only person in Fionavar who didn’t see the Mountain send up its fire. The sun was fire enough for him. He heard the laughter, but was so far gone he placed it elsewhere, in his own hell. It hurt there, too; he was not spared.
That time it was the bells that brought him back. He was lucid then for an interval, and knew where they were ringing, though not why. His eyes hurt; they were puffy with sunburn, and he was desperately dehydrated. The sun seemed to be a different color today. Seemed. What did he know? He was so skewed, nothing could be taken for what it was.
Though the bells were ringing in Paras Derval, he was sure of that. Except… except that after a while, listening, he seemed to hear a harp sounding, too, and that was very bad, as bad as it could be, because it was a thing from his own place, from behind the bolted door. It wasn’t out there. The bells were, yes, but they were fading. He was going again, there was nothing to grab hold of, no branch, no hand. He was bound and dry, and sliding, going under. He saw the bolts shatter, and the door opening, and the room. Oh, lady, lady, lady, he thought. Then no bolts anymore, nothing to bar the door. Under. Undersea down…
They were in bed. The night before his trip. Of course. It would be that memory. Because of the harp, it would be.
His room. Spring night; almost summer weather. Window open, curtains blowing, her hair around them both, the covers back so he could see her by candlelight. Her candle, a gift. The very light was hers.
“Do you know,” Rachel said, “that you are a musician, after all.”
“I wish,” he heard himself say. “You know I can’t even sing.”
“But no,” she said pursuing a conceit, playing with the hairs on his chest. “You are. You’re a harper, Paul. You have harper’s hands.”
“Where’s my harp, then?” Straight man.
And Rachel said, “Me, of course. My heart’s your harpstring.”
What could he do but smile? The very light.
“You know,” she said, “when I play next month, the Brahms, it’ll be for you.”
“No. For yourself. Keep that for yourself.”
She smiled. He couldn’t see it, but he knew by now when Rachel smiled.
“Stubborn man.” She touched him lightly with her mouth. “Share it, then. Can I play the second movement for you? Will you take that? Let me play that part because I love you. To tell.”
“Oh, lady,” he had said.
Hand of the harper. Heart of the harpstring.
Lady, lady, lady.
What had brought him back this time, he didn’t know. The sun was gone, though. Dark coming down.
Fireflies. Third night then. Last. For three nights, and forever, the King had said. The King was dead.
How did he know that? And after a moment it seemed that very far down, below the burnt, strung-out place of pain he had become, a part of him remained that could fear.
How did he know Ailell was dead? The Tree had told him. It knew the passing of High Kings, it always did. It had been rooted here to summon them far back in the soil of time. From Iorweth to Ailell they were the Children of Mörnir, and the Tree knew when they died. And now he knew as well. He understood. Now I give you to Mörnir; the other part of the consecration. He was given. He was becoming root, branch. He was naked there, skin to bark; naked in all the ways there were, it seemed, because the dark was coming down inside again, the door unbolting. He was so open the wind could pass through him, light shine, shadow fall.
Like a child again. Light and shade. Simplicity. When had all the twisting started? He could remember (a different door, this) playing baseball on the street as darkness fell. Playing even after the streetlights kicked on, so that the ball would come flashing like a comet out of brightness and into dark, elusive but attainable. The smell of cut grass and porch flowers, the leather of a new fielder’s glove. Summer twilight, summer dark. All the continuities. When had it turned? Why did it have to turn? The process changing to disjunctions, abortings, endings, all of them raining down like arrows, unlit and inescapable.
And then love, love, the deepest discontinuity.
Because it seemed that this door had turned into the other one after all, the one he couldn’t face. Not even childhood was safe