by Tanith Lee
Presently Thryfe turned and went into the mansion, leaving the half circle of gargolem guards to their watch.
That Vuldir became King Paramount held no surprise for Thryfe. Even before Sallusdon had died, Vuldir would have been busy seeing to this. The destiny of kings had little interest for any of the Magikoy. Centuries past, a king was also the High Priest of his people, their leader and – if necessary – interceding sacrifice. But no longer. Now royalty remained, a greedy parasite that was tolerated, and by many revered because it gave the nation of the Ruk its figurehead. For that reason too, all rituals were closely observed. No sign of respect was ever omitted. For to lapse was to display the lords of the land as hollow toys, unimportant, and so lessen their only value.
With Thryfe such people barely counted – only sometimes what they did, or caused.
He sat in the towery of the South House, gazing at his own thoughts, which had not even touched on Vuldir.
For several months he had lodged under the city in the Insularia, among his fellow Magikoy. Rumours circulated above that they prepared down there some special show or artefact meant to benefit the Ruk. In a way that was true. It was about the Ruk that the Magikoy debated and laboured and grew incensed with each other, there in the complex underworld below the ice.
Rumours also sank down to them, below. There were wars among the Jafn barbarians to the east. This had happened before, and was always happening. But it meant little to Ru Karismi. Later another news broadcast started. The Jafn had themselves elected some sort of petty king – how risible – and were now at war with the sub-human Olchibe and Gech. The sophisticated city was even quite tickled at this idea, that the Jafn might mop up such scum and so incidentally safeguard those Ruk caravans which still moved eastwards or north.
By the Magikoy, however, these distant war games were scrutinized with horror. The Magikoy knew what smouldered at their core.
The creature, half human, half god, they had now – several of them – been shown in the spheres of oculums: as a Firefex, as a lion, or a wolf made of fire. Thryfe had seen something else. He had been shown the standard the creature had adopted, a smoking blue sun over a flag of flames. But none of them had been able – not even the greatest among them – ever to behold the creature’s actual face or body. Such was his power, and inimicality, magic could reveal him only in symbols.
Yet the symbols demonstrated plainly enough what he could do. He could win and take whoever, whatever he desired. Armed with so vast a legion as he was now gathering, what other goal would he have than the Ruk itself? It was merely a matter of time before the avalanche of this savage and genius-inspired horde swept round into the west and south.
The Rukarian lands must be defended. Not one of the Magikoy did not know this: against such odds, it would only be possible by supernatural means.
Though many in above-ground Ru Karismi recalled the ancient sorcerous weapons reputedly stored there at the heart of the Insularia, they did not grasp their significance. To the Magikoy themselves, these weapons of ultimate retaliation were unthinkable things. But now perhaps they were the only chance of deflecting the fate of the Ruk – the world’s fate, even.
The arsenal’s awakening was therefore debated, in an atmosphere of depression and terror.
Thryfe had stood before them all in the Nonagesmian Chamber. ‘No,’ he had said. ‘No, are we mad that we consider it at all?’
‘These thaumaturgicals have never been tried,’ said another. ‘They may not be quite as we’ve been told.’
‘Worse,’ said Thryfe. ‘They’re worse. Human imagination can’t encompass what they are. Who hasn’t read the writing which tells us that?’
Others too again spoke against the weapons. And others spoke again for them, as unavoidable.
The argument raged. The breath of horror swelled and choked the room, so its fakery of sunlight turned to murk.
The armament was not anything like the mage rays and arrowing lights any battle might engender. It was itself as terrible as the events continuing in the east. Or more so – much more.
Recent generations of Magikoy had never seen the weapons. Secretly formed, they crouched there in the underworld’s heart, unemployed, disarmed – waiting.
Appallingly, in the very moments of protesting for or against them, every one of the Magikoy, male or female, master or apprentice, guessed that the time of the weapons had come, the season of their unleashing. The creature from the east had given licence for their use. By no other method could they resist him.
