"As always, Your Majesty," said I obligingly.
"Good. Your first task is to bring us Sunteil. Nothing else matters until that is done. Go, then. Go now."
Grandly-yes, imperiously-he waved us from the room.
* * *
"Can you imagine it?" Polarca exclaimed. We were making our way warily through the shattered city. Sirens sounding, blurts of gunfire breaking out randomly here and there. "He tells you what to do, and then he tells you that you can go. A little wave of his imperial finger. Dismissing a king the way you would a stablehand."
There were implosion craters everywhere. Now and then a screening bomb went off, blanketing a whole zone of the city with dark clouds of communications-muffling murk. Or an explosion far overhead would send down showers of brilliant golden metallic threads, as though this were not a war but some sort of grand merry pyrotechnikon.
I said, "King, stablehand-it makes little difference to me, Polarca."
"Less than a stablehand! You wouldn't even talk to a stablehand that way!"
"No, I wouldn't," I said. "But I am not Naria."
The threads were clusters of picosensors: espionage devices, gobbling up data in mid-air as they floated. Sunteil's little spies? Naria's? Who could tell? Perhaps the doppelganger generals of the doppelganger emperor Periandros were the ones who had ordered them to be dropped.
And still the sky-banners of the three emperors rippled like auroras above us. And on the horizon, too, the brilliant purple light-spike that was the mark of the Rom baro, telling all the world that that great personage was in residence at the Capital in this very hour. Which I was beginning profoundly to wish was not the case.
Polarca was still furious. He couldn't let go of it.
"You aren't angry at being treated like that, Yakoub?"
"Angry? What good is being angry? Will it make him more courteous? Naria does as Naria must."
"The bastard. The pig."
"If I allow myself to become angry," I said, "I lose sight of what a formidable adversary he is."
"You think he is?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"Just an arrogant boy, puffed up with his own importance. How old is he? Fifty? Sixty? Not even. Sitting there in that glass box on display like the wonder of the galaxies. Calling himself 'we,' and handing out orders to kings. Going out of his way to let us know what a big deal he is. Playing games with you, leading you around by your nose. I'm surprised you put up with it like that, Yakoub."
"He is emperor," I said.
"That pimp? That fop? You call that an emperor?"
"He has the palace and the army," I reminded him. "And is very quickly going about the business of consolidating his power. Periandros is dead and Sunteil, who everyone thought would reach out and take the throne like a ripe fruit the moment the Fifteenth departed his body, runs and hides. And Naria knows how many doppelgangers there are of Periandros; he knows that Sunteil came visiting us in secret this morning. I think we need to deal with him as though he is truly the emperor, Polarca."
"What do you mean to do, then? Will you recognize him? What about Sunteil?"
"What about Sunteil?" I asked.
"He, at least, pretends to treat us as equals. Naria treats us like dogs."
"You prefer the pretense?"
"We live by pretense," said Polarca. "And what we pretend is that the Gaje respect us, when we know that they merely fear us, because they need us, because they depend on us. But the pretense of respect feels better than the reality of contempt. I like Sunteil's style better than I do Naria's."
"So do I," I said. "We may have no choice, though."
"Will you give Sunteil to Naria as he asks?"
I shrugged. "I don't know, Polarca. It's not a notion that pleases me a great deal."
Our cavalcade of cars came to a halt. We were at the palace of the Rom king, in the Plaza of the Three Nebulas. Suddenly I had a profound wish to be alone. For an instant I almost wished I was back on white glittering Mulano, squatting by the Gombo glacier and trawling for turquoise spice-fish with a vibration net. Far from all this, far from everyone, the wagging tongues, the clamorous ambitions, the murderous schemes, the noise, the blood, the idiocy.
Chorian came running out to greet me. He was agitated: an implosion bomb had gone off next door to the palace half an hour ago. He pointed to the palace walls: great ugly cracks ran from floor to ceiling. These lunatics would not be satisfied, I thought, until they had destroyed their entire absurd Capital. Well, so be it. So be it. The cities of mankind are temporary things. Let it all come down, I thought. Let the Gaje ruin all the worlds. And then we will lift ourselves from their midst and return to Romany Star to live in peace. As soon as we receive the call.
