Death's Master

by Tanith Lee

  “I have begged my father’s clemency on your behalf,” she said through the pearl in Zhirem’s ear.

  “That is kind of you, madam. What is my offense?”

  “Why, coming here,” she answered.

  “Let me eradicate my offense by departing.”

  “Be still,” she said. “I will tell them you are a brother to us since, in our way, you can breathe beneath the sea. Otherwise they would slay you.”

  “Let them try to slay me.”

  She did not, as another would have, a human woman, dismiss this as a boast of strength or valor. She paid it heed, and turning swiftly to her father, clearly drew attention to Zhirem’s challenge. The king replied to her, and at this, Hhabaid drew from her gemmed belt a little dagger. She took Zhirem’s arm, and attempted to drive the blade, with the sluggish motion of any violence under water, into Zhirem’s arm—but the dagger broke in two pieces. For Zhirem, he felt, in an unexpected burst and for the first time, power and an arrogant joy in the thing which protected him. He grinned at the aging king, and said to Hhabaid:

  “Explain to your father, I am a magician too.”

  “He knows it.”

  The king spoke then, in Zhirem’s own language, showing he had grasped all their interchange.

  “Though you utter only the vocabulary of the land, yet I believe you are of a cousin country beneath the sea. Since you have persisted in pretending otherwise, we conclude it is some un-friend of ours. Nor may we kill you, it appears. But reckon on this, we shall not let you go.”

  “Then let him be my prisoner, father,” said Hhabaid. “I took him and he is mine by right. Let us send for ransom for him to our neighbors, and so discover his kindred. Meantime, he shall serve me.”

  The king laughed at her, a short laughter, for to laugh under the sea was a painful and stupid exercise only rarely indulged.

  “Whatever you could have him labor at,” said the king, in Zhirem’s tongue so he might not miss nothing, “make him toil earnestly, whether upright or on his belly.”

  The courtiers laughed, either at the jest or to please the king with their discomfort. Hhabaid blushed, a blush like a rosy smoke that pushed through her cheeks and throat and so away. But she said coolly in spite of that: “I do not obey you in everything, my father.”

  • • •

  She dwelt in apartments of turquoise. In the midst of them was a courtyard with a garden in it. Living hedges of tethered green fish milled sedately. Tall seaweeds offered shade from the sun, and when the sun grew dim (to simulate “night”), to the pallor of a golden moon, then shell lamps were lit.

  One of the green-haired fish girls was lighting these lamps as Hhabaid drew Zhirem into this garden. Harps stood on the sandy walks so the tides should strike them as they gushed through. An octopus in a cage of orichalc glared, but his ink sacs had been amputated, he could not show his absolute hatred.

  “Keep no note of my father’s jest,” said Hhabaid. “You are my hostage, and I retain you for ransom. But you may take your pleasure with these slaves if you wish. I have heard men desire them very much, excited by their tails. But they are a degenerate race,” she added, “dumb and witless. Our ancestors bred them for amusement, mating their own women with the beasts of the sea, with sharks, whales, dolphins, serpents, and the great fish of the deep.”

  “I do not want these half-women,” said Zhirem. “But your technology confounds me. If I desire anything, it is to learn your magic.”

  “Will you teach me then, the trick of yours?” she demanded, “that knives may break on my flesh?”

  “Surely I will,” Zhirem said.

  “You lie,” she said.

  “And so do you,” said he, “but it shall rest for now.”

  She stared at him haughtily. Barred from much laughter, they were not a humorous folk, the people of the sea.

  “There is a room here, adjoining the courtyard, where you may sleep,” she said.

  “Will you not cage me too?” he asked, glancing at the octopus.

  “If I could, I should. But you cannot be bound, for no force can be used against you.”

  She went away, her slave attendants following.

  All movement beneath the ocean was graceful, but hers exceptionally so. He was already accustomed to the element, its constant laving of his skin; his terror had left him and curiosity remained. Goalless, he had found a goal, and no small one: to gain the magic of Sabhel. Hhabaid would help him to that goal. He had seen into her eyes. Her eyes held what the eyes of Simmu had given freely. Thinking of her loveliness, scarcely concealed with the floating gown, tensed him to a desire that now warmed him, made him intoxicated and eager. Old guilts, old anguish had no place in this lower world. Zhirem had left himself behind among the split timbers of the broken ship. So it seemed to him. In a measure, so it was.

