by Bunch, Chris
Amiel smiled at me, and I knew she was thinking the same as I.
Marán hugged me. “I think,” she said softly, “there was some potion in that potion.”
Hunger came, and we found a line of stalls, and then tried to decide which delowa vendor had the tastiest wares. We settled on one, and he took three of the sausages from the grill, their aroma floating around us, and slid them into their obscene buns. He ladled the fiery white sauce over them and passed them across.
Another stand sold drinks. Neither Amiel nor Marán wanted wine, so we bought three fruit punches, found a quiet corner, and sat on a stone wall.
Marán took her sausage from its holder. “I always start like this,” she said, protruding her tongue and licking sauce from the meat, looking at me as she did, tongue curling around and back.
“I prefer getting straight to the heart of the matter,” Amiel declared and took a crunching bite of sausage and bun.
“Ouch,” I said. “So much for sensuality.”
“Not so.” Amiel used her tongue to scoop sauce from the bun, stuck it out at me, then curled it back into her mouth. “Some prefer it before, some after,” she said.
My cock stirred, and I concentrated on my own meal.
We were in a many-angled square, and in its center were perfume trees, still without buds, but the trees’ aroma drifted over me like a curtain. There was a street magician with a small stand and quite a large crowd around him.
“Look ye, look ye,” he bellowed. “Let me take you beyond this time, this place. Let me show you the terrors, the wonders of another kingdom, the evil kingdom of Maisir.”
His wand swirled, and red fire dripped from it, fire that vanished before it could reach the ground. Above us stretched a foreign sky, and there were vast snowy deserts, then plains that went on forever, then a huge city unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was built of wood, wood painted in a thousand different colors. There were towers, some conventional, some shaped like elongated onions, others in more subtle geometric shapes. I knew it instantly from my reading — Jarrah!
“This is the heart of evil, the Maisirian capital,” the sorcerer announced. “See its riches,” and we were outside a palace. One wall vanished, and everything inside was gold, silver, riches.
“Ripe f’r th’ lootin',” someone shouted.
Another image came, and we saw a young girl, in peasant woolens, screaming in silent fear, as a ruffian carried her away from a burning hut. We saw her again, and this time she was nearly naked, her body clad in translucent silk. There was still fear on her face, especially as a fat man, wearing fantastic garb, stood nearby. He beckoned, and she shook her head. Again he motioned, and this time she went after him, slowly, reluctantly, dread on her face.
“That’s what th’ king a’ Maisir does wi’ his virgins,” someone shouted, and I realized, perhaps with the heightened awareness of the potion, that the same man had shouted both times. I looked closely at the magician, and recognized him. It took a moment to pull his name from my memory. It was Gojjam, and I’d last seen him years ago, giving a rousing speech to the soldiery before Dabormida.
He was no more a street magician than I, but was busily keeping the emperor’s agenda alive. I wondered whose gold he pocketed — Kutulu’s, the emperor’s, or perhaps the Chare Brethren. But this was no night for thoughts like these.
• • •
Nicias is named the City of Lights for the enormous gas deposits under its rock, gas that’s been channeled until the meanest house has free light for the striking of a match. At Festival the valves are turned up, so Nicias is aflame from one end to the other. Here are pools of light, there pools of darkness. Some seek one … and some the other.
A fortune-teller, old, with a white beard almost to his knees, had a stand. We admired its elaborate woodwork. He looked up at us, but said nothing, waiting.
“I already know my fortune,” I said, and so I did, having had it told at my birth when my mother consulted a wizard and he’d said, “The boy will ride the tiger for a time, and then the tiger will turn on him and savage him. I see great pain, great sorrow, but I also see the thread of his life goes on. But for how much farther, I cannot tell, since mists drop around my mind when it reaches that moment.” I didn’t understand the prediction, nor did my parents, but those dark words kept me from ever consulting another seer.
