by Tanith Lee
3. The Panther’s Gift
But in the forest south of the eastern garden, nine months had passed. They had gone by in a ripeness and down-fall, a frost, a gelid crystallization, in strident winds. After these had come a soundless interval, a wait, during which most things seemed to sleep. Then, living rivulets ran over the ground, stars opened on the bushes. The Pigs rushed from the caves and rubbed themselves on the trunks of the trees. In the river the young ones swam like white amber under thin green jade.
Coming from the river also, Jyresh met the Heron steward, who stood on one leg on the bank, his staff of office in the other, and draped about with wings.
“It is time to leave,” said the Heron.
Jyresh exclaimed, “Have I no choice?”
“We observe your father’s wishes. None,” replied the Heron. “After nine months, if you have pleased, you must be given your wage and dismissed.”
“I have not pleased. I am a renegade. Therefore I shall stay with the Pigs.”
But the white Boar was at his side.
“For all things, Fate writes his book,” said he. “Not a line may be canceled.”
Then Jyresh saluted the Boar.
“Back to the world,” said Jyresh, “where I shall never rest so well or find such solace again. And if I say, there, a herd of swine sheltered me, how they will laugh.”
“Say nothing then. You do not need to speak of it to make it so. It has occurred.”
“But I shall think it a dream.”
“All life is thus.”
Friends do not always part with torrents of words and show.
The Heron preceded Jyresh through the forest. Jyresh walked with his head lowered, sometimes smiling at his own folly, sometimes brooding. It was already as a dreamer that he reentered the court of the Panther lord.
And, “You have served well, and not displeased us,” said this lord, looking on Jyresh with the burning eyes in his black velvet mask. “Therefore, take your fitting wage.”
He indicated, on a table by the dais, a curious bouquet. It was composed of a thorn-like claw, a tuft of tawny fur, a white dagger of a tooth.
“This?” inquired Jyresh.
“These.”
“What may they be, my lord?”
“A key,” replied the Panther. He closed his eyes and the court muttered, some of the foxes behind their fans.
“My lord, it does not resemble—a key—of any sort.”
“Do you say so?” the Panther purred. He opened one eye a mere slit, closed it.
The Heron drew Jyresh aside.
“Attend now. You must go home. On your road you will come on a fine tomb, which you will know by a blue-black crow seated on its roof, that will speak to you.”
“Indeed.”
“The hair, claw and tooth are the key to this tomb.”
“Why should I desire a key?”
“Much wealth lies therein.”
“I,” said Jyresh, “am no robber of graves.” And his gaze grew dreamier. His heart was harking back to the forest, the days and nights and seasons of needing nothing.
“Nevertheless,” said the Heron.
Suddenly it hooted very loudly. It flapped its colossal wings. And all at once the place was in an uproar. Tigers shot from their couches and deer bolted from their games of chess. A bull charged through an apes’ stampede. Geese gushed underfoot, birds dived screeching. Hyenas had hysterics. Not a beast that did not make its rightful noise. Snarls and squawks, barks and squeaks and hissings resounded from all sides.
Jyresh staggered there. He cried—“They are animals! They are birds!” A giant boa rolled over his feet—“And serpents!” And he reached for his knife. But in that instant all was gone, like smoke, like forest mist. All was gone, and there he stood upon a bouldered cliff, under old trees, in a sunset. The dreamer awakened. Though in one hand he held, still, that bunch of claw, hair and tooth. Generally a sleeper brings back only his soul from such depths.
• • •
Jyresh the prodigal walked home, westward now, over the rocks and roads, between shorn pastures and bare terraces, with the scintilla of spring bright in the air.
Let it be said, he loitered. He wandered from the track, dallying through fields and woods, and sometimes he met there his fellow men. And Jyresh greeted them with enormous interest and concern, as if they came from some other species of which he was fond.
In this manner, in no hurry, he often missed his path, nor much cared. Then, toward evening, as the sun began to go down, he would set himself again westward.
