The most awful sound yet heard on Earth shattered the air. Men and women went mad in the square.
Rogol Domedonfors’ city-girding tentacles beat up and down in frantic agony, as an injured insect lashes his legs. The gorgeous towers toppled. The Ampridatvians fled shrieking through cataclysm.
Ulan Dhor and Elai ran for the terrace where they had left the air-car. Behind they heard a hoarse whisper — a broken voice.
“I — am not — dead — yet! If all else, if all dreams are broken — I will kill you two …”
They tumbled into the air-car. Ulan Dhor threw it into the air. By a terrible effort a tentacle stopped its mad thrashing and jerked up to intercept them. Ulan Dhor swerved, plunged off through the sky. The tentacle darted to cut them off.
Ulan Dhor pressed hard down on the speed lever, and air whined and sang behind the craft. And directly behind came the wavering black arm of the dying god, straining to touch the fleeting midge that had so hurt it.
“More! More!” prayed Ulan Dhor to the air-car.
“Go higher,” whispered the girl. “Higher — faster —”
Ulan Dhor tilted the nose; up on a slant flashed the car, and the straining arm followed behind — a tremendous member stretching rigid through the sky, a black rainbow footed in distant Ampridatvir.
Rogol Domedonfors died. The arm snapped into a wisp of smoke and slowly sank toward the sea.
Ulan Dhor held his boat at full speed until the island disappeared across the horizon. He slowed, sighed, relaxed.
Elai suddenly flung herself against his shoulder and burst into hysteria.
“Quiet, girl, quiet,” admonished Ulan Dhor. “We are safe; we are forever done of the cursed city.”
She quieted; presently: “Where do we go now?”
Ulan Dhor’s eyes roved about the air-car with doubt and calculation. “There will be no magic for Kandive. However, I will have a great tale to tell him, and he may be satisfied … He will surely want the air-car. But I will contrive, I will contrive …”
She whispered, “Cannot we fly to the east, and fly and fly and fly, till we find where the sun rises, and perhaps a quiet meadow where there are fruit trees …”
Ulan Dhor looked to the south and thought of Kaiin with its quiet nights and wine-colored days, the wide palace where he made his home, and the couch from which he could look out over Sanreale Bay, the ancient olive trees, the harlequinade festival-times.
He said, “Elai, you will like Kaiin.”
VI
Guyal of Sfere
Guyal of Sfere had been born one apart from his fellows and early proved a source of vexation for his sire. Normal in outward configuration, there existed within his mind a void which ached for nourishment. It was as if a spell had been cast upon his birth, a harassment visited on the child in a spirit of sardonic mockery, so that every occurrence, no matter how trifling, became a source of wonder and amazement. Even as young as four seasons he was expounding such inquiries as:
“Why do squares have more sides than triangles?”
“How will we see when the sun goes dark?”
“Do flowers grow under the ocean?”
“Do stars hiss and sizzle when rain comes by night?”
To which his impatient sire gave such answers as:
“So it was ordained by the Pragmatica; squares and triangles must obey the rote.”
“We will be forced to grope and feel our way.”
“I have never verified this matter; only the Curator would know.”
“By no means, since the stars are high above the rain, higher even than the highest clouds, and swim in rarified air where rain will never breed.”
As Guyal grew to youth, this void in his mind, instead of becoming limp and waxy, seemed to throb with a more violent ache. And so he asked:
“Why do people die when they are killed?”
“Where does beauty vanish when it goes?”
“How long have men lived on Earth?”
“What is beyond the sky?”
To which his sire, biting acerbity back from his lips, would respond:
“Death is the heritage of life; a man’s vitality is like air in a bladder. Poinct this bubble and away, away, away, flees life, like the color of fading dream.”
“Beauty is a luster which love bestows to guile the eye. Therefore it may be said that only when the brain is without love will the eye look and see no beauty.”
