Delia cried out in surprise when she saw me, but instantly recovered her habitual poise. Mockingly, she called out: “And who are you hunting today, Dray Prescot? Surely not me?”
Had I been of a more insensitive character I would have felt a fool, dressed up like an idiot; as it was I was too well aware of what lay ahead to allow petty distractions to deflect me.
“We will go now,” I said, and settled in the boat and took up the oars and gave way.
If Delia felt any fears at being alone with a man in a boat she did not show them. I believe she had already sized up some, at least, of the character of the Savanti, and knew that the behavior of the people of Gah, for instance, would not be tolerated in the city. Outside, yes, within the precincts of others’ cities, yes, for what they did was for the nonce their business. And, too, in her own Delphond a lazy afternoon’s pulling on the river with a man meant exactly no more and no less than what the two involved wished. When I beached the boat at the foot of the first rapids and helped Delia ashore she turned a questioning face to me.
“You must go with me, Delia.”
She jerked her head back as I used her name without the rest; but there was no time then to consider what that automatic flinching meant. Certainly, it had to do with my use of her name, not the path on which we now set out.
I had to carry her. She must have guessed at something of what I intended; and I am quite sure she felt no fear, or, feeling it, would allow me to see.
To look back on that wild and harrowing journey up the River Zelph to the cataract and the pool is to marvel at my own foolhardiness. Here I was carrying the most precious object in two worlds, and walking calmly into dangers that would have sent any man screaming in panic, without the protection of the silvery light weapons of the Savanti. I do not remember-I do not want to remember-the number of times I set Delia hastily down and snatched out my sword and met the furious charge of some enraged monster.
There was continuous effort, and cunning, and brute strength. I hacked down the spider-beasts, and the worm-beasts, and all the beetle-beasts that crept and leaped and writhed upon me. I knew that I would get through. I knew that clearly. Delia through it all remained calm, as though in a trance, hobbling along with painful gasps of effort when she could to free me to fight unimpeded. My sword arm did not tire easily. My left hand, wrist and arm were red and running with blood right to the armpit. That cold steel did not stun.
It killed.
They were clever and ferocious, those guardian monsters. But I was more clever and more ferocious, not because I was in any way intrinsically better than they; but because I guarded Delia of the Blue Mountains.
We reached the little sandy amphitheater among the rocks and plunged into the cave.
I lifted Delia as the pink glow faded and that uncanny blue luminescence grew, and I laughed-I laughed!
Delia could no longer hobble along, and her lips were tightly compressed to keep back her gasps of pain, so I had to carry her into that milky pool. Wisps of vapor curled from the surface. I strode down the wide flight of steps. The liquid lapped my feet, my legs, my chest. I bent my lips to Delia.
“Take a deep breath and hold it. I will bring you out.”
She nodded and her chest swelled against me.
I descended the last few steps and stood with my head beneath that milky liquid that was never simple water and felt once more that lapping mouthlike kissing,
that
million-fold
needle-pricking all over my body. I judged when Delia’s breath would be failing, for she could not remain as long underwater as I could, and then walked back up the steps.
All our garments, my sword, my belt, everything, had melted away. Naked we emerged from the pool, as, naked, we ought to, have entered it.
Delia craned her head around and looked up into my eyes.
“I feel-” she said. Then: “Put me down, Dray Prescot.”
Gently I put Delia of Delphond down on the rocky floor. Her crippled leg was now rounded, firm, as graceful as any leg that had ever existed in any world of the universe. She radiated a glory. She arched her back and breathed in deeply and pushed her glorious hair up and back from beneath and smiled upon me in a dazzlement of wonder.
“Oh, Dray!” she said.
But I was conscious only of her, of her smile, the luminous depths in her eyes; in all the worlds only the face of Delia of the Blue Mountains existed for me; all the rest vanished in an unimportant haze.
“Delia,” I breathed. I trembled uncontrollably.
A voice whispered through the still air.
“Oh, unfortunate is the city! Now must occur that which is ordained-”
Beyond Delia, from the milky pool, a vast body lifted. Liquid ran from smooth skin. Pink flesh showed through the whiteness. The size of the body dwarfed us. Delia gasped and huddled close and I closed both my arms about her and stared up defiantly. And, too, now I could feel a strange sensation within me. If my first dip in the pool of baptism had made a new man of me, then this second baptism had rejuvenated me beyond all reason. If I had felt strong before now I felt ten times as powerful. I bounded with vigor and health and energy, defiant, savage, exultant.
“The cripple is cured!” I shouted.
“Begone, Dray Prescot!” The voice from that vast body soughed with sorrow. “You would have been acceptable, and sorely do the Savanti need men like yourself! But you have failed! Begone and begone and never Remberee!”
Delia was a naked soft shape in my arms. I bent my head and pressed my lips on hers and she responded with a joyous love that shocked me through and through.
“Begone!”
I felt the blue luminosity crowding close about me. I was slipping away from this world of Kregen. I shouted.
“I will return!”
“If you can,” sighed the voice. “If you can!”
Chapter Seven
“Hey! Jock!” a coarse voice shouted. “Here’s some poor devil crawled outta the jungle!”
I opened my eyes. I knew where I was. A wooden palisade crowned with skulls. Thatched huts. The smoke from cooking-pot fires. A coffle of black slaves being herded to the beach and the waiting canoes of the Kroomen. Moored in midstream, on a brown and stinking flood, was a brig. The place stank. Oh, yes, I knew where I was.
The harsh sunlight blazed yellow, stinging my eyes.
I do not believe it necessary or even wise to speak of the next few years. I was able to ship out from the slave factory, nauseatingly aboard the slaver brig, and then in some fashion resume my old life. Promotion to post rank still eluded me; but now I did not care. I hungered for Kregen. I bore the Savanti no ill will. I recognized their essential goodness and I acknowledged that I did not understand all the answers to my questions. I failed to comprehend why they had refused to treat Delia-my Delia! Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains-how many nights I stood by the quarterdeck rail and stared up at the stars and ever and ever my eyes sought that red star that was Antares, and there, I knew, lay all of hope or happiness I wanted in all the universe. I knew what had happened to me. I had been flung out of Paradise.
Paradise. I had found my heaven and had been debarred from entering.
After my life of hardship and struggle Aphrasoe was Paradise.
Now that I have lived so long and have visited Earth many times, always, in some strange way it seems, during times of stress or crisis, I can speak more calmly of my feelings then. So that you may better understand the