  • • •

  Some days passed, counted by the flaring and dimming of the glass sun. Zhirem went about the garden courtyard, or through those by-ways of the princess’s apartments that were not kept locked against him. The courtyard had a roof of crystal vanes, which presently were shut that he might not escape into the outer environs of the city.

  Rich clothes were brought to Zhirem. Strange food was brought, weird in appearance, of weird taste and constructed weirdly, always upon skewers or in stoppered vessels that it might not float away. He became accustomed to drinking the peculiar wines of Sabhel through straws of fluted jade, and to the whizzing of roast fish-meats about the garden should he let go of them.

  Sometimes a brazen bell would boom from a cupola of the city. He could not guess its function, other than to alarm shipping overhead. He did not question the tailed slaves who waited on him, for they appeared to have neither speech nor brain, and did only as their mistress instructed them. And her instructions to them seemed often to have been eccentric. They would bring him food less appetizing even than usual, or else poisons—he knew them for that for their nature was obvious enough, though he drank them down and took no ill from them. Indeed he constantly must swallow the salt sea itself, nor did it harm him. On one occasion, some of the shark-tailed slave men rushed in and attempted to seize him and could not. On another, the furious octopus was let loose from its cage, and finding Zhirem ineligible to attack, slew several of the hapless slaves, whose uneaten bodies were then left long hours to rot in Zhirem’s vicinity, before the octopus was subdued and the grisly debris removed. Yet again, one sun-dim, or night, Zhirem awoke on the couch Hhabaid had provided, and to which, since any sudden rapid movement might dislodge him, he must secure himself by means of loose silken straps, to find three of the fish-maidens strapped in with him. These then commenced toying with him in such a fashion that his lust became unbearable and agonizing, for he could not bring himself to penetrate their foreign though mammalian orifices. From all these events, and others, Zhirem concluded he was being put to the test and constantly observed, probably only by his captrix.

  One dawn, or sun-bright, he found a table of books laid out for him. The pages were of white shark skin, and not written on in the way of the books of dry land. The words were embroidered in black silk, and then each page lacquered with a clear glaze to protect it from the water. Of these interesting volumes, only two were in land tongues, which Zhirem recognized from his childhood tutoring in the yellow temple. These two he accordingly began to read. Both concerned legends of the ocean kingdoms, and he concluded both had been copied from human tomes and in the original languages, to titillate the multi-lingual sea people. Having nothing better to distract him, Zhirem was diverted by reading. Imagine then his irritation when, the following sun-bright, he discovered the two books had been removed, and only those left which he could not decipher.

  Later, a while after the sounding of the brazen bell, a figure entered, veiled in jet black to the ankles, for ankles she had, and two feet below them.

 
“The princess has sent me to teach you the tongue of Sabhel,” declared the vision. Zhirem could tell nothing from the voice, for the magic pearls which enabled hearing under the sea (the better, now one resided in each of his ears), yet distorted all timbre and nuance. However, the edge of the veil was weighted with gold nuggets to prevent its floating up; the nails of the white feet were rosy and the toes ringed with jewels. From this he knew it was none other than Hhabaid herself, trusting to disguise.

  She had been spying on him a huge time, through chinks in the walls and magnifying glasses in the overlooking towers. He had allowed her the game, and did not confront her now.

  Thus, the language lesson began and, finding him swift to learn, she seemed inclined to prolong it, and so they continued till the next bell sounded. At that, he inquired what the bell might portend.

  “It is the Prayer of Sabhel,” answered the veiled Hhabaid.

  “A call to prayer?”

  “Indeed not. We do not demean ourselves by praying in person to the gods, who long since dismissed our people. But out of respect for the gods, if not love, the bell rings. The message of the bell is this: We do not forget heaven, though heaven forgets us.”

  “And how did the gods anger you?”