The debates ended. A dreadful quiet covered the labyrinth of the Insularia. Several Magikoy meanwhile crossed back over the bridges and sought an interval of peace in their mansions. Thryfe was one of these. As he rode away, the election of a villainous king meant nothing to him. The world was tumbling from the brink.
Crystals hung from the roof of the shrine, and tinkled as the woman walked by below.
In her black-blood gown, hair cascading with jewels, one saw she was a royal woman of the court. Some wondered why she had come to the temple-town with such a slight escort. Others recognized her as the younger of the two Queen-Widows. She must be pious, here to make an offering to the gods of dead Sallusdon: Preht, Yuvis and Zezeth.
A shrine guardian bowed to the Queen-Widow Jemhara.
‘Why,’ said Jemhara, ‘is the god not in his niche?’
‘Which god, exalted lady?’
Jemhara pointed. The guardian squinted among the array of little god-statues, each ensconced in a gilded recess. One recess was empty.
‘Particularly,’ said Jemhara, ‘I wished to appease Zeth Zezeth.’
‘That’s unusual. He is a very spiteful god, when in malign mode.’
‘Where then do I find him?’
‘The statue has been taken out for some purpose. Perhaps to clean it. Or a patron of the shrine wished to borrow it.’
‘Am I not now a patron of the shrine? Am I not always the widow of Sallusdon, dead King Paramount?’
‘Lady, excuse me. I’ll go directly and ask where the statue is.’
Jemhara stayed by the altar table, looking under her lids at the gods. This was the third shrine where she had failed to discover an image of Zezeth Sun Wolf – while in Vuldir’s personal shrine, they said, the statue had been dropped and broken. The slave who had been so careless had died a slow and grisly death, screaming to the end that the statue was never dropped, but came apart when he touched it.
Elsewhere, too, Jemhara had heard of the icons of Zeth developing black stains. There was one she herself had come across, at the corner of a small side court in the palace, that had gradually cracked and darkened like a rotting fruit.
She had once glimpsed the god, his kind side, during a magical conjuration long ago. She was then hardly more than a child, but she knew enough to kiss the ground at his feet. Later, those few she told informed her she lied, or had been mistaken. Zezeth would hardly have honoured her immature spell with his visitation; he was not an elemental or demon. Despite that, ever since, she had been fascinated by this god. Why had he come before her? And why now did he withdraw from the city – for it seemed to her that was what he did.
A shrine priest approached. He said, ‘Lady, the statue of the Sun Wolf went a month ago.’
‘How could that be – was it stolen?’
‘It dissolved.’
‘Dissolved!’ Jemhara’s eyes sprang wide. For a second you saw right into them, but only a short way; their lovely floor was shallow.
The priest shook his head. ‘The shrine lets in cold air. There are faults in the roof. These conditions are unfavourable—’ He left off his whining as the Queen-Widow turned in a cloudy swell of mantle and hair. Her attendants ran after her as she swirled on out of the shrine.
Jemhara got into her litter. Her slaves carried her through the temple-town, past all the other painted shrines, and next up ramps towards the palace.
Returned into her rooms – new ones and less grand, no l
onger those of a second reigning queen – Jemhara took her scrying mirror from its box. She stared into the milky surface, and saw nothing. Then Vuldir was there, tiny and far off, with the great gold crown of paramouncy perched on his head.
‘Is it you?’ he said. ‘How long you take to answer me.’
‘I was away in the city, Mightiness.’
The crown was a cipher. He was not actually wearing it; it was for state occasions, and heavy. But the mirror showed her his mood. He was preening, at his kingship. And he wanted something from her, she thought. Was it sex? She believed not.
‘I have an hour when you may visit me,’ he said. ‘Attend in person, in your flesh.’
He no longer liked her appearing before him in her spirit form, seeping through walls and doors without needing a key. Had he stopped trusting her? She had better be wary, for she had helped Vuldir destroy Sallusdon, and the ones who helped Vuldir, quite often – the same as the ones who hindered – he rid himself of.
