Citadel

by Martin Ash

  He gave a nod. ‘Some, I believe.’

  ‘Then it is not death that awaits you. It is, rather, the continuation of your existence exclusive of this particular realm, where you do not belong, where you cannot continue to be. It is not the end.’

  ‘But will I know that I have existence there?’

  ‘Did you before?’

  ‘I believe... I am not sure. I recollect, but I cannot say whether I had knowledge of myself at the time. It is beyond me to know.’

  ‘There are some questions that only the experience can answer,’ I said.

  We were interrupted then by a loud rapping upon the door through which I had first entered the hall.

  ‘Come!’ called the Golden Lamb, turning. A man entered, an officer; a sheen of sweat upon his face. Around one forearm he wore a bloodstained bandage. He marched forward, halted, tilted his head in salute, then strode to the Golden Lamb and spoke softly into the ear of his helm.

  ‘Splendid!’ came the booming voice from within the helm. ‘Most excellent! Bring him.’

  The officer returned to the door and beckoned to someone outside. Into the hall came several soldiers, bringing with them a sagging, sorry figure. They half-dragged him to a bench before one wall close to where we stood, and sat him down. He seemed barely conscious. His head flopped forward, chin upon his chest, hair adrift. He was weaponless, and much of his armour had been removed; his limbs and torso were smeared with colour, serpentine patterns, tongues of bright flame, as was his face. Saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth, darkly streaking his beard.

  ‘So,’ said the Golden Lamb, standing before him, ‘we meet at last.’

  Feikermun of Selph made no response. His eyes were half-open but directed towards the floor, and his head lolled upon his wide shoulders.

  ‘Tell me the circumstances of his capture,’ said the Golden Lamb to the officer who had first entered.

  ‘I can relate only in terms of what I witnessed, my lord,’ said the man, ‘for I do not understand them. We had been observing him for some minutes. We saw Master Cormer make his escape when Feikermun’s company was diverted by a fearsome creature which came, as far as I could ascertain, out of the air. There was a furious battle - several of his men were killed, others were striving to escape - then quite suddenly the creature vanished. Feikermun began to search for Cormer; he had with him a gigantic ape. Something appeared, just for a moment: a winged youth, wounded it seemed, for there was blood around his mouth and upon his chest. He slew the ape with a single thrust of a slender sword, then he too vanished. At that Feikermun let out a great cry, clenching his head in his hands and falling on his knees as if in mortal distress. His men were in disarray. I saw our chance and ordered the attack. We had cut down a number and had Feikermun surrounded before they knew we were among them. A few fought on, hopelessly, and a large group melted back into the dark streets. We did not follow. Feikermun, throughout the skirmish, was slumped on his knees upon the ground, weeping like a small child. He offered no resistance when we took him and disarmed him, and he came here meekly as though his very spirit had been taken from him.’

  ‘His spirit, everything,’ I said, gazing at him. ‘He is a broken man.’ I could not wholly grasp it, yet I understood something of the enormity of his loss. ‘His belief could no longer sustain him in the face of what was real. He had no more delusions to feed on; I suspect he has seen the truth, and it is too much to bear.’

  ‘Is this my father?’

  I turned, as did the Golden Lamb. My double stared with wide, questioning eyes at the squat figure of Feikermun. He made to step towards him. The guards barred his way but then, at a motion from the Golden Lamb, they let him pass. He came forward as if in a trance and gazed down at Feikermun.

  ‘You are my father,’ he said in a trembling voice. Then, louder, ‘You gave me life. Do you know me?’

  Feikermun’s bulk shifted slightly, as though the words had penetrated his terrible stupor and echoed dizzyingly there. Slowly he raised his head, a great and intolerable weight. Bloodshot grey eyes settled on the man confronting him, and for an instant - no more - I thought I saw a spark of recognition, life returning, or something. Then the eyes lost their focus again and stared bleakly into a lost, perhaps treasured distance. The head slid slowly forward. One slack hand twitched slightly on a massively muscled thigh.

  What happened next I shall never forget. It happened in a moment, almost too quickly for the eye to follow, yet I recall every detail as though it were being played out over and over again, slowly, before my eyes.

  My double turned around, his eyes glassy, and looked from one to the other of us with an unreadable expression. Then, with a movement of unexpected suddenness, he threw himself at the nearest guard. He pushed the man backwards with one out-thrust hand while with the other drawing the surprised guard’s longsword from its scabbard. With a wild yell he lifted the sword in two hands, whirled around, and brought it down in a wide but certain arc. His strength confounded me, for with that single blow he took Feikermun’s head from its shoulders.

  In virtually the same instant that my double moved the Golden Lamb’s guards reacted. Three leapt to form a defensive wall before their master, thrusting him back. Two more launched themselves directly at my double. As his sword-blow completed its arc and the first blood gushed from Feikermun’s neck, a slashing blow severed both of his wrists where he gripped the sword. The hands dropped to the floor, still clutching the sword as it clattered upon the flags. A swordthrust from the second soldier pierced my double’s back, the tip protruding for an instant from his chest.

