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as for sunset, you will not see it!” And she pointed at the gate not far away, which Galen inspected, frowning. There were no guards here, but the arch and the gate were clearly magical.
    Galen turned to ask the woman another question; but she had vanished like a dream.
    The gate held a black pillar on the right and a white pillar on the left,and the keystone of the gateway arch was inscribed with the Vedic Eye. The other stones of the archway were marked with the five signs of the five Pandavas. Galen attempted to pass the gate but found he could not, for a hostile will radiating from the Vedic Eye held him back.
    Galen was not unwise in the lore of dreams. He turned and walked back all the miles to where the corpse of the Red Knight lay. It took an hour to unbury him. The wounds of the corpse burst into fresh blood at his approach. With some difficulty, he removed the red cloak and performed again the ceremonies and the burial he had done that morning.
    Then he doffed his own cloak (which was a heavy silver gray with a collar of fur) and rolled it in a bundle. Galen took the red cloak and drew it around himself. He raised the hood to hide his face. The bloodstains were not conspicuous among the scarlets, reds and red-brown dyes of the cloak.
    All the miles back he went. This time he passed the gate with no difficulty.
    Galen walked in among the tall buildings, museums, halls, and cathedrals of the inner parts of Tirion. The time was now late afternoon, and the westering sun was a dim spot, merely one brighter star among the many that now began to appear in the deepening dark blue of heaven. Snow was falling through the air, and the people of Tirion seemed to have little business to attend to as the afternoon darkened and deepened.
    Galen saw boys in fur caps going to skate on frozen public fountains and older youths riding in gilded carriages and sleds to some ball or high festivity, held by candlelight in their great halls. The men were all garbed in long, black, heavy coats and tall hats, and the women were swathed in furs, delicate hands hidden in muffs, and their laughing faces, red with cold or with pleasure, were hidden in the shadows of deep fur hoods. Galen glimpsed their lovely faces only as soft shadows, with the hint of a smile or flutter of bright and merry eyes caught in the light of colored lamps carried by linkboys escorting them to their rendezvous.
    As he walked, more candles appeared behind more windows of stained glass among the tall crowded mansions. But, walking further, he came to anarea where the mansions were very tall and very dark indeed, and the museums were empty, and the temples were shut up and closed.
    As the dusk grew deeper, it grew colder; he discarded the red cloak on the stairs before an empty temple, and he donned his own thicker and warmer cloak of silver gray.
    The streets he walked along were grand, gloomy, and impressive. Galen saw grim, great statues standing in the empty squares or looming from tall pillars in deserted courtyards. The forbidding faces of the statues were like those of the mountainscapes in the land outside: narrow eyed and high cheeked, with strange, long-lobed ears. More and more of these statues were in postures of war, with sword and shield, or stood with hand upraised, all of them facing the direction Galen faced as he walked to the edge of the world.
    He passed a line of statues standing with grim solemnity atop a row of pillars at the end of the avenue. To the left and right, dimly seen by starlight, the tall, black stone figures rose, hands and weapons raised, all facing outward toward the dark.
    Galen stepped a few feet outward along a dark bridge that passed between two of these pillars; but he realized he was not upon a bridge, but a pier, which protruded out into midair and broke off without any lip or railing.
    He took another step forward.
    A sensation of dread entered Galen’s heart, and he froze. He looked left and right carefully, seeking the