She went up to those apartments where he saw courtiers of more minor eminence – lower princes and Widow-Queens.
When Jemhara entered, Vuldir was alone.
‘I have a piece of work for you,’ said Vuldir. She bowed. ‘Your sister-Queen-Widow has withdrawn herself, very properly, from the city. She’s no longer seen at court. Now your turn for modesty has come.’
Jemhara lowered her eyes to hide her displeasure. She must never seem to go against him. ‘Mightiest lord, whatever you wish.’
‘Go south to the village of Stones.’
Despite all self-training, Jemhara’s head darted up.
‘Where?’
‘Yes, dear dove. A village, a pigsty, and with all the appurtenances of a sty. But the Stones stand there. You may like those.’
Aghast, she looked at him.
‘Your eyes have become quite round,’ he observed. At that she lidded them over in the normal way. ‘That’s better. Don’t you know who has one of his houses near the Stones?’
Jemhara lifted her head more slowly now.
‘Thryfe, the Magikoy lord.’
‘Just so, Thryfe. No sooner did I assume my office than he sped off there. I think he has always tried to frustrate my plans. I don’t trust him. I wish him gone from my life, and therefore from his own. And you have your skills, don’t you, Jemhara?’
‘But he is Magikoy.’
‘He is a man.’
Jemhara trembled. Like a cat, she stared at nothing. Her hair crackled with neurotic galvanism.
‘He has no interest in women.’
‘Make him find one. Sallusdon hadn’t performed as a man for twenty years till you got your kitten claws into him. Look where that led.’
‘But he is Magikoy.’
‘Are you a gargolem? You sound mechanical, repetitive, unclever. A pity, that.’
Jemhara put her hands together under her chin. If this was all the chance she had, she had better take it.
‘If you require it, my lord, I shall try my best.’
‘Oh, improve on that. Succeed or I’ll be annoyed.’
Thryfe had gone down from the towery. Outside, in moonlessness, he struck off across the higher land beyond his house. It was an hour’s journey.
He was thinking deeply, deciding how it must be done, the dissuasion of the Magikoy from the use of their thaumaturgical weapons. It would, if they acted soon, be plausible to construct another armament, strong and efficient, actually usable. That was, sorcery which killed cleanly, and left some hope behind.
The land opened. An island of ice-forest curled over the dully starlit snow. In that direction was the sprawl of a village, now unseen. Nearer, about a hundred paces off, rose the Stones.
It was because of the Stones that Thryfe had had this house built here. Initially, when at home, he had gone to visit them every day or night, but then he ceased to do so. Their inexplicable beauty, their unsolvable enigma, eventually made him forget them.
As he drew closer, he began to see their light. One was not always able to make them out. Chameleon-like they would mimic the colours of day or evening, shining aquamarine at dusk or blush at sunrise, or, on nights of triple moons, a brilliant white. Tonight, though, in the dark, they had chosen – and maybe they had chosen, for they might be sentient, no one knew – the hot blue of turquoise.
They stood in their ring, ahead of him. In number they were fifty, or some said fifty-one, but Thryfe had counted them. Perhaps one Stone had disappeared before he came there. They were tall, twelve or thirteen feet, smooth and wan. Their light commenced deep inside them, like the glow in a lamp. One shone up, then a second, then the light spread in variable order into all. They pulsed, now quickly, now with melting imperceptibility. The flame bloomed, expanded, died, revived.
All around, the snow and ice reflected and became turquoise.
Thryfe stopped where he was, seeing them as if for the first.
Was the unhuman energy that motivated the flame in the Stones like the power which had formed the secret weapons of the Insularia? Magic was everywhere, ready to be used by any with the talent and schooling to do so. But these things here were not of that type. They were beyond the scope even of the highest mages. They must be left alone.
Something cracked through the air like a whip.
