A curiously low voice, for anyone who was trying to call him. But a voice that he knew, too. And a faint fragrance in the air that had been in his nostrils before, some other time when he had heard the voice.
He decided to try opening his eyes, and finally he made it. But there was no difference. Only blackness swimming around him. And he knew that his eyes were open.
He wondered whether he had gone blind.
His head hurt very much, and the shaking at his shoulder made him dizzy. He wished it would all go away.
"Tom! Wake up!"
A voice that filled out words like a cello; a voice and a fragrance that would be in his memory always.
"Avalon darling," he murmured sleepily, "I love you very much, but can't you do anything about your insomnia?"
Then everything was utterly still, except for the far faint lulling whisper of the sea.
It seemed like a good time to go to sleep again.
Then there was a face soft against his cheek, moving; and a dampness that was not the wet cloth, but warmer; and the fragrance sweeter and stronger in his senses; and arms and hands clinging and pressing; and the same voice talking and making sounds that merged with the slow soft roll of the sea, and breaking strangely where there were no waves breaking, and speaking and stirring, and this was something that happened a million years ago but had only been waiting a million years to happen, and he had to do something about it even if it meant smashing his way out of an iron vise that was holding him in that absurd and intolerable suspension, and there was the sweetness and the voice saying: "Simon, darling... Oh, darling, my darling... Simon, wake up, Simon!"