The Rite of Spring: The First of the Cock

The Rite of Spring: Fragment 45

The First of the Cock
which tells of an encounter on the landing

I've told you I train for that stair. We'd started fast because we thought we'd catch her easily. Well, we hadn't, and now we were both blown. Linnain was fit - it was wonderful to see her run, head down, sweat streaming down her smoothly pumping legs, her long hair sweat heavy about her head, and flying freely off her shoulders. I hadn't much time to watch her, though. My eyes were always straining ahead for Aonan. We'd lost too much time catching breath at the pool; we shouldn't have started so fast.

After a while Aonan was round the bend, and I couldn't see her any more. There was nothing to do but run. I found it hard to pace myself. Something inside was screaming 'faster! faster!'; and yet I knew that if we went too fast, we'd have to stop again. I guessed - I was right as it turned out - that Aonan thought we where ricnics; I guessed if we slowed down she would too. Except now it was too late for that. She couldn't see us any longer, any more than we could see her. We climbed. At last we reached the second landing. I looked up, gasping for breath. The whole long length of the third flight seemed empty... and then I saw her climb onto the parapet, just by where the gate stream goes over the fall. Linnain saw her too. She screamed and started off up the flight like the horse the hornet rode. I was about to start after her when something made me look down. A dark mass of people was coming up the steps behind us. As I watched, they reached the first landing, and parted, some coming each way.

I felt strangely calm. The door to the audience chamber would be shut. The great gates I'd never seen open. We would be trapped on the platform in front of the gatehouse, and that would be the end. I started up. If that was the way of it, still I'd go beside the women.

I could see Linnain climbing ahead of me. She had a lead I couldn't make up. I didn't try. I just kept a pace I knew I could do. I looked further up, trying to see if Aonan had yet jumped. There was a shape there on the parapet, but the outline was wrong... yes, that was Aonan, bending down, facing towards the gates. There was another shape - a head - Linnain was above me on the steps, it wasn't her. A guard? The guard were never there. No-one is ever there. The figures - Aonan and the other - were not moving. Linnain disappeared over the top of the stair. I saw her again by the parapet, a dark dot of head, arms stretching up. Aonan's hands taking them. Aonan climbing down. I tucked my head down, and tried to make what speed I could on the last stage.

There were spots in my vision, and my ears roared. They stood there, two naked figures, clasped together, hair robed about them, dark skin gleaming in the moonlight; so similar that with their heads buried in one another's shoulders I couldn't tell them apart. There was another figure there, I know. I didn't bother to look. I went up to the women, and then found myself unable to intrude upon them. After a moment, one of them looked up, saw me, and said

"Tan!", in a voice full of pleasure. It was Aonan. I said

"Oh Aonan! Thank the God you are safe."

I reached out a hand towards her. She didn't meet it. She said

"I am not Aonan any more. I have no name."

Her voice was brittle, but she met my eyes. I said

"you'll always be Aonan to me, and welcome where I am."

She sagged towards me then, reaching one hand out to me, pulling Linnain with her with the other. She pulled us all together into one clinch, so that I stroked one glossy black head with each hand. Alike but not like; two different kinds of courage, two different kinds of integrity, two different kinds of intelligence; two different kinds, even, of physical toughness. Linnain's hand, also, crept round my back. It was a humbling surprise to be made welcome by those two, who had each in her different way so little reason to welcome me.

I said

"Aonan, are you all right?"

She stepped back so that she could look at me, still holding close to Linnain. She looked at me very straight, and her face was clear.

"It is behind me now. I have met with the God, and he has taken it from me. I will be all right."

I said, stupidly,

"you have met the God?", and my eyes flew up to the third figure, standing behind her on the platform. It was - or seemed to me - a woman in later years; there was a faint glow about her. Even as she cleared her throat, I knew her voice from the audience chamber. I fell to my knees, and lowered my forehead to the ground in front of her.

"There is no need to kneel", she said, in the voice I knew so well.

"My incarnation is over. The God has passed from me."

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