Delusion's Master (Tales From the Flat Earth)

by Tanith Lee

  No wonder the crowd refused to go away. No wonder elders and philosophers had been sent for.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mother and Daughter

  Dunizel stood in a little temple on the north side of wintry Bhelsheved. She had not heard the shouting, or, if she had, had heard it in a psychic manner. She sensed the breath of human intention hot on her heels. She was not afraid. Yet she felt a familiar sadness. It was a portion of her love, as happiness was a portion of it.

  By day the demon jewelry he had given her grew pale. It was wrapped with safeguards, and yet she guessed his protective magics attended her less strongly when the sun filled the sky. The pallor of metal and gems was an omen of this. The child within her, however, seemed stronger by day, as if it answered the light, challenged it, strove with it.

  She loved his child, and as her own mother had spoken to Dunizel in the womb, so Dunizel would speak to her own unborn daughter.

  In the center of Bhelsheved the crowd roared and confounded itself. In the small northern temple, seated quietly under a blue window, the memory of the touch of Azhrarn’s mouth, which was half a world’s craving, upon her own—still vital, always so—Dunizel told the embryonic child a story of its demon father.

  “In the beginning, my dear, there were in the world all beasts but one.”

  So it had been, they said, a million years before the flood, that giant precursor of Baybhelu, had shown the gods’ hand to be evident only when cruel.

  “Swans swam,” said Dunizel, “and fish in the waters. Deer ran upon the plains and dogs barked at a moon so young she scarcely knew what she was. Birds ruled the air, and man made pretense that he ruled the land, though he fought for every inch of it, with the wild ox, the bear, and the dragon.”

  There were demons also. Always, perhaps, there had been such. Though it was related that at the commencement, they had had no lord. But, for the purposes of the story. . . .

  The best loved beast of Underearth was nothing other than the serpent. Down below in the bright shadows, he was admired for his grace and elegance, and for his cool blood and wicked self-command. Presently the demons, innocent then, or merely extremely cynical, brought the snake up to the earth, supposing thereby to make men also fall in love with him. But men took against the snake, scenting his demoniacal origins, mistrusting his lack of legs and ears, his smart teeth and implacable garment. Indeed, they turned on the snake, threw him out of doors when he came in, brained him with mallets when they were able and cursed him and spat on him when they were not.

  The Eshva mourned for the serpent, for they loved him best of all. The Vazdru said to each other: “Let us trick mankind into adoration of the snake.” And this they did by various means, causing him here and there to be elected a god and worshipped, or venerated as useful in magic.

  But one of the day-nights in Druhim Vanashta, certain Vazdru princes began to bet with each other that they could persuade men to like the snake for himself. And this they tried, and this they failed at.

  At last the vexatious problem came to the notice of Azhrarn. And accordingly Azhrarn went by night to the world to listen to men’s opinion of the snake. “How we abhor his cold scales,” they complained. “And his teeth, which are sometimes venomous, and his forked tongue, which might be. And how allergic we are to his leglessness. He is all tail, and the sound of his hiss causes our hair to rise up like bristles.”

  Then Azhrarn smiled, and he went back to Druhim Vanashta. There he took up a snake and he inquired of it, “Would it be worth while to you, in order to win the affection of mankind, to be a little changed?”

  “Of what good is mankind’s affection?” asked the snake.

  “Those they love,” said Azhrarn, “fare well. And those they hate they harm.”

  The snake had heard reports from his cousins concerning mallets, and after some thought, he agreed.

  Then Azhrarn conducted the snake to the Drin, and the Drin made for the snake particular extras, which had all to do with what men had said they disliked about him. First the Drin made him four muscular little legs with four round little paws on the ends of them. And then they made him two little pointed ears to stand up on top of his head. Then they bulked out his body with a cunning device, and straightened his tongue with another—but it remained in fact a thin tongue, and in fact a great deal of tail remained to him at the back. Next they made him an overcoat of long soft black grasses, and decorated his face—which was now very pretty—with ornaments of fine silver wire. His jewel-like eyes, which had always been quite wonderful, they had need to alter only a jot. Lastly, to compensate for removing his venom, (although they left the shape of his teeth alone), they presented him with some sharp slivers of steel to wear in his round feet for purposes of self-defense.

