No Flame But Mine

by Tanith Lee

  They had offered to Obac Tramaz before leaving; even the visiting Jafn men did so. Obac Tramaz was the god of the dromazi, a fawn gentleman with a dromaz head, dromaz pad feet and hands, and two little humps on his back. The queen at Padgish, Riadis, venerated Obac above all others, even her occasional mate Attajos. ‘Obac sent her a sign I was coming back,’ Curjai had told them, with an offhand familiarity over gods that was, Fenzi said, only to be expected.

  Curjai rode at the front of the eight men, with Fenzi and Sombrec.

  Arok had privately remarked to Fenzi that Curjai had grown older even in the short space they had been at Padgish. ‘I took him for twelve. Now he’s what? Fifteen?’

  Fenzi had shrugged. ‘What else?’

  To which Arok, as if playing a clever move in a board game, added, ‘But so did you grow – quickly.’

  Curjai had volunteered to take news of Arok and the other Jafn back to the Holasan-garth. This it seemed was permissible, also that Fenzi go too.

  Eventually a lull came in the winds. They made a bivouac in a slight valley among fat blades of mountains. Sombrec tried to curb his jealousy as his Jafn lover Fenzi, and his prince Curjai, spoke intently by the second fire.

  ‘I feel it tug on me,’ Fenzi said. I’m sure I know what it is. But how to put it to them that I’m going soon. Especially to my father. And Arok. He lost his son Dayadin, and all this comes from that. I, inevitably, remind him of Dayadin. He has always been kind to me, favoured me. Unspoken between us, but I try to measure for him as – a son. Where I can.’

  ‘But you haven’t a choice,’ said Curjai. ‘Well,’ he added reminiscently, ‘I saw your mother, of course. I mean that mother.’

  ‘Chillel. Did you? I understand she’s very beautiful.’

  ‘More than beautiful. There’s no word here for her beauty. Nor, really, any word there.’

  Fenzi nodded. One god naturally could soundly evaluate another.

  Aware of what Fenzi thought Curjai said, ‘I was only half god then. It was in the blue Hell with Lionwolf. Chillel ruled there as Hell’s queen. She was called Winsome.’

  ‘I … seem to know this.’

  ‘Yes, very likely. Perhaps you can see her for yourself too, if you look inward. Like scrying but without smoke or a glass.’

  ‘I think my sister does that. At least, one of my sisters. I thought there was only one. But now – again I seem to think there are two. It’s unclear to me and I don’t know what the second one looks like. The first is black.’

  ‘When will you leave?’

  ‘I could leave now. Exactly now. Just get up and stride off towards Chillel. A magnet draws me, that’s what it’s like, even though I don’t know the direction, let alone the country. Is she here – no – where then? But I could set off: somehow I should reach her. I dream of it, journeying towards her. I’ve felt this almost half a year, on and off. Now it’s solid as a steel rope. It isn’t,’ he gravely added, ‘that Chillel is forcing me towards her.’

  ‘It must be mutual attraction. Maybe she doen’t even know she exerts such influence.’

  There was silence.

  Then Fenzi said, ‘Stars are attracted towards the heart of the earth. They crash on the surface. All you see is a golden scar left for a moment on the night sky.’

  ‘It won’t be like that.’

  ‘She is Chillel. A god made her from dark and snow. I may walk into her presence and burn up in a sudden self-combustion.’ Fenzi was calm, perhaps sad. ‘She is Chillel.’

  ‘And you’re her son. Come on, man. You can’t be consumed. Half god is good enough to survive meeting a mother. Attajos knows, he’s pure flame, but I never even got singed. And now, look,’ Curjai put his hand into the fire. He did it surreptitiously however, hiding the action from those around so as not to alarm them. He knew they were awed enough already. He constantly had to work at it, jest and chaff them back into partial easiness.

  Fenzi and Curjai observed Curjai’s hand in the fire, burning, burning and completely at home. Curjai removed his hand and laid it quietly on Fenzi’s own. ‘There. Not even very warm.’

  Fenzi grinned. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘How do you know? Think of what you are. What you may be. Well, but maybe don’t try it just yet.’

