For a long time he heard nothing. Then there was a grunt, the sound of papers and books falling from Hadel’s desk, and a pained gurgling.
“Stop it!” He threw the door open and rushed into the room.
Hadel, seated at his desk, looked up at him. Hastily he dropped something into a drawer and closed it He took a pen and paper and scribbled a note. Ginna took it and read:
With a long, thin, very sharp knife, I have reached down my throat and cut my vocal cords. Thus I obey the order of The Guardian.
* * * *
He dropped the note and stared at the Nagéan in horror.
Hadel gurgled again, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and fainted, head down onto his desk.
* * * *
The days that followed were grey. The sun refused to show itself. The sky never grew brighter than the color of steel. Chill winds blew out of the desert, bringing festering dark clouds with them.
The Powers were gathering in Ai Hanlo. Ginna was sure of it He didn’t know if anyone else could see what he saw, but he could tell that people were afraid. All Amaedig would say was that she felt uneasy and the weather was bad. She would be better when it was. But he noticed that there was no laughter in the world anymore. He had always enjoyed sitting on the battlements, listening to the jokes and songs of the people in the market place in the lower city, but now they went about their business in sullen silence, all eyes averted from the walls above. In the palace itself, men and women passed one another in the corridors without a word. At meals they whispered and made signs.
He was almost sure that they too saw shadows when there was nothing to cast them, and recognized the menace in the angry sky. He wondered if others had experiences like the one he had one night while returning from the library.
He had come across a dark passageway he did not recognize. Wondering if it might not be a short-cut to the level on which his room was located, he entered it. Bare brick walls curved endlessly past heavy doors, all of them barred. Faint flickering light came through slits in one of the walls, from torches and lanterns beyond.
At last he reached a stairway leading upward. A torch was set in the wall at the base of it. The scene didn’t look right, and he paused until he had figured out why. Slowly he realized that with the torch there, there should have been light and long shadows cast up the stairs. But the flames were not very bright, and only the bottom three steps were visible, the rest shrouded in impenetrable blackness.
He put a foot on the lowest step. Something stirred above. The sound was like an enormous rug being dragged across stone. He stood on the second step and the thing moved again, drawing away from him. On impulse he leaned forward and plunged a hand into the blackness. He felt a rough, dry surface. It yielded slightly to the touch.
Suddenly the blackness recoiled from him like a living creature, revealing the fourth step, the fifth, the sixth, stirring up enormous amounts of dust, which stung his eyes. He reeled back down the stairs, then recovered, and for some reason he could not fathom grabbed the torch and pursued the thing until he came to a doorway at the top of the stairs. It led into a corridor. Looking around, he knew where he was: near one of the kitchens, not at all where he wanted to be. The place was dark and empty, but the light of his torch cast normal shadows. Everything seemed in order.
What had he seen? The impression came to him afterwards of an enormous black snake slithering away at his approach.
He went back down the stairs, torch in hand, along the winding tunnel until he emerged into the opening beneath the murky, overcast sky. He made his way back to his quarters by the normal route. But even as he did he chanced to look up at the golden dome of the palace. It seemed to glow faintly against the night
He saw something. He was sure of it There could be no doubt that dim, winged shapes like enormous moths, some of them without any clear outline and little more than drifting patches of darkness, were gathering at the top, around the skylight
“We have got to leave the city,” he told Amaedig that night. They sat in their room, in the dark. They had no candle. He closed his hands together and made a ball of light.
“You’ve been saying that for a week now, ever since poor Hadel did what he did. But where shall we go, and how?”
“I don’t know. But we’re in danger. Everyone is.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said quietly. “But it is because the danger is here, coming from The Guardian himself, that you can’t get away. The soldiers would never let you go, even into the lower city.”
“Me? Just me? You too. Listen: now that Hadel can’t talk anymore and no one is allowed to see him—I went there and there’s a guard in front of his door—and now that all this has happened... you’re the only person I have left. Everyone else is afraid to talk. The Goddess knows I wouldn’t want to talk to Kaemen, although I am sure he would want to listen, particularly if I were on the rack at the time. So when I go, will you come with me? Please? What good would it do you to stay here?”
“Of course. Of course. I will. I wouldn’t have too much to do without you around. Someone would make me into a drudge.”
He thought she smiled, but the room was too dark to see.
He lay awake with her for a while, saying nothing. He juggled balls of light in the air. After a while they slept.
* * * *
On a chilly morning they stood in the Place of the Lion, one of the many rooftop gardens, now neglected, in the middle of which stood an image of the animal carved in green stone.
“I wish,” said Ginna as he ran his hand over the beast’s mossy paw, “that the two of us could climb on the back on this lion and make him leap over the walls and carry us away to some distant land or another world. Hadel said there were many worlds where men lived once, up in the sky. I don’t know if they’re still there, but if this lion were alive, I’m sure he could cross the gap between them.”
“An old woman told me that once they were alive, but only when a guardian willed it. He and the courtiers would play a game with them, using the animals as pieces and the whole palace as a board. They moved between the squares like this one. But that was a long time ago.”