As soon as we receive the call.
Chorian tried to tell me that I should leave the Capital at once, while starships were still running; that I should take myself back to Galgala and await the resolution of the imperial civil war in relative safety.
"There is no safety anywhere," I told him. "I will stay here."
They all surrounded me, bubbling with conflicting advice. I sent them all away and went to my private suite, to my only refuge in this hubbub. I needed to rest, to think, to weigh alternatives.
But even there I could not be alone.
Hardly had I settled down but the familiar figure of Valerian's ghost came drifting through the walls. He was wearing magnificent robes of red fur trimmed with ermine, and he was buzzing and crackling with enough electrical intensity to light up half a planet. In the true Valerian manner he hovered erratically in mid-air, skittering this way and that.
I felt no joy in seeing him. "You? Here?" was the best I could manage by way of greeting.
"I had to come. Even if you didn't want me. You need to get out of here right away, Yakoub. This planet isn't safe."
"You're telling me that?"
"For God's sake, a war is about to break out here, Yakoub. Do you want to be killed? The crazy Gaje bastards are going to bomb each other into oblivion."
"You're out of phase, Valerian. The war has already begun. Look, can't you see the cracks in the wall, here? An implosion bomb across the street, half an hour ago."
"It'll get much worse. I'm trying to warn you."
"All right. What's going to happen?"
"Everyone's going to die, Yakoub. Get out while you can. Get everyone out with you. Listen, I'm only two weeks ahead of you in the timeline. That's all it is, two weeks, and in those two weeks all hell breaks loose at the Capital. I'm not even sure what happens. I came right away, as soon as I heard what was going on here. You've got to go. Now."
"You aren't the first to tell me that today."
"Well, I may be the last, if you don't get moving."
Wearily I said, "You get moving, Valerian. Go ghost Megalo Kastro, all right? Iriarte. Atlantis. I need to be by myself for a while. I need to think things through."
"Yakoub-"
"Go. Go. In the name of God, Valerian, let me be."
He gave me a long reproachful look, shaking his head sadly. And then he was gone. Leaving behind his buzz, leaving behind his crackle. Not in the room, just in my brain. I began to realize that I was starting to come close to the overload level.
A hot bath, I thought-a nap-a little flask or two of brandy-some quiet time to myself-
So much to decide. Leave the Capital as Chorian and Valerian urged, and let the Gaje lords do as they wished with each other? Or stay, and continue to try to shape the pattern of events? Snare Sunteil, and give him to Naria? Or send out word to the Rom star-pilots everywhere that ships must not go forth so long as Naria holds the throne, as Sunteil had urged? Ah, Mulano, Mulano! Peace! Quiet! Solitude!
There was a colossal blast just outside the palace. The entire building trembled and I thought it would collapse; but somehow it held firm.
"Yakoub? Oh, you Yakoub!"
What now? I closed my eyes, and suddenly I felt the presence of all the Gypsy kings once
again burgeoning within me, the whole horde of them, pushing and shoving for my attention. Red-bearded Ilika, and little Chavula, and Cesaro o Nano, and all the rest of them, kings of lost Rom realms and kings of dominions still unborn, some whispering to me and some shouting. They were telling me tales of past and future, filling me with visions of glories gone and glories yet to come, but they were all speaking at once, and it was impossible for me to understand a thing. Their eyes were wild, their foreheads glistened with sweat. I begged them to give me peace. But no: they grew more impassioned, they circled round and round me, plucking at my sleeves like beggars, telling me this and that and this and that incomprehensible thing until I was ready to bellow and roar with mad anguish.
"Yakoub?" said a familiar voice, through all the hubbub. "Yakoub, listen to me!"
My voice. My own ghost, striding into the room.
I stared into my own face. It seemed strangely transformed, oddly different from the face I had looked upon all my life. Something about the eyes, the cheeks, even the mustache. An older Yakoub, an ancient Yakoub, Yakoub with all his years finally showing: still strong, still vigorous, not at all a walking cadaver such as Sunteil had made of himself, but nevertheless clearly a Yakoub who had come to me across a great distance in time. Which told me one thing that gave me comfort in that hour of madness, which was that my skein was still a long way from being fully spun.
