XIV

Once more I looked out over the sea to the horizon.  The black speck was no longer visible, though the red star had increased in magnitude and brilliance.  At my feet gray mists curled in the darkness and the surf boiled and churned over the hidden reefs.  Suddenly the wind shifted round to the northeast, bringing with it great black clouds that blotted out the star and the ruddy glow of the approaching sunrise.  It began to rain.

“Ah!” I exclaimed with a shiver, “how cold it has become!”  But when I turned to address the three ladies they were nowhere to be seen.

I pulled the cloak closer around my shoulders and covered my head with the hood.  Then I picked up the lamp and the basket of apples.  Gazing at them, I suddenly recalled that these very items had been among the gifts I had seen in the sack through my window.  To be sure, they represented only a small portion of the bag’s contents, and yet I was no longer separated from them by the glass.  On the contrary, I held them in my own hands!  And who could tell what benefits they might bring me?

“Surely this is a sign,” I thought.  “Surely he is telling me that I must not stop.  He is asking me to keep on following him!”

The rain was coming down hard, driving before a chill wind that went howling past my ear before plunging headlong down the sheer glassy cliff.

“But where do I go from here?” I cried out in the face of the storm.  “How can I follow when nothing lies before me but a dark abyss?  What must I do?”

In answer, the familiar voice at my ear spoke once again.  It was very soft and still now in the midst of the wind and rain.  It said, “Throw yourself into the sea.”

I turned my head.  There on my shoulder sat the small gray bird with eyes of burning blue.

“Throw myself into the sea?” I shouted in disbelief.

At this moment there was neither fire nor warming glow in my wounded heart.  As in my dream, it was as if everything had gone cold and empty inside me.  The storm grew violent and the rain froze into cruel sleet and hail.  The darkness was thick and palpable.

“Yes,” said the still, small voice.  “Throw yourself into the sea.”

“What can you possibly mean?” I protested.  “How can I do such a thing?”

“You must trust me,” he replied.

“Trust you!” I wailed.  “And cast myself down into that darkness?  That would be suicide!  I can’t even see my hand in front of my face!  A leap like that is not trust!  It’s plain stupidity!”

“It is no leap at all,” he gently countered.  “It’s simply the next step.  You asked me what to do and I have told you.  I told you before that your only concern is to take one step and then another.  One step at a time.  Nothing more.  And step by step I have brought you to this place – this ridge, this cliff, this boiling ocean, this dark storm, this particular moment, unique among all others.  This, for you, is the kairos.  Where will you go now if you refuse to follow my instructions?  This is the next step, I tell you.  That is all.  Throw yourself into the sea.”

I could not believe what I was hearing.  I did not want to believe it.  I spun around, intending to turn back.  But when I saw the twinkling of the lights in the valley below and realized that all those hundreds and thousands of Watchers had their eyes fixed upon me, I hesitated.  It was a good thing I did.

I could see now very clearly that there was no way back.  The level crest of the mountain on which I stood was no more than six feet wide, and the drop on the side of the valley was even steeper and sharper than that which fell into the sea.  The way was closed and my guides had departed.  I stood motionless and horrified on the ridge as if at the top of a wall between two worlds.

I turned and spoke to the bird on my shoulder.

“Please,” I said, “all I want to do is go back home!  Back to my room, my window, my candle, and all the other familiar things that I know so well.  Christmas morning is coming as it has come so many times before, and I am afraid of missing it.  Please take me home!”

The bird blinked his blue eyes.  The tiny red flames were flickering in their depths.

“Christmas morning comes indeed,” he said.  “It comes as it has never come before. And you will certainly miss it if you do not do as I say.  Throw yourself into the sea.”

* * * * * * * * * *

XIII

Far out to sea a small black speck was moving against the glow on the horizon. “The eight-legged horse!” I said to myself, and my heart leapt at the idea. Above the speck, three quarters of the way to the zenith, a bright red star appeared, bright enough to be visible in the lightening sky.

                                        He comes! He comes!

                                        Christmas morning is soon to arise!