“Since then the lion has been stuck here, like us.”
The two of them walked to the edge of the garden. Looking over the parapet, they could see the whole lower city spread out before them like a map. Nearby, before the Sunrise Gate, were crowds of mendicants, many of them gathered from the most distant lands of the globe, waiting for some residue of the holiness of The Goddess to touch them and drive their afflictions away. Many were raised naked on platforms, high above the crowd. Even from a distance, Ginna could tell they were shivering in the wind beneath the grey sky. A priest was standing on a wall, his arms upraised, blessing them. This, Ginna knew, was actually a duty of The Guardian, but one nowadays neglected more often than not.
Elsewhere, some streets were alive with traffic, some empty and silent Smoke rose in a long, thin column from somewhere near the outer wall. Beyond that, nothing. Tilled fields. A few low hills. A highway leading to the horizon. The glistening ribbon of the Endless River, which was reputed to circle the Earth and flow back into itself, like the Worm of Eternity. Then there was the desert, encircling the horizon. Maps had always shown Ai Hanlo to be the center of the land of Randelcainé and Randelcainé to be the center of the world. All roads, all rivers, all mountain passes led ultimately to the Holy City. Other places were colored patches on parchment, some having names, some not. Some were depicted only with abstract symbols.
Ginna realized that he knew absolutely nothing about the world outside. He was sure he could find his way through the streets of the lower city somehow, and perhaps by some trick or pretense get out one of the gates, or be lowered over the wall in a basket like some hero in an old tale, but what then?
If he were living in some fabulous old tale, he was sure these things would take care of themselves. But life, he had discovered, was seldom so neatly planned out “I wish something w
ould happen,” he said after a long silence.
Amaedig stood beside him, fidgeting with a clump of ivy. “Don’t,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t wish something would happen. If it does, you probably won’t like it.”
“But I feel so smothered here. Somehow he is watching all of us, and waiting, and making us wait for whatever he plans to do. Hadel said he was making the bones of The Goddess stir. We have to leave but I’m afraid to. Think of it. You and I, what do we know? How do we get food except from a kitchen? There aren’t any kitchens in the deserts. And people say there are unformed things out there, creatures not like anything we know, slowly becoming something wholly new. Hadel once said the world gradually transforms itself, and one day mankind will no longer be at home on it when it’s done. Some places are more changed than others. We don’t know how to survive out there.”
She sighed with resignation. “We’ve been over this before. Either we go or we don’t. We have to decide.”
“Hadel also told me to seek the lady of the grove and the fountain. I don’t know if he was laying a charge on me or giving advice or what. He couldn’t be any more specific. Who is she and where is she? There’s no mention of her in the knowledge books, and I was afraid to ask anyone.”
“Look,” she whispered. “Down there!”
Something was happening at last. About twenty feet below them a man ran along a narrow pathway between the base of the Place of the Lion and the palace wall. His dull green gown billowed as he puffed along. He was one of the clerks from The Guardian’s archives. Why a clerk should be running anywhere, Ginna could not guess. He had once been to the place where the records were kept and found it to be inhabited by withered old men who wallowed in dust and scratched on parchments until they went blind.
For such a one to be running was a veritable miracle. Surely the world was turned upside down. He scurried past where the boy and girl leaned over to watch so rare a spectacle. He held a scroll in one hand.
Then he stopped and fell forward, an arrow in his back. Ginna and Amaedig drew back, still watching, but concealing themselves. The archer, one of The Guardian’s special troops, calmly walked into view, bent over the corpse, and took the message from a limp hand. Other soldiers joined him, looked at the paper, and all of them hurried off.
“I wonder what is going on,” said Ginna.
“Let’s find out.”
They were halfway down the stairs leading from the roof garden when they heard shouting nearby, followed by the clanging of metal on metal. A clash of arms. With unspoken agreement the two of them hurried back up the way they had come, looking around for a place to hide. They settled on crouching among the overgrown shrubbery behind the stone lion.
Now all they could do was attempt to piece together what was happening from the sounds they heard. A series of trumpet blasts came from the direction of the great dome. It was useless to look in that direction. A squat tower blocked the view.
The fighting nearby died down almost at once.
Several horses clattered along the path below. Then, a distance off, there was another trumpet blast, followed by screams, the neighing of horses, and silence for several minutes thereafter.
* * * *
Swords sang their song on shields and helms. The line came to Ginna from an epic poem he had once read. In the old days, when The Goddess still lived, there were heroes on the Earth, and great deeds were done. Now stuffy old men were shot in the back and all Ai Hanlo suffocated with fear and expectation.
There was another brief combat somewhere beyond the squat tower. Also, there came sounds of commotion beyond the outer palace wall, from the city of the common folk below.
What was going on was obvious enough, in a broad sense. Neither of them had to say it. A palace revolution was taking place. Someone, more brave and able than they, was trying to overthrow The Guardian.
It was only after they ventured forth from the Place of the lion, after the struggle seemed over, that they found out who won, and it was only when the golden dome came into view that Ginna learned something else, equally important, although it did not seem so at the time.
