by Sean Wallace
The men were a shabby bunch of outcasts whose belts were hung with swords and daggers and garrotes, with poisons and darts, with brain hooks and canopic jars. They swept Baoqian and Asneath through a broken grate into a low sewer on the south side of the square. The outcasts shot regretful looks over their shoulders as the statue disappeared from view, but Asneath and Baoqian were glad to leave it behind. They were glad too for the shade and coolness of the thick stoned sewer, even though it stank. They splashed through fetid stormwater with a crust of filth, but the outcasts were beyond noticing and the travelers past caring. Asneath soon gave up the idea of trying to retrace their steps. She saw a dozen places where traps were set, some to stop entrance, some to stop exit, and she had no doubt that many more existed that she did not spot. Fear seized her as she realized she was going to die, that she was being hurried to no good ending. She prayed to Frir for strength. “I am not afraid of death,” she told herself. She did not realize she spoke aloud, until the acolyte of Todesfall smiled.
“I do not fear death either,” he encouraged her. “It bores me rather. On and on, life after life. No true end. Pointless, isn’t it.” She realized that in his own way he was trying to cheer her. “Even the gods are trapped in it. Frir gives life, Olan guards it, Rimbaud will keep pushing souls on to rebirth, whether they want it or not. Only Todesfall had the right idea and look what happened to him. We followers of the proper priest seek the End to rebirth.”
“Then this statue is doing what you want, by bringing on the Great Ending,” she said, remembering the words of the lawful priest.
“No, the statue does not bring the End. We will die but there will be no peace for us in Todesfall’s dim land. Rimbaud, that blind old bat, will hunt us out and hurry us on, whether we would or not, but there will be no life to be born into. We will be reborn into death, and there is no second death from that. Then the gods will fail us. Even this present mindless dance is a better fate.”
“Then why does your priest do this? Why did he start the statue on its course?”
“He did not start it,” the acolyte said. “The lawful priests started it when they stole it. They feared his power. But they have made him a thousand times stronger.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the invisible statue, as they entered a large open space beneath the city. Tall pillars dwarfed the ragged band that splashed beneath the fluted ceiling. It was no sewer, Asneath realized, but a long disused cistern from the days before the Uerth river was dammed into a lake, when Zaijian was far from the shore and still needed a water store. A smaller area, like a stage, was raised at one end. It was lit with candelabra holding dripping candles of what she hoped was pig fat. Beyond the lit stage a tunnel disappeared into darkness. The acolyte saw her looking.
“That is where our priest dwells,” he explained.
Asneath winced at the thought of living in that dank hole. “Don’t the dead come here?” she asked.
“They know we are as they are, and leave us be,” the acolyte said, which didn’t comfort her terribly.
She wondered if the unlawful priest watched from the darkness—a man who did not live as normal men, but lived in death. Her imagination fired, picturing a green zombie with putrid flesh, or a skull with jeweled eyes. She shuddered.
What was the name of the nameless god? The question hammered in her head as it had all through this short, doomed journey. It was ridiculous. How could a nameless god have a name? And besides, what did a nameless god have to do with Todesfall? Unless, the thought occurred to her, the nameless god had something to do with the End that the followers of Todesfall sought? Also, she was puzzled by the casual nature of the unlawful priest’s acolytes. They had led them straight here, on the flimsiest of pretexts. They had let Baoqian keep his weapons. They did not fear for their priest. This was wrong. She glanced at Baoqian.
He nodded, once, thinking she was signaling to him to start his advance. He slipped to the side. The ragged men let him go. Yet something held him back from vaulting onto the stage at once, and charging into the dark tunnel with raised ax. Something terrible but helpless, like the ghost of a child, tugged at him with futile, fearful persistence. Something nagged at him about the nameless god, as it had since he had first heard of it. Something he almost but not quite remembered. It hovered in the shadows on the edge of his mind, watching him with bright eyes. He tried to banish the muddled image by concentrating on present danger. He hefted his ax, framing a prayer to Olan.
The acolyte sat casually on the edge of the raised stage. “Are you feeling better?” he asked Asneath. The others grouped around her.
