by Tanith Lee
“There is all time,” said he. “All time to work out your plan. But on this occasion, play again with me the game of love. And the game of death will end it all too soon.”
“Now,” said Ezail, “should I give in with such slight protest?”
“It is you yourself called me Breaker of Chains.”
Above, the stars blazed motionless, the moon flew slowly upward. The vast world of the Flat Earth lay between its mountains and its seas, robed in panther black, and jeweled with the lights of mankind. And from however many thousands of towers did the dreamers and the scholars scan heaven for a trace of gods and fortune, and in how many millions of hearts did the forgotten knowledge of all things seethe and sleep. While in the forests the animals of the night went to and fro, and lipped the streams and hunted and danced, and in the cities animal man went on at his feasts and lusts. While in the tombyards lay the dusts of all greeds and sorrows, and under the white lilies of the woods and fields, the white bones, and in the secret dark of how many men waited the seed of beginning and in how many a folded calyx of a woman’s womb the phantom of new life. While over all blazed the motionless stars and the slow moon flew upward.
Presently, there came down a wooded hill, and out of a high wall that burst asunder with no sound, a giant beast, both horse and eagle, black as jet, treading soft as an autumn wind. And before the beast, leading it by a rope of grass, walked a handsome young man, blue of eye and black of hair, in shoes of blanched leather and a garment of purplish dye. But up on the beast’s remote back rode a slender lovely girl, tall and pale like a lotus, clad in white, with hair the color of marigolds.
Through the city of Jhardamorjh then, they took their silent path, over the paved streets, between the houses and the parks. At the gate, if nowhere else, possibly they were seen, or possibly not, being too extraordinary to notice. Nevertheless, the city gates were opened, and out onto the road they passed, where the obelisks and icons led away towards the south.
But the sorcerous clockwork beasts of the gate, they made no sign, and gave no cry, for it was night still, and not the hour for it.
Of the rest, nothing further is said, save that lovers love and live and, in due season, as all men must, they also die. And so with Ezail and Chavir who had been Sovaz and Oloru, Azhriaz and Chuz. For such was and is mortal life, mortal death. But for love, who can predict or measure, plot, ascribe, or declare an end. Love is one of the immortals.
1 Delirium’s Mistress
2 Mortal former lovers of Azhrarn, the Prince of Demons.
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