I saw two beautiful young lovers making the Changes, and I knew without needing to be told that they were Selemoy who rules the Suns and Nir-i-Sellin the goddess of the Moons, embracing each other so that his light fell upon her, and hers upon him; and not far from them were the Three Babes, fat and naked and happy, with green star-stones in their navels; and also I saw Veega who brings the rain and Lasht who sees that the fruit ripens on the branch and Sept who gives the stars their brightness, and they were all laughing and joking together, like happy members of a House who have come together for a Naming-day, or old friends celebrating some great occasion. There were other gods besides, ones I could not recognize, unknown gods not yet revealed to mankind, but all of them had the bright auras of god-beauty and god-radiance, and there was such perfection in every aspect of them that I wept for sheer joy at the sight of it. For what this vision of mine was telling me was that the World indeed had meaning and purpose, that there really were gods and the gods were good, that all things however dark and terrible converged at that golden Summit above us on Kosa Saag, where wonderful beings lived lives of daily wonder and allowed some reflection of that wonder to descend to the lowest levels of the world and enter into the humble creatures that we are. At one time and another I had doubted all that. But now I felt the presence of the grace of the gods within me, and all my doubts dissolved: how could I do anything else but weep in gratitude and delight?
“Poilar?” Hendy said. “Poilar, what’s the matter? Why are you sobbing?”
I blinked and gaped and for a moment I was unable to speak. Then I said I had been having a vision of the gods, and was weeping out of happiness. At this hour of the night there were no moons in the sky, and I could barely see her face; but I heard her catch her breath as if I had said something wrong, something that had injured her. Which troubled me a little; but my vision was still with me a little, though it was ebbing fast, and I was too full of its splendors to think much of other things. I told her some of the things I had seen, though I could barely begin to describe the magnificence of it. Hendy listened without a word. And then when I had nothing left to tell her she said, “How I envy you, Poilar!”
“Envy me? Why?”
“For having dreams that are so beautiful.”
“Not all of them are.”
“But one like that—I’ve never had one like that, Poilar.” She was trembling, though the night was warm. I slipped my arm about her shoulders. “Often I’m afraid of going to sleep, because my dreams will be so frightening.”
“No, Hendy. No. No.”
I held her. Her pain became my pain; and the joy that my dream had brought me washed away entirely, and I felt only guilt for having brought her to this sorrow by trying to share my joy with her. But I said none of that to her, knowing it would only make her feel worse. Gradually she calmed, and pressed herself close against me, and said very softly, “I’m sorry, Poilar. Tell me more of what you saw.”
“I can’t remember any more of that.”
“But all of it was beautiful and wonderful?”
“Yes.” I would not lie to her.
“Even the Avenger?”
“Even him, yes. Though he had a frightful look, nothing like the look we give him in the images we make. But I knew that even he was beautiful, frightening though he was. For they are all gods together: they all make up one harmony.”
I could have said more about what I had seen, for although the vision had faded, the feelings that it had engendered in my spirit were still bubbling within me. But I was afraid of hurting her again.
After a while she said, aiming her voice not so much at me but into the air, as she often did, “Shall I tell you a dream I once had?”
“If you want to, yes, of course.”
“Yes. Yes.” Hendy paused as though she were summoning her thoughts. Then she said, “This was long ago, while I was still in Tipkeyn. I dreamed that I was dead. And do you know what death was like, Poilar? It was like being in a box exactly the size of my body. And my mind was still aware: I perceived everything, I could think, I could feel, I seemed to be breathing, I was still Hendy. Exactly as though I was alive. But I was in that box and there was no way to get out. And I knew that I would be in it for all time to come, because death never ends. Lying there forever, thinking, thinking, unable to move, unable to scratch myself if I itched, the air always stale and foul, the darkness always pressing down on me like a tight band across my chest. Trapped in that box. Forever. And ever. Thinking. Unable to stop thinking. Remembering, reliving the same things over and over, never anything new, for what new thing can there be when you’re locked up in a box in the dark? Telling myself that I’ll smother when all the air is gone, and then realizing that the air would go and I would still be there, fighting for breath and feeling that I was about to die, but I wouldn’t be able to die, because I was already dead. Screaming, but no one would hear.”
The words were pouring out and her voice was thick with emotion. She was beginning to tremble.
I put my hand on hers. “Wait, Hendy—slow down, catch your breath—”
But there was no stopping her. “Gagging on my own smell. Choking on it. A prickling in my toes, a numbness in my back. But the box was exactly the size I was, so there was no way to move. Not even a finger. I just had to lie there and lie there and lie there. Forever and ever, no escape, not ever, all of eternity to come, nothing ever changing, always Hendy in the box, fighting for every breath. I knew in my dream that is how it would be for me when I died, that it is that way for everybody. That’s what being dead is like. Each of us lying there alone, aware, knowing what has happened to us, the body imprisoned but the mind still aware, and hating it, and having no escape, never, no end to it. Your time in the box is a thousand times as long as your time alive, a million times, it never ends, never—never—never—”
“Hendy!” And I gripped her and held her, and put my mouth over hers to halt the terrible torrent of words, and she shook in my arms like a twig caught at one end between two rocks in a swift-flowing stream. Only when she had stopped shaking did I take my lips from hers.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. Her eyes were not meeting mine. “You must think I’m crazy, saying things like that.”
“No. No. It was only a dream.”
“I’ve had it many times. Dozens. Hundreds of times. It keeps coming back. I’m always afraid to go to sleep because I think I’m going to have it again.”