The road ran out into the lake like the shaft of an arrow. At its end was what once, I supposed, had been a small island. It lay two–thirds of the way across. Over its trees were the turrets of a small castle.
We walked our horses down the steep to the narrowing of the road where it became the shaft of the arrow. Here there were no ferns to hide the approach; they had been cleared away and the breast of the hill was covered with the blue flowerets. As we reached the narrow part, I saw that it was a causeway, built of stone. The place to which we were going was still an island. We came to the end of the causeway, and there was a forty–foot gap between it and a pier on the opposite shore. Lur drew from her girdle a small horn and sounded it. A drawbridge began to creak, and to drop down over the gap. We rode across that and into a garrison of her women. We cantered up a winding road, and I heard the creak of the lifting bridge as we went. We drew up before the house of the Witch–woman.
I looked at it with interest, not because it was unfamiliar, for it was not, but I was thinking I had never seen a castle of its sort built of that peculiar green stone nor with so many turrets. Yes, I knew them well. "Lady castles," we had called them; lana'rada, bowers for favourite women, a place to rest, a place to love after war or when weary of statecraft.
Women came and took the horses. Wide doors of polished wood swung open. Lur led me over the threshold.
Girls came forward with wine. I drank thirstily. The queer light–headedness, and the sense of detachment were growing. I seemed to have awakened from a long, long sleep, and was not thoroughly awake and troubled by memories of dreams. But I was sure that they had not all been dreams. That old priest who had awakened me in the desert which once had been fertile Ayjirland—he had been no dream. Yet the people among whom I had awakened had not been Ayjirs. This was not Ayjirland, yet the people were of the ancient breed! How had I gotten here? I must have fallen asleep again in the temple after—after—by Zarda, but I must feel my way a bit! Be cautious. Then would follow a surge of recklessness that swept away all thought of caution, a roaring relish of life, a wild freedom as of one who, long in prison, sees suddenly the bars broken and before him the table of life spread with all he has been denied, to take as he wills. And on its heels a flash of recognition that I was Leif Langdon and knew perfectly well how I came to be in this place and must some way, somehow, get back to Evalie and to Jim. Swift as the lightning were those latter flashes, and as brief.
I became aware that I was no longer in the castle's hall but in a smaller chamber, octagonal, casemented, tapestried. There was a wide, low bed. There was a table glistening with gold and crystal; tall candles burned upon it. My blouse was gone, and in its place a light silken tunic. The casements were open and the fragrant air sighed through them. I leaned from one.
Below me were the lesser turrets and the roof of the castle. Far below was the lake. I looked through another. The waterfall with its beckoning wraiths whispered and murmured not a thousand feet away.
I felt the touch of a hand on my head; it slipped down to my shoulder; I swung round. The Witch–woman was beside me.
For the first time I seemed to be realizing her beauty, seemed for the first time to be seeing her clearly. Her russet hair was braided in a thick coronal; it shone like reddest gold, and within it was twisted a strand of sapphires. Her eyes outshone them. Her scanty robe of gossamer blue revealed every lovely, sensuous line of her. White shoulders and one of the exquisite breasts were bare. Her full red lips promised—anything, and even the subtle cruelty stamped upon them, lured.
There had been a dark girl…who had she been…Ev—Eval—the name eluded me…no matter…she was like a wraith beside this woman…like one of the mist wraiths swaying at the feet of the waterfall…
The Witch–woman read what was in my eyes. Her hand slipped from my shoulder and rested on my heart. She bent closer, blue eyes languorous—yet strangely intent.
"And are you truly Dwayanu?"
"I am he—none else, Lur."
"Who was Dwayanu—long and long and long ago?"
"I cannot tell you that, Lur—I who have been long asleep and in sleep forgotten much. Yet—I am he."
"Then look—and remember."
Her hand left my heart and rested on my head; she pointed to the waterfall. Slowly its whispering changed. It became the beat of drums, the trample of horses, the tread of marching men. Louder and louder they grew. The waterfall quivered, and spread across the black cliff like a gigantic curtain. From every side the mist wraiths were hurrying, melting into it. Clearer and nearer sounded the drums. And suddenly the waterfall vanished. In its place was a great walled city. Two armies were fighting there and I knew that the forces which were attacking the city were being borne back. I heard the thunder of the hoofs of hundreds of horses. Down upon the defenders raced a river of mounted men. Their leader was clothed in shining mail. He was helmetless, and his yellow hair streamed behind him as he rode. He turned his face. And that face was my own! I heard a roaring shout of "Dwayanu!" The charge struck like a river in spate, rolled over the defenders, submerged them.
I saw an army in rout, and smashed by companies with the throwing hammers.
I rode with the yellow–haired leader into the conquered city. And I sat with him on a conquered throne while ruthlessly, mercilessly, he dealt death to men and women dragged before him, and smiled at the voices of rapine and pillage rising from without. I rode and sat with him, I say, for now it was no longer as though I were in the Witch–woman's chamber but was with this yellow–haired man who was my twin, seeing as he did, hearing as he did—yes, and thinking as he thought.
Battle upon battle, tourneys and feasts and triumphs, hunts with the falcons and hunts with great dogs in fair Ayjirland, hammer–play and anvil–play—I saw them, standing always beside Dwayanu like an unseen shadow. I went with him to the temples when he served the gods. I went with him to the Temple of the Dissolver—Black Khalk'ru, the Greater–than–Gods—and he wore the ring which rested on my breast. But when he passed within Khalk'ru's temple, I held back. The same deep, stubborn resistance which had halted me when I had visioned the portal of the oasis temple halted me now. I listened to two voices. One urged me to enter with Dwayanu.
The other whispered that I must not. And that voice I could not disobey.
And then, abruptly, Ayjirland was no more! I was staring out at the waterfall and gliding mist wraiths. But—I was Dwayanu!
I was all Dwayanu! Leif Langdon had ceased to exist!
Yet he had left memories—memories which were like half–remembered dreams, memories whose source I could not fathom but realized that, even if only dreams, were true ones. They told me the Ayjirland I had ruled had vanished as utterly as had the phantom Ayjirland of the waterfall, that dusty century upon century had passed since them, that other empires had risen and fallen, that here was an alien land with only a dying fragment of the ancient glory.
Warrior–king and warrior–priest I had been, holding in my hands empire and the lives and destinies of a race.
And now—no more!