Amiel shook her head as well. “I don’t want to know about tomorrow,” she said. “If it’s good, then I’ll be surprised; if it’s bad, I don’t want to worry.”
Marán asked me for a silver coin. “What do you examine, seer?” she asked. “My palms?”
“I’ve already made my examination,” the old man said quietly.
“So what is to come?”
The fortune-teller started to answer. Then he looked at all three of us, shook his head, and tossed the coin back. “Not at Festival” were his only words.
“What does that mean?” Marán demanded.
But the man was looking down at his table.
Marán’s face darkened. “How in the hells can he make any money, being like that?” she demanded. “This is a complete waste of time!” She walked away quickly. Amiel and I exchanged glances, then followed.
In a few minutes, my wife’s good spirits returned. It may have been the potion, but just as likely the laughter, the music of many bands, from official orchestras to neighborhood groups to the piping of a cheery drunk on his tin whistle.
A man stood in a deserted square, his arms moving as if he were conducting a full orchestra. There were no musicians to be seen, but music swelled, flared around us.
A column of bears moved past, as if part of a show — mountain bears, tropical jungle bears, even the huge black bears of Urey. But there were no keepers, no chains, and the bears disappeared into the night.
We reached the river, and now the walkways were packed. Every small boat in Nicias had been decked with flowers, ribbons, and multicolored torches, and drifted up and down the Latane River. Above them in the sky were other ships. These were made of the lightest paper and carried torches filled with oils that burned with variously colored flames. The hot air lifted these small ships of the heavens high. Every now and then flames would reach paper, and fire would cascade into the water.
We kept moving toward the Emperor’s Palace, where there’d be a real show.
• • •
Festival was the time for Numantia’s magicians to parade their skills, and their wizardry filled the sky as we approached the Imperial Palace. This year the wizards seemed to outdo their previous attempts. Lights from no known source or any earthly color flared, vanished. Strange beasts, some known, some fabulous, pranced along the walkways. Trees grew, changed, took on animal life. Huge fish broke water and leapt high into the air, fish no man had ever hooked. The crowds cheered and laughed when one creation, something half a lion, half an octopus, pranced from a balustrade into thin air, then shattered as its creator became flustered and lost control of his fantasy.
Then the images vanished, and there was nothing but the starry night, and the Grand Illusion was to begin. Nothing happened for long minutes, then Marán gasped and pointed. Slowly, very slowly, the stars were winking out. The crowd saw what was going on, and the murmurs of excitement changed, became fearful. Then there was complete blackness. Children started to cry. A woman screamed.
High in the heavens a tiny light was born. It grew brighter, larger, and became a swirl of colors, spreading from horizon to horizon. The colors massed to one side and a huge image formed, a bearded face, an old man, who gazed down, not angry, not pleased.
“Umar,” someone exclaimed, and the apparition was him, creator of the universe. A great hand appeared, and on it sat a world. The world began spinning, and the hand set it in the void.
Another god appeared, this one black-bearded, long-haired, and this was Irisu, the Preserver. He moved behind the world and held his hands protectively over it.
We looked at that
world and saw everything on it, great and small, near and far. We could see mountains, seas, rivers, plains, and the animals and men peopling them. Only the Emperor Tenedos would have had the skill — and the temerity — to duplicate before the gods their own work.
Umar’s visage faded, was gone. Now there was only our world and Irisu. But there was something wrong, a rot, a fungus spreading, and I knew our world was aging, dying. I heard a harsh wind whistle, although there was nothing around me but the soft breeze bringing the Time of Dews and the New Year.
From nowhere came a horse, a pale, spectral horse. Its saddle and bridle were red leather, red like spilled blood. On the horse was a woman, naked to the waist and wearing a necklace of skulls. She had four arms, one holding a sword, another a knife, the third a spear, and the last the tiny torn corpse of a man. Her hair was wild, uncombed, and her face was the glaring countenance of chaos.
It was Saionji, Goddess of Death, the Destroyer, the Creator, the god Tenedos worshiped over all else, the god few had the courage to even acknowledge above a whisper.