  He gave a groan, staggering as the sword was wrenched free, and brought himself around to face us. Blood sprayed from his wrist-stumps, falling on to Feikermun’s shaggy head, which had come to rest between his feet, mouth agape, the eyes still open, staring up at its creation with an expression resembling disbelief.

  My double’s mouth opened, trying to frame words as his knees buckled.

  ‘It is over,’ he whispered. He tottered and fell, coming to rest across Feikermun’s legs, his head tipped back to rest upon the crazed warlord’s great bloodied thew. Feikermun’s headless corpse remained seated, the shoulders slumped forward and the lifeblood flooded forth, pouring down into the face and mouth of the man who rested beneath, and of his own which gazed up from the floor.

  My legs grew weak, and I heard the blood roar in my ears, the room rotating around that grotesque tableau and its image of grisly intimacy. I had the feeling that it was not I who stood there - that someone else had taken over me, an observer, a witness to my death, for I had died here. I had seen it. I had seen what would have happened had I chosen another path.

  I knew there were voices crying out all around me, but I could not hear their words. I heard only that single bleak statement in my mind: It is over.

  Twenty one

  But it was not over. It did not hit me immediately, but Feikermun’s death raised new dilemmas.

  The hall had fallen quite suddenly silent. The soldiers of the Golden Lamb stared with blank expressions at the two disfigured corpses whose lifeblood formed a rapidly dilating lake and bright racing rivulets on the floor. Those whose weapons had been used slowly wiped them clean and resheathed them. They waited half-dazedly for a command.

  The Golden Lamb said, in a leaden voice, ‘Take these bodies away.’

  He walked to the dais, beckoning me to follow.

  ‘I’m not sure of the implications of this,’ came his voice, sombre and muffled from within the helm. He rested his buttocks against the lip of the dais and folded his arms on his chest. ‘You say this man, this other you, cannot die. I look at him now and say that he is unquestionably dead. Are we to anticipate his return, then?’

  My thoughts were on Feikermun, and in my mind echoed the caveat I had received from both Aniba and Sermilio: Feikermun must not die. I looked back at Feikermun’s corpse.

  ‘He has killed his god, his creator. He was but an imag
e or a thought captured unknowingly in Feikermun’s mind,’ I said, at the same time thinking: He has killed one of his creators, and then himself, so that the other, who is me, may live on. Ronbas Dinbig is dead before me, and I am alive, and I am he, both living and dead. Who or what is it that has perished? I closed my eyes for a moment, then added, ‘If Feikermun has died prematurely, the gates of the Citadel will remain open. My double will then remain to haunt the world. But if that is so, it will not be for long, I fear.’

  ‘You fear?’

  ‘If the way is open then we will have far more to be afraid of than the havoc he can wreak.’ As I said it I realized I had little choice now. I had to know, and the only way to know was to return to the Citadel and the Well of Selph. Warily I reached into my clothing for the gidsha and the other ingredients.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asked Inbuel.

  ‘I’m going back.’

  *

  It was empty. No figure was upon the steps; the pillars of the temple cast no shadows. No baby cried; the mother did not sing, and no bell rang in the air above. The yellowness of the light, the amber clarity, had been supplanted by a toneless haze. There was not a breath of breeze to shift the dust, but overhead the great firmament of blackest black still hung.

  The Avari had gone. The road stretched ahead of me for as far as I could see, no one standing at its side. The overwhelming feeling was of abandonment.

  I did not recall how I had come to be here, nor did I know where I was going, except that the road was there and it was the only path I could choose. But I was heavy, so heavy, the body unfamiliar... and so far to go, so far, so very long. Eternity lay ahead of me, obscured by my death which would cleave it from me, severing me but leaving all else. Yet I had seen it. I had understood.

  How would I know? I could only trust.

  Alone, seeking to know, but everything I sought was unknowable. Here was I, who was; here too was I, who might have been; and there was all else, held within me. I was part of it and yet it was denied me. Such a very long way to go, and not knowing why.

  I came at last to the small stone buildings among which I knew I had stood before. I was weary; it had taken so long and I remembered little. The blood-light of sunset stained the bare land, deepening the long shadows, altering the world over which I had come. The blood engenders life, the light nurtures and sustains it. Not of woman, not of man, though we are born of the two. We are waiting...

  And not far ahead lay the little path that led down to the well, the dark swaying trees behind it. No further. There was nothing beyond - nothing that might be experienced by mortal flesh or perceived by mortal eyes or senses. There was only the well and all that it contained.

  I turned around and looked back, perhaps to try and recall, or perhaps to reassure myself that everything I still did recall had been real, that I had not fooled myself, or that my memory or my imagination had not fooled me. The scene was almost as I had expected it to be, but the road had gone. This time there was no way back. Why was I so certain that I had been back before?

  I moved on, passed between the little houses and the temple and down the grassy path to the well. I rested for some moments against the low stone wall of the well, and stared up at the empty, sheltering sky. Did the fact that the Avari had gone tell me what I wished to know? It seemed so; I was satisfied.

