by Tanith Lee
She waited then, once more, until, over the horrified weeping and moaning, the silence of despair came down like snow. And beyond the walls, all at once, she heard the outer doors give way. The sound was appalling. Even Eraz it appalled.
And even if she had not thought life stretched away beyond life for all of them, yet she could not have wished to live to hear that other splintering of the inner doors, which must come.
She looked out at them, and let the Power pass through her, and from her, and so into each of them.
“The soul never dies,” she said. “Death is not death. So the rituals of the goddess have taught us. Dying is only change. The flesh is left upon the ground. The spirit is born again out of the husk. And this She has taught us by her symbol and her image which is the snake, who, casting its skin, pours from the husk alive, that we may know we too shall live beyond a cast-off skin, alive and beautiful as the stars.”
She felt them now. Each mind a flame, held within the scope of hers. Their faces were empty of fear.
She motioned with one hand, and the curtain flew upward and the statue of the goddess was at her back, before them.
She let them gaze awhile at the goddess. From the trough below the serpents had gone away. They would be safe in their narrow vasty labyrinth, as no other thing at Ankabek.
Outside, with the crashing of the doors, there had come a muffled roar which still went on. Nothing else was distinguishable. It sounded elemental and subhuman.
Quietly, she signaled again, and a priest came to her, the great cup in his hands. She took it and one by one, dozen by dozen, the faces and the eyes came back to her.
She told them about the cup.
The drug was Thaddrian, once more universal. It brought an immobility, and outer hardening, turning men to stone as inwardly, without pain, they died. Those Vis warriors, standing guard forever in the tombs of kings, had perhaps partaken of that brew. Now it had been distilled and mixed. The death it brought was swift, though still painless. A death sweet as sleep, from one small sip at the great cup’s brim.
“If any will not,” she said to them, “say now. There is time for you to hide yourselves in the corridors below. The Zakorians have not yet reached them. It may be possible for a very few to find some cranny that is missed, and so escape. I do not promise it. I offer the choice.”
They murmured. They fell still. None of them moved toward the doors.
“Then,” she said, “if you consent, come closer, to the goddess. When you drink, give also to your animals. Fear nothing. We shall go all together, a flight of souls like a flight of arrows all from one bow.”
The Lowland priest drank first from the cup, as he had offered to do, to demonstrate their oneness, and that the drink was nothing to be afraid of in itself. Having drunk, he smiled at them, and gave the cup into another’s grasp. For a moment they watched him, his countenance—that of a young and handsome man—serene, contemplative, without distress; his eyes full of light.
The cup passed. Hands reached for it. They drank, the Lowlanders, the Vis, priest and priestess and villager. The children sipped. The little pet animals were given the cup, the cattle. None refused, as if all had comprehended. Their lips mingled at the brim with the sense of other lips, a kiss, which was also death’s kiss. The mixture had no taste. Not even like the taste of water.
The last to take the cup, a priestess, came back with it and held it toward Eraz.
A young girl, black-haired, she wept. There was only sufficient in the cup for one.
“Drink it,” said Eraz, “then touch my lips with yours. Yes, it is so strong. I don’t lie to you.”
So the girl drained the last morsel of the drug, and touched Eraz’s lips with hers.
Outside, the roar had ended. Now there began to be a volcanic grumbling from the depths below. They had found the under-corridors. They would soon be at the inner doors.
Within, the stillness was intent, yet soft as powder. Aware of each mind, Eraz was aware as each mind put out its light. In the hall of her brain, the little candles flickered, sighed, faded. Beside her the young Lowland priest was long dead. She could not move her head to look at him.
Sweet as sleep. They had trusted her, they had trusted what lay within themselves. Her sadness was over. Her heart was full of joy.
All the little lights were gone.
And Eraz sank into the moment and the century of oblivion beyond which there waited life.
• • •
When Vodon’s men brought down the final door, their bloodlust, so long aroused, so long denied, was a single thing, unanimous. Each man was nearly insane.
They spilled in over the door, yelling, yowling, and others sprang in behind them. All were checked.
Whatever they had expected, whatever the villages and towns of shrieking women and terrified men had lessoned them to look for, it was not here.
The floor torches burned. Across the mosaic, in their glare, the great statue of the yellow men’s she-demon, upraised on her tail, lifted the serpent stems of her arms. Beneath her, they stood, the people of Ankabek. Most seemed to look into the faces of the men who had broken down the door. Their own faces were calm, almost smiling, the eyes wide, luminous and unblinking.
And there were beasts, too, standing there like the rest, or held in the arms of children. The beasts, the children—all alike—
Another door crashed inward.
Another gout of men rushed roaring into the chamber.
And were checked.
A minute passed.
