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.
4. LIANE THE WAYFARER
THROUGH THE dim forest came Liane the Wayfarer, passing along the shadowed glades with a prancing light-footed gait. He whistled, he caroled, he was plainly in high spirits. Around his finger he twirled a bit of wrought bronze—a circlet graved with angular crabbed characters, now stained black.
By excellent chance he had found it, banded around the root of an ancient yew. Hacking it free, he had seen the characters on the inner surface—rude forceful symbols, doubtless the cast of a powerful antique rune ... Best take it to a magician and have it tested for sorcery.
Liane made a wry mouth. There were objections to the course. Sometimes it seemed as if all living creatures conspired to exasperate him. Only this morning, the spice merchant—what a tumult he had made dying! How carelessly he had spewed blood on Liane's cock comb sandals! Still, thought Liane, every unpleasantness carried with it compensation. While digging the grave he had found the bronze ring.
And Liane's spirits soared; he laughed in pure joy. He bounded, he leapt. His green cape flapped behind him, the red feather in his cap winked and blinked ... But still— Liane slowed his step—he was no whit closer to the mystery of the magic, if magic the ring possessed.
Experiment, that was the word!
He stopped where the ruby sunlight slanted down without hindrance from the high foliage, examined the ring, traced the glyphs with his fingernail. He peered through. A faint film, a flicker? He held it at arm's length. It was clearly a coronet. He whipped off his cap, set the band on his brow, rolled his great golden eyes, preened himself ... Odd. It slipped down on his ears. It tipped across his eyes. Darkness. Frantically Liane clawed it off ... A bronze ring, a hand's-breadth in diameter. Queer.
He tried again. It slipped down over his head, his shoulders. His head was in the darkness of a strange separate space. Looking down, he saw the level of the outside light dropping as he dropped the ring.
Slowly down ... Now it was around his ankles—and in sudden panic, Liane snatched the ring up over his body, emerged blinking into the maroon light of the forest.
He saw a blue-white, green-white flicker against the foliage. It was a Twk-man, mounted on a dragon-fly, and light glinted from the dragon-fly's wings.
Liane called sharply, "Here, sir! Here, sir!"
The Twk-man perched his mount on a twig. "Well, Liane, what do you wish?"
"Watch now, and remember what you see." Liane pulled the ring over his head, dropped it to his feet, lifted it back. He looked up to the Twk-man, who was chewing a leaf. "And what did you see?"
"I saw Liane vanish from mortal sight—except for the red curled toes of his sandals. All else was as air."
"Ha!" cried Liane. "Think of it! Have you ever seen the like?"
The Twk-man asked carelessly, "Do you have salt? I would have salt."
Liane cut his exultations short, eyed the Twk-man closely.
"What news do you bring me?"
"Three erbs killed Florejin the Dream-builder, and burst all his bubbles. The air above the manse was colored for many minutes with the flitting fragments."
"A gram."
"Lord Kandive the Golden has built a barge of carven mo-wood ten lengths high, and it floats on the River Scaum for the Regatta, full of treasure."
"Two grams."
"A golden witch named Lith has come to live on Thamber Meadow. She is quiet and very beautiful."
"Three grams."
"Enough," said the Twk-man, and leaned forward to watch while Liane weighed out the salt in a tiny balance. He packed it in small panniers hanging on each side of the ribbed thorax, then twitched the insect into the air and flicked off through the forest vaults.
Once more Liane tried his bronze ring, and this time brought it entirely past his feet, stepped out of it and brought the ring up into the darkness beside him. What a wonderful sanctuary! A hole whose opening could be hidden inside the hole itself! Down with the ring to his feet, step through, bring it up his slender frame and over his shoulders, out into the forest with a small bronze ring in his hand.
Ho! and off to Thamber Meadow to see the beautiful golden witch.
Her hut was a simple affair of woven reeds — a low dome with two round windows and a low door. He saw Lith at the pond bare-legged among the water shoots, catching frogs for her supper. A white kirtle was gathered up tight around her thighs; stock-still she stood and the dark water rippled rings away from her slender knees.
She was more beautiful than Liane could have imagined, as if one of Florejin's wasted bubbles had burst here on the water. Her skin was pale creamed stirred gold, her hair a denser, wetter gold. Her eyes were like Liane's own, great golden orbs, and hers were wide apart, tilted slightly.