  ‘Nice advice. The Lionwolf was half god too. He died, though you say he’s coming back.’

  ‘He’s already back, my friend.’

  Sombrec had stopped himself jealously peering at the two young men and so, fortunately, missed the hand clasp. Less fortunately he now also missed the glorious look on Curjai’s face which was obviously not for Fenzi. Curjai, like Fenzi very well among men though he might, clearly loved among men elsewhere.

  Behind one of the mountains a great panorama of cloud abruptly shouldered high. The sky bubbled. The lull in the winds had ended.

  Men turned apprehensively, seeing the whole north sky shift into a tumble of masonry cumulus, black-white, from which icy shafts of hail had already begun to clatter.

  Ten minutes later the men and the dromazi were once more heading south towards Arok’s garth.

  They had propitiated the Simese god of winter too but it seemed to little effect. You could never be sure of gods. Not even gods could be sure of them.

  And the watcher watches. Now the eyes – open, closed – move neither geographically nor into the past, nor even that past’s future. The eyes move towards some indecipherable elsewhere which, once seen, at once becomes decipherable, although doubtless always a different cipher depending on who looks.

  Called for dawn, Ushah walked along a wide paved road, and dawn itself, pastel and lily-like, lustred before her in a limpid sky. Nothing and no one was otherwise visible. No birds untidied the polished atmosphere. In the misty grasslands or fields of growing grain that ran beside the road, nobody toiled, no jolly peasant rejoicing in the non-cold abundance of the corn. Ushah recalled just such a road and such a walk from some while before, but that time everything had kept altering to please her. If she thought Bird at the sky presently there was one. On the other hand the country she had now recently come from, Vashdran’s Hell, had been changed by him into a heaven of crops and flowers, sunlight and soft rain. It seemed to Ushah she had got up and walked off across the Hell plain where for a year or more she had lived. The Lionwolf, whom she had meant to kill, had died and been born again, and she had had no more purpose. Curjai, whom she had fallen in love with, also went away. She had sat mourning for aeons, and then simply risen and started off across the plain, thinking nothing, least of all if she were going somewhere.

  The sun today was lifting higher quite properly. It was like an earthly sun, mundanely normal and bright, and now the sky was blue and if the feathery fields were extremely pale they did not appear unreal.

  Ushah stopped. She had sensed she was no longer alone. She turned and looked behind her.

  What was it?

  Something bounded along the paving.

  Ideas of dangerous animals – wild barbarian lions, black wolves, even some ghastly wolverine like the creature the witch Taeb had slaughtered – stiffened Ushah for fight or flight.

  Then the thing that rushed after called out to her.

  It was barking. It was a dog. It was the blind jatcha dog from Hell which had become a proper dog with brown eyes – Vashdran’s dog. He had named it.

  ‘Star-Dog!’ she shouted. ‘Starry! Here! Here!’

  As Curjai had deserted her so too Lionwolf had deserted Star-Dog. She and the dog, fellows in misuse.

  At the last second, the dog nearly there, she thought he would leap and knock her flat on her back. Ushah braced herself, but he did not leap. He brought himself to such a sudden standstill he nearly toppled over, and then anyway threw himself at her feet, rolling and panting in a delight of refinding.

  Ushah knelt down and embraced the dog. She had always liked animals, when she was alive or dead.

  After a while girl and dog stood up and they ran a race on up th
e road. Both sped as if on winged feet. Next at one or two points both left the ground. She had forgotten she could now fly – or levitate. Star-Dog had taken up the habit too.

  They soared, laughing and barking, and galloped round each other about a quarter-mile above the vista of the never-changing fields and never-finishing road.

  ‘We must find a way out of this dull place.’

  Star-Dog agreed in whuffling mutters. Then he looked off along the sky to what, judging from the sun’s position, was the south. He emitted a low growl.

  Ushah stared where he was staring.

  ‘What is that?’

  Neither of them liked it. His blue-grey coat bristled and his muzzle wrinkled. Her skin pricked and the fine down rose on her neck.

  Even in an unworldly condition animal responses seemed always to be happening.

  The things in the sky were darting along almost as the dog had on the road. A type of sewing light attended them, thinnest silver, getting all the time nearer and leaving behind it scintillant stitches that faded slowly.

