EXCERPTS

The Excerpt | Malory was continuing to familiarize himself with Lucerna and its picturesque environs. His focus today was Lac Promyse, the lake on which the city was situated, and the so-called mountain that rose above the lake's south shore. Montverre, the mountain was called, and he'd arrived on the summit by way of its long east ridge. He congratulated himself: his physical conditioning wasn't as bad as he'd supposed, notwithstanding the rigours of dissipation and brooding he'd been enjoying in New York over the past several months. 

He didn't linger on the summit. Doing so would cause him to ponder that deepest of existential questions: why feelings of satisfaction are always fleeting.

His descent was by way of the shorter and steeper west ridge. It was from here that the two women, Lorelle Delambre and Alison Mansel, had fallen. They'd jumped to their deaths. Or they'd been pushed. Or they'd suffered a tragic accident. Malory was here in Lucerna to discover which of these three possibilities was correct. Or rather, he was here to go through motions of that sort as a means of establishing a cover.

The spot where the falls had occurred was a few hundred feet lower down, and it wasn't hard to locate. It was a large rock that was maybe ten feet wide, almost as high, and twice as long. It was flat on top. According to the guidebook he was using, it was a well-known landmark. Platform Rock, it was mysteriously called. The guidebook advised hikers seeking to enjoy the panorama it afforded to "exercise appropriate caution" while doing so.

Malory began thinking about the way she'd descended the slope of scree. It was a skill one might learn as a child — provided one had sand dunes as a playground.

The side of the rock closest to the trail was pitched at less than forty degrees. Climbing it wasn't difficult, and doing so took Malory onto the flat platform surface. He walked to the end of it, which overhung the face of the cliff. A young couple, both of them severely depressed and having made a suicide pact, might well have chosen this very spot. An image came into his mind: two women standing right here, holding hands. One small step and they'd be in empty space, on their way to oblivion, or perhaps heaven.

Not so very long ago, Malory would have scoffed at the idea of heaven. Now it was one he clung to.

He took a step backward and looked toward the escarpment, the dominant physical feature on the far side of the lake. Beyond it, stretching almost to the Arctic Ocean, was "the brutal fact of the Canadian Shield, a forbidding landscape of lakes, thin soil, bare rock, coniferous forests, bogs, and frozen tundra."  This was more prose from the guidebook.

He was carrying Navy issue zoom binoculars, and he now used them to continue to take stock of his position. It was an old habit, drilled into him during his days in the Special Boat Service. Below him was a small bay, and it was empty of boats. He panned the near shoreline and saw nobody.

Looking farther on, across the bay to the trail that led to the northwest arm of the lake, he noticed a solitary jogger, and he focused his binoculars on her. He could tell she was female, not because he could detect any of the usual female indicators — her clothing seemed designed to hide them — but because two plaits of braided hair were hanging down from the back of the baseball cap she was wearing. They bobbed up and down as she jogged, bouncing off her small backpack. Her clothing — ankle-length pants and a long-sleeved shirt — struck him as ill-chosen, given that she was exercising and the day was hot. The female hikers he'd encountered on the east ridge had mostly been wearing shorts and flimsy tops.

He watched Ms. Pigtails for a minute or so, wondering how far she intended to go. He wasn't going to find out, because she now turned away from the lake and entered the forest. According to his guidebook, the trail she'd been on, following the edge of the lake, ended at that particular point, and for good reason: the shore farther on was a jumble of broken rocks, the products of avalanches that had occurred intermittently over thousands of years as the escarpment ever so gradually retreated. The rocks were of different sizes; some of the larger ones were bigger than boxcars.

He continued his descent, not stopping until he came to a spot that offered another panorama. He again made use of his binoculars, now scanning the northwestern side of the lake, going from east to west. He paused when he came to the escarpment. It offered some interesting climbing challenges: here and there it was almost vertical.

She used her pants to cover her legs and her cap to cover her face. She would do this, of course. He had last seen her in a place where the sun was lethal.

He noticed someone moving on one of the easternmost sections — one that wasn't vertical. Ms. Pigtails. She was heading downward at an angle. The trail she'd been on earlier must have taken her up to the top, where it connected to another trail that enabled her to jog the breadth of it. Now she was making a descent to the lake.

Near the base, but before the chaos of rocks at the very bottom, she reached a steep slope of scree. She went down it fast, in a series of smooth jumps and slides. Her legs were providing propulsion but also braking, her arms providing balance. There was no jerkiness, just pure fluidity. She might have been dancing.

It looked like she had a specific destination in mind: a huge boulder. It formed another platform. Its flat surface projected into the lake, and if it weren't so high, small yachts could use it as a pier.

When Ms. Pigtails reached it, she walked out to the middle, where she stopped to take off her pack. After putting it down, she removed her baseball cap and did the same with it. She also removed her dark sunglasses. She then moved to the very end of the boulder and stood there. She was looking across the lake.

Malory focused his binoculars on her face. He could swear that he was able to see her eyes, their turquoise resplendence defying the laws of physics, making their every detail discernible even at this distance. The eyes were also telling him a story: of loss, of resilience, of doubt, of alienation, of questing, of fight. There was no doubting her identity.

"Hello Miss Qadira," he said aloud. "We must stop meeting this way."  Today she wasn't carrying a sniper rifle; this was a relief.

Malory began thinking about the way she'd descended the slope of scree. It was a skill one might learn as a child — provided one had sand dunes as a playground.

She went back to where her pack was, taking off her outerwear as she went, her pants first and then the floppy shirt. She was wearing a one-piece bathing suit underneath, along with something strapped to her ankle. His immediate thought was that it was a gun: it made sense that Karina Qadira would carry one. He used his binoculars to do a closer inspection. It proved to be a knife encased in a thin leather sheath. She placed her pants and shirt on top of the pack. She then removed the sheath and placed it on top of the shirt.

Her arms were lightly tanned, while her legs were white. The bathing suit was beautiful: a shade of yellow with perhaps a hint of orange. He might have been looking at Electra herself: the bright and brilliant one, whose name translated as amber.

Malory knew why this name had popped into his mind. It wasn't just the bathing suit. It was also because Karina Qadira, like Electra, would be tormented by thoughts of revenge.

Two birds were now flying by. Two lovebirds. They were low down, almost at eye level with her. She was watching them too, perhaps thinking that she was inadvertently occupying their favourite nesting spot. Soon they began to ascend.

Karina Qadira watched them until they disappeared into the distance. She then walked to the far side of the boulder and lowered herself over the edge of it. She reappeared a few moments later, again at the front of it but lower down, at the base. She dipped one foot into the water, and then immersed her entire body, so that only her head was visible. A moment later her head disappeared too. The lake was obviously deep at her point of entry: not suitable for wading. She resurfaced a dozen feet out. She was floating on her back, and she was looking up toward the top part of the rock.

She's considering doing a jump, Malory thought.

Less than a minute later, she confirmed this; she was back on the rock's flat surface, standing at the end of it. She was unbraiding her hair while also staring down at the lake. She next spent a few moments combing her hair with her fingers. She then launched herself, not jumping but rather executing a perfect swan dive. Where had she learned to do that? Not in her sand-dune playground.

When she next came in sight, she was swimming in his direction, moving fast, no doubt because the lake was freezing cold; she had to generate some internal heat. Her strokes were powerful, and she continued for several minutes before turning around. Soon she was back on the top of her rock. She shook her long, wet hair and then used her fingers to comb it forward over her shoulders. Unlike her bathing suit, it presented a spectrum of colours: a dozen variations on the themes of silver and gold.

A picture came into his mind. He was imagining her hair dry, loose and flowing, bound by nothing more than a simple white headband. She wasn't Electra, a woman prepared to commit murder to avenge the death of a man she loved. Rather, she was a beautiful and innocent Arkadian princess. She was Kallisto.

Kallisto was a name he could perhaps use if he should find himself in conversation with her before they were formally introduced. What he couldn't do was call her Electra. Nor could he call her Karina Qadira. She was now Kari LaMarca. It was a name he had to start practising.

She lay down on the rough rock, on her back, employing her pack as a pillow. She used her pants to cover her legs and her cap to cover her face. She would do this, of course. He had last seen her in a place where the sun was lethal. There she had worn robes that covered her from shoulder to ankle, and one of her saddlebags had doubtless contained a yilafa she could wrap around her neck and head, total protection from the burning rays.

Malory put his binoculars down. "Sweet dreams, Kari LaMarca."

He knew it was a vain wish. Her dreams would be just like his.

Ω

The Excerpt | There were two people on the track, and Kari LaMarca wasn't one of them. She was just inside of it, seated on a mat. Her back was toward him, and she was in the lotus position. Both her arms were raised over her head, and her palms were touching.

Malory for some reason wished he could be seeing her outside in the sunlight, seated not on a black mat but rather on green grass. A handful of leafy trees would make the picture perfect.

His eyes were drawn to her beautiful hair. It was perhaps the reason he wished they were outside in the sunlight. There was no way artificial light could do justice to it.

She soon stood up. She did so effortlessly, using her legs alone. It was as if some god, or perhaps the Buddha, told the force of gravity to not impose itself upon her, at least for the few moments it took her to get to her feet.

She next began skipping rope.

Her outfit -- loose-fitting grey sweat gear -- had the effect of making her androgynous. Only her hair suggested that she might be of the feminine persuasion. It was in a single thick braid. 

In addition to the track, the fitness centre contained a constellation of exercise equipment: weight machines, stationary bikes, ellipticals, and rowing machines. The track was on the outside. It had four lanes with banked corners. A sign said that the three inside lanes were for joggers; the one on the outside was for runners. 

Malory spent a few moments watching the rope skipper. Her movements were slow and graceful, balletic.

She doesn't belong cooped up in a gym, he thought absently. She should definitely be outside. He recalled the first time he saw her here in Lucerna. She'd been out at the lake, jogging on the shore and then doing a dive from a huge rock. He now imagined her there at sunrise, illuminating the lake itself. He wasn't the only creature aware of her presence.  A solitary bird, a heron perhaps, was as well. It was perched on a small tower of wood near the shore. Her luminescence was causing the lake and the sky to shimmer gold and red. The bird could only marvel. Malory was doing the same thing now: marvelling.

His hope now was that she'd at least be a bit curious about him -- curious enough to respond positively to an invitation. He wasn't optimistic.

He reined in his unruly imagination and seated himself on one of the rowing machines. Another guy was beside him, working at a medium pace. Malory began warming up. The guy next to him had his eyes on Kari. "She doesn't do stretches," he said. "She starts by putting arms and legs in motion, getting her body temp up."

"Uh-huh."  Malory was fearing the worst: the chap was a talker.

"Once she's done with the rope," the talker said, "she mixes weight work with aerobics. At first glance it's a simple mixed workout. Except it isn't."

