closed, as if he were sleeping. Slowly, with apparent deliberation, he spoke the name of Mirithemne.
Talnaco fled. For a time he lost his way in a dark forest, but still his beloved seemed to be with him. For days and nights he travelled, resting little. When he finally emerged from the forest, the river was before him again. Once more an imperial drontha crawled against the current on the legs of its oars. Once more the rivermen sang as they poled their barge.
He made his way to Ai Hanlo, entering through the Sunrise Gate. He followed streets he knew until he stood before his own door. The key was in the pocket of his apron. He went inside. The place was filled with dust and cobwebs. At once he set to work cleaning it, making it ready for the practice of his craft.
So again a young Zabortashi lantern maker established himself in Ai Hanlo, He labored long and hard, selling excellent lanterns to the best clients. In each lantern, somewhere among the intricacies of the design, he carved the image of Mirithemne, all the while sensing her nearness. She became more evident every day. He found his bed rumpled when he had not slept in it. His cupboard was left open when he had closed it. He heard footsteps. He heard shutters and doors opening and closing, but when he went to see, no one was there.
One day he found a woman’s comb on a chair. There were long, yellow hairs in it. Mirithemne’s hair was like that. Then he found her mirror, and when he looked into it, he saw someone staring over his shoulder.
He turned. The carpet on the floor moved slightly, but he was alone in the room.
At last, as he sat in his workshop in the upper room of the house, just below the loft, there were gentle footsteps on the stairway outside, followed by a light rapping at the door.
“Enter,” he said.
The door opened slowly, but no one entered: He got up, and found Mirithemne’s lantern on the threshold.
The sign was very clear.
Therefore Talnaco Ramat bore the lantern into a courtyard he knew. It was sunset, in the autumn of the year. High above the city, a soldier blew on a curving horn. The light of the golden dome faded, while the light of the lantern grew brighter.
The door of the lantern opened. His eyes were dazzled. He fell to his knees.
And when he could see again, Mirithemne stood before him, holding the lantern, as graceful and as beautiful as he had remembered her. She smiled at him, and, reaching down, took his hand in hers and lifted him to his feet. Then she danced to music he could not hear, her long dress whirling, the leaves whirling, the golden shapes projected by the lantern whirling over the walls, the trees, the ground, over Talnaco himself as she danced, the lantern in hand.
He could never imagine her more perfect than she was at that moment.
Later, she was in his arms and they spoke words of love. Later still he sat with his memories, and it seemed he had lived out his life with her, in the shop at the end of the narrow lane, in the city, and that he had grown old. Still Mirithemne was with him. He vaguely remembered how it had been otherwise, but he was not sure of it, and this troubled him.
He vaguely remembered that he had a son called Venda. He was old. He was getting confused. He would ask Mirithemne.
* * * *
In the darkness, in the night, Venda made his way up a narrow, sloping street that ended in a stairway, climbed the stairway, and came to the wall which separates the lower, or outer part of Ai Hanlo from the inner city, where dwell the Guardian of the Bones of the Goddess, his priests, his courtiers, and his soldiers. Venda could not go beyond the wall, but he could open a certain door, and slide into an unlighted room no larger than a closet, closing the door behind him.
He dropped a coin into a bowl and rang a bell. A window slid open in front of him. He could see nothing, but he heard a priest breathing.
“The power of the Goddess fades like an echo in a cave,” the priest said, “but perhaps enough lingers to comfort you.”
“I don’t come for myself,” Venda said, and he explained how he had watched his father go into a courtyard with an old lantern and vanish in a flash of light.
The priest came out and went with him. He saw that the priest was very young, little more than a boy, and he wondered if he would be able to do anything. But he said nothing, out of respect. Then he realized that this was a certain Tamliade, something of a prodigy, already renowned for his visions.
They came to the courtyard and found the lantern, still glowing brightly. The priest opened its door. The light was dazzling. For a time Venda could see nothing. For a time they seemed to walk on pathways of light, through forests of frozen fire.
They found Talnaco Ramat sitting in the mouth of a cave, with the lantern before him, its door open, the light from within brilliant.
“Father, return with us,” Venda said.
“Go away. I am with my beloved.”
Venda saw no one but himself, his father, and the priest, but before he could say anything, his father reached out and snapped the door of the lantern shut.
The scene vanished, like a reflection in a pool shattered by a stone.
* * * *
They found themselves in the courtyard, standing before the lantern, which rested on the bench. Again the priest opened the little door, and the light was blinding. The priest led Venda by the hand. When he could see again, they were walking after his father, up the road to the Sunrise Gate of Ai Hanlo. His father hurried with long strides, bearing the lantern. Its door was open. The light was less brilliant than before.
“Father—”
“Sir,” said the boy priest. “Come away.”
Talnaco stopped suddenly and turned to the priest. “What do you know of the ways of love, young man?”
“Why—why, nothing.”
“Then you will not understand why I won’t go with you.”
“Father,” said Venda softly.
Talnaco snapped the door of the lantern shut.
* * * *
“If you want to get another priest, do so, but it won’t do any good,” the boy Tamliade said.
They stood in the courtyard, in the darkness, in the night. “It’s not that,” Venda said. “What do we do now?”
“We merely follow him to where he is going. He has gone far already.”
The priest opened the door of the lantern. The light was dim. It seemed to flow out, like the waters of the river, splashing over the ground and between the trees.
Again they stood by the riverbank. An imperial drontha went by. Boatmen poled a barge.
Venda followed the priest. They came to a cave, where lay the blackened, shriveled corpse of an anchorite. They passed through the dark forest and eventually into Ai Hanlo, along a narrow street, until they came to the shop with the wooden sign over its door.
The door was unlocked. The two of them went quietly inside, then up the stairs until they stood before the door to Talnaco Ramat’s workroom.
Venda rapped gently.
“Enter,” came the voice from within. They entered, and saw Talnaco seated at his workbench, polishing a lantern. He looked older and more tired than Venda had ever seen him before.
“Father, you are in a dream.”
His father smiled and said gently, “You are a true son. I am glad that you care about me.”
“None of this is real,” the priest said, gesturing with a sweep of his hand.
“Do you think I don’t know that? I have lived out my life suspended in a single, golden moment of time. It doesn’t make any difference. Mirithemne is with me.”
He glanced