by Tanith Lee
Madness has gone mad. Truly mad, and utterly. And Chuz’s princely kingdom of the mad—they know it. It drives them to worse excesses, to more comatose declines.
They pine, they take up knives, and fall down in fits to prophesy the world’s ending, or that some colossal lumbering elemental, slick with blood and mud, prickled by arrows, is sweeping through men’s lives like a wind from chaos.
But only the mad understand this. And who heeds them? If the times are out of joint, were they not always so? When was the world ever perfect? Speak of golden ages, ages of Innocence and Dream. Those are tales for children. Thus runs the philosophy of the Flat Earth, bearing some resemblance to that of the round one.
But where humanity had hidden and muttered What beast passes? now it openly stared and said, “What maiden is this?”
Sovaz went by without a look.
The earth—what was the earth to her? A birthright so long denied, a treasure house, an alien desert—
Some saw her as a maiden, a white dress, bare feet, no ornament but her eyes, and her long hair for a mantle. Some saw her in male attire, striding fierce as a panther. Some did not see her, sensed her, a fragrance, the mark of one narrow foot in the dust. . . .
There was an anecdote. A young lord, finding just such an exquisite footprint, fell in love even with that, dreaming up an exquisite foot to fit it, so a limb, so a whole body, face, and personality. And then, sleepless and wildened, he sent his soldiers over every inch of that kingdom, to bring him all the women, young or old, virgin, nubile, prepubescent. The married, the celibate, the hag—all were brought, many weeping and protesting, their husbands, lovers, religious orders, and relatives in uproar, and hurrying after. When the procession came to the lord’s house, he had them taken, the women, to the forest path where he had spied the print of the foot of Sovaz. “It is sorcery,” he said. “She has disguised herself to tease me, for that is ever a woman’s way, to flirt and run off and say No, since a man’s part is to demand and pursue and tell her Yes. Even the elderly women, one may be this one, hidden by her powers. But I will find her out. Even if she seems a child of twelve.”
So then the women, angry or afraid, or hopeful and willing, were made to set each their left foot in the footprint. None matched, and the lord grew pale, and paler and more pale. Then at last a girl came, among the very last. She put her foot into the footprint, and see! It was a perfect fit.
The lord leapt up and upon the track. The maiden was of a seasonable age, late spring. And she was, as he had known she would be, very beautiful. He took her by the hand. “So, you can elude me no longer.” “No, my lord,” said the maiden, and lowered her eyes. She was a poor man’s daughter and had spent her days so far in herding sheep. She agreed demurely and apologetically with the land’s lord that she had set him this test, to be sure of him, and that certainly her ragged appearance was all part of a mischievous plan. “But believe me,” she added, “it was not my aim to vex you. My kindred and I have for long years been under the sorcerous curse of an enemy. My father was once a king.” “I will not treat him as less,” said the land’s lord. (So we behold here not only the foot of Sovaz, but the hand of Fate.) And he wedded the maiden and raised her father and brothers also up to the rank of lords, where, let it be said, they all lived righteously.
Meanwhile Sovaz followed the mad, mindless animal that had been her own lord and lover, sometimes losing the trail.
Her purpose set but also grew dull. He had abandoned her, like others. It was a perverted adventure for him, to be tortured in this way. He had preferred Azhrarn’s justice to her love.
But it seemed there was nothing else left to her, but to follow. Her powers were vast—she knew them without much trial of them. It might be she could negate Azhrarn’s malice. Or would Chuz, reveling in punishment, deny the healing spell?
There was, it is true, a tradition for such a wandering search. The legends had several examples—for instance, how Shezael the Half-Souled had gone to search for the insane hero Drezaem, in whose body dwelled the other half of her spirit. How Simmu, when a girl, had followed her lover Zhirek—before he became a mage, when he was only a priest, exiled and tormented, and mad with anguish. After various trials and tribulations, Shezael and Drezaem had been united. Simmu and Zhirek also, for a little while, till Fate, and the demons, parted them. Though long after, they met again. Simmu (who could be man or woman, now a man) had stolen a draft of Immortality, and so incommoded Uhlume, Lord Death. Thereafter, Simmu came to rule in a demon-built city of immortals at the earth’s easternmost corner. Here, Zhirek came back to him, but no longer as a lover or a friend. And Simmu’s city, Simmurad, of rosy stone and jade and silver, Simmurad lay under the sea, now.