When he saw the dome, he stopped and stared up at it, a look of horror on his face.
“What is it?” his companion asked. “What do you see?” What he learned in that instant was that he was as different from other people as Hadel had said and he himself had always suspected. The dome looked normal to Amaedig. But to his eyes it had changed. Beneath the overcast sky it stood, its gold entirely gone. Blackness poured out of the top, covering the dome entirely, washing down over the palace. It would fill up the world, he knew. This was the end, or at least the beginning of the end. The winged shapes hovered thicker than ever.
The running blackness bubbled and gave birth to more of them. By the thousands they fluttered and scampered down the rooftops, into courtyards and through windows.
“You there! Stay where you are!”
The vision flickered away. The dome was golden once more but neither of them had a chance to look at it. They were surrounded by soldiers with swords drawn and spears leveled.
“Come with us,” one of them said.
“But we haven’t done anything,” said Amaedig.
“Orders.”
They were prodded and poked along. Others joined them. Eventually a large mass of captives, over a hundred in all, were ushered into an unpaved yard Ginna knew from his days of living near the kata stables. It was an exercise yard for the katas, and also for horses. There was nothing but bare, trampled ground.
Now a group of laborers and stable hands, under the close supervision of the palace guard, were digging holes and bringing pieces of wood into the yard. Ginna felt sick when he saw the wood. He knew what it was for. Many stakes would be erected here and people would die on them. As the others understood what was happening, women screamed, men shouted, and the soldiers had to club several people senseless to get the crowd again under control.
They all stood there like pigs in a stall, waiting for slaughter.
After the work had gone on for quite a while, Amaedig whispered to Ginna, then had to kick his shin to get him out of his stupor. His face was pale and blank, like hers. She was struggling to hold back tears.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why us? If he wanted to kill us all, why here, why now?”
“I’m sorry,” said Ginna.
“Sorry for what?”
“For not deciding to leave earlier. This is our last day. If we’d left, we might have lived a little longer.”
“Or we might have been eaten by some monster in the desert. It’s not your fault. There is nothing you can do now.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I. Isn’t that funny?”
She pressed his hand in hers and held on tight. Her eyes were closed. He looked up at the darkening sky, trying to avoid the sight of the stakes or the golden dome beneath which The Guardian lived.
Tharanodeth. More than anything else, he longed for Tharanodeth. If the Good Guardian were still reigning, none of this would be happening. It would only be a nightmare, from which he would be awakened by the touch of his friend. The world had been ordered in those days. There was still goodness left when Tharanodeth was alive. All of it had died with him, all hope too.
A frigid wind blew, whistling among the rooftops and battlements. A tremendous tempest seemed ready to blast forth, but it never did. The whole world was waiting. Clothing flapped. Laborers and soldiers shouted back and forth. The air grew deathly cold. Ginna, dressed only in a light tunic and baggy trousers, and barefoot, shivered with more than just fear. Amaedig had on a simple smock and thin slippers. The two of them pressed together for warmth.
Hours passed. It seemed the task was deliberately prolonged to make the waiting a special, exquisite torture.
It seemed that they had been there all day. Ginna’s bladder told him hours had passed. Like others who felt the need bu
t were not allowed beyond the wall of spears surrounding them, he relieved himself upon the ground. Since he was about to die, good manners didn’t seem to matter.
Suddenly many feet were approaching in a measured tread. Another gate, opposite the one they had entered, swung open and, a squadron of The Guardian’s personal troops, the plumes on their helmets taller than those of the regular soldiers, paraded into the yard in perfect formation. Trumpets blew. Drums beat and bells rang, announcing the coming of The Guardian himself. In came the Lord of Ai Hanlo, Kaemen, Protector of the Bones of The Goddess, carried aloft on his throne as for a state occasion. Behind him were more soldiers leading a long line of exhausted prisoners chained together, with only a few additional troops bringing up the rear.
Those already in the yard looked at one another with astonishment and some trace of hope. Ginna’s heart leapt Amaedig squeezed his hand so hard it hurt The Guardian was brought before them. Trumpeters on either side of him blew a series of blasts in a special pattern, indicating that he was about to speak.
He put a horn to his mouth to project his voice.
“All of you hate me,” he said. “All of you are wicked, impious, and unworthy subjects. I should execute you all out of a sense of justice, but my justice is tempered with mercy, and I shall spare you, but only so you may witness the terror of my wrath and learn from it, going away humbled and obedient thereafter.”
“We’re not going to die!” one man near Ginna began to babble. Someone gagged him. But relief swept over the crowd like a tangible thing. Several of the women fainted, and some of the men. The guards, who had been pointing their spears at the mass of people, now held them upright. A few stood around the periphery of the crowd, but others went to assist The Guardian’s troops in the work that followed.
In numb, helpless horror Ginna watched as the chained prisoners were stripped naked and nailed to the stakes by their hands and feet, then further secured with more chains. These were the ones who had tried to save Ai Hanlo, but failed. Some screamed. Others endured in stony silence and hopeless resignation. He recognized one man. It was Kardios, the general.
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