Now there were screams from both men and women, and people began praying as terror seized them. But the terror lasted for but an instant as Saionji’s horse turned, and she swept her spear toward Irisu, and he fell back. She cut at the world, our world, with her sword, and as she did, the rot, the sickness, fell away. Lights grew around the world, and all was wonderful, all was living, growing. Then Saionji was gone, and an instant later there was nothing.
There was just the quiet flow of the river, the gentle breeze, and the star-filled sky. There were a few cheers, but not many.
This was too great an illusion to applaud. If, I thought, it had been an illusion at all.
• • •
The sentry peered at me, and I remembered to whisper the counterspell. He saluted hastily. “Sorry, Tribune, but it’s dark, and I must be tired, and — ”
I waved aside his apologies, and the three of us entered the Imperial Palace. The emperor’s party had been going on for some time. We heard music from the main audience chamber. Two drunks were snoring happily in the long hall, one lying in the arms of a sculptured demon towering above us.
There should have been at least two guards outside the chamber, but there were none. I noted the slightly open door of the nearby guardroom, asked the women to excuse me for a moment, and ever the proper soldier, went to see what the problem was and to do some minor ripping and tearing.
Fortunately, I pushed the door open a bit before beginning my tirade. There was a woman stretched across a table, wearing only the top half of a costume. One guard, pants around his ankles, moved between her legs, which were wrapped around his waist, and two others waited their turn. A fourth guard was also half-naked, buttocks toward me, his cock buried in the woman’s mouth. He pulled it free for a moment, teased her with its head, and I recognized the emperor’s sister, Leh, a smile on her lips.
I closed the door very quietly. It was of little real concern if this inner guard post went unmanned, after all. And even First Tribunes are vulnerable to the calumny of sisters interrupted at their pleasures.
Amiel asked what I’d seen, but I just shook my head, and we went into the main chamber. It was packed with the lords and ladies of Numantia. The human debris was more pronounced here. The orchestra still played perfectly, and some dancers maneuvered skillfully around the sprawled bodies of those fallen on the field of drink. Others had found different pastimes in the alcoves around the huge room.
“A little sloppy,” Marán said, but she didn’t seem disturbed.
Neither was I, the potion making me view everything calmly, contentedly. I saw the emperor, holding forth to a throng near the tall bay window he used to proclaim great announcements onto the palace grounds. His face was flushed, in drink or triumph at the success of his illusion, and his voice was louder than usual. Beside him, wearing only a wisp of silk, was a tiny blond woman. I knew her, fortunately not well. She was the Lady Illetsk, widow of Lord Mahal, one of the Rule of Ten murdered by the Tovieti during the madness nine years ago. She’d been a shopkeeper’s daughter when Lord Mahal married her, and was admired for her extreme patriotism — and other talents.
I’d met her before her husband’s death, when I was a newly promoted captain of the lower half. I’d been invited to an unfamiliar house, which turned out to be Mahal’s, and encountered my hostess at the entrance. Her perfect body was naked, she was inebriated, and she greeted me with a childlike smile and asked if I’d like to come between her tits. A bit shocked, I’d made a hasty departure.
After a sedate period of mourning, she’d continued her sociable ways in various arrangements with various sexes.
Oh well. Festival was supposed to be a time of abandon, which was evidently Tenedos’s thought when he chose his companion for the evening. The emperor’s eyes swept the room, and fixed on the three of us. I could see him frown, then his magic pierced Sinait’s spell, and he recognized me.
I bowed, Amiel and Marán just behind me, and he acknowledged us with a nod, then turned his attention to Lady Illetsk. “Shall we join them?” I asked.
Amiel shook her head. “I don’t think so, unless you really want to. How do sailors put it? A stern chase is a long one. We’d have to do some massive drinking to catch up with them, at least from appearances.”