  Ushah breathed, ‘Is it him?’ She meant Vashdran.

  In her much metamorphosed universe there were still really only two significant hes – Curjai, Lionwolf.

  The other she had forgotten.

  Never forget gods. It is their way to remind you.

  The silver thread split. Its first needle went piercingly blue and exploded into proximity and shape, unmistakably male, glamorous and awful. As it roared by in a vitriolic scorch of velocity, the head turned. Two golden eyes glared contemptuously upon the girl and her dog. A voice, unspeaking, spoke. ‘You have failed me. Goddess you may have become, but I have destroyed goddesses before and shall again. In passing for now I warn you. Later we shall meet more intimately. Anticipate the dread and terror until we do.’

  Ushah recalled. Her Rukarian name was Ruxendra. She was an apprentice Magikoy of Maxamitan Level. And he – he was Zeth Zezeth in his malignant aspect, blue-faced. He had bound her at death to slay Lionwolf. She had slipped up.

  In a splurge of agonizingly electric indigo the god thundered from view.

  Ruxendra-Ushah reeled, Star-Dog cowering and slavering and snarling beside her.

  The second being arrived in their airspace.

  ‘Oh, a Rukarian,’ said the second god.

  Actually this advent was not of one being but of four. The main protagonist was the god Yyrot, Winter’s Lover. He was in his malign aspect as well, but in the case of Yyrot that meant heat and a sort of seeming good-humour. He beamed on Ruxendra, but the second being, travelling in his arm, spat and hissed. This might have been caused only by her having noted the dog. For this being was a cat-woman covered in silken ginger fur, with a cat’s head, a woman’s body, a tail, two human hands, and two pawed feet.

  ‘Hush, Shimmawyn my paramour of ecstasy,’ Yyrot placated her.

  Shimmawyn slapped him hard across the backside with her lashing tail.

  The two other smaller beings were sitting, one on each of her pawed feet. They were very small and had perhaps reduced their size in order to accompany their grand- or great-grandparents. The dog-cat drajjerchach had a dog’s head, cat’s ears, cat’s front paws on dog’s legs, dog paws on cat back legs, and three tails two of which were canine and wagged, making the middle cat tail also wag – was it pleased or angry? Hard therefore to tell. The chachadraj cat-dog was all cat but for a dog’s nose and jaw from which a huge dog tongue draped, running with spangly spit. This beast had no tail at all, but something issued from the chest that was either a low growl or a loud purring.

  ‘My dear Ruxendra-Ushah of the dark brown hair and worried eyes,’ said Yyrot, ‘take no notice of the psychopath Zzth. Did he not mention you are a deity yourself by now? Minor but not unimportant.’

  Ruxendra mastered herself. Despite all else a wisp of Magikoy control remained to her.

  ‘Yes, Mighty One? Why? How?’

  ‘We live in interesting times,’ said Yyrot unhelpfully. Shimmawyn bit him on the shoulder. He turned absently and kissed her furry head. ‘There is fresh power abroad in the world. Or two powers. They are very great, though one greater, far greater, now. One is an enemy and one a friend. But the friend may be more volatile and dangerous by far than the foe. As for us, and I include yourself, as we are gods we have only to put up with eternity. Never fear. Even eternity will one day conclude.’

  Ruxendra said prudently, ‘It is kind of you to speak to me, Mighty Ethereality. May I compliment you on your beauteous companions?’

  Shimmawyn looked haughtily away. But she had ceased to sizzle. Was she displaying her best profile?

  The draj and chach had now slipped off their ancestrix’s paws. Star-Dog, an opportunist, had begun playing a chase game with both creatures. About twenty feet away they bounced and sprang. Mostly it was the dog being chased.

  ‘Children.’ Yyrot, fondly exasperated. ‘But you, maiden, should return to the world.’

  ‘Great One, I don’t know how.’

  Yyrot chuckled. Ruxendra was reminded of a middle-aged uncle she had had in Ru Karismi. Next instant he was not like her uncle at all. Yyrot too had changed into a sleek grey hound.

