The Mountain Queen

Part II, Chapter Six: Out of the Earth

It was the same again.  I was not Silah.  I was someone far more vibrant and beautiful, serene and at home in the world.  I was on high; I was exalted; yet my roots went low, deep into the earth, and where they took hold there was strength in abundance, and power that flowed up into me through the body that was mine.

And this time, things were clearer.  The world was not a blind storm of impressions; the world was a world—solid, concrete, dependable.  I stood on the grass in the center of the valley, in a place I knew well, and which knew me.  My white dress billowed around me, catching the sunlight, dancing.  My long mane of golden curls fell softly on my bare shoulders.  And the sun warmed my face.

Again the man stood before me.  Again his beauty outdazzled the sun.  But this time, we could speak to each other.  He could speak, and I could hear him.  I could speak, and he could hear me.

"It's been a long time," he said, in a kind voice that roiled up from the earth itself.

"Too long," I answered.

"I've waited," he said.

"I know."

There was silence again, and the warm wind caressed us, filling our ears with an ocean sound.

"Will it be like before?" he asked me.

"You know better than that," I told him.  "The world was young when I met you.  Young and easy.  Everything will be different.  Everything already is."

"I am no different."  He spoke with feeling.

"Then maybe you will have to change."

Now the wind was stronger, straining against us.  It was colder, too.  He caught me in his arms.

"I love you," he said.

And before I could answer, I was awake.  I was Silah.  And I was staring into the eyes of a man I had never met.

*          *          *

The man had me by the shoulders.  His grip was gentle, but impossibly strong.  His eyes were wild with emotion, his hair and beard—both reddish-blond—caked with dirt and hanging limply about his pale face.  We were standing at the bottom of the pit Cressock and the others had dug the day before.  It was nighttime.  A bright moon flooded the pit with ghostly light.  I was myself, and wearing my own clothing.  I was cold.

"This must seem strange to you," said the man.

"Let me go," I said.

"Of course," he said.  "Of course."

He released me and stepped back two paces, smiling radiantly.  His eyes never left my face.

"You look different," he said.  "Very different.  But I know you.  I would know you anywhere—in any of a thousand lifetimes.  I know your soul.  I know the way it gleams."

"Who are you?" I asked.  For some reason I felt more angry than afraid.

"That isn't what you really want to know," he said, still smiling.  "What you really want to know is who you are."

That shut me up for the moment.  It was a mad thing to say, but it had an eerie ring of truth.

"Do you know that some souls cling to the earth?" he asked.  "Even when the heavens call them?"

"I've heard that said."

"Have you ever thought you might be one of those souls?"

There was a pause.  My voice came trembling, and perilously soft.  "Yes," I said.