“Yes, much better now I am out of the sun,” Asneath said. She resisted the impulse to glance one last time at Baoqian. All of a sudden, now she was going to die, she was very fond of him. She did not wish she had slept with him, but she did wish she had been kinder, more patient, that she had not snapped at him, and that she had thanked him. She fixed her eyes on the acolyte, willing him to look at her, not at Baoqian. She clasped her amulet in her hand. Beneath her breath she murmured a very foolish, little spell of Frir, beloved of young women, that makes them more attractive to men.
Baoqian hesitated, not because he thought they would die. He might kill the unlawful priest, but he was sure his followers would not let him escape. He faced his fate squarely. He prayed to die unflinching, with Olan’s name on his lips. But what secret kept the unlawful priest of Todesfall so safe that his followers did not fear for him? He glanced back, and was caught by Asneath’s spell. She looked like Frir, white and slim. He did not know what to do. “Olan help me,” he prayed.
And Olan gave him aid. The nameless god stepped from the shadows of his mind, bright and vivid, and bowed its antlered head. “I know! I know the answer!” He started back, then spun around and stared into the dark tunnel as a cry rang out of it.
“Dada, are you there?” The voice was high and shrill, not a man’s, and held a careless edge of command. “You can’t hide. I heard you. Come here now. I’m bored!” the voice called.
“In a moment, dear heart,” the acolyte called back, casually. “I have guests.” He stared at Baoqian, appraisingly. “What is the name of the nameless god?” he asked him.
“It is dead and its name can be said only in the dying lands. We who still live cannot name it,” Baoqian said, confidently.
Dada clapped his hands. “Only Olan himself could have given you that answer. Congratulations,” he said, dryly. “Here is our priest,” he added.
“One two three, coming ready or not,” a voice said from the dark tunnel. And then a white, white child stepped out. His hair was black as night, his eyes burned and his lips were red as blood. He was five years old and dead as stones. He stared in surprise at Baoqian with his big ax. “I don’t like you. Go away!”
Baoqian did not budge.
“Make him go away,” the child said to Dada, crossly.
“Remember we can make him go, but even you cannot bring him back,” Dada said, gently.
“Oh he can stay then. I don’t care,” the child said. He turned his burning eyes to Asneath. A pleased smile flitted over his lips. “Ah, she wears a necklace like Mama’s,” he said. He ran towards her, chubby arms outstretched. As he passed Baoqian the man gave a great gasp and called on Olan for strength. He raised his ax.
“Stop!” Asneath screeched. All her Frir-soul revolted at killing a child.
Baoqian froze, mid-swing. The child stopped and turned on Baoqian, hands on hips, without the smallest flicker of fear on his small, dead, imperious face.
“I really don’t like him,” he said to Dada. “He’s mean. Like the men who made Mama and me drink that nasty drink.”
“He means the lawful priests of Todesfall,” Dada explained.
“Will I dance at him?” the child asked, and none needed to ask what dance he meant.
“He made that dance up out of his own head. Just imagine,” Dada said to Asneath, proud as any parent.
“He’s not mean,
” Asneath stumbled desperately into the breach. “He was just playing. He wanted to give you a scare.”
“You can’t scare me. What’s your name? My name is Qushi,” the child said, pleased, without waiting for answer. “Do you want to meet Mama? She’s just in here.”
“Just a moment,” Asneath said. She turned to Baoqian in appeal, hoping he understood how she felt, her horror and her pity and her regret. “There must be another way that does not involve killing,” she said. “And—and—how did you know the third answer?” she asked him, softly.
He stared at her in pure horror then bowed his head and whispered. “One day Olan went hunting. His hounds started a stag with a human face and they hunted it through the world. It turned at bay at last in the poison wood, but as Olan raised his spear to slay it, it spoke to him with human tongue. ‘Kill me,’ it said, ‘And the Great Ending is at hand.”
“ ‘Liar and coward,’ Olan called it. ‘What is your name?’ ”
“ ‘Except in the dying land I have no name,’ it answered. Then Olan saw it was a dead god living and stayed his hand.”
