Haze and the Hammer of Darkness

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The bakery must be new, since he does not recall it. Outside the fresh white walls and polished door he pauses, then decides to go inside.

  Entering, from the corner of his eye he sees an older woman, her brown hair shot with gray, disappear through a side door into another room, leaving only her son, a boy of perhaps eleven standard years, behind the counter where the just-baked ceron rolls are laid out.

  The liftea has been brewed in an enormous samovar that stands alone on the counter next to the baked goods. Neatly racked beside the tea machine is a tray of blue porcelain mugs, each facedown on a white linen napkin.

  “Good day, young man,” offers Martel.

  “Good day, sir. What would you like, sir?”

  The youngster smiles easily, and Martel smiles back.

  “Are the rolls as good as they smell?”

  “I like them, but we also have the plain ones on the other tray.”

  “If you like them,” says Martel with a laugh, “I’ll have to try one, and a mug of the liftea.”

  He hands the boy his credit disc.

  “Oh, sir. I couldn’t.” The boy looks away.

  “Why not?”

  “I … I … just … well … ah…” His eyes are still fixed on the floor tiles.

  Flame! Flame! Flame!

  “My credit’s good, young man, and I would rather be charged for it.”

  The boy finally recovers. “It would be our pleasure, sir.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist. If people like me eat and don’t pay, how would you and your family stay in business?”

  The boy’s mouth drops open, only for an instant, but he takes the proffered disc and sets it in the reader, which transfers the small credit balance to the bakery.

  “Thank you, sir. I hope you like the ceron. It really is my favorite, except maybe for the spice sticks, and we don’t have any of those this morning.”

  “Ceron it is.”

  He picks up one of the sticky rolls and takes a bite. The orange-and-spice taste is as good as the smell, and he finishes the roll in three quick bites. He wipes his fingers on one of the small square napkins laid out on the counter next to the mugs.

  The pungent liftea clears the slightly cloying aftertaste of the ceron from his mouth.

  Martel looks up from the mug to see a man half enter the bakery, then abruptly back out into the lane.

  Martel downs the last of the liftea and places the mug on the empty tray where, he presumes, it should go.

  “As good as you said,” he tells the boy, who is still alone in the room with him.

  “Thank you, sir. Have a good day.”

  “I suppose I will. You too.”

  Martel leaves the shop with a smile on his face.

  Ought to do that more often, Martel. You stay too much to yourself these days.

  He glances toward the bootmaker’s shop, but the awning is fully down and extended, and Aldus has gone back inside.

  Should get another pair of boots one of these days, I suppose.

  The lane is deserted, except for two girls playing in the emerald grass next to the linen shop across from the bakery.

  The proprietor of the linen shop half steps out of her door, then darts back inside, as if she has forgotten something.

  Martel shrugs and resumes his walk toward Ibrahim’s.

  A muted clanging becomes increasingly more insistent, and by the time he reaches the middle of the next row of small businesses, each with a low-fenced and trimmed side yard, the sound resembles an off-tune gong.

  Behind the grassy lawn that circles a single cormapple, a double door to a metalworking shed stands open, and through the open doors Martel can see two men wrestling with what seems to be a metal tank.

  For several units he stands and watches the two as they struggle to straighten the crumpled end of the tank. After the bent metal is smoothed, however, they apply the patch plate quickly, and the two lift the tank onto a small delivery wagon.

  Martel looks away from the shed to discover he is being studied by a small, wide-eyed girl who hangs over the half-story railed balcony.

  He looks back at her, directly.

  She continues her study.

  He smiles.

  Her dark brown eyes widen farther, if possible.

  “… oh…”

  The sound comes from behind him, from the metalworking shed, and he glances toward it.

  Standing frozen in the double doorway is one of the two men who had been working on the tank. The sleeveless tunic emphasizes his burliness and the bronzed nature of his skin. The man is black-haired, clean-shaven, and his mouth hangs open as he stares at Martel.