"Uh-huh," Malory said garrulously.

"Glad she doesn't row. Might be a little hard on the ego."

Kari was now stripping off her sweatshirt. She was wearing a baggy grey T-shirt underneath. It hung down almost to her knees, and it effectively hid her hips and behind. It revealed only one thing, that she had wide shoulders. 

The organizers of the exercise area had placed a set of shelves near the entrance. After placing her sweatshirt on a middle one, Kari went over to the chinning bar, stood beneath it, and began taking some deep breaths.

"Here we go," the talker said.

Kari jumped up, hung fully extended for a few seconds, and then curled up her calves so that her legs made a right angle at the knee. Her ankles were crossed behind her. She did ten chin-ups -- ten seconds up and ten seconds down, real slow, never allowing full extension, her muscles under strain the whole time. She moved immediately to the bench press machine and did ten reps, the same slow cadence, the weight a lot more than Malory would have expected her capable of. This was followed by twenty sit-ups and ten shoulder presses.

"As near as I can figure it," the talker said, "she does her back, chest, and shoulders one day, arms and legs the next. She does her abdominals every day."

"Extraordinary," Malory said. He considered heading over to the bikes, none of which was being used -- no talkers anywhere in the vicinity.

"She does a full hour," the blighter continued. "To the minute. Ten minutes of warm-up, forty-five minutes of workout, and five minutes of cool-down."

Malory wondered why the guy found Kari LaMarca's workout so fascinating. She was now out on the track, using one of the inner lanes, not running hard.

"Smooth gait," the talker said.

"Smooth and slow," Malory said, trying to be polite.

"Just wait."

Malory waited. Kari LaMarca did four laps. The fourth was faster, but she was still only jogging. When she came off the track, she went immediately to the chin-up bar. This time she did twelve slow chin-ups. Then, as before, she went to the bench. She did twelve slow presses, very slow, at a weight that was higher than the one she had chosen on the previous round. Malory felt himself wincing at the last couple of reps; the motion was still smooth and slow, but her muscles had to be screaming in agony. She next did her sit-ups and shoulder exercises, and then went back to the track. 

Malory turned his attention to his own workout. He was sweating now, but he wasn't yet at the pain threshold. He doubted he'd reach it. The guy beside him was stepping up his pace, making a show of his heavy pulls, breathing noisily. There was a time when Malory might have responded to the implicit challenge.

Out on the track, Kari had moved to the outside lane. She was no longer jogging; she was running. Malory had by now figured out her routine. It was a progressive circuit. Four laps on the track. Four sets of body exercises. Back to the track. Each circuit harder than the previous one.

"She maxes out at one-eighty on the bench," the talker said.

This was hard to believe. Probably not one guy in a thousand can press his own body weight. Maybe one in ten thousand. For women, the number might be one in a hundred thousand. Malory had no idea how much Kari LaMarca weighed. If it was more than a hundred and thirty pounds, he'd be surprised.

He looked at his watch. He'd been rowing for thirty minutes; another ten and he could declare a defeat.

Kari was now sprinting. She had also inserted a jogging lap at the end of each four-lap sprint, so she could get some wind back before doing the body exercises.

"She's into pain," the talker said. "Big time."

So what was going on here?  Why the fierce response to his remark?  Malory could think of only one answer.

Malory didn't need to be told. Kari LaMarca came off the track, did her slow chin-ups, and then went to the bench. If she wasn't now doing one-eighty, she was close to it. She continued to do the reps smoothly, but as she got near the end of the set, her upper arms were quivering. When she stood up, her face was contorted. She proceeded to her next exercise. Instead of continuing with sit-ups, she was now doing leg raises while hanging from the chin-up bar. Her jaw was hard-clenched.

When she began her next set of shoulder presses, Malory took notice of her form. She was sitting on a stool, and she raised the weight perfectly: no heaving or wrenching. She continued to do the exercise the same way she'd done all the others: real slow. Slow up, stopping before full extension, and slow down. Malory counted the reps. Lactic acid shut her down at seven.

She got off the stool and turned so she was looking in his direction. But she wasn't seeing him. She wasn't seeing anything. The only thing she was conscious of was her burning muscles, which were screaming at her to stop.

The chap beside him was now grunting with each stroke. Malory tried to raise the wattage himself, but his heart wasn't in it. When Kari began what he assumed must be her final circuit, he gave up on the whole futile enterprise. He got himself a clean towel and wiped his face. Then he went to the fountain. When he came back to the track, Kari was running. Her stride had lost some of its grace; she was going more slowly than on the previous circuit, and there was a jerkiness in the way she was pumping her arms -- all signs of severe oxygen debt.

His rival on the rowing machine had ended his solitary race. He too was watching Kari. The look on his face was that of a connoisseur admiring a magnificent performance. 

Kari stopped running. She left the track, went inside of it, and stopped moving. Her hands were on her hips, and she was bent over at the waist. It took a full minute before she was able to get her breathing under control. She then began walking.

Malory got a second clean towel and went to intercept her. Her forehead was wet with sweat. Her shirt was soaked, and her face was flushed. He tossed her the towel. She took it, said thanks, didn't meet his eyes, kept walking.

"Impressive workout," he said. "A creation worthy of the Demiurge himself."

"You mentioned the Demiurge before. When you interrupted my work at Urquhart Hall."

"I'd have picked a different god this time, not a mere artisan-god but rather a higher one. Only trouble is, I don't know the name of a higher one that would be suitable now. I once aspired to be a classicist, but I failed dismally. I nevertheless did manage to acquire some odds and ends of knowledge. I now like to show it off when I first meet a young lady, in the hope that she'll regard me as a man worthy of respect, if not admiration. As you correctly observed, this is my second attempt with you. My first, I fear, was a flop."  His hope now was that she'd at least be a bit curious about him -- curious enough to respond positively to an invitation. He wasn't optimistic. He didn't even know what kind of invitation to make.

"The Demiurge isn't just another artisan," she said earnestly. "Plato tells us he's the divine artisan. And even though he's ontologically inferior to the Form of the Good, he's nevertheless perfect in his own way. He devotes all his energies to the task of communicating his perfection to the recalcitrant world of matter."

Okay.

They continued walking, but without speaking. Malory thought that maybe he'd been struck dumb. He certainly felt dumb.

He finally said, "You're telling me that it would be irreverent, if not sacrilegious, to suggest that the Demiurge would create something so mundane as a gym workout."

It was now her turn to say nothing. Inanities mouthed by him evidently didn't merit a response. 

He recalled the name that had popped into his head when he saw her through binoculars from the ridge above Lac Promyse: Kallisto. Maybe it was one to try out now. He could use it to make the conversation non-earnest, playful even. "How about if I say that your workout was worthy of Kallisto?"

She frowned and continued walking.

"That is what I shall call you," he said. "Kallisto."  He had a moment of doubt. Kallisto was an Arcadian wood nymph, the fairest of them all. The sweaty girl beside him was attractive enough, but she was hardly the fairest of them all.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't what?"

"Don't call me Kallisto."

"Why not?" he said amiably.

"Kallisto is a huntress," she said. She was speaking in tones that were intense, impassioned.

"I'd forgotten about that," Malory said, puzzled by her statement and also her vehemence. The Avalti were all hunters and huntresses, and she'd grown up living in Avalti camps. Not only that, every fibre of her being would be telling her she had to hunt down the man who had tortured and killed Jemail al-Nasiri. So what was going on here?  Why the fierce response to his remark?  Malory could think of only one answer. Giorgio Toscani, former Jesuit, had been her teacher for a decade. He would have taught her that it's wrong for human beings to seek vengeance; vengeance is for God. This meant that Kari was now a woman divided against herself.

He continued, "I remember Kallisto as a comely young maiden -- so comely she caused Zeus to go mad with love. This had an unfortunate consequence, of course. After he ravished her, he placed her in the sky, so he could gaze upon her lovely face forever. Good for him, perhaps, but bad for her."

"I'm not a huntress," she said again, still speaking vehemently.

"And I'm not the god of thunder."

To his astonishment, she laughed. She stopped walking and turned to face him. "No doubt about that."  She laughed some more. Her teeth were whiter than Sirius B and her lips were celestial pink and her eyes were empyrean blue and her cheeks were astral fire. 

If Malory could have put her in the sky, he would have done so. Not being a god, he said, "Can I buy you a drink?" 

"I don't drink."

"How alarming. A woman who neither hunts nor drinks."

She laughed again.

He was no longer so much astonished as delighted. It occurred to him that pure delight, perhaps because it's so rare and so transient, is an under-appreciated phenomenon. He couldn't remember when he had last reacted to a woman in this way.

"I'm a flexible man," he said. "If we can't engage in hunting and drinking, the activities that all men and some women rank second and third on their list of pleasures, we can proceed to the one they rank first."

She was now looking at him coolly. This was a feat, inasmuch as beads of sweat the size of peas kept popping out on her forehead.

"The first is conversation," he said.

"I can do conversation," she said, a shy smile on her face. "But not now."

Before he could ask her when, she turned and walked down the track. 

The Excerpt | Malory busied himself trying to estimate the angle of the overhang, and he decided that it was about forty degrees, plus or minus three. Not that it mattered. For all practical purposes, Kari was a bat clinging to the underside of a ceiling. A bat without wings. Between her and the crash pad, which was maybe a dozen feet down, there was nothing but air. As her designated spotter, he hadn't placed himself directly below her but rather slightly to one side, the better to avoid damage to his fragile body when she came off. 

The fall was inevitable because she had stubbornly chosen an ascent that would require thirty moves, minimum, to complete; this was too many, even for her. He tried to imagine what she was thinking now that she was past the halfway point. In his experience, this is always a hazardous undertaking — trying to get inside a woman's head. It's also more than a little absurd: the guesses are invariably wrong. But it was a way to pass time. 

As near as she would be able to tell, he wasn't paying any attention to her. She was instead thinking, My spotter is manifestly useless, so I better not fall. If I do, some bones could get broken.

"The Kama Sutra has something to say about this position," he said. "It's supposedly highly pleasurable for the man. Less so for the woman."

Her fingers were doing most of the work, gripping the holds that had been placed on the overhang's face. All she got from her toe placements was stability. If she let go with her fingers, she'd drop like a stone. 

She was moving too slowly to reach her destination, the lip of the overhang. She would know this — not because she was up against a time constraint, but because of the burn she was feeling in her fingers, forearms, and biceps. It was a burn that, very soon, would be replaced by muscle failure. 

Malory figured she was good for three more moves, or maybe two. Then, if she was smart, she'd quit. She'd hang vertically by her fingers, let go, and land lightly on her feet.

