by Martin Ash
The yellowness persisted, toning into areas of deep orange, burnt umber, vague shades of green. The suspended shapes were clearer now, humanish figures - men, women, children, as many as three score or more - all with wings of black and gorgeous crimson, held in the air in the strange light, all around me, inert, frozen, as far as I could see, up into the profound, all-engulfing blackness beyond.
The nearest was just a short way above me, but beyond my reach. She was a young winged woman wearing a long white sleeveless gown of light linen or cotton. The gown shifted slightly under the play of a breath of breeze, but she was fixed and unmoving, one hand extended before her and her mouth open, eyes questioning and a little too wide, as though she had been caught in a precise moment of enquiry, her sudden surprise having scarcely had time to form itself upon her features. I could not tell whether she, or any of the others, was alive.
A little way off across the dust-strewn road was a building like a small temple, open to the sky, at its front seven tall stone pillars set at the top of a short, wide flight of stone steps. Beyond, towering over it, I could see - or thought I could see - the hulking outlines of other buildings: walls, battlements, turrets, towers. But they were vague, shadowy, indistinct; as my gaze tried to focus upon them they seemed to shift out of vision, and I had the impression that they weren’t there at all.
I gaped about me, overawed and confounded by it all.
‘Do - you - dream, Cormer of Chol?’
Had somebody asked the question aloud, or had it been spoken in my mind? Was there a difference?
My vision swerved; the world slewed. I staggered backwards and sat down hard.
‘What do you know?’
‘I know nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’
‘That is good.’
And then she was before me.
*
‘Don’t go!’ I cried, afraid more than I could express that I would lose her again.
She smiled, standing erect in a pale green dress, her feet and arms bare, her golden hair cascading about her shoulders. ‘I told you I would be here.’
I scrambled to my feet and stepped towards her, reaching out, wanting her, wanting to hold her, needing her. She moved back a step. ‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘I cannot explain, not yet. You would not understand. Soon you will, I promise, if all goes well.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
She gave a slight, sad shrug. ‘It will no longer matter.’
‘But who are you?’
‘My name would mean nothing, but if you need a name for me you can call me Aniba.’
‘This place ...’ I said, gesturing around me.
‘You are in the Citadel.’
‘The Citadel of Selph?’
She nodded, studying me, her gaze clear and candid.
‘Is it Feikermun’s home?’ I enquired. For some reason I had never thought of this before, nor could I recall any other person making reference to it. Feikermun styled himself ‘of Selph’, and I had simply assumed it to be a town, city or region of which I knew nothing. I imagined it to lie somewhere north or west of Anxau, in lands I had barely visited; or even to be an obscure and formerly insignificant hamlet somewhere in Anxau’s hinterland. Only now, when I was told that I was within its Citadel, did the question occur to me: exactly where in the world is Selph?
Aniba lowered her eyes, slowly shaking her head. ‘It is his home, in a sense; it is also a place that is utterly alien to him. It is somewhere he has ravaged almost to destruction, yet his soul, what remains of it, resides here.’
‘It is not a natural place. It seems not real.’
‘Oh, it is real, in its way. Do not doubt that. It is here that all that might come to be resides. Anything that could precede any action that Feikermun might initiate can be found here. That is why it is such a dangerous place.’ She looked at me again. ‘I can see by your expression that you do not understand.’
‘It all makes little sense.’
‘I know, you believe you are a stranger here. But think,’ she said, ‘what is it that precedes any action that you or any other person might perform?’
I considered for a moment, but had no answer.
‘Raise your arm.’
I did so.
‘What happened first?’
‘You commanded me.’
‘And then?’
I shook my head.
‘You thought. Before any action comes the thought, and that is what we are facing here. Feikermun’s thoughts, his dreams, his fantasies, his nightmares, impulses and obsessions, his instincts. Do you understand? Selph is Feikermun! You are within him now. You have taken the gidsha and through its agency have entered his inner world. It is another world, a madman’s internal world, but it is real, as real as the world you have just left.’
I struggled with this. It seemed like lunacy. Everything seemed like lunacy. Yet everything I had experienced - it felt as if it had been for so long - seemed like this.
‘What have I been brought here for?’
‘To perform a task. We believe you can save us, all of us. We are threatened - our world is threatened, and yours too. By Feikermun. And we want you to save him.’
‘Save him?’
‘From what he does.’
‘This is all meaningless to me.’
