Forests of the Night

by Tanith Lee

  At my knock, he invited me to enter, but greeted me as always with the look of a man roused from a deep sleep or trance he was loath to abandon. He was pale as ivory, as I had always known him, his beard scarcely any darker than his face, and his eyes somehow luminous yet also veiled and dim, like jewels beneath cobweb. All about his desk were spread volumes of lore and science, tomes of myth, and holy works clasped with hinges of pure gold, some with gems set into the vellum. To one side of the desk stood a colossal candlebranch, twined with serpents and flowers of silver, whose greyish candles leaned, thickly ribbed with wax. Nearby was the ink-pot of chalcedon, and several pens lying ready on a gilt tray. Furthest from him, on his left hand, rose a filigree incense flagon, that faintly smoked, making the air sweet. Below that stood a human skull with terrible eyes of white onyx and sapphire, that had frightened me when a child. Near the window, which was at his back, an owl dozed upon its perch. My father’s companion for many years, it went out to hunt by night, and was familiar in that part of the city. Now the leaded shapes of the glass patterned it over as if it too were a creature of crystals. It opened not one eye at my coming in. Though I was an infrequent visitor, yet it knew me and discounted me.

  When my father and I had gone through the formalities of greeting, I told him directly what was amiss.

  ‘Although I perform the duties of a husband as I am able, and strive not to neglect her unduly, the woman who is my wife taxes me, troubles me. She is at best dull, and at worst a shrew. She sobs continually, and by saying to me always I do not care for her, makes herself repulsive to me and so ensures this to be the case.’

  ‘It may be,’ said my father the scholar, painstakingly regarding life through some remote lens, ‘that she is with child by you, and so grows unreasonable. For at such times women cannot always govern themselves.’

  ‘No, she is not with child. Nor is that entirely my fault, either, for though I do not visit her as often as I should visit a more pliable wife, when I am there she will only weep. I do not find her abject wretchedness conducive to union.’

  ‘You must be more kind,’ said my father aloofly.

  ‘Yes, sir. This I acknowledge, that I am impatient and perhaps sometimes cruel. But since my best efforts are rewarded only by tears and abuse, I am at my wits’ end to know what else to try. I confess I have never much cared for this woman, although I am sure you thought of me when you chose her.’

  ‘Her family is noble, an equal to our own, of the oldest in the city. She is spotless and came to you without any known defect. She is also comely, and they said of her, in her own house, that she was known both for her obedience and her ready laughter.’

  ‘Then the fault is mine, sir, and I am vexed to know how it can be put right. For the while I can no longer abide this woman. I ask that you send me away on some errand, to some other city. Possibly, if I am gone for several months, the journey will refresh me, and put me in better heart. She in turn may learn to control her outcries, having no one to rail against. We may then attempt to resume a proper life. I will moreover endeavour to remain chaste during my absence, that I shall have at least a natural hunger for her on my return.’

  My father considered my request, and finally made to grant it. This involved summoning his steward, and writing for me some letters of introduction to various merchants, for my house has interests in the silk trade of the south. All such matters irked the scholar now, and were a burden to him.

  The steward took his leave, and I thanked my father. Seeing then his pallor seemed to have grown thinner, like a transparent wafer, I too turned to leave him.

  As I was going out, he said, ‘But you must be sympathetic to the female gender. For the sages say of them, they would be wiser than we, left to themselves, and it is for this reason God afflicted their sex with its humours and the role of motherhood. For the brain is the enemy of the soul, whereby the Evil One gains his purchase upon us. To be too wise is to be much tempted, and perhaps beyond bearing.’

  I bowed my head respectfully.

  My father said, ‘And women have fancies. Just so my wife, who was your mother. She was not herself for years, after the death of Rachel.’

  I checked.

  ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I do not wish to tire you unduly, but will you tell me only something of this sister of mine.’

  My father blinked his eyes, that were like the eyes of the sleeping owl saving their lack of life.

