"Death stared me in the face. The end of life more vainly lived than the first. I knew that I was leaving this avatar after having lived but one stolen evening. So I sent a trusted servant to carry this very rug to Meshed. For when we met in the garden, you were hunting rugs for him who now seeks them for your delight. And I knew that he would find you if you still lived. Thus it is that I have crossed the Border, and stand before you as I did once before—this time on that very rug which I wove centuries ago, while living in hope of another meeting and in dread of the bowstring I knew would in the end find me."
The moon patch had marched toward the end of the rug from Samarcand, and was cutting into the blue web at its end. Clarke knew that when there remained no more room for her tiny feet, she would vanish, not ever to reappear. But Clarke hoped against knowledge.
"Yellow Girl," he entreated, "my door will be barred to friend and acquaintance alike, if you will but return on whatever nights the moon creeps across our rug...."
Had Diane, listening at the door, understood, she would have used her key. But Diane merely heard:
"And I shall wait for these nights as long as life remains in me. For all that has happened since then is nothing and less than nothing; and all has been a dream since that one night in a garden of Zarab-shan."
Very little remained of the moon patch. The Yellow Girl stepped a tiny pace forward, to prolong her stay yet another few moments. All but the moonlit strip of the rug from Samarcand glowed bloodily in the flare of the brazen mosque lamp.
"No, forgetful lover," chided the Yellow Girl, "I can not return. I can not cross the Border again. In Samarcand, eight hundred years ago we mocked for a while the doom that hung over us, and in the end called the bowstring but a caress of farewell. Again, in the garden of Zarab-shan we met, we parted, and you forgot: so this time I take no chances. While I can not return, you at least can follow me ... if you will ... for it is very easy...."
She edged along the ever narrowing strip of moon-bathed silk, and with an embracing gesture, lured Clarke to rise and follow her.
"It is so easy ... move lightly ... but be careful not to disturb your body or overbalance it...."
Had Diane not turned away from the door; were she not even now strolling insouciantly down Royal Street——