Creatures of Light and Darkness

by Roger Zelazny

  Horus steps forward, and his left leg is longer than his right leg, but he is perfectly balanced upon the now uneven floor; the window bums like a sun at the Prince’s back, and the Steel General is turned to gold and flowing; Vramin bums like a taper and Madrak becomes a fat doll bounding at the end of a rubber strand; the walls growl and pulse in and out with a regular rhythm keeping time with the music that comes from the shuffling bars of the spectrum upon the floor at the end of the tunnel that begins with the window and lies like burning honey and the tiger above the wand now grown monstrous and too fine to behold within the eternity of the tower room in the Citadel of Marachek at Midworlds’ Center where the Prince has raised his smile.

  Horus advances another step, and his body is transparent to his sense, so that all things within him become immediately known and frightening.

  “Oh the moon comes like a genie

  from the Negro lamp of night,

  and the tunnel of my seeing is her roadway.

  She raises up the carpet of the days

  I’ve walked upon,

  and through caverns of the sky we make our

  pathway,”

  says a voice strangely like yet unlike Vramin’s.

  And Horus raises his hand against the Prince.

  But the Prince already holds his wrist in a grip that bums.

  And Horus raises up his other hand against the Prince.

  But the Prince already holds that wrist in a grip that freezes.

  And he raises up his other hand and electrical shocks pass along it.

  And he raises up his other hand and it blackens and dies.

  And he raises up a hundred hands more and they turn to snakes and fight among themselves and of course he whispers: “What has happened?”

  “A world,” says the Prince, “to which I have transported us.”

  “It is unfair to choose such a battleground,” says Horus, “a world too like the one I know—only a fraction away and so twisted,” and his words are all the colors of Blis and round and dripping.

  “And it is indecent of you to want to kill me.”

  “I have been charged with this thing, and it is my will also.”

  “So you have failed,” says the Prince, forcing him to kneel upon the Milky Way, which becomes a transparent intestinal tract, racked by a rapid peristalsis.

  The smell is overpowering.

  “No!” whispers Horus.

  “Yes, brother. You are defeated. You cannot destroy me. I have bested you. It is time to quit, to resign, to go home.”

  “Not until I have accomplished my objective.”

  The stars, like ulcers, burn within his guts, and Horus pits the strength of his body against the kaleidoscope that is the Prince. The Prince drops to one knee, but with his genuflection there comes a hail of hosannas from the innumerable dog-faced flowers that bloom upon his brow like sweat and merge to a mask of glass which cracks and unleashes lightnings. Horus pushes his arms toward the nineteen moons which are being eaten by the serpents his fingers; and who calls out, oh God, but conscience his father, birdheaded on skys throne and weeping blood? Resign? Never! Go home? The red laughter comes as he strikes at the brother-faced thing below.

  “Yield and die!”

  Then cast…

  …far forth…

  …where Time is dust

  and days are lilies without number…

  and the night is a purple cockatrice whose name is oblivion denied…

  He becomes a topless tree chopped through and falling forever.

  At the end of forever, he lies upon his back and stares up at the Prince Who is his Brother, standing at all heights with eyes that imprison him.

  “I give you leave to depart now, brother, for I have beaten you fairly,” come the green words.

  Then Horus bows his head and the world departs and the old world comes again.

  “Brother, I wish you had slain me,” he says, and coughs behind his bruises.

  “I cannot.”

  “Do not send me back with this kind of defeat upon me.”

  “What else am I to do?”

  “Grant me some measure of mercy. I know not what.”

  “Then hear me and go with honor. Know that I would slay your father, but that I will spare him for your sake if he will but aid me when the time arises.”

  “What time?”

  “That is for him to decide.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Of course not. But bear him the message, anyway.”

  “…”

  “Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” says Horus and begins to rise.

  When he regains his feet, he realizes that he is standing in the Hall of the Hundred Tapestries, and alone. But in that last, agonizing instant, he learned a thing.

  He hastens to write it down.

  People, Places, and Things

  Where is Horus?” inquires Madrak. “He was here but a moment ago.”

  “He has gone home,” says the Prince, rubbing his shoulder. “Now let me name you my problem—”

  “My name,” says Wakim, “give it to me. Now.”

  “Yes,” says the Prince, “I will give it to you. You are a part of the problem I was about to name.”

  “Now,” Wakim repeats.

  “Do you feel any different with those shoes upon your feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know… Give me my name.”

  “Give him the glove, Madrak.”

  “I don’t want a glove.”

  “Put it on, if you wish to know your name.”

  “Very well.”

  He dons the glove.

  “Now do you know your name?”

  “No. I…”

  “What?”

  “It feels familiar, very familiar, to have the mesh spread across my body…”

  “Of course.”

  “It can’t be!” says Madrak.

  “No?” the Prince inquires. “Pick up that wand and hold it, Wakim. —Here, hang its sheath about your waist…”

  “What are you doing to me?”

  “Restoring what is rightfully yours.”

  “By what right?”

  “Pick up the wand.”

