"Thatshadow is the future, which will eventually get into even thisstronghold and end it all. But until that day comes, why you at leastcan make merry. And I will help you...."
* * * * *
So time passed. The visitor was very happy, living in a paradise ofwonder and sensation and love such as no man of earth ever had before.
The days of McCarthy's dreaming became many. There were always about himseveral of the lovely glowing woman-shapes. Their forms were soft andseemed to become almost too perfectly what he most wished they wouldbecome, even as he looked and his mind tried to find imperfection, hefound only perfection. It was opposite from earth-style love, where oneignores imperfections to think about the better parts and points of theloved one ... where love is a slow schooling in seeing only the finestfacets of one's chosen. Here, he could find no imperfections to ignore,and he had only to imagine some perfection to see it before him.
McCarthy could not consciously know that the heavenly looks of theselovely things was magic, but he had his suspicions, and was alwaysturning around quickly to catch one of them off guard and looking likesomething other than the featured actress in an extravagant andtoo-undressed musical comedy. But he never succeeded, and always when heturned quickly he heard the far faint tinkle of bell-like laughter, andthat tinkle was somehow not a tinkle, but a deep melodious chime so faraway that it was broken into smaller sound by the echo.
"Somebody gets a big kick out of me," grinned McCarthy, and forgot aboutit. They waited on him hand and foot; every whim that came into his mindthey gratified as soon as it was born. Food of the most exotic kind wasset before him whenever he was hungry. When he wanted love, they gavehim from a boundless store; though not love such as he knew about. Itwas instead an ecstacy of an intense and vibrant kind, an overwhelmingflame that hovered always about the sweetly glowing bodies of them, aflame that was not anything but the essence of all desires, distilledand intensified by some strong but subtle magic.
But after a while it was his sleeping that McCarthy liked the most. Forthen dreams came visibly into his chambers, and before his mind's eyewaved immense phantasmagorial adventures. When one of these adventurescaught his fancy it picked him up like a womanish whirlwind of strangelysoft dark arms and he became for the time of his sleep a God, to whomall things were possible and each tiniest part of these dreams was likea flower of unearthly and utterly exquisite beauty.
It was nearly a year by McCarthy's careless reckoning before hedetermined what was true and what was mere pleasant fantasy in his life.
That was a black day.
He awoke to find his chambers empty. No glowing heavenly shapes to washhim and dress him and caress him. No sweet laughter in his ears, and nolight anywhere but what he made with his almost depleted hand flash.
* * * * *
Like a man bereft of reason he rushed away through the endless vaultedcavern halls, seeking, seeking his loved playmates, his glowingangel-shapes. And his heart seemed about to burst in his breast with theterrible sense of loss, like a man who has just lost his family ... andwho thinks he will find them alive if he runs fast enough.
After an endless time of running and walking and panting his hand flashwent dark in his hand and he flung it away. He went on like a madman,blind, caroming off the carved stone walls and on and on until at lasthe sank to the floor in exhaustion.
Lying there, in despair as dark as the utter darkness of the caverns,his eyes began to note after a time a soft glow spreading out beforehim. Still longer he lay, looking, and his eyes began to see that it waswater glowing, rippling softly away before his eyes. The glowstrengthened little by little, until he could make out a vastthrone-like chair afar above the glowing water.
For a still longer time McCarthy did not believe his eyes, for on thethrone was a mighty female figure of dark green flesh.
Her long dripping hair was not hair, but writhed softly about herbeautiful head with a life of its own. The great eyes and wide scarletmouth were not exactly human, but they were very attractive and kind andsomehow lonely with a weight of wisdom. The gleaming shoulders andtremendous long arms ended in wide-webbed fingers. The red tippedbreasts, the pillaring waist, the proud arched hips that did not divideinto legs but into two great serpentine drivers finned and scaled likethe tails of beautiful fish ... were to McCarthy after all his dreamsbut figments of his overworked imagination.
