Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes
Page 33
I pulled myself over the parapet and turned to look across the swamp. My worry about losing the creatures had been groundless, for there, at the far end of the causeway, I saw a tiny white-robed figure gesticulating madly, directing the chimeras against me and me alone.
I set my back to a pillar and continued to fight. My only hope lay in cutting the creatures down and cauterizing their wounds with coals from the brazier. My blade flashed through the night. The pulpy parts piled up around me.
Something caught my eye through the swarm of shadows. The white light that had twice sought me out was roving across the rooftops of the city. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but it was still there, flying back and forth like a spotlight.
For a moment then my attention was on fighting. I cut down two more chimeras and looked again. The beam touched on a distant pinnacle taller than the rest, tightened, and became a pillar of fire. A growl of thunder reached my ears.
Still I kept up my fighting. Only a fraction of the chimeras had been cut down. I was being overpowered by numbers. They were continually shooting out their inner mouthparts and snapping at me. It was only a matter of time before one pierced the circle of my defense and cut away part of my face or my neck. I fought on with increasing despair.
Now the light was roving the city again. It swept back and forth, coming ever nearer. At last it slid across the swamp—Zilla was gone now—and came to rest on my own tower.
The light hardly reached me through the shadows that slid back and forth over the terrace like living things, but I perceived that it was brighter in some places than others. There were characters in the light, and the characters were Arrasene characters. One at a time I glimpsed them, piecing them slowly together while I continued to fight. At last I discerned what they said: HIDE.
I cut down one last creature and fled into the salon. Three followed me through the door. I ignored them and hid in the far corner, behind the organ.
The brilliance of a thousand noontide suns burst through the windows, shivering the glass into shards and vaporizing the shards. A crack like the report of doom at the end of things split the air, and the four winds howled like the world-serpent’s awakening.
And then all was still. I was blind and deaf for a moment. Slowly I made out the three chimeras lying helplessly on the floor. I walked over to them and sliced each in half. Then I stumbled out to the terrace.
The pavement was covered with cinders and ashes. Not one chimera remained alive. Stars were strewn through the sky overhead. Enoch glowed with pale fire. Narva was a burning eye over the city. Zilla was nowhere to be seen.
For a second the light returned. It formed the words: SHE IS NOT FOR YOU. Then all was darkness.
I went back into the salon, lit a torch from the brazier, and destroyed the flapping creatures on the floor.
61 Rendezvous
Dawn wasn’t far off. I strode briskly through the streets, disguised as a helot again. I circled the temple district and climbed the tall tower to see Jairus.
There I found what I had expected to see. All that remained of him was a pillar of black cinders. They’d crumbled a little, but the iron chain links had fused in the blast, so that the collar was suspended as it had been, seeming to float in the air.
Day was dawning when I reached Seila’s tower. She was in her refuge, waiting for me. She had changed her gown for one of white silk, and washed away the soot of battle and the grime of the streets, and arrayed her hair, and made her face lovely. She stood up when I opened the door.
“Well,” I said, “here I am.”
“What happened to you? Why were you gone all night?”
“The chimeras came back to life. They’re dead now, dead for good.”
I pulled off my hat and began to strip my gauze. Soon it lay in a nest at my feet. I stepped out of the pile, clad in only my breechclout and harness. I undid the latter and let it fall to the floor, too.
Seila’s eyes moved over my body. They were warm, almost melting, and her lips were full and moist. She came to me and wrapped her arms around my neck and bent down to kiss me.
We embraced one another like that for a long time. I noticed that she had dusted the mattress and drawn back the cover. I unlaced the back of her dress and drew it forward off her shoulders. It slid to the floor around her feet. She shivered as I ran my hands down her sides. I picked her up in my arms and bore her to the bed and lay with her.
Soon I was inside her. We were one flesh now; I seemed to look out from her eyes. Her hands were on my back, her legs locked behind my knees, her breasts pressed against my chest. I drove forward over and again, holding myself back until it was time.
And then her body went taut like a bowstring, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and her fingernails dug into my back. She cried out and wept a little.
Like a burst of fire, my essence invaded her inner universe, embracing the secret planets that hung there. And outer and inner space became one, and the universe walked in beauty, and I looked over it as the king of infinite space. In that instant, the scales fell from my eyes, and I beheld what was.
“Seila,” I whispered in her ear. I was still on top of her, inside of her.
“What is it?” she whispered back.
“Tell me his name.”
“Whose?”
“You know whose.”
