King of Shards

by Matthew Kressel

  The steps were slick and treacherous. He offered his hand to Rana, but she was too enamored with the architecture to notice him.

  Through a stone arch they entered an enormous antechamber. Walls leaned at malicious angles, and thousands of circular portals pockmarked the chamber, as if they had entered the den of a burrowing creature. In some way, Azazel was such an animal. The tunnels led off in oblique directions, intersecting at impossible angles. A hundred stone stairways crisscrossed angrily overhead, and the mirrored floor multiplied everything infinitely.

  In the center a green flame burned in a stone bowl, and its shifting light made the walls shiver. Rana stumbled, and he grew dizzy.

  The Guide snickered. “One of these doors leads to the master. The others to madness.” She picked gristle from her teeth with a sharp claw.

  “So?” Caleb said. “Which door is it?”

  “Well,” she said. “The ashes you blew at me were quite old.”

  “Which is the door, fool?”

  She strutted closer, and he noticed a bloody carcass in the corner. “Your spell is wearing off, and I’m hungry.”

  He pushed Rana behind him. “Feral creature! Don’t you recognize me?”

  The Guide guffawed, and the tunnels regurgitated her laughs in maddening waves. “Ha! You should have seen your face! I was just having fun. It’s so quiet here. Not to worry. Your spell still compels. It always does, as long as that is his wish. This way!”

  Rana grew timid as they followed the Guide up one of the stone stairs to a tunnel mouth indistinguishable from the others. “The entrance changes every hour to confound his enemies,” she said. “Sometimes I forget which one too. Now, hearken! At a fork of two, head left. A fork of three, head right.” She scratched her head. “Or is fork of two, head right?”

  “Which is it?”

  “Give me a moment. Ah, yes. Like I said at the beginning. A fork of two, head right.”

  “But you said ‘left,’” Rana said.

  “Did I?”

  “Enough games you wretch!” Caleb said. “Show us the way, Baast, or I’ll ask Azazel to feed your mind to mad Barsafael.”

  A tremor rippled through her. “How do you know my ancient name?”

  “Because I am Ashmedai, fool, brother of your master.”

  Her tongue fell out of her mouth as recognition shuddered through her. She crawled over to him and fawned at his feet. “Oh, forgive me. Forgive me! I didn’t recognize you. I—”

  “Get away from me! Just tell us the way.”

  “I was just playing. You know! Just a game to—”

  “Tell us the damned way!”

  “Go left. Always turn left. To reach the Bound One, always go left, like Gevurah, the judging hand.”

  “You are a worm, Baast.”

  She gazed meekly at them. “You’ll tell my master I escorted you well? It was just a game, you know? A little fun, to pass the time?”

  “I hope you enjoyed that meal,” Caleb said. “It was likely your last.”

  Baast whimpered as they entered the circular tunnel. As they walked, her mewling lingered, and her voice seemed to come from all directions.

  The air grew chilly as they walked. “Hard to believe that fool was once worshipped on Earth,” he said. “Humans built cities for her.”

  “They built cities for fools on Gehinnom too,” Rana said.

  “How true.”

  A dim yellow light illuminated their way, reflecting from the stone walls, its source unseen. They reached the first fork, where three tunnels diverged, and they went left. At the next fork they went left again. They turned, and turned again in maddening spirals, as if they were tying a knot that would never unravel.

  “What did you mean before,” she said, “about building a universe?”

  “Gehinnom is broken.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Marul said that.” Then, she added, “Marul Menacha, The Witch Who Gives Demons Pause. Eyes green as Ketef, the summer star. I don’t know why that’s stuck in my head, like a song.”

  “Gehinnom rests on a cracked foundation, Rana, as all the Shards do. Because of that, everything that is born there is transient, fleeting.”

  “It’s horrible,” she said. “I hate it. I hate it!” Her voice raced down the tunnel and marched back a dozen times.

  “You hate it because it’s anathema to your essence. But what if there were a universe with a solid foundation? Where things lingered forever?”

  “Earth, you mean.”

  “No, I’m not speaking of Earth. We are like scavengers, Rana, waiting for scraps to fall. Our lot is foul, but it doesn’t have to be. We can give every miserable soul in the Shards a chance to be whole.”

  “How?”

  “Daniel’s universe will collapse when enough Pillars die. If we send Daniel back to Earth, it would give us more time, and we might stop Mashit from killing another. But that would only preserve the status quo. Earth would continue while the Shards suffer unremittingly. But if there were another universe, a new universe, not dependent on Earth, we could make a home there.”

  She stared at him. “A new universe? Is that even possible?”

  “As I said, Rana, everything is possible, given enough will. The Merkavah—the vessel that will ferry us across the Great Deep—is a small universe of its own. Instead of using the power to send Daniel home, we can use it to force the Merkavah to grow.”

  “To grow? How?”

