Now they went for wine. Valentine’s hand shook and he downed two mugs quickly, while Carabella looked at him in some concern. Her fingers played with the strong bones of his wrist, but she asked no questions. Her own wine she left barely touched.

The next door that opened before them in the festival was that of a wax museum, in the shape of a miniature Labyrinth, so that when they stumbled inside there was no turning back, and they gave the waxen keeper their three-weight pieces and went forward. Out of the darkness emerged heroes of the realm done in cunning simulation, moving, even speaking in archaic dialects. This tall warrior announced himself to be Lord Stiamot, conqueror of the Metamorphs, and this was the fabled Lady Thiin, his mother, the warrior-Lady who in person led the defense of the Isle of Sleep when it was besieged by aborigines. To them came one claiming to be Dvorn, the first Pontifex, a figure almost as remote in time from the era of Stiamot as Stiamot was from the present, and near him was Dinitak Barjazid, the first King of Dreams, a personage far less ancient. Deeper into the maze went Carabella and Valentine, encountering a host of dead Powers, a cleverly chosen assortment of Pontifexes and Ladies and Coronals, the great rulers Confalume and Prestimion and Dekkeret, and the Pontifex Arioc of curious fame, and last of all, presiding over the exit, the image of a ruddy-faced man in tight black garments, perhaps forty years of age, black-haired and dark-eyed and smiling, and he needed to offer no introductions, for this was Voriax, the late Coronal, brother to Lord Valentine, cut down in the prime of his reign two years past, dead in some absurd hunting accident after holding power only eight years. The image bowed and reached forth its hands, and exclaimed, "Weep for me, brothers and sisters, for I was supreme and perished before my time, and my fall was all the greater since I fell from so lofty a height. I was Lord Voriax, and think long on my fate."

Carabella shuddered. "A gloomy place, and a gloomy finish to it. Away from here!"

Once more she led him breathlessly through the festival grounds, through gaming-halls and arcades and brilliantly lit pavilions, past dining-tables and pleasure-houses, never halting, floating birdlike from place to place, until finally they turned a corner and were in darkness, beyond the zone of revelry altogether. From behind them came the raucous sounds of fading merriment and the dwindling glow of garish light; as they moved forward they encountered the fragrance of heavy blossoms, the silence of trees. They were in a garden, a park.

"Come," Carabella murmured, taking him by the hand.

They entered a moonlit glade where the trees had been pleached overhead to form a tightly woven bower. Valentine’s arm slipped easily around her taut, narrow waist. The soft warmth of the day lay trapped under these close-tangled trees, and from the moist soil rose the creamy sweet aroma of huge fleshy flowers, bigger across than a Skandar’s head. The festival and all its chaotic excitement seemed ten thousand miles away.

"This is where we’ll stay," Carabella announced.

With exaggerated chivalry he spread his cloak, and she drew him to the ground and slid easily and swiftly into his arms. They lay secluded between two high dense bushes of gray-green sticklike branches. A stream ran not far from them and only the most slender gleams of brightness entered overhead.

Fastened to Carabella’s hip was a tiny pocket-harp of intricate workmanship. She drew it forth now, strummed a brief melodious prelude, and began to sing in a cool, pure voice:

"How lovely that is," Valentine murmured. "And your voice — your voice is so beautiful—"

"Do you sing?" she asked.

"Why — yes, I suppose so."

She handed him the harp. "Sing for me now. One of your favorites."

He turned the little instrument over in his hand, puzzled, and said after a moment, "I don’t know any songs."

"No songs? No songs? Come, you must know a few!"

"All gone from my mind, so it seems."

Carabella smiled and took back her harp. "I’ll teach you a few, then," she said. "But not now, I think."

"No. Not now."

He touched his lips to hers. She purred and chuckled, and her embrace grew tighter. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he could see her more clearly, small pointed face, bright sly eyes, glossy tumbling black hair. Her nostrils flared with expectation. He drew back momentarily from what was to occur, obscurely fearing that some sort of contract was about to be sealed, but then he put those fears behind him. It was festival night, and he wanted her, and she him. Valentine’s hands slipped down her back, came forward, felt the cage of her ribs lying just below the skin. He remembered her as she had looked standing naked under the cleanser: muscle and bone, bone and muscle, not much meat on her except at thighs and buttocks. A compact bundle of energy. In a moment she was naked again, and so was he. He saw that she was trembling, but not from chill, not on this balmy humid night in this secret bower. A strange, almost frightening intensity seemed to grip her. He stroked her arms, her face, her muscular shoulders, the small hard-tipped spheres of her breasts. His hand found the sleek skin along the inside of her thighs, and she let out her breath sharply and pulled him to her.

Their bodies moved in easy rhythms, as though they had been lovers for months and were well practiced with one another. Her slender powerful legs clasped his waist and they rolled over and over, until they came almost to the edge of the stream and could feel its chilly spray on their sweaty skins. They paused there, laughing, and rolled back the other way. This time they came to rest against one of the gray-green bushes, Carabella pulling him downward, taking the thrust of his weight without difficulty.

"Now!" she cried, and he heard her hiss and moan, and then her fingers dug deep into his flesh and a furious spasm racked her body, and in that same instant he gave himself up fully to the forces that were sweeping through him.

Afterward he lay gasping and half dazed in her embrace, listening to the booming of his own heart.

"We’ll sleep here," she whispered. "No one will trouble us on this night." She stroked his forehead, pushing his soft yellow hair back from his eyes, smoothing it into place. Lightly she kissed the tip of his nose. She was casual, playful, kittenish: that dark erotic intensity was gone from her, burned away in the fires of passion. But he felt shaken, stunned, confused. For him there had been sudden sharp ecstasy, yes. But in that moment of ecstasy he had found himself peering through gates of dazzling light into a mysterious realm without color or form or substance, and he had teetered precariously on the brink of that unknown before tumbling back into the world of this reality.

He could not speak. Nothing he might say seemed appropriate. He had not expected such disorientation to come out of the act of love. Carabella evidently sensed the disquiet in him, for she said nothing, only held him, rocked him gently, drew his head against her breast, sang softly to him.

In the warmth of the night he drifted gradually into sleep.

When the dream-images came, they were harsh and terrifying.

He was carried back yet again to that bleak, familiar purple plain. The same mocking faces leered at him from the purple sky, but this time he was not alone. Looming up against him was a figure of dark visage and heavy, oppressive physical presence whom Valentine understood to be his brother, although in the fierce crackling glow of the amber sun he could not clearly see the other man’s features. And the dream enacted itself against a background of somber music, the low keening note of mind-music that denoted the peril-dream, the threat-dream, the death-dream.