‘I know. I want to explain further, but there is so much that you are not yet ready for. I am not the one to explain it all, but I can say that Feikermun has tapped into something, a power of unimaginable potency. He has found a key to open doors within himself, hidden doors within the Citadel. But the chambers to which he has gained access contain manifestations that he can never control. He will unleash them, believing he can. Some are already beginning to break free. If he is successful, if he is not stopped, he will release carnage, and the world you know will become a place of misery, changed beyond anything we can recognize.’
I looked around me at the strange, bleak, uncertain landscape, then back at Aniba. ‘Am I to kill him?’
‘No! That is precisely what you must not do. Understand that utterly: Feikermun must not die! Just now, though he strives to gain access to what resides within the chambers whose doors he has opened, he is prevented. At the same time, that which is within strives to break out, but Feikermun resists. That small part of him which remains human, which still contains an iota of goodness and rationality, holds back, knowing he tampers with forces too great. If he dies then that resistance dies too. The doors will remain open, the gates will be open, and everything the Citadel holds will be set free.’
‘Then... what?’
‘Feikermun must be overcome, subdued, led away from the path he has set out upon. And the doors must be sealed again.’
I almost scoffed. ‘Impossible! Do you know what you ask? The man is utterly deranged. He cannot be “led away”.’
‘That is why you have to confront him here, in the Citadel. In the Citadel of Selph, Feikermun may be found in all his aspects, all his personalities, all his possibilities and potentialities. You have to pursue him, explore this place, discover what it holds. There are secrets here, and danger. It is a place of wonders and horrors - but here, if you can find the right way, you can conquer Feikermun. But be sure of one thing: outside the Citadel, in the world that you know, Feikermun must not be allowed to perish. If necessary, at any cost, you must be his protector.’
I looked away, beyond her, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘This is not right.’
Aniba was patient. ‘When you truly understand what he has done you will know why it has to be this way. But I cannot show you everything. Somewhere else, deeper within the Citadel, Sermilio awaits you. He will explain more.’
Sermilio!
I stared hard at her. Was I dreaming? I had ingested gidsha that had been specially treated. All this, then, was not real, but a product of my hallucinating mind.
I said, ‘Who is Sermili
o?’
‘It’s better that he tells you himself,’ Aniba said softly.
‘Then take me to him, or have him come here to me.’
‘I cannot. The laws of this place do not permit it.’
‘There are laws?’ I was surprised.
‘Of a kind. The laws of paradox, if you like, of Chaos, of randomness. We who dwell here, though we do not understand them, all, must abide by them.’
I shook my head. ‘Why me?’
Aniba half-smiled. ‘How many folk, in moments of dilemma or distress, have made that same plea? I am not sure: that is the true answer. But in one sense it is because you were already here.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Feikermun chose you, Dinbig.’
She knew my name!
Plainly my face revealed my shock, for Aniba smiled and went on: ‘We did not know for a long time who it was. But you encountered him once before, did you not?’
I nodded.
‘You made an impression. Something attracted him, made you noteworthy in his eyes. Perhaps he had some subliminal inkling of your knowledge of magic, your Zan-Chassin training. It was what he most sought. So Feikermun took you into himself, into the Citadel, though he did not know that he had done so. There - here - you grew, and, as Feikermun played with powers of which he really knew nothing, he opened the way that allowed you to escape. You were not entirely yourself - who knows what you were? You had been transformed, for part of you was Feikermun. But once free you made the mistake of insulting Feikermun, and suffered the price.’
‘I was told I had died.’
‘You did not die, as such. You were returned to the Citadel. And it is as well that this was so for, had Feikermun not recaptured you, you would have returned to Khimmur, and there come face-to-face with yourself. Think about what that means, for these are the kinds of forces we are dealing with.’
‘That was not me! It was my double, someone or something impersonating me,’ I protested.
She shook her head again. ‘He was you, be sure of that. He was you following a course you might have chosen. And you reside here still, within the Citadel, striving like others to escape. This is something else that you must confront here.’
The conversation was extraordinary; I could not take in what I was being told. I felt that my mind was ready to burst into fragments.
You have taken gidsha I told myself. You are under its influence.
‘What is all this?’ I asked, gesturing to the winged people suspended in the coloured air all around and above us.
‘This is what is really happening here, in Selph,’ said Aniba. ‘This is what Feikermun has done, though again he does not truly know it. Ask Sermilio when you meet him.’
Her voice had taken on a hollow quality. Her form was not as definite as it had been. I realized she was fading.
‘Don’t go!’ I lurched towards her with sudden fear.
‘I will return to you,’ said Aniba. ‘But at this point you must make a choice, alone.’
‘No!’
