by Tanith Lee
Thryfe said, ‘Do you need my help?’
‘In a way, Highness.’
Something came to Thryfe. Was this near one actually fawning slyly, making a performance of his own humbleness? Some plot? Absurd. None but a fool threatened the Magikoy.
‘Like this it is,’ said the suspect labourer. ‘We are up the field. Bit of a fire starts. Puts it out. But then this hare runs from the stalks. Think it were a girl, but then no, no girl. But this. And she runs this way, towards your house here, Highness. So and we come to see. But then she’s all bemused, like she would be. Go I, gets her gentle and picks her up and brings her.’ The man held out the filled sack which now, unnervingly, gave off a sinuous lurch of motion. ‘Was all,’ said the man in a different, stranger tone, ‘I could bring away from there. Out of the ash.’
Thryfe stared down at the sack. And either the man smoothed it off and away, or the substance of it parted.
So he saw.
In the arm of the man sat a jet-black hare, long ears like sable petals folded back, black gem eyes fixed only on Thryfe.
Thryfe could not speak.
He said, even so, ‘Out of the fire, you say, the ash.’
‘Oh yes, High Father. Out of the fire. All I could bring away. Not quite herself. But all I could bring you. Out of the fire.’
The hare lifted herself, and Thryfe saw something gleam, snagged there in her fur against the breast, like a hollow teardrop. She launched herself forward and he found he gathered and gripped her, gripped her tight. In his arms now.
‘See, High Father. She likes you. You it was she wanted.’
‘What—’ Thryfe tried again. ‘What is that caught in her pelt?’
‘A ring it is, tarnished silver.’
The man in the middle distance said, ‘He thinks we’d steal it so why have we not?’
‘Now, Uncle. He never does. Excuse my old uncle, sir. He has the feverish Olchibe blood. And that’s my brother, over there. He’s a boyo and no mistake. Come oversea and the girls won’t leave him alone.’
A flash of white teeth from the third man then. And braids sliding out of the Olchibe one’s hood. And this one, this one on the doorstep, his blue eyes in the square and wind-burned face, blue as the sky of dawn-dusk was going, and each with a glint of crimson red.
But Thryfe could say nothing, only hold the plush and living body of the little black hare, with his ring he had given her in her human time tangled in her fur.
‘She’s all I could bring away from the fire,’ the first man said again. His voice was like the stillness of the earth. ‘She is there, I swear to you, Thryfe, her soul is there. But never in this life again can she be human. Wait till the next life, Father. Till then, keep her safe. She knows you, if not all she did. Until next time, Highness. Keep her safe.’
And Thryfe stands by his door in the seconds that prologue sunrise, holding the black hare in his arms. And the three men turn and walk away, and their shambling becomes striding, and at the perimeter of the snow, between Winter and Spring, dark and day, each one vanishes. Like a star, like a flame, like a sun.
How long after? Years, half a century. Thryfe the magician is long-lived too and barely changes, and his pet creature the hare, she thrives and lives on too. She will live as long as he does. On their last journey neither means to set off alone. There has been enough of that.
This evening, and when it is only the new gods know, Thryfe sits before the magic mirror of the oculum, and he strokes her soft head. She is no pet, of course. Nor is she, as he was told, Jemhara any more. But something within her is Jemhara and has persisted. And he loves her, she him. Passionate committed love need not always be sexual, nor pinned between the same species. Love is love.
Together then they watch as the oculum sweeps through the continents, conjuring cities as they rise, and garths and sluhtins and all the congress of peoples also rising from the grave of genocide and of the ice. The ice has mainly gone away, retreating to mountains by now. And as the seas have risen from vast waves and meltwater, islands decorate the coasts where once the ice fields clutched them.
Groups of Stones too the oculum has looked at, the tall standing Stones that dot the continents and formerly gave off lapis light and green, and now one and all are only blank grey monoliths leaning up on the air. Silently they form the markers of an active power that grows latent, if hardly lax. Even the Gargolem has obeyed this power. In the end even Winter has had to kneel before it.
Thryfe has known a great while.
Much of mankind knows.
All come to it in diverse ways, often via parochial concepts. But all have solved, or will solve, this ultimate equation.
While on this calm evening Thryfe is to be granted a final definitive vision. It is the profound reply which only the Final and Profound God can render, and that solely to the psychic and the mage.
