Something About Eve

    “But I have served her purpose,—my father,” the child replied, with a rather perturbing smile. “Oh, but I know! She has had many husbands. Most of them desired a son. I have always been that son.” Then, after an instant of silence, the being who was speaking through the child’s dear lips told of the bonds from which the Midianite storm god’s touch and absolution had released him. Gerald found this part of the story particularly unpleasant. And Theodorick Quentin Musgrave, whom Gerald still addressed as Abdel-Hareth, went on to tell why he must now go downward into Antan, to encounter, not the Master Philologist, but Queen Freydis. Gerald asked, What was needed of Queen Freydis?

    The child told him. Then Gerald shivered. He felt, if only for the instant, physically cold and nauseated. Still, that this creature should desire to return to its unearthly home was natural enough.

    “I comprehend,” said Gerald. “I comprehend a great deal which was unknown to me ten minutes ago. I confess to being surprised by much that I have learned from you. Nevertheless, my son,—if you will pardon the force of habit, sir, and the love I had for my own little, so dear son—! But I drift into emotional remarks which would be wholly out of place. My voice, as I note with sincere regret, evinces a distressing tendency—”

    Gerald paused. He gulped. He spoke now in a voice that was light and high-pitched and rather hysterical.

    “In fine, my dear Abdel-Hareth, as you see, I incline somewhat to blubber like a badly whipped baby. I can but ask you to respect the emotions of a suddenly bereaved parent, without bothering to understand his confused utterances. No: you have given me my desire, and my great happiness. A part of that dies now. But I have had it, utterly. I am content I will see to it that you, in your turn, sir, get what you desire.”

42. Theodorick Rides Forth

    IT WAS after using his handkerchief a bit that Gerald returned to Maya. Nor did it surprise him she had already prepared a neatly wrapped up lunch for Theodorick Quentin Musgrave to be eating that day in Antan.

    Gerald said, with painstaking carelessness, “Well, my dear, after talking the matter over, I have decided we may as well let the boy go.”

    “Why, to be sure!” said Maya. “And a great deal of bother, too, there has been made this morning over nothing, as if I did not already have quite enough to bother me!”

    And with that, she summoned from among her enchanted geldings the handsomer of the pair who formerly had been emperors.

    “For a child of mine must go in proper state,” said Maya.

    Then Gerald said: “No. An imperial steed is well enough, but a divine steed is better. Let him take Kalki!”

    “Now, really, Gerald, your unreasonableness sometimes surprises even me! For you know perfectly well that Kalki is your own horse, and that you will be needing him yourself when you ride down to the appointed kingdom you are always talking your stuff and nonsense about.”

    Gerald looked at her for some while. He was conscious of a hushed great exultation that in a world wherein all else seemed doubtful and unstable he had, somehow, through blind luck, won to his Maya and her snappishness and her unswerving and wholehearted and quite unscrupulous love for him. She was not pretty, she was not brilliant, she was not even easy to live with. But Gerald knew now that he and this woman were one person; and that any living without Maya would be a maimed business; and that there could be nothing in Antan which could conceivably content him for the loss of this dear, ever-wrangling, dull-witted woman.

    Then Gerald said: “But it is prophesied that the power of Antan shall pass to the rider upon Kalki. No harm can befall the rider upon Kalki. So we will let—we will let our son take Kalki. For in this way we will secure his protection, and we will remove the one chance of my ever leaving you, who are worth all the kingdoms that have ever been.”

    Maya said, “But—”

    Gerald, smiling, replied, “Nevertheless!” Then the illusion called Theodorick Quentin Musgrave was lifted up by Gerald to the back of Kalki, and it was Gerald who adjusted the stirrups for his successor upon the divine steed. And the seeming of a child rode down toward the goal of all the gods, a rather quaintly pathetic little figure perched up there so high upon the back of the huge shining stallion.