Very likely, these memories attended on Sovaz in her long walk.
While following the crazy mindless thing, she came into the murkier regions of the earth, prone to unreasonable happenings.
The romantic sheltering forests lay far behind. There were hills, and mountains, where only the passing cumulus gave shade. She could outface the sun, the Demon’s daughter, and sometimes, at sunbirth or sundeath, she could fall in love with the solar disk. Yet there were days the sun beat upon Sovaz, and then she suffered in hidden, deep-rooted ways. And she came to travel much by night, through the tall lands, under the moon for a white sun, and all the tears of it, the stars, her motionless continual companions. Nor did she journey always on foot along the ground. She dared all her abilities, and sometimes she walked in the very air, laving her feet in its coolness. Or sometimes she rode on sorcerous carpets, or called black birds from their rocky sentry posts to carry her. And once, discovering a stone lion carved from the hill, the marker of some forgotten tomb, Sovaz made the beast rise up, and she rode on its back three nights and the days between, before she returned it to the dead.
It was a deserted district. None saw.
Only madness had gone before. She noted the evidence of that progress. There was little to be seen, much to be felt. Then she had walked up into the highest terraces of the high mountains, and emerging onto a deep balcony of granite as the dawn began, she found the land fell away before her, the jagged walls of the mountains leveling to a blanched barren plain. This spread to the horizon.
As she stood in the mountain balcony, some people, clad like destitutes, appeared along the neighboring ledges, out of caves and holes there.
“Maiden,” they called to her, one after the other. There was something annoying to their voices. And then, an elderly man stepped forward. On the breast of his wretched robe he wore a pectoral of gold, and a circlet of gold around his head held his dusty hair from his colorless face. He pointed a thin finger at her, on which a heavy ring took fire.
“Maiden,” said he, “travel no further. Do not seek the plain. It is a wicked zone, and accursed. Beyond, by the river—which is now a canal of foulness—lies a city which is a city no more, but a sewer. Turn back. Or, if you are weary, rest a space with us.”
“You are too kind,” said Sovaz. “But maybe you are also untruthful, the city beauteous and wholesome—which, being the outcasts of it, plainly, you revile to strangers.” The spokesman sighed and frowned.
“Truly, we are outcasts. Hesitate among us, and I will tell you the cause.”
“Again, you are too kind. I am uninterested in your city, or your tales of it.”
And saying this, Sovaz went on along the shelves of the mountain, not attempting to go down to the plain, but only seeking still for him she sought.
Behind her, the refugees from the city muttered and lamented.
The risen sun kissed Sovaz viciously. She was weary and sick at heart.
Close to noon, she entered a cave for relief and rest.
It seemed to her Chuz had spent an hour or so in the cave. It was filled by an unseen noiseless scentless awfulness, and in the softer rock ragged nails had gouged a pattern. A little water ran down there, and Sovaz drank from it, as a human drinks who is thirsty. For some ne
eds are not needful, yet they are.
Later, she slept. And she dreamed, but in the general way of the Vazdru, abstract fabulous dreams, though, waking up as the sun began to go down, she dreamed for one half second as a woman might have done, and she saw Oloru-who-was-Chuz, handsome, strong, and cunning, and her beloved. But then he was gone. Forever I may go after and never catch up to him. Is that Azhrarn’s punishment of me, also, for my birth that now he regrets?
There framed in the cave mouth the sun burned out on the plain. And there were, too, several other smaller suns which did not set: torches. The destitutes who had stayed her earlier had come and found her here, and sat in the cave’s entrance. The man with the insignia of gold was seated across from her, glaring. Sovaz noticed they had bound her while she slept with thick cords. There was some raw but effective magic on the cords, for she had not been aware of the binding, and she knew at once it would take some powers of hers to break the knots. She did not immediately perform the feat.