The cave was small and dark and hot. They were the only two present. Kari's face was lathered in sweat. He had chided her when she refused to put a headband on, telling her she was vain. Her refusal may or may not have been an act of vanity, but it was certainly an act of stupidity. Sweat had to now be dripping into her eyes, making them sting. 

She was moving upward and also backward. This meant she had to tilt her neck way back to locate the next handholds. Seeing them would have been tough enough had her eyes been clear. Now that she was half-blind, she was navigating mostly by touch.

He wanted to distract her from the muscle pain she was surely feeling, while also reminding her that he was paying attention. "I like your new pants."

No reply. 

He considered telling her they were a turn-on. They weren't her usual cargo pants but rather stylish capris, and they allowed him to notice that her behind was firm and exquisitely shaped. They also made him aware of something he'd noticed the first time he saw her up close: the fact that her upper legs were muscular.

He tried again. "You forgot to tuck your shirt in."

Silence.

"But that's okay," he said. "It's not distracting me from the study I've agreed to undertake at the behest of the fashion industry. They want to know whether models should forsake runways in favour of boulders."

His feeble attempt at humour was a way to distract himself from the collage of erotica she was unwittingly putting on display. In addition to her behind, he was conscious of the skin that adorned her muscled arms and shoulders.

He resumed the task of trying to guess what was going on inside her head. She had to be thinking about her next move, asking herself whether she should chalk up before making it. The problem was that chalking up has more than one consequence. Sure, her hand would be drier and therefore better able to sustain a grip without slipping. But reaching into the bag would mean another few seconds where one hand would be doing all the work of holding her up.

In all likelihood her hands were beyond pain; they were dead. He wished she would do the smart thing: concede defeat and drop to the mat. 

She didn't. She instead made the upward move. Her hand hit the pocket squarely, and she instantly planted three fingers inside it. It was maybe two knuckles deep — a secure hold. Or rather, it would have been a secure hold, had her fingers been properly chalked. They weren't. They slipped and she plummeted.

He broke her fall while simultaneously allowing himself to crumple. The next thing he knew, he was on his back and she was on top of him. She was on her back too. His arms were around her.

But her last jest was now reminding him of how he'd failed in the past. He knew what would happen next.

"Thank you for allowing me to be a hero and save your life so artfully," he said. "Tomorrow I won't even have a bruise."

"You're welcome," she said, not moving.

He was conscious of the warmth and muscled hardness of her body. He was also conscious of sweaty wetness and the smell of unperfumed skin.

"The Kama Sutra has something to say about this position," he said. "It's supposedly highly pleasurable for the man. Less so for the woman."

She was making no effort to move. "I know why a man might enjoy it," she said. "It makes eye contact impossible."

He laughed.

She finally eased herself off of him, turning on her side. He turned slightly too, and he found himself looking at the back of her head. After a few moments, he could feel her pulling away from him. But one of his arms was half around her, and it was acting on its own, preventing her from distancing herself. It then rolled her over so she was facing him. They were now lying close together, on their sides, face to face.

He didn't know what to say, so he kept silent. He could see that she wanted to pull away from him. He could signal his acknowledgement of this by moving his arm. But he kept it over her.

She too was saying nothing. But her eyes were speaking. They were telling him that she was in a situation that was wholly unfamiliar to her, and that she had no idea how to respond.

Her lips were about two inches from his, and he wanted nothing more than to narrow the gap to zero. 

He instead pulled himself back slightly and forced himself to speak. "Anything broken?"

"I don't think so."

"I could palpate you and find out."

"Alternatively, you could let go of me, so I could experiment with standing upright."

"That won't test everything."

He kept his arm where it was, and she didn't move. Her eyes looked different this close up. He considered using his fingers to brush a curl of hair away from her forehead. He instead rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone. "Nothing broken there," he said.

"Nothing broken anywhere," she said. "Some artful hero inadvertently broke my fall."

The natural response would be to laugh or at least smile. But he did neither. His eyes remained locked on hers, now noticing different shades of blue and also something else, something he couldn't readily identify. Her eyes were speaking a greeting, one she wanted to vocalize but couldn't.

She pulled away from him slightly, and he responded by pulling away from her. They were separating. Slowly.

Something inside him, his soul perhaps, was saying that it didn't want separation. It wanted union.

But how to create the possibility? With a word. A word accompanied by a touch. 

She pre-empted this. She pulled away farther and then stood up.

He did the same. He considered reaching out his arm and showing her the palm of his hand. If she took it, that would mean —

Instead of acting, he spoke. "I'm thirsty. Let's go to our favourite diner and get a drink. You can buy and then shower me with words of gratitude for having broken your fall."

She hesitated and then said, "It's getting late. I should be —"

"When an artful hero inadvertently saves a girl's life, she can't refuse to buy him a drink. That would be ungracious. More to the point, it would be hard on his ego. It would be crushed, turned into dust."

"In your case, that would make a lot of dust. They'd have to close this place for a week just to clean it all out. But don't worry. I'd tell them to preserve the dust. I'd let them know its source was a hero who was called upon to save my life, and who didn't fail."

The appropriate response would be another bit of repartee. But her last jest was now reminding him of how he'd failed in the past. He knew what would happen next. The video cassette would begin to play.

It was playing already. He turned on his heel and walked out of the building.

After a time, he could hear footsteps behind him.

"Wait," she said.

He turned to face her.

She said, "What just happened?"

He realized he was trembling.

"You don't have to answer," she said.

This was good, because there was nothing he could say.

She said, "But you do have to let me buy you a drink."

"Kari, I —"

"Drink first," she said. "Talk second."

"Is that a rule?"

"Not a rule. Just a way to give you time to think before you speak."

He forced himself to laugh. "You should make it a rule."

"I don't want to," she said. "I would one day like to hear what you're feeling."

"Only if you reciprocate."

"One day," she said.

Ω

The Excerpt | A song was coming over the pub's loudspeakers, and although the din made it hard to discern the lyrics, the refrain was causing Kari to start thinking about what she'd seen in Malory's eyes, more than once, as they made their way across the vast breadth of Canada. Two words kept repeating: Bye-Bye.

It was all in her imagination. He hadn't been saying goodbye with his eyes. She had just been anticipating the goodbye that would come shortly after they got back to Lucerna. She didn't want to think about it. The prospect was too . . . She couldn't even give a name to it. 

Life in a northern town. This was a line from the song, another part of the refrain. 

They were in a northern town now: Fort McMurray, Alberta, located at the confluence of two historic rivers, the Clearwater and the Athabasca. In 1778-79, Peter Pond and a handful of his intrepid companions had spent a winter here, shut up in rude cabins, prisoners in a world ruled by ice, their jail three thousand miles from civilization. Now Fort McMurray was a boom town: the oil sands capital of the world. 

It was not a good place to enjoy a burger and some quiet conversation on a Friday night. Kari had found this out right away. The pub was packed with young guys, workers from the oil rigs, and half of them were already tanked. Raucous male voices competed with the music from the loudspeakers and the further racket caused by television sets mounted on the walls. 

There are two kinds of rage: the hot kind and the cold kind. Malory's was the cold kind. The controlled kind. The lethal kind. Kari's dread was growing.

She was in a booth by herself, wishing Malory would hurry up. She wanted him sitting across from her, making her think and feel things she had never felt before — things she didn't fully understand. But he was still registering them in the motel, insisting on two rooms, making sure there would be at least one wall between them. 

He had suggested that she grab a table before the pub filled up. She would have preferred that they go somewhere else, some place less boisterous, where they could just talk or maybe not talk — where they could have more of whatever it was she could give no name to except togetherness, a word that was pitifully inadequate, like using big to talk about the infinite. But the guy at the motel said that on a Friday night, in Fort McMurray, there was no such place.

Bye-bye. The two words kept repeating in her head, even though the song itself had ended and a new one had joined the din. Soon they'd drive her into a full-blown depression.

A way to prevent this was to start thinking about something else altogether. She took out her notebook and reviewed the work she'd been doing on her thesis proposal. The last few days had been productive, because Malory had been forcing her to explain what she hoped to accomplish. Every time she said something vague or poorly grounded, he challenged her. By evening, her ideas were usually much clearer, and when she was alone she wrote them down in the notebook. They weren't in the form that would be necessary for the proposal proper, but with some sorting, they'd constitute a detailed outline.

She turned her mind to the present. Or rather, she turned it to the immediate future — to the flying she and Malory would be doing tomorrow. She was looking forward to it. The route they had planned would take them over Wood Buffalo National Park, home to thousands of huge prehistoric beasts with shaggy coats and hooves and horns. She had never seen a live buffalo.

Until now. Three of them were approaching her booth. On closer examination they proved to be men — big men. They were wearing black leather jackets and black boots and black stubble. Two were obviously boozed up, and they sat down across from her. The one who seemed half-sober introduced himself as Wade, and he sat beside her. She moved sideways, scrunching herself as close to the wall as she could get. Not that it helped. His leg was pressed against hers. He smelled of beer and diesel.

Kari told him she was with someone.

"Great," he said. "It's been a while since I've had two babes in one go."

"He's my boyfriend," Kari said, thinking that the word boyfriend might cause Wade and the other two buffaloes to move to another table.

"Lucky him," Wade said. He put his hand on her thigh, up high, well above the knee.

Kari told herself to do nothing. She willed her blood to go cold.

Wade asked if he could see her notebook. He called it a "diary."  He said he wanted to know what secrets she might have in it.

Kari responded by putting it in her bag. Wade laughed and said to his buddies, "She doesn't want us to know." 

His hand was still on her leg, and Kari considered what she might do. The cretin had to weigh more than 200 pounds, so pushing him aside was hardly an option. She asked to be excused. "You guys can have the booth. My boyfriend and I . . . We'll eat at the bar."

"Don't be in such a hurry," Wade said amiably. He was now squeezing her thigh. He had big hands, and they probably worked heavy machinery for sixty hours a week: they were powerful. If he wanted to, he could probably squeeze her thigh until it went numb — or until her femur shattered.

She wondered what Malory was doing — what was delaying him. Part of her wanted him to turn up this instant. But another part feared what would happen when he did. She recalled what Wendy had told her: what Malory had done to the three guys who tried to rape her, how two of them had ended up in the hospital. 

Wade still had his fingers on her thigh, and they were probing higher. She asked him to stop.

He looked at her and grinned. "Stop what?"

Kari considered screaming. A lot of good that would do. The din was such that a scream wouldn't be noticed. Best to not make a scene. Wade wasn't going to rape her, not here. Malory would come soon and then they would leave.

When he did arrive, he came up to the edge of the table and looked at the two guys sitting across from her. "Excuse me," he said to them pleasantly, "but I believe you're in my seat."

"This must be the boyfriend," Wade said to Kari. "Introduce us."

