Part 23 (1/2)
When she at last returned the way she had come, it was the moon, not the sun, which cast a shadow ahead of her. She pa.s.sed through the east gate of Citharista unnoticed, and slipped shadowlike throughcobbled streets, pa.s.sing her father's house, where warm lamplight spilled from beneath the door-but she did not stop there. Her father Gilles was within, unchanged, she was sure, and she would let him wait a while longer before announcing her return. Morning was soon enough to greet him, once Pierrette had ascertained just how new this new world really was, from the books in Anselm's library.
Were there stillGallicenae on Sena, or were they now lost in the mists of forgotten history, never written down? Were the accounts of t.i.tus Livius, the tales of Homer and Virgil as she remembered them? After all, the destruction of ”Atlantis” had sp.a.w.ned many legends and the lost Fortunate Isles many more.
Perhaps the former tales were still told, at least. She would have to see if Plato'sCritias still described that mythical land.
If that research took her an hour or a week, a month, a year, or a decade, it would make no difference.
After all, Pierrette was already very, very old-though not yet eighteen-and only she and the mage Anselm would notice that time had pa.s.sed, and would wonder how long it had really been.
Epilogue.
The land is no less vast and no less ancient, and the loss of a kingdom here, a city there, cannot change it much. I, of course, cannot know the true scope of the changes Pierrette has wrought, for I am part of them, changed along with all the rest. But sometimes I awaken in the night, my bedclothes damp with icy sweat, having dreamed that hard cloven hooves were clattering on the floor of my chamber, with the reek of the demon's sulfurous breath swirling in my sleep-dulled mind, if not in my nostrils.
At times like those I am most grateful the world is a different place, because those dreams are not of this world at all. Perhaps I (though no sorcerer, and unable to part the veil and step through into the underworld at will) was not quite ”here” at the critical moment when what was real became unreal, and the world took the shape it bears today. Perhaps in such dreams I am remembering how things once were. In this world, the Black Time is far, far away, and may never arrive, and Satan's name may be spoken aloud without trepidation.
But all is not again as it once was, before the Wheel of Time was broken. As if it were yesterday I recall a very small Pierrette who considered it unfair that the past should be an open book accessible through scrolls and dusty tomes, inscriptions on stones, and the contemplation of ruins, while the future remained remote and unknowable. That remains unchanged. The spellMondradd in Mon still allows no single glimpse of the future. Neither mage, scholar, nor masc can penetratethatveil with spells, researches in libraries, or contemplation among the ruins of towering fortresses yet unbuilt. Only if some seer not yet born should look back upon this era and deign to speak might we be given a glimpse in that direction.
Still, sometimes, when I turn a corner or step from the gloom of a darkling wood, or open my eyes in the middle of an afternoon doze, I find myself in a magical place, where I spend an hour or two. Sometimes I meet a philosopher there, a saint, or even a pretty girl with no clothing but the luxurious fur G.o.d has given her kind, and a charming scut of a tail, like a doe's.
Pierrette tells me that was not always so. The Otherworld was not easily visited when a harsh and heavy cynicism bore down upon everyone and everything. But now-and don't ask me how I know-even if Pierrette's vision of a world dominated by great machines without souls comes to pa.s.s, I am convinced that there will still be corners to be turned, and naps to awaken from, and magical patches of sunny woodland where furry, uninhibited girls-and boys, as Pierrette insists-await us.
Otho, Bishop of Nemausus The Sorceress's Tale
Afterword.
I have already discussed the changing nature of myths, the mutation of names, and the sacred landscapes in the notes for two earlier books,The Sacred Pool andThe Veil of Years , so I'll confine myself here to a few specifics ofThe Isle Beyond Time . See the earlier books for a comprehensive bibliography of sources for the three stories.
Place Names
I have used the Roman names for places, when I could, thus ”Burdigala,” not ”Bordeaux.” I am sure that by Merovingian or Carolingian times the transition was already well under way, but whether it was p.r.o.nounced as ”Bordala,” ”Burgala,” or in some other intermediate manner is nowhere recorded. I have simply a.s.sumed that educated people might still be constrained by the older form, as written in sources available to them, if not to us today.