  I sat upon the well’s wall and, after a while, swung my legs over so that my feet hung above the infinite space beneath. Leaning forward a little I could see my reflection gazing back at me. And it was I: it was the face of Ronbas Dinbig looking up. It was only right. I had done what I had done, and this was the end. I had slain Feikermun, my father, my brother, my creator, my god. I had done so only when it was time, and it had been time. He had known me. How could we have come together had it not been so?

  And I had let the other remain, which was as it should be.

  I leaned forward then, gazing down into the depths, and I let myself fall.

  *

  I fell as I had fallen before. I glimpsed the red and the black and heard the soft beating of powerful wings, and this time it seemed that not quite everything into which I descended was entirely strange.

  Have I died?

  I heard my mother sing.

  Is this my death?

  I heard the bell far above.

  I heard the baby cry.

  And a voice I had never heard before, but which I knew and loved so dearly, whispered: ‘No, you are just being born.’

  Twenty two

  There remained questions to be answered. There remained old scores. There remained Wirm.

  I had forgotten about Wirm. It seemed he had slithered away, probably wisely, seeing the pattern of events and recognizing Fei- kermun’s reign to be effectively over. Wirm would not let it end there, of course; I could be certain of that. He would wait, plot, seek his moment and his advantage, then reappear in Dhaout to remind or convince whomsoever he chose of his indispensability. Wirm might have lost Feikermun, but he was a resourceful and resilient fellow, not given to capitulation or defeat and well practised in the art of extracting personal advantage from adverse circumstances.

  So, yes, I had forgotten about Wirm, perhaps not even thinking him significant in the greater picture. But that was a mistake, for certainly Wirm had not forgotten me.

  I do not remember leaving the Golden Lamb but it was inadvisable to have done so. I know I took the gidsha again, hopefully for the very last time, and under the moot auspices of that uncanny root one quickly comes to accept that one is subject to different laws, different valences. One learns not to be surprised, that the dream commands the reality, that the world is nothing more nor less than a reflection of mind. Aniba had made me see that before the action is the thought, the concept, and had allowed me to understand that the same must apply to everything. Our universe, then, is the sum total of our experience, realized, actualized, but always a product of conscious or subliminal processes. The existence we know is that which we have made, all creatures, sentient and other, throughout time and across space. It is a common agreement, though we have no knowledge of having agreed, for we believe ourselves individual; we consider ourselves unconnected, separated from each other and everything else. But we seek, and the more we seek the more we discover there is to find, because in the act of seeking we are endlessly creating - permitting to come into being that which we may, one day far from now, recognize. The mystery is our own, not yet to be known in its entirety, for to know it will be the end of everything, a final consummate union, and another beginning. Together then, innocently and unconsentingly, we give existence to everything, including ourselves, including our gods. We are the urge and the spawn, and our greatest secrets we are born to conceal, to hold deep in places where we cannot - or should not - yet go. We cannot know them too soon, for to be aware before the proper time, the ready time, is to unleash the unimaginable. Everything is but a dream. This is what the gidsha told me.

  But, if the gidsha bestows insight, it also steals. It takes memory as it takes reality, and when I opened my eyes it was as though everything that had gone before had been a dream, for, as with horror I recognized where I was, my first thought was that perhaps I had never actually left.

  It was a blazing bright greyness that pierced my eyes, forcing them shut, my head twisting away. But my limbs did not follow. I opened my eyes gradually, allowing the light in by degrees. My arms and legs were oddly stretched and would not obey my efforts to move. I was lying naked upon my back. I felt warmth on my face, chest and legs, but a horrible, shifting cold beneath and - though I rested upon something hard and ungiving - a sensation of gently undulating and rather sickening movement.

  I caught the reek of foul water in my nostrils before I saw it, knew its cold and heartless touch as it lapped at my skin. I went rigid as the panic slammed into me, then began to struggle.

  Futile. I was bound.

  The water was all around me, black and scummy, and I was supported lo
w upon its surface by a bed of seeping wooden planks. My wrists and ankles, outsplayed, were tethered with fine rope to four stout poles which were driven into the mud. Arching back my neck I saw, obscuring the overcast above me, the shadowy bearded long-haired figure of the raftsman leaning on his quant, awaiting a word from his master.

  ‘It’s useless to struggle,’ said Wirm. I raised my head and saw him standing flanked by henchmen above me at the end of the jetty. His thin lips were twisted into a gloating smile, and his small bright eyes darted incessantly over me, gleefully triumphant at my fall.

  I searched for words, anything, just to speak, for into my mind lurched another horror, a memory of a previous event witnessed from another perspective.

  ‘How did I get here?’

  Wirm laughed and wrung his hands delightedly. He looked at my right thigh.

  I felt preposterous relief. I could speak. I had my tongue. Yet what was that worth when I was about to die anyway? Horribly. I could imagine Wirm’s pleasure at hearing my screams.