"I'm wounded," he said as he touched his chest over his heart. "Have you forgotten me so easily?"

I poured more water into my glass and put the spoon on top.

Sugar cube.

Absinthe.

"No," I replied. "Not so easily. Would you care for some?"

He took his pocket watch out of his waistcoat and opened it with a little click.

"Isn't it a bit early for this sort of thing?" he asked. "I hadn't figured you for the type."

The sugar cube crumbled in my mouth. My tongue was already numb and felt a bit grainy. Wonderful numbness.

"What type is that?" I asked. "The type that in- dulges in pleasure? Think of it, Caimbeul. All the years and years stretching ahead of us. All the ones behind. And it doesn't mean anything. Nothing we do matters. It all keeps happening again and again. I've spent plenty of time worrying about what has happened. And far too much concerned with what will happen. So, now, I don't care.

"This"-I raised my glass-"gives me a brief taste of happiness. I have had far too little of that."

Silently, I toasted him, then drank. Ah, nectar. I was borne up by angels into clouds of gossamer and silk.

He said nothing then. Just sat down there with me as I drank, then walked me home as the sun sank full and red into the gray twilight.

Every day he came and sat with me as I drank. Sometimes, I would go to a different cafe, but he al- ways managed to find me.

One day I woke and discovered that I no longer wanted to go to the cafes. Caimbeul's presence had muddied the pleasure of the absinthe for me. I hated 120

him for it. I dressed hurriedly, rushing out without my hat.

He was waiting for me at the cafe on the Rue Saint-Jacques.

"I hate you," I said.

"I know."

"You've ruined everything."

"Perhaps."

I stood there, frustrated, not knowing what else to say.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" he asked.

I narrowed my eyes. "Why?"

"Because it's a beautiful day," he replied. "And I'd like you to come with me."

I saw the waiter coming toward the table with the absinthe and water. My hands started shaking and I felt my mouth go dry. Caimbeul and I didn't say anything as the waiter put them on the table and left.

"Well," he said. "Are you coming?"

I looked at the absinthe. Ma petite amie. My life,

Just one more, I thought.

I could feel my mouth pucker, anticipating the bite of the sugar, the anise bitterness of the absinthe.

Caimbeul held his hand out to me. Slowly, very slowly, I took it.

"Why did you stay?" I asked Caimbeul.

"When?"

"When you found me in Paris at that cafe. You could have left. It might have been better if you had. It was certainly out of character."

He looked out at the drizzling rain. The sky was overcast and made the greens outside brilliant and a little surreal.

"I suppose it was the shock of seeing you there. You looked so… human. It surprised me. I had al- ways thought of you as indestructable. No matter what knocked you down, you just kept getting back up. But there, in that place, you weren't ever going to get up again. I just couldn't stand to see the waste of it all."

The light from the fluorescents gave his skin a corpse-like pallor. It seemed almost incomprehensi- ble to me that I had once held him in my arms. I felt like that had happened to a different person. A dif- ferent Aina.

"Did I ever thank you?" I asked.

He turned toward me and smiled. The smile was crooked and made his face look lopsided. And I found it utterly endearing.

"Yes," he said. "You did."

"Good," I said.

And we sat there wrapped in our memories until the announcement came for our flight.

You have been hiding from me, Aina. You must know there is nowhere you can run where I cannot find you.

No place that will afford you sanctuary. I am coming. Coming soon.

The international flight was cramped and exhaust- ing. I jerked awake from another dream about Ysrth- grathe. He was in my mind again. Invading my thoughts and dreams just like he had all those years ago. It made me feel unclean. Like something slimy had crawled across my skin.

Caimbeui was asleep next to me. He snored a lit- tle and I gave him a bit of a push to make him stop. I wanted to wake him and tell him about my dream, but I didn't. I had learned long ago that it was better not to involve anyone else in matters concerning Ysrthgrathe. -

Outside it was dark. I found flying to be strange, as though I were suspended in time and space. An- other manifestation of my distrust of technology. Perhaps all this metal and cold, analytical thought reminded me too much of the Therans. The result of their devotion to purity had ruined so many. Like the Huns, they thought nothing of conquering and laying waste to any and all who opposed them. And like the Romans, they swallowed whole civilizations and di- gested them into unrecognizable pieces. They so be- lieved in their own purity that they sacrificed the world.

But all of that time was gone. I had to stop letting it pull me into the past. What was important now was the future. I had to save it.

We landed in the Atlanta airport and made our connecting flight to Austin without any real delays. Oh, there's always some sort of drek that pops up when you enter the Confederated American States, but I still had a few connections of my own. A few hours later, we were catching a cab from Robert Mueller Airport to my sometime-residence in the western hills of Austin.

"I don't remember this place," said Caimbeul. He walked about the room pulling dust covers off the furniture and sneezing as dust flew up his nose.

The house smelled stale and I was opening win- dows. The clean, sweet scent of fall floated into the room. It was warm here, even in late October. I like that about Austin.

"I didn't come by it until nineteen thirty-four," I said. "As I recall, you were out of the picture by, oh, about fifty years."

"We did fall out of touch," he said. "I'm sorry about that."

"I'm not," I said. "We had said so many things by then. Things neither of us could take back. No, it was better that we got away from one another."

He opened the French doors leading to the bal- cony that wrapped around the front of the house overlooking the beginning of the Hill Country. Ce- dar and mesquite trees grew low and crippled by the fierce summers. It was as close to an alien landscape as I could imagine. Even now, when technology tried to cover every centimeter of earth, I believed that this land would reclaim itself if given half a chance.

"I like it here," he said. "It reminds me of another place-before…"

"Before the Enemy came," I finished. "Yes, it doesn't look the same, but it feels the same. Wild and untamed. There used to be more development here, but since the Awakening, it has gone back somewhat.

"After the Great Ghost Dance, the water spirits inhabiting the Barton Creek Watershed rose up and drowned a number of developers. They were having some kind of big ground-breaking on yet another big project. Apparently, the water spirits didn't like the idea, because they carried off the great-great- grandson of Jim Bob Moffett and several of his banker friends.

"There hasn't been much development since then, and the people who were living in property that was polluting the creek found themselves being tormented by water spirits. Most of them have left."

"Why are you still here?" Caimbeui asked. "Professional courtesy."

We'd stopped for groceries on the way in, and af- ter a quick meal of eggs and soylinks, we retired back to the balcony. Luckily, my freezer was still working and I had a supply of unground coffee beans laid in. We watched the brilliant red sun go down while sipping Kona blue and cognac.