“In that I see no obstacle,” Egdod said, for his craving was very strong and he was not in any frame of mind to give careful consideration to the wisdom of Spring.

“I speak not of bees or of birds,” Spring went on, “but of souls like us, capable of speech.”

“New souls enter the Land every day,” Egdod pointed out.

“Yes,” Spring agreed, “and they do so by dying in whatever place they used to abide, and awakening here. Understand, Egdod, that the souls that will emerge from our coupling will be new creations that never before lived, and never died. I do not know the meaning of it or what consequences it might have. They might be akin to others of the Pantheon, and dwell with us happily. But they might be greater than we in their power, and capable of destroying our forms with thunderbolts just as you did in the case of Swat.”

“Once again you exceed me in wisdom and in the penetration of your thought,” Egdod said. “In respect of that—and not, be it said, for any lack of desire—I shall withdraw and consider what you have said.” So he left the flowers by the side of the stream and went away to the Palace and thought the matter over at length.

The following day he returned with more flowers and a renewed ardor. But it ended in the same way and he took wing and flew great distances over the Land to ponder certain additional points that Spring had made. But the next day he returned for a third time and said to her, “Be it so then.” And he went into her and was surrounded by her as a rock in a river is enfolded in its waters, smooth and yet strong, and their auras merged as when two rivers come together deep in a forest and flow as one to exhaust themselves much later into the ocean.

After that Spring went weeks without manifesting herself in any particular form. Egdod went to the Fastness to ponder what had happened between them. There, far from the distractions posed not only by Spring but by the curious behavior of the souls in Town, he worked with Thingor on the making of new contrivances, each more complex than the last. The feathers of Warm Wings had put the Pantheon in mind of flying creatures covered with the same, larger than bees, that would make nests for themselves in the branches of trees. The construction of their wings must needs be different from those of the bees and so long effort went into its devising.