and the days went by, the summer passed over erl, the sun that had travelled northward fared south again, it was near to the time when the swallows left those eaves, and lirazel had not learnt anything. she had not prayed to the stars again, or supplicated their images, but she had learned no human customs, and could not see why her love and gratitude must remain unexpressed to the stars. and alveric did not know that the time must come when some simple trivial thing would divide them utterly.
and then one day, hoping still, he took her with him to the house of the freer to teach her how to worship his holy things. and gladly the good man brought his candle and bell, and the eagle of brass that held up his book when he read, and a little symbolic bowl that had scented water, and the silver snuffers that put his candle out. and he told her clearly and simply, as he had told her before, the origin, meaning and mystery of all these things, and why the bowl was of brass and the snuffer of silver, and what the symbols were that were carved on the bowl. with fitting courtesy he told her these things, even with kindness; and yet there was something in his voice as he told, a little distant from her; and she knew that he spoke as one that walked safe on shore calling far to a mermaid amid dangerous seas.
as they came back to the castle the swallows were grouped to go, sitting in lines along the battlements. and lirazel had promised to worship the holy things of the freer, like the simple bell-fearing folk of the valley of erl: and a late hope was shining in alveric's mind that even yet all was well. and for many days she remembered all that the freer had told her.
and one day walking late from the nursery, past tall windows to her tower, and looking out on the evening, remembering that she must not worship the stars, she called to mind the holy things of the freer, and tried to remember all she was told of them. it seemed so hard to worship them just as she should. she knew that before many hours the swallows would all be gone; and often when they left her her mood would change; and she feared that she might forget, and never remember more, how she ought to worship the holy things of the freer.
so she went out into the night again over the grasses to where a thin brook ran, and drew out some great flat pebbles that she knew where to find, turning her face away from the images of the stars. by day the stones shone beautifully in the water, all ruddy and mauve; now they were all dark. she drew them out and laid them in the meadow: she loved these smooth flat stones, for somehow they made her remember the rocks of elfland.
she laid them all in a row, this for the candlestick, this for the bell, that for the holy bowl. "if i can worship these lovely stones as things ought to be worshipped," she said, "i can worship the things of the freer."
then she kneeled down before the big flat stones and prayed to them as though they were christom things.
and alveric seeking her in the wide night, wondering what wild fancy had carried her whither, heard her voice in the meadow, crooning such prayers as are offered to holy things.
when he saw the four flat stones to which she prayed, bowed down before them in the grass, he said that no worse than this were the darkest ways of the heathen. and she said "i am learning to worship the holy things of the freer."
"it is the art of the heathen," he said.
now of all things that men feared in the valley of erl they feared most the arts of the heathen, of whom they knew nothing but that their ways were dark. and he spoke with the anger which men always used when they spoke there of the heathen. and his anger went to her heart, for she was but learning to worship his holy things to please him, and yet he had spoken like this.
and alveric would not speak the words that should have been said, to turn aside anger and soothe her; for no man, he foolishly thought, should compromise in matters touching on heathenesse. so lirazel went alone all sadly back to her tower. and alveric stayed to cast the four flat stones afar.
and the swallows left, and unhappy days went by. and one day alveric bade her worship the holy things of the freer, and she had quite forgotten how. and he spoke again of the arts of heathenesse. the day was shining and the poplars golden and all the aspens red.
then lirazel went to her tower and opened the casket, that shone in the morning with the clear autumnal light, and took in her hand the rune of the king of elfland, and carried it with her across the high vaulted hall, and came to another tower and climbed its steps to the nursery.
and there all day she stayed and played with her child, with the scroll still tight in her hand: and, merrily though she played at whiles, yet there were strange calms in her eyes, which ziroonderel watched while she wondered. and when the sun was low and she had put the child to bed she sat beside him all solemn as she told him childish tales. and ziroonderel, the wise witch, watched; and for all her wisdom only guessed how it would be, and knew not how to make it otherwise.
and before sunset lirazel kissed the boy and unrolled the elf king's scroll. it was but a petulance that had made her take it from the coffer in which it lay, and the petulance might have passed and she might not have unrolled the scroll, only that it was there in her hand. partly petulance, partly wonder, partly whims too idle to name, drew her eyes to the elf king's words in their coal-black curious characters.
and whatever magic there was in the rune of which i cannot tell (and dreadful magic there was), the rune was written with love that was stronger than magic, till those mystical characters glowed with the love that the elf king had for his daughter, and there were blended in that mighty rune two powers, magic and love, the greatest power there is beyond the boundary of twilight with the greatest power there is in the fields we know. and if alveric's love could have held her he should have trusted alone to that love, for the elf king's rune was mightier than the holy things of the freer.
no sooner had lirazel read the rune on the scroll than fancies from elfland began to pour over the border. some came that would make a clerk in the city to-day leave his desk at once to dance on the sea-shore; and some would have driven all the men in a bank to leave doors and coffers open and wander away till they came to green open land and the heathery hills; and some would have made a poet of a man, all of a sudden as he sat at his business. they were mighty fancies that the elf king summoned by the force of his magical rune. and lirazel sat there with the rune in her hand, helpless amongst this mass of tumultuous fancies from elfland. and as the fancies raged and sang and called, more and more over the border, all crowding on one poor mind, her body grew lighter and lighter. her feet half rested half floated, upon the floor; earth scarcely held her down, so fast was she becoming a thing of dreams. no love of hers for earth, or of the children of earth for her, had any longer power to hold her there.
and now came memories of her ageless childhood beside the tarns of elfland, by the deep forest's border, by those delirious lawns, or in the palace that may not be told of except only in song. she saw those things as clearly as we see small shells in water, looking through clear ice down to the floor of some sleeping lake, a little dimmed in that other region across the barrier of ice; so too her memories shone a little dimly from across the frontier of elfland. little queer sounds of elfin creatures came to her, scents swam from those miraculous flowers that glowed by the lawns she knew, faint sounds of enchanted songs blew over the border and reached her seated there, voices and melodies and memories came floating through the twilight, all elfland was calling. then measured and resonant, and strangely near, she heard her father's voice.
she rose at once, and now earth had lost on her the grip that it only has on material things, and a thing of dreams and fancy and fable and phantasy she drifted from the room; and ziroonderel had no power to hold her with any spell, nor had she herself the power even to turn, even to look at her boy as she drifted away.
and at that moment a wind came out of the north-west, and entered the woods and bared the golden branches, and danced on over the downs, and led a company of scarlet and golden leaves, that had dreaded this day but danced now it had come; and away with a riot of dancing and glory of colour, high in the light of the sun that had set from the sight of the fields, went wind and leaves together. with them went lirazel.