  “I don’t want to! You can’t make me! You promised me my name. Say it!”

  “Not until you’ve picked up the wand.”

  The Prince takes a step toward Wakim. Wakim backs away.

  “No!”

  “Pick it up!”

  The Prince advances further. Wakim retreats.

  “I—may not!”

  “You may.”

  “Something about it… It is forbidden that I touch that instrument.”

  “Pick it up and you will learn your name—your true name.”

  “I—No! I don’t want my name any more! Keep my name!”

  “You must pick it up.”

  “No!”

  “It is written that you must pick it up.”

  “Where? How?”

  “I have written it, I—”

  “Anubis!” cries Wakim. “Hear my prayer! I call upon thee in all thy power! Attend me in this place where I stand in the midst of thy enemies! The one whom I must destroy is at hand! Aid me against him, as I offer him to thee!”

  Vramin encircles himself, Madrak and the General with elaborate spikes of green flame.

  The wall at Wakims back slowly dissolves, and infinity is there.

  Arm hanging limp, dog-faced jeering, Anubis stares down.

  “Excellent, servant!” come the words. “You have found him, cornered him. But the final blow remains, and your mission is done. Use the fugue!”

  “No,” says the Prince, “he will not destroy me, even with the fugue, while I have this thing for him: You recognized him when first you saw him, long ago. His true name is now near to his ears. He would hear it spoken.”

  “Do not listen to him, Wakim,” says Anubis. “Kill him now!”

 
; “Master, is it true that he knows my name? My real name?”

  “He lies! Slay him!”

  “I do not lie. —Pick up the wand and you will know the truth.”

  “Do not touch it! It is a trap! You will die!”

  “Would I go through all these elaborate motions to slay you in this manner, Wakim? Whichever of us dies at the hands of the other, the dog will win. He knows it, and he sent you to do a monstrous act. See how he laughs!”

  “Because I have won, Thoth! He comes to kill you now!”

  Wakim advances upon the Prince, then stoops and picks up the wand.

  He screams, and even Anubis draws back.

  Then the sound of his throat turns to laughter.

  He raises the wand.

  “Silence, dog! You have used me! Oh, how you have used me! You apprenticed me to death for a thousand years, that I might slay my son and my father without flinching. But now you look upon Set the Destroyer, and your days are numbered!” His eyes glow through the mesh which covers his entire body, and he stands above the floor. A line of blue light lances from the wand that he holds, but Anubis is gone, faded with a quick gesture and an half-heard howl.

  “My son,” says Set, touching Thoth’s shoulder.

  “My son,” says the Prince, bowing his head.

  The spikes of green flame fall behind them.

  Somewhere, a dark thing cries out within the light, within the night.

  Words

  Between you and me,

  the words,

  like mortar,

  separating, holding together

  those pieces of the structure ourselves.

  To say them,

  to cast their shadows on the page,

  is the act of binding mutual passions,

  is cognizance, yourself/myself,

  of our sameness under skin;

  it rears possible cathedrals

  indicating infinity with steeply-high styli.

  For when tomorrow comes it is today,

  and if it is not the drop

  that is eternity

  glistening at the pen’s point,

  then the ink of our voices surrounds like an always night,

  and mortar marks the limit of our cells.

  “What does it mean?” asks Lord Uiskeagh the Red, who is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side against Dilwit of Liglamenti.

  His party leans through fog toward the rock where the words our graven.

  “Lord, I’ve heard of these things,” remarks his captain. “They are the doings of the poet Vramin, who publishes in this manner. He casts his poems at the nearest world, and wherever they fall they record themselves upon the hardiest substance handy. He boasts that he has written parables, sermons, and poems in stones, leaves and brooks.”

  “Oh, he does, does he? Well, what’s this one mean? Is it to be taken as a good omen?”

  “It means nothing, Lord, for it’s common knowledge that he’s also mad as a golind at rutting time.”

  “Well, then, let us urinate upon it and be on our way to the wars.”

  “Very good, Lord.”

  Shadow and Substance

  “Father?” says the dark horse shadow upon the castle wall.

  “Yes, Typhon.”

  “Father!”

  A sound to break the ears occurs, then:

  “Anubis said you had perished!”

  “He lied. Osiris must have wielded the Hammer, saying that he was saving the universe, for I was losing the battle.”

  “That is true,” says the Prince.

  “I was not losing, however; I was winning. He wished to slay me, not the Nameless.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “A reflex. I went into fugue as the blow descended. A fraction of it fell upon me and Anubis retrieved me, senseless, and spirited me off to his House. He scattered my gear across the Midworlds. He trained me as his weapon.”

  “To slay Thoth?”

  “That was the task he gave me.”

  “Then he dies!” says Typhon and rears, flaming.

  “Desist, brother,” says the Prince. “He did not succeed, and we may yet have a use for the dog…”

  But already the dark horse shadow has faded, and the Prince lowers his head.

  He looks to Set.

  “Should we follow to stop him?”

