“Don’t worry about it,” Barton said, grinning a little. He started up the Packard. “So long, Christopher.”
“Drop by, when you’re through this way again.”
“I will,” Barton answered, picking up speed. Behind him Christopher waved. Barton waved back. After a moment Christopher turned and hurried eagerly back inside his radio shop. Glad to get back to work. The spreading fire had finished with him; he was fully restored.
Barton drove slowly on. The hardware store, and its crotchety, elderly owner, was gone. That pleased him. Millgate was better off without it.
His Packard passed by Mrs. Trilling’s boarding house. Or rather, what had once been Mrs. Trilling’s boarding house. Now it was an automobile sales shop. Bright new Fords behind a huge display window. Fine. Just right.
This was Millgate as it would have been, had Ahriman never showed up. The struggle still continued throughout the universe, but in this one spot, the God of Light’s victory was fairly clean-cut. Not absolutely complete, perhaps. But nearly so.
He picked up speed as the Packard left town and began the long climb up the side of the mountain, toward the pass and the highway beyond. The road was still cracked and weed-covered. A sudden thought hit him; what about the barrier? Was it still there?
It wasn’t. The lumber truck and its spilled cargo of logs was gone. Only a few bent weeds to show where it had been. That made him curious. What sort of laws were binding on gods? He’d never thought about it before, but obviously there were certain things gods had to do, once they had made an agreement.
As he drove around the twists and turns on the other side of the mountains, it occurred to him that Peg’s twenty-four-hour deadline had run out. She was probably on her way to Richmond, by now. He knew Peg; she meant every word. The next time they met would be in a New York court of law.
Barton settled back and made himself comfortable against the warm seat. It wouldn’t be possible to go back to his life, the way it was. Peg was out. All that was finished and done. He might as well face it.
And anyhow, Peg seemed a little dull, everything considered.
He was recalling a sleek, glowing body. A lithe shape diffusing itself into the moist soil of early morning. A flash of black hair and eyes as she trickled away from him, into the Earth which was her home. Red lips, white teeth. A gleaming flicker of bare limbs—and then she was gone.
Gone? Armaiti wasn’t gone. She was everywhere. In all the trees, in the green fields and lakes and forest lands. The fertile valleys and mountains on all sides of him. She was below and around him. She filled up the whole world. She lived there. Belonged there.
Two swelling mountains divided for the road ahead. Barton passed slowly between them. Firm hills, rich and full, identical peaks glowing warmly in the late-afternoon sun.
Barton sighed. He’d be seeing reminders of her just about everywhere.
The Cosmic Puppets Page 13
