leaden-threaded grey.
Into the gathering dimness, over the machicolated ice of the beginning glacier, the Sybil sped like a flying fire, paler and more luminous against the somber cloud.
Now Tortha had climbed the fretted incline of the ice that crawled out from glacier-bound Polarion. It seemed that he had gained the summit of the pass and would soon reach the open plateau beyond. But like a storm raised up by preterhuman sorcery, the falling snow was upon him now in spectral swirls and blinding flurries. It came as with the ceaseless flight of soft wide wings, the measureless coiling of vague and pallid dragons.
For a time he still discerned the Sybil, as one sees the dim glowing of a sacred lamp through altar-curtains that descend in some great temple. Then the snow thickened, till he no longer saw the guiding gleam, and knew not if he still wandered through the walled pass, or was lost upon some bournless plain of perpetual winter.
He fought for breath in the storm-stifled air. The clear white fire that had sustained him seemed to sink and fall in his icy limbs. The unearthly fervor and exaltation died away, leaving a dark fatigue, an ever-spreading numbness that rose through all his being. The bright image of the Sybil was no more than a nameless star that fell with all else he had ever known or dreamed into grey forgetfulness....
Tortha opened his eyes to a strange world. Whether he had fallen and had died in the storm, or had stumbled on somehow through its white oblivion, he could not guess: but around him now there was no trace of the driving snow or the glacier-shackled mountains.
He stood in a valley that might have been the inmost heart of some boreal paradise—a valley that was surely no part of waste Polarion. About him, the summer turf was piled with flowers that had the frail and pallid hues of a lunar rainbow. They were not the flowers that bloomed around Cerngoth: their delicate forms were those of the blossoms of snow and frost; and in spite of the elfin opulence of their colors, it seemed that they would melt and vanish at a touch.
The sky above the valley was not the low-arching, tender turquoise heaven of Mhu Thulan, but was vague, dream-like, remote, and full of an infinite violescence, like the welkin of a world beyond time and space. Everywhere there was light; but Tortha saw no sun in the cloudless vault. It was as if the sun, the moon, the stars, had been molten together ages ago and had dissolved into some ultimate, eternal luminescence.
Tall, gracile trees, whose leafage of lunar green was thickly starred with blossoms delicate and auroral as those of the turf, grew in groves and clumps above the valley, and lined the margin of a stilly flowing stream that wound away into measureless misty perspectives.
Tortha noticed that he cast no shadow on the brightly flowered ground. The trees likewise were shadowless, and were not reflected in the clear, unfathomable waters. There was no wind to lift the blossom-heavy boughs, or to stir the countless petals amid the grass. A cryptic silence brooded over all things, like the hush of some supernal doom.
Filled with a high wonder, but wholly powerless to surmise the riddle of his situation, the poet turned as if at the bidding of a still, imperatory voice. Behind him, and near at hand, there was an arbor of flowering vines that had draped themselves from tree to slender tree. Through the half-parted arras of bloom, in the bower’s heart, he saw like a drifted snow the white veils of the Sybil.
With timid steps, with eyes that faltered before her mystic beauty, and a flaming as of blown torches in his heart, he entered the arbor. From the bank of blossoms whereon she reclined without crushing the least petal, the Sybil rose to receive her worshipper. . . .
Of all that followed, of that supreme, ineffable hour with his divinity, much was forgotten afterwards by Tortha. It was like a light too radiant to be endured, a thought that eluded conception
Into the gathering dimness, over the machicolated ice of the beginning glacier, the Sybil sped like a flying fire, paler and more luminous against the somber cloud.
Now Tortha had climbed the fretted incline of the ice that crawled out from glacier-bound Polarion. It seemed that he had gained the summit of the pass and would soon reach the open plateau beyond. But like a storm raised up by preterhuman sorcery, the falling snow was upon him now in spectral swirls and blinding flurries. It came as with the ceaseless flight of soft wide wings, the measureless coiling of vague and pallid dragons.
For a time he still discerned the Sybil, as one sees the dim glowing of a sacred lamp through altar-curtains that descend in some great temple. Then the snow thickened, till he no longer saw the guiding gleam, and knew not if he still wandered through the walled pass, or was lost upon some bournless plain of perpetual winter.
He fought for breath in the storm-stifled air. The clear white fire that had sustained him seemed to sink and fall in his icy limbs. The unearthly fervor and exaltation died away, leaving a dark fatigue, an ever-spreading numbness that rose through all his being. The bright image of the Sybil was no more than a nameless star that fell with all else he had ever known or dreamed into grey forgetfulness....
Tortha opened his eyes to a strange world. Whether he had fallen and had died in the storm, or had stumbled on somehow through its white oblivion, he could not guess: but around him now there was no trace of the driving snow or the glacier-shackled mountains.
He stood in a valley that might have been the inmost heart of some boreal paradise—a valley that was surely no part of waste Polarion. About him, the summer turf was piled with flowers that had the frail and pallid hues of a lunar rainbow. They were not the flowers that bloomed around Cerngoth: their delicate forms were those of the blossoms of snow and frost; and in spite of the elfin opulence of their colors, it seemed that they would melt and vanish at a touch.
The sky above the valley was not the low-arching, tender turquoise heaven of Mhu Thulan, but was vague, dream-like, remote, and full of an infinite violescence, like the welkin of a world beyond time and space. Everywhere there was light; but Tortha saw no sun in the cloudless vault. It was as if the sun, the moon, the stars, had been molten together ages ago and had dissolved into some ultimate, eternal luminescence.
Tall, gracile trees, whose leafage of lunar green was thickly starred with blossoms delicate and auroral as those of the turf, grew in groves and clumps above the valley, and lined the margin of a stilly flowing stream that wound away into measureless misty perspectives.
Tortha noticed that he cast no shadow on the brightly flowered ground. The trees likewise were shadowless, and were not reflected in the clear, unfathomable waters. There was no wind to lift the blossom-heavy boughs, or to stir the countless petals amid the grass. A cryptic silence brooded over all things, like the hush of some supernal doom.
Filled with a high wonder, but wholly powerless to surmise the riddle of his situation, the poet turned as if at the bidding of a still, imperatory voice. Behind him, and near at hand, there was an arbor of flowering vines that had draped themselves from tree to slender tree. Through the half-parted arras of bloom, in the bower’s heart, he saw like a drifted snow the white veils of the Sybil.
With timid steps, with eyes that faltered before her mystic beauty, and a flaming as of blown torches in his heart, he entered the arbor. From the bank of blossoms whereon she reclined without crushing the least petal, the Sybil rose to receive her worshipper. . . .
Of all that followed, of that supreme, ineffable hour with his divinity, much was forgotten afterwards by Tortha. It was like a light too radiant to be endured, a thought that eluded conception
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