Kari said, "Malory, this is Wade."  

Malory showed no sign of having heard her. He was looking at Wade's right hand, which was still squeezing her leg. His expression made her feel dread. 

There are two kinds of rage: the hot kind and the cold kind. Malory's was the cold kind. The controlled kind. The lethal kind. Kari's dread was growing. She had no idea what Malory was going to do. But she could guess. Something that could only have one outcome: a scene, cops, publicity. It was an outcome she had to avert.

"You seem to be lacking a sense of decorum," Malory said to Wade. He was now smiling. It was the kind of smile a spider might give to a bug.

"Decorum?" Wade said.

"Punctilio," Malory said. "The finer points of etiquette."

"Fuck etiquette," Wade said. "Fuck punctilio. And fuck you."

"Okay," Malory said, no longer smiling. "Let's discuss manners instead. Manners are important. Without manners, civilization is impossible."

"Fuck manners," Wade said.

"It's hard to fuck an abstraction," Malory said.

Wade didn't reply. He was simply smirking. His fingers were moving higher on Kari's leg.

It was obvious that Malory's rage was no longer cold. He was about to act, and he would do so within seconds — unless she did something. She reached below the table and put her hand under the cuff of her jeans, feeling for the leather sheath strapped to her ankle. She slipped out the knife and brought the pointed end to Wade's upper thigh, pressing so he could feel it. She then moved it to his crotch.

"I have a Shanghai fighting knife in my hand," she said to him, loud enough so that Malory could hear too. "It has a seven-inch blade that's made of parkerized carbon steel. It's got a leather handle, which means my grip won't slip. I got it from my brother, who is a U.S. Navy Seal. I once used it to cut the leg off a buffalo. If you don't get out of my reach right now, I'll use it to cut something off you. No telling what that something will be. It might be a leg. Or it might be something else."

Wade looked down at the knife. Malory was looking at it too.

Kari pressed it until she could feel it cut jeans and meet flesh. She hoped she was drawing blood. Lots of it. "Get out of the booth," she said to Wade, still speaking so that Malory could hear her, letting him know she was in control.

Wade ignored her.

Kari said to him, "Look at my face."

He did.

Kari kept her eyes on his. "Stand up," she said. "Stand up and walk away. While you still have two balls."

Wade hesitated. Then he did what she asked. He said something to his buddies, who followed after him. Kari took a deep breath.

Malory sat down across from her. It was hard to read his face. The cold anger was still there. But solicitude was pushing it away. He said, "You okay, Kallisto?"

"Yes," she said.

"Let me see the knife."

She handed it to him. He studied it for a few moments and then said, "Is it truly the choice of the Navy Seals?"

"No," Kari said. "It's the choice of the Israeli Special Forces. But I took Wade to be the kind of guy who'd be clueless if I referred to Sayeret Matkal."

Malory frowned and handed the knife back to her. "May I ask why you carry it?"

"No," she said, putting it back in its sheath and then pulling down the leg of her jeans to cover it. "You can just get me out of here. Before I start to cry."

"Okay," he said.

Ω

The Excerpt | They planned their day during breakfast, agreeing that they'd follow the Athabasca River to its mouth on the lake of the same name. They would land at Fort Chipewyan, a hamlet that, if their guidebook was to be believed, didn't offer accommodation in luxury hotels; however, a number of attractive B&B's were supposedly available.

They didn't stick to their plan. When they reached the river's mouth, Kari said she saw no need to stop there. She suggested that they instead go on to Great Slave Lake, refuel at Yellowknife, and then proceed in a northeast direction until they got beyond the tree line. "We'll then land on a small lake. Even a navigator as pitiful as you are will surely be able to find one that's suitable."  She said she wanted to spend the night camping in the great Arctic desert. There was an uncharacteristic note of pleading in her voice.

Malory was happy to comply. "If we're going to camp, we'll need some supplies."

"Yellowknife is the capital city of the Northwest Territories," Kari said. "I'm sure they'll have everything that a soft, city boy like you will need."

"I bet they won't have knitted cashmere hand warmers."

"In that case, you can ask for mittens made of caribou hide. Or sealskin."

"Do seals venture this far from the Arctic Ocean?"

"Ask for bearskin," Kari said.

***

Their stop in Yellowknife was a success. They had no difficulty finding everything they needed. Soon they were on their way again, pointed toward Canada's vast Barren Lands. Malory glanced at Kari. She was looking out the window, toward the far northeast.

"Gina must have once made trips just like this," she said. "Lots of times."

"You should get her to tell you about them."

"She won't."

"Why not?"

"Something happened during one of those trips. Something she doesn't want to talk about."

"How do you know she doesn't want to talk about it?"

"I'm an expert in what it means to have memories that are best not discussed."

Malory got the message.

He tried not to think about what she was wearing now. This proved to be impossible. In his mind's eye, she was wearing nothing at all.

An hour or so later the forest began thinning, and it wasn't long before there was no forest at all, just isolated clumps of Christmas trees. Mostly there was nothing more than water, lakes and creeks and rivulets, interspersed with slabs of grey rock. Each slab seemed to rise out of one lake before plunging down into the next; they could have been a pod of giant dolphins, frolicking in a great sea. Scattered here and there were boulders of various sizes, sitting up on scarred bedrock. Some were huge, and they made Malory think that a rail line must have once passed through here, one that was finally abandoned, leaving lots of boxcars behind.

They came upon what looked like a highway made for cars or possibly huge trucks, but which in fact was a high ridge of sand and gravel, flat on top. He began following it.

"It's an esker," Kari explained. "They were made by the waterways that coursed through the ice sheet that once covered this whole area. They're hundreds of feet high and some are hundreds of miles long."

She had obviously done some research on the Barren Lands. He didn't need to ask her why. She truly did intend to move to Yellowknife. The Barrens would become a world she'd explore.

"The ice reached its southern limit sixteen thousand years ago," she said. "Up here, it didn't disappear until four thousand years ago. It left the eskers behind. Giant rocks too."

"I've noticed," Malory said.

"Humans can't live here," she said. "They can only pass through."

This was how she saw the whole of her existence, Malory thought. A home nowhere. Always in motion, ascending her mountains of aspiration, stopping now and then to rest upon a prominence, but never staying on any of them for long, always leaving to climb toward the next one. He was reminded of something he'd once read in a work of fiction. He couldn't now recall who the author was. Maybe it was Alice Munro. In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.

There was a place in this part of the world where something had happened to Gina. What place? And what happened? And when? Malory doubted that he would ever find out. 

He found a location suitable for landing. It was a small lake shielded from the wind by a high bluff. The protection it offered had enabled some trees to grow near the shoreline. This was good. Trees meant wood. Wood meant they could make a fire.

He did a mental inventory of the extra gear they'd purchased in Yellowknife. Matches had been on the list. Thank goodness. He wouldn't have to rub sticks together.

After unloading the plane, they climbed up on the bluff. It was now after ten, and the pre-night sky was putting on its show. The moon was on one horizon, the sun on the other. The moon was an orange ball, the sun a yellow smudge. Around the smudge the sky was a giant crimson-orange frond enamelled with gold.

"It is all so beautiful," Kari said.

Malory wasn't appreciating it the way she was. The wind was howling and he was feeling cold, even though he was wearing a down jacket. 

Mercifully, she soon suggested that they go down to their campsite and make some supper.

"That's women's work," he said. "You make the supper, and I'll make a fire."

"You're cold," she said. "You want to warm up. You're a femmelette, a sissy, prone to chilblains and chattering teeth."

He laughed. "So true."

While she set up the gas stove, he gathered wood. When he finally declared that they probably had enough, she said, "I'm so glad you're calling a halt. You were turning a barren land into a moonscape."

"But that was the idea. Moonscapes, as habitats, are unappreciated. Astronauts have testified to this. I can too."

"But you're not an astronaut. You're a femmelette."

He laughed again, marvelling at how much he enjoyed being teased — by her.

A pot of water was boiling on the stove. They were dining on macaroni and cheese out of a box. Malory was starving, and just looking at the box covers made his mouth water. They had a choice between Four-Cheese Deluxe and Cheesy Alfredo. He asked Kari which she preferred. She said it didn't matter, so long as he took charge of the final steps in the preparation.

"It's man's work," she said. "Which is to say, it's a task that a child could execute."

"No child could do this," he said. He opened the Alfredo box and removed the cheese, which was sealed in a foil package. He made a show of tearing the foil with his teeth. The rest of the box was filled with macaroni, sealed in nothing. He checked his watch and then dumped it into the water.

Kari, meanwhile, was fishing around in her gear. She pulled out a bottle of wine and a waiter's style corkscrew. She came to where he was standing and showed him the bottle. It was a very nice Rioja. 

Malory was astonished. "Where the hell did you get that?"

"Lucerna. From Ardashir. I didn't want you to feel too deprived, out here in the wilderness."  She opened the bottle, not unskilfully, and placed it on a flat rock. She then went back to her gear and returned with a fancy-looking wineglass. She poured some wine into the glass and handed it to him. 

He tasted it. She was looking at him apprehensively. It was excellent, and he said so. Her look of apprehension was replaced by one of glee.

He said, "You won't be sharing it with me?"

"I don't think so. I want to be sure we save some. So we can celebrate in a way Dionysius would commend."

Celebrate what? Malory didn't state the question out loud, and she didn't volunteer an answer. She instead served the Cheesy Alfredo, using a spoon to place it in large plastic bowls.

They ate sitting on folding chairs, holding the bowls in their laps. Here there was almost no wind at all, and the lake was like glass. The stars began to come out, each one with a twin that took up residence on the lake's surface. 

Kari wasn't speaking and Malory wasn't either. He was enjoying the silence — and her closeness.

After they finished eating, they stretched out inside their sleeping bags, the bags on top of foamies, the foamies on top of the rocky ground. Malory could hear Kari rustling around, stripping off some layers of clothing. To distract himself, he removed his own outerwear. He tried not to think about what she was wearing now. This proved to be impossible. In his mind's eye, she was wearing nothing at all.

They were lying side by side, on their backs, staring up at the sky. The wood fire was to Kari's right. Its light seemed spiritless, overpowered as it was by that of the aurora borealis — a wispy green ballerina who was dancing among the myriad stars.

"Only a few places on earth are still like this," Kari said. "The Australian outback is perhaps another."

The Sahara too, Malory thought. He knew what she was getting at. Everywhere else, the night sky is polluted by artificial light. In big cities, most stars aren't visible at all.

"The Tibetan plateau should go on your list as well," he said.

"You've been there?"

"Once," he said. "The roof of the world. It was beautiful, but not as beautiful as this."  He was looking at a star cluster so dense it resembled a fleecy white cloud; it appeared to be raining shooting stars. But it wasn't the source of the beauty. It was just reflecting Kari.

