The Messenger said no more of this. Time and anxiety did not hang upon Ingos as it hangs on mortal men. He waited without pain. The timeless days of Aphelos flowed by, and he drank deeply of them. At last one day the Messenger said:
‘The hour has come. You remember the day when the flowers of the two trees faded after the rainbow. Go now with haste to the cave on the mountain top, and bring thence the petals that fell. They shall be robes for all your people.’
Ingos arose and went with haste to the top of the mountain. There still in the cave lay the petals of the great blue flowers. He gathered them up. Though they were many, they were wonderfully light. He carried them back to his home under the Golden Tree where the Messenger waited.
Then the Messenger addressed him again. ‘Go to the lake yonder, to the great willow that overhangs the water at the nearer end. Take up again these sky-coloured robes, and leave them on the shore of the lake, in full view. Come back and tell me what you see there.’
Ingos rose and went to the lake as the Messenger instructed. He laid down the petal robes on the lakeside. Then he looked up and cast his gaze across the waters. There, on the farther shore where the trees stood back from the water to reveal a grassy bank, a woman was bathing in the clear water. She sent quiet ripples spreading down the lake. Ingos did not know who she was or how she had come to Aphelos. He might have called to her over the water, but he did not speak. She began to comb out her long, darkish hair with her fingers, using the clear waters as her looking glass. There was something in her appearance that answered to Ingos’s longings.
Ingos returned to the Messenger and told what he had seen.
‘It is well,’ said the other. ‘She is not alone, for others have come with her. And still others will come to this enchanted land, whose lord you are. They will be your people.’
Ingos sat on the mound at the foot of the great Tree, reflecting on the presence of other people in Aphelos. He became aware that the Messenger had left his side, walking away into the woods behind him. Presently he noticed another thing. Someone was moving among the trees fronting the mound. It was the woman he had seen by the lake. She was wearing one of the blue robes. She was very tall and her long dark hair reached to her waist: she had twisted some bright flowers in it.
She came straight towards the Great Tree, gazing in front and all around her, without at first noticing Ingos sitting at the Tree’s foot. He rose to greet her, and she saw him. For one moment she stood still, and then came rapidly up the slope and knelt at his feet, bowing her head very low.
‘Hail, Lord!’ she said. ‘I have no gift to give, but if you are indeed the lord of this country, I am your servant.’
‘No, Lady, do not kneel to me. Rise —’
She got up and stood before him. ‘— I am Ingos, and I am indeed lord of this enchanted land, the land of Aphelos. Tell me, I beg, who you are.’
‘I am Díamun, Queen of the downfallen land of Dúmiel, and I am only so by the falling of my beloved mother, who was Queen while Dúmiel stood. And here, lord, are my people, the few that remain to me.’
And as she spoke there came, by the way which she had followed, two men and two women, whose looks proclaimed them to be of the race of Queen Díamun of Dúmiel. All had clothed themselves in blue robes.
‘Here are Dóna my sister, and Tairis her husband; and Beinun my brother and Tháli his wife. These are all who remain of the people of Dúmiel, barring one.’
The four Dúmiellamê greeted Ingos and offered him their allegiance, and he received it and welcomed them. When this was done, Queen Díamun spoke again. ‘But where is Obrámus, the eldest of our company? Brother, he was with you, I think.’
Beinun replied: ‘Yes, sister, he was, but we left him sleeping on a grassy bank beyond the trees. He was very weary. Obrámus, lord, is the eldest and wisest of us. He is a good and venerable man.’
‘He is a father to us,’ added Dóna.
‘And yet his age is great, and his time is short. Our voyage has taken many years from his life, I fear…’ said Tháli.
‘Fear not!’ cried Ingos in a loud and joyful voice. ‘Not a year, not a day, shall ever be taken away from that good man’s life, or to any man’s or woman’s in this land, nor added to it. For this is Aphelos, the deathless land on earth, and I am Ingos, the lord of it, and first earthly immortal. Here grows the Golden Fruit of the Tree, which is the food of immortality.’
The five people of Dúmiel gazed in joy and wonder as he stood under the Tree with his hands held high.
At that moment an old man with white hair came uncertainly into the gathering. He, too, had put on one of the robes. ‘Welcome, father,’ said the Lord Ingos.
A smile of recognition spread across the aged face of Obrámus.
‘Hail, lord! I have seen you…standing on a high mountain top and walking among the golden trees of this enchanted land. And I knew that you are one and the same Ingos, who, in a distant age, brought our fathers and mothers into Thrâyeldim; and that you are he who endured the Dolorous Stroke from the hand of Oigenas.’
‘If that is true,’ cried Tairis, ‘then how blessed are all who come into your land! Our father Obrámus has raised our hopes of salvation from the waters many times by telling us of his visions. We trusted in him and we felt sure that we were coming to a wonderful land that would console us for all our suffering. And so it is; and so is the lord of it.’
‘The Realm of Dúmiel shall live on!’ said Obrámus.
‘In exile,’ added Queen Díamun.
‘Yes, lady, in bodily exile; but this land of Aphelos is the true home of any woman or man, for here are numberless joys and salvation from animal needs and base desires,’ answered Ingos.
‘You speak truly, lord, for such an exile is in truth a home-coming for our people,’ she returned, and there was love between them.
Ingos now saw that the Messenger had returned. He stood just by him on the mound of the Great Tree. The three men and three women of Dúmiel at once knelt.
‘Hail, most wise and noble master,’ said the old Obrámus, ‘Now I know who it is that instructs me in my dreams.’
‘Welcome, Queen of Dúmiel, lords and ladies and you, most venerable man. But do not kneel to me, for I am but a messenger.’
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