The Free Zakorians began to shout. Spears were hurled, deliberately short, to dive at the Ankabekians’ feet. Not one started, or stirred. Only the folds of clothing stirred at the wind of a spear’s passage, or some woman’s hair.
“What is it?”
“By Zarduk, I don’t know—” Vodon half moved forward. “A trance perhaps—”
Suddenly one of the younger Zakorians ran across the temple. He ran straight through the motionless crowd to the place where a tall woman stood, in robes golden as the goddess’ tail. Shouting, the Zakorian plunged his knife to the hilt in the woman’s right breast. Or would have done. The blade, turning on her breast as if on marble, skidded and snapped from its haft. The Zakorian cried out, a different cry. He backed away from the woman, the almost smiling statues with their glowing eyes, the brindle cow, the silken rat on the girl’s shoulder, the flesh that was not flesh. Then, screaming, he rushed from the temple.
“Witchcraft!”
Vodon choked down a sensation like blood.
“Maybe, but against themselves. Take the jewels. Take the great statue and sink it in the sea. Fire the place. The trees outside. Leave nothing whole that’ll catch alight.” Turning, he spat. As the passionless human statues watched him with their shining eyes, he cut down his officers, next their seconds, then pushed the long knife into his own throat. Presently, his men ran over him.
• • •
The night flamed redder than the Star could make it. The flame-colored leaves flared to black ashes.
When they dragged the tumbled Anackira to the edge of the rock, they congratulated their gods. They cast her down to Rorn, naked of riches, and blind, for they had gouged out her topaz eyes.
They drank above the bleeding, smoking groves, the wines of the temple.
A wind came with the dawn. It ravaged the blackened trees, blowing off charcoal dust.
Certain of the Free Zakorians did not like this wind. They groaned that it had been full of figures, swirling—a flight of ghosts, like arrows all from one bow.
Dead Vodon’s ship foundered as they sailed north.
Only one of the goddess’ yellow eyes ever reached Free Zakoris.
• • •
At midday in Elyr, the Vardian trader had called a halt. A mile away rocks stood on the dusty sky, and on the
rocks two of the ubiquitous star-gazing towers. Here, from a great boulder, a waterfall speared down into a pool.
The Vardian’s two servants and the drover sat apart to eat. The herd of fierce Lannic sheep fretted and picked at the dry grass, and nearby, the two herd kalinxes sat bolt-upright, black as basalt. Such guards were trained from infancy, lambs put in with the kittens to be suckled by a female cat. There were no such beasts in Vardath. The Red Star did not burn there, either. Nor anywhere above the Sister Continent.
The Lowland Amanackire were unaffected by the sexual stimulus of the Star. The race of the second continent claimed to be.
The Vardian trader had long since come to think they were unaffected only while they avoided its influence.
He sat outside the makeshift tent he had had put up for himself, looking at the mix-blood girl. She was taking wine to the servants and the drover as he had instructed her. She did not move like a winegirl. She was thirteen if she was a day. Small supple waist, curve of the hips, the little round breasts. And the lovely white skin that never took the sun.
She brought the wine jar to him. Her eyes were lowered. He had never looked into them. Yellow eyes, of course. He had noted that from the beginning.
“It’s too hot to go on today,” he said to her. “We’ll stay here now, till sunrise tomorrow.” He knew she was dumb. That might be an advantage. She had filled his cup and stood meekly. Eyes lowered. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” he asked. “Of course not. I’m helping you reach your own people. Safe from the greedy Vis. Perhaps you’d like to give me something in return.” He hesitated. She made no move. He said, “Lie with me.”
She did not flinch. She did not seem pleased.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I know you’re young. I’ll be gentle. Am I the first?” She said nothing. He wondered if he would have to force her to comply. He preferred not to use force. “Go over to the water and get clean, around the rock where the others can’t see. Then come into my tent.” Rather to his relief she turned at once and went toward the waterfall. Probably she was not a virgin, and used to being had. Her quiet was servility not distaste.
It was dark red in the tent from screened-off sun. When she entered, light came in with her and stayed.
For a moment he could not think what it was, then he sat up with an exclamation. He went to her slowly.
“By Ashkar! The brutes dyed your hair in that dung-hill town.”
For she was golden-blonde. She was sheer Lowland stock.
And she was beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful. So white, so golden. Her eyes—golden. They expanded as if with tears, but it was pure luminosity.
The Vardian trembled with his need. He took the edge of her dress in his fingers. The fastenings were simple.
He pulled the garment from her. She stood before him naked.
Again, he was almost shocked. Her exquisite high breasts were capped with gilt. In her navel a drop of yellow resin spat. The hair on her loins resembled spun metal.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he muttered.