He said, "I wonder why stars twinkle."  She would know the answer. It was something Giorgio Toscani would have taught her.

"It's because the earth has a turbulent atmosphere," she said. "The light gets refracted differently from moment to moment. The result is that we perceive the star as twinkling."

"It's a child's word."

"Try astronomical scintillation," she said. "That's the name scientists give to the phenomenon. They find it very annoying because it prevents them from seeing stars properly. It's why they put the Hubble up in space."

"I feel sorry for the poor Hubble. Even though it's only a gadget, it must sometimes feel sad, not being allowed to see stars scintillate."

"Let's count them," she said.

"There's only one good way to do that," he said. "And that's to fly from one to the next. We'll do that, on our return. Put Phoenix through her paces."

"I'm not sure our fuel tanks will permit us to visit them all," she said. "We'll have to plan future trips."

"Yes."

His reply had come without hesitation and without thinking. But he was thinking now, trying to imagine what it would be like, flying the stars with Kari, counting them one by one. He couldn't. But he could imagine how long it would take. Forever. This was good. It meant they wouldn't have to hurry.

To live forever. The notion ought to appall him. But it didn't.

"Are you there?" Kari said.

"I believe so," he said.

"I had the sense that I was losing you."

"I'm right here," he said. "And you won't be losing me."

For a few moments she said nothing. She then asked him if he had an alarm on his exotic wristwatch. She said she wanted to be awakened an hour before sunrise. He said that could be arranged. 

After a few minutes, he turned on his side to ask her why she wanted to be up so early. Her face was toward his, and he could see that she was already asleep. A weird desire came over him: he wanted to kiss her closed eyes. He instead set his watch and closed his own eyes.

Starlight was wafting over them. Sleep came quickly.

Ω

The Excerpt | When his wrist alarm went off, Malory rolled over and glanced to his right. Kari wasn't in her sleeping bag. She was standing, and she was fully dressed except for her boots, which she was busy putting on.

After tying the laces, she said, "Good morning."

Last night's fire had long since gone out. He felt cold. "It's not morning," he grumbled. "It's night-time."

"Nitpicker," she said.

She walked away, presumably to find a place where she'd have privacy. Malory got out of his bag, pulled on some clothes, and set to work remaking the fire.

He heard water splashing down by the lake. A few minutes later, Kari came back carrying a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. Her face was wet. "The water is freezing," she said.

"I trust you had a full bath anyway," he said, recalling the moment on the shore of Lake Superior when she'd stripped off her clothes and gone into the lake. On that occasion, he'd been on the verge of joining her, before some force he couldn't name stopped him. What force was it? And what if he had resisted it? What if he had joined her naked in the lake and then held her hand as they walked naked on the beach toward the fire and then . . . These were questions he couldn't answer. She continued to make it impossible for him to know his own self.

"Tonight," she said.

Tonight what? One more question he couldn't answer.

He proceeded to the lake himself. Even though it was still night, and the sky still dark, he had no trouble seeing where he was going. When the atmosphere is as pure as it was here, stars in their countless numbers produce a lot of light. 

After performing an abbreviated version of his own morning ritual, he went back to the campsite. Kari was rolling up her sleeping bag.

"Going somewhere?" he said.

"You are too," she said. "We need to be up on the bluff. I want to show you something." She set off, carrying her sleeping bag under one arm.

"In a place where I could enjoy . . . an experience. It was one that we'll have to celebrate tonight.”

He could guess what she had in mind. After getting the fire going, he rolled up his own sleeping bag and followed her as she made the ascent. He was now conscious of the wind. It was as strong as it was cold. He considered telling her she was crazy. Instead he just indulged in some unintelligible grumbling.

Her response was to laugh.

He looked at her face. Not for the first time he observed how beautiful she was when her face was alive with delight. He said, "I'm feeling insulted. Those innovative cadences you're hearing are moans and groans, meant to invoke pity, not jokes meant to induce hilarity."

"I don't care what you intended," she said. "I've decided to interpret them as a reminder of something Democritus once said, that life without festivals is a long road without an inn."

Democritus as transmitted by Eliana, Malory thought. Kari was no doubt chilled by the wind too. But she had ignored this completely and had instead focused on his grumbling, seeing humour in it, making her mirth palpable so that he was feeling it instead of the cold and the wind, turning the moment into one he would cherish for a very long time. He joined her in laughing. Maybe Eliana also taught that this is what life can be if we simply stop to savour blessed moments: a road with no shortage of very pleasant inns.

He wanted to feel this, not merely think it, so he took Kari's hand. It was warm.

They were both standing, and the lake was below them. But it was so close that it might as well have been at their feet.

He finally released her hand. "We should find a place where we can sit."

"Yes."  She moved away from him.

The ground at this particular inn, up here on the top of the bluff, was strewn with rocks. Some were large boulders, but none were inviting as places to sit. Nor were there any sofas or armchairs. Kari picked a spot and then cleared herself a seating area by using her hands to toss and shove rocks to one side. After kicking away the pebbles that remained, she took off her boots, unrolled her sleeping bag, and got into it. She was sitting upright, with the bag pulled up to her shoulders. Malory, remaining where he was, made a seating area of his own. He then climbed into his own bag.

They were now maybe six feet apart. Kari's spot could easily be wide enough to accommodate two, and Malory considered moving so that he was sitting right beside her. But he didn't know how she would interpret this. So he stayed where he was.

Not far away, out above the lake, two birds had begun a journey to the far side of it. They too were a short distance apart, and they seemed to be on converging tracks. In due course they'd be at their nest, shoulder to shoulder, or leg to leg, or wing to wing, or however it was that two birds warm each other up.

"Now what?" he said, wondering if she was reading his mind and whether she'd now comment on the mating habits of birds.

She didn't. "Now we wait for Eos," she said.

"The rosy-fingered dawn," he said, "whom the Romans called Aurora."

"It's her moment," Kari said. "Her siblings, Selene and Helios, aren't on stage. Selene has made her exit, and Helios has yet to make his entrance."

This was true. The moon had set, and the sun had yet to show his face.

He could see the planet Venus. He pointed and said, "Virgil saw her as a woman: she was the morning star who shone brightly even in daylight, and so was able to guide Aeneas to Latium. But Ovid had a different opinion. According to him, the morning star is Lucifer."

"I know," Kari said. "And his job is to awaken Aurora."

"I hope he'll wake me as well."

"I hate to tell you this, Malory, but I doubt that Lucifer is even aware of your existence." 

"Maybe I'll introduce myself. I'll tell him I like his name. Bringer of Light."

"Don't be surprised if he pays you no attention."

"I'll get his attention, by apologizing to him for what happened to his noble name. I'll tell him how sorry I am that Christians use it to speak of Satan. Do you happen to know why they do that?"

"No," Kari said. "But I can guess. Christians got a lot of things wrong. They still do. It's a habit they can't break."

"Can you cite some other examples?"

"I could. But I don't want to make your doctrinal studies too easy. So here's what you should do. Once we're back in Yellowknife, you can buy a copy of the Summa Theologica. In case you're not familiar with it, it's a trifling little tome — it's not even a million words long — that Thomas Aquinas produced to torment the Christian theologians who came after him. You can spend the rest of our trip flipping through the thousands of articles it contains. Each one expresses at least one wrong idea. Most contain half a dozen."

Malory wondered if Kari had once spent time studying Aquinas herself. It wasn't impossible. "That's maybe a good idea," he said. "However, the Summa is probably a luxury item the shops of Yellowknife don't stock."

"I guess you'll have to wait until you get back to New York — or to wherever it is you're going."

She didn't know what happened next. She only knew that the two sleeping bags were zipped together so that they were effectively one.

Malory wished she hadn't mentioned this — their imminent parting. He didn't want to start pondering things that could cloud their remaining time together.

 He was still cold, and he had to suppose that she was too, even if she would never admit it. There was an obvious solution. Their sleeping bags were the kind that zip together. He could shift his position so that he was right next to her, clear the few remaining rocks and pebbles out of the way, and suggest that they do just that — join the bags together. But suppose she said no? Or, what might be worse, what if she said yes?

His imagination had now shaken itself free from the bounds he'd placed on it earlier. It was carrying him to the outcome his soul was seeking. The images were so vivid he could feel them. The sleeping bags were now one, and both of them were inside it.

He continued to allow his fantasy to unfold. His arm was around her waist, and he pulled her close to him. She resisted for a moment and then turned her body so that she was enveloped in his arms. He lay back, still holding her. She adjusted her legs so that she was partially on top of him.

Her face was about two inches from his. The starlight was so bright that he could count her eyelashes.

He said, "I didn't intend — " 

"Your intent was to warm me up," she said. "And you're succeeding."  She lowered her lips to his.

She wasn't kissing him. She was just touching his lips with her own. He kissed her. Her response was tentative. He guessed that it wouldn't be that way for long.

He pulled himself back – back to the real world. It wasn't easy. He looked across the rocky ground that separated them. Her eyes were on his. He thought he should start counting her eyelashes. It would be a way to remain in touch with the world that actually existed.

She said, "You were away somewhere."

"I'm back now."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm not thinking. I'm freezing, and freezing brains are incapable of thought."

"It is a bit chilly," she said.

"Maybe we should zip our sleeping bags together," he said. "That way . . ."

She said, "That way we'd be able to . . . We could . . . We wouldn't both be sitting here fearing that the liquid parts of our bone marrow might start to freeze solid."

She must have been having thoughts similar to his own. 

She said, "Do our sleeping bags really zip together?"

"I think so," he said. "But maybe I'm wrong. Finding out shouldn't be too hard."

"You're right. Even for a man who's mechanically challenged."

This was an invitation. 

Malory was quite sure that the sleeping bags were designed to be made into one. So if he put them together, what, exactly, would he find out? Something. He didn't know which outcome scared him the most: the two of them making love, or him making the attempt and her pushing him away.

"It wouldn't hurt to try," she said. 

He wanted to make it happen. But he couldn't picture a happy outcome.  "It might not hurt you," he said, "but fumbling around outside the sleeping bag — that will hurt me. I'll catch my thumb in the zipper and start to bleed. Numb as I am, with cold, I won't be able to staunch the flow. I'll die."

"Femmelette," she said.

He laughed. Forcing it. He wasn't feeling amused. He was rather feeling . . . what? He didn't know.

***

Kari liked the picture he'd just created, not the one of him fumbling with zippers and bleeding to death, but of the two of them together inside one sleeping bag.

She closed her eyes and made the picture come alive. He was beside her, and his body was chilly. But that lasted for about five seconds, before the chill was annihilated by her heat. She could feel him embracing her, kissing her gently.

Her response was the unleashing of fire not even Vesuvius could match. She wanted more than just his lips.

Soon his right hand found the back of her neck. He was caressing her lightly, and his kissing was now just as fierce as hers. He moved his hand to her waist, under her jacket. Her shirt was outside of her jeans, and he placed his hand under it, his warm fingers finding the bare skin of her lower back. 

Kari lost all sense of time. Aurora had heeded Lucifer's call, but her arrival was so slow as to be imperceptible. The stars, now stopped in their courses, were bearing witness. Malory's touch, his gentleness, his mouth joined with hers, the two of them becoming One — the lights of heaven wanted to feel this too. They wanted to feel the lovemaking.

She heard a rustling sound. The fabric of his sleeping bag moving against rock. The sound was coming from a distance of several feet.

She opened her eyes and looked toward the source of the sound. Malory was still in his place, out of reach. His eyes were on hers. She wished she knew what he was feeling. Her belief remained. They had just made love.

He said, "It was your turn to be away. Where were you?"

"In a place where I could enjoy . . . an experience.  It was one that we'll have to celebrate tonight. With Rioja."

"Yes," he said.

After several moments of silence, he said. "It's a good thing we're both back. We might have missed Aurora's show, and she would have been offended, if not miffed. I have it on good authority that the Dawn doesn't like it when humans imagine that something can be more wonderful than she is."  He turned his head so he was facing east.

Kari did the same. She could see a thin glow of pink.

Kari was hearing a woman's soft voice. Aurora's. "My poor bedmate is old and getting older," the goddess said. "He therefore does a lot of sleeping. He lies somnolent swaddled in warm covers while I am forced to blossom anew, again and again, every morning unto Infinity. You should at least have the grace to listen."

"She's here," Malory said.

"Shush," Kari said to him.

"Any particular reason?" he said.

"Just paying heed to a deity. She wants us to do more than see her. She wants us to hear her as well."

"The deity is Aurora."

"Yes," she said.

They both turned their attention to the sky. Stars remained, but they were disappearing one by one, as the rosy-fingered dawn dissolved the darkness.

In the distance she could see two birds, making their way to the far shore. Soon they would land and be together. They would be One.

Kari again heard a rustling sound beside her. Malory was outside of his sleeping bag. He picked it up and moved so that he was beside her. He put it down beside hers.

She didn't know what happened next. She only knew that the two sleeping bags were zipped together so that they were effectively one. They were both inside of it, and they were sitting upright so that they could see the horizon. Malory had his arm around her waist. She leaned her head against his shoulder.

***

The entire eastern sky was ablaze.

Malory still had his arm around Kari's waist, but she no longer had her head against his shoulder. She had moved it and turned it slightly, as if to listen better.

Malory listened too. But he could only hear the wind. 

A few moments later he followed her lead and turned his own head. He now heard music. It was coming not from the Dawn, but from Kari herself. From her soul.

He said to her, "What is it you hear?"

"Songs of eternity," she said.

"I understand," he said. He knew he couldn't hear Aurora's songs himself. His soul lacked the capacity to hear music made by a beautiful sky goddess. But Kari's had that capacity. And she was relaying the Dawn's music to him.

She said, "If Zeus offered you the chance to live forever, would you accept?"

"It depends."

"You're thinking of Tithonos," she said, "and what happened to him."

He knew what she was getting at. Aurora, an immortal, had not been sleeping alone. Before rising to share her light, she'd been in the bed of Tithonos, a human who'd been granted immortality, but who also continued to age. His fate was to get older and older, forever. Malory wasn't thinking about the implications of that. He wasn't thinking at all. He was instead just yearning — for something.

For what? For a reality in which he would forever be young. 

The thought was bizarre, but he understood what had prompted it: the beautiful collage that had taken place just moments ago — a collage of madrigal murmurs and caprice kisses and rhapsody caresses and serenade sights that came from the face of the stars. It was one that he and Kari would be celebrating tonight, both of them sipping Rioja.

"Yesterday," he said, "I would not have answered your question the way I just did, by saying it depends. I would have replied with a simple no. I would have said that immortality, even if one doesn't age, would be a curse. But now —" 

"Me too," Kari said.

Ω

The Excerpt | Kari was glad she wasn't out on the dance floor, because she had no clue how to bop and twirl and jive in the modern way. Her childhood tutor Giorgio had once taught her how to dance to the music of Strauss, to the Blue Danube and the Tales from the Vienna Woods. She guessed that using Viennese waltz steps here tonight would be a blunder.

She smiled inwardly, recalling how Giorgio had combined the dance lesson with a physics lesson, saying that the science of dynamics explains how a skilled couple is able to create the illusion of continuous motion, even though there are obviously moments when they need to stop entirely and change directions. He wrote an equation that made it possible to indicate where exactly these motionless events occurred. He said that they, both the equations and the motionless events themselves, were what made the Viennese waltz so beautiful.

Kari began to fantasize. She and Malory were on the dance floor here, and they were dancing to their own music, the music of Strauss. He was wearing a dark suit and a bow tie. His black shoes were polished so they glistened. She was wearing a beautiful long dress, the colour of which was transcendent turquoise; Malory, who chose it and named the colour, said he'd been forced to go all the way to Vienna itself to find one that matched her beautiful eyes. Long matching gloves extended beyond her elbows. She and Malory were doing a Viennese waltz.

He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't read. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time. In one sense he was.

Right now the music was a slow piece that Kari didn't recognize. Gina was dancing by herself, and she was by far the most compelling person out there. She was dancing in a way that made Kari think she was making love to a man.

Kari turned her attention to Malory and Jenny. Watching them made her feel good. It also made her realize that there were things about Malory she would never understand. Tonight, throughout dinner, he had adopted his usual poses, shifting from ironic to frivolous to acerbic, occasionally offering comments that were informed and incisive, but never saying anything that might reveal his true self. Now, with Jenny, he was a man she could barely recognize. She wished she could be out there with him, taking Jenny's place if only for one dance. But she knew this wasn't going to happen. Malory wouldn't be dancing with anyone other than Jenny. Not tonight.

Unaccountably, Kari suddenly felt miserable. She glanced around the room. A few men were looking her way. Attractive men. She prayed that none would approach her. Maybe she could just sneak away.

Before she could do so, Gina returned to the table and sat down.

Gina poured herself a glass of champagne. "Glad to see you didn't polish off the entire bottle," she said, her tone sardonic.

"I've been busy, dancing Viennese waltzes, and the exertion of doing so, all that turning and step-changing, has made me thirsty. So maybe I'll have some now."  She didn't want to come across as a total misfit. She handed Gina her empty glass.

Gina half-filled it. "You're probably wondering why I'm doing all my dancing alone."

"Well . . ."  Kari could hardly deny it. It wasn't as if Gina couldn't have a partner any time she wanted one. All she needed to do was glance at a man who was ogling her — there were always several — and nod her head.

"I enjoy dancing," Gina said. "I dance by myself, I dance with women, and I dance with men."

"It's none of my business," Kari said.

"Sex is never simple," Gina said.

"I know," Kari said. "I once studied the Kama Sutra. Talk about complexity. All those intricate contortions and weird actions, not to mention the philosophical subtleties. For the next week, my poor little brain could only cope with things that were trifling by comparison, so I read a thousand-page manual entitled How To Fight Modern War."

Gina laughed. "Just so you know, tonight I haven't been dancing alone. I've been with a man, a man who's invisible to everyone but me. We hear our own music. It's the music of firelight."

Kari took notice of how flushed Gina's face was. "Uh-huh."

He turned his head so as to be able to watch her go. But the rest of him remained inert. It was +as if the still point had taken possession of his entire being. 

Kari couldn't think of anything intelligent to say. To avoid replying she looked out to where Malory and Jenny were dancing. When the next song started, Eric came up to them and cut in. He said something that made Jenny laugh.

"I'm reading your mind," Gina said. "Here's what you need to know. If you want to understand how it's possible to dance to the music of firelight, try reading poems. Look for one that mentions the still point."

"You're piling riddle upon conundrum upon head-scratcher, Gina. Next you'll be mumbling koans. Is there some reason you can't simply say exactly what you're thinking?"

"Yes," Gina said. "There are things I can't talk about without crying. And I don't want to do any of that now, here in a public place. I do my best crying when I'm by myself, alone on a beach, on an atoll in the South Pacific, firelight nearby."

Malory returned to the table and sat down across from Kari. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't read. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time. In one sense he was. He'd never before seen her wearing a dress.

He said, "Would you dance with me?"  His tone was diffident. 

"Only if we do a Viennese waltz."

He smiled. "Let's give it a try."  He took her hand and led her away.

***
Gina felt like she'd just been rescued.  Had she and Kari continued speaking, her mind would have been flooded with memories of firelight, and she truly would have started to cry.  She was glad to now be alone.  She needed to recover her equilibrium. 

She looked out to where Kari and Malory were standing.  That is what they were doing, even though music was playing; they were just standing.  Kari was looking down at the floor.  He was looking at her.

The song was instrumental, no singing.  It was beautiful and very slow.  The music of firelight.

Malory finally did something.  He put his hand on Kari's chin and slowly lifted her head.  Then he leaned over and whispered something in her ear.  It wasn't until she was looking right at him, their eyes locked, that he moved his body.  It was no more than a slight shift of his hip, a repositioning so subtle it was barely noticeable.  There followed more of the same: slight actions that were more akin to stillness than motion.

Kari seemed to understand what he was doing, and she began to follow his lead.  They weren't touching, and it would have been ludicrous to say that they were dancing. A head move, a shoulder move, a hip move, stillness -- that was all.  Finally Malory reached out an open hand and held it poised in mid-air.  Kari did the same, so that their hands were barely inches apart.  He touched her fingertips with his own.  They began to dance.

It wasn't long before Malory put his hands around Kari's waist and drew her toward him. Kari hesitated and then put her arms around his neck.  Her eyes were closed.  Gina knew what she was feeling.

The music seemed to be coming from far away.  Gina continued to watch, envying them the firelit closeness.

The song continued to play, but Malory was now changing the position of his hands, shifting them away from Kari's back.  The fingertips of his left brushed her arm, her neck, her cheek.  Both hands then settled lightly on her hips.  She opened her eyes and tilted her head back to look at him.

He suddenly stopped moving, even though the music was still playing.  For a few more moments their two bodies remained close together.  But then he removed his hands from her hips and took a step back.

It was as if he had become someone else.  A different man.  Or perhaps the same man displaced to a different time.

Kari took a step back as well.

Gina was no longer hearing the music.  She was instead hearing her own voice murmuring the words of a poet, T.S. Eliot:

At the still point of the turning world, there the dance is.  Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Kari had seemingly been captured by something.  Looking at her, Gina was seeing divine stillness.  Her body was manifesting the cessation of time.