“And now,” said the man, “you will listen, insolent girl.”
“Then,” said Sovaz, “I will listen. Take care not to be tedious with this story you insist I must hear.”
But the man only went on with his glaring.
“Out there,” he said, “miles off, where the sun perishes, lies the river, and by the river the city which is called Shudm, though that was not always its name. Tiered and darkly gilded is Shudm, and six masters rule it, and three mistresses. But it is my class which was wont to make the governors there. Now, like a vulture, I sit up in the caves and watch the city in my mind’s distance, and warn from it those travelers I may. But all I inform of the history of new-named Shudm—which means the Portioned One.” Sovaz yawned behind her white hand, and with a slight gesture broke one of the binding cords in two. If the man saw was not certain. It was black now, but for the torchfire, and he leaned nearer. “What do you seek in Shudm?”
Sovaz said: “You try my patience. Go on with your story or have done.”
But she thought, My goal is lost to me. I may as well be here as anywhere. My summer of love is ended. Winter arrives.
But the man said, all-importantly, “We call the tale Liliu, or Apples of Fire.”
After which he told it her, in much detail, so her own life seemed to withdraw into the shadows.
2 The Story of Liliu
THERE HAD lived then, in the tiered city by the river, in the days before it was known as Shudm, a rich merchant-lord. He had one son, his heir, by name Jadrid. For this son the merchant would, as they said, have plucked apples of fire—he loved him so much and could refuse him so little.
In due course, a marriage was to be arranged. But none of the prospective damsels satisfied the ideals of this young man, though he was shown several portraits, and was even, in some cases, permitted to gaze through curtains and hedges upon the hopeful candidates. The merchant was at his wits’ end, for riches and power must pass on.
One day, near sunfall, a man came to the gate. Despite his lack of attendants, the stranger was finely dressed and bore himself like someone of consequence. He was accordingly admitted. On entering the presence of father and son, who had happened to be playing chess together, the visitor spoke in this way: “Sirs, I hear that this house requires a bride for its heir, but that to be fit for him she must be both highly accomplished and of surpassing beauty. Know then, that I serve a mighty master, and that his daughter is of just such a sort. He whose mouthpiece I am has therefore sent me to tell you that should the lordly heir venture this very night to follow me, he shall secretly be shown the girl, and may make judgment whether I have offered truth or lie.”
Father and son were each taken aback.
“Who is he then, this mighty one you serve?” demanded the merchant.
“That I may not, at this juncture, tell you. You will readily understand, in the unlikely event of your son’s refusing her, my master does not want his daughter or his house dishonored, and there is slight chance of this in anonymity.”
The merchant did not seem inclined to smile on these words. But already the young man felt a curious excitement and desire to try the adventure—and turned to murmur to his father. Apples of fire—
Perhaps half an hour later, as the fire-apple of the sun itself lay red and low on the river, Jadrid was walking along behind the stranger-servant. Who had advised him thus: “Keep always some seven paces at my back. Utter no word to me, nor to any other, neither let any distract you from our course.”
Indeed, they were not two streets’ distance from the merchant’s doors when some friends of the young man’s were seen approaching with garlands and torches, en route to an entertainment. Noting Jadrid, they called to him to join them. But he, faithful to his quest, shook his head gravely and moved on without stopping.
A while after, as he and his guide were turning into the narrower byways near the dock, a beggar woman lying in an arcade cried out softly to Jadrid for alms. It was in his mind to give her some coins, but in the dark red dimming of the light, he thought he saw the servant make a sharp gesture of remonstrance. So Jadrid ignored the beggar, and left her maligning him.
The next minute, a group of priests from one of the temples appeared on the narrow way, ringing bells and chanting. As they drew close, Jadrid stepped aside perforce to let them by, but one of the priests turned to clasp his arm, saying urgently: “The body is only dust; why then do you seek to joy the body? It is the ever-living soul which should be your care—” And a ready theosophical retort sprang to the lips of Jadrid, and he crushed it down and dumbly, if politely, disengaged himself, before hurrying on in the wake of the mysterious servant.
Shortly after this, the sun sank altogether.
Jadrid found that he had by now followed his guide into the oldest quarter of the city. Soon they came on a deserted boulevard between high walls, above which rose the tops of many great mansions, but all unlit. The night was everywhere, and dark, but strung with stars, which made their white music of silence. Not a sound was to be heard from the city’s heart; only sometimes there would be a rustling in the trees which overhung the walls. Jadrid, who had persuaded his father, now began to suspect villainy, and put his hand to the long dagger at his belt. But the servant had paused beside a small door, and unlocking it, intimated that the young man should pass through alone.
With some caution, Jadrid did go to the door, and peered inside. What lay beyond the wall was only a garden, rather overgrown, but with a variety of sweet-smelling blossoming trees. Even as he hesitated, a light bloomed out in the midst of them, and there came the lilt of a long-necked harp, most skillfully played.
“Why do you wait?” whispered the servant to Jadrid. “Each evening my master’s daughter plays in the arbor. Go only as far as those three peach trees, and you can view as much.”
Just then, there came winging through the air the notes of a female voice, exquisitely singing. And as if enchanted, Jadrid stole forward to the peach trees and looked between them.
There in a little pavilion burned three round lamps that flashed with jewels. But under the lamps there burned the brightest light and jewel of all.
It seemed to Jadrid he had never seen such fair beauty in any mortal thing, and probably he had not. Trellised with golden ornaments, her hair was the same dark red color the dying sun had been, and it splashed in a cascade across her shoulders, and shone all gold too where the lamps burnished it. Her skin, ringed with gold, was paler than the finest white paper. As she played her song to the stars, the gems on her slender fingers dazzled Jadrid. But her eyes, which did not see him, smote him almost blind.
For some while she sang, and surely never did a maiden sing so perfectly. Jadrid stood rooted to the spot. At length the girl set the harp aside, rose on tiptoe to blow out the lamps, and almost slew the watcher with her grace. Then she stole away toward the house, and vanished in darkness.
Slowly, Jadrid turned from the peach trees and went to find the servant, who was waiting fo
r him at the door, arms folded.
“I—” said Jadrid.
“Say nothing now,” said the servant mildly. “There on the road waits a chariot, whose driver has been instructed on the quickest route whereby to attain your house.”
Jadrid looked and saw that a chariot had indeed arrived by the mansion’s wall, with three proud horses in the shafts, and a driver who huddled to his business more like a monkey than a man.
“We shall hear from you, it may chance,” said the servant.
“At first light,” said Jadrid.
“Such haste is not needful. We are fond of the night, here. Send at tomorrow’s dusk, if you wish.” Then the servant himself went into the garden and closed the door.
Jadrid, all bemused, walked to the chariot, entered it, and sat down. The journey went by in a dreaming whirl, so that the bridegroom—who now wished to be nothing more vehemently—scarcely noted any of it, its unusual speed, the wild agility of the leaping horses, their thinness, the odd monkey-like slave who managed them.
Returned to his father’s house, and going straight to that father’s chamber, Jadrid made his confession.
“I will wed this one, or none.”
The merchant was troubled, but—apples of fire.
Now the whole affair was rather bizarre, but not unseemly, and in the end even the merchant had put off his doubts as satisfied. It transpired that the strange servant’s august master was a very learned but a very old man, for years in wretched health and now near death. He, having vast wealth and one charming daughter, wished to dispose both wisely and well before his departure. He had therefore made inquiries, and it seemed to him that a particular merchant-lord, the father of Jadrid, would be a suitable father-in-law, the merchant’s house an excellent and worthy one, and the merchant’s son, Jadrid, a noble husband. All this the girl’s father communicated to the merchant by means of elegant letters, accompanied always by gifts of surpassing magnificence. That the elderly invalid did not himself appear was due, as he said, to his illness having made him feeble and reclusive. His child, nevertheless, he was eager to bestow on Jadrid, and upon Jadrid’s avowal she had been enlightened, and declared herself, dutiful daughter that she was, willing to abide by her father’s choice.