by Samit Basu
As she recovered from the surprise and tried to keep completely unnecessary thoughts about Kirin out of her head, Maya realized that the eggshell had had other effects on her mind as well. She felt light, as if she were floating; she reminded herself that she was no longer attached to her body and its limitations and then she found, to her amazement, that she was rising, that she could fly if she wanted to. And as she adjusted to her new eyes, to the idea of new eyes, she looked around again and realized that every living object in the cave now emitted a strange, dark glow, a fingerprint, a heartbeat, sufficient to make her aware of the presence of every tree-root, every lichen, every insect around her. Even the rocks and the earth announced their presence, their shapes and silences drawing maps in her mind. Strange ethereal shapes that had nothing to do with any object in the cave floated at the borders of her vision, and the cave-mouth seemed to pulsate as she looked at it, at wisps of life-force drifting in from the forest outside.
‘How long have you been awake?’ she asked, watching soundless words leave her mouth and wash over Kirin’s face.
‘You had your clothes on until you got up. Don’t worry. Should we leave?’
‘And leave ourselves lying here like this?’
‘Spikes and Asvin won’t come in, or let anyone else in. We have more important problems to deal with.’
‘What are we supposed to do now? Where are the gods?’
‘The unwaba said they were sitting around the world, on a circular table, playing their game.’
‘But how do we get there? And how do we find Zivran without the other gods seeing us?’
‘Getting out of this cave would be a start,’ said Kirin. ‘Remember, none of this is real in the physical sense; this is a trance we’re sharing. I don’t think there are any rules; if there were, the unwaba would have told us.’
‘How can you be so calm? Aren’t you seeing what I am?’
‘Probably. But I’ve done this sort of thing before, with the Gauntlet. Let’s move.’
They walked out of the cave into the forest and stood still, swaying a little, as waves of sensation pounded into them and drowned them; millions and millions of life-patterns, lights in the darkness and impossibly clear sounds from far away. Maya reached out for Kirin, and recoiled, horrified; a large, fierce-looking wombat stood where Kirin had been a second ago. She blinked, instinctively conjuring up a fireball, and in its light she saw Kirin, staring at her, stunned.
‘Something’s wrong,’ he said. ‘You’re changing shape.’
‘So were you,’ said Maya. ‘What now?’
‘Imagine you’re somewhere in the heavens, somewhere secret, near the gods, and we’ll start from there.’
‘How is that going to work?’ Maya felt fingers of panic tugging at her spine, small, insistent, impossible to ignore. She looked over her shoulder and saw them, little blue jointed worm-like things wriggling all over her back
‘I don’t know. It’s an idea. Do you have any?’ Kirin asked, finding it difficult to address a penguin without laughing.
‘I can’t just imagine a place like that, Kirin. I don’t know what the heavens look like. This is insane. We need to wait for the unwaba to wake up again.’
‘We’ve eaten the safat’s egg. It has to be now. Just hold on to me, close your eyes, and think of something.’
Kirin held out his hand, but Maya ignored it, and buried her face in his shoulder. ‘If this doesn’t scare you, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d been there.’
‘So do I. But it’s my fault you weren’t. And I’m as completely out of my depth as you are, but now I’m used to it; the trick is not to let anyone else know what you’re feeling. Now don’t open your eyes until I tell you to.’
‘Are we there yet?’ asked Maya after a while.
‘No. Are you having divine visions of any sort?’
‘No. I just had an interesting idea about illusion spells, but no gods. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It was probably a silly idea in the first place,’ said Kirin. ‘This is ridiculous. We’re two adults, standing in the middle of a forest, trying to imagine heavens we’ve never believed in. You’re right. We’ll wait for the unwaba to wake up, tell us he knew this was going to happen, talk about how wise he is and tell us other ways to look like idiots.’
Maya let go of Kirin and returned his rueful grin. ‘So we’re not meeting the gods?’
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘This was fun, though. Should I go back into the cave first and change?’
They heard a soft, wet sound and the world vanished into utter darkness.