Voices were chanting again. I turned at the sound. There beside me on the narrow ridge stood three ladies, tall and gracious, each one exceedingly fair, each one different from the other two. I wheeled around to cast an enquiring glance at my guide; but even as I looked upon her she vanished away, her bright form dissolving into a million dancing radiant specks which in the next instant were scattered by the wind. I was left alone in the presence of the three.

“Who are you?” I asked timidly. Though I sensed somehow that they meant me nothing but good, still I felt cold with dread as well as with the east sea wind.

Without answering my question, the first one stepped close to me. “Take this cloak,” she said. She was dark as the night sky, with raven-black hair caught back in a silver circlet, but her eyes shone bright as two stars. It was in her eyes that I perceived how very old she was – older than the mountains, older than the dark sea. And yet she was breathtakingly beautiful. She was wrapped in a shroud of dark blue, like the blue of deepest heaven. The cloak she held out to me was of the same color.

“You are but a child,” she said to me. “This cloak will protect and keep you. It will cover folly and a multitude of sins. Without it you will be a helpless, naked infant. Wear it well.”

With that she cast the cloak around my shoulders and fastened it at the throat with a silver brooch. Then she withdrew a step.

“Take this lamp,” said the second, who now advanced. Her hair was dusky red, her eyes burning amber. A simple band of red gold circled her brow. Her robe was of the sunset’s subtlest hues. In her hand she held a simple oil lamp of red clay. At the end of its gently curving spout burned a small yellow flame.

“You are but a child,” she said, holding the lamp out to me (and somehow I knew that she herself could never be young or old). “This lamp will light your way and banish your darkness. Without it you will be a blind baby. Take it and use it well.” She put the lamp into my hand and touched my fingers as they closed around its ear-shaped handle. Then she stepped back.

Now the third approached. She was young, fresh, and fair as the first spring rain. Her hair was of bright gold, circled with a garland of living flowers. Her eyes were blue and shining. She wore a simple kirtle of fine white linen and her feet were bare. In her hand she held a basket of golden apples.

“Take these apples,” she meekly said, bowing and proffering the basket. “You are but a child, and these apples will serve to keep you so; for should you ever outgrow childhood, you would also outgrow him whose coming we await.” Then, with a curtsey, she too withdrew.

I looked out to sea. The black speck had all but disappeared. Something hot surged up within me.

“You say that he is coming,” I said, “and yet I have been pursuing him all this night, and still he eludes me. Perhaps he comes for you but not for me.”

Except for the whistling of the wind all was very quiet on the steep blue ridge. Then suddenly the maiden with the flowers in her hair began to laugh – a bright, merry, musical laugh.

“Have you indeed been pursuing him?” she asked with a cheery glint in her eye. “Was it not he who persuaded you to come out when you were unwilling?”

“What she says is true,” said a familiar voice at my ear.

* * * * * * * *

XII

Again we made our way through the crowd of busy watchers; and as we went, I noticed that, while thoroughly occupied with their individual tasks, these shining people kept their eyes fixed upon the highest ridge of the sheer blue wall of the valley.  It was in this direction that my guide led me.  Upon reaching the foot of the azure cliff, she stretched out her hand and touched its icy surface with her fingertips, gently, tenderly, almost as if she were touching a living thing.  And at her touch it was as if the wall became a living thing indeed.  Its color changed from blue to shades of red and rose and pink; its hard, rocky face grew soft and supple and then began to melt away, leaving a passageway into the mountainside.  She took my hand and drew me inside.

I expected to find myself in darkness once we stepped beneath the arch, but the tunnel was more than adequately illumined by the shimmering form of my guide and the glow of the rock itself.  In this light I could see that the rock continued to melt away before us precisely at the rate at which we continued moving forward.  At every step it withdrew another yard further into the cliffside.  The dead-end of the passage was never more than three feet ahead, and if ever we stopped for a moment, it too would stand still and wait for us to proceed.  The words of the small gray bird came back to me then:  “Take one step and then another;” for at any given moment we had only enough space to do just that and no more.

On and on we went in just this fashion until I became aware that we were climbing slowly upward through the heart of the mountain – not because I could see it, but because my steps became more labored.  Up and up we climbed, higher and higher for a very long time, until at last the passageway broke out into the light.