My protest was futile, for I was on my own. The road stretched before me - so long, so far - a light breeze blowing dust across its breadth. I began to walk, not knowing where it would take me, not knowing what lay ahead.
It seemed an age that I walked, and then I found myself upon a wide drive, strewn with white gravel and lined with fir trees, which ran through formal gardens beside an ornamental lake. On the far side of the lake was a pavilion built of grey-brown stone, a wide portico at its fore, floored with an alternating pattern of triangular black-and-white tiles. There stood Feikermun beside an altar-like table or slab of solid grey stone. Upon this was a woman, naked, and as I watched Feikermun raised a gleaming knife above her body, intoning inaudible words, his face turned to the orange-yellow sky. He brought the blade down and slashed across her neck. He bent over her, putting his lips to the mortal wound, and drank her flowing blood.
‘He does not understand.’ It was Aniba’s voice, as though she stood at my shoulder. ‘Since the beginning men have never understood. So much bloodshed, so much needless sacrifice, all through an eternity of misunderstanding.’
‘I must stop him.’
‘Yes, but first you must understand him, understand what he believes, so that you and others like you do not fall into the same trap.’
‘What are you telling me?’
‘Sacrifice, Dinbig. Blood sacrifice. Feikermun believes he drinks the blood of life. Others sacrifice men, women, children, animals, for their blood. They have always done so, to appease their gods, gain personal power... They worship the blood as the sacred, creative source of life. Feikermun drinks the blood of women, craving power over life, but it gives him nothing, for the belief is seeded in ancient ignorance.’
As I watched, Feikermun climbed upon the body of the woman on the altar slab. He seemed to change, his body coming to resemble a great grey ape. Yet still he was Feikermun, both Feikermun and ape at the same time. He grasped his swollen genital member and inserted it between the woman’s limp outspread thighs, his mouth returning to the red wound at her neck as he began the frenzied motions of lust.
‘In the early days men worshipped the blood,’ said Aniba’s voice, ‘the blood that was uniquely of women, for it was perceived that this alone was the source of life. To primitive minds men played no part; it was woman’s blood that created new life. The blood was worshipped, feared, revered. The belief has persisted over millennia, corrupted into myriad, often unrecognizable forms and transmutations as men and women have striven to bring life out of blood. This is tragedy. So many sacrificed; a world founded on mistaken belief, on terrible misunderstanding. A myth, no longer even known, yet its rituals endure and are rarely questioned. But the blood is not the source; it bestows no power.’
‘Yet Feikermun gains power,’ I said. ‘Terrible power. He is being transformed into a god.’
‘He does not know where the power comes from. It is within and beyond, but it is too much to bear. He will not control it.’
Across the lake Feikermun eased himself off the pale body on the altar and stood, breathing heavily, still huge and simian. He glared across the water towards where I stood, and grinned madly, smeared with blood, though I could not tell whether he saw me.
‘Cormer of Chol, do you dream?’
‘I do not know.’
The scene had passed away; I was in an other where now. All around me were the winged people. I drifted between them, moving backwards with a volition that was not my own. More of them. And more. So many, utterly motionless in the yellow- amber air.
‘What is happening to me?’
‘Seek Sermilio.’
I gazed upwards and saw my mother’s face, heard her sweet voice sing, so full of joy and tenderness and love. The baby cried and the bells began to ring. Upon the steps a man stood garbed in grey, facing down a long empty road.
And the blackness came down, taking me, and I wandered blindly, not knowing, in regions of nothing that were all that existed before the world was born.
‘Have I died?’
‘No,’ a voice whispered. ‘You are just being born.’
Fourteen
A dull, pounding thunder yammering through me, racking my body with pain. Dry, so dry; craving liquid; my tongue a cracked pebble, swollen and rough; the roof of my mouth carpeted with sand. The merciless throbbing shriek inside my head, and the noise outside - people shouting somewhere, I thought, but a meaningless babble, far off and too painful... and I could not open my eyes for the light stabbed into them screaming...
Where was I?
I rolled over, sickeningly, a massive effort, my eyes screwed tight shut, shielded with an arm. I think I cried out: the pain and nausea were more than I could bear. I had to open my eyes. Gradually, still shading with my sleeve, I allowed the light through.
At first strange and unfamiliar, yet not wholly alien. Slowly blinking, waiting for order in my thoughts, and then recognizing the fixtures a
nd furnishings of the apartment in which I was lodged in Feikermun’s palace. I was sprawled upon the bed. How long had I been here? I recalled sunset, leaving this chamber. Now bright daylight streamed through the narrow window. I did not know what had happened in between - or did I not want to?