‘Later, then,’ said Maya.
And then there was light. Millions of stars lit up above them, burning in colours they could not name. They turned this way and that; trying to make sense of what they were seeing and failing entirely; they were inside something, they were somewhere, a place of constant change, of movement faster than thought, an ocean of energy and dreams in which they groped blindly for familiar scraps. There were fleeting instants of comprehension, recognizable shapes and ideas - mountains and palaces and forests and deserts flickered in and out of vision, and rivers of liquid music drifted through the air. With every movement, worlds appeared and disappeared; galaxies turned, oceans swelled and dried, walls of light and smell rose and fell. They stood on what seemed to be a floor of white marble, but it turned into a soft cloud the next instant, and a grassy meadow the next. Kirin and Maya stood in silence, watching this spectacle unfold, and they knew then, as they had never known before, how small they were; they struggled to understand the wonders around them, trap what they saw and felt with words and thoughts, cage their sensations and conquer them, and they failed again.
‘Look at me,’ said Kirin. ‘Shut this out. We’ll both lose our minds, if we haven’t already.’
‘How?’
‘Just stop thinking about it. Stop looking. Nothing here exists, and we don’t have to understand it. We need to concentrate on what we need to do, or we’ll drown.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t. I’m making it up. You have to pretend with me.’
The heavens cleared. Now they were standing, floating, in emptiness, in silence, drifting specks in a vast, unfathomable void. Far away, they could see the world, its swirling oceans and misty lands, and they gazed in wonder as they watched the gods gathered around it, shining, powerful, massive beings of every imaginable form, and some beyond description. Other worlds could be seen too, barren and empty, sullen masses drifting, as they were, in Zivran’s garden.
‘What now?’ asked Maya.
‘Now we wait until brilliant ideas suddenly strike us,’ said Kirin. ‘Or until someone notices us and hopefully listens to us, or until the trance passes and we either return to our bodies or float around hopefully forever.’
‘I see you’ve considered all our options.’
‘I try.’
‘I have another option,’ said Maya. ‘We walk up to Zivran and talk to him. Though he might think we were bugs - if the gods are so big from where we’re looking, imagine how huge they’ll be when we get nearer. If we can’t get Zivran to notice us, we’ll find his ear and whisper ideas into his head. That technique seemed to have worked for the unwaba.’
‘Do you have any idea how far away they are? It might take us months – years – to reach them. Stay here. Something’s bound to happen.’
A discreet cough behind them broke the silence, making them realize that Kirin had been right; something was happening, as predicted. Someone had appeared; as they turned and looked up, higher and higher until their necks hurt, they saw a being the size of a mountain, a creature with hundreds of arms and heads; his body a bizarre tapestry of feather, bone, hide, skin, membrane, shell and scale, on which heads rose like warts on a toad’s back, some human, some monstrous, several animal-like, with beaks or compound eyes or tusks. And all the heads that they could see were staring a
t them fiercely. Kirin and Maya goggled back at the newcomer in awe as he loomed over them, wings and arms and pincers folded defensively; and even as their eyes grew slightly accustomed to the madness of his body, they realized he was constantly changing shape as well; heads popped in and out of his body, city-sized patches of skin molted and coalesced. They looked down, their necks hurting, and saw that scores of legs supported his mostly spherical central body, anchoring him to a plane that could not be seen, a road below them paved with stars, that ran through the void towards the world.
‘Do you think he can see us?’ asked Maya. ‘Aren’t we too small?’
‘Who. You?’ said Sambo, the words coming from two adjacent heads in the middle of his chest. ‘Where. From?’ One of the voices was a loud roar, the other a shrill squeak; in other circumstances, they would have found this amusing.
‘We’re from that neighbourhood,’ said Kirin, pointing at the world, ‘and you must not interrupt, because we’re terribly important people on a mission of incredible significance.’
‘You. Not. On. List,’ said Sambo, this time speaking in four new voices, through bird heads that huddled together in an armpit.
Maya smiled her most charming smile. ‘Sambo, right?’
