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"I don't want to think of that," I said. "Because I love the world the way it is. After all, hasn't the world come almost to the same point? I mean take a look around you in the world, and see how far they've come on their own. I don't mean that what you did wasn't splendid. It was glorious. All this is glorious. And they can't make a city of luracastria, no, but think of all they've achieved without one guiding force, and subject to the squabbles, and battles and war, of a multitude of guiding forces. They've come out of it to achieve so much."
"They have," he said. There were laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, and his lips spread back so easily in such a generous smile. "They certainly have, and I would never interfere with them now. I want you to know that! I would never seek to do what I did before. But right now, here, in this world, the world of Atalantaya, savages do live beyond this dome and the Wilderness lands can be a treacherous and terrible place. But remember what I'm saying. I would never seek again to have such power, to be such a dominant note."
"I understand."
"But I just wanted you to see it, this world, my world. I wanted you to see what I'd done, and see what it was that Bravenna destroyed, and what time buried, and what perished from the record, and what's remembered now only in legends and poems and songs."
Time, so much time passed! How did we get here in the street, walking together, and what had we been saying, the two of us, because it seemed like only a moment ago we'd been way up in the Creative Tower and we'd been talking, but I knew a day had passed. The sun was setting, and the towers were going opaque in shimmering shades of pink, and gold, and even a very pale metallic blue. The street was shaded here from the heat by leafy branches that arched completely over the sidewalk. People were rushing by us, on a multitude of ordinary errands, and we walked slowly on these smooth shining pavers, polished pavers, and suddenly the scent of an unknown flower enveloped me. I stopped. I looked around. Flowers covered the wall beside me, the flowers of an immense and sprawling vine, pretty cream-colored deep-throated flowers climbing up and up on a mass of tangled tendrils and creepers until I couldn't see distinct blossoms anymore or the farthermost tendrils of the vine. The sky was twilight purple and the building had turned to a luminescent violet.
Amel stood there watching me. The vine began to tremble.
"No, wait, look, it's coming undone!" I said. "The whole vine, look, it's losing its grip, it's falling."
And it was--the great leafy mass of it coming loose from the violet wall, and the flowers shivering as they fell, with the branches curling down upon themselves, and the whole thing collapsing suddenly and vanishing as if it had never been there, and there had never been all those blossoms, all those gorgeous blossoms stemming from one root.
"Oh, wait a minute!" I said. "I see."
Darkness.
"Don't go!" I said. "Don't leave me."
Voice against my ear. "I haven't left you!"
Darkness. Stillness. A stillness so perfect that I could have heard my own breathing if I had been breathing. I could have heard my own heart beating if it had been beating.
And then suddenly it was.
I jumped. I felt a pain in my chest that made me wince and sit up.
I couldn't keep quiet, the pain was so sharp and intense, but then it was over and my heart was pounding and I felt a flush of blood in my hands and in my face.
"I told you I wouldn't leave you."
Last glimmer of Atalantaya, twilight, the violet towers filled with soft yellow squares and rectangles, and Amel, long red hair mussed in the breeze, looking into my eyes and kissing me. "I love you, I have never loved anyone in all my long life as I love you."
Silence except for the steady rhythm of my heart.
I opened my eyes. Kapetria and Fareed stood before me, watching me with a horrid impersonal fascination. Louis was sitting on the coffin, and he was holding my right hand.
Rose and Viktor were standing nearby in the alcove before the stairway. They were radiant and regarding me with wonder, and I thought them the most marvelous beings in the whole world. Seth stood behind them.
"Did anyone suffer--?" I could not quite get the words out.
Fareed shook his head. "Everyone felt the shock of it. But within the space of five minutes, I was myself. Seth was himself. For Rose and Viktor it was longer, perhaps ten minutes, and then they were completely restored. Marius came down moments after that. The ballroom was filled with young and old who had felt the shock and recovered."
Only Kapetria looked distressed, wildly distressed. Kapetria was staring at me in alarm.
"Tell her I'm still here," said Amel.
"Oh, yes, of course," I said. "I'm so sorry, Kapetria. Amel says to tell you that he's still here." I didn't try to explain about the vivid dream, the sense of absolutely being somewhere else with Amel, the assurance that Amel had never left.
Kapetria closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she looked up and took a deep breath. Her eyes were moist and then they became glassy. She appeared to shiver all over, but then to collect herself and sink back into her thoughts.
A wave of nausea passed over me.
Left to my own choice, I wouldn't have moved so fast. I would have sat there for a longer period of time, but they wanted us to go upstairs.
"It didn't work, did it?" I said to Fareed. He didn't answer. "They are all fine, all of you are fine, and it just didn't work."