  “Like a bellows that blows air into a fire, we will use Azazel’s power to expand the Merkavah into a fully realized universe, with planets and moons and stars. But this new universe will be fragile, like a newborn child. So we will need to hold its walls firm. We will need the help of one who sustains worlds.”

  A look of recognition flashed in her eyes. “You mean Daniel?”

  “Yes, the Pillar, Daniel Fisher, will sustain our new universe.”

  “But we only have one Pillar. The Earth had thirty-six.”

  “Good! You’re already thinking like an architect. Our universe won’t be as large as Earth’s. For our purposes, one Pillar will suffice. For now.”

  “But where will the ground come from? The air? The sun and the stars? Do they just appear? Who makes them?”

  He smiled at her inquisitive nature. “Nothing comes into being without will. This is why I have sought you. All those beautiful worlds you’ve dreamt of, all those glorious vistas that haunted your dreams, you can make them real. You’ve always been an architect, but you have been denied the power to build your great designs. Today you won’t be building yet another brothel, tower, palace, or even a city. Today you’ll be building a universe.”

  Rana was shaking. “You are joking?”

  “I’ve never been more serious. You can build any world you desire. Maybe flowers bloom in your footprints. Maybe children are born with music instead of blood. Maybe in your world, no one will ever go hungry, no one will ever suffer.”

  “Liu,” she said. “Could I bring my sister? If we find her?”

  “You can bring whomever you want. Once our universe is built, I will rescue as many as I can before the Shards wither.”

  For a long moment, she stared at him. “Is this true? Can I make a world where my sister will never suffer, where no one will ever suffer again?”

  “That has been my goal from the beginning.”

  She seemed to look inward, then smiled wryly as she turned and marched down the tunnel. “Let’s go, Caleb. Let’s go!”

  He wanted to dance and laugh. Rana, the most beautiful creature in all the Shards would build a universe for him. For all. His heart fluttered, whether from loss of blood, or for her, he didn’t know or care. At last, his eons of suffering would end.

  The tunnel opened into an enormous chamber, a cavernous space so vast its extremities were lost in shadow. Columns split the basalt walls into wide sections, and the interstices crawled with byzantine arabesques. Half a million names, written in Aramaic, had been carved into the walls,
each name a slave to his brother. All the Mikulalim were listed here, and some names were older than Gehinnom.

  Against the wall, a naked man hung upside down, strung between two wide columns. Gleaming silver chains bound his wrists and ankles and pulled his limbs taut. His beard concealed his face, and it had grown so long that it covered the floor like a hairy gray sea.

  The ground beside him was filled with large polyhedrons, a giant’s playpen of colorful shapes. An emerald dodecahedron refracted solutions to obscure mathematical proofs. A spiky yellow ditrigonal icosidodecahedron sparked with maddening artistic inspiration. Through self-referencing twists of a Klein bottle, a thousand paradoxes wavered on the edge of non-existence. The distorted orange contortions of a Gordian Knot revealed the occult laws of metaphysics.

  Here lay the knowledge of eons made solid, like vapor frozen into snow.

  Rana moved toward the Gordian Knot, toward the secret knowledge flickering inside its facets. He tapped her shoulder, and she blinked awake from her trance. He gestured toward the chained figure as they walked, their footfalls rousing the slumbering eons. A thousand eyes watched them from a triambic icosahedron that promised self-knowledge beyond all ken.

  They paused at the shoreline of the gray hair, twenty paces from his brother. A drop fell from the darkness above, splashed into a stone pool, and water trickled over the edge toward the shadows beyond.

  “It’s been too long,” his brother said gravely, as if the dust of long-dead stars spoke through him. A tuft of hair by his face wiggled as he spoke.

  “Have you been well, brother?” Caleb said.

  “Other than the fact I must defecate upside down until the end of time, I cannot complain. My servants see that I am well cared for.” He took a slow breath. “I thought you’d be here sooner, brother. I’ve been expecting you for weeks.”

  “Your servant, Baast, didn’t seem to know I was coming.”

  “When, dear Ashey, have I ever made things easy for you?”

  If he wanted to spar, then spar they would. “My brother, have you heard? Raphael shares his bed with Seket, the Golden One.”

  “What do I care of that wench? I have my playthings to keep me occupied.”

  “Yes,” Caleb said. “It’s obvious you have such raucous company.” Caleb let the silence speak for itself. “Still, to think the great Azazel does nothing while the woman whom he pledged to marry before the assembled host of Abbadon now shares her bed with the man who chained him down in this dark chasm. People say that Azazel’s power isn’t as great as it once was.”

  “My power is greater than it has ever been,” he said. “And what do I care of Seket?” Dust shook loose from the walls with the volume of his voice. “She has forsaken me, and therefore she is ash. I might say the same of you, Ashey. When was the last time you visited, brother? The dripping water has dug canyons since your last visit.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “So I’ve heard. Stripped of power, exiled from Sheol. Did they cut off your cock too?”

  “Mine is quite healthy, I assure you. And don’t be crass. I’ve brought a guest.”