Sambo nodded like a wave. ‘I. Am. Nagual.’
‘Delighted to meet you,’ said Maya. ‘For some reason, I’d thought you’d be small and look very worried.’
‘I. Large.’
‘We need to see Zivran,’ said Kirin, blinking, because safat-egg-induced visions had, for a second, made Sambo look like a very large tomato.
Sambo extended a head and examined them closely. ‘Wait. Minute,’ he said. ‘You. Mortals! How. Here? Not. Supposed!’
He extended arms in every direction, hiding them completely, and looked in every direction in space-time for a while. When he was sure no one had noticed them, he turned on them angrily.
‘Not. Allowed. Go. Away.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said Kirin. ‘We’ve come a long way, and we’re not going without seeing Zivran. We know what’s going on here.’
‘Be nice to the chicken,’ whispered Maya, wondering why Sambo had turned into a chicken. She closed her eyes and opened them again, and found he hadn’t.
‘What. Chicken?’ thundered Sambo, waving threatening tentacles. ‘Be. Gone!’
‘Look,’ said Kirin, shaking his head and clearing his eyes, ‘Mortals have met gods before, right? You know the stories. In each case, the gods’ minions tried to stop them. Made nuisances of themselves, just like you’re doing now. And you know what happened to them. They died, or looked really stupid. So just help us, and spare yourself the trouble. We like you.’
‘Why. Want. Meet. Zivran?’
‘We can’t tell you. You’re just a lowly underthing,’ said Kirin. He regretted this impudence immediately, as several of Sambo’s heads changed shape and started displaying interesting variations along the general lines of many teeth.
‘Lowly underthings being, of course, the only sort of things that people are interested in nowadays,’ added Maya, floating forward, surreptitiously pinching Kirin very hard . She would have added more words calculated to soothe and charm, but she became distracted at this point by little fairy lights floating around her head, and giggled.
Sambo considered the puny creatures in front of him and felt a tremor of fear run through his body, gently tickling his many spines. They were clearly insane, and he regretted, for the first time, giving his creations the power to carry diseases. If the little bags of dirt bit him, who knew what might happen? And they looked perfectly capable of it, too. It was their glazed eyes that scared him, more than anything else. But his duty, as always, came first.
‘No,’ he rumbled. ‘Be. Gone.’
‘Why?’ enquired Maya.
‘Read. Sign.’
He raised a few arms triumphantly, and they saw, floating behind him, a large, hurriedly painted wooden sign the size of a tower, covered with scribbles and signs in billions of languages, innumerable words that flowed and circled, swarmed and buzzed like bees, until they came together, and the sign read ‘No Mortals’.
‘We’re not mortals,’ Kirin pointed out. ‘We’re substance-induced astral projections. Now bring Zivran to us.’
‘Return. Later. Game. Now. Zivran. Busy,’ said Sambo, shivering inside, asking himself why he did this work without any form of payment. Unending lists of germs he had crafted by hand were running through his brains.
‘There’s no point coming back when the world’s destroyed and we’re dead, is there?’ said Maya.
‘How. Know? Secret!’
‘We know a lot of secrets,’ said Maya. ‘For example, we know that you were the one who created our world, and Zivran just took all the credit.’
‘How. Know?’ All Sambo’s faces look worried.
‘We have friends in high places. We also know that you are Zivran’s most loyal servant, and impossible to corrupt.’
‘All. True. Thank. You,’ said Sambo, slowly bringing two of his least favourite arms into position. He would swat them quickly and forget them, he decided.
‘Tell me, Sambo,’ said Maya, ‘was not Zivran afraid that a being as mighty as you might challenge his master?’
‘Bred. For. Obedience,’ said Sambo, postponing the squashing for a moment to see if they were going somewhere with this train of thought.
‘So you were created to follow orders? But wasn’t Zivran afraid that some other god might order you to destroy him?’ asked Maya.
‘No. God. But. Zivran. Command. Nagual,’ said Sambo with pride. His arms began to move together, very slowly.