  When Azhrarn beheld the result, he laughed, and ran his hand over the new animal’s spine. At which all was transmuted into flesh and muscle, and the coat of grass into luxuriant, velvety hair. And at the touch of Azhrarn also, the new animal made a strange sound, not a hiss, but—

  “My dear, you are purring,” said Azhrarn, and again he laughed.

  To this day, no cat can bear to be laughed at, even in love.

  However, sure enough, the animal, legged, eared and furry, was an enormous success on the earth. Men were pleased by his grace and elegance, admired his cool blood and wicked self-command. And when he grew sometimes peeved, forgot himself, and hissed—they did not remember the snake, but remarked: “There is the cat, hissing.” Nor did they notice how both the cat and the snake slew mice, or enjoyed milk, though both became the pets of sorcerers. And men never would credit that if you overlooked the fur and held flat the two pointed ears of the cat, then and now, you might and may see still the wedge-shaped demon head and the sharp teeth of the serpent, poised there, under your hand.

  When Dunizel had told the story, she could sense the embryo’s interest in it. It was a childish, satisfying legend, or maybe true. But it was inevitable Dunizel would think of her lover in this way, while others spoke exclusively of the bloodshed and viciousness of his deeds among men.

  The story finished, Dunizel sank into a sort of dream, the sky-blue window light drifting over her. She imagined she and her baby rode on the back of a winged lion. Possibly, probably, the unborn baby shared in this fantasy. She was not like other unborn infants.

  Several hours passed before Dunizel lifted her head at an enormous shout that seemed to rock Bhelsheved.

  It had happened that sages and philosophers had already been traveling to the city, and had therefore been intercepted by the messengers sent off to summon them. Some of these wise men had intended to chastise the previous crowd for irreligiously going there at the wrong time. Some had been intrigued by abnormal portents. An astrologer or two had read mysteries in the positions of various stars. One way or another, Bhelsheved had magnetized them. The messengers conducted them across the sands, over the echoing roads—which did not echo for there were too few treading on them, on this occasion, to produce more than the dullest of concussions. In at the solitary open gate they went. Up to the priests and priestesses they went. And the priests and priestesses fluttered anxiously as pigeons.

  “We beg your pardon and the pardon of heaven,” said the sages.

  “Are you uncognisant of the miracle that has chanced here by divine will?” grumbled a number of seers—added to the testimony of the messengers, the portents had tumbled into place. (Each seer was quick to claim he had predicted an Event first.)

  “Where?” howled the astrologer, a more basic fellow. “Where? Where?”

  The priesthood cowered. How frail and foolish they appeared.

  No woman among them looked a candidate for heaven’s visitation, and not a single girdle on a single slender frame had lifted by so much as a quarter inch.

  “Where?” howled the astrologer once more. His fingers plucked the atmosphere as if eager to pluck open robes and bellies, and gaze within.

  A reverend philosopher
stepped hurriedly forward.

  “My friend desires to know, as indeed do we all, where the favored maiden is to be found.”

  Some of the priesthood began to cry.

  A voice spoke from somewhere in the throng. The throng made way. An old man leaning on a staff emerged. The priesthood glanced at him in new terror, obviously not recalling that here was one of their erstwhile teachers from the antique tower, the building in which they had proved themselves capable of undergoing all manner of ordeals—except, demonstrably, that of holding conversation with men save in the form of ritual.

  The crowd, however, knew the old man.

  He stared about with merciless eyes. The immaturity and silliness of his students clearly caused him acute disgust. Yet, had there not been one student, who, even as these now offended him, had once caused him to rejoice?

