The Last Days Of The Edge Of The World Read Free

that was good and bright out there now.
    In the far west the sun was sinking towards the towers of Heliopolis, which lay beyond the horizon. It would still be lighting the cities of the New World, standing high above the Western Empire, bright and beautiful in a coach of fine, white clouds.
    “Look,” said Sirion Hilversun, softly. “Here we stand by the world’s very edge, forgotten people in a forgotten land. To the east there is the great cliff, and chaos… a grey emptiness that walls us in. To the west there are whole continents free from all the terrors and uncertainties that haunt our land–-“
    “It wasn’t like that once,” said Helen, interrupting him.
    The enchanter smiled. “Perhaps,” he said. “But that was before either of us were born. You and I came into a world that was already lost, already wrecked by the wars of enchantment. It’s the only world you and I have ever known. It’s the only magical world there is, now. Perhaps, once, there was a Golden Age… but when you get to my age you’ll wonder. To me, it doesn’t matter. I’ve lived my life as I chose. But for you, I think there has to be something better. Something brighter.”
    “But don’t you see,” said Helen, “your kind of life is the kind of life I want to live. It’s what I choose. I love Moonmansion. I want to stay here.”
    “But it’s all you’ve ever known,” said Sirion Hilversun. “How can you know?”
    Helen looked out of the window. She leaned over the sill, looking out towards Methwold forest, searching the
    deepening evening for the shadows of the forgotten city of Ora Lamae. There, it was true, was decay and desolation. It was not a pleasant place. Nor, for that matter, was Methwold itself, which was dark green from without and black and dry within. Such places no longer existed in the Western World, save as myths and legends and the stuff of nightmares. She couldn’t honestly say that she liked them, but she was used to them. She knew them. They were real.
    “I don’t want to go away,” she whispered.
    “You owe it to yourself,” said Sirion Hilversun. “You must look beyond these horizons. Perhaps, as you seem to believe, the Western World is not what people claim. But you must go to see. You can’t just stay here and reject it out of hand. You’re young. All this is bad for you…. I should have sent you away years ago.”
    “No!” she said, sharply. Then, knowing that he meant well, that he was sincere in everything he said, she repeated it in a softer tone, almost a pleading tone: “No.”
    The enchanter looked down again at the letter in his hand, reading it for the fortieth time, though he had not forgotten its contents.
    “I don’t want to marry,” said Helen. “Not a prince, not anyone. I don’t believe that life is just a matter of attaching oneself to a man—the most highly placed man available—and then drifting along in his wake. I’d rather make my own way in the world, in command of my own life.”
    “It’s not that easy,” said the enchanter. “Not even with magic to help.”
    “You’re always so very sure that nothing’s easy,” she said. “The trouble with you is that you won’t try. You give up and let things go the way they are. You have magical power and skill and knowledge. Perhaps if you were willing to try we could do something here in the magic lands. We could fight the decay, give the land some of its life again. If you weren’t always so determined to let events flow over and around you we might not be trapped the way we are.”
    She seemed very close to tears. Sirion Hilversun didn’t know what to say. She turned away from the window and from him, looking through moist eyes at the ancient furniture which crammed the room: magic carpets eaten away by magic moths, tables with broken legs, clocks with broken hearts, cracked crystal balls and magic mirrors which had long ago turned in upon their own reflections. He watched her stir at the dust which