At the close of the seventh day of Jyresh’s thus-lengthened journey, idling in the wine of dusk, he came among some groves and next upon a burial ground.
On the unwatered red light the trees and the various tombs stood up ornately black, and winged bits of the blackness now and then swirled off and flew about the sky.
Jyresh felt at once in the pouch at his belt, after the Panther’s gift. With some apprehension, he began to go across under the shut and silent houses of the dead.
Presently he came by a great tomb, of such white stone it gleamed as if wet. On the roof, an indigo crow sat preening, which turned its head and called to him familiarly: “Greetings, my son. Here is the place.”
Jyresh eyed the crow, and answered, “I would rather pass by.”
“That is not your fate.”
“How then am I to get in? Not with a key of fur?”
“The door stands ready unlocked.”
“Then others have been before me?”
But the crow took sudden wing and left him there. At the same moment, the sunset ebbed and stars began to rain out on the cooling sky. The white tomb darkened as if it drank its own shadow off the ground.
Well, thought the young man, if it is my fate, I must essay it.
And he put his palm on the tomb’s iron door, which instantly yielded.
In the tomb was blackness. And every ghostly tale and superstition of childhood, every sensible true warning of the supernatural Flat Earth, came on Jyresh at once. He was afraid, and cast about him for some means to a light. Now it was the custom in that land, as in many others, that the dead be buried with their riches, especially when they had no heirs, and besides this that the mausoleum should have two chambers, the outer of which was dressed as a living room, with all the usual furnishings. Jyresh therefore, advancing with care, soon found a hanging lamp, and this he lit.
Looking up in the radiance of it, he let out a cry.
The chamber had been decorated lavishly, and by the painted walls were tall chests of cedarwood with handles of gold. A curtain of heavy stuff hid the entrance to the inner compartment, where the corpse must lie. And seated before that curtain, in a carved chair, was Death.
There could be no doubt in the mind of Jyresh, for he had heard many stories concerning her. And she was exact, Death, in each particular. She was the color the crow had been, and wrapped in a mantle that seemed fashioned of her own skin. Her hair streamed round her like the blood of amethysts. Yet she was a phantom too, insubstantial—and from this shape of half-transparent gloom, two points of yellow arson glared at him and never moved: her eyes.
After a second or so, Jyresh, trembling in every limb, bowed respectfully.
“Majestic lady,” said he, “I was ordered to this destination by another. It was not my wish. Neither to disturb you here.”
Death did not shift, not a finger nor a hair. Her eyes glared on.
“Thus, if you do not think it discourteous,” said Jyresh, “I will at once withdraw—”
“No,” said Death. “You must stay, now you have come in.”
Jyresh paled.
“For how long, royal lady?”
Then Queen Death chuckled. It was not a fortuitous sound. She drew her right hand out of her mantle and toye
d with a lock of her amethyst hair; the right hand, as in the tales, was a skeleton.
“We shall see,” said Queen Death, “how long you must stay. For myself, I am not entirely present, as perhaps you may perceive. I rule in Innerearth. It is my image only that is here. And yet, I am here also, in thought and deed. I have come to select treasure by the sorcerous means my queenship and my studies grant me. For there are items in this tomb that I covet. You, it would seem to me, covet them as well.”
“I protest,” quavered Jyresh. “I will not irk you with all my history, but suffice it to say I have served a magician who, as a wage, gave me a thing he named a key, and sent me to this mausoleum.”
Death frowned. “Yes. You reek of magic. Show me then your key.”
Jyresh hastily fumbled for the bunch of talon, fur, and fang.
No sooner had he brought them into the light, however, than a fearsome noise was heard all through the tomb. It was a colossal snarl, like that of some cat-beast of extraordinary size. And as this happened, and Queen Death opened her glare wider in surprise, a kind of whirlwind tore into the chamber, and catching the Panther’s gift out of Jyresh’s grasp, cast it on the pavement before him.