‘That’s very interesting,’ said Maya. ‘Because, you see, we are not gods, but substance-induced astral projections. Kirin, when you asked Sambo to bring Zivran to us, did you use your ravian mind-control powers?’
‘No,’ said Kirin, breaking into a smile.
All Sambo’s eyes widened in shock. Mountaineous muscles contracted, and his arms jerked into motion, converging on the intruders’ bodies with frightening speed.
‘Well, Kirin?’ yelled Maya. ‘Would you like to try again?’
Stop, said Kirin.
And Sambo froze, two hands mere feet away from their bodies.
‘You. Cannot. Control. Nagual. Mind!’ he growled.
‘Of course not,’ said Kirin. Now put your arms away. You don’t want to hurt us.
‘You. Try. Control. Nagual?’ roared Sambo, his arms falling limply by his side.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Kirin. ‘The very idea! Sambo, can you make us another world? A world just like the one we had, which your master is about to destroy? We would like that very much.’
‘No,’ said Sambo, ‘Need. Direct. Zivran. Order.’
No, you don’t, said Kirin. Zivran’s orders no longer apply. You answer only to me now.
‘Need. Zivran. Direct. Order,’ said Sambo unhappily.
Make us another world, Sambo.
Sambo’s faces contorted in pain, and three of his heads exploded. He clutched their stumps and groaned. Kirin and Maya felt their bodies vibrating, and would have run, but Sambo looked up again a moment later and they saw that new heads were already beginning to grow out of the stumps.
‘Stop teasing him, Kirin. Sambo, dear, can you steal this world away from the Game and hide it from the gods?’ asked Maya.
‘No. Need. Zivran. Direct. Order. You. Try. Control. Nagual? Tell. Truth.’
‘It amazes and shocks me to think you could even suggest such a thing,’ said Kirin. Bring Zivran to us. Now.
‘Zivran. Glory. Burn. You. Zivran. Too. Powerful. You. Face,’ said Sambo smugly.
‘All right, then,’ said Kirin. Tell him to conceal his powers when he comes to us – keeping us alive will help him get out of this mess unscathed. And if you won’t make us a world, make us a safe place to meet him. And tell him to hurry. We don’t have much time.
Sambo gave up, and nodde
d, heads swaying in unison.
He spoke a Word, and then there was a hut. Kirin and Maya walked into it, into a small earthen room, empty except for a wooden table and two chairs. They sat. Glasses of mead appeared before them. They drank, and spat; it tasted terrible. They looked at each other, and smiled nervously.
‘We should do this more often,’ said Maya. ‘We’re a good team. I can’t think of anyone who I’d rather rush in with when facing infinitely powerful beings with absolutely no idea what to do.’
‘You were amazing. I thought I was supposed to be the one unmoved by all this,’ said Kirin. ‘Of course, all we’ve done so far is outwit the servant, I wonder what we’ll do when the master gets here.’
‘If you’re thinking what I’m thinking,’ said Maya, ‘you have absolutely no idea.’
And then her face froze and her eyes clouded over, and her hands rose stiffly and placed themselves on the table. Kirin was naturally surprised by this, and would have commented, but he could not, because he no longer had any control over his spirit-body, and his hands, too, were placed on the table, palms downward; his face mirrored Maya’s in its terrified immobility.
Kirin and Maya spoke in unison, their mouths moving jerkily, their eyes unseeing.
‘Zivran is here,’ they said.
And then they slumped back in their chairs, as their minds returned, and gulped non-air in greedy breaths for seconds, clutching their heaving chests. And their eyes clouded over again, as their forms stiffened; they spoke.
‘Truly has it been said and sung that the All-Knowing Ones, the Star-bringers, the Torch-bearers, the Children of S/He… are Themselves, in Their infinite power and compassion, the Guardians of the Void and the Templars of the Hidden Flame, the Unknowing, Grasping Darkness, and the Walls of Their own Infinite Soul-Citadels, for I have seen these intruders, these children of the shadows, I have watched their faces in My Crystals of Vision and heard their voices whispering in the Void but their names elude Me.’