He reached out toward me, that other Yakoub, and his ghostly hand rested on my wrist as if to hold me in place. His face was close to mine; his eyes searched me deeply.
"Has Valerian been here yet? To tell you to clear out of here?"
I nodded. "Five minutes ago. Ten, maybe."
"Good. Good. I was afraid I might be too early. Listen to me, Yakoub. Valerian doesn't understand a thing. He comes from just a couple of weeks down the line, did he tell you that? Too soon to know the full story. He's wrong to want you to leave the Capital. You have to stay. Do you hear me, Yakoub? Stay right here, no matter what happens. It is absolutely essential that you remain at the Capital. Do you understand me?"
My head was throbbing. I felt six thousand years old. A hot bath, a flask of brandy… sleep… sleep…
"Do you hear me, Yakoub?"
"Yes. Yes. Stay… at… the… Capital…"
"That's right. Say it again. Stay at the Capital, no matter what happens."
"Stay at the Capital. No matter what happens."
"Right. Good."
He disappeared. A tremendous explosion rocked the building. Another. Another. I ran to the window. The sky was aflame. And against the soaring tongues of fire the sky-banners of the three rival emperors rippled and blazed.
I felt myself caught in a whirlwind. Again and again came the terrifying sound of the war outside. The world was breaking apart, and so was I. I tried to hold myself together but it was impossible. I was whirling out of control. Some force beyond all resistance was pulling me free from myself. Sending me hurling like a handful of scattered atoms into the turbulent tempests of space and time…
Whirling… whirling…
It was like the first time I had ever ghosted. I felt my soul splitting in half.
EIGHT
The Grand Kumpania
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-Eliot, Little Gidding
1.
THIS PLACE WAS NABOMBA ZOM, THIS MAN WAS LOIZA la Vakako. Or so it seemed. I had little doubt that I was on Nabomba Zom, for how many other planets do we know where the sea is red as blood and the sand is pale lavender? But was this really Loiza la Vakako? He seemed so young. The man whom I had known once could have been any age at all except young. But this one, strolling by himself along the shore of that boiling sea, seemed no older than I had been myself in that far-off time when I had lived the life of a young prince at the palace of Loiza la Vakako.
I appeared right in front of him, ghost-high above the moist sand. He seemed not at all surprised, almost as if he had been expecting me. Smiled the quick sly smile of Loiza la Vakako. Studied me with those awesome eyes. Young, yes, no doubt of that, hardly more than a boy. But already he was Loiza la Vakako, complete and total. That regal presence. That austerity of spirit, that leanness of soul. That penetrating shrewdness. That calmness that was not mere cow-like placidity, but represented, rather, the absolute victory over self.
"First ghost of the day," he said. "Welcome, whoever you are."
"You don't know me?"
"Not yet," said Loiza la Vakako. "Come. Walk with me. This place is Nabomba Zom."
"I know that," I said. "I'm going to live here for a few years, one day when you are older and I am younger. And I will love your daughter. And I will share in your downfall with you."
"Ah," he said. "My daughter. My downfall." He seemed unconcerned. "You're the one, then. You are a king, are you not?"
"Can you see that?"
"Of course. Kings can see kings. Tell me your name, king, and I'll wait for your return with great eagerness."
"I never knew anyone like you," I said. "You are the wisest man who ever lived."
"Hardly. All I am is less foolish than some. Your name, O king."
"Yakoub Nirano. Rom baro."
"Ah. Ah. Rom baro! You will love my daughter, eh?"
"And lose her," I said.
"Yes. Of course, you will. And find her again, perhaps, afterward?"
"No. No, never again."
His elegant face grew solemn. "What will her name be, old man?"
I hesitated. This was all forbidden, what I was doing. But it seemed to me that I had lived on into a time beyond the end of the universe, when all the old rules were cancelled.
"Malilini," I said.
"A beautiful name. Yes. Yes. I will call her that, most certainly." Again the quick smile. "Malilini. And you will love her and lose her. How sad, Yakoub Nirano."
