by Tanith Lee
The guards did not come out of the walls. They ebbed up out of the stairs or floor, reminding Vashdran of how he had seen the first man, Choy, wade from the deadly Hell-sea by the beach of flints. The guards were at first completely dark, and lightened to their blue-grey tone, the reverse of the white clay people who had had to be tinted. Some of the guards paused to tie back their venomous snake-hair. But it was routine, they did it without fuss or any interest.
Last of all, the eyeless dogs, the jatchas, curdled into being. They came neither from walls or floors, but out of the ready-hardened bodies of the guards, one or two hounds for each figure.
Vashdran stood, and the crowd saw him and pointed and threw its flowers. But the nearest guard approached, and spoke in the group-voice of his kind. ‘Why are you here?’
It was what he and others had asked earlier.
‘I came to see.’
‘Go in behind a gate.’
The guard’s jatcha padded forward, but Vashdran had already moved to obey. As the gate lifted Vashdran retreated into the area behind it. The openwork metal dropped back. The jatcha prowled outside, tilting its lean head, seeming to peer through at Vashdran from the skin where its eyes should be.
‘What?’ he said to it quietly.
The dog put its nose against the mesh, snuffing up Vashdran’s non-human scent.
Vashdran said, ‘You know me. You’re the one I named. Star-Dog. Remember? I’ll be your friend.’
The dog hesitated. But only momentarily. Then it padded away after the guard who had given it life.
Curjai, when he appeared behind an arena gate, came with a shield on either arm. And behind him the other two, sloppy Heppa who no longer belonged in their group, and frowning Swanswine. They also had, each of them, two shields. No weapons.
This presumably indicated Curjai’s side would fly.
Vashdran scrutinized them. No one yet had sent Heppa off or elsewhere. Did Curjai mean to stick to what he had suggested, an end to combat?
It was not, nevertheless, to be three against two. Behf now appeared inside their gate with Vashdran and Kuul. Behf seemed to be pleased to be rejoining them. He said to Vashdran, earnestly, ‘The other men of our battalion ask after you. Not all of them were allowed to fight again. They resent that.’
‘Poor boys,’ said Vashdran.
Behf missed the irony. ‘Yes, it’s a pity,’ he agreed.
Minutes before the gate went up and they advanced into the arena, Vashdran heard Kuul tell Behf about the confrontation of the previous night. Behf seemed shocked Vashdran and Kuul, even Curjai and his two, had not instead stayed to feast, drink and lay the willing attendants. ‘The King boated by again,’ Behf reminisced, impressed. ‘The Queen, too. It was worth staying just to see her.’
‘Did she call a moon again?’
‘Oh, yes. It’ll only appear if she does it. A great big moon, like before. Always at full. Like her tits.’
Then the gates hefted up and out they went.
Having seen the shields of their opponents, Vashdran asked himself if his side would now change to beasts and berserkers. This brought inspiration, and he felt the stinging heat of anticipation, like the stirring of desire, yet quite different.
The golem-like crowd was rowdy with approval. The flower-things splattered the marble. Vashdran trod on as many as he could, going forward.
As they had now eleven, twelve times, Curjai and he stood facing each other. Curjai’s face carried no memory of his earlier words.
He can’t give it up. Nor can I.
Then Curjai’s two shields clapped inward, outward, slanting back, becoming wings. Raising his freed arms, Curjai lifted on the wings, into the sunny grey air. But—
Vashdran, Kuul and Behf watched as Curjai swept down and along the crowd, which applauded, then shouted in make-believe or actual alarm. Curjai swooped, gifted one of the snake-heads the most dulcet tweak on the ear, and landed on the top of the barrier.
Vashdran observed him, sword ready yet passive. He wondered abstractedly what Curjai’s wings really meant. As for the other two, Heppa and Swanswine, they had not used their shields, only put them down on the ground.
Curjai called, his voice carrying in the oval’s perfect acoustic. ‘We’re done brawling with each other. See, I’ve finished with it.’
The crowd ceased its noise. It sat there, perplexed. But even the guards did not make any aggressive move.