We emerged into the outer air and stood upon the narrow crest of the mountain.  A strong and steady wind blew cold from the east, whipping my hair about my face.  I put my back to it and looked out over the valley of blue glass whence we had come.  It was filled will the bright but silent shapes of the watchers.  From such a height they appeared to me no more than a great gathering of motionless fireflies.  They were like thousands and thousands of winking and twinkling candles filling up the blue basin below.  But I knew that their eyes were upon me.

“Look to the east,” said a familiar voice at my ear.  I turned to face the stinging wind.  What I saw nearly took my breath away.

At my very feet the ridge fell away sheer into a fathomless darkness of mist.  At the sight my disturbing dream came flooding up into consciousness.  But then I raised my eyes and saw below me the great dark sea stretching away to the horizon.  I could hear its breakers crashing on rocks that lay shrouded in the fog.  The luminescence of the mountains was not strong enough to penetrate the mists nor to reach very far out to sea; but along the horizon, at the very edge of all that could be seen or known, I saw a faint red glow rising.  And then I heard several voices chanting:

“He comes!”

* * * * * * * *

XI

At this, another one of the bright people approached us, saying, “All is now ready.  Come.”

Without further speech the two of them led me through the crowd to a sheltered spot beneath the shadow of the great throne.  There in the heart of this place of glassy rock and ice I saw a patch of soft green, where grass and fragile, trembling flowers grew, and a quiet spring of water came bubbling up from under the ground.

“Here in this shaded place,” said one of my guides, “you may rest yourself from all that has gone before and prepare for things yet to come.”

I was glad enough of the opportunity, and lay down at once, pressing my cheek into the young and tender grass.  My eyelids grew heavy and I felt myself slipping into sweet darkness.  Just before drifting off, I managed to ask, “How am I to prepare when I don’t know the way?”  But the fragrance of the grass, the music of the spring, and the warmth of the patch of earth on which I lay soon overpowered me, and I was asleep before I had an answer to my question.

As I slept, it seemed to me that I dreamed.  And in my dream I looked and saw the eight-legged horse and his rider galloping along the black horizon, sharply silhouetted against the rising red glow in the sky behind them.

“It’s Christmas morning!” I thought.  “It’s just about to rise.”

Then I jumped to my feet and cried, “Wait!  I will follow you if only you will wait for me!”

With that, I began to run; but in the next instant I realized that the earth had fallen away beneath my feet and that I was falling from a steep cliff into the dark sea below.  In that moment the wound in my heart grew suddenly cold as ice.  I kicked with my legs and groped wildly with my arms in panic as down, down I fell into the murky depths.

And then I awoke.  Raising myself on one elbow, I heard the gentle music of the spring and the mellow voice of my first guide saying, “Rise.  Come.”

Still trembling with the cold shock of my terrible dream, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and got to my feet.  Then I paused, reluctant to leave that place beneath the throne.  It was like a little bit of Spring in the midst of that blue and wintry world.  The throne itself was faintly radiant, though I did not think that it was the source of the warmth I felt, for its glow was cold and pure as starlight.  In spite of this, the air around it was light, warm, and redolent of the scent of flowers.  Everything within me wanted to stay, to sink again into the sweet green grass.  But as I stood there hesitating, my guide called to me once more.

“Come,” she said.  “The hour is growing late.

And so I followed.

* * * * * * * *

X

Higher and higher the bird carried me.  The earth fell quickly away and the stars grew brighter around us.  Wisps of flame from the bird’s tail and wings licked my arms and legs up and down but, to my amazement, I was not burned.  We flew so high that the moon seemed to have grown larger and drawn nearer.

But for the quiet roar of the Firebird’s flight all was intense silence.  The air was still, cold, and pure; so cold that no impurity or uncleanness could live there.  I myself would not have survived without the Firebird’s heat to warm me.

I felt that I would choke, so thin, so fine, so pure was the air, when we began a sudden descent toward a range of jagged mountain peaks.  No trace of roundness nor softness did I see in the shape of those mountains.  They were hard-edged, sheer and sharp, their summits like razors, violet-blue and transparent at the tips.

