"It is. Of all the forbidden things I have done, this is most forbidden. But I cannot let you leave without bringing you here. It is the reason you came to Langdarma."
She took his hand and led him along the curving wall to the end of the ledge, where a small slot canyon cut up through the cliff to a hanging meadow. Here, overlooking the entirety of the valley's beauty, sat an alabaster palace flanked on both sides by lotus ponds. The building had an ancient, guileless beauty, with the lower story painted in bright horizontal stripes and the upper decorated in swirling relief's. A second-story balcony room commanded one end, while the other was dominated by an elaborate open rotunda skirted by two domed gazebos. Connecting the two was a long gallery of scalloped arches and slender columns, with two streams of twinkling silver water joining halfway down a Y-shaped staircase, then draining into a large oval reflecting pond.
"I've seen something like this before," Atreus gasped, "after the avalanche!"
Seema nodded and said, "Of course. Did you not say you had found Langdarma?"
"I did, but after-when I forgot-I thought it was a dream."
"Langdarma is a dream."
Seema took his hand and led the way across the meadow to the reflecting pool and knelt in the soft grass. Even with the tiny stream flowing into the upper end and draining out the lower, the edges of the pool were as still as glass. Its silvery surface reflected Atreus's hideous face in perfect detail-every lump, every blotch, every gruesome deformity. He turned his head aside.
"No, do not look away," said Seema. "Close your eyes and drink."
"Drink?" Atreus avoided his reflection as he swung his gaze back in her direction. "That is permitted?"
"Why not? Do you think we will run out?" Seema giggled. "Drink as much as you like."
Atreus closed his eyes and cupped his hands in the pool. The water was as cold as a glacier, but he could feel its sparkling magic in his hands. It was a sweet effervescence that tingled down to the bone. A smile crept across his face, then he heard himself chortle in delight.
Seema's palm touched his elbow, urging his hands toward his face. "What are you waiting for?"
Atreus saw the radiance of the water through his eyelids, silvery scintillations that popped inside his mind like bursting stars. He lowered his lips to his palms and drank, gulping the icy water down so fast it made his throat ache. The water filled him with an airy giddiness similar to the first time Seema kissed him, and he felt as if he would float into the air.
"Atreus, look," Seema whispered as she pulled his hands down.
The face in the water was as unbalanced and misshapen as his own, with the same beetling brow and sunken eyes, the same enormous nose and twisted mouth, but it was not him. All of the disparate parts of this face fit together in a natural way that was sincere and unpretentious, noble in its casual warmth. This face was handsome, rugged, happy, and utterly at peace with its own uncommon character.
Seema peered into the pool beside Atreus, her reflection a likeness of her customary loveliness. "This is the way I see you. It has always been the way I see you."
She turned to look at him, reached up behind his head, and drew his face down to hers. Her lips were warm and sweet and intoxicating, and now that she had given him freely what he had come to steal, he found it impossible not to respond. He slipped his hands under her cloak, felt the heavy softness of her breasts, and lifted the cloth over her head. She raised her arms, letting her silky hair cascade free as he undressed her, and pressed her nakedness to him, undoing his clothes as he had undone hers. She touched every part of him, running her warm hands over his burly shoulders and down his broad back, feeling the solidness of his stomach, the sinewy strength in his hips, the pent-up ardor of his loins, and Atreus thought he would explode.
What happened then became a blur. Seema pulled him on top and they melted together. They lay writhing in the meadow for an eternity, skin-to-skin, oblivious to the chill breeze or the gurgling water or the passing day, sometimes locked in embraces so tight Atreus could not tell where his body ended and Seema's began, sometimes merely resting in each other's arms, exhausted and content, their bodies drained and their hearts full. They lost themselves in each other, forgot the morning bloodshed and Tarch's evil and the Sannyasi's verdict, and they became one. If only for a few hours, Atreus learned what it was to be beautiful.
At last, the afternoon light began to fade, and their strength with it. Seema curled into the crook of Atreus's arm and started to breathe in a deep, steady rhythm. He pulled her cloak over her and lay holding her until his arm fell asleep and his back ached from lying so still. Using his free hand, he folded her clothes into a pillow and gently slipped them under her head and withdrew his numb arm. She curled into a tighter ball and continued to sleep but otherwise did not stir.
Atreus stood and pulled on his own cloak, then looked out over Langdarma. Long curtains of afternoon drizzle were beginning to fall from the icy sky, cloaking most of the valley in haze as gray as the canyon walls. Through the mist, Atreus could see little more than a sweeping swath of mottled green with the outline of a broad river snaking down its center. With Seema sleeping behind him, it seemed the most beautiful landscape he had ever seen.
Atreus stood breathing in Langdarma's peace and serenity for a long time. Then he closed his eyes and kneeled beside the reflecting pool. At that moment, he was strong enough to accept whatever he saw, but he had to see it alone. If the image in the water was ugly, he wanted some time to swallow his disappointment, to put on a happy face so Seema would not think him ungrateful. Atreus leaned forward until he saw the water's radiance twinkling inside his eyelids and opened his eyes.
The reflection was as handsome as before.
Atreus breathed a sigh of relief, then glanced over his shoulder. Seema was still sleeping, her lips curled into a dreamy smile. Atreus reached into his cloak pocket and found the vial Rishi had slipped him earlier. He began to feel guilty and disloyal, though he could not understand why. Seema had told him he could drink as much as he liked, and the whole flask would not amount to a single gulp. Whatever Sune wanted with the twinkling water, he did not see how taking such a small amount could harm Langdarma.
Atreus plunged the vial into the icy water and watched the air bubble rise to the surface of the pool, then inserted the cork while it was still underwater. When he lifted the flask from the basin, it was gleaming and twinkling just like the one Kumara had used to calm Timin's delirious father. He checked his reflection one more time, just to be certain he had not broken the pond's magic, then slipped the flask into his cloak pocket.
A low hissing sounded from the alabaster palace. Atreus glanced toward the sound and saw-or thought he saw-a trio of dark eyes peering out from within the second-floor gallery. A ring of black tentacles seemed to be writhing around the three eyes, and between the eyes was something that looked vaguely like an ebony beak. Atreus gasped and rose.
"There is nothing to fear," said Seema.
Atreus glanced back to see her slipping her cloak over her shoulders. She pulled her silky black hair out of the collar and let it cascade down her back, then came to his side.
"It cannot escape the palace," she said.
"What is it?"
Seema shrugged. "Only the Sannyasi knows," she replied, "and perhaps not even him."
"Every beauty hides a greater ugliness," Atreus said, recalling what Seema had said to him not so long ago.
Seema nodded.
"Every adage has its source."
Atreus gave an involuntary shiver and asked, "How long has it been watching?"
Seema blushed. "Not that long, I am sure," she said. "It has no interest in Devotions." Despite her assurance, she glanced up at the sky and grasped Atreus's hand. "Come along, now. It would not do for us to be on the ledge after dark."