Yet she to have no fear concerning this
thing; but to feel in her spirit that it did be a force that had no evil
intent unto us; but more, neither she nor I to know; and I, in truth, to
come in the end used to it; save that I did be, as I have told, anxious
in all that did concern the life and well-being of My Beloved. And so did we go onward through those eight days. And it soon to be grown cold, so that we both to need the cloak over us
in our slumbers; but in the journey-hours to need naught; for the
upward-going did surely heat us very well. And there also to be come presently a change and a seeming of thinness
into the air; and the Maid to remark upon this, and likewise that the
water-powder now to be that it not to fizz so plentiful. And we went upward, as it did seem forever, and journeyed very husht
and steadfast; and likewise did halt at set times, that we eat and
drink; and did alway sit then very close and quiet and in love. And so
alway to go never beyond sixteen hours' journey each day, and very
weariful even so much; for it to be a sore and constant labour of
climbing. And I to learn the hour alway, by a little shining of the Diskos upon my
time-dial, which I have told did be somewise as the watch of this our
present Age. Yet, truly, I also to learn that I made somewhat of a
constant number of forward-throws of the stone in an hour; and the Maid
to be the first to discover this, as she did creep behind me and harked
steadfast and quiet unto the clatter of the stone, each time that I cast
it. And she sometimes to call low to me that it now to be this time or
that time; and I to look at my Dial, as I have told, and oft to find
that she did be curiously right. Yet otherwhiles, we to have no thought to count; but made a constant
husht talk one to the other; and did grow odd times, that it did seem to
us that we did be two spirits there in an Everlasting Darkness, that had
quiet speech one to the other, and to be seeming gone from our bodies. And we then to need that we look each at the other, that we know truly
that we yet to live and to be indeed with the Beloved. And I then alway
to make the Diskos spin a little, yet something more than when I should
see the hour; and, in verity, our faces then to show pale and strange
seeming in that luminous glowing of the great weapon in the Darkness;
and we to look very eager and an hungered of love, each at the other;
and so to need that we be held loving by the Beloved, and so to have
comfort and assuredness; and afterward to have peace to go onward again. And it did be one such time as these, that Mine Own to give me a love
name she had called me in those olden days of _this_ Age; and which
surely I had not heard since Mirdath died. And, in verity, you to have
dear understanding with me, how that I then to be all troubled with
vague troubles and ghostly love-aches in the heart; and likewise, I did
be all set about in a moment by the olden enchantment and speechless
glamour that did be so long hid and lost in the Spaces of Memory, where
surely the spirit doth wander such oddwhiles, husht unto a dumb
tearlessness and to know in the same moment both Agony and the voiceless
Glory and lost Delight of the Hath-Been; so that it doth be as that you
wandered in the spirit between the sorrowful pain of the Sunset, and the
Promise of the Dawn which doth be builded upon the Need and Hope of the
soul, and doth also to have an essence of pain within it; because that
these do be knit with Longing which doth be the essential pang of
Memory. And so, mayhap, you to have gone with me; for you to have also
strange thoughts that do come out of the years, and do hurt the heart,
even whilst that the heart doth hunger of that which doth so pain. Yet,
truly, Mine Own did be now with me, as you do know so that I had joy
all about my heart; yet did all the years of my lost delights and of my
pain, be in the spaces of my memory, and Mine Own now to have stirred
all; so that no words that did be ever shaped of man should help me to
have ease in speech. And Mine Own Maid to know how it did be with me; and she to have said
the thing, scarce wotting, even as her spirit did set it through her
lips; and she before then to have forgot so utter as I; and now she to
be stirred likewise with me; so that, in verity, we to hold hands in the
great Darkness upon the Slope, and to wait till the pain and strange
trouble did go somewhat from our hearts; and we to have power again to
know truly that we did be again together in sweet verity, after a mighty
Eternity. And thus did we go, and even in that strange Night to have an
everlasting coming together; so that surely our two spirits to be nigh
made one, somewise; and this to be that sweet and holy thing which I do
name Love; and it to be my glory and Astonishment that Love hath come
unto me. And with you that have love, I am as a Brother in holy delight;
but with all that have not known Love, or to have missed Love, I am a
Mourner, and my heart to pray that they to know this Wonder, ere they
die; for else shall they die so green and bitter as they be born, and to
have grown nowise unto Ripeness, which doth be Charity--the end of life
and the Crown of Humanity. And surely I to go forward again now with my telling. And you to know
that on the eighth day upon the Slope, about the end of the ninth hour,
there to be an upward seeming of light, afar before us in the Darkness,
and did show as a dull and vague sheen above us in the night. And truly,
I to know that we did be come at last a-near unto the Night Land. And we went upward then very eager through the dark; and the dim shine
did grow, ever; so that we soon to see it very plain, as a looming of
light afar upward. And we ever to climb and to go onward. And lo! in the
fourteenth hour of that day, we came up slowly out of the Night upon the
Slope, and stood at the ending of that strange road Where The Silent
Ones Walk. And surely it did be as that I was come home, and to have set my feet
again upon familiar Lands; and this to bring to you how far off I did
seem to have gone; and now to be come again to a Known Place. And we went upward upon the Road, until that we did truly have topt the
Slope, and at last to look out over all the wonder and mystery of that
Land. And I never to be rid of the utter gladness of knowing that I was
come there again, after so strange a journey, and that Mine Own had I
brought with me, out of all the unknown world. Yet, truly, I also never
to have forgetting that this familiar Land of Strangeness did be the
last test and the greatest dreadfulness of our journey; and anxiousness
did hang upon me; for I now to have to take the preciousness of Mine Own
among and beyond all that Danger of Horrid Forces and of Monstrous
Things and Beast Men, and the like. And truly, I did be like to trouble.