by M. A. Foster
“And you’re going to dig Cretus out, whatever it takes . . . I am sorry; I have not tried to deceive you, but what you have gotten so far is just Meure Schasny, neither more nor less. What we just did was a . . . wonderful thing, nevertheless it was me, and not Cretus, who was your lover.”
“I did not entangle my body with yours to tempt Cretus to come forth. At the first, that is unreasonable, for it would be the promise of joy, not the joy itself, that would tempt him, or you. I hope you will give him to me because of this in part, but I came for my own reasons, too.” She breathed deeply. “Accept, ask not.”
“I would know something. I am tired of groping in a fog, being used for others’ purposes . . .”
“You possess a rare quality we call in my speech wurwan, which is best translated ‘innocence.’ . . . You accept what is offered you.”
Here Flerdistar stopped, as if collecting her thoughts. Perhaps she would have elaborated further, but she did not. A voice from nearby on the deck of the barge interrupted her. “It might be more truthful to suggest, however impolitely, that the reason closer to reality lies in the fact that even a princess may lack suitors of the preferred numbers and types, and might be led to seek farther afield than would be the usual practice.”
Meure turned and looked behind him, and found, as he expected, Clellendol, sitting on the rail, shrouded in streamers of fog. The light had brightened noticeably, but it was still not yet day; visibility close to the water, horizontally, was clearing in bits and vague open lanes, which still led nowhere. Above, however, the fog was, if anything, thicker. Its color was still bluish, but there was a hint in it of an orange dawn somewhere around the curve of the world.
Clellendol looked off across the water. All around them was a growing texture of sounds, wafted and misdirected by the odd atmospherics: sounds of animals, creakings, clatters, odd snatches of conversation, or calls. Somewhere, someone was singing an aimless tune, of which Meure could not quite make out the melody, or the words. It, too, faded. Clellendol spoke abstractly, as if to no one in particular, “You may have no cause to feel concern on my account; at the least, you have a certain gratitude of me, as this at last relieves me of a responsibility which I did not want.”
Meure looked at Flerdistar, and then back at Clellendol. In the short interval, he had vanished back into the other part of the barge.
Flerdistar said, “There would seem to be no mystery here; Clellendol simply doesn’t like me, nor has he ever . . . that is a mild way of putting it.”
“Odd, then, that a mission of such importance would depend upon such an ill-matched crew. I know that your elders are fairly rigorous in their organizations . . .”
“We were pressed into it, by what we knew and conjectured about the surface conditions of Monsalvat, and by . . . that was what I was trying to tell you, along the way. Somehow, we were getting a dual reading from the trails that lead here: a Ler laid a heavy hand on this planet once, which is an event not repeated elsewhere. But the reading is . . . offset, somehow, as if that person weren’t here. And then there was Cretus. Of course, we hadn’t the name; but all the evidence told us that we’d find that out almost as soon as we landed, for here was the exceptional situation: a changer who was also a political figure.”
She took a deep breath. “It helps if you know the Tarot, here . . .”
“I have heard of it. I am not a practitioner.”
“It is an ancient Human device. There are three levels of power in the types of cards—the ordinary numbers, the court cards, and the trumps. We have refined the system further, and believe that each persona corresponds to a card identity in the, Tarot deck. So that ordinary people favor the ordinary numbers, and exceptional members of their number assume the identities of the court cards, which relate in part to the signs of the old earth zodiac, and essences of similar influence. Trumps are those who can change. They are rare. But what is even rarer is a single personality containing two trump identities; Cretus is such a person.”
“Go on. What are the personae of Cretus?”
“According to my reading of the data, Cretus is a composite of two identities. The Magus, and the Hanged Man . . . there is much friction there, for the Magus holds power over the four elements, but the Hanged Man willingly sacrifices himself. There is in this system a pattern of flow, and in this case it is direct, but the sources and junctions add up wrongly along that path, so that inevitably, violence and accident are a by-product of that state.”
Meure reflected a moment, and said, “If any Ler can change things, as you say, then all Ler are trumps, in this system of reference.”
“That is so . . . but we do not attain multiple-trump identities.”
Meure said, “Then let me guess, although I do not know the system well ...”
