"Why do you try, again and ever again?" she asked. "Why can you not becontent with me, with a life of peace and leisure? Do you not remember whatthey have done to you in the past? Were not your days with me infinitelybetter?"

"No!" I cried.

"I love you," she said.

"Such love is an imaginary number," I told her, and I was raised fromwhere I lay and borne away.

She followed behind, weeping.

"I pleaded with them to give you a chance at peace, but you threw thatgift in my face."

"The peace of the eunuch; the peace of lobotomy, lotus and Thorazine,"I said. "No, better they work their wills upon me and let their truth giveforth its lies as they do."

"Can you really say that and mean it?" she asked. "Have you alreadyforgotten the sun of the Caucasus--the vulture tearing at your side, dayafter hot red day?"

"I do not forget," I said, "but I curse them. I will oppose them untilthe ends of When and Wherever, and someday I shall win."

"I love you," she said.

"How can you say that and mean it?"

"Fool!" came a chorus of voices, as I was laid upon this rock in thiscavern and chained.

All day long a bound serpent spits venom into my face, and she holds apan to catch it. It is only when the woman who betrayed me must empty thatpan that it spits into my eyes and I scream.

But I _will_ come free again, to aid long-suffering mankind with mymany gifts, and there will be a trembling on high that day I end my bondage.Until then, I can only watch the delicate, unbearable bars of her fingersacross the bottom of that pan, and scream each time she takes them away.

It is the story of John Auden and the Faioli, and no one knows itbetter than I. Listen--

It happened on that evening, as he strolled (for there was no reasonnot to stroll) in his favorite places in the whole world, that he saw theFaioli near the Canyon of the Dead, seated on a rock, her wings of lightflickering, flickering, flickering and then gone, until it appeared that ahuman girl was sitting there, dressed all in white and weeping, with longblack tresses coiled about her waist.

He approached her through the terrible light from the dying, half-deadsun, in which human eyes could not distinguish distances nor graspperspectives properly (though his could), and he lay his right hand upon hershoulder and spoke a word of greeting and of comfort.

It was as if he did not exist, however. She continued to weep,streaking with silver her cheeks the color of snow or a bone. Her almondeyes looked forward as though they saw through him, and her long fingernailsdug into the flesh of her palm, though no blood was drawn.

Then he knew that it was true, the things that are said of theFaioli--that they see only the living and never the dead, and that they areformed into the loveliest women in the entire universe. Being dead himself,John Auden debated the consequences of becoming a living man once again, fora time.

The Faioli were known to come to a man the month before hisdeath--those rare men who still died--and to live with such a man for thatfinal month of his existence, rendering to him every pleasure that it ispossible for a human being to know, so that on the day when the kiss ofdeath is delivered, which sucks the remaining life from his body, that manaccepts it--no, seeks it--with desire and grace, for such is the power ofthe Faioli among all creatures that there is nothing more to be desiredafter such knowledge.

John Auden considered his life and his death, the conditions of theworld upon which he stood, the nature of his stewardship and his curse andthe Faioli--who was the loveliest creature he had ever seen in all of hisfour hundred thousand days of existence--and he touched the place beneathhis left armpit which activated the necessary mechanism to make him liveagain.

The creature stiffened beneath his touch, for suddenly it was flesh,his touch, and flesh, warm and woman-filled, that he was touching, now thatthe last sensations of life had returned to him. He knew that his touch hadbecome the touch of a man once more.

"I said 'hello, and don't cry,'" he said, and her voice was like thebreezes he had forgotten through all the trees that he had forgotten, withtheir moisture and their odors and their colors all brought back to himthus, "From where do you come, man? You were not here a moment ago."

"From the Canyon of the Dead," he said.

"Let me touch your face," and he did, and she did.

"It is strange that I did not feel you approach."

"This is a strange world," he replied.

"That is true," she said. "You are the only living thing upon it."

And he said, "What is your name?"

She said, "Call me Sythia," and he did.

"My name is John," he told her, "John Auden."

"I have come to be with you, to give you comfort and pleasure," shesaid, and he knew that the ritual was beginning.

"Why were you weeping when I found you?" he asked.

"Because I thought there was nothing upon this world, and I was sotired from my travels," she told him. "Do you live near here?"

"Not far away," he answered. "Not far away at all."

"Will you take me there? To the place where you live?"

"Yes."

And she rose and followed him into the Canyon of the Dead, where hemade his home.

They descended and they descended, and all about them were the remainsof people who had once lived. She did not seem to see these things, however,but kept her eyes fixed upon John's face and her hand upon his arm.

"Why do you call this place the Canyon of the Dead?" she asked him.

"Because they are all about us here, the dead," he replied.

"I feel nothing."

"I know."

They crossed through the Valley of the Bones, where millions of thedead from many races and worlds lay stacked all about them, and she did notsee these things. She had come to the graveyard of all the world, but shedid not realize this thing. She had encountered its tender, its keeper, andshe did know what he was, he who staggered beside her like a man drunken.

John Auden took her to his home--not really the place where he lived,but it would be now--and there he activated ancient circuits within thebuilding within the mountains, and in response light leaped forth from thewalls, light he had never needed before but now required.

The door slid shut behind them and the temperature built up to a normalwarmth. Fresh air circulated and he took it into his lungs and expelled it,glorying in the forgotten sensation. His heart beat within his breast, a redwarm thing that reminded him of the pain and of the pleasure. For the firsttime in ages, he prepared a meal and fetched a bottle of wine from one ofthe deep, sealed lockers. How many others could have borne what he hadborne?

None, perhaps.

She dined with him, toying with the food, sampling a bit of everything,eating very little. He, on the other hand, glutted himself fantastically,and they drank of the wine and were happy.

"This place is so strange," she said. "Where do you sleep?"

"I used to sleep in there," he told her, indicating a room he hadalmost forgotten; and they entered and he showed it to her, and she beckonedhim toward the bed and the pleasures of her body.

That night he loved her, many times, with a desperation that burnt awaythe alcohol and pushed all of his life forward with something like a hunger,but more.

The following day, when the dying sun had splashed the Valley of theBones with its pale, moonlike light, he awakened and she drew his head toher breast, not having slept herself, and she asked him, "What is the thingthat moves you, John Auden? You are not like one of the men who live and whodie, but you take life almost like one of the Faioli, squeezing from iteverything that you can and pacing it at a tempo that bespeaks a sense oftime no man should know. What are you?"