She waited a long moment, but there was no more. He shuffled his feet, apologetically. “You can tell me more Olan stories anytime,” she whispered.
This was so different to the rebuke that he expected that he jerked his eyes up to meet hers, blushed and gave her a pleased smile.
“Are you coming? Hurry! Mama is waiting,” the child interrupted before Baoqian could say anything more. Asneath climbed onto the stage. The child took her hand. His hand burned like cold flame.
The tunnel led to a small tomb lit by more smoking candles of pig grease. Gaily colored toys lay in heaps of profusion, balls and drums, dancing marionettes and painted wooden animals. A woman lay on the tomb, a corpse preserved by the highest of embalming arts. She had coarse yellow hair, dressed with rich jewels, and her sharp pointed chin and nose showed her a shrew. But there were also lines of love and laughter about her eyes and mouth. One hand lay at her breast, beside an amulet of Frir, a cheap trinket. The fingers were heavy with rings, although the hand was red and chapped with toil. The corpse wore rich robes that Asneath was prepared to swear she had never worn in life. This was a poor woman who lay before her. Her other arm was outflung and a blanket and pillow lay askew beside it.
Asneath’s flesh crept.
The child scrambled into his bed. “Mama has gone away and can’t come back,” he said. And Asneath saw the anger in his eyes, that his mother would leave him alone in a strange land.
“Believe me it was none of our doing,” Dada said from behind her. “Our priest is reborn to his task, over and over. He knows who he is by his dreams. When he is grown a man he comes to us and undergoes the purification and ritual. He is with us in death until his body wears away, for all our arts. Then we store his relics with great care and wait for him to be reborn to us again. The lawful priests have always feared him but they waited their chance when he was weak. They found him when he was yet a boy and killed him and his mother, thinking that way to end his power. Did they think to fool Todesfall?”
“We all strive to be like our gods for that is the path to them. But he is too like and has opened a path for the god to come to him,” Asneath said, in great fear. She saw Qushi’s bafflement, his pain, his rage and his shame. She saw why he danced the Dance of Death and why the statue woke when he called it, and walked to meet him. He did not understand or care, no more than Todesfall, that he would have to kill the whole world to bring his mother back to him.
“Todesfall neither knows nor cares what he does, no more than a day-old child,” Dada agreed. “But he shares our priest’s pain, that he can never be with his mother again. That has made them one in spirit. When they meet in the flesh our world will join with Todesfall’s. Life and death, hand in hand. Life in death, I mean. Then none will be safe, not even the gods themselves. Truly, the Great Ending is at hand.”
“There must be a way,” Asneath said. Her first thought, her first refuge, was prayer. Prayer to Frir. But wiser and greater folk than she had already tried that, and already failed. Prayer to Rimbaud, then? No, Rimbaud was goddess of rebirth, not death—besides, the goddess was absent from her moon-roost. Memory of the moon’s blank face made her shiver. That only left Olan, the banisher, the betrayer.
“We must take him to his father’s temple,” she said. “The White Lady received this answer to her prayers, that the right aid would come at the right time and place to the right souls. If this is not the right time and place then what is?” she said. “We can only pray the right souls are near.” She turned to the child. “Do you want to go and visit—?” She bit her lip rather than mention the father who tore Todesfall from his mother’s grasp. “Someone you know,” she finished.
“I will if you carry me,” Qushi said. He held up plump arms.
Asneath picked him up. No heart beat beneath his breast, no breath rose and fell upon her cheek. He was cold, cold all over. She felt her skin prickle and numb. She felt her heart freeze. Yet he laughed and wriggled as if he were a living child, pleased to be carried in a woman’s arms. “Faster,” he called.
Then the ground trembled around them as another footfall shook their world. Overhead, towers fell. Within, the roof of the cistern groaned. Stones ground against one another. Stone dust trembled to the floor like rain.
Realizing they had little time, Dada seized one of the candelabra to light their way. Baoqian came with them on the return journey, but the other acolytes ran ahead, eager to see the statue again. As they neared the surface they had to brace themselves against a second tremble in the earth, much nearer than before.
