•••••
They went down a few feet on the southern side and sat on some rocks. A fair lake studded with islands lay bosomed in wooded and crag-girt hills at the foot of a deep-cut valley which ran down from the Gates of Zimiamvia. Ailinon and Ashnilan rose near by in the west, with the delicate white peak of Akra Garsh showing between them. Beyond, mountain beyond mountain like the sea.
Juss looked southward where the blue land stretched in fold upon fold of rolling country, soft and misty, till it melted in the sky. “Thou and I,” said he, “first of the children of men, now behold with living eyes the fabled land of Zimiamvia. Is that true, thinkest thou, which philosophers tell us of that fortunate land: that no mortal foot may tread it, but the blessed souls do inhabit it of the dead that be departed, even they that were great upon earth and did great deeds when they were living, that scorned not earth and the delights and the glories thereof, and yet did justly and were not dastards nor yet oppressors?”
“Who knoweth?” said Brandoch Daha, resting his chin in his hand and gazing south as in a dream. “Who shall say he knoweth?”
They were silent awhile. Then Juss spake saying, “If thou and I come thither at last, O my friend, shall we remember Demonland?” And when he answered him not, Juss said, “I had rather row on Moonmere under the stars of a summer’s night, than be a King of all the land of Zimiamvia. And I had rather watch the sunrise on the Scarf, than dwell in gladness all my days on an island of that enchanted Lake of Ravary, under Koshtra Belorn.”
Now the curtain of cloud that had hung till now about the eastern heights was rent into shreds, and Koshtra Belorn stood like a bride before them, two or three miles to eastward, facing the slanting rays of the sun. On all her vast precipices scarce a rock showed bare, so encrusted were they with a dazzling robe of snow. More lovely she seemed and more graceful in her airy poise than they had yet beheld her. Juss and Brandoch Daha rose up, as men arise to greet a queen in her majesty. In silence they looked on her for some minutes.
Then Brandoch Daha spake, saying, “Behold thy bride, O Juss.”
