Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“Never heard that song before. Did you compose it?” he inquired, his eyes sharp. “No. Yes. No, I don’t know, really!” She hesitated wildly. “I don’t even know what the words are; they're another language!” “What language?” She dropped portions of meat numbly into the simmering lava. “I don’t know.” She drew the meat forth a moment later, cocked, served on a plate for him. “It’s just a crazy thing I made up, I guess. I don’t know why.” He said nothing. He watched her drown meats in the hissing fire pool. The sun was gone. Slowly, slowly the night came in to fill the room, swallowing the pillars and both of them, like a dark wine poured to the ceiling. Only the silver lava’s glow lit their faces. She hummed the strange song again. Instantly he leaped from his chair and stalked angrily from the room. Later, in isolation, he finished supper. When he arose he stretched, glanced at her, and suggested, yawning, “Let’s take the flame birds to town tonight to see an entertainment.” “You don’t mean it?” she said. “Are you feeling well?” “What’s so strange about that?” “But we haven’t gone for an entertainment in six months!” “I think it’s a good idea.” “Suddenly you’re so solicitous,” she said. “Don’t talk that way,” he replied peevishly. “Do you or do you not want to go?” She looked out at the pale desert. The twin white moons were rising. Cool water ran softly about her toes. She began to tremble just the least bit. She wanted very much to sit quietly here, soundless, not moving until this thing occurred, this thing expected all day, this thing that could not occur but might. A drift of song brushed through her mind. “|——” “Do you good,” he urged. “Come along now.” “Pm tired,” she said. “Some other night.” “Here’s your scarf.” He handed her a phial. “We haven’t gone anywhere in months.” “Except you, twice a week to Xi City.” She wouldn’t look at him. “Business,” he said. “Oh?” She whispered to herself. From the phial a liquid poured, turned to blue mist, settled about her neck, quivering. The flame birds waited, like a bed of coals, glowing on the cool smooth sands. The white canopy ballooned on the night wind, flapping softly, tied by a thousand green ribbons to the birds. Yila laid herself back in the canopy and, at a word from her husband, the birds leaped, burning, toward the dark sky. The ribbons tautened, the canopy lifted. The sand slid whining under; the blue hills drifted by, drifted by, 23 comicbooks.com