MIRYAM smiles, at peace. SABA ELAN gathers her gently in his arms and draws her back into the cluster of elders who will stay behind to die in sight of the river they never stopped longing past. At the edge of the wing, NABU appears, watching. AVIVA's eyes find his. A long, silent look — everything they cannot say. He bows his head to her: he will stay, to write the music of the new Persian age, but he will carry a piece of the river in it forever. She presses her hand to her heart. He returns it. Then he is gone. From the direction of the fallen city, DANIEL enters, leaning on a staff, very old now. He has come to the river to see the travelers off — he will not make the journey himself. DANIEL. (to Aviva, and to the gathered remnant) I served in that city my whole life, child. I prayed toward home every day for fifty years. (a peaceful smile) And I will not see the hills of it again. My road ends here. (he lifts his eyes to the young ones) But yours doesn't. When you get there — and you will get there — and you find the walls are nothing but bones in the dust, the courts full of weeds, the altar cold — don't you despair. (quietly, with the certainty of a man who has read the future) I have lived long enough to know what the breath of the Living can do with a valley of dry bones. He lifts his face. SABA ELAN and the ELDERS begin, low and a cappella, like wind moving through an empty canyon. AVIVA takes the harp fully into her own hands at last.