  For a long instant, the three of them stand locked in that triangle, unmoving.

  Martel breaks the pattern by grinning at the girl, who could not possibly stand taller than his waist.

  “Have a good day, young lady.”

  He waves and turns to continue his steps toward the food shop.

  “Bye-bye.” The girl’s response drifts back.

  There is also the sound of air being exhaled, a deep breath, as if the metalworker had forgotten to breathe.

  Martel sees no one else in the two blocks before he reaches the food store.

  Ibrahim’s shop is empty, except for the proprietor, who is seated, as he always is, in his dark brown tunic and trousers, on the high stool behind the counter.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Martel. I need two bottles of Springfire, a few other things.”

  “Heard your beach story again the other day. I wish I could have seen it.”

  “Thank you.”

  Martel picks the Springfire out of the racks and sets both bottles on the counter, then checks the meat cooler for the scampig. He is in luck; several small fillets are available. He wraps them in the transparency and places the package next to the bottles. Taking a pear from the fruit section, he adds a scoop of rice which he bags, a box of noodles, and a scattering of vegetables, all of which he has wrapped into a single package.

  At last, he stands before the counter.

  “What’s this?” asks the shopkeeper as his fingers flicker over the package of combined and mixed fresh vegetables.

  “Mixed-up vegetables. Just charge me for whatever’s the most expensive. That would be the garnet beans.”

  “The whole thing is thirty-five credits, sir.”

  “That’s fine, Ibrahim. Run it through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The entire order will fit in the collapsible pack Martel unrolls from his belt pouch. He packs the items as Ibrahim feeds his credit disc into the reader and transfer system.

  As Martel lifts the pack to his back he sees a young woman, blond, green-eyed, heavyset, and wearing a burgundy overtunic, peer in the doorway and immediately back away.

  “Have a good day,” Martel says as he leaves the counter, placing the credit disc back in his pouch.

  “You, too. I’ll be listening tonight.”

  Not that the poor bastard could do otherwise, Martel, not both blinded and blessed for his sins.

  “You’re probably one of the few natives who do listen, Ibrahim, one of the very few. Take care.”

  Not that he has much choice there, either.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Martel pauses in the entranceway and looks back up the lane. As far as he can see, no one has set foot on the stones of the pavement, no one at all.

  Should you remove Ibrahim’s blindness? You could, you know.

  Martel looks down at the white-gray stones underfoot, then back up the deserted lane. Finally he shakes his head.

  Apollo would just reblind him, and, besides, where would you shop then, without everyone running away?

  He sets his steps toward the south, toward the isolated house and cottage beyond Sybernal. His paces are not light, but they are quick, and eat away the distance.

  xxx

  The man—who wonders whether he is—sits under the covered porch.
r />   He glances up at the wooden planks over his head, lets his eyes trace out the old, old wood from the newer old wood. To the eye, the difference is not great, though he can sense the lack of harmony that the best carpentry cannot fully disguise.

  Smoothing the sundered patterns would be easy enough. Like melding into the flowing day-to-day existence of Aurore. Like forgetting dark-haired girls with golden eyes, or fire-haired women with green eyes, or demigods cast back into the sea.

  “Except—” The words break as he stands, stretches.

  “Except what, Martel?” he snaps at himself.

  Except you’re a lousy forgetter.

  Shaking his head, he picks up the cup from the low table and gulps down the last of the yasmin tea.

  He wears only a pair of black shorts, and is barefoot and clean-shaven. His heavy steps thud as he crosses the porch.

  The cup floats from his hands and stacks itself in the cleaner.

  He continues on into his sleeping quarters.

  In the wardrobe are three dusty pale yellow tunics, with matching trousers, kept to remind him, and three sets of matching black tunics and their trousers.

  Martel pulls on the nearest set of black pants, then the black tunic and the black belt. He sits in midair and pulls on the heavy black boots.

