by Tanith Lee
Up to the world they sprang. And the seas parted about them as though every princess of the waters had flung the contents of her jewel casket at the sun.
They could discover almost anything: They discovered where to seek Melqar. Nevertheless, this discovery was not so easy as the first, for while Yabael’s comet raged, the substance of Melqar had grown vastly quiet.
Melqar, last from the solar melting pot, Melqar the sun of midsummer dawning. He that fought with the Demon. He that had, for a time, vanquished the Demon. He that had, finding Azhrarn also a light in the sunrise, let Azhrarn go down into the earth and the dark. Or was beguiled into doing so, in certain stories. Or did so for reasons less and more obscure. Melqar who stole the voice of Azhrarn to speak with. Melqar who, when the fight was done, stood on a tower of Az-Nennafir with sightless-seeming orichalc eyes, and sheared the City through with a blade of whiteness let from his hand itself. But what then?
When Azhrarn lay in the Underearth, what of the angel who caused it? And when Azhrarn, salvaged by the fire of his garden, which might be of the essence of his own immortal fire, when Azhrarn retrieved his power, threw down his enemy and made him a lover again—where was Melqar then?
They covered now a notable distance, Atmeh and Ebriel, beating through the sky. The sun entered the west and vanished. The roof above went black and the moon—herself wingless yet traversing air—crossed heaven. The stars bloomed in their parks, which were only visible at night (for the stars did not move, as they had in Dathanja’s parable). Through the dark, as the day, the angel and the demoness flew on. And when day came back, flew still.
For though either of them might have reached any earthly place instantly, in an eye’s blink, the psychic shrouding about Melqar did not allow this. It demanded of them a slowness, an attempt. There must be arrival rather than mere advent.
No source describes the route. They tell of days and nights, sun, moon, stars, and distance. No road or geographic clue. Well, then. One cannot presume too much.
It was a high place, inevitably. It was a mountain in the middle of a waste or desert, which maybe, centuries before, had been the bed of an enormous lake or landlocked sea. Where the water had gone who could say, but gone it was, and only the mountain poured statically skyward.
Atmeh and Ebriel put down upon the mountain, just below the summit, and climbed to a platform that lay out under the sunlight like an altar table.
At the center of this platform, which was neither long nor wide, there glowed a kind of mound of faintly honey-colored crystal. But it was not that at all. It had been made from heat and cooling and the ethereal breath that flowed against the mountain’s thin atmosphere, out of a creature which reclined there, and which had always breathed, or which had learned to breathe.
Under the shining quartz, Melqar. He slept deeply, he slept a sort of death. His excellence, in sleep, dazzled through the mound and seared the eyes. His eyes were shut. The extraordinary wings lay beneath and by him, framing him in the muscular feathers of gigantic swans. His right hand rested across his breast and gripped lightly yet completely, even unconscious, a sword of snow. It had formed from the light he had wielded, or from his own unusual flesh. The sword was Melqar, Melqar the sword. Yet, he slept.
“Is he waiting, perhaps?” said Atmeh. “For the orders of the gods. For something as crucial. For the end of earth.”
Ebriel gazed upon the last of his kindred. Ebriel’s face told nothing. Then his eyes half-shuttered themselves.
“Your second lesson is, as was the first,” said Atmeh, “that the Malukhim may change. And they may pursue fruitlessness. And they may achieve nothing but a race, or a slumber. But the third lesson is also here, Ebriel, child of the sun. He does not start up, does he, this one, to fight with me? He grips the sword, yet does not lift it against me.” And she struck the quartz three blows. “Wake and do battle with me!” But Melqar only slept in the sheen of the sun through honey crystal. He did not stir. “Ebriel,” said Atmeh, in the voice of Atmeh. “The gods forget and that is all they do. Men forget, yet men remember even in forgetfulness. I am half demon, and immortal. I will tell you how I mean to proceed. I shall seek to lose my immortality, that fabulous gift for which men have murdered one another. I will strive to be only mortal. For now I know too much to learn the rest. And the rest I must learn, for it is so much more than all I know. It is my mother’s blood which understands this. My quest, Ebriel, is not to be a goddess, or a demon. But to be a human thing which lives, and dies—and is reborn. To slough my immortality—will be to gain it. To search for true life, Ebriel, that is my hope, to find my soul. Therefore, make peace with me.”