  ‘Your sister? Why — you had none. It was your mother’s way, so to speak of the child she lost before the third month, and so to name it. And I caught the notion, to be gentle with her. So often then, we would speak of Rachel. But when she bore you, that make-believe ended. Though it seems, with age,’ and here he stretched his mouth, as if his frailty were the jest of God, at which we must smile, ‘I have gone back to it.’

  ‘Rachel,’ I said, ‘that is also the name of the wife you found for me. How is it that she heard tell of the other?’

  ‘There is always gossip,’ said my father, but now he leaned his head upon his hand. And so I went out of the study.

  My wife wept and mourned at my going as if she would die of it. There was uproar in the women’s quarters, and I only too glad to be away with my caravan.

  The roads are good that go south. We had small discomfort in travelling. The hills and desert places unrolled their carpets and their mirages. By day we saw the demons of the dust and sand whirl in their dance, and sometimes at sunset the phenomenon in the west that is called the Pillar of Fire. By night a great moon sailed above the desert with the face of an old woman, for it was the season of the Hag, the winter calm before the dry winds come down from the salt mountains above Geth Lelah. Lelah indeed we viewed, far off and high, though we did not visit there, her walls like the bones of lions and her towers of pumice. In Belkasha I stayed to do some business, but even in the city of Balsam and Beer I never departed from my vow, although I was sorely tempted. In other towns I came and went, and did no harm to my father’s interests.

  All told, it was a healthy venture, and raised my heart and mind as I had hoped. Turning back as the moon turned, a passage dictated by the time of year, I resolved I would be both firm and generous at my homecoming, and garnered for my wife a quantity of gifts.

  We set off north-east on the second day of the Days of Bread, the caravan laden, and its guard doubled against bandits. But we saw no enemy and neither man nor land, nor the weather, offered us any violence, for which we thanked God, the smoke of the offering ascending, in the calm before the winds, straight as a blue rod between earth and heaven. And on the night that we were camped only five hours from the city gate, I saw a manifestation I had once or twice heard spoken of. In a vast still darkness of great clarity, hollow as a mighty gourd, I beheld that one by one certain clusters of the stars disappeared, to re-emerge only as another cluster was obscured. And this mystics teach to be the passing of the Lord across the sky, invisible, revealed solely in that the flaming stars cannot be witnessed burning through His immensity. Those who have been granted this sight may aver that they have looked upon God, in as much as any man may look on him before the ending of the world.

  The vision affected me oddly, filling me first with a huge trembling, then a deep longing, but I did not know for what, at last sinking to a curious dullness, a sorrow that is not easily shaken off.

  I have known one other man who has seen this thing, and he older than my father. Yet a boy of the caravan noted the appearance with me, and countless of the beasts lifted their heads, the bells of their harness ringing as they did so, making such little sounds they hung like drops on the enormous vault of night and space. The boy, however, was afraid, and ran to hide himself. I alone saw all, until the last star vanished, and blazed out again.

  Then I prayed, kneeling on the desert’s heart.

  I could not sleep that night, but in the morning we gained the city, and I was home.

  My father had fallen ill during my absence. His life hung in the
balance and all the house waited like an indrawn breath.

  In adjoining chambers doctors stood, conferring, while a student read aloud from the Books of Praise. Servants came and went like wraiths, averting their faces from me. I felt a quiver of dismay, for I had not yet expected to assume my father’s title, the responsibilities and duties of which would occupy most of each year. I was accustomed to his presence, too, though it rested upon us lightly as a moth. I began to dwell on the lengthy and elaborate funeral, the months of mourning which must follow. In this I avoided examination of any personal loss. Was this death what my vision of the Shadow of God portended?

  At length, a physician of repute who had been in attendance, sought me, and told me that the worst was avoided, my father would live and regain his strength, such as it was.

  Only then, several days and nights after my return, did I think to seek the apartments of my wife.

