The Queen of Air and Darkness Read online

  “Why did they hide from man? I suspect they, or rather their ancestors—for they aren’t glittering elves, you know; they’re mortal and fallible too—I suspect the natives were only being cautious at first, more cautious than human primitives, though certain of those on Earth were also slow to reveal themselves to strangers. Spying, mentally eavesdropping, Roland’s Dwellers must have picked up enough language to get some idea of how different man was from them, and how powerful; and they gathered that more ships would be arriving, bringing settlers. It didn’t occur to them that they might be conceded the right to keep their lands. Perhaps they’re still more fiercely territorial than we. They determined to fight, in their own way. I daresay, once we begin to get insight into that mentality, our psychological science will go through its Copernican revolution.”

  Enthusiasm kindled in him. “That’s not the sole thing we’ll learn, either,” he went on. “They must have science of their own, a nonhuman science born on a planet that isn’t Earth. Because they did observe us as profoundly as we’ve ever observed ourselves; they did mount a plan against us, one that would have taken another century or more to complete. Well, what else do they know? How do they support their civilization without visible agriculture or aboveground buildings or mines or anything? How can they breed whole new intelligent species to order? A million questions, ten million answers!”

  “Can we learn from them?” Barbro asked softly. “Or can we only overrun them as you say they fear?”

  Sherrinford halted, leaned elbow on mantel, hugged his pipe and replied, “I hope we’ll show more charity than that to a defeated enemy. It’s what they are. They tried to conquer us, and failed, and now in a sense we are bound to conquer them since they’ll have to make their peace with the civilization of the machine rather than see it rust away as they strove for. Still, they never did us any harm as atrocious as what we’ve inflicted on our fellow men in the past. And, I repeat, they could teach us marvelous things; and we could teach them, too, once they’ve learned to be less intolerant of a different way of life.”

  “I suppose we can give them a reservation,” she said, and didn’t know why he grimaced and answered so roughly:

  “Let’s leave them the honor they’ve earned! They fought to save the world they’d always known from that”—he made a chopping gesture at the city—“and just possibly we’d be better off ourselves with less of it.”

  He sagged a trifle and sighed, “However, I suppose if Elfland had won, man on Roland would at last—peacefully, even happily—have died away. We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?”

  Barbro shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “What?” He looked at her in a surprise that drove out melancholy. After a laugh: “Stupid of me. I’ve explained this to so many politicians and scientists and commissioners and Lord knows what, these past days, I forgot I’d never explained to you. It was a rather vague idea of mine, most of the time we were traveling, and I don’t like to discuss ideas prematurely. Now that we’ve met the Outlings and watched how they work, I do feel sure.”

  He tamped down his tobacco. “In limited measure,” he said, “I’ve used an archetype throughout my own working life. The rational detective. It hasn’t been a conscious pose—much—it’s simply been an image which fitted my personality and professional style. But it draws an appropriate response from most people, whether or not they’ve ever heard of the original. The phenomenon is not uncommon. We meet persons who, in varying degrees, suggest Christ or Buddha or the Earth Mother, or, say, on a less exalted plane, Hamlet or d’Artagnan. Historical, fictional and mythical, such figures crystallize basic aspects of the human psyche, and when we meet them in our real experience, our reaction goes deeper than consciousness.”

  He grew grave again. “Man also creates archetypes that are not individuals. The Anima, the Shadow—and, it seems, the Outworld. The world of magic, of glamour—which originally meant enchantment—of half-human beings, some like Ariel and some like Caliban, but each free of mortal frailties and sorrows—therefore, perhaps, a little carelessly cruel, more than a little tricksy; dwellers, in dusk and moonlight, not truly gods but obedient to rulers who are enigmatic and powerful enough to be—Yes, our Queen of Air and Darkness knew well what sights to let lonely people see, what illusions to spin around them from time to time, what songs and legends to set going among them. I wonder how much she and her underlings gleaned from human fairy tales, how much they made up themselves, and how much men created all over again, all unwittingly, as the sense of living on the edge of the world entered them.”

  Shadows stole across the room. It grew cooler and the traffic noises dwindled. Barbro asked mutedly, “But what could this do?”

  “In many ways,” Sherrinford answered, “the outwayer is back in the Dark Ages. He has few neighbors, hears scanty news from beyond his horizon, toils to survive in a land he only partly understands, that may any night raise unforeseeable disasters against him and is bounded by enormous wildernesses. The machine civilization which brought his ancestors here is frail at best. He could lose it as the Dark Ages nations had lost Greece and Rome, as the whole of Earth seems to have lost it. Let him be worked on, long, strongly, cunningly, by the archetypical Outworld, until he has come to believe in his bones that the magic of the Queen of Air and Darkness is greater than the energy of engines; and first his faith, finally his deeds will follow her. Oh, it wouldn’t happen fast. Ideally, it would happen too slowly to be noticed, especially by self-satisfied city people. But when in the end a hinterland gone back to the ancient way turned from them, how could they keep alive?”

  Barbro breathed, “She said to me, when their banners flew in the last of our cities, we would rejoice.”

  “I think we would have, by then,” Sherrinford admitted. “Nevertheless, I believe in choosing one’s destiny.”

  He shook himself, as if casting off a burden. He knocked the dottle from his pipe and stretched, muscle by muscle. “Well,” he said, “it isn’t going to happen.”

  She looked straight at him. “Thanks to you.”

  A flush went up his thin cheeks. “In time, I’m sure somebody else would have— What matters is what we do next, and that’s too big a decision for one individual or one generation to make.”

  She rose. “Unless the decision is personal, Eric,” she suggested, feeling heat in her own face.

  It was curious to see him shy. “I was hoping we might meet again.”

  “We will.”

  * * *

  Ayoch sat on Wolund’s Barrow. Aurora shuddered so brilliant, in such vast sheafs of light, as almost to hide the waning moons. Firethorn blooms had fallen; a few still glowed around the tree roots, amidst dry brok which crackled underfoot and smelled like woodsmoke. The air remained warm but no gleam was left on the sunset horizon.

  “Farewell, fare lucky,” the pook called. Mistherd and Shadow-of-a-Dream never looked back. It was as if they didn’t dare. Theytrudged on out of sight, toward the human camp whose lights made a harsh new star in the south.

  Ayoch lingered. He felt he should also offer good-bye to her who had lately joined him that slept in the dolmen. Likely none would meet here again for loving or magic. But he could only think of one old verse that might do. He stood and trilled:

  “Out of her breast

  a blossom ascended.

  The summer burned it.

  The song is ended.”

  Then he spread his wings for the long flight away.

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