“And I, for one, don’t feel like drinking,” Marán said. “I feel absolutely perfect as I am. Let’s go find another party.”
“Or make our own,” Amiel suggested.
Marán laughed. “We could do that,” she said. “Where? Back at the house?”
“That sounds wonderful … No, wait,” Amiel said. “I know another place. I just found it, and it’s close to hand. Come on.”
• • •
Amiel led us out the back, past sentries into the Imperial Gardens. They were mostly deserted, since it had grown a bit cool. Marán shivered and started to don her cloak.
“It’ll be warm where we’re going,” Amiel promised.
We walked along a winding path through the sprawling grounds. Exotic trees, plants just coming into season, rose around us.
“Let’s see,” Amiel murmured. “From this white stone it’s … here.” She turned from the path into what looked like a solid patch of brush. But it was an archway of boughs, somewhat. “I wonder if the gardeners even know this is still here,” she said. “I found it two weeks ago, when I dropped a bracelet and, when I bent to pick it up, saw through the gap in the shrubbery.”
We followed her down the tunnel of boughs. It came to an end, opening into a perfect natural grotto. Stone steps led down to a glade. We went down them, and our feet sank deep into the moss. There were huge stones set here and there. A tiny stream purled from a fountain carved out of the solid rock near one side, and ran along one face, pooling from time to time, then vanishing underground.
It should have been dark and chilly, but light shimmered across the moss from a gas jet somewhere behind this garden. Out of the wind, the glade was no more than comfortably cool. It was a tiny world out of time.
“Isn’t this perfect?” Amiel said. “We have comfort, we have water if we thirst, we have light, we even have music.” The palace orchestra’s music came faintly. I spread the cloaks on the ground, and we sat together, silent, enjoying the night, enjoying each other. Amiel put her head on my shoulder, and it was warm, comfortable. Marán snuggled close to her friend. We sat in contented silence for a time, feeling the potion soothe our minds, our bodies.
“I want to dance,” Amiel announced. She rose gracefully, without using her hands, and moved into the center of the glade. I’d noted her dancer’s body before, and she in fact had studied the art before marriage.
She faced us, bowed, and ran her hands up her body, then extended them out, offering herself. She began to move slowly, attuning herself to the distant music.
Her body became the music, a shimmering light purple icon, swaying, turning.
Marán breathed a
little faster.
Amiel’s hands went to her chest and moved slowly down the line of buttons. She tossed the dress away and continued dancing, sinuously, gracefully, naked but for her sandals.
My cock was painfully hard. Marán ran the tip of a fingernail the length of it. She smiled at me, eyes half-closed, then turned back to her friend’s dancing.
Amiel beckoned, and Marán got up and stepped toward her, graceful as a young deer. They moved as one, never touching, only turning, eyes intent on each other.
My pulse was pounding, and I felt as if I, too, was the music, the dance.
Amiel touched Marán, and she stopped dancing. She stood motionless, eyes closed, waiting. Amiel ran her fingers down my wife’s sides, then up, fingers caressing Marán’s face. I remember few more beautiful sights. Amiel’s fingers went to the clasp at Marán’s side, and her dress fell away.
Amiel stood motionless, her arms out. Marán came very close, and they kissed long, deeply. Marán kissed down Amiel’s neck, to her breasts, teasing Amiel’s nipples with her teeth.
Marán knelt, lips and tongue moving across the other woman’s stomach, then touching her sex. Marán cupped Amiel’s buttocks, kneading them, her finger slipping between them, then she ran her tongue between Amiel’s legs.
Amiel moaned, throatily, and her legs melted, became liquid, and she flowed to the moss, legs opening.
“Damastes,” Marán whispered, but her voice was as clear as if she were beside me. “Damastes, my darling. Take off your clothes, my love.”
I obeyed her, fingers moving surely over clasps, buttons.
“Now, my lover, my life. Come here. Come to us. Make love to us, as we’ve talked of and dreamed about.”
Very slowly I went across the moss to them.