Ebriel turned from the contemplation of his brother. He opened his eyes wide and looked at Atmeh.
He saw a lovely girl, dressed in a blue garment belted with a cord of silvery metal, her black hair falling about her, and in her face the absurdity and joy of what she had said.
And Ebriel, for heaven was dumb and deaf and high above, raised his bright sword, and broke it in two pieces, and threw them away into the dead lake. But where they entered the earth, glittering waters bubbled up, and flowers came out like small suns, to look about them with their purple eyes.
Ebriel flew up into the sky, beating his wings against the lowest floor of the Upperearth, and he changed himself into an eagle then, and the sunlight hid him.
Atmeh walked down the mountain.
She walked over the bare tiles of the waste which soon might fill with water and flowers.
She walked some while, and then she made sorcery. A beast soared to the ground. It was the winged lion of her past, or another that was its twin, blue-maned and philosophical of face, “Dear friend,” said Atmeh, “do you know me?” The lion bowed and licked her hand. Then she mounted it, for she was tired at last. And they, too, flew away.
PART TWO: Uncle Death
1
ON THE SHORE of a sea stood a deserted temple.
Those that came there, and infrequently some did come to that place, descended a stairway of hills. The beach was of fine pumice, which glinted. The sole thing that stood up on it was the temple, whose domes were like a collection of beehives. Beyond, the sea surged with curious tides. From a distance it looked merely peculiar. But getting closer, you saw it was an ocean of cloud which foamed and creamily ran in and out on the shore. From some subterranean vent these mists poured up, or were now and then sucked down. On occasion, the tide was so far out that a hard bare pastry of rock might be seen, into which heat and moisture had formed the loose pumice.
Late in the day, under a pomegranate sky, a traveler moved along the beach and entered an arch before the temple. Under that vault, carved with maidens, camels, iris flowers, and dragon-winged bats, hung a bell of black bronze. The traveler rang the bell, which clanged.
But the clangor died away along the shore, and was forgotten there. The sea of cloud smoked. The sky deepened, and a star appeared.
Unanswered, but with no show either of disappointment or impatience, the traveler seated him- or herself (mantled, booted, it might be a youth or a woman) under the arch, and leaned upon a big stone bat there.
Presently the bat spoke.
“What do you seek?”
“One,” said the traveler, in a female voice most musical, “who reputedly abides in this spot. A sorceress, that in these lands they call Kiras.”
“Just so,” said the bat. “Pray do not lean upon my belly. From time to time I become fleshly, and fly by night and feed. My stomach is now full of digesting mangoes and plums. You will, besides, find my left wing more comfortable.” (The traveler obliged the bat. The wing was not more comfortable, but for graciousness’ sake, she made no comment on the fact.) “For Kiras, she is here and I am her slave. She bids me inquire what business you have with her.”
“The same that all have who search her out. You are her slave, she is another’s, and that other the slave of one I wish to visit.”
“Tush,” said the ba
t, “Kiras is not a slave. She serves, and she that Kiras serves, serves also, yet she is more a familiar and consort than a servant, to that One you refer to. Who, in any case, is not visitable. I must warn you, everyone will take umbrage at your description.”
“Unfortunate,” said the traveler. And she gave the bat an affable tap. It fell from the arch and became fleshly alive, and chittered with relief at the transformation. In a short while, seemingly unremembering its task as interrogator, it zoomed, burping, into the twilight.
Shutters flashed open in a dome of the temple.
“Who,” squawked a woman’s voice, “rashly tampers with my creatures?”
“Invite me in,” said the traveler. “You shall learn.”
“Oh, some arrogant sorceress, is it?” cried the raucous one at the window. “Let you be instructed. I am twice your age, and am a paragon of my art. Besides, I boast a powerful connection.”
“Well, well,” said the traveler. “How pleasant for you all that must be. You need have no fear, then, to unfasten your gates to me.”
“Overbearing brat that you are, can you not even penetrate one little door?”
“So be it,” said the traveler.
And standing up, she walked toward the dome where the window gaped. As she did this, the very temple wall itself, with all its carvings exclaiming aloud in shocked surprise, flew wide.
Kiras, the paragon, withdrew. The traveler passed up the avenue and in by the wall, which closed at her back.
The temple was in foxy darkness. It whispered, perhaps only with the discussions of the carved creatures therein.
Great spiders, large and brachial as copper chandeliers, hung in luminescent webs from the roof, and stared at the traveler from a multitude of cool intelligent eyes.
“Greetings, sisters,” said the traveler politely, and the spiders, who did not imagine themselves associates of Kiras, bowed. Moving each her eight furry arms subtly, they spun more light upon their looms.
But just then Kiras entered, bringing light with her.
Seven unsupported torches of red fire roared about her, to reveal she was dressed in snakes, which hissed, and that her headdress was the spiny skull of some monster dug out from the shore, but set with jewels for feminine vanity. In age, she was some twenty years. But her eyes were eldritch, and her voice uncommonly loud.
“Upstart!” began screaming she, for she was used to sorts of reverence. “On your knees! If you will not respect me, then you must my lady, from whose name my own is adapted.”
The traveler put off her hood, and her black hair cascaded around her, and to the floor indeed. Demurely she kneeled.
The witch Kiras took note of the cascade, for such quantities of hair often denoted some superhuman power or cleverness. She nonetheless screeched, “Now say who you are.”
“My name is Atmeh. I have a weird kinship with your mistress’s master. He is by way of being an un-uncle of mine, my father being something of an un-cousin of his.”
Kiras was now truly taken aback. But she squalled out:
“If you have fathers and uncles who are Lords of Darkness, why approach any of them through an intermediary?”
“To observe all proper forms,” replied Atmeh, without rancor. “My uncle, the kingly Uhlume, has never formally made my acquaintance. It is a fact, I might find a means to go instantly into his presence. But I choose to knock.”
“It is all lies, that,” quoth Kiras, who though she served the wily and the wonderful, was herself neither. “Take this for your sauce—”
And pointing toward Atmeh, Kiras produced a swarm of gigantic stinging hornets, which tore upon the suppliant.
Atmeh arose, and opening her hands, she gathered the hornets in a silver net. And the hornets were golden flowers, whose perfume filled the temple.
Then Kiras (a stupid girl, and no mistaking it) clapped her palms noisily together, and up from the paving there billowed a hideous beast, the precursor, maybe, of her headgear. It pawed the floor and rushed upon Atmeh.
But Atmeh sang a single note, and the beast became a swath of silk, which draped her in becoming folds.
Kiras now backed a step. But even so she raised her arm to try again, and in that moment Atmeh seemed to grow impatient. She spoke a word, and all Kiras’s magic left her. There she stood, garbed in snakes and skull, and unable to summon a solitary mote of dust. Then Kiras lamented from fright and humiliation.
“You shall have your toys again,” said Atmeh, “but for now, I have left you only one ability, to call your lady, Kassafeh.”
“She will not heed me,” cacophonously sobbed Kiras, on the paving herself now. “She is his courtesan, she is his very wife—She may be busy.”
“Oblige me,” said Atmeh, “by attempting it.”
And she altered the snakes of the witch’s dress to birds—and with much singing they all, every one, flew rejoicingly away and left her, naked and afraid, under her monster skull.
It was beyond doubt that, at this era, Death’s methods had been revised. No longer, as in the legends, would he deal quite directly with humankind—or if he did, it was done most secretively. Gone the days, and nights, it would seem, when men saw him stride by them along the highways, and thanked their gods at the escape. And gone the days of bargaining, when, for access to some emperor’s tomb, or in order to meet the reanimate form of one deceased, mortals sold a thousand years of their time, post-mortem, to King Uhlume. Some odd happenings had gone on in the Innerearth, which was, or had been, his kingdom. There was a Queen Death also ruling down there, men said, Naras, that certain death-obsessive races worshiped. But for Kassafeh, who had been the handmaiden of Death, she had grown dearer and more dear to him. And the tale ran now that Death did not dwell below the earth, but somewhere upon it, in an unnormal house on wheels belonging to his beloved, or else in some best-avoided fastness—fashions change. Even in mythology.
Yet there remained such as Kiras, who were claimed to be in service, by turn, to Kassafeh, and thus some path for macabre commerce was left open.
As the blue-mantled traveler, Soul-Flame, Atmeh, had said, she might have found ingress to Uhlume’s retreat, wherever it was, and burst in on him, but she chose good manners. Thereafter, though, she did not waste too wide a while on Kiras’s utter lack.
Soon enough then, Kiras was in a closet of the temple one side of a lopped pillar, and Atmeh the other, and between them on the pillar-drum, a little wheel of yellowed bone upon a stand of iron. Kiras had struck the wheel and it spun, around and around, on and on. Minutes whirled away upon it, and hours.
Night had come and cloaked the temple. Later the moon bathed it, and the carvings splashed themselves over with the moonlight, the nymphs philandered with each other, and the camels munched the iris flowers—which bit them back. (And still the wheel spun, and Kiras sat one side of it and Atmeh the other.) Then the red forests of morning blossomed. The sun galloped up heaven. The temple carvings kept still. “We are stone,” they told the sun. “We cannot move.” The cloud lake boiled and purled under a heliotrope sky. (And the wheel spun. Atmeh sat like a stone girl off the temple wall. But Kiras muttered loudly as a yell: “See, she does not hear. See, see, no one attends.”) In the afternoon all the birds delivered from Kiras’s dress ran races in the ether, or began to build nests on the roofs. “We are still snakes,” they told the temple, and they stretched and wriggled their long necks. “We shall lay eggs—what else does a snake do?” But the temple no more believed the birds than the sun believed the temple carvings who said they never moved—for if the sun now and then met the moon, she perhaps informed him of what went on by night. (And the wheel spun.) Then the sun set. Under a nectarine sky, far out on the cloud sea, one golden cloud appeared in the air. And the wheel stopped spinning.
The golden cloud drifted in and indoors, and came to rest between the two women in the temple closet. The cloud grew itself to be a woman, shawled in a golden veil. Only her eyes were visible. First they were dark, then pal
e and feral.
Kiras obeised herself. But the apparition of Kassafeh the Changeable-Eyed regarded only Atmeh.
“In the past,” said the apparition, well tutored now, it would seem, “I did not care for your kind.”
“I am also half mortal, rather in the manner of yourself,” said Atmeh. “And besides, once also you hated Lord Death.”
The apparition’s eyes turned black, then violet.
“I did not come here to talk of myself,” said she. “Your problem?”
“There is a hidden thing I would learn. Since it concerns mortal death, Death may know the answer. Therefore, I would attend him.”
“He will allow it,” said Kassafeh, or Kassafeh’s image. “He has entrusted me to tell you so. He will meet you below, in the old place, his kingdom at the world’s core. Do you know your way?”
“I am also half demon, not in your manner,” said Atmeh. “While, in most things, there is more than one way. Which will offend him the least, please him the most?”
“Pleasure and offense are small items to such as he. But I believe it might satisfy him if you should go down to him as your demon self. For that is what you would be shot of, is it not, your immortal part, the very thing which lends you any claim on him?”
“Oh, Kassafeh,” said Atmeh, “you are an immortal. That is your road. Do not begrudge me mine because it is unalike.”
Then Kassafeh closed her eyes—upon the lids of which were painted eyes of gold that changed to green—and she dissolved.
Atmeh got up, and looked upon Kiras, who lay along the floor.
“Be kinder, Kiras. Recollect, for every seventy travelers that seek you, and that you distress, there may come another like myself. Yet not so temperate as I. On the understanding you will remember my warning, I restore to you your arts.”
Kiras spoke softly then.
“I will remember.”
And when Atmeh had left her, Kiras constructed a robe of crystals for herself, and walked like a dancer. But later, when the birds laid their eggs, she stole some, and these hatched snakes. . . .