  At one end of the closet is the black cloak. He has not worn it since it was given to him, but it repels the dust and is as fine as the day Emily left it in her villa for him.

  He looks at the belt, with the triangular silver buckle that is his only ornamentation.

  You wear the belt but not the cloak. Rathe, not Emily. What does that mean?

  He frowns, gathers a hint of darkness around him, and, his dressing done, strides from the sleeping room back into the main room of the cottage.

  The darkness, and the power it represents, both are things apart from the golden energy field of Aurore.

  Just as you’re a thing apart? Come off it, Martel.

  He shakes his head again. Harder.

  On Aurore, how can you tell what you believe from what is real? Or from what some god would have you believe is real?

  He stretches out his left arm, palm open and upward, and inhales, leaving his senses to take in the faint tang of the ocean beyond the hillcrest, to take in the subdued chitter of the dorles in the quince trees.

  In his open palm shimmers a black oval, a miniature doorway to … where? Martel is not sure, releases his mental grasp on the cold depths, and lets the blackness vanish.

  Is it real? Or illusion?

  Real, he decides. For the hundredth time or so.

  There is a feel to power, and an absolute feel to absolute power. Call it certainty, reflects Martel.

  He gestures toward the inside wall, the blank one, letting his fingers trace a figure. From his hand flows the stuff of darkness, outlining a crude figure, something not seen in the indirect and omnipresent lighting of Aurore.

  Shadow, shadow, on the wall,

  Who casts the longest shade of all?

  Is it death; or yet desire?

  Is it night, tamed by fire?

  Who’s the man who lights the lamp

  And calls the storm that brings the damp?

  Which the god who blocks the sun

  And fills the rivers in their run?

  Call the hammer, call the lightning …

  He closes his mouth. The old words have power still, lifting him into the role, letting him imagine he is a god.

  Not now. Not yet. Not ever.

  And yet …

  Who can say “ever” or “never” and know? Really know?

  Martel shrugs.

  The shadow vanishes from the wall, the only remnant the small cloud of black glittermotes that hovers above Martel before winking out.

  One touches down on Martel’s left shoulder, clings.

  Letting his perceptions slide around the corner from where he stands, he checks the timer above the autochef.

  Time to leave for the CastCenter.

  Walking will give him the time to think over the puzzles.

  Don’t you just like to walk? Admit it, Martel. Do you really think then?

  He leans to touch the light panel on his way out, cannot quite reach it, and turns it off with a mental tap.

  Another black glittermote appears and settles on his right shoulder, paired nearly invisibly on the black of his tunic opposite the other mote.

  As he heads down the steps to the coast highway, a dorle chitters once. He knows not why, but Rathe comes to mind.

  Rathe?

  Why do you keep thinking about her? She left. You didn’t search, not really.

  Short strides, quick strides, untiring strides bear him toward Sybernal, toward the CastCenter.

  She called you a god, and you let her go.

  A quick glance toward the flat surface of the ocean tells him that the waves, long and sleek in their golden greenness, are flatter than usual.

  Why are you so hung up on this esper crew that calls themselves gods? Talented, yes. Gods, no. Right?

  The air seems a shade more golden, along with the calm, and the highway is deserted.

  Like when Rathe found you the cottage?

  Stop it!

  Do you love her? Honestly?

  No.

  Like her? Respect her?

  Yes.

  POWER! LIGHT!

  His dialogue with his unseen devil or conscience is brought to a halt with his perception of the sheer raw energy ahead.

  His legs keep pumping as he quick-steps up the paved highway and over the gentle hilltop.

  Just over the crest sits the doctor/god Apollo in an insubstantial chair. The four legs of the chair are yellow snakes. The back is composed of two fanned dragon wings.

  Beneath his golden ringlets Apollo’s face is expressionless.

  At his right foot lies the body of a man … young, dark-haired, facedown. Dead.

