'I would enjoy nothing more than spending all my remaining time with you.' Though he was speaking the absolute truth, he could not escape the hollow feeling in his stomach as he added, 'I hope you'll forgive me for being as foolish as I am ugly.'
There is nothing to forgive.' Seema smiled. 'I am glad you find my company inviting. Besides, in the weeks to come, I am sure you will be seeing more of your friends than you like.'
Too much of us? He's the ugly one!' joked Yago. The ogre took the youngest girl's hand and turned down the mountain. 'Well see you back at the hut?'
'Yes.' Seema smiled mischievously. 'Sometime.'
She led Atreus along the base of the Turquoise Cliff toward the brink of the upper basin. Soon, they drew close enough to the edge to see down to the mottled floor of the main valley. Along the crimson web of streams and rivers stood scattered clusters of tiny figures, gesturing excitedly and peering toward the upper basin. Only a single stream, cascading down from someplace hidden around the shoulder of the Turquoise Cliff, retained its natural silver.
Atreus stopped and looked down the length of the immense valley, his eyes silently tracing a dozen scarlet waterfalls into the mouths of a dozen hanging basins like this one.
'Will the stain ever fade?' Atreus asked. 'Or now that Langdarma has seen bloodshed, will its waters run red forever?'
'There is bloodshed in many lands, and their streams are not red. I think it will not take long for the beauty of Langdarma to wash the stain away.'
Seema guided Atreus to an immense fir growing along the cliff face. Beneath the crisp smell of sap hung the odor of musty stone, and there was a dampness to the air that suggested the cool breath of a cave. Seema ducked under the tree's low-hanging boughs and disappeared on her hands and knees. Atreus followed, his huge shoulders and humped back scraping the branch thickets somewhat clumsily. Soon, he found himself sliding down a muddy chute into the mouth of a small cavern.
Seema took his hand and led him into the dank-smelling darkness. The floor was sometimes soft and level and other times hard and steep, but it was always slick. Several times Atreus slipped and nearly fell, and once the ground completely disappeared beneath his boot. Seema always seemed to know exactly where she was, cautioning him to duck when the ceiling grew low, or warning him not to trip over some unseen boulder lying in the path. He was beginning to wonder if this was another mystical Passing when they finally rounded a corner and he saw a faint circle of light fifty paces ahead. When the passage grew bright enough to see clearly, Seema released his hand and led the way out onto a narrow ledge.
Atreus found himself standing many thousands of feet above the valley floor, staring down the length of the broad canyon at a hazy blue cloud he took to be the mountains at the far end. The tiny figures he had seen standing along the river banks earlier were mere specks, discernible from the boulders and trees around them only because they moved. The streams and creeks had become a mesh of red threads, and the main river was a scarlet rope snaking back and forth across the valley floor.
'You are not afraid of heights, are you?' asked Seema.
Atreus glanced down and found himself looking at a mot-tied carpet of green woods. He could discern nothing about the forest except its color-not the shape of the individual trees, nor whether their crowns were pointed or billowing, nor even whether they were conifers or deciduous.
'It's too far down to be afraid.'
'Good,' Seema laughed. 'I would not like having to blindfold you on this trail.'
She started along the rocky shelf. Atreus followed as quickly as he could, keeping one hand on the cliff and his eyes on his feet. The ledge had a disconcerting downward slope and an alarmingly smooth texture, and he had the constant feeling his boots were about to slide out from beneath him. If Seema felt the same way, she showed no sign, walking along as comfortably as on the balcony of her own stone hut At length, Atreus grew relaxed enough to tear his gaze away from his feet He saw that they were curving along the valley wall toward the head of the canyon, where a glistening tail of water fell to the valley floor in a series of step-like cascades, plummeting from one pool to the next until it finally plunged into a small, gleaming lake. It was the outflow of this lake that Atreus had glimpsed earlier, a single silver stream in the web of scarlet
'That stream is the source of Langdarma's beauty,' said Seema. 'It will wash away the stain of Tarch's murderous heart.'
'But those are the sparkling waters,' Atreus said, pointing at the cascades. 'I thought it was forbidden to bring me here.'
'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,