  “Why? Anubis has lived a thousand years too long. Let him guard himself now. —And how? Even if we would, there is none can stop Typhon when the madness lies upon him.”

  “That is true,” says the Prince, and, turning, he addresses Vramin:

  “If you would serve me further, my former Angel of the Seventh Station, go you to the House of the Dead. It will soon require the presence of one who can operate the machinery.”

  “Typhon was Lord of the House of Fire,” says Vramin.

  “Yes, but I fear he will not remain in the House of the Dead after he has gained vengeance. If I know my brother, he will then seek out the one who wielded the Hammer. He will go after Osiris.”

  “Then I shall remove me to the House of the Dead. Will you accompany me, Madrak?”

  “If the Prince has no further use for me here.”

  “I have not. You may go.”

  “Lord,” says Vramin, “it is kind of you to trust me again, knowing the part I played in the Wars of the Stations…”

  “Those days are gone, and we are different people—are we not?”

  “I hope so—and thank you.”

  The Prince crosses his arms and bows his head. Vramin and Madrak vanish.

  “How,” says the Steel General, “may I assist you?”

  “We go again to fight the Nameless,” says the Prince Who Was A Thousand. “Will you come and stand in reserve?”

  “Yes. Let me summon Bronze.”

  “Do so.”

  The winds of Marachek stir the dust. The sun flickers its way into another day.

  Master of the House of the Dead

  Vramin stands in the great Hall of the House of the Dead, holding his Maypole cane. Its streamers go forth, entering into all the passageways, visible or otherwise, which come together at that place.

  At his side, Madrak shifts his weight from foot to foot and stares about him.

  Vramin’s eyes glow, and the light dances within them.

  “Nothing. Nothing alive. Nowhere,” he says.

  “Then Typhon has found him,” says Madrak.

  “Then Typhon is not here either.”

  “Then he has slain him and departed. He doubtless seeks Osiris now.”

  “I wonder…”

  “What else could it be?”

  “I do not know. But now I am master here, by delegation of the Prince. I will find the places of power and learn their functions.”

  “Yet once you broke faith with the Prince…”

  “That is true—and he forgave me.”

  Then Vramin seats himself upon the throne of Anubis, and Madrak pays him homage, saying:

  “Hail, Vramin! Master of the House of the Dead!”

  “You need bend no knee to me, old friend. Please rise. I will need your assistance, for this place is quite different from the Seventh Station, where once I reigned.”

  And for hours Vramin studies the secret controls about the throne. Then, “Anubis!” cries a voice which he knows is not the voice of Madrak.

  And somehow he mimics the bark, the whine:

  “Yes?”

  “You were right. Horus was defeated, and he returned here. But he is gone again.”

  It is the voice of Osiris.

  He gestures with his cane, and the big window appears in the middle of the air.

  “Hello, Osiris,” he says.

  “So the Prince has finally moved,” says Osiris. “I suppose I am next.”

  “I hope not,” says Vramin. “I can personally attest to having heard the Prince assure Horus that he would not take vengeance upon you—in exchange for cooperation.”

  “Th
en what has become of Anubis?”

  “I do not know for certain. Typhon came here to kill him. I came here to clean up after Typhon and to hold the Station. Either he has slain him and departed, or Anubis fled and Typhon followed. So listen to me, Osiris: Despite the Prince’s assurance, you are in danger. Typhon is not aware of the Prince’s promise, and he was not party to it. Having learned the true story from Set himself and having heard it confirmed by the Prince, he is likely to seek vengeance on the wielder of the Hammer—”

  “Set lives?”

  “Yes. He was known for a time as Wakim.”

  “Anubis’ emissary!”

  “None other. The dog had stripped him of his memories and sent him to slay his own son—and father. That is what moved Typhon to anger.”

  “A pox on the whole bloody family! And what has become of my son? He but left me this note, and—Of course!”

  “‘Of course,’ what?”

  “It is not too late. I—”

  “Behind you, on the wall!” cries Vramin. “Typhon!”

  Osiris moves with a speed which belies his fragile appearance. He dives toward a green tapestry, casts it aside and moves beyond.

  The shadow flows after him and rears.

  When it moves away, there is a Typhon-shaped hole in the tapestry and the wall itself.

  “Typhon,” says Vramin.

  “I am here,” comes the voice. “Why did you give warning?”

  “Because Thoth gave him his life.”

  “I was not aware of this.”

  “You did not remain long enough to hear it repeated. Now it is too late.”

  “No. I fear he has escaped me.”

  “How so?”

  “He was not within the chamber when I destroyed it.”

  “This may be a good thing. Listen. We can use Osiris.”

  “No! There can never be peace between our families so long as he lives, regardless of any chivalrous sentiments my brother may mouth. I love my brother, but I will not abide by his forgiving this one. No. I will search this House until I find Osiris and he passes down Skagganauk Abyss!”

  “As did Anubis?”

  “No! Anubis has escaped me!” comes the cry. “For a time.”

  Then Typhon rears, the flames come, and he is gone.