  “I see you do not credit that the gods exist. This is unwise. Centuries ago, and centuries before that, my race lived on the land, and they forgot the gods were above them. The gods then grew peevish, and opened the enormous valves that hold back the rain. One year the rain fell to the earth. The rivers and the seas overflowed. The whole world was flooded to its four corners, and nearly all men perished—save for the magicians. A few survived in curious boats, but others discovered methods, through their spells and sorceries, of existing under water. And these were my people, who became eventually so prosperous and content in their submarine cities that they disdained to leave them, decades after when the great flood was drained. How idiotic then the gods must have looked. And we are the sea people, that landsmen fear. We rule the waters, and no sorcerer, however sagacious, has jurisdiction in our country. Even the Prince of Demons must be courteous with us.”

  “Must he so?” mused Zhirem somberly.

  “So he must.”

  The veiled and “unknown” lady visited frequently after that. He never accused her of her identity, and she became easy in his company, teaching him intelligently and well, and now and then, taking small liberties, such as to stroke his hair or press his hand. Otherwise, the testing ceased. Soon he could converse with her in her native language most fluently, at which she brought him a variety of the books of her people, and only retrieved them when they had been read. Yet, though the works were fascinating, they gave up no sorcery to him.

  “I see that your mind is hungry for knowledge,” said the veiled Hhabaid one early sun-bright. “Indeed, I suppose it to have been starved. Now admit to me, Zhirem, are you not of my people? Your wits are as quick as ours and you can live in the sea. What extra proof is needed?”

  “Perhaps,” lied Zhirem cautiously, “I am some foundling of your race?” He had sensibly lost the habit of laughter here, or he would have laughed, thinking of the desert where he had been born, miles from any sea.

  “This may be so. Then you are entitled to acquaintance with our customs.”

  “With your magic, too. I recall, I mentioned my wish to learn these arts. But, of course, I petitioned your mistress, Hhabaid.”

  “Oh, she will not remember,” said the veiled Hhabaid, “for she is cloddishly stupid and has no memory.”

  Her coyness and the transparent trap she set by reviling herself as another, might have been infuriating in someone else, but in her it had a ridiculous half-acid charm, as if she mocked herself. As she elaborated, he believed that she did, and certain of the faults she stressed might be real ones which she owned she had.

  “I did not form that opinion,” murmured Zhirem.

  “Did you not? I will speak frankly. She cares nothing save for her own pleasures.”

  “I believed she took some pleasure in me.”

  The veiled Hhabaid was not such a liar that she denied it. “I think she does. But she is fickle, rash and intemperate. And there could be no sweetness for you in her attentions. She is so dull and plain.”

  “Then I confess my unwisdom, for I thought her beautiful.”

  A pause. Then: “Did you so? With her hair like rags, her round eyes, her shortness of stature—no, she is not worth looking at.”

  “I should find it hard to look at any other thing, were she with me. In fact, I yearn for the moment when I may see her again.”

  Hhabaid did not resist this potent cue.

  “You may see her directly,” she said, “for here she is!” And she lifted up the veil and tossed it aside to swirl about the garden and affright the fish hedges.

  She appeared very lovely, vulnerable, proud, and alluring. He had not the pedantry to undeceive her. Like many intellectually astute persons, she was in some respects a perfect fool, which struck him, in his desire and entertainment, as delightful.

  “Why, madam,” he gently said, “you amaze me. Was it just, to play such a trick on me?”

  “No,” said Hhabaid, “but neither am I just. The catalog of my faults, as I have said, is long.”

  Zhirem went to her and kissed her brow, her lips, her throat, and would have proceeded in this thrilling and descending mode, but she stayed him with both hands.

  “The reward for your cleverness at lessons is not Hhabaid,” she told him, though her eyes brimmed with surrender.

  “What other recompense is worth anything?”

  “To be instructed in the magic of the sea folk.”

  “Certainly, that is not worthless.”

  “Nor safe,” said she. “The ancient laws of the cities of the sea forbid that any landsman be tutored in our sorcery. But with you I make exception, since I reckon you are obliquely kindred to us. Also because my father, who was disappointed that none paid your ransom, now turns impatient that you are kept as my guest here. He bids me make haste and be done with you. He will be rid of you.”