  “Be still,” said this old man, and the crowd fell quiet. “Attend to me. I will bring to your minds a girl of superlative beauty, of extraordinary holiness and occult vision. One, who for her demeanor and her looks, was named Soul-of-the-Moon. . . .”

  Just as these words were spoken, Dunizel felt the grip of fate brutally fasten on her. No doubt she herself had foretold what must come, the unspoken wish behind Azhrarn’s use of her. Yet to be used by one who loves you is infinitely forgivable.

  Along the walls of this little temple where she had lingered were writings, for the priests would often inscribe spiritual graffiti there about the gods. She might read such sentences as: The law of heaven is eternity. Or, When I think of you, O Masters of the Firmament, my soul arises like the sun.

  Dunizel now took up a pen and dipped it in the silvery golden ink, and she wrote this:

  The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

  Then she laid her hand over her body, above the vessel in which her child waited out its term, as if she warmed her hand at that dark fire.

  Next moment, she was aware of a vast, concerted tread, the feet of many people, moving toward her along the pastel roads. Still she was not afraid. She felt pity, for all of them, and for the child. Even for Azhrarn—Chuz had prophesied she would be mad enough to pity the Prince of Demons.

  For herself she felt loss; the end of joy.

  The multiple tread drew near, resembling an incoming tide, or a wind blowing through the city. At the door of the little temple, the noise ceased. And then the door was flung wide.

  Winter sunlight streamed in, cold and very hard, like an edge of broken glass.

  An old man walked slowly out of the light, leaning on a staff.

  He, and those that pressed in after him, and those who could proceed no further than the door (for the entrance way was narrow), beheld the mirage of a girl, all whiteness, tinted by the blue sheen of a window at her back. Her beauty was supernal. Their quest being what it had become, she was the only acceptable thing for them to come in and find. (And how had they found her? Perhaps one of her order had noted her enter the temple, and relayed the information. Or had she left some sort of supernatural trail behind her?)

  She faced them. If she had denied the truth, they would not have listened. The way she was, the way she appeared to be, only the gods would have recognized, in that second, that she was not one of themselves.

  On the shore of the lake, unnoticed, the sixteenth murderess felt a piece of loose mosaic under her hand. She prised it up, and with it she cut the veins of her wrists. Dyed with her blood, courteously, she offered the shard to the fifteenth murderess.

  They escorted Dunizel to the heart-temple. An apartment was made for her behind the opalescent altar and the two golden beasts. The priesthood were coerced into waiting on her, and their incompetent ministrations augmented by those of young women of good birth. The messengers came and went over the winter desert. Cavalcades and caravans sought Bhelsheved, through the smoke-colored days and the bladed nights. Gifts were brought, for mother and for child, rare and frequently obscure. All wished to touch the bride of the god—her forehead, her fingers. They kneeled, awaiting her blessing. The poor, who could not offer gifts, milled outside the city, sometimes venturing in, hoping for a glimpse of her. It was once more a festival of worship. A hushed celebration of self-congratulatory awe. Not only had a woman been chosen by a god, but in their era, at this time, which now would ascend into history and myth.

  There had been a hasty burial outside the city: sixteen graves. This, too, had carried a sort of importance, and they had marked the spot with a stone, hastily scratched to read: We who were deceived lie here, to entreat the forgiveness of heaven.

  When darkness came, the fires glittered about Bhelsheved on the frosty plains. Attendants drew the spangled curtains and closed the doors of Dunizel’s invented apartment, leaving her alone, bathed, anointed and clothed in silk, as if prepared for a bridegroom. The god would visit her—nervously and with pride they scanned the deepening twilight over the city. Some claimed to have seen him arrive, astride a horse made of stars, his cloak billowing the moon.

  Dunizel remained in her apartment, as was expected of her, though it was unlike either the cell she had occupied, or the gardens by the lake. It was a chamber of screens and draperies, built also of the beliefs of others.