  “Yes, and you haven’t introduced me.”

  “You don’t know who she is? I’m disappointed, brother.”

  “She is Rana Lila, Gu of Gehinnom, whose magnificent works make my imprisonment almost bearable. But I prefer formal introductions.”

  “Azazel, meet Rana.”

  “It’s quite an honor to meet you, Rana. Please forgive my brother’s rudeness. He and I are unrefined creatures, born from ashes.”

  “We are all born from ashes,” she said.

  “Ah,” said Azazel. “She has wit too. Rana, what do you think of my little brother? Please don’t be shy. I want to hear a Gu’s thoughts on him.”

  She glanced at Caleb, and he gestured for her to go ahead. “He’s determined,” she said. “Smart, brutal. Cold. But I’m starting to understand him.”

  “Oh? Please go on.”

  “He’s been suffering for ages. If I were in his shoes I might be doing the same thing.”

  “Determined, brutal, cold, seeking a way of out of a personal hell. Yes, that sounds like little Ashey. But smart? Hardly. While he stumbles through the Shards like a drunkard, I survive by what I offer others.”

  “Knowledge,” Rana says.

  “And wise too, this Gu. Yes, I have collected universes of knowledge in my Codices. Yet my brother would have me abandon them. Has he explained his plan to you?”

  “He wants me to design a new universe for everyone to live in.”

  “I’m offended, brother,” Azazel said, “that you didn’t approach me first.”

  “Are you surprised?” Caleb said. “You have the taste of a Sumerian priest.”

  “And you the tact of a Roman Centurion. Rana, tell us, what do you think of this plan?”

  “It’s absurd. Insane. But—”

  “But you worry you might create a world as broken as this one.”

  “No!” she said, stunned. She stood up straight. “I know whatever I build will be perfect.”

  Azazel smiled. “And confident too! Modesty is, after all, so unbecoming in a Gu. Tell me Rana, have you thought about my brother’s role in this new world?”

  “His role?”

  “After this world is built, where will Ashey sit? On a gilded throne? Because I for one do not wish to be his subject.”

  “I was the greatest king Sheol ever had,” Caleb said. “The people adored me!”

  Azazel laughed and his whole body shook repulsively. “Greater than Abbadon? You ruled always in his shadow, even after his death. Brother, they shamed you and cast you out.”

  “Because they were fed lies! Because the nature of the Shards is impermanence! Nothing lingers, not even kings! Yet still I ruled for longer than Great Abbadon himself! That is how much they adored me.”

  Rana turned to him, a grave look on her face. “You want to be king over this new world?”

  “This new world will need a leader, a wise, strong, and caring leader. I won’t rule by threats or deception. My subjects will give me their fealty because I will have given them what the Creator could not. A life without suffering. And I won’t rule alone. You and I, Rana, could rule together. Think of it, Rana Lila, a Gu, born on a Shard, who becomes the queen of a universe. A universe she designed! You would rule over a world where you have the power to create anything you want, a world free from suffering, for all eternity.”

  She stared at him, as if he were mad. Perhaps he was, but he also knew there was a part of her that wanted this more than air.

  “Brother,” Caleb said, “when the Earth shatters, and the waters of this Shard dry up, your bonds will break. Then I will rescue you from this prison. I will save all who wish to come with me. You’ve done many wretched things to me, brother, and still I will save you. I will make you a prince over worlds, and you shall rule without chains. The three of us shall stand firm as the world around us shatters.”

  “Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinae,” Azazel said. “‘If the broken world should fall to pieces, the ruins would strike him undismayed.’”

  “There will be time for poetry later. You know what I’ve come for.”

  His brother sighed. “I have foreseen the end. In a few hours, in the city of Bahavnagar, India, the demon Af will cleave the Lamed Vavnik, Sunil Pranadchandr, from Earth’s universe using a gross perversion of a Hindu wedding ritual. With this cleaving of a Pillar, the Earth will collapse. Its life force will flood down onto the Shards in a splendid torrent. But soon the waters will cease, and we will wither away in agony for a trilion, trillion years. And to think that I distrust you to such a degree, Ashey, that I have considered succumbing to this fate instead of helping you.”

  “The distrust is mutual. But now we must put that aside. Despite all that you’ve done, you are still my brother. I swear by the waters of Lake Hali, by the Seal of Great Abbadon, and the twin suns of Sheol, by the very blood
that unites us, that I will not abandon you, Azazel!”

  “Your vow is worth less than dust.”

  “In the new world,” Caleb said, “there will be no dust.”

  “Brother, one thing I have learned in my long existence is that, wherever you go, there is always dust.”

  ——

  The sands were as yellow as turmeric. Daniel held his throbbing right arm and looked at their troubled faces. The priests hovered over their dead brothers, trembling. The Mikulal corpse dripped black ichor down the stones, while the others huddled beside him, looking hungry. How would he get these sworn enemies to work together?

  He needed ten men to perform Marul’s spell. Ