Tathea

by Anne Perry

  The Manticore screamed and shot its shining barbs, and they fell blunted to the ground. It clawed with talons and gnashed its bloody teeth, but the Unicorn’s hooves broke its bones. Back and forth they swayed, dust flying, the ground scored up. Then as they closed in the final struggle, the Manticore’s scales were gashed. Its scorpion tail writhed and darted futilely on the Unicorn’s impenetrable hide.

  Its horn pierced the golden scales and the Manticore’s lifestream gushed out. It gurgled and choked thick in its throat. Its body fell and lay twitching and helpless.

  The Unicorn withdrew its horn, unstained, and stood a moment in the lambent afterglow. Then it swung its exquisite head and leaped into the air as another might scale a flight of stairs.

  The Manticore shimmered and seemed to dissolve until there was nothing left of it but a scar of burning on the earth and a sickly smell in the air.

  Ishrafeli was on his knees, his skin pale and his hair streaked with white. Asmodeus was contorted with fury, his body twisted, his face a mask of cunning and rage. Not once did his eyes turn to Tathea. He flung his head back and cried out, this time a roar like terror and agony beyond enduring.

  The sky grew darker, and out of the south, hideous as nightmare and the cold-sweating dreams of madness, came another creature on black wings, ragged, its skin stretched taut over its skeletal frame. Its head was birdlike with a cruel beak and glaring eyes. On its bald crown a cock’s comb glowed red, the only color on a body as dark as rotted wood, with clawed feet and leatherlike tail.

  It was Basilisk, the beast of fear. To look upon it crippled motion, froze warmth from the heart, and brought panic and the violence of chaos to the brain. Its fearful wings beat over Ishrafeli’s head, darkening the air; it screeched with an eldritch voice that numbed the mind and drowned the soul in terror.

  But Ishrafeli remained firm. His heart remembered the battles in the ice, remembered shame and defeat and loneliness, and how he had found the courage then to rise and follow the star he had seen once and to know the truth of all things that are good.

  And out of the north like a moving mountain of snow, like a storm on the wind, came a white bear so huge it dwarfed both men. When it reared up on its hind legs, only the Basilisk’s blood-red comb rose taller than the Bear’s lean head. With a giant paw the Bear struck the Basilisk and tore one black wing from its socket and left it dangling, crumpled and repulsive.

  The Basilisk roared and let out a belch of breath like the air of rotting graves. All human death was in its eyes, and the slow torture of injury and disease.

  But the Bear reared up again and struck a second time, sending the creature reeling backwards, falling, flank torn open, joints awry.

  Round and round they fought, the Bear wounded, blood staining its white fur, and the Basilisk vainly flapping one wing. Courage and cowardice reeled as the last clouds faded on the horizon and the first star showed a glimmering light in a flawless sky. The human figures stood motionless.

  Then the Bear struck a tremendous blow, and the Basilisk lay motionless on the ground for a long, breathless moment; then its body dissolved and left only a stain upon the earth.

  The Bear reared up and lifted its white face to the sky, paws spread wide. Then it turned and moved swiftly, disappearing as it had come, like a pale storm racing northwards.

  Tathea gazed helplessly, drained with emotion.

  Ishrafeli’s hair had turned white across the crown, and his face was haggard from the mighty effort.

  She turned to Asmodeus and saw in his eyes the first dawn of knowledge that he could fail. His hands clenched and unclenched. He let out a thin, piercing wail like all despair, and at his command came the last beast of sin from the darkness of the inner mind, the Dragon of Sloth. It represented everything that desires to win without struggle, to take the lesser, easier path, that seeks to reap without having sown, that deceives and begets lies because the truth is labor and pain.

  It came out of the north, where its cold sleep had made it sluggish. Its awakening was primeval, torpid; it clung to death and the slow disintegration of the world back to darkness and the void before there was light.