Curjai leapt off the barrier and straight to Vashdran. He threw his left arm over Vashdran’s shoulders. ‘Say something, you,’ he said. ‘Am I to do all the work?’
Vashdran did not know if he was glad or sorry.
‘Why do I need to speak, when you bark so loud?’
‘Look out,’ said Curjai, drawing aside, ‘here come the bloody barking hounds.’
Dogs poured down the terraces, bounding over into the arena.
Kuul and Behf, Heppa and Swanswine, raced over. Now the men were an inseparable circle, facing out on the oval of the Stadionum.
Curjai’s wings had shrivelled from him. They curled up like burnt papers and shed themselves, redundant.
The jatchas, having landed, trotted about, staying back against the gates, where other men, restrained by the mesh, were quarrelling and squalling, infuriated either by non-fighters or by authority’s reaction.
‘Are those dogs real?’ asked Behf.
‘No, they’re made of mud,’ said Curjai. ‘Mud with teeth.’
‘Wait,’ said Vashdran. He called, short and sharp. ‘Star-Dog! Here, my love! Come here!’
And Star-Dog, the jatcha which had thumped first into the ring, came prancing, the others – of whom there were five – running behind him.
Vashdran stood solid and let the great blue blind hound rear up. Its heavy paws, with tendons like corded brass, banged home on Vashdran’s shoulders. Its rancid-smelling, white-fanged muzzle burrowed against the hollow of his throat. But it no longer stank of anything evil. Its breath was only like that of a healthy dog which had been gorging on raw meat and fish.
‘My pride,’ said Vashdran, rubbing the dog’s pointed-up ears. ‘Now you’re mine.’
The jatcha whimpered. He stroked down its hard, smooth back. It too felt like stone, but stone which sinuously lived and was warm.
The rest of the pack waited a little way off, taking in the greeting of their pack leader and the new man in his life.
‘Curjai,’ said Vashdran. ‘Do you know dogs?’
‘Yes. One bit me once.’
‘Forget it. Call this fellow’s mate out of the pack.’
‘How?’ said Curjai. He sounded unconfident.
‘The Great Gods know,’ said Vashdran. ‘But anything seems likely to happen here, if you force it to.’
Curjai paused. Then he whistled. It seemed like something he had learned, and was piercing. At once from the clump of jatchas emerged a lean blue bitch.
She did not rear up as Vashdran’s dog had. She threw herself at Curjai’s feet and rolled suggestively on the ground.
‘See. She likes you.’
Vashdran raised his head past the head of the hound named Star-Dog, and saw Hell’s guards jumping now into the arena.
They spoke in their voice.
‘You have created anew your Cesh, your Battalion, your Unit, your Band, your Squadron …’ Other words were intoned. The men in the arena, the attractive creatures on the tiers, listened and made no comment. ‘You have done well,’ said the voice of the snake-heads. Imprisoned in their ties, the gold serpents disapprovingly hissed and writhed, forming a glinting web of venom. The crowd got to its feet and cried its praise. The six jatchas, turning from the six men, champed the thrown flowers.
Something was dreaming.
It bypassed Lionwolf’s brain, therefore the brain of Vashdran, with a tenuous flick, half caress, half blow, both – significant.
This woke him.
It had not been his dream.
I sleep too much.
S
uch sleeping had happened before, in the time after the White Death at Ru Karismi, when he had cost three or four nations the best of their men.
He turned on his side, and looked at the jatcha, Star-Dog. It slept still, unruffled. How could he tell, when it had no eyes? He could.
Star-Dog had been his adoptive uncle’s name. Guri: Star Dog, Dog Star.
Had Curjai named the dog’s female mate?
Who – what – had dreamed and let the dream filter into Hell?
Vashdran did not know. Nor had he retained anything of the dream. There was only the impression of some concentrated darkness, ascending.
A day had elapsed. A woman, her adorable body showing through diaphanous garb, summoned them to some further interview. She would not or could not answer questions, though she allowed Behf to have her against a wall.
All the men who had rebelled in the Stadionum followed her, individually. For each had been sitting apart from the others in the labyrinth, and to each one the same charming image, real or false, appeared.