It happens.
The oculum having shown so much, including even the artistically forested continent of Brightshade up by the pole, shimmer-clouds like abalone. And through the smog someone appears. Someone – something—What, what is here?
I am here—
She says.
She. Yes, a goddess, of a sort. One of the Gods of the Ultimate Equation.
Through Thryfe’s brain slip all the strategies of the board game he and humankind, godkind, have been made to play. What has seemed autonomous has frequently not been. What has seemed to be manipulation – is.
And in the mage-mirror these segments float and organize themselves before him.
The birth of Saphay he sees, and how she has sprung from a will more potent than any mortal process. The rape of her by Zeth he sees, and the rape in turn of Zeth by Saphay, the robbery of sunfire. Yet it is not by Saphay but by what is in her, what has made her for that very deed. In a surge the images chase across the sorcerous screen, each act of the story from opening line to last. Even Thryfe is there, he and Jemhara, little pieces on the colossal board.
And he beholds the two of them far back, in that previous mansion when the Ice Age ruled. When time fractured and slid in panes, staying one and propelling the other onward, the Eagle and the Hare, so they should fatally meet and so be snared. And then the timeless gap of their orgasmic first lovemaking, which preserved them both from the White Death. And he had blamed her for all that, for snaring him. But neither she nor he had been guilty. The ice-web of time had saved them for the convenience of what moved them on the board, before, and since.
And what has moved not only them, but all of them, all and everything, is this other that now he sees in the mirror. This Other.
And She speaks again. She speaks.
She is female, the image in the oculum.
Indescribable?
Yes. Or is there the slightest hint in Her of Saphay? Perhaps, perhaps. Why is that inexplicable when Saphay was the firstborn creation, the very first game-piece of all? And in some ways the strongest of them all, perhaps having to be so. The most like her Mother.
And is this barely describable She beautiful?
Beautiful and terrible. And compassionate. And without pity.
And what is She?
The world, that is who and what She is. She is the earth.
Five centuries of Winter smothered and chained Her. Her lovely mantle, Her precious body and locks of fabulous hair. Her lands, Her seas, Her verdure, the life that is Her children, man and beast, all these enslaved, and in the cold forgetting Her. Of course She would rebel and plan Her freedom.
And deep within, as She has broadcast in Her Stones, Her fire still flaming bright. Bright enough at last to cause another sun.
To Thryfe She speaks, and so to the hare, who listens also.
To the whole earth She speaks, She who is the earth.
Never believe you have done any of this. Nor have they done it, the pantheon of gods I have made you. Not even he, the Sun. My Sun. My son. Save only through Me.
None can steal My fire unless I grant its use. For who
but I lighted the fire of all things in the world? There is only One igniting Flame. And this belongs neither to men nor to gods. It is Mine, and Mine alone.
No Flame but Mine.
GLOSSARY
Balnakalf – Whale foetus: Rukarian
Borjiy – Berserker, fearless fighter: Jafn
Chachadraj – A cat-dog, product of the mating of a cat and a dog (see also Drajjerchach): Gech originally
Chaiord – Clan chieftain/king: Jafn
Corrit – Demon-sprite: Jafn
Crait – Type of lammergeyer: Rukarian uplands
Crarrow (pl. Crarrowin) – Coven witches of Olchibe and parts of Gech
Crax – Chief witch of Crarrowin coven
Cruin – Coven witches of Gech in the time of Sham; by later eras they are more usually called also Crarrowin
Cutch – Fuck: Jafn and elsewhere
Dight – To make love, or fuck
Dilf – One of several forms of dormant grain and cereal: general, but found mostly in more fertile areas
Doy – A masturbatory aid used by one unable to find a woman; often applied however to a woman deemed unsatisfactory: Rukarian
Drajjerchach – Dog-cat, product of the mating of a dog and a cat (see also Chachadraj): Gech originally
Dromaz (pl. Dromazi) – Type of camelid: Simese
Endhlefon – Time period of eleven days: Jafn
Firef ex – Phoenix: Rukarian
Fleer-wolves – A kind of wolf-like jackal: general to the Ruk
Forcutcher – Insulting variation, of obscure exact meaning, deriving from the word cutch
