And I showed Mine Own how that there did be wondrous processes that did
be learned in the Ages; and how that water did be made in chemistry; and
truly she to nod to this, because that she did mind upon the powder that
we did use; but truly the powder to have to be made in the first, as you
shall think; and we but to advantage ourselves of that which did result,
and I to speak to her of the making of the powder, rather than of the
way that it afterward to make chemistry with the air, unto water.
And I told the Maid how that there did be mighty underground pipes that
went across the Night Land, and did be, mayhap, oft so much as twenty
great miles deep in the world, and did come upward into the seas of the
Land; and all to have been made secret and hid from the monsters of the
Land, as I to know from much readings of the Histories.
And Mine Own then to tell me that they did lack to have any such great
wonders below the Lesser Redoubt; but that there did be utter monstrous
caverns, where that there had been alway a strange and uncouth Country
of Husbandry, and lit from the Earth-Current; and they also there to
bury their Dead. And all had been a-lack through great thousands of
years, as she did know of their Records, and had grown dim-lit and
lonesome, and a Land of deepness to starve the spirit with an utter
strangeness and discomfort, where that the men went quietly as ghosts,
through many ages; and all a place in dire want of sound and laughter.
Yet this all to have been surely different a monstrous Age gone, when
that the Earth-Current did be a power in the Lesser Redoubt, and the
Humans to be in plenty, and of good and natural health and courage of
life. And, truly, to mind upon that Place, doth alway to set a fresh
wonder in me, that Mine Own did be so lovely and wholesome of spirit and
wise and in knowledge and good force of her being. But so it did be with
her; and she to have been surely alway That One that did be Mine Own.
And I then to tell Mine Own Maid concerning the lowest Field, which did
be the Country of Silence, and was the Place of Memory unto all the
great Millions, where did linger and bide the ghosts of an hundred
billion griefs and the drifted thoughts of sorrowful hearts; and there
to live a great hallowedness and a mystery of silence and an holiness
and a Greatness, as that it did be the Expressing of all that doth be
Noble and Everlasting that ever did come out of the heart of Man and all
the lost Dead of Eternity; so that the spirit of a man did seem to go on
great wings, unto lovely and splendid resolvings, if that he but to walk
lonely awhile in that Country, that surely did be never lonesome unto
the spirit.
And lo! the Maid did be all husht, as I did speak, and did look downward
unto me with her eyes very bright, and lovely with the thinkings and
tears that did stir within her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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