Megra steps to her side, ready to strike her with the flat of her hand, and seeing that her veil has fallen, hesitates for an instant to touch a thing of such beauty as she beholds of eyes dark and large within an heart-shaped face, so red and blazing with life, and lashes that reach to the brows with a movement like the wings of crimson butterflies, and teeth pink as flesh within a sudden smile of the sort that may sometimes be seen when staring into flames.

The darkness continues to deepen and the wind grows more wild, and suddenly the ground is shaken, as with some distant blow.

The light of the pendant touches Megra once more, and Isis attempts to stand, falls to her knees, frowns.

“Oh little child, what fate awaits you!" she says, and Megra, remembering the legends out of the old days, prays not only to an official god of the established religion, but to one who fell long ago, saying, "Osiris, Lord of Life, deliver me from the wrath of thy consort! But if thou wilt not hear my prayer. I then address my words to the dark god, Set, both beloved of and feared by this Lady. Save my life!” And then her voice goes still within her throat. Standing now, Isis looks about her, as the ground is shaken and shaken again by a terrible pounding, and noonday is become dusk within the heavens and over the land. There is a blue glow come up in the distance now, and somewhere a sound as of the clashing of two armies. There are shouts, shrieks and wailings. The prospect begins to sway in the distance, as though the world lies beneath heat waves.

“You may think this to be your deliverance,” cries Isis, “an answer to your blasphemous mouthings! But you are wrong! I know that I must not slay you now, but do a thing far more fearsome. I shall give you a gift that is all unhuman wisdom and human shame. For I have learned what I came to Blis to discover, and vengeance must be had! -Come with me now, into my chariot! Quickly! This world may soon cease to exist-for the General is not defeating your lover! Damn him!” Stiffly, slowly, Megra’s muscles obey the command, and she mounts the chariot. The Red Witch comes and stands beside her, adjusts her veil. In the distance, a green giant is screaming into the wind words which cannot be heard. Flickering fragments of everything seem to be spinning around within a great vortex that moves about the fairground. Everything blurs, doubles, triples, some images shattering, others remaining. Cracks and crevasses appear within the ground. In the distance, a city is falling. The little familiar hides within the witch’s cloak, a cry upon its lips. The dusk is broken now and the night comes down like thunder, and colors all splash together in the dark places where there should be no colors. Isis raises the reins and red flames leap up within the chariot, burning nothing, but encasing them within the heart of a ruby or the egg of the phoenix, and there is no sense of movement nor sound of passage, nor any other sound, suddenly, but now the world called Blis with its trouble, with its chaos and its plague, its salvation, lies far away from them, like the bright mouth of a well down which they are rushing, stars like spittle splashing beside.

THE THING THAT CRIES IN THE NIGHT

In the days when I reigned

as Lord of Life and Death,

says the Prince Who Was A Thousand,

in those days, at Man’s request,

did I lay the Middle Worlds within a sea of power,

tidal, turning thing,

thing to work with peaceful sea change

the birth,

growth,

death

designs upon them;

then all this gave

to Angels ministrant,

their Stations bordering Midworlds,

their hands to stir the tides.

And for many ages did we rule so,

elaborating the life,

tempering the death,

promoting the growth,

extending

the shores of that great, great sea,

as more and more of the Outworlds

were washed by the curling,

crowned by creation's foam.

Then one day,

brooding on the vast abyss

of such a world, brave,

good-seeming,

though dead, barren,

not then touched by the life,

I roused some sleeping thing

with the kiss of the tide I rode.

And I feared that thing which awakened,

issued forth,

attacked me-

came out the bowels of the land-

sought to destroy me:

thing which devoured the life of the planet,

slept for a season within it,

then hungry rose and vicious sought.

Feeding upon the tides of the Life,

it awakened.

It touched upon thee, my wife,

and I may not restore thy body,

though I preserved this breath of thee.

It drank, as a man drinks wine,

of the Life;

and every weapon in my arsenal

was discharged upon it,

but it did not die,

did not lapse into quiescence.

Rather, it tried to depart.

I contained it

Diverting the power of my Stations,

I set up the field,

field of neutral energies

caging the whole of the world.

Were it able to travel the places of Life,

devastate an entire world,

it must need be destroyed.

I tried, I failed-

many tried, many failed-

during the century’s half

I held it prisoner

upon that nameless world.

Then were the Midworlds cast into chaos,

for want of my control

over the life the death the growth.

Great was my pain.

New Stations were a building, but all too slow.

It was mine to lay the field once more,

but I might not free the Nameless.

I held not the power

to keep my shadow prisoner

and hold the Worlds of Life.

Now, among my Angels

grew up dissension’s stalk.

Quickly did I harvest it-

the price being some loyalty,

as even then I knew.

You, my Nephytha,

did not approve when my father,

risking the wrath of the Angel Osiris,

returned from Midworld's end,

to undertake the ultimate love

that is destruction.

You did not approve,

because my father Set,

mightiest warrior who ever lived,

was also our son in those days gone by,

our son, those days in Marachek,

after I had broken the temporal barrier,

to live once again through all time,

for the wisdom that is Past.

I did not know that, as time came back,

I would come to father the one who had been my father,

sun-eyed Set,

Wielder of the Star Wand,

Wearer of the Gauntlet,

Strider over Mountains.

You did not approve,

but you did not gainsay this battle,

and Set girded himself for the struggle.

Now, Set had never been defeated.

There was nothing he would not undertake to conquer.

He knew that the Steel General had been broken

and scattered by the Nameless.

But he was not afraid.

Holding forth his right hand,

he drew upon it the Gauntlet of Power,

which instantly grew

to cover over his body,

that but the brightness of his eyes shone through.

He placed upon his feet

the boots

which permitted him

to straddle the air and the water.

Then, with a black strand

he hung about his waist the sheath of the Star Wand,

ultimate weapon,

born of the blind smiths of Norn,

which only he might wield.

No, he was not afraid.

Ready then was he to depart my circling fortress,

descend upon the world,

where the Nameless crept,

spread,

swirled,

furious and hungry.

Then did his other son, my brother Typhon,

black shadow out of the void,

appear,

begging to go in his place.

But Set did deny him this thing,