Gargolem – Magically activated metallic non-human servant; the greatest of these creatures guarded the kings at Ru Karismi prior to the White Death: Rukarian
Gler – Demon-sprite fond of taking on human form: Jafn
Gosand – type of wild goose: Simese
Graron – Rogue leek or garlic, normally a hot-house crop
Hnowa – Riding animal: Jafn
Horsaz (pl. Horsazin) – A breed of horse apparently part-bred with fish; scaled and acclimated to land and ocean: Fazion, Kelp and Vorm
Hovor – Wind-spirit: Jafn
Insularia – Sub-river complex belonging solely to, and solely accessible to, the Magikoy: Ru Karismi
Jatcha – Hound of Hell, normally only encountered beyond life
Jinan/Jinnan – Magically activated house-spirit: Rukarian – Magikoy
Kadi – Type of gull general to the Southern Continent
Kiddle/kiddling – Baby or child up to twelve years: an Olchibe term which, due to the war, has spread
Lamascep – Sheep of long, thick wool: general to the Ruk
Lashdeer – Fine-bred, highly trained chariot animals used for high-speed travel over snow and ice: Rukarian
Mageia/Magio – Female and male witch or lesser mage: rural Ruk Kar Is, and elsewhere in the north
Magikoy – Order of magician-scholars, established centuries in the past; possessed of extraordinary and closely guarded powers: Ruk Kar Is and elsewhere in the Ruk
Maxamitan Level – Highest level of achievement available to Magikoy apprentice; the next step is to become a Magikoy Master (NB not all Magikoy however are known as ‘Masters’): Ruk Kar Is
Morsonesta – Burial ground located in the Insularia of the Magikoy: Ru Karismi
Oculum – Magikoy scrying glass, or magic mirror of incredible scope: Ruk Kar Is
Ourth – Elephant or (especially) mammoth: Olchibe
Prak – Derogatory term for a ‘loose’ woman; the nearest equivalent is ‘slag’: Rukarian, but also found elsewhere
Ruk/Ruk Kar Is – Definition; Ruk Kar Is refers mainly to the more populated and ‘civilized’ areas of the Ruk, such as cities, ports. The term Ruk involves the whole region and includes the eastern backlands and parts of the Marginal.
Scrat – Type of rat; see also scratchered: general to Southern Continent
Scratchered – Basically, over-used: Jafn in origin
Seef – Demon, type of vampire: Jafn
Sihpp – Similar to Seef: Jafn
Slederie – Primitive land-raft drawn by sheep or sometimes dogs: Ruk and south-east mostly
Slee – Riding ice-carriage: Rukarian
Sleekar – Deer-drawn ice-chariot: Rukarian
Sluhtins – Large city groupings of sluhts: Olchibe
Sluhts – Communal tent/cave/hut dwellings: Olchibe
Tibbuk – Room kept for the inhaling of various smokes to do with scrying and prophecy: shamanic Simese
Towery – Complex of towers connected to each other by walkways and/or inner passages: Magikoy, Ruk Kar Is
Trech – A prostitute who cheats or steals from an honest client: backland Ruk
Vrix – Demon-sprite: Jam
Werloka – Male witch: Jafn
White Death – The fatal energy blast, and also subsequent plague, that resulted from the unleashing of Magikoy weapons against the horde of the Lionwolf: general
Acknowledgements
All my thanks to those who have contributed inspiration throughout, notably, as so often, my husband and partner John Kaiine.
And my gratitude and appreciation to my editor Peter Lavery and my copy-editor Nancy Webber, for their patience, tenacity and clear vision.
I would also like to acknowledge and extend thanks to the three ladies whose generosity permitted the names of Lionwolf’s foremost goddess:
Chilel (Chillel), Winsome, and Toyin (Toiyhin).
About the Author
Tanith Lee (1947–2015) was born in the United Kingdom. Although she couldn’t read until she was eight, she began writing at nine and never stopped, producing more than ninety novels and three hundred short stories. She also wrote for the BBC television series Blake’s 7 and various BBC radio plays. After winning the 1980 British Fantasy Award for her novel Death’s Master, endless awards followed. She was named a World Horror Grand Master in 2009 and honored with the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2013. Lee was married to artist and writer John Kaiine.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2007 by Tanith Lee
Cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN: 978-1-4804-9324-7
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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