They seemed to twist and wind their way through the palms of her hand as if they were intent on plucking her from their living grave and vortex. The sensation drew her into his arms again: the man she had loved who had abandoned and betrayed her a long time ago. Was it ten years or as many centuries ago? It was his gift which stood upon the wall like blades of water.
The vessel of the room was almost pitch black save for the spiralling light of the horns—the glowing constellations of flesh which rose and exploded within the dark premises of memory restraining them. The axes of the horns drew her both sharply and gently down into the vicinity of the animal’s cured skin—holes for eyes—until she trembled with the new senses of an alien figure of conquest. It did not seem to matter whether it was she who lived to cast aft echoing net about him, or he—horn and cane she grasped—who lived to tap each sound along the way and propel her into the ghostly music of the stars.
And in fact—as she stroked the “blind”