And then there was a marvel for sure. Something rose towering up, so the head of it must brush against the roof. It was not to be seen, this entity, yet it was to be felt, and its pungent odor, at once carnivorous and bloody, yet also clean as the stars, filled the hollow tomb, and the strength of its being, though invisible, that was everywhere, so Jyresh seemed to himself to be crammed down into a tiny chink in the wall. And even so, the enormity of that animal expression had been itself incredibly compressed to enter here—it might have filled the earth.
As for Death, Jyresh could no longer properly see her. She, too, even she, seemed pushed far away, and the ghost-body of her earthly manifest looked wrung out as shrunken washing.
At last then, the Creature spoke—in a human voice, low and deep as distant thunder, weightless as dust, that shook the tomb to its foundations.
“Death,” said It, “once you were another. You were a mortal and a woman, and you hunted leopards, and wore the hides of leopards, so you were called for them the Leopard Queen. And still you have their eyes of fire, and still you keep them by you, the great cats, to play at hunting them in the shadow country at the world’s core. And this, and that, have made you susceptible to Me. For I am the heart-brain, the soul-cluster, the god of all that kind. From the littlest gray kitten comforting the village-woman’s hearth, to the black and golden ones, and the ones who are cinnabar, the ringed and striped and dotted and patched, and those with manes like the sunflower, the stalkers of the dark, whose feet leave the marks of petals in the blood of their kill. And by the power of this, and that, and by that slender talisman which, through one such of Mine I gave the man there, I tell you, Queen Leopard-Death, Death-of-Leopards, you must step aside, this once. You must forego your treasures. They are his. I give them to him. Obey.”
Then Death shrugged. And as she did so, her image grew more certain. She rose from the chair and nodded to the Cat soul-source, where it might be. “Few now remember that,” she said. “That once I hunted leopard, and was a leopard in my heart. Death is a leopard, they say now. But me they do not know.” Then she glanced at Jyresh, through the unseen pulsing solidity of what was standing between them. “Take it then, the tomb’s wealth.”
But Jyresh, prudent and unnerved, stammered to her, “I would not, even so, make an enemy of you, lady.”
“I am the Enemy of all,” said she. “And a powerful enemy, too. But there, it appears you have also powerful friends. You need not fear me till the end of your life, and then not much.” And saying this, her eyes and she went out like lamps.
The whole tomb seemed as if dissolving and pouring off into the air.
Jyresh would have flown out, but he was compelled otherwise. As if a large paw lay on him, he was propelled about the chamber. He was caused to open the chests and to remove from them large bags that clanked and vessels that clinked. He saw, all blurred and wavering, golden coins and rings of gold, and documents in gilded boxes and metal keys on chains of silver, garments and utensils of the best, vials of perfume, precious books, skeins of jewels—and then, at length, he saw the black and glittering sky and the pure night air dappled his face.
Set free, though laden down as he was, Jyresh took to his heels. He ran, like the grave-robber he had named himself, until eventually, in a wood, he fell on the midnight grass, and the bags and boxes with him. And there instantly he slumbered, and dreamed nine black leopards, of the extreme size of months, guarded him through the narrow hours till dawn.
• • •
In the morning, Jyresh awoke, and looked about to see if the tomb treasure still adhered to him. It did. With an ill grace, then, he made a huge bundle of it in his cloak and so slung it on his back. Groaning, he set out again, westward through the wood.
“It is a fact,” said Jyresh to himself, “that which the ancient philosophers tell us: Wealth is a great burden. Besides which I have fallen foul of Lady Death, for all her witticisms, and shall now have to be wary of her at every twist and turn. On the other hand, any vagabond bandit, seeing me with this jingling hill on my back, will suspect the truth, leap on me and cut my throat. I shall be robbed and murdered before another day has gone by. No doubt of that. I therefore thank the Panther with profound gratitude for his most generous present.”
Having delivered himself of this, Jyresh plodded on, whistling enviously to the unencumbered birds, and admiring the first flowers of the spring. When suddenly, emerging from the wood, he halted with a start.