  She had sent me no message all that while, which I had been glad of, if I considered it. I had had all my moments filled by the needs of the house and the anxiety of my father’s condition, it seemed to me fitting she had not troubled me with anything else.

  Nevertheless, I went towards her rooms with a peculiar sense, not exactly of unease.

  It was just past the sunset. The sky above the roofs and courts shone with that pale dark light which is like no other. It was the hour when all familiar things appear partly unknown, as if this world, secretly intermingled with some other, in the minutes of the dusk half reveals the chasms and the pathways whereby the spirits come and go from each to each.

  There were no lamps burning in the women’s court, and the girl who gave me admittance was hushed in tone and movement. The morbid silence of the whole house, which still persisted, had concentrated here. The twilight lingered in the windows too, behind the lattice, thick yet lucent, like bluish amethyst.

  In the room where my wife was wont to receive me, I beheld her sitting on a divan draped with silk. I had then the strangest impression, for in the gathering darkness, her white face seemed to float, and before her face another, exactly matched, hanging in the air, its profile to her profile, as if to kiss her lips.

  And then I saw it was, this second face, a reflection of her own, caught in a mirror she held at an angle to catch, I supposed, the emptying of the light.

  As she lowered the mirror it gave off one bright flash.

  She rose and came towards me, with a grace and quietness of motion I had seldom seen in her previously.

  I was glad I had stayed chaste, then, for never had she looked so beautiful, my wife, her black hair unbound and with a few white flowers glowing in it, her sombre gown caught at the waist with silver-work — one of the gifts I had brought her. Her face and throat were smooth as polished marble, and her eyes so purely black they were like heralds of the night.

  She had ordered no entertainment, and a supper was already laid. At this she waited on me herself, serving me wine in an aged obsidian goblet, ancient as the Great King, tradition has it, a treasure of the house I would not have presumed to select. But she did it so winningly, I could not chide her. Indeed, she was the kernel of sweetness. She demanded nothing, only asked now and then, in a low still voice, what she might bring me, or for some news of my journey, what I had seen and how I had fared. This then was my wife as I found her, so much the ideal of my wishes I wondered if my father, before he fell sick, had thought to send some canny woman to her to give her lessons.

  I marvelled, but then I ceased to marvel, for desire overtook me. When we had gone in to the sleeping-place, and lay down together, I discovered also here an utter change. She welcomed me as the land embraces the spring, drawing me to herself, making herself for me all things that I would have, so that I felt my own power as though I were winged.

  A while before cockcrow, softly she waked me, and suggested with a new modesty and thoughtfulness that I might leave her, to conclude my sleep on my own couch, which was nearer to the apartment of my father.

  I therefore left her in the dusk of dawn, uninclined to vex myself, or her, with questions.

  The winter, which gnaws to bone the desert, and spreads its arid spider hand upon the ripeness of men, was for me that year a cask of plenty.

  My father came back to his study, and there I, or his steward, might find him, as formerly, his books and scrolls about him, and the skull with its dreadful stare, the owl at rest upon its perch. He was a touch more sleepy than before, as if he too had made a journey far off, seeing distant cities, but he returned without travellers’ tales, content enough, it seemed, in his patient somnolent way, to hear mine. I did not tell him of the passing of God across the sky, I did tell him that my relations were improved with my wife, that I thanked him now for discovering for me such a pearl among women. And at the Feast of Drums, that one other trod behind us, at last, hastening to come up with us in the fullness of summer. For she was with child, my Rachel.

  So the winter went by, with its stations and observances, the barren season that was for me quick with life. And I grew accustomed to prosper, as a man grows used to honey, until the hive is spoiled.

  The spring came swift, walking over the earth, scattering green shoots and the clamour of starlings that take flight. The fisher-bird stood above the reeds like a warrior among his spears, the eagle hung from heaven upon two banners of bronze. The grain rose up and the roses of the garden drugged the air with their ruby scent. Summer brought the Feast of the Kings, the tax-paying, and the inspection of the vineyards. And in a golden noon they gave me tidings that her time had come, that the child was to be born, my child and hers. And then golden noon went to afternoon and faded to a purple night, and the summer stars lit like torches, like blossoms on a purple pool, and the lights were going to and fro in the women’s quarters, about my wife’s apartment, like little stars that had come down there to her help, the tapers of angels.