“It is you who fear.”
He jumped away at the voice. She could not speak—had not spoken. The words had been inside his skull. The Vardian was familiar with telepathy, had experienced it with his own kindred, if mostly as a child. Beyond the initial astonishment he was not unnerved by the mere fact of mind speech. This mind speech was, however, unlike any other.
He shuddered. Her eyes seemed to eclipse the world.
Then he fell to his knees. It happened, his body’s reverence, before he knew why. On his knees, only then, he knew.
Cast from her light, a shadow rose behind the Lowland girl on the hot red wall. It was the shadow of a being much taller than the girl, though also long-haired and high-breasted, its many arms outstretched and swaying upright upon the coiled tail that formed its lower body.
“Ashkar,” said the Vardian.
He bowed to his face as wave upon wave of ecstatic and wondrous terror burst through him, until eventually he fainted.
Book Three
Cities of Rust and Fire
11.
THE XARABIAN SHIP reached home port uneventfully, on a smooth evening sea. Next morning, Rem and Lur Raldnor rode inland for the capital.
Lin Abissa was the first true city Rem had laid eyes on for over eight years, and Raldnor’s first ever. You could not count Amlan, whose charm was all in her littleness, her impression of a sturdy painted town.
The high slender towers flashing crystal at the sun, the high walls with their parapets, crenellations, bastions, the combination of refined delicacy and obdurate strength—here was Vis, Visian supremacy and beauty, still upright in an altered world.
They entered through the Gate of Gourds. Above it, the banner was flying, Xarabiss’ dragon woman. There was a tale of the Lowland War, that the tyrant Amrek had accused Xarabiss of using Anackire as a device. And indeed, there was some resemblance.
With the political unsettlement of the seas, Zakorian spies were apparently suspected. Papers must be produced at the gate. Not everyone had papers. The ecstasy of the first-seen Vis city began to pall in a long wait. Then, when Lur Raldnor’s own impressive credentials were produced—Yannul’s letter, marked with the council seal of post-war Koramvis he still had the right to use—an escort of soldiery was brought round to conduct them to the palace of the King.
They had reckoned they would get this treatment (the servant had banked on it), and Lur Raldnor had facetiously postulated a plan of false names.
People on the wide streets turned to look after them. Chariots whipped past, drawn by the fire-swift leaping chariot-animals of the Middle Lands.
But it was as they crossed a corner of Lin Abissa’s Red Market that the initial scene of the alteration was impressed on them.
Members of the pale race, as well as mixes, came and went in Amlan. But they were Vardians or Shansars, in Xarabiss they had so far set eyes on one Tarabine merchant, riding in a litter through the port, the curtains well-back, so all could see him laughing and sharing sweetmeats with his Vis hetaera.
Until now, neither of the Lans, nor Rem himself, had got sight of a born-blood Lowlander, save gentle Medaci.
The Red Market was lazily energetic in the hot afternoon. Under the fringed awnings every kind of ware imaginable was up for sale, even to a row of sequined slaves hung in a flower-strung cage. The ten guard of the escort were good-naturedly prodding and cursing the turgidly moving crowd aside, when suddenly all activity seemed to terminate. Only a drove of cattle was abruptly hurried, lowing and stamping, into an aisle between the booths.
The captain of the escort had raised his mailed hand to halt them, and now held it upright as if congealed in the air.
Clearly, someone of utmost importance was about to enter the Market.
“Who’s coming?” Lur Raldnor asked the captain.
The man lowered his hand. He said, “A Lowlander.”
Lur Raldnor raised his eyebrows. “But who?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the captain. There was no clue in his voice.
“You mean you stop all traffic, clear all paths like this, for any—”
“For any of the pure blood of the goddess. Yes.”
Lur Raldnor looked at Rem, shrugged, grinned, and said: “Proud?”
Rem laughed.
There was hardly any other sound.
Rem had looked for an entourage; litter, outriders, bearers of fans and parasols, something Karmian.
Then the Lowlander came, walking quite slowly along the human avenue. There was only one. A woman. She had no attendants, no accessories.
She was simply dressed, but the robe was silk. Her hair was the whitest blond Rem had ever seen, snow hair, and her skin looked as white. On her arms, almost the only ornament, were bracelets of amber, row on row of them. Round her neck was a
serpent tore he took for polished white enamel—then it moved, and he beheld it was a live snake.
The Amanackire woman barely seemed to notice the crowd. She did not glance at them. Only once her eyes swept outward, to the place where the mounted guard sat their animals, waiting with the rest. Her eyes were not gold, but as with her hair, nearly colorless, eyes that were almost white—like the eyes of the albino snake. The pores of Rem’s skin stiffened along shoulders and neck. The captain bowed.