"And I will love you," I said. But already I felt myself growing transparent; I was being whirled away. "And I will lose you." And I was gone. Out of control. Whirling. Whirling.
2.
THAT BEAST THERE, STRANGE BEYOND WORDS, the double humps, the great jutting rubbery lips: I think it is the thing they called a camel. So this must be Earth. I am in a dry sandy place, jagged gray hills jutting at disturbing tilted angles in the distance, whirlwinds circling restlessly over the scrubby plain. A caravan of extravagantly costumed people with dark skins, coarse black hair, sparkling eyes, brilliant grins. Black felt tents. Hats with wide turned-up flaps. I have never seen this place or these people before, but I know them.
An open-air forge here, goatskin bellows, great heavy hammers, two smiths banging at red-hot metal. Here, three girls striding side by side, aloof and mysterious, like priestesses of some unknown order. A woman with ten thousand years of wrinkles, busy with beans and slivers of dried grass and the knucklebones of sheep, foretelling the future for a wide-eyed young Gajo. The sound of a flute nearby. The aroma of roasting meat, seasoned with sharp spices.
3.
OUT OF CONTROL. ONWARD I GO. WHIRLING. WHIRLING. I might almost have been on a relay-sweep journey. I had that same sense of hanging suspended above the entire universe, flying swiftly from somewhere to somewhere through a vast soup of nowhere, with nothing to shelter me from the black inrushing strangeness of the cosmos except an imaginary wall of force not even as thick as a bubble. And I could no more govern the direction of my flight than I could the movements of the suns.
But this trip of mine now, it was free fall through time as well as space. I was going everywhere. I was going anywhere. Nothing at all held me in place; I was without moorings; I was a straw blown by the gods.
I needed to regain command. But how? Ho
w?
4.
MENTIROSO, NOW. UNQUESTIONABLY MENTIROSO. That sense of inexplicable and inescapable fear, bubbling through your veins, stirring in your gut. The closeness of unfriendly gods conjuring panic without reason. The hot scent of terror on the thick heavy breezes.
Look, there: the synapse pit of Nikos Hasgard. Those men sitting side by side in the stirrups, twitchy little Polarca, big sturdy Yakoub. They both look exhausted. Bowed, trembling, pale. I keep myself hidden from them as I float down. I stand behind them and let my right hand rest on Yakoub's shoulder and my left on Polarca's. I will try to send my strength into them both. Is that possible? A ghost aiding two living men? Well, I try. I try. I reach into myself and find the core of my vitality and tap it, and draw power forth from myself, and send it down my arms into my fingers and attempt to thrust it on into them.
Is it working? They seem to sit a little straighter. They regain some of their color. Yes. Yes. Here, Yakoub, here, Polarca, take, take, take!
They look at each other. Something is happening but they don't have any idea what it is.
"You feel it?" Polarca says.
"Yes. As if energy is coming up out of the equipment instead of going down into it."
"No. Not out of the equipment. Out of somewhere else. Out of the sky."
"Out of the sky?" Yakoub says.
Polarca nods. "Or out of the air. Out of the fog. Who knows? Who cares?"
I will stay with them as long as I can. A day, a week, a month-it is all the same to me. I live outside of space and time. And they need me.
But the fear… the fear…
Even ghosts feel it.
And I feel it reaching me, coming up through them in amplified strength. The fear that makes your teeth clack and your balls contract and your urine turn to ice. That fear is the glue that binds the cosmos together. The fundamental substance, the universal matrix. Conquer it at your risk; for if you do, you drive a wedge between atom and atom, and the universe begins to crumble. Nevertheless I struggle against it. I will not let the terror overwhelm me. I fight and I fight well, and I thrust it back; I beat it down; I trample it, I crush it, I destroy it. I am on Mentiroso and I am unafraid. And in that moment of no fear I see the little line of black that is the first crack in the fundament of the worlds. I have done it, I, me, Yakoub Nirano, I have driven the first wedge, and now it widens, now it yawns, now it is a broad dark chasm reaching outward, devouring everything it touches…
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