put my sword back on, buckling everything properly so that I was ready should I meet with trouble, and then, taking a crude lump of wax with a wick, which she kept at hand, I lighted the wick, and I entered the cave by this secret doorway.
I went up and up in the darkness, feeling my way along the earthen wall, and finally I came to a cool and open place, and from there, very far off, I could see a bit of light stealing in from the outside world. I was above the cave’s main entrance.
I went on up. The light went before me. With a start, I came to a halt. I saw skulls gazing back at me. Rows and rows of skulls! Some of them so old they were no more than powder.
This had been a burial place, I reasoned, of those people that save only the heads of the dead, and believe that the spirits will talk through those heads, if properly addressed.
I told myself not to be foolishly frightened. At the same time I felt curiously weakened.
“It is the broth you drank,” I whispered. “Sit down and rest.”
And I did, leaning against the wall to my left, and looking into the big chamber, with its many masks of death grinning back at me.
The crude candle rolled out of my hand, but did not go out. It came to rest in the mud, and when I tried to reach for it, I couldn’t.
Then slowly I looked up and I saw my lost Janet.
She was coming towards me through the chamber of the skulls, moving slowly, as if she were not real, but a figure in a dream.
“But I am awake,” I said aloud.
I saw her nod, and smile. She stepped before the feeble little candle.
She wore the same rose-colored robe that she had the day they had burnt her, and then I saw to my horror that the silk had been eaten away by fire, and that her white skin showed through the jagged tears in it. And her long blond hair, it was burnt off and blackened on the ends, and ashes smudged her cheeks and her bare feet and her hands. Yet she was there, alive, and near to me.
“What is it, Janet?” I said. “What would you say to me now?”
“Ah, but what do you say to me, my beloved King? I followed you from the great circle in the southland up to Donnelaith and you destroyed me.”
“Don’t curse me, fair spirit,” I said. I climbed to my knees. “Give me that which will help all of us! I sought the path of love. It was the path to ruin.”
A change came over her face, a look of puzzlement and then awareness.
She lost her simple smile, and taking my hand, she spoke these words as if they were our secret.
“Would you find another paradise, my lord?” she asked. “Would you build another monument such as you left on the plain for all time? Or would you rather find a dance so simple and full of grace that all the peoples of the world could do it?”
“The dance, Janet, I would. And ours would be one great living circle.”
“And would you make a song so sweet that no man or woman of any breed could ever resist it?”
“Yes,” I said. “And sing we would, forever.”
Her face brightened and her lips parted. And with a look of faint amazement, she spoke again.
“Then take the curse I give you.”
I began to cry.
She gestured for me to be still, but with patience. Then she spoke this poem or song in the soft, rapid voice of the Taltos:
Your quest is doomed, your path is long,
Your winter just beginning.
These bitter times shall fade to myth
And memory lose its meaning
But when at last her arms you see,
Outstretched in bold forgiveness,
Shrink not from what the earth would do
When rain and winds do till it.
The seed shall sprout, the leaves unfurl,
The boughs shall give forth blossoms,
That once the nettles tried to kill, and
Strong men sought to trample.
The dance, the circle, and the song,
Shall be the key to heaven,
As ways that once the mighty scorned
Shall be their final blessing.
The cave grew dim, the little candle was dying, and with a subtle farewell gesture of her hand, she smiled again, and disappeared completely.
It seemed the words she’d spoken were carved in my mind as if engraved on the flat stones of the circle. And I saw them, and fixed them for all time, even