Peter McCarthy lay silently looking on this new phantasm, wondering ifhe were still sane, and indeed, if he were still alive, or if this wereperhaps a place into which a soul wandered after death--where nothingwas as a man expected it to be. And in the midst of his wondering thegreat lovely sea-woman's head turned. Her eyes sought him out and thatunearthly music of her voice murmured--a sound like the surf breaking onringing rocks far off.
"You had to know the truth some time, Peter McCarthy."
Pete struggled to his feet and found his strength flowing back. Andbeing the kind of man he was he plunged into the dark pool of cool waterand swam toward the great throne. It was much farther than it seemed,and when at last he got there he found the throne was as tall as anoffice building in the great cities of earth, and the lovely mer-woman'sbody as mighty as a Titan of earth's misty dawn. Big she was, and justas beautiful close up as from the far shore of her pool.
McCarthy sat on the first step of the throne, at her wide fin that wasnot a foot at all, and looked up into her lovely tragic eyes, his heartpounding in his breast.
"Sure, sea-mother, I know now! You are the only living creature in allthese vast halls, and all the lovely things you have been doing toentertain me you do because you are lonely. Has it been fun to play withme like a toy, sorceress?"
* * * * *
One of the great finned hands of her fanned the air in a gesture ofnegation. "Not too much fun, McCarthy. But interesting, for I have nevermet a man of your race, so child-like and simple and so easily made tobelieve in my magic. And have you not enjoyed this year with me?"
"It is not that, sorceress. It is that my heart is snared here, like anape in a cage and will never again be free. What kind of life can pleaseme now? After this life you have shown me, how can I ever want tobreathe common air again?"
Her laugh was like music under water, like bells ringing in the deeps ofthe sea. Her hand touched him lightly, and the touch was like lightningfrom heaven striking him with eternal love. And the thunder of thatlightning pealed through all his being, thunder on thunder of vastmeaning, and there was nothing from his dreams to compare with thebeauty and the wonder of the simple touch of her hand.
McCarthy turned his face up to the vast woman-shape above him, thewonder of her touch shining from his eyes, so that she laughed again asshe saw the effect upon him.
"If there had been more like you among my people, I would not be herealone," she murmured, like distant sorrowful music above him, her voicethat was so much more than a voice. "But my people were sated withwonder and tired of love and weary with having too much. They went offand left me because I said I wanted to remain--to die. And my heart wassad, but something in me was very glad to be alone. Now I am glad thatyou are here! But I am afraid that there is no way you can leave now."
McCarthy stretched out at the foot of her throne, a grin on his squareIrish face. "So, I can't get away again! Now that's the sorriest wordI've heard for years. Sure I'm the unluckiest mortal that ever wasborn."
The dark goddess laughed again, and there was something of a sweet childin the bell-tones of her laugh, that died away in soft and softer echoesin the endless dark about them.
... Something of a shy child, who had never been loved, and found theidea infinitely amusing. Her voice became softer and more beautifulstill, and McCarthy was endlessly happy to hear that laugh, for it saidso much stronger than any words could--"You are welcome here, you sadIrishman." And her voice said, "And do you want your angel-shapes andtheir wine back again, or do you want some other thi
ng I might createfor you out of these forgotten energy converters?"
McCarthy grinned contentedly, and rubbed his roughened face against thesmooth calf of her leg beside him. "D'ye think I should shave, goddess?"
The great beautiful face bent over and examined his Irish countenance,the rugged features and twinkling blue eyes and the red hearty cheeks ofhim. "Why, man-child, you are quite good-looking as you are!"
"And as for them angels and their wine," added McCarthy, "don't you knowone look at you is worth a thousand angels? Can't you see in my mind andknow ... I forget, ye've been doing that for one solid year. Sure, yougreen angel you, why should a man want any other shape or sound or winethan yourself?"
* * * * *
So it was that some years later a great ship burst up from the seas ofthe lonely planet and on the terrific