  He chased Shimmawyn away over the sky, their sparkly stitchings of holy light attending them. The ‘children’ left off the game with Star-Dog and followed. Star-Dog followed them.

  Ruxendra shouted to him to come back.

  Star-Dog reversed. Regretful but loyal he bounded to her side.

  They stood in the morning sky as all the illuminated extended family grew smaller and eventually vanished. Below, the fields reached two of the horizons, while the road went either way to the other pair.

  Ruxendra seized her dog by one ear. He allowed this. He had been Lionwolf’s but was now hers. She shut her eyes.

  The watcher, eyes shut or open, beheld a pucker in the sky. Something gleamed cold and white beyond it. Ruxendra was visualizing the world of mortality. A mild flash lit everything. Fields, road and morning were gone. The watcher saw that Ruxendra stood now with Star-Dog on a bleached mountain of cut-glass ice.

  Below them here the country of Simisey folded up and down and up. Miles lower a party of eight men, two of whom were more than that, (Fenzi, Curjai), was riding dromazi in the teeth of a white gale. And over another mountain or three lay a Jafn garth with a ball of fire in it.

  The watcher’s eyes move on.

  Skimming southward down the length of the northern continent, towards the cliffs of ice and the icy shore …

  They had been used to live by the edges of ocean. To them, still, an upland and a long foreshore represented memories of islands, homelands.

  Fazion, Kelp, Vormlander – what had been left of their pioneering fleet, after every ship was sunk by the storm and the militant icebergs that had greeted them? Not so many. And now the brief extra years had passed, their number was further reduced. Less than a hundred persons occupied the village built above the littoral.

  It was in the style of their joint peoples, wooden houses, for they had found ice-forest inland and enough of their weapons and tools had been salvaged. Even the roofs had the old boat-shaped look, though they had not been made from boats for none had been recovered. The villagers were accustomed to working at survival. And they were too a proud race, these sea reivers hated and despised over half the southern continent they had left. Who else but they would have dared send their goddess packing, saying she had failed them? This they had done. The name Saftri, once their guiding star, had been refashioned as a swear-word in the village under the cliffs. By the stench of Saftri they would exclaim, to insult her delicious scent. Saftriugly described they, to slap her loveliness. Saff off they added to those they disliked.

  What was to be seen today was the usual village activity. Men were at work in the village street on repairs; a woman or two was milking the deer they had also come on inland and managed to capture and breed – all the cows were lost to the bergs. A shaman’s longhouse, which held by now but tw
o shamans, let go greenish lights through its smoke-hole. Only the shoreline looked empty in a peculiar way. The village had constructed no new fleet, just a handful of small botched boats put together for fishing. Sometimes the fishers had great luck, as ten days back. A pack of seals had veered across the bows. The village still ate well. They had made a hothouse too. There were things to be thankful for, but they thanked each other, no god, for these.

  They had met no other people on or near the shore, nor in their narrow hunting grounds. This alien land, so vaunted by accursed Saftri, was barren. They had not even seen one of the white tigers, for they were uncommon so close to the sea.

  Nor had there ever been any thought of, let alone attempt of, a return across that sea. The inertia of fatalism and low-banked resentment perhaps prevented it. Conceivably with forest wood and determined labour they might have replaced sufficient of their ships to bear them home. But it was as if ‘home’ had become already a myth among them. They spoke of it as if of a golden age, or a Summer garden from which silliness or sin had seen them driven out. Go back? No. This otherland was their punishment, their cold Hell. For surely the isles had been better, more fruitful, more … warm.

  A quartet of young men had left the village. They were strolling along the icy shore.

  Easily spotted due to their pure blackness, they did not often exchange words. They looked away across the ice of the sea.

  The Children of Chillel. Two had been born each of a Kelpish man and woman, one from a Fazion couple, one from a Vormlander pair. These last parents, as with one of the two Kelpish unions, had perished in the saffing berg attack.

  By now all the Chillelings were full grown, men of twenty or twenty-two years, despite the fact none of them, even in Kelpish calendar years, was more than five.

  A mound of ice weirdly formed like a slightly over-large whale bulged from the beach. They paused beside it.

  ‘Then, we should go away from Fazkelvor?’ This was the man born of Faz parents.