  It stared at Ishrafeli with an evil so intense it seemed he must be consumed by it. Its form was indistinct, lost in the vast shadows of the night, reptilian, lizard-eyed, its size too great to measure. It had no weapon but its immeasurable weight, as if it would crush out life merely by touching it.

  Ishrafeli made as if to move, but his limbs were paralyzed. Sloth had crept into them, and he knelt immobile as the beast lowered its snout and fixed implacable eyes upon him. Ishrafeli bowed his head. Tathea watched with unbearable grief as his body crumpled and grew weaker and smaller. She could do nothing. The Dragon folded its huge forelegs as if to roll over and crush him to pulp.

  Then out of the calm west on wings lit by the last rays of the vanished sun flew a white swan, radiant as moonlight. Its shadow fell on the Dragon, and its grace and ineffable loveliness seared the beast’s flesh. The Dragon’s cold, sluggish blood boiled and burst its skin in agony, hissing and bubbling down its flanks like lava. Its cries were like the voices of the damned come forth from hell.

  It turned and lumbered away, crashing into rocks and pulverizing them to a fine, choking dust. And all the while its thin, primal scream filled the air until even its shadow vanished into the jaws of night.

  The bird circled once, twice, and a single feather fluttered down. It flew low once more, then was gone.

  Tathea stooped and picked up the feather. She knew what it was: compassion, that unconditional love through which man comes closest to God.

  Ishrafeli was broken. His hair was a shock of white, his body withered with the mighty effort of battle. But he had won. He had called forth out of his soul the Beasts of God. Asmodeus lay upon the ground without sense or breath, his robe stained by dust and sweat, his hands grimed, his face blank. His spirit had fled for a season—the likeness of death descended on him.

  Tathea’s prison was broken. She went to Ishrafeli and knelt beside him. She placed the Book in his arms and cradled him against her. He felt slight, wasted away like an old man, and there was no strength in him. She touched his brow, stroked back his hair. She held him closer in her arms and let her tears bathe his cheek. She kissed him softly on eyes and lips.

  His eyelids fluttered open.

  “You must go,” he whispered, his voice no more than a breath. “Go while you can. This is a battle of the soul we shall fight many times before the end. Remember, you are not alone ... never alone ...” And with a smile he drifted into sleep as soft as the white swan’s feather.

  She kissed him once more and then let him go.

  The skiff was waiting and she had the golden book. The tide was already beginning to turn.

  Her body was aching, and her eyes were blind with tears as she walked through the starlight down to the boat and climbed in. She collapsed in the stern, hugging the Book to her, and let the sea take her where it would.

  She awoke in a magnificent dawn. The roof of heaven was bathed with light, and the sea floor gleamed translucent blue and gray shot with bars of silver. She was lying curled up in the stern of the small boat with the single sail barely touched by wind.

  She sat up, staring around her. Ahead was an island shore, so close she could see the pale bar of sand and behind it a rising mound of green with a town folded in its crevices. A few ships with brilliant sails, spots of saffron and flame and rust, showed bright on the water. There must be a harbor beyond the point. But the wind and the tide were carrying her to the beach, and the ropes were tied too fast for her to undo and change course.

  The bow crunched onto the sand with a bump. She clambered to her feet. There were seabirds crying overhead, and the faint fragrance of wild asphodel and sea pinks drifted to her from the land. A small house stood in the dunes.

  But before she left the boat she knew there was something she must take with her, something so precious that life was of no
value or purpose without it. She stood motionless, unable to remember. Then slowly she picked up a flask of water, a small box which had contained food, a pillow, and lastly a large silk cloak. Under it was a golden book. For a moment its beauty dazzled her, but its true worth, she knew, lay in what was written inside.

  She picked it up, put on her cloak, and stepped ashore. She knew where she was now. The house belonged to the sage who had told her to go and wait on the sand, and beyond the hill was Orimiasse. She could remember going, waiting all night until dawn, as he had told her to, but what had happened then?