  “I cannot be taken or slain,” said Zhirem, making a prisoner of her by her blue-green hair, that color of his own eyes, and kissing her once more.

  “Oh, not slain perhaps, but Sabhel contains a million traps and snares, harmless in themselves yet unbreakable, which, unwittingly, you might be drawn into. Then he can keep you locked away in some black place forever, without food or joy of any sort, and I shall not dare to free you, for Hhabhezur is terrible in his wrath.”

  “It is not love you owe your father, then, but fear.”

  “My duty I owe him,” Hhabaid replied, but Zhirem supposed it was as he had said. “Now, let me go, and I will take you to that dreadful spot where you shall learn the mage-craft of Sabhel.”

  5

  A hidden way beneath a hidden door in a secretive room of Hhabaid’s apartments. Downward, and into inky gloom, Hhabaid moving before him, the feet of neither touching any floor, swimming through the ink, and then toward a pallid glare. At length, a pair of gates of heavy gold, lit by lamps of witch-fire, burned dully out of the murk. No bolt to these gates, but roped about them, holding both their leaves together, a serpent black as oil with a great flat head, on which were enamelled, in the tongue of Sabhel, the words: Who would pass me?

  Hhabaid instantly swam to the serpent and set her fingers between its serrated jaws. At her touch—or taste—it immediately slid from the gate, one side of which folded open.

  “Go before me,” Hhabaid told Zhirem, and he swam before her through the gate; at which she took her fingers from the creature’s jaws and followed him. The gate swung shut of its own volition and the serpent coiled about it once more.

  Beyond the gates of gold stretched an avenue of granite pillars, ringed with gold and with tall lamps hanging down from them, giving ou
t an eerie cold light. Hhabaid led Zhirem between the pillars and they came into a vast hall, also coldly blazing with lamps, bright enough that everything might be seen.

  It was a hall of death. A hundred kings were seated there on chairs of green bronze. Gold footstools supported their feet, and gold lay heavily on their shoulders and arms. The flesh had long deserted them but they had not gone to bones, for the sea and its organisms had changed them into statues of coral, red and pink and white.

  “We are long lived, but at decease, our kings are brought to this hall. Each of the lords of Sabhel is seated here, and will be seated here,” said Hhabaid, as she and Zhirem drifted between the chairs. “It is our most absolute custom, for then our kings may never totally die, but become one with the substance of the city. It is all they have of obsequies, for we possess small religion, having rejected the patronage of the gods.”

  At the end of the massive hall stood another obstruction, a massive door of stone. It had no visible guardian, but when Hhabaid approached it, it rumbled like distant thunder. Then Hhabaid kissed the door, and it slowly opened, again into a blackness.

  No sooner had they entered there, than the door ponderously closed, with a vibration that set the water humming.

  “Whatever occurs now,” said Hhabaid, “do not falter, but press on after me.”

  “So I will,” said Zhirem.

  A moment more, and they were in a jungle of heaving slippery giant weeds, which wrapped about them, painless but vehement to distract. And through these weeds, directly in their path, appeared a mighty glowing face, large as the door had been, which grimaced and snarled, and whose pointed teeth dripped with slime. Straight at this face Hhabaid launched herself, and vanished in the ghastly mouth. Zhirem, following her fast, caught his breath at the stench of that aperture, which abruptly enveloped him, and threatened to render him unconscious. But Hhabaid darted ahead, and Zhirem kept pace with her.

  They swam, it seemed, through the cavern of the monstrosity’s obnoxious mouth, and presently, far worse, down its throat, a lightless stinking plunge toward a bubbling pit—the stomach—from which gases rose impossible to inhale. But just as Zhirem felt himself stifled, the effluvia dispersed and the whole horror disappeared. Hhabaid and Zhirem had thrust through into a silver cave of faint-shining water. Nothing was there save at its farthest back, where stood a man-size robed image of red metal, now almost entirely crystallized to the green rust of verdigris.