When the limitless hallways temporarily ended at two high shut doors, patterned with the figures of men, animals and birds, the woman figure or figures silked away into a wall. This was clearly to be seen. It seemed Hell was not pretending so much to them now.
The six men hung about by the doors, as if embarrassed to meet again. Each of the six dogs though had arrived also, and now greeted one another, nosing each other’s nether ends in the canine handshake. Their tails wagged.
‘They become all the time more like dogs,’ noted Kuul.
‘They should have eyes,’ said Heppa mournfully. But he had already named his dog Bony, and gave it friendly slaps on the flank.
Vashdran and Curjai eyed each other too. Neither spoke.
The doors opened with a leisurely grinding.
The dogs bounded in ahead of the men. They at least seemed relaxed and eager.
Filigreed with frost, gemmed with cold, black pillars pushed into the roof of sky.
The King of Hell was seated in a tall chair, far away. All the hounds sprinted up to him, and he lifted his stony hands and petted them as they dashed against him.
‘He’s in a generous mood then.’
‘How would we know?’
They walked up the hall.
The dogs folded down around the chair. There were no other persons present, or none that could be seen.
Vashdran examined the King. The obsidian face had, contrary to Behf’s joke about mood, no expression. Not even the cut smile displayed on the first occasion. The hood was off, and the King’s head was hairless and finely shaped; sanded and burnished it appeared. Only the black eyes were like anything belonging to a mortal.
This is all a dream, Vashdran thought. His own mouth curled. Dreams in the death-sleep. Like the dream of that other one, whoever he is, that crossed my mind last night. This is why nothing can matter.
Just then the King got up.
Every one of the six men halted. It was intuitive. He was, seen this close, more than eight feet in height. Speech issued from him.
The guards uttered in one collective voice. Conversely Hell’s King spoke in a thousand voices, and a million tongues, simultaneously. Every man there heard his own language. Vashdran alone perhaps detected and comprehended so many more. But it was only a magician’s knack. Vashdran had it himself.
‘You have fought well, and decided well when your contest was concluded. Now you will become leaders in my army, which is to march tomorrow over the plain to meet the ancient enemies of Shabatu. Each of you will bear this title: Saraskuld.’
It translated as Commander. Vashdran felt how it was different in a thousand or a million ways, delivered in the multi-faceted voice.
‘Tonight,’ said the King, ‘you are to be rewarded for your valour by marriage to a human-born woman, or women, of your choice. This is a mark of signal honour, which you have deserved.’
Vashdran after all took an involuntary step. It was not the words. It was the face of stone. But Curjai, forgotten, out of nowhere reached and grabbed Vashdran by the shoulder.
‘Hold still!’
And in that instant a curtain of white fire coruscated upward from the floor. The fire had the configuration of a huge ice-lizard, or dragon from some legend, and razor-edged heat smouldered from it.
All the men moved back, and separated from them by the fiery palisade the dogs began to whimper and some to yowl.
The voice of the Stone resumed, crushing their noise.
‘You must learn your place, Lionwolf, son of Zzth. You are not king here. Only I am king here. Serve me in humility. You were told, as were all the rest, you will be flung down to a worse kingdom if you disobey.’
Vashdran bowed his head. Hell had named him correctly, even to his nightmare father. His eyes, fixed on the floor, burned crimson. He blinked – they became indigo.
‘Forgive me, lord King.’
But the dragon thing lashed out even at his apology. Some white-hot coil of it raked over Vashdran’s body. Scalded, he dropped, lying for several seconds in an agony beyond outcry. Then it was gone.
As his eyes unclouded, he was aware of Curjai crouched over him, one hand firmly bandaged across Vashdran’s mouth.
Vashdran thrust the obstruction away. But he did not say anything.
The dragon fire died then. There was only the hall of pillars and the dogs, cheerful again, romping about. The King had left the chamber, and the other men were wandering about the deserted chair, tapping it. To this there was no opposition.
Vashdran lay on his back. Curjai sat down beside him, leaning to catch his murmuring.
‘He said we’re to fight enemies of Shabatu. But that was what was said before the first battle, which was between us, you and I, and all the rest. Here, war is meaningless perhaps, though absolute.’
Curjai nodded, but slowly, without definite conviction.