She shook her head and kissed my shoulder. “He came to us out of the desert. It was the Sons of Taïs who found him, south of the Deserits, wandering aimlessly through the waste. His genius did Vaustus good service. He made marvelous engines for the Sun Mage, but in the end he became impatient with the cast-offs he was forced to work with. He refused to build war machines for Vaustus’ use and had to flee for his life.”
“Tell me his name,” I repeated.
“I knew him, Keftu. That’s why I left the Sanctuary. He never knew it, but I bore him a son. The son died at birth.”
“Tell me his name,” I said for the third time.
“His name,” whispered Seila, “is Astyges.”
Mellow light began to filter in through the lace curtains. The sun had risen over the Pelus, and its beams were falling on the opposite tower, making it a flame of green and gold.
Translator’s Note
Broadly speaking, the Antellurian idiom presents the translator with few difficulties. The fixity of their language, so contrary to what we know on Tellus, means that syntax has remained unchanged since prehistoric times, hence is quite consistent. No new words are invented; instead, compound words are used. This explains why the rudest autochthon could readily converse with the most refined phylite. In this translation, a single English noun might stand for as many as ten joined Antellurian words.
The Enochite numeration system is a positional system, based for the most part on powers of six. Each place is worth six times the place to the right, with the exception of the third place, which is worth ten times the place to the right. Thus, the first place is worth 1, the second is worth 6, the third is worth 10 × 6 = 60, the fourth is worth 6 × 10 × 6 = 360, and so on.
Using Arabian digits instead of Enochite, each place can thus be filled with the digits 0 through 5, with the exception of the second place, which can be filled with the digits 0 through 9. For instance, a numeral of the form 2375E represents
2 × 360 + 3 × 60 + 7 × 6 + 5 = 947
Measurements of time and of distance go hand in hand with this system. As to the annual calendar, each year is broken up into six two-month cycles, and each cycle into ten six-day weeks, with a five- or six-day intercalary period at the end of the year. The basic unit for the reckoning of years is a period of 360 (or 1000E) years, here translated as the chiliad. Six chiliads make up one myriad, and six myriads make up one great ad. Thus, one myriad is 2,160 (or 10000E) years, and one great ad is 12,960 (or 100000E) years.
The basic unit of length measurement is the chthon, or estimated circumference of the earth (Antellus). The chthon is broken up into 360 units, and each of the
se is broken up into 360 smaller units. This smaller unit is translated as the stade. Six stades make up one mile, which corresponds to about one and one-fifth English miles.
Mythology aside, the final division of the cosmic leaves can be dated to some time during the Permian Period, possibly contemporaneous with the mass extinction event that wiped out ninety-six percent of the earth’s species. The biota of Antellus are seemingly culled from the last three periods of the Paleozoic Era, namely, the Devonian, the Carboniferous, and the Permian. The paucity of the fossil record from this remote epoch makes it pointless to attempt to identify every species. Some educated guesses can be made, however.
The maugreth, for instance, would seem to be a type of therocephalian, while the schyroth, the fearsome reptilian mount of Antellus, is apparently a biarmosuchian. The behemoth is a giant therapsid, sharing traits with the moschops, the styracocephalus, and like species. Chebothim, the cattle of Antellus, are presumably pareiasaurs. Deinothim are clearly dimetrodons, and adrothim, edaphosaurs.
The difficulty in identifying terrestrial animals is compounded by the fact that the same roots are used for both reptiles and amphibians in the Antellurian idiom; the ehmoth is assuredly a close relative of the eryops, however. The oceans are dominated by fish from the Devonian Period. The urianth or demon-fish is some type of placoderm, most likely a dunkleosteus. Antellurian plant life mirrors the coal swamps and lycopod forests of the Carboniferous, with the pernath corresponding to lepidodendra, and the ynath to sigillaria.
Beyond these, the names of certain places, species, and agencies have been replaced by Tellurian words in the hope that the connotations will render the account more comprehensible. It should be borne in mind throughout that these are only approximations, however; academic exactitude is cheerfully left to those who enjoy it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raphael Ordoñez is a mildly autistic artist, author, and circuit-riding professor residing in the Texas hinterlands, eighty miles from the nearest bookstore. His fiction has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies and been named in the Locus Online yearly recommended reading list. He lives in a rickety old house with his wife and three children, and is the main source of livelihood for a number of feral chickens. He muses sporadically on fantasy, style, symmetry, art, and life at:
raphordo.blogspot.com
Keftu’s adventures will continue in
THE KING OF NIGHTSPORE’S CROWN
Coming soon to Hythloday House!
Please visit
www.hythlodayhouse.com
for purchase information, updates, and more.