For there below lay the estate of his own father, and far off, the glimmer of the house roofs of his erstwhile home. By a circuitous route (of geography and mind) the prodigal had returned.
Jyresh, taken aback, paused in thought.
“My father,” said Jyresh to a bird on a bough—for he had grown used to birds which understood his chat and replied—“sent me out in high-handed annoyance, which on reflection I can now understand. He expected nothing fortunate should ever come of me, which was perhaps unjust; besides, it troubled him to think so. Therefore, since I am saddled with these goods, let me spruce myself and adorn myself, and go to him and astonish him at how well I have fared.”
This notion tickled Jyresh. So he searched out water nearby and bathed in it, and then anointed himself with the costly balms from the tomb chests. He dressed in a suit of clothes therefrom, fit for a prince, put boots of white leather on his feet and rings on his hands, and in his ear a fat rosy pearl. After that, he filled an embroidered pouch with money, and hung it at his embroidered belt. The rest of the haul he hid under a tree, and marked the spot with a stone.
“Now if it is also my fate to be stolen from in turn, so be it,” said Jyresh to the same bird on the same bough above, which had duly stayed to watch his deeds. “Additionally, I shall soon go back to that mausoleum, and propitiate the gentleman’s memory. For though the Panther lord sent me there, it is not right I should plunder a fellow human, even if Death would have done it, had I not arrived. And if it is ever my lot to amass wealth, I must repay him.”
At this the bird tweeted, and Jyresh thanked it for its kind wishes. Then he went on his way, and crossed over into his father’s lands.
• • •
But Jyresh had been absent more than nine months. As he walked along, he saw that much of the cultivated land was lying fallow, or overtaken by tares and weeds; no herds grazed there, and no men or women were to be seen. In the park, the grass stood high as spears, the fruit trees were untended and all their cargo had rotted through the winter on the earth.
The day walked ahead of Jyresh and outstripped him. But with the sun in his eyes, the land looked no better. Jyresh’s heart began to ache with anxiety. As he drew nearer and nearer to the rich man’s mansion, a sense of for
feit closed him round. And so it was that, when he stood on the path beneath and the building showed itself before him, he was overwhelmed by horror, but not by amazement. The house was a gutted ruin, black and burned out—but for two or three of the highest roofs, which hung half disembodied there and gleamed in the dying afternoon light: It was their sheen which had misled him earlier.
Jyresh stood still and did not know what he should do. It seemed to him he had woken from a dream to a nightmare. And all at once the most poignant memories of his childhood came sweeping over him. How he had played with his nurses in those charcoal rooms, and climbed the garden trees, and how, knowing that his father was riding home from business, Jyresh the child would run to meet him, and, lifted on to the horse, throw his arms round the man’s neck for joy. Until the man became an old man, and the child in turn a man, and so they were severed, and parted in a night, and the stroke of some terrible angel of fire and doom fell between them.
And in a while, the young man wept. And as he did this, the sun sank and the shadows rose from their hiding places in the ground.
These shadows seemed to say to him, Go, you. This region is ours now.
Jyresh accordingly left the ruin. He walked an hour to the south, to a small town he had, in his extravagances, for years eschewed. He imagined that no one would recall him there, and indeed they did not. They took him for a young traveler, who had a look both worldly and aesthetic. On his side he felt that he must ask questions concerning his father, and the answers would come more easily from stranger to stranger. Yet his heart was full of the shadows which had risen from the ground. His heart needed to ask nothing, nor to be told anything. Nevertheless Jyresh, falling into conversation with two merchants at the inn, declared: “I saw a great burnt house in the distance, some few miles north of this town, and the land all gone to seed.” And one of the merchants nodded, and said to him that this was the estate and mansion of a rich man, and named the father of Jyresh, and added, “But a curious tragedy befell that person, and he is dead.” And Jyresh felt no pang at all, for he had known the moment he saw the ruin, and for that he had wept.