  Ghosts of memory trailed across the edge of her mind, but no vision came, only an ache of passion and a knowledge of grief. It was something to do with great loveliness and its dissolution, the breakup of old and treasured things. And dimly there were flights of the imagination, and loneliness, desolation, and violence of nature.

  Then sharply, very clearly came a stillness that was evil, a denial of life and growth, great courage, something of a city of desperate, irretrievable beauty and corruption, of honor, sacrifice, and unendurable pain. But she could not call back the meaning of it, only the scars it had left, the understanding of doubt, and a knowledge of what it is to fail. Most clearly of all she had a sense of having left behind something which was dearer than anything else, a part of herself.

  But she had the Book, and she must go back to Orimiasse and find the ship she had arrived in.

  First she should thank the sage. She followed the path between the dunes and tussocks of wild grass and the sweet scent of sea pinks to the lone house.

  He was waiting for her at the door, smiling. He looked at her and at the golden book in her arms, then at her eyes. There was wonderment in him, and a deep fire of pain because an age had ended and a new one had begun. He was a man whose inner vision had seen the future as well as the past.

  “So you have taken the Word from Heaven,” he said very softly. “I knew one day someone would. When I saw your face, when you came yesterday, I thought perhaps it would be you.”

  “Yesterday!” she exclaimed. “No ... no, I came long ago ... a season ... or more. I have been ...”

  His smile was very gentle. “On a journey of the spirit.” He shook his head. “It takes no time at all. Guard well what you have found, child. It is the light by which the stars burn, before which all darkness flees, both across the wastes of the universe to the farthest echoes of the mind of God and in the secret depths of the soul within, where is the hope and the despair of man.

  “Be true to the light. Never deny it or turn your face from it, and though the darkness encompass you and the Great Enemy tread upon your heels, your foot shall not stray from the path, nor your heart perish.” He raised his withered hand in a blessing and closed his eyes, A great smile of peace touched his lips as gently he sank against the door post and slid to the ground where he lay huddled in a small heap, no bigger than a child, and relaxed gradually into the sleep of death, his long task done.

  For a moment she was frightened. She knew the Book was precious above all, but the knowledge had been close within her, unconfirmed by anyone else. Now his words made it an overwhelming fact, and his silent body at her feet, released from an age-old vigil, was a testament of its power.

  The sea wind stirred the grasses and blew against her like a warm hand pushing her. There was nothing she could do here. The old man was at peace; he had no need of her.

  She turned and climbed up the headland. She did not look back at the bay and did not see the skiff float gently out into the blue water, slowly gathering speed as if by sunset it would be no more than a dark speck on the horizon.

  Chapter VIII

  TATHEA WALKED SLOWLY DOWN from the crest of the hill towards Orimiasse. To them she would not have been gone long, a day and a night. For her it was a time without measurement. The world around her was the same, the sharp feel of the sandy ground under her feet, the aromatic smell of the herbs and the grasses, the wind off the sea. But inside her everything was different. She was filled with emotions whose origins hovered at the edge of her mind. The harder she grasped at them, the more intangible they became.

  There was only one certainty, absolute and unchangeable: the Book clasped in her arms was the source of all that was beautiful and precious, the beginning and the end of everlasting joy. The power of the universe was in its pages. She must share it. Everyone must know.

  She had reached the outskirts of the town. Her feet were no longer on earth but on smooth paving stones. Men and women passed her, going about their business, planning tomorrow, as if the world had not changed.

  How did she tell them? She had looked at the Book only momentarily on the shore before she left the sage and his eternal peace, but it was enough. In it was a staggering new truth. It was not God who made the laws, nor could He break them. The law was immutable. The very stars would fall apart, worlds disintegrate, chaos destroy the universe if it were broken. Meaning itself would disappear. God would cease to be God.