“I will tell you, although it is a secret thing; I am trump nine—The Hermit. Clellendol is trump fourteen—Art. But there is a thing which I read here that I had not before: besides Cretus, there is another double-trump on this planet, even just now beginning to come into influence . . . I have wondered if it was that thing that approached the barge. But it was not that one.”
“What are its identities?”
“Cretus, being trump one plus trump twelve, controls all nodes directly and indirectly, save two . . . . this other identity is trump zero, The Fool, and trump two, The High Priestess. That Identity controls everything Cretus does, plus the two he does not; and they both originate from the prime node ... Where Cretus is a direct line of two segments, this other is split in two directions, with the Fool as the dominant side, although as I sense it, the High Priestess is the visible part. The dualities of this planet disturb and confuse me . . . things are moving to completion here fast, but I cannot see them.”
Meure said, “Perhaps you are used to seeing these things from a distance, extracted out of the noise of Time; you may be too close to events.”
“Perhaps you are right, there . . . but I cannot tell you how confusing it is. From a distance, it all seems to lead to an identity, which I can easily correlate to Cretus. But there’s this other one, who is potentially stronger than Cretus, and could overpower him. But I could not see that one from distance, yet I know it is here. And it is aware of that which we do; it’s an eye, seeking, open, but not yet fully aware. It has not yet focussed upon us, or anything I can see.”
“Perhaps it’s that creature, after all . . .”
“That creature, as you call it, has no identity whatsoever. Cretus in his own body could wish it out of existence. He fears it because he doesn’t know the method.”
“You do.”
Flerdistar turned away, abruptly. Meure touched her shoulder. “What is it?”
“How did you know that?”
“I . . . guessed, from what you said. How could you know Cretus didn’t know the way, unless you knew it yourself?”
“I know it, but I can’t do it. This is a Human planet, and the governing system here is Human. I am, like all of us, a single trump and have the power, but it is only over my own society.”
“Then you could tell Cretus how. . . .”
“Yes, if the Meure Schasny would allow him to do it . . .”
“I believe we have a common ground, Flerdistar; I think I could speak for Cretus without fear of contradiction, that he would speak freely of the things he knows about your people if you were to tell him how to erase his enemy. Thus things will resolve themselves in the easiest way.”
Flerdistar looked at Meure fearfully. “What do you want, now?”
Meure shook his head, sadly. “I just want to go home and be left alone.”
“So do we all, indeed. But the currents we swim in do not allow it . . . I sense it in the currents about us; the wind whispers of it, and the night-demons sing of it in their rites. I can almost see it, but it remains hidden, a potential coming onto the world. It is . . . Meure! The coming of Cretus to this time awakened it!”
“The thing over the water?”
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br /> “Something perhaps worse, but stronger for certain.” She began moving under the tarpaulin, disengaging herself from Meure and their cover. She emerged into the bluish predawn fog, and brushed her overshirt down over pale legs.
She said, “Something is disturbing me, and so I will now leave you. I must go and meditate upon these circumstances.” She abruptly turned-away and walked quickly to the far rail, where she stared aimlessly out over the water, not looking back at Meure once.
Meure felt a fatigue creeping over him, but he knew sleep would not come. Something was stirring in him, too, but he could not identify it; Cretus? He thought not. Cretus had a certain flavor to his presence, and that essense also contaminated thoughts in himself influenced by Cretus. No, this wasn’t Cretus, but it defied identification.
He slipped out from under the tarpaulin and set out toward the front of the barge. He felt an urge to talk to someone. Perhaps he could find someone awake. As he passed along the walkway down the side, he passed Tenguft, huddled beside a rude crate in an angular, uncomfortable position, but she was obviously asleep, and somehow he felt it wasn’t her he wanted to talk to now; from one mystery to another; she would tell him horrific tales of the deeds of the Haydars, or worse, describe demons in the Haydar pantheon. No.
He reached the front. There he immediately found Clellendol, who was awake, but withdrawn and sullen. Not far away, Meure saw Halander, alone. Alone? He looked about for the two girls, Audiart and Ingraine. They were nowhere to be seen. Meure continued looking, circling the whole circumference of the barge, peering in every possible place. He found the Vfzyekhr in a tool box in a corner, its fur much the worse for wear.
