"The Midgard Serpent," said Evanie. "I don't know why, but that's what it's called."
Connor reversed the coin. There was revealed the embossed portrait of a man's head, whose features, even in miniature, looked cold, austere, powerful. Connor read:
"Orbis Terrarum Imperator Dominusque Urbis."
"Emperor of the World and Master of the City," he translated.
"Yes. That is the Master." Evanie's voice was serious as she took the coin. "This is the money of Urbs. To understand Urbs and the Master you must of course know something of history since your—sleep."
"History?" he repeated.
She nodded. "Since the Dark Centuries. Some day one of our patriarchs will tell you more than I know. For I know little of your mighty ancient world. It seems to us an incredible age, with its vast cities, its fierce nations, its inconceivable teeming populations, its terrific energies and its flaming genius. Great wars, great industries, great art—and then great wars again."
"But you can tell me—" Connor began, a little impatiently. Evanie shook her head.
"Not now," she said quickly. "For now I must hasten to friends who will discuss with me a matter of great moment. Perhaps some day you may learn of that, too."
And she was gone before Tom Connor could say a word to detain her. He was left alone with his thoughts —clashing, devastating thoughts sometimes, for there was so much to be learned in this strange world into which he had been plunged.
In so many ways it was a strange, new world, Connor thought, as he watched the girl disappear down the road that slanted from her hilltop home to the village. From where he sat on that bench of hewn stone he could glimpse the village at the foot of the hill—a group of buildings, low, of some white stone. All of the structures were classical, with pure Doric columns. Ormon was the name of the village, Evanie had said.
All strange to him. Not only were the people so vastly at variance with those he had known, but the physical world was bewilderingly different.
Gazing beyond the village, and bringing his attention back to the hills and the forests about him, Tom Connor wondered if they, too, would be different.
He had to know.
The springtime landscape beckoned. Connor's strength had returned to such an extent that he arose from his bench in the sun and headed toward the green of the forest stretching away behind Evanie's home. It was an enchanting prospect he viewed. The trees had the glistening new green of young foliage, and emerald green grass waved in the fields that stretched away down the hill–sides and carpeted the plains.
Birds were twittering in the trees as he entered the forest—birds of all varieties, in profusion, with gaily–colored plumage. Their numbers and fearlessness would have surprised Connor had he not remembered something Evanie had told him. Urbs, she had said, had wiped out objectionable stinging insects, flies, corn–worms and the like, centuries ago, and the birds had helped. As had certain parasites that had been bred for the purpose.
"They only had to let the birds increase," Evanie had said, "by destroying their chief enemy—the Egyptian cat; the house–cat. It was acclimatized here and running wild in the woods, so they bred a parasite—the Feliphage—which destroyed it. Since then there have been many birds, and fewer insects."
It was pleasant to stroll through that green forest, to that bird orchestral accompaniment. The spring breeze touched Tom Connor's face lightly, and for the first time in his life he knew what it was to stroll in freedom, untouched by the pestiferous annoyance of mosquitoes, swarming gnats and midges, or other stinging insects that once had made the greenwood sometimes akin to purgatory.
What a boon to humanity! Honey bees buzzed in the dandelions in the carpeting grass, and drank the sweetness from spring flowers, but no mites or flies buzzed about Connor's uncovered, upflung head as he swung along briskly.
Connor did not know how far he had penetrated into the depths of the newly green woods when he found himself following the course of a small stream. Its silvery waters sparkled in the sunlight filtering through the trees as it moved along, lazily somnolent.
Now and then he passed mossy and viny heaps of stones, interesting to him, since he knew, from what he had been told, that they were the sole reminders of ancient structures erected before the Dark Centuries. Those heaps of stones had once formed buildings in another, and long–gone age—his own age.
Idly following the little stream, he came at last to a wide bend where the stream came down from higher ground to spill in a little splashing falls.
He had just rounded the bend, his gaze on a clear, still pool beyond, when he stopped stockstill, his eyes widening incredulously.
It was as if he were seeing spread before him a picture, well known in his memory, and now brought to animate life. Connor had thought himself alone in that wood, but he was not. Sharing it with him, there within short yards of where he stood, was the most beautiful creature on whom he had ever looked.
It was hard to believe she was a living, breathing being and not a figment of his imagination. No sound had warned her of his approach and, sublimely unaware that she was not alone, she held the pose in which Connor had first seen her, like some lovely wood sprite—which she might be, in this increasingly astonishing new world.
She was on her knees beside the darkly mirrored pool, supported by the slender arms and hands that looked alabaster white against the mossy bank on which she pressed. She was smiling down at her own reflection in the water —the famous Psyche painting which Connor so well re–membered, come to life!
He was afraid to breathe, much less to speak, for fear of startling her. But when she turned her head and saw him, she showed no signs of being startled. Slowly she smiled and got gracefully to her feet, the clinging white Grecian draperies that swathed her, gently swaying in the breeze to outline a figure too perfect to be flesh and blood. It was accentuated by the silver cord that crossed beneath her breasts, as sparkling as her ink–black hair.
But as she smiled at Connor, instantly in the depths of her sea–green eyes he saw no fear of him; but mockery.
I did not know," she said, in a voice that held the resonance of a silvery bell, "that any Weeds ever cared enough about the beauties of Nature to penetrate so far into the forest."
"I am not a Weed," Connor promptly disclaimed, as unconsciously he moved a step or two nearer her. He hoped that she would not vanish at the sound of his voice, or at his approach. "I am —"
She stared at him a moment, then laughed. And the laughter, too, was mocking.
"No need to tell me," she said airily. "I know. You are the Sleeper who was recently revived—with the great tale of having slept a thousand years. As if you were an Immortal!"
In her laughter, her voice, was the lofty intimation that she, at least, believed nothing of the sort. Connor made no attempt to convince her—not then. He was too enthralled, merely gazing at her.
"Are you one of the Immortals?" he asked, his own voice awed. "I have heard much of them."
"There are many things more immortal," she said, half cryptically, half mockingly, "than the human to whom has been given immortality. Such Immortals know nothing of all that was known, or guessed, by the Greeks of long, long ages past."
Again Connor stared at her. She spoke so confidently. And she looked… Could it be possible that the gods and goddesses, the sprites, of that long– dead Greek age were not legends, after all, but living entities? Could it be possible that he was gazing at one now—and that she might vanish at a touch, at a word?
She seemed real enough, though, and there was a certain imperiousness in her manner that was not his idea of what should be the reaction of any lovely sprite straight out of the pages of mythology. None of it seemed real—except her extravagant, pulse–warming beauty.