Thryfe altered. He was no longer motionless – even though he did not move at all.
He realized fully it was not any noise he had heard, or anything he had seen, that sudden whiplash. Something psychic, separate from himself, and probably separate from the Stones, had entered the scene.
Against the sea of light, on the blue snow, Thryfe spotted it quickly enough.
It was a hare, long and slender, its ears upraised. Unlike most of its kind, it was not white but black, and on the lit ground as easy to notice as a bit of spilled night. It sprang about, playing with nothing, seeming entertained – and complacent.
Thryfe watched the hare. No, it was not a hare. A shape-changer was here.
An element, long controlled and unutilized, shifted within the psyche of Thryfe. Not many had witnessed his smile. Just as well: the smile was not humourous, not amiable. It carved his features to a ruthless line. Then it – and he – were gone.
His alter-self – Eagle – soared up into the sky. Over the playing hare fell a great, still shadow.
It had been, she thought, an arduous expedition to the village. Jemhara had hated every moment. And it was all the more vile because she understood that, once installed, not only her slee but also most of her travelling luxuries would be withdrawn.
She had grown up in just such a frozen midden. That had been a stead to the west, outside the minor Ruk city of Sofora. The farming people there had meant Jemhara – then known as Jema – to grow to a life of honest toil. Learning that, at the age of five, she could do extraordinary things, such as turning, through will, a jug of thick chipped ice to water in a matter of seconds, they apprenticed her to the steading witch. The old woman was impatient, and sarcastic. Additonally she abused Jema, both by beating her and sexually. The child knew no other way; even so, she did not like her treatment. When she was eight, she led her old tutor on to the ice of a river, and magically melted out an aperture under the witch’s feet. The witch went in without the space even to yell, and Jema healed the ice over instantly. Perhaps no one suspected her. Ice did occasionally give way. In any case they needed her by then, having no other mageia. At nine years, Jema gained authority over the whole stead. She received the best food for her assistance, and blackmailed steaders besides over events she glimpsed in her scrying mirror – which was at that time a shard of broken bottle.
When she was fourteen, Jema deserted the stead. She went with a seller of pelts to the capital. Tiring of the man and impressed by Ru Karismi, Jema – who now called herself Jemhara – began to worm into the bottom levels of the court.
She was fly, and heartless, and lovely. She was also only sixteen when Vuldir first took note of her, eighteen when, with Vuld
ir’s connivance, she wedded Sallusdon, King Paramount.
She had come a long way, and did not like to go back to her gross beginnings now.
The village of Stones was awful to her. The dwellings were built of tree-trunks and ice-brick. A fog of choking and unwarming smother hung on it from its fires. Jemhara lodged in an empty guest-house with her two servants. She offered no magical help to the struggling village. She was a fine lady now.
As for Thryfe – Jemhara had not yet formulated any plan. She credited her own skills, but knew she was no match for a Magikoy master. Had Vuldir only sent her here to have Thryfe destroy her? Vuldir was prone to callous yet random plots.
Boredom seized on her after a day and a night in the village. Respectful of her status, the villagers had brought her kindling and provisions, and not intruded. The two servants sat dejected in the back room.
A curious latent hunger for the open air followed boredom into Jemhara’s mind. It occurred to her she might go and spy on the house of Thryfe – which of course, being governed by Magikoy sorcery, her mirror could not show.
She had been capable of shape-changing since she began to menstruate at eleven.
The night was one of no moons, and Jemhara preferred the dark for her changes. The servants thought she slept, and her door was bolted on the inside. A black hare bounded from the low window hole and away across the ice.
Though a witch of more than ordinary gifts, Jemhara had never properly exercised dominion over them. When she became an animal, something of her was intellectually lost. For her that made the state more enjoyable.
Yet, in that condition, having found the Stones and the blue light tidally coming and going, Jemhara-as-hare gave in to the urge to play.
Thus she missed any signal in the atmosphere that might have warned her some other was present.