“But that is too soon,” Dada said, amazed.
One of the acolytes came running down towards them, face aflame. “He is striding towards us much quicker than before,” he cried, exultant, then dashed back out again.
They stepped out into the square. It was night, warm as milk, and the blank, fearful moon shone orange and swollen through the mists. The statue loomed over the city, blotted out the sky behind it. It was walking faster now, fast enough for mortals to see. One step while they stared, then two.
“We must be on the right path, for it seeks to stop us!” Asneath cried, relieved and terrified.
“Quick!” Dada led them forward. The statue needed only one or two more steps to overtake them.
They ran out onto a broad embankment overlooking the harbor. Earth shook and buildings tumbled. They saw the dead at last, thronging the lake shore, rejoicing in the arrival of their lord. The dead turned their faces towards them as they came into view, faces as blank and horrible as the empty moon. The statue loomed over the city, as a child looms over a toy. Another step and its bulk hid the moon.
“I see Olan’s temple,” Baoqian shouted. A big building, that must once have been handsome, stood on a prominent spot overlooking the harbor. He recognized the two pillars that stood before all temples to Olan, the legs of Olan they are called. Even as he shouted, the statue took its last step towards them, a step in real time, a hasty lurch that splashed into the shallow shore water. They all fell over at the impact. Buildings shuddered and collapsed. A wall of water reared from its footfall.
“Run!” Baoqian shouted. He thrust Asneath before him. Dada ran at his heels. The wave swilled behind them, overwhelming the embankment, dashing the dead away. Baoqian reached the twin pillars.
He seized one, and caught Asneath and Qushi together with his free hand. Dada threw himself past them and inside the temple. The wave smashed past them, as if following him in. The wave shouldered the pillars, but it would take more than Todesfall’s strength to unseat them.
Asneath was overwhelmed, baffled, deafened, blinded, choked. She was helpless against this wave, and if she had been alone it would have ripped her, flung her and dashed her senseless against the rocks. But Baoqian stood firm as the legs of Olan. Then the wave broke over their heads and the ebb began. Baoqian roared and tightened his hold. At last the wav
e ebbed around their ankles, spent. Gasping, Baoqian released Asneath, who set Qushi down.
Qushi was outraged. “Now I am all wet,” he said, as water poured from his mouth. The flood would have killed a living child. He would not let Asneath pick him up again, but ran ahead. “Where is Dada?” he said.
Behind them, the statue, with an awesome grinding, started to bend.
Within the temple was dim and austere and empty, wet to tall windows that let the orange moonlight in. On the north wall stood the altar, with two pillars before it, the arms of Olan. “Here I am,” said a voice. They looked up to see Dada perched above the windows, just above the water line, clinging to the statue of a bat.
Rimbaud has no temples for she is always wandering about and has no time to settle down. Mostly she has shrines attached to Olan’s temples, for the two met on Olan’s travels to find his wife and became firm friends. It was the wily crone who thought of the way to fetch Frir back again. Where there is a shrine to Rimbaud there is sure to be a statue of a bat, and a few of her beloved bats. Even now, a dozen fruit bats circled around the ceiling, shrieking, disturbed by the giant wave and Dada’s mad scramble to their refuge.
Qushi screamed with laughter. “What are you doing up there?”
“Trying to get down,” Dada said, promptly.
“You are silly,” Qushi said, affectionately.
“We must pray to Olan,” Asneath said, turning to Baoqian, for she did not know how.
“A true warrior prays with his axe,” Baoqian said, gruffly.
“Here’s your chance, friend.” From his perch, Dada gestured behind them. “I thought they had held off too long.”
Asneath and Baoqian turned to see the dead pour through the door, as the wave had done. They came in silence, arms spread wide, ready to dance.
“Get to the altar!” Baoqian directed Asneath, readying his axe.
“They will do as I say,” Qushi said, cocky, and raised his arms in command. Then he screamed. “My hands! They’ve gone!”