Malory was immobile too.  Except for his eyes.  They were the only parts of him that had life.  They were on Kari's face.

Kari took another step backward.  Then she fled.  Moments later she was gone from the room.

Malory remained where he was.  He turned his head so as to be able to watch her go.  But the rest of him remained motionless.  Stillness, of some kind, had taken possession of his entire being.  

Gina stood up and made her way to his side.  He looked at her.  His face was that of a lost child.  She took him by the hand and led him back to the table.

It wasn't long before he too was gone.

Gina wondered where the two of them now were, Kari and Malory.  Outside somewhere.  She wished for them to be together, but she knew how unlikely this was.  The evening wasn't some fairy tale.

Malory and Kari would have companionship, but they wouldn't be with one another. Their companions would be stars.

The Excerpt | They took the high-speed train from Gare de Lyon to Perpignan, enjoying a modest dinner en route. At Perpignan, they changed to a shuttle for the short ride to Collioure. They found their hotel and checked in. Having agreed on an early start in the morning, they went straight to their separate rooms.

For Kari, the week passed in a blur. Some days they went hiking, others were spent cycling. For her this was Catalonia, not the région of Languedoc-Roussillon in France. It was where a red and gold flag stood high over medieval castles. It was where the kings of Majorca had wisely established their summer residences. It was where, on evenings just like the ones she and Malory were now enjoying, young and old alike danced the lively Sardane in the village squares. It was where men with faces lined by years and the sun still made a hard living fishing.

It was terraced vineyards, rolling hills, rocky capes, sun-drenched bays, and towering red cliffs. It was golden sands and promenades fanned by tamarisk and pink oleander. It was alleyways fragrant with jasmine and scrubland fragrant with rosemary. By day it was courtyards aflame with bougainvillea; by night it was balconies aglow with candles.

It was also home to a thousand wine cellars. Malory was delighted by this discovery. Kari, sipping cool soft drinks while he did his tasting, delighted in his delight.

It would be the perfect end to a perfect holiday. There was no need to go out. Instead, they could engage in discovery. They could discover each other. Kari imagined lovemaking followed by …

In Collioure, they stood in the very places that had so inspired Matisse. On a day of bike riding, they stopped to investigate the fortresses that had been built by Charles V to defend the coast. From the Col de la Fareille, they were able to see the ruins of Querroig Tower, built by tenth-century monks determined to keep a close watch on their properties. In Banyuls-sur-Mer, they passed an hour in an eleventh-century Romanesque church listening to a boys' choir, before going outside to listen to a different choir, this one made by the wind and the surrounding cypress trees. On their second-to-last day they hiked the massif de la Madeloc, following a rocky path that took them to a thirteenth-century watchtower almost two thousand feet above the sea. Here the Pyrenees and the waters of the Vermilion Coast were both visible, mountains falling into the sea, one vista.

When they weren't hiking or napping or cycling, they were eating and drinking. For breakfast, there was toast rubbed with fresh garlic and tomatoes, followed by dark coffee, made mellow by rich cream. For lunch, there were cheeses and fruits, hand-selected in the local market and enjoyed with long cool drinks. For dinner, Malory always chose a high-end restaurant, where they were often able to order a dozen or more seafood dishes, each one containing no more than a few bites, but combined so as to produce a delectable mix of flavours. Dinner, at least for him, was enjoyed with one of the local wines. Kari was content with water. He told her that he relished the unique blends of woodland and orchard; she told him that she relished the unique blends of snowland and creek. A lot of their time was spent laughing.

They planned to spend their last day in Port Vendres, the town named after the temple dedicated to Venus which overlooks the harbour. The evening of their arrival, they explored the harbour itself. It was flanked by the Pyrenees on three sides, and it offered a home to every kind of boat, from huge merchant ships to luxurious cruise yachts to humble barcos de pesca.

They got up early the next morning to find air so clear that they could look toward Andorra and see Mount Canigou. Malory suggested they go there, saying that Andorra was where he might establish the legal office of his syndicate. "Vienna is where I'll likely spend the bulk of my time, meeting clients and so on, but Andorra is where the syndicate could be registered, because it's a place where tax collectors and government regulators are few and far between. Trouble is, the dearth of these nuisances, in Andorra, means that office space there is at a premium. I've therefore decided to build my own. We should climb Mount Canigou and check out properties near the summit. A small stone hut would be ideal for the purposes I have in mind, doing the accounts, preparing the legal documents, and so on."

Kari didn't want any reminders that he would soon be residing on the other side of an ocean. She said she'd prefer a walk along the coast.

The walk took them to a small isolated bay, where they ate the lunch they had packed and watched another couple skinny-dipping.

After they got back to Port Vendres, they spent an hour enveloped in the divine quietness of Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle, the coral-coloured church that overlooks the northern end of the harbour. They emerged to see the day's catch being unloaded at the quay.

Malory raised the question of what they would do for dinner. Given that it was their last night, he suggested that they find the best restaurant in town.

Kari was tired of restaurants. She found them too noisy and too full of cigarette smoke. But she didn't want to say this, especially given how generous he'd been all week, indulging her every whim. She said she hoped it would be a quiet little place, with a terrace overlooking the sea.

"Will my lady be wanting anything else?" he said. 

"Maybe some troubadours, to entertain us."

"What nationality? Provençal, Celtic, Babylonian?"

She laughed. "Catalonian. A singer or two, accompanied by lute and mandola."  She was thinking of a performance Giorgio had once taken her to. It had been held at a church, and she'd been enthralled.

He was looking at her curiously. "What kind of songs?"

"The Cantigas de Santa Maria," Kari said. "They're hymns in praise of the Blessed Virgin, and there are hundreds of them. They were composed in Andalusia before the reconquista, so they blend Arabic and Spanish elements. They were collected in the thirteenth century by Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile. A few are extraordinarily beautiful."

"Like women who make roses seem prosaic," he said, looking at her in a way that only confused her.

She sipped her drink.

"And what better place to hear hymns to a virgin," Malory said, "than in a port village dedicated to the goddess of love."

"No place could be better."  

"How hungry are you?" he said.

"Right now, only a little. But later on I'll be starving. And I wouldn't mind a siesta before we go out."

"Save that somnolent thought for a second," he said. He crossed the street to the quayside where vendors in one-man stalls were selling freshly caught fish and seafood. Soon a dozen men were gathered around him, not just the vendors, but pescadores from the boats as well. They were all talking at once, gesticulating with their arms while they did so, a few taking off their sweat-stained caps and brandishing them as weapons. They were engaged in a multi-voice argument Kari was deaf to. But she was enjoying it anyway, watching how frequently Malory laughed, the men laughing with him, some clapping him on the arm or shoulder, Malory engaging in physical contact too, weird male bonding.

He finally came back to where she was standing. He said, "I think I've found your terrace overlooking the sea. Smoking is not allowed, and it promises the best cuisine on the whole of the Mediterranean Coast. The menu options include  langoustine, anchovies, calamari, mussels, and salmon."

"Sea bream too?" Kari said.

"You like sea bream?"

"Sea bream and baguettes," Kari said. "They're essentials."

"I'm sure they'll be able to accommodate us."

She smiled. "I'm sure they will."

"Knock on my door at seven-thirty," he said. "I'd offer to knock on yours, but since you're apt to be late, fussing with your hair, it would be better if I were to wait on you."

"I won't be fussing with my hair."

"I'd like to see it combed. And please wear a dress."  He was speaking facetiously. He wasn't aware that she owned a dress, the one Wendy had presented to her as a gift, and that was now hanging in the closet of her hotel room.

"I'm off to do more exploring," he said. "See you between seven-thirty and nine."  With that he strode away.

Kari felt a twinge of disappointment. She wished they were still together, her holding his arm, him leading her back to her room, the two of them going inside, closing the door behind them, undressing each other slowly, going to the bed…

It would be the perfect end to a perfect holiday. There was no need to go out. Instead, they could engage in discovery. They could discover each other. Kari imagined lovemaking followed by a nap, a slow awakening accompanied by gentle kisses, a call to room service, the arrival of an enormous platter of seafood, her moving it from the table to the bed and then getting undressed, Malory following her lead, the two of them enjoying their dinner while perfectly nude, allowing juices to spill down their chins and over their naked bodies, no dessert, more lovemaking instead.  Night would come without their noticing. They would drift into sleep wrapped in each other's arms.

She could never initiate such depravities, of course, and if he were to do so, then . . . then what? No need to think about it. No need to think about what wasn't going to happen.

When she did get back to her room, she spent a few minutes on the balcony, looking first at the pink-brick courtyard adorned with its orange trees, then at the Vermilion sea. After setting the alarm on her watch, she went to bed.

She slept and dreamt of him.

Ω

The Excerpt | The knock was quiet, diffident. Malory walked across the room and opened it. He tried not to stare. This was impossible.

He wondered if anyone had ever counted the many different shades of blue. He could launch the project now, as he continued to stare at Kari and her dress.

He wanted to say something. But because no words would be adequate, he remained silent. Which was perhaps just as well. He doubted that his voice was working.

The dress was loose-fitting and it came down to her knees. He couldn't tell what the fabric was. Perhaps it was pima cotton: soft. He suggested this. He knew his voice sounded hoarse. He prayed that she wouldn't ask if he was ill.

"No," she said. "But you're close. It's cotton brocade. In Mali, where it's produced, they call it bazin. It's the best dyed cloth in the world."

Malory believed this. The colours were impossible to name. All were beautiful, but none as beautiful as her eyes.

He wanted to ask her how she knew about Mali bazin, but he thought better of it. "It's a pretty dress," he said. His inadequacy, as a man able to compliment a woman, had reached a new low.

He asked her if she was enjoying the wine. She was on her second glass. "I enjoy being seduced," she replied.

"Thank you," she said. Her cheeks were flushed. "It was a gift . . . from Wendy. She helped me pick it out. Or rather, she took me to an expert who knows something about Mali brocade. Wendy's contribution to the decision exercise was to tell me that the only two wardrobe necessities, for a woman, are jeans and a cocktail dress."

"It's not exactly a cocktail dress," Malory said.

"We compromised," Kari said.

His eyes now went to her hair. She was letting it grow longer. The silver-gold curls, if turned to music, would have baffled Mozart. 

"Will you come in?" he said. "Our table is ready."

She looked at him questioningly. He took her hand and led her to the balcony. A table was there. On one corner was a bottle of Castillo Perelada. Two big glasses were on the other side, standing next to a corkscrew and a cork. In the distance, sun was setting behind low hills. Closer by, water was visible, blushing to match the colour of the wine.

After inviting her to sit down, he said, "I wish I could offer you a glass of the local wine. It's very good."

"You can offer me a glass of the local wine," she said. "I was once taught that to never break a rule is to be a prig."