Though the dawn was still far off, there was a sense of the sunrise about those mountains.  As they drew nearer the stars faded and the sky paled around us.  Shades of blue, purple, crimson, and gold suffused the air.  The entire dome above my head was colored as the horizon at dawn or sunset, and yet there was no sun, nor any hint of it, for the light was evenly distributed from one end of the heavens to the other.  I wondered about the source of the light, and soon came to the conclusion that the mountain peaks themselves must be luminescent.  Indeed, I decided that they could best be described as mountains of frozen fire.

“This is the Land of the Horizon,” the Firebird said in a voice like the thunder of the rising sun.  “This is a place on the Verge.”

“On the verge of what?” I thought to ask, but did not, for my heart’s wound had again become inflamed and was burning as never before.  Unspeakable joy and excruciating pain were upon me, and I experienced them as one, just as I had in my reading of the little book.  All I could say was, “Let’s stay here forever and ever!”

The Firebird set me down in a valley of those mountains, a valley like a bright blue bowl of glass, scooped out like a setting for a gigantic jewel high among the uppermost clefts and crags.  To my great surprise, the place was filled with people.  I cannot describe their faces except to say that they were open and eager.  Their expression was one of pure anticipation and expectation.

One of them approached me and took me by the arm.  I stood speechless in her presence.  Her appearance was softly and quietly dazzling.  Whether she wore a bright robe or gown, or whether it were an unclothed body of light upon which I looked I could not say.  Here form was all of shimmering brightness and motion, though she seemed solid enough to the touch.

“I am glad to see you,” she said, and her voice was low and rich.  “We have long watched your doings and have awaited your coming with joy.”

“Who are you?” I asked in astonishment.

“We are witnesses,” she said.  “We are helpers of him whom you seek.  We are watchers who dwell here at the uttermost edge and tip of this world, awaiting the approach of him who is to come.”

She pointed to a great throne, the appearance of which was like a great stone of sapphire.  All around it were other people of her kind, busy, it seemed, with preparations.

“But who is he?” I asked.

“For us,” she replied, “his coming shall be as the rising of the dawn.”

 * * * * * * * * * *

IX

When they saw that I had given up the fight, they withdrew once more.  A moment passed during which I lay perfectly still.  Some of the imps looked confused, but others smiled knowingly.  All of them turned to their chief, who also smiled a grim and knowing smile.  He stepped forward, raised me up by a handful of my hair, and shouted, “Up with you!  Can’t you see what’s got to be done?  Get to it!”

“I can’t,” I moaned.  “I want to, but you – ”

“Of course you can’t,” he sneered.  “But you must!  Don’t you see?”

“You can’t but you must!  You can’t but you must!” echoed the others, laughing even more uproariously than before.  Again they seized me and set me on my feet.

I stood like a pillar of stone in the midst of their childish caperings, utterly lost and miserable. What could I do?  They would not be satisfied one way or the other.  Nor, I feared, would they be content to leave me alone.

Suddenly I was reminded of my wound.  In an instant the burning pain in my chest returned, but it was somehow different this time – more like an overpowering desire laced with a surge of anger, white-hot and pure.  My eyes were drawn upward, above the little hill, above the steadily rising moon, to where the long-tailed star had now reappeared in the sky.

“You must but you can’t!  You can’t but you must!” sang the imps, drunkenly dancing and hopping from one foot to the other.  But I saw the leer on their faces change to a look of dread in the glow of the light that was growing in the heavens.

“Maybe I must, and maybe I can’t,” I said, slowly turning my gaze from one terrified face to the next.  “But I don’t care much one way or the other, for I have been wounded by the Firebird, and I am no slave to such as you!”

They all let out a horrible shriek and fell on their faces as the flaming bird swooped down upon us, scorching the earth and sending the imps flying in every direction like so many leaves before the wind.  The great talons snatched me and held me like vises of steel, the fiery wings surrounded and covered me, and all in a moment I was swept away.

* * * * * * * * * *