"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.