"Someday you will have to tell me about these teachers of yours."

"The one who taught me to break rules was a defrocked Jesuit. He loves wine, especially when it's accompanied by medieval hymns."

Giorgio Toscani, Malory thought, partially filling the two glasses.

He sat down himself. "Wine accompanied by hymns? I can see why the Jesuits might have become impatient with him."

"Yes. He's a man who . . ."

Malory could see that she wanted to say more, to allow her heart to pour out. She could probably talk about Giorgio Toscani all night, but if she did that, she'd start to cry, and she might reveal too much, explain why she and the teacher she loved were now forced to lead separate lives. This was something she couldn't risk. She was Karina Qadira no more. She was Kari LaMarca, and she couldn't allow anyone to see through that disguise.

He said, "Dinner will be along shortly."

She nodded and turned her head to look out across the sea. She wasn't seeing the brightly painted boats but rather the port of Tangier or perhaps the beckoning tower of Cap Spartel. She was also seeing memories and a gateway connecting to a road that would take her home. 

Malory enjoyed just looking at her. The skin of her exposed neck was tanned the colour of caramel, with a slight tinge of pink.

When she faced him again, he told her about the dinner they were about to have, explaining that he had taken the liberty of choosing from the large menu he had described to her earlier. "Instead of a banquete, I thought we should have a modest cena: calamari seasoned with pepper and herbs; sea bream, roasted with bay leaf and lemon and fennel; steamed asparagus; tomato slices; and a fresh baguette with salted butter. My friends from the docks assure me it will be better than anything we can get in a restaurant."

She smiled. "I'm sure it will be."  Her lips were pink and slightly parted, her teeth more dazzling than sunlit snow.

She again looked out toward North Africa. Malory felt under no obligation to keep a conversation going. It was one more of the many things he loved about being with her. She was content with silence. 

For a long time they didn't speak. They just sipped their wine and immersed themselves in the Beautiful. Kari was looking at the Vermillion sea; he was looking at her.

The dinner was brought to them, not by one of the men from the quay, but by a middle-aged woman. She arrived at their door with a large cart that held serving dishes as well as some sort of propane apparatus designed to keep everything warm. Kari, speaking what sounded like Catalan, said something to her. The woman seemed pleased.

Malory, speaking French, thanked her. He said they would not be needing anything more. This was an understatement. There was enough food for a full platoon.

After the woman left, Kari said to him, "Thank you for doing this."

"You're welcome," he said, adding that it had been very hard labour. "All that fishing. All that scaling and cleaning and chopping. All that fooling around with herbs and pans and ovens."

She laughed and began to eat. She chose each tiny morsel thoughtfully, and she took the time to savour every one.

He asked her if she was enjoying the wine. She was on her second glass.

"I enjoy being seduced," she replied.

He was unnerved, until her bright red cheeks told him that she'd said the words without thinking. He said, "It's good that rules can be broken."

"Very good."

The music didn't start until the evening light had turned from amber to gold.

Malory listened for a while and then said, "You were right, they are very beautiful, these cantigas."

Kari stood up, the better to look down at the enclosed courtyard where the five musicians had taken up a position next to one of the orange trees. After a time she sat down again, and she turned to look at him. Her eyes were wet.

When the first set ended, Malory stood up himself, intending to say something to the musicians. But it wasn't necessary. The balcony they were on wasn't the only one overlooking the courtyard. Applause and bravos rang out from several others. He and Kari simply joined in.

He didn't know how long the musicians stayed. It was well after dark when they left.

There were things he had to discuss with Kari. But now was not the time. There would be lots of time tomorrow, when they were on the train back to Paris. He lit the single candle on the table and said, "I'm sorry. The singing ended too soon."

She said, "Everything that is lovely ends too soon."

"This is true," he said.

He did not understand what happened next. Had they been on film, viewers would have said that nothing happened next. They looked at each other. They looked away. They fiddled with their drinks. They mumbled a few words. They looked at each other some more.

At some point Kari simply left and returned to her own room. After she was gone, he tried to recall what they had said to one another. He failed. Perhaps they had said nothing of any import. They had been otherwise occupied, just listening to the cantigas, which had been playing back to them, the singers now occupying their souls, suffusing their entire beings with feelings.

But what feelings? 

He didn't know.

Ω

The Excerpt | Malory was perplexed by Kari's stubbornness. Even though the weather was worsening, she gave no indication that she was willing to stop climbing.

The part of the ridge they were now on was wide, so they were able to walk side by side. She repeated a remark she'd made earlier. She said that they should resolve their differences regarding Ceyx and Alcyone.

Malory still didn't understand why this particular story mattered to her so much. Earlier he'd joked that he was intending to make his Atlantic crossing comfortably berthed in a single-masted boat, the kind that was once used to transport Greek kings. That was perhaps the reason.

"A perfect discussion to have on a grim day," he said. "Theirs is a grim tale."

"No, it isn't. The rainbow goddess Iris made it a happy one. It's why we must now await her arrival."

Kari now began telling him why the Ceyx and Alcyone myth was the very opposite of grim.

Malory grew increasingly puzzled. The story he knew was the one Ovid presented in his Metamorphoses. Ceyx was the king of Trachis in Central Greece. Alcyone was his beautiful queen. They loved one another deeply, and he wanted to always have her at his side. But he began to observe certain portents that boded trouble for his kingdom, which had long benefited from the peace he brought and the justice with which he ruled. So he decided he would sail to distant Ionia and consult the Oracle of Apollo. Alcyone begged him not to make the voyage, because she, better than most, knew how dangerous it would be; her father was Aeolus, the god who controlled the winds, and she was familiar with the power of the tempests he could unleash. But Ceyx went anyway, believing it was his duty. That was the end of their happiness.

Her response was to lean into him. He extended his right arm behind her shoulders and pulled her closer.

Kari seemed to be confused about these elementary facts. Malory was of course aware that he might be the one who was confused. He said, "If I'm following you correctly, you're eager to see Iris because of the work she did, helping Alcyone to deal with the fact that Ceyx's voyage to Ionia ended so tragically."

"That's right," she said. "She'll do the same for us. She'll make everything come up roses."

Malory was now even more puzzled. What tragedy could possibly befall the two of them? And why had Kari recalled the story of Alcyone and Ceyx in the first place? It was the last one he'd pick if he was focusing on how he and Kari would soon be separated by an ocean.

"Bringing them together wasn't Iris's task," Kari. "They couldn't be reunited, because Ceyx was dead. At some point during that voyage his ship was wrecked in a storm, and he drowned. Alcyone, who had anticipated that a shipwreck might happen, began spending her days at the beach, staring anxiously across the waters, looking for a ship to appear on the horizon. She also prayed to Juno, beseeching her to return her husband safely to his home. Juno took pity on her and told her messenger Iris to arrange for Alcyone to learn the bitter truth, so that she would stop spending her days longing for the impossible. Iris did as she was instructed, and the upshot was that Alcyone saw Ceyx's lifeless body near the shore, floating toward her, propelled by the waves. Alcyone tore at her hair and face and garments. She then threw herself into the sea, seeking to join him in death."

"No," Kari said. "She was dead before Iris set forth on her mission. For Alcyone, it was the death of unknowing: not knowing where Ceyx was, or what had happened to him, or whether he would ever return. Iris, relying on dreams, saved her from this fate. As you might recall, Alcyone and Ceyx are alive to this day. And they're together."

 "They're alive as birds, Kari. As kingfishers, sometimes known as halcyons."

"Yes," Kari said. "And they're happy. We don't speak of halcyon days for nothing. Alcyone and Ceyx kept their love to the end, and it will endure forever. That is what the poet promises us."

Love that will endure even after death. Malory could easily believe in this.

He stopped walking and said, "Not to be pedantic, but halcyon days is a plural noun, and if I recall the etymology correctly, it derives from the fact that Alcyone's father Aeolus sometimes plays nice. Alcyone truly was a kingfisher, and that meant she had to lay eggs and tend to them while they hatched. Aeolus one day noticed her preparing her nest on a beach, and he responded by restraining his winds, so that the nest wouldn't be destroyed by the waves. He promised his daughter that he would keep them calm for seven whole days. These are what later became known as the halcyon days. Today isn't one of them, obviously. As you might have noticed, the wind here is getting worse. And from the look of the sky, the drizzle now sprinkling down on us will soon be replaced by a full-blown rainstorm. If we start our descent now, and if we're granted one more halcyon hour, we'll avoid getting drenched." 

"I'd like to keep climbing," Kari said. "At least for a little while. Is that okay?"

She was still hoping to catch a glimpse of Iris the rainbow goddess, messenger of Juno, unlikely though that prospect was. He said, "It's perfectly okay."

They persevering in their climb. Neither of them was speaking. The only sounds were of rocks crunching and sliding beneath their boots. Mysteriously, the drizzle was abating, and the wind had stopped.

A few moments later, the drizzle stopped as well. Only a thin mist remained. Malory looked up at the sky. It was possible that Helios would soon show himself. Malory willed this to happen.

They arrived at a spot of ground where a few trees and flowers had taken root among some rocks. Malory thought he could smell roses.

Their position offered them an unobstructed view of the lake. They sat down on one of the rocks. It was flat but smallish, not more than eighteen inches wide; they were so close he could feel Kari's warmth.

He was smelling her too: a scent not unlike that of a rose, only more pure and more lovely. She was on his right. He reached across his chest with his left hand, removed her baseball cap, and combed her hair with his fingers. 

Her response was to lean into him. He extended his right arm behind her shoulders and pulled her closer.

Her gaze was directed downward. She said, "Iris is about to grace us with some ballet."

Malory looked down too, and it took him a few moments before he grasped what Kari was talking about. Below them was a nest of clouds, out of which a rainbow was emerging. The goddess, who moments before had been a chrysalis, was now taking wing. Released from her cloud-suspended sac, she danced upward toward them in a multi-hued arc before turning downward and extending her wondrous being into the waters of the lake.

A rainbow at his feet. Malory marvelled and said, "There are some who believe that Iris continues to play the role that Juno assigned to her. She helps the living to connect with the dead."

"She's also a goddess who affirms the Good," Kari said. "She arrives after the storm, and she carries with her a promise — one that will never be broken."

"This is why she shows herself so seldom," Malory said.

"Seldom isn't never." She was holding him more tightly now.

Malory glanced upward toward the sky, which was still mostly grey. He saw two birds, flying side by side. He thought they might be kingfishers. 

Shifting his eyes to Kari's face, he saw yearning. He also observed that her soul was somehow bringing delight to the drops of mist that were vying for purchase on her other-world face.

He shifted his gaze once more, so that he was again looking downward toward the lake. Iris was before them, conjuring her dance, making them a promise.

Ω