  And vast in its immediacy, wonderful, and yet almost too hard to bear, was the understanding that He was the Father of all mankind. They were begotten in His likeness, however unrecognizable now; just as an infant, full of weakness and fears, helpless even to stand, was still in embryo the titan it could become. It was of the same kind and carried in its frail and foolish soul the seeds of Godhood. The journey from the beginning was immeasurable to man, but known to the last step by God. And He expected that the full course be run, year by year, victory by victory, until the stature of the giant be reached.

  How should she begin?

  She passed a woman who glanced at her curiously.

  She must protect the Book. It was beautiful. People would see it as precious, perhaps for all the wrong reasons. She took off the indigo silk cloak and wrapped it round the Book, hiding its gold.

  And to succeed she must survive. With that knowledge came the return of the twisting pain of loss inside her. For an instant it was so sharp she stumbled. She remembered Habi’s limp, blood-soaked body, felt his slight weight in her arms as if it had been only moments ago. She could hardly breathe.

  She was utterly alone. Whoever had murdered Mon-Allat and all the others would be aware that she had escaped. They would not rest knowing she might form the core of a rebellion against them. The wrongs inflicted on Shinabar must be righted; justice must be done for the dead and, even more, for the living. But to achieve this she must have power herself, more power than the knowledge of truth, however bright and all-encompassing, however beautiful. She could not return to Shinabar, not yet.

  She did not want to go back to her mother’s family. She had a responsibility to survive and to protect the Book. She would be wiser to remain alone. There were many in Shinabar who knew her mother had come from the Lost Lands. It would not require a great leap of intelligence for them to assume she might have sought refuge here, and follow her.

  She must leave again, as soon as possible. But where should she go?

  She was standing in the street close to the quayside. She could smell the salt and the sharp odor of tar and weed. She had kept with her the leather pouch of jewels Kol-Shamisha had given her. She could leave now, without telling anyone. Where would her enemies in Shinabar be least able to look for her? Where was Shinabar’s power and influence weakest?

  Camassia. Perhaps others would come to the same conclusion, but it was still the best answer. It was the only power in the world that might one day rival Shinabar’s. A faint smile touched her lips as she thought how soon that day might be. That had been the fear of Mon-Allat’s enemies, perhaps the reason he had been overthrown. On the borders of Shinabar, to the east and the south, barbarian tribes had amassed in the last decade, gaining strength. The number and violence of their incursions into Shinabar had increased steadily. In Thoth-Moara many chose not to believe it. Shinabar had not been successfully invaded in a thousand years. They could not imagine the possibility.

  But Tathea knew it was re
al. She had seen the emissaries from the outlands and heard in their own words the tales of slaughter, of more and more men armed with better weapons. And there were attacks further north too, in the plains beyond Irria-Kand. One day soon the barbarians might threaten the expansion of Camassia as well. That was why Mon-Allat had sought to mend centuries of enmity and sign a treaty with the Emperor of Camassia. It was an alliance of civilization against the waves of darkness beyond the edge of what was governed by laws, even if those laws were sometimes flawed and unjust.

  She could remember the months of diplomatic argument, then the elation when at last the treaty was agreed. The Emperor Isadorus had sent over some of his most senior representatives to sign it. Lady Eleni, the Emperor’s sister, had come with the delegation.

  Would Eleni remember her? Yes, of course she would! One does not forget queens, whatever their change in circumstances. That is where she would begin. She would travel to the City in the Center of the World, to Camassia, and find a way to speak to Eleni.

  Tathea grasped the Book more tightly and walked across the wooden boards of the quay towards the nearest ship.

  The voyage to Camassia was long and she spent the time studying the Book. It was written in the ancient tongue which was the root of all the languages in the world, and it required intense concentration for her even to begin to understand it. She also knew that if she hoped to share what was written in the Book with the world, she would have to translate it into a more modern form, and to do that she must learn its meaning thoroughly. But with each day she felt more deeply its strength and the power of its beauty. And with each day too she became more keenly aware of a presence, almost a tenderness, that enveloped her, and she felt at moments as if she could have reached out and touched the person who was the source of it.