  It did not surprise her that Azhrarn did not come to her there. Gold dripped from every curtain, the metal hated of demons. A miasmic sense of watchfulness was equally present. How many, scattered in the colonnades or on the paths outside, held their breath, innocently, inadvertently, trying to catch the rustle of gigantic wings, or the muted gasp of ethereal love? Love which pierced but did not despoil virginity.

  The seventh month waned. She felt the child within her stirring, turning in its half-sleep.

  By night, the magic jewels he had given her shone and glowed. Yet he had never given to her one of those tokens for which, in certain tales, he was renowned—those articles which would draw him to a mortal’s side. But on this night, experiencing the child’s movement within her, Dunizel understood quite well that she had only to say his name to summon him, and this she did.

  Between one moment and the next, he was there, a tall black shape like a furled leaf which is really a serpent, and in the blackness his eyes blazed.

  “Do not reproach me,” he said to her at once. “For I warned you how I am and how it would be.”

  She turned and saw him, and his face came gradually into the light, as if some invisible lamp were burning up.

  “Do I reproach you?” she said. “I think, before sunrise, the child will be born.”

  “You will suffer no pain,” he said to her instantly. His countenance was stony, as if he no longer cared anything for her, and by this she might have known it was not so, if she had ever doubted. “And when the child is free of you, I will take you from this trap. She shall be my legacy to them. I will make her strong and terrible, and then I am done with her. And you are done with her also, Dunizel.”

  “No,” she said. “I will not leave your child alone in this, or any place.”

  “I intend,” he said, “to put her callously to work. As I told you, I am the father of wickedness; do not think I will have regard for this creature I grew within your womb, not even for your sake. My plan is only this: Since these people so vehemently adore their gods, I will give them a god to adore at first hand, and let them discover what it is to be ruled by such. Nor will they enjoy the lesson.”

  “No,” she said. “You may leave me, I could not prevent you. But the child shall not be abandoned here.”

  “We have never lain together,” he said. “You do not know love as I can teach it to you. Nor the world, as I can reveal the world. Even Druhim Vanashta will open its gates of steel and gem and fire to you, at my will.”

  She did not remonstrate with him further, only looked straight into his eyes with her eyes that the comet had helped to form. Some fragment of gold in the draperies reflected in
her gaze, and abruptly her eyes, too, were golden. Perhaps he disliked that reminder of the sun, for he glanced aside from her.

  “I will send the handmaidens of Underearth to you,” he said.

  And then he went about the chamber, tearing the gold from its moorings. Whether the touch of the metal offended him was not apparent, save that he performed the task somewhat too meticulously and unswiftly, as if each piece of metal were heavier and more awkward than it was. And when he flung these items away beyond the draperies, they fell without a sound, as if he had robbed them of their substance.

  When this was done, he sank again immediately through the temple floor, his face once more in shadow. Yet, even as he vanished, she felt the brush of his lips upon her own.

  Then the Eshva women began to evolve like slim dark ghosts. She had seen them often, and they had served her reverently, for what their lord cherished, they too would cherish utterly. And it is said that even the Eshva marveled at her beauty. Truly beautiful she must have been, and truly beautiful she was.

  They had brought with them white flax gathered from the margins of Sleep River, that water which flowed by the borders of Azhrarn’s kingdom. And this they stacked on the floor, where it began, of itself, to burn with a creamy flame.

  Before, she had known no pain. The increasing restlessness of the child merely suggested coils of sparks were spinning in her womb. Now, at the igniting of the flax, a dreamy quality descended on her, and next a separateness, so she seemed to float upward from her body, and hover in the air. In this position, she saw what happened clearly, as she would observe the actions of another.

  No effort of her own body was necessary, or so it seemed. The child was already eagerly seeking an exit from her. At first this may have puzzled Dunizel, yet intuitively she must soon have realized that the Eshva, who could charm a fox from its earth or rain from the clouds, were charming the child, hypnotically though speechlessly calling it forth.