  I went to the priests, and made an offering. The smoke wavered, not straight, but like a briar, a tare twining the healthy wheat.

  The scribe stood reading aloud by the door: ‘And it is woman who shall bear, bending her back like the young olive to the press of the wind. Sons shall she give you, and daughters, numberless as the apples of the tree, according to your will.’

  All night the lights went about the stair and gallery, the high window of her chamber of lying-in burning now brilliant and next low and faint, like a fire upon an open hearth.

  I did not sleep. I saw to such business as I might, unable to give to it my proper mind. Now and then I sent to ask among the women how it went with her. All night the word came back to me: the same.

  When there began to be a hint of paleness over the hills beyond the city, I started to see it there, for how had the eternity of that endless night seeped away? Where had it gone? A physician knocked at my door. He was skilled and had put on a cool flat face. He told me the child would not leave the womb and that they must try certain measures. Then I went to pray. I could not have said what it was I felt, yet it lay on me like a garment, covering my body and my head.

  When the sun rose, to set the gilding alight on the roofs of the Shorn Besset, as I had seen it do almost every dawn of my life in that house of my father, a dreadful crying burst from the women’s quarters.

  All was lightless there now, in the shade of the eastern wall, and the tapers of the angels were put out.

  Although it was unneeded, one came to tell me soon Rachel had died, and the child, wrenched from her body, was like a stone, dead also as a lump carved from the rock of the wastes.

  He called me to him, before the summer was over, when the harvest was only just begun. He sat in his usual chair, the desk of books before him like a plateau, and even as he spoke with me, he fingered now and then the silken tassel of a marker of thin ebony that pierced that volume he had been studying. Just so, it seemed to me in a sort of glimpse, might the giant languid hand of God lie over the plain, interrupted in the perusal of some life by other matters of the upper
sphere. My father spoke. ‘You are young and I am old. You must, for the sake of the house, take another wife.’

  ‘It is too sudden,’ I replied. ‘Do not ask it of me.’

  ‘I do ask, and all the generations that lie behind you, these ask it of you, and the unborn generations, they are loud. I have but one son.’ ‘And no daughters,’ I said, ‘no daughters of your house.’

  ‘Give me then a daughter. Wed her, and she will be mine.’

  ‘I cannot deny you, sir. If you will not listen to my entreaty.’

  ‘No, I will not, may not listen. The voices of the unborn, and of the dead among whom shortly I shall stand, they deafen me to any plea of yours.’

  ‘Then it must be as you wish.’

  ‘You are a good and dutiful son,’ my father vaguely murmured.

  Thus in the Month of Sheaves, I met a new wife beneath a canopy of fringed and reddened silk. She was slender, and comely enough, with a white almond face, lowering her eyes as if to conceal her soul from me. I wed her, and did what was expected, with any courtesy or kindness that was in me. It happened that, although her name was Harah, she was called Rachel, too.

  She was a simple girl, this Rachel, and asked nothing of me, nor gave me anything but her compliance. She seemed content enough to live among her handmaids, idling and chattering, carrying out such tasks as she must without demur. She liked confections, and had a mild passion for harmless board-games of the Dark Lands. Inside a few months, from my occasional attentions, she was with child, and came to term in the following spring. I had no qualms for her, either during her pregnancy or her labour. She brought forth, with the ease of a young heifer, a healthy boy. He was named Ibram, both for my father’s house and after the patriarch of her own, so all were gratified.

  I acknowledged the baby as my son with the correct ceremonies, but I felt nothing for the child. Touching him was like the contact one might have with any squirming inarticulate piece of flesh, some animal, or at best the offspring of a neighbour.