Stopping the convertible, Markel grabbed the Earth Mother's arms. He said, "Stop it! There is no music! You're imagining things!"

"Those saxes, oh, are they swinging! Listen!" Her eyes were looking through Markel, looking into a world of music, and lights, and movies, and people.

"There's nothing, do you understand? You're hearing things! Stop it!" He shook her roughly. Her eyes clouded and she tried to push him away.

"Come out of it! There's no music. You don't hear music!"

"Let me go! Let me hear it! Oh, it's fading, fading!"

He kept shaking her and slowly her eyes cleared. She stopped trying to push him away. She said, "It's over, the pretty music is over."

"You're all right now," Markel said, letting go of her arms.

Now the highway arrowed straight no longer, climbing again into low hills. Up they went past peeling billboards, motels, chinaware stands, gas stations, and roadside diners. "We're coming to a city," the Earth Mother said. "I'll bet there'll be people in it, lots and lots of people."

"It will be like all the other cities," Markel said.

She leaned close and patted his arm, as though he were a child. "I'll bet you even find some books there," she said.

An hour later they drove into the city. This was a city of winds. Harp-winds twanged through wires and steel braces; drum-winds banged torn awnings and loose windows; wind-trumpets shouted through broken walls and called muted past high steeples and chimneys. Sunlight lay thick in the streets and on the roofs, but the winds owned this city, like the blowing winds own Babylon, and Petra, and Chaldean Ur.

Down a street that opened on a wide square they went and Markel parked by a statue of a horseman in the middle of the square. Before he had shut off the motor the Earth Mother was out of the convertible. Standing by the statue she called, "Hey! Is there anybody here?" Then she ran to the sidewalk.

Markel, reaching for the M-1, his eyes on the girl, suddenly stiffened. The wind blew a sound to him, a faint growling sound. He did not believe the sound, knew it to be a trick of his imagination, yet he sat stunned, unable to think. Then the Earth Mother screamed. Markel got out of the car and went after her.

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