silent for a moment. In the first place, he was not fluent enough to be sure that he understood everything she was saying. In the second place, he was wondering if she was trying to tell him something without being specific about it. He ate a slice of hard-boiled egg and a chunk of buttered bread. Since he'd come here, he'd had plenty of vegetables and fruit, wheat and barley, cheese, eggs, nuts, and milk. But no meat, fowl, or fish. Though he craved steak and bacon, he'd not complained. If he voiced his desires, he'd be regarded as kin to cannibals. His hosts would be disgusted and horrified.