‘How is it you grow wings?’ Vashdran added. ‘Or is that only some other device imposed on you by Hell?’
‘I longed for wings, when I lived,’ said Curjai. ‘To be like a bird. Those other men too, I’d guess. Either that, or I infected them with the urge and ability to fly. As you did yours with the attributes of lions and wolves.’
‘Where did you live?’ said Vashdran. He felt sleepy and pulled away from it, sitting up, stupefied by non-existent pain, pain’s ending, and the unphysical pain that every moment pressed more near.
‘Some place on the earth.’
‘How did you die?’
Curjai glanced at him. ‘Didn’t I confess before? I died sobbing and half insane in my mother’s arms. It was the death of straw, the death on the mattress young men dread. I wasn’t slain in any battle. It was a fever. Before I went, though, the shaman came in. He said to me, don’t be afraid, you’ve fought all your life till now. You’ll find the warrior’s heaven in the Afterlife. And he was right. For here I am.’
Vashdran said nothing. Presently Curjai continued. ‘There are no others of my clan or people here. Among them, a man’s name has two pieces. He gives only one to others, unless it is a friend, or a lover.’
Vashdran said, Tell me then. I am Lionwolf, as the Stone One said. It means as it sounds.’
‘Escurjai,’ Curjai said. ‘That’s spirit, heart and mind.’
They sat on the floor and watched the four men playing with their dogs. Eventually the two dogs of Vashdran and Escurjai, walking sedately side by side, came to lie down by them on the ground.
‘What have you called her?’ Vashdran asked, indicating the bitch-hound.
‘Atjosa,’ said Curjai, ‘which is the feminine mode of Attajos.’
‘Your god?’
‘My god. And my father.’
Milk-white hands reached from the living walls, and caught him.
‘Stay … Listen … Vassh-drann …’
They held him fast against the pulsing alabaster. He could tell which genders they were without looking at them. The female hands
were placating, urgent, the male hands rough and desperate.
‘… listen …’
They held his hair, his arms. They circled his ribcage, beat on it lightly as if he were a drum.
‘Say it then.’
‘Ah …’ they sighed. ‘Ahhh …’
He remembered his mother Saphay, rocking his newborn self in the midst of a blizzard, shielding him with her body. He thought of Guri, dying impaled on some sort of spike. And of his father who, like Curjai’s sire, was a god, and more cruel than any man.
Then, only then, Vashdran recollected the little toy animal he had found on the beach of flints that was the shore of Hell. He tried to take hold of it inside his garments, no longer sure it was still there. The hands would not let him. The female hands gentled him then slapped. The male hands were harsh, then sorry.
‘… wait.’
The wall grew softer now. It was like an upright bed, mattressed not with straw like the deathbed Curjai had mentioned, more like some couch of the effete western cities, Ru Karismi, or Thase Jyr, which he had ruined, or which, through ruining him, had also perished.
Vashdran wept, chained by the hands of the wall. Then they wiped away his tears.
And finally they let him go.
He had learned nothing. Or—
‘Who is Curjai?’ he said, kneeling on the ground, head hanging.
‘Curjai … is your shadow. You … are his light. Without you he cannot be. Without him none can see what you are.’
Vashdran did not understand. He kneeled on the wintry floor crying. He tried again to search for the toy his uncle had given him at birth, but could not unearth it from his clothing. He supposed he had lost it.
He had lost all of them – all the ones he should have loved, cared for and protected. All were swept away. Only he was here, lost also.
Again he was being returned into childhood, reduced to his essence. Broken.
He broke. He lay there. A silence came … out of which, along the shining floor, a small wooden toy on wheels was trundling. It was quite artistically carved, an ice-mammoth, complete with striated hair and curved, winding tusks, the trunk also humorously somewhat curving. Normally it required a couple of basic magic words to make it go. Guri had taught him. What were they? The toy batted along, without the words, independent. Its two bright eyes, made from tiny chips of quartz, beamed at Vashdran. When it reached him he picked it up. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. To the toy, to his kindred, to his warriors, to the dead lions of his chariot. To the Gullahammer, to the cities of the Ruk. To the world.