"What knight in shining armor would not travel an arduous path for hisfair lady?" I asked myself as my horse's leg sank almost to the knee inthe thick mud of another false trail. "I'm on the right track," I saidoutloud, as I dismounted to help the poor beast out of his predicament."No broken leg, this time; luck's with us," I stroked his muzzle and hegave me that sideways look that horses do. I walked him around the worstof the muck and mounted him again, my armor clanking against his. We werefully armored as though to do battle. Even my face was covered with metal.Small holes allowed me to breathe and there was a slit for my eyes.

      When I had ridden away from the muddy track, I came to a place where theforest seemed sparser and suddenly, looming before me, was the tower of acastle. There was a peculiar and almost secret quality to this tower. Andso I knew that my lady dwelled therein. In fact, I imagined that Iglimpsed her leaning out of the window at the very top of the tower and Iwas struck with fear, for I did not wish to make a fool of myself in hereyes.

      I moved quietly back into the forest. I dismounted, tied my horse to atree and sought some hidden place where I could regain my composure. Icame upon a beautiful garden surrounded by high walls. I followed thepaths and trails around it until I reached a gate situated in a remotespot. Raising the latch I entered and found myself alone within the gardenwalls. I wandered until I came upon a small cabinet, standing quite alonein this garden, but surrounded by rose bushes in full and wondrous bloom.On the door of the cabinet was a lock, and the key to the lock was in easyreach, on the ground near the door, as though someone had dropped it inhaste to leave that place. I picked up the key and turned it over and overin my hand. Was there something to fear inside the cabinet or hadsomething outside startled my predecessor? Whatever it was, I was morethan prepared to do battle. I touched the handle of my sword and insertedthe key.

      Inside the cabinet was a small box made of glass with many wonderousobjects inside: bright corals from distance oceans, anemones and other seacreatures, some that looked like small horses with curved tails, others,brightly colored fish. Among them, most fantastic strange creature of all,there swam a mermaid. Her hair was golden, like my love's hair, and hungdown past her waist almost to the bottom of her tail. Her tail, mosthorrible and awesome appendage, was shimmering with green shiny scales. Ithought at first that she might speak to me; her eyes seemed to say thatwas her purpose. But when she moved to the top of the glass box, the onlysound I heard was a long drawn out mournful sigh.

      I grew deeply despondent at this sound and at the way I had left my ladyas I did without the courage to make my presence known to her. Now I sawclearly from my own experience that the heart of a lover who loves deeplyis now joyful now mournful, now laughing now crying, now singing nowlamenting, now hot now cold.

      I closed and locked the cabinet, so that I would not have to look at themermaid who reminded me of my cowardice in love. I absent-mindedly droppedthe key into my sword's sheath and wandered aimlessly in the garden. Ifound myself once again in the place I thought the cabinet had been, butthis time there was a sort of cave there. In the opening of the cave,there sat a very old man with a mad joyful expression.

      "Kind sir," I said, kneeling down to get close to him, "have you seen acabinet here in which is locked a strange creature, half woman half fish.I have the key, but have lost my way."

      "Large things near at hand appear far off," he replied. "And there areglasses which will burn things up. Some make phantasmic forms appear toone who looks therein or even make appear outside in air or water, livingshapes. There is no man who sees so well that he may never be deceived invision."

      I pulled my sword from its sheath and although at first the old mancringed at the sight of my aggressive act, he soon understood my purpose.I shook the sheath until the key fell to the ground. "Keep this key safe,"I said to him. He has it still.

      And so I left the garden - its marvels and its wisdom - and set back uponthe path to true love's tower. My lady waited there at the window,brushing her long gold hair. I sang to her and called out her name andbegged her to admit me to her presence. I was washed over with a fiercedesire for her, for her perfect beauty, and I wished to gaze upon her.

      "There is no entrance save this window," she said. "You must climb." Atthe same moment, she flung her hair out the window. It billowed in wavesof silken gold. I had not known it was so long or that any hair could growso extravagant in its thickness and strength. But there was nothing tohold on to in this flowing mass of hair. She soon saw my distress andfeeling pity for my despair, she began to braid her hair into a shiningrope. I climbed.

      As I reached the top, it was as though I climbed on air. I entered thetower to see a sight most wonderous and long imagined. My lady lay on abed of white linen, naked. I lay down beside her, fully clothed in myheavy armor. She was sleeping peacefully and I was careful not to wakeher. I spent the night gazing at her perfection, memorizing the fragmentsand opportunities of her soft flesh. My eyes grew weary from theircaresses and I fell into a profound slumber.

      When I woke I found her gone. I stared at the place where she had beenand wept. Then, looking up at an arched doorway, I saw my perfect loverenter. In her hands she held a plate and on it were her eyes. These shehanded to me, solemnly and in silence.

      As I took the eyes, she began to loosen the headgear that still sat uponmy head. Although I saw everything quite clearly, the sockets where myeyes had been were hollow as were hers. Again she lay down beside me, butI had her eyes.

      The change was infinitely gradual. The first result was a stripping awayof a kind of unseen layer of accumulated resilience. I felt at the sametime physically freer and more vulnerable. I had no armor. I seemed tofeel not only the heat and the cold more, but also the stimulants of theworld about me. My body seemed to be growing more complex, more quiveringin its responses.

      Stripped of my clothes, I was a chimera, half male, half female, an objectof wonder even to myself. I woke to find my lady gone and left by the doorthrough which I had seen her enter only hours before. This door led to along winding stairway, which I took down to another door that led meoutside. I made a pilgrimage to a little lake that I had passed in theforest outside the garden wall. The light was pale and misty; the airtangy. The silence was absolute. There I stood like a figure ofmythology, monstrous or divine, like nobody else that forest had ever seen.

      "So this is where love leads," I said, and plunged my body into the lake,thinking to end my wretched existence there and then. But I could swim -better than ever and, miraculously, I could breathe under water.

      Again, the change took a long time. As my male half fell away, as Ibecame more and more the image of my lady, I also began to grow a tail - afish's tail with green shiny scales.

      I lived for years within that lake, under water dark and deep, yearningfor something I could not define. "Perhaps I still love my lady," Ithought, but then I had become her and such love would only be a selfishlove of my own distorted form. "Perhaps I love myself as I had been, aman," I thought, but I could not find that man, covered over in armor as hehad been. My body ached with a desire that had no end, a yearning that hadno object.

      Then, one day, as I swam listlessly among the fish and anemones and coralsof my world, my home was flooded with light and I looked into theastonished face of a knight. He stared at me and could not stop fromlooking. I wanted to ask him where he had found the key. Had the old mangiven it to him or was there another, lying on the ground waiting, as onehad waited for me? For when I opened that cabinet, I had beheld a secretso profound, so hidden, that it had changed me forever. I wished to tellmy story to the knight and rushed to the surface of the water. But wordswould not come and the only sound I could utter was a sigh.

***