  By his left quivers a redheaded woman, sobbing silently, dryly. Rathe.

  Rathe.

  “Balance, Martel. You do not understand the need for balance. Power must be balanced with the understanding of its impact on mere mortals. Belief is more powerful than power.”

  Apollo tells the truth as he sees it, Martel knows; his words ring like a flat carillon.

  Martel gathers his darkness around him, bemused as the clouds of black glittermotes appear from nowhere.

  “Before you try to employ that energy, Martel, be so kind as to observe.”

  Martel nods, reaching out a thin thread of thought to reassure Rathe.

  Apollo outlines a golden square in the air. Colors swirl and resolve into a picture.

  Martel watches, a corner of his mind still occupied with the huddled figure that is Rathe Firien, as the small drama comes to an end.

  Rathe is helping another of Apollo’s would-be demigods become accustomed to Aurore. Except … except this time she does not offer her body and soul.

  Does not. Does not humble herself.

  The man, pursuing, strikes out with all his mental force … and the force misses Rathe and rebounds upon him. Partly, Martel surmises, because Rathe is wearing the same shielding as when she first met him, partly because the man is a lower-level esper, and partly because …

  Martel wonders if along with his physical gifts he had given her some shields of her own.

  In the picture conjured by Apollo, the last scene shows Rathe looking down at a body, the same body that lies at Apollo’s feet.

  “You see, Martel, what you have done.”

  I? Come off it, you pious fraud!

  Martel twists raw hunks of power, not from the energy field of Aurore, from his own depths, and marshals it within.

  You cannot harm me, Martel.

  “No!… No…” murmurs a small voice.

  Martel looks at his former lover and holds his energies.

  “Why not?” he temporizes.

  “Because—”

  Her statement is never com
pleted, for Apollo touches her, and she is gone. A flash of flame, and she is gone.

  … you’ll be like him. Those were her last thoughts, and they fade into the golden haze.

  Martel hesitates. Looks at Apollo, standing yellow-bright, smirking, daring Martel to strike.

  Martel gathers his darkness even tighter into himself … and walks around the chair with the flickering legs, around the smirking god, and begins to trot toward Sybernal.

  Step, step, step, step … and wipe your cheek. Step, step, step. Wipe. Step, step, step …

  She asked you not to.

  But Rathe is gone.

  For what?

  Gone in flame because of a mad god. And he, Martel, had not seen it coming. Had not seen the total disregard, the snuffing out of a vital woman, snap. Had not believed power so cavalierly used.

  But she asked you not to.

  Rathe had not asked for help, had not begged for anything … just for Martel not to attack Apollo. And not because she feared Martel would be hurt.

  “Because you’ll be like him.” That was what she’d said.

  Martel shudders even as he keeps trotting.

  Are all gods like that?

  Isn’t everyone with power?

  Kryn. Lovely Kryn, having her guards fire on a lonely Martin Martel just because he’d been discovered to have esper potential.

  The Grand Duke, who ruled high in Karnak, throwing the Imperial Marines after a solitary student who had displeased his daughter.

  Emily, the carnal goddess, taking what she wanted and leaving. No good-bye. Just the power to arouse and take and discard. And leave a black cloak as a thank-you.

  Is that what becoming a god of Aurore means?

  Does it have to mean that?

  Step, step, step.

  He lets his pace slow to a quick walk as he crosses the “official” southern boundary of Sybernal, where the Petrified Boardwalk begins.

  The refrain from the “Heroes’ Song” echoes in his thoughts:

  Tell me now, and if you must,

  That a man’s much more than dust.

  If Aurore is light, if Apollo is the sun-god … no god will I be. Not by choice, nor by accident. Not now, not ever.

  Stuffing the swirling energies, the black fires, deep inside himself, Martel touches the CastCenter entry plate.

  “Martel, evening shift.”

  That’s right. Evening, evening in youth. Evening in full light. Why not? Light is a lie, promising everything and signifying nothing.