Chapter XXI: Forgetting Regan

The years passed changelessly in the Sun Island, an emotionless period of waiting, only serving to make her forget the past, forget everything which she ought to remember, Rondah thought.

She knew that in the continual perusal and study of the great books she was forgetting all else, knew that her very soul was changing character from them. When once in those books she had read words, it was impossible to forget them. The thoughts which were explained to her there were limitless, unpuzzled, perfectly finished. She never lost herself when trying to follow the mazes of her mind’s flight.

But, when she tried to think back, it was a dim remembrance, as one remembers a far-away dream. She could not sorrow deeply. Alone, she was never even lonely; there was the constant song humming in the air. It cheered her.

If the stranger were on the island, she never saw him. She concluded that he was asleep with the rest. She knew that the slumber came suddenly and irresistibly upon all.

The pink of Jupiter’s kiss had shimmered in the brilliance of the isle for months when there came into it a faint green tinge.

“I wonder if it is almost spring?” thought Rondah, looking up at the amber cliffs half-covered with diamond-leaved forests. “I wonder if it is almost spring?” and she looked longingly away at the one rift in the burning garnet walls, where beyond them she could see the purple sea and reddish froth. No more was it cold, icy and dark.

For a moment, with its old, terrible intensity, her heart woke to its misery, but only to still heavily again.

A step sounded on the soft leaves beside her.

“Regan!” she cried, gladly, and sprang to her feet.

No, no; it was that stranger, emerald and glistening and of angelic countenance.

“Is it spring now?” asked Rondah, without preliminary. Perhaps he had come to take her home!

“It is winter, drear, dead, white winter. No one has awakened yet.”

“Have you seen him?”

“Whom?”

“Regan!”

“No. I have searched the star and all the palace. I have not seen him.”

But this was false, for as the stranger entered again the island, from which he had been walled all these years, he had passed where Regan was lying. Even as he spoke, and with so radiant a face, he remembered where he lay, his black hair frozen into the drifts, one hand, with Rondah’s note crushed in its icy grasp, close to his heart, the other helplessly frozen at the base of that wall. He was certain that he should not be perplexed by his immediate presence. Still, he had admired his perseverance and pitied, almost, his human weakness when he had fallen.

Within these lovely vales once more with Rondah beside him, he cared little for the man of Earth, asleep in the snow outside the wall.

“We shall both be glad when spring is come, Rondah! I shall return to my own dear world. Will you remain forever in the Sun Island or go out into your little lava land again?”

“Oh, not here! I shall go home. How much longer must I wait?”

“Very long yet!”

“Very long?”

“I have been here now almost thirty-three years. This star, with all that it contains, or will ever contain, is not to be compared with one of the lesser mountains of my world! I was sent from it to bring home a spirit which is so powerful that it can carry through my world and to all its satellites the truths of revelation! I was told who she was, and specially selected to come for her!”

The stranger paused.

“Where is she?” questioned Rondah; she was only thinking: “Very long yet before spring, and I am forgetting, all the time forgetting Regan!”

“She is fairer than earthly women, mightier than all earth’s armies, than all its millions, for she can save nations, yes, worlds of men from Godless darkness. The fate of my sun and all its dependents is on her!”

“It is a strange, grand mission,” said Rondah, “greater than ours of humanity. Why do you waste these many years, while souls die, to find her?”

Then she forgot him in remembering the revelations of the books, what she had learned regarding some of the constellations, with their beginning, endurance and destinies. It was very likely. Revelations were to every world, but to none alike; they were taught by many differing agencies.

“She will surely go to my sun, for she is good and merciful. She is a wholly righteous spirit.”

“You should find her at once. Souls perish while you wait!” said Rondah.

“I have found her!”

“Where is she?” again questioned Rondah.

“People do not know their brightest destinies. Is not this a bewildering opportunity for one to offer to man’s ambition—a constellation, its ruling, its splendor and its salvation? Is not the bait tempting—the bait of worlds and souls?”

“I suppose so—to some,” answered Rondah. “I presume that to Regan such an opportunity would be impossible of rejection. If only Regan had such a sun as that!”

Then upon the stranger’s face there flashed a malignant lightning; his eyes shot phosphorescent, baleful gleams; but the expression fled in an instant, and Rondah saw it not.

“There the hills are diamonds, the rivers gold, the leaves of rose hue and fragrance. The great plains are of silver sheen.

“There merely human eyes would be blinded by the splendor. In the vast, jeweled cities there are the homes of men, the prosperity, excitement, learning, love and enjoyments of Earth. There are real people with noble hearts, perfect souls, intellects of powerful capacity, not baby bird men! There are huge and beautiful beasts, which are harnessed for men’s pleasure! The mighty and magnificent race are not of vegetable growth, who need this one spirit to save them!

“The sun is Jupiter! When it is so near that you can go back, it will be spring—time for Regan to wake. The sun is Jupiter! This star is lost among its satellites!”

Like bewitching music fell his words.

“Destiny is foreordained. The spirit whom I love will go. My measureless love for her is part of that ruling; her love for me must follow as fate!”

“Then you love this spirit? If so, I am sorry that you have sought her thirty-three years. You know how long have been these drear winter years for me, while Regan sleeps in the snow outside the wall!”

There was a shuddering cry; from the air or clouds it seemed. It was like a laugh, a wail, some moan of a lost soul. It frightened Rondah.

She caught the momentary flash of hideous wrath on the man’s face, but it was so quickly gone that she was not certain she saw it.

“Will you accept your mission, Rondah?”

“I?”

“It is for you to save these souls!”

“I shall stay in Regan’s star!”