Meure returned to the front of the barge, feeling a sense of unreality gathering about him. The girls were gone, without a trace or sound. Vanished. And when he came again into sight of Halander, Meure could see that Halander was staring at him with bloodshot, blank eyes. And the light around them was losing its blue color in favor of a ruddier shade. Day was coming. And Meure could see patches of water, farther away. The fog was lifting.
Meure started to speak to Halander, but something stopped him. Something in the boy Meure thought he had known had snapped, broken. Something had changed forever: this creature in front of him was no longer Dreve Halander.
It spoke in a rasping growl that made Meure’s skin crawl, and also caught the attention of Morgin and Clellendol. Behind him, he sensed Tenguft come awake instantly. Meure felt pressure. Halander said, “You. You said come on this ship, and it came here. You wanted them all for yourself, when you saw them on the ship. Audiart you took, and you lured Ingraine. And when you had had your fill of them, they weren’t enough, so you took the one no one wants, and let her practice her arts on you. And the girls, our own kind, you heaved overboard. Pervert! Monster!” The boy shifted position into a crouch, fingers twitching in anticipation.
Something moved in the edge of Meure’s vision; Clellendol drew a knife, and offered it to Meure. Meure acted without hesitation: he waved the offer back. Halander chose that moment to spring.
Meure met the first rush and grappled Halander, saying, “Listen to me, you fool! I lured no one and threw no one overboard. I asked for none of this!”
Halander hissed between clenched teeth, “You killed them, you pervert, and you called to a demon of this planet to possess you, to teach you secrets from the past of this filthy world. Everyone has sat back and let his happen, watched it happen, and liked what they saw. These changling freaks, this mutant witchwoman from a tribe of savages who eat human flesh, this arranger of murder. But not I!”
Halander burst through Meure’s arms and seized his throat, to choke him. Meure felt the same disassociation he had felt when he had noticed the girls were missing. A cool, analytical mood. There was neither fear nor panic. He was being choked. Noted. There was a cure for that. He stepped inside Halander’s stance, and leaned back, hard. He began to fall; as he started falling, he let his body bend at the knees, drawing them up. Halander followed, still holding tightly to his grip, unwilling to release his victim.
Now they were falling together, and Meure’s knees were up and ready; almost too late Halander saw what was coming: either release his grip, or hold it and be thrown. He released Meure and, off-balance, staggered forward over Meure clumsily. Meure landed on his back, rolling first to the side, then to a poised crouch, ready for Halander’s next rush. It never came. Halander lurched to the rail, and seemed to try to lever himself up on the side of the barge to spring back, but he clumsily allowed his momentum to carry him too far up onto the low rail, and he went on over the side, hesitating only briefly at the top. A sullen splash told that he was in the water.
Meure rushed to the rail to try to help Halander back aboard, remembering all too well the fate of the bargeman. Clellendol and Morgin joined him. Tenguft did not, but said, “Nay! Do not save him! He is now under the power of the Changer! His course is written.”
The three of them looked at the smooth, greasy surface, and saw Halander treading water, making no attempt to regain the barge. He was already beyond their reach, and drifting farther away. He glared back at them with the eyes of a madman. He began mouthing incoherent curses, fragments of expletives, none completed. His motions in the water became more agitated, and foam appeared at the corners of his mouth. Meure felt sick. What was happening to Halander? Suddenly Halander’s face stopped its mad working, and assumed an expression of intense curiosity and wondering; he looked around himself, peering this way and that, looking at the water. Then his head slid under the water abruptly, leaving only a slight rippling behind to show where it had been. There was turbulence in the water, and then that, too, faded.
Meure felt sick with horror. A friend, a potential enemy, vanished, without a trace, or indeed a reason.
He stepped back and turned away from those at the rail. Beside the far rail, he saw Flerdistar, who was looking at him as if he were a stranger. And Tenguft had remained in her place, but now she was pointing, gesturing to the space around them, crying, “Look, an omen! The murk is the color of blood!”
