"In the desert," she cries. "Here I play for their dances; there I am queen. My name is Thea and it is resonant through storms. They chained me with golden chains; they lured me with golden speeches until I left my people and followed them to their prison that is corroded with lust…. Ah, if you knew with my knowledge, you would not sit here either…. But the slave of the moment knows not liberty."
"I have known it," I say drearily and let my chin sink upon the table.
"And you are here?"
Contemptuously she turns her back to me.
"Take me with you, Thea," I cry, "take me with you to freedom."
"Can you still endure it."
"I will endure the glory of freedom or die of it."
"Then come."
A brown arm that seems endless stretches down to me. An iron grasp lifts me upward. Noise and lights dislimn in the distance.
Our way lies through great, empty, pillared halls which curve above us like twilit cathedrals. Great stairs follow which fall into black depths like waterfalls of stone. Thence issues a mist, green with silvery edges….