“This dwarf realm is only a stepping-stone toward a higher throne. Not here is your sphere, with bird men and women. Up there they wait for you!”

He raised his hand and the clouds above them cleared away; beyond the gold they saw Jupiter; his fiery globe was splotched with great, glowing surfaces of yellow.

“Do you see them? Those are my golden lakes. The little, smooth, green moon near the star is one of the satellites which you can save. It is small, but three times the size of this star.”

Rondah answered nothing.

“That beautiful world has perishing multitudes. They wait for you, Rondah! Will you lose them their salvation for one man of Earth? You are waiting for one merely human. I am of a race more powerful, as my world is greater. You alone can reveal the truths to these worlds. You must teach them, save them. Rondah, Rondah, why do you not look at me?”

His strong, white hands clutched the air beside her, but they could not touch the woman of Earth.

“Rondah, you are the spirit, you are my love!”

“Do you not know I do not love you?” said Rondah, quietly. “Does one so mighty know so little of human hearts?”

“All my worlds are yours. Surely, you must take them. From their creation the scheme of their existence was for you!”

Like a caress the light of ruby and of green fell upon Rondah’s coronet and kissed her red-gold braids. Her pale, perfect face was pink with the light. Her lovely eyes burned with the glory of both colors.

“I will not go! I will stay in Regan’s star!”

Slow, very slow, her answer, as if a sort of paralysis had touched her.

“He is a foe to Regan,” whispered her wifely faith, “triumphant and gorgeous while Regan is asleep in winter helplessness. Thank Heaven it is the last winter!”

“I hate you!” whispered her heart; almost her lips uttered the words.

“I love you!” cried the man, with an awful prayer in his voice. “I have waited years for a smile or a word. I will not return to my sun without you! Oh! come to your fate with me! You will come, Rondah, you will come?”

And now he caught her hands and turned her reluctant eyes to look at him.

It was not of duty—her strength—for duty with its care was forgotten in the dulling peace of the Sun Island. Love’s might was asleep from the same influence. No strength came from the puny star on which she stood. Rondah felt the words of this man’s speaking move her soul like Heaven. An ambition, which was the most powerful characteristic of her humanity, was wakened into quick, living unrest by his picture of the glorious world. His clinging hands seemed to hold her as a bond miraculous. Dead—faith, hope, trust, love—all dead with the Sun Island’s peace and the star’s cold!

Ah, it was from that Earth, that grand old Earth, away in space, remote, lost! It was the stern, narrow-fenced faith of her childhood which came now and stood in her heart and made her able to break all bonds of this unholy forging—that faith at which Regan had scoffed so often when it upheld Father Renaudin years before. It saved Rondah, his wife, when she had almost forgotten Regan.

“Never! I will not come!” she said, but she spoke so low, so hoarsely, that only the stranger heard it. “My God, my God, help me in this star! Come quickly, else I lose my soul!”

Ah, that was a cry which it seemed all the stars might hear. The brilliance lifted above the skylike fog, and all the snowy wastes outside were visible. There were troops of awakened bird people flinging themselves in flocks against the wall. There were ranks of elf men raging and hammering at the wall. There was Regan awake, desperately trying to break down the barrier. There was Father Renaudin hastening to the spot from the far distant palace.

Rondah did not see that the clouds had lifted but all the Star saw her, saw her with cries of horror and despair, and with increase of futile rage.

“You will go, oh, Rondah! I cannot leave you forever! I love you!”

“Go, go!” cried Rondah. “I will never leave the star!”

There was again that shuddering wail. An agony was in its sound which woke all the other sleepers in the snow. It was the wail of lost souls!

The man turned away, dashing Rondah’s hands from his hold. He flung shiny wings, which were hidden ’neath his robe, into the air, and in a second was in the clouds, his superb beauty changed to a loathsome darkness, his face grinning and horrid, as with his hands he clutched at her—the woman alone on the Sun Island. He howled at her and he shrieked at her.

The sky began to flicker with lights; these changed to seraphic faces. A thrilling, tremendous chorus of words sounded in the air around:

“Blessed art thou, woman of Earth! Millions of souls hast thou saved this day!”

Then it faded. The air was silent. The music of the Sun Island was dead forever.

Then came a crash as of icebergs breaking. The wall had fallen. Father Renaudin had rushed to it and struck it with his staff of glass. The staff fell shattered in a thousand pieces, but the wall fell too, for the time of angels and of spirits was past in the star. The days of its revelations were ended. It was Rondah’s star, and other instruments were not needed for its progression.

Regan in despair had dropped down as the stranger had flown. The elf men, bringing Regan, the bird men and Father Renaudin all rushed across the lava path, which the winter convulsions had uplifted from the water. They surrounded Rondah. They laid Regan at her feet. Jupiter’s day ended. Night fell.

Rondah sank upon her knees and, lifting his head in her arms, pressed kisses on Regan’s cold lips.

“He is dead! he is dead! Let time die, too, that I need not leave him!” she sobbed, and a moan of sympathy burst from the saddened hearts of the bird women. The elf men wept and wailed.

“No, not dead,” said Father Renaudin, “only overcome by the helpless horror of looking. He thought you would go. I thought you would go—the Star and all the angels thought you would go. It is an old, old tempter in a new sphere. You have saved a world from falling, Rondah. Your mission is here only. Jupiter is a fiery ball, unfit for life except of demons.”

Regan opened his eyes at last, slowly, wearily.

“Here,” he cried, with a half-sob, “here—not gone, not left me for a world of diamond mountains with golden rivers!” And he clasped Rondah in his ice-cold arms.

With all the anguish of the years in her voice, Rondah replied:

“Not for a universe of worlds, not for Heaven, until I must!”