Meure looked, and it was so. Sunrise was flushing the fogbanks of the river with an orange-brown tone. And the fog was lifting off the water as if it were delaminating, peeling up vertically, dissipating, fading. Day and clarity were upon them. Meure looked in astonishment at the scene that was opening up to them all: There, in all directions about the drifting barge, a city was appearing; a city of low, ramshackle buildings, narrow, dirty lanes, smoke and swirling clouds of filth. And in whatever direction they looked, it seemed to go on like that forever, to the limits of the horizons. It looked like a hallucination from the deepest nightmares of forbidden drugs. An enormous city of a depth of poverty far beyond anything Meure could have imagined in his wildest dreams.
Tenguft announced, “Behold Yastian, the city of the Lagostomes! See and understand why the Haydar seek the empty places!”
Meure felt the presence of Cretus, but it was a light touch. He was looking, through Meure’s eyes. And the emotion from Cretus was even stranger than the one he felt himself: Cretus was struck dumb, appalled by the vast stinking city they saw about them. He was dismayed, and for the first time in Meure’s recollection, completely at a loss for what to do. The phantom withdrew.
Meure felt Cretus withdraw, and felt safe enough, private enough, to think to himself, What the hell good does it do one to be possessed when the possessing spirit quails from the reality he himself has precipitated us all into? It was the most bitter thought Meure could remember having. But there was a resolve hitherto unknown contained in that, as well.
12
“Vitriol: Sulfuric Acid, H2SO4.”
“VITRIOL: Visita Interiora Terrae, Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem: ‘Visit the interior parts of the Earth: by rectification thou shalt find the hidden stone.’ The Lapis or alchemical stone is the True Self, which can only be found by rectifying one’s attitude, by seeking inwards.”
&nb
sp; —A.C.
FOR THE MOMENT, the barge continued to drift with the main current of the river; there may have been other channels, for there was a suggestion of water all around, of distant canals and wharves. Meure could make out a mast, a mooring, a rickety derrick lashed together with bulky ropes, beyond the first line of buildings. Folk were up and about, stirring at their tasks, although there seemed to be no great urgency in their motions. He could see them moving along the shore, or an occasional rowboat stroking lethargically close to the shore. They seemed to take no great notice of the barge, although he thought they seemed to note their presence.
Meure asked Morgin about this. He now knew that Morgin was widely traveled, for a native of Monsalvat, and also that Morgin had visited Yastian often. Morgin now stood leaning over the rail, looking at the city with great attentiveness, and acknowledged Meure’s question immediately, without looking directly at him.
“Do they know we’re here? Indeed they do, but it’s of no great moment to them. The Lagostomes . . . I must explain their ways to you, and to our Haydar friend was well, if she will be so good as to stifle her disgust for a time . . . good, I have your attentions. Well, you see, in certain circumstances, they are nervous, excitable; I should describe them as both volatile and explosive, irrational and highly susceptible to mob-fever. In other occasions, they display the opposite virtues, exactly: they move through life with a placidity and a resignation which is astounding, and in that mood they are difficult to provoke. Then, also, they are totally self-contained, and almost immune from the influences of others.”
“Are there other states? And when do they adopt them?”
“No, to the first question. Gratitude to St. Zermille for that, at the least. As for the second . . . there is no rule I could tell or teach you simply. Circumstances change, and they adopt what they think is the proper mode instinctively, according to transition rules known only to them. I am accounted as skillful as any outlander in the use of Lago mood, but I could not impersonate one successfully . . . As to why this peculiar condition exists, I would suppose it to relate to the condition of their lives, which are strict and disciplined in the extreme. They are severely overpopulated for the land they inhabit, and that land is a poor one for resource. They surmount the difficulty by an exercise of truly steely self-control. The other mode releases the tensions, thus built up. Occasions exist within their social framework for the exercise of both in appropriate amounts. Here I must caution you: if a person performs what they recognize as a transition-act, that person can transform a staid and boring meeting of religious elders into a mass riot in a twinkling, which moreover will propagate. The only fortunate thing about this is that in the excitement, you may be overlooked. Also, the original cause is forgotten quickly, for the sake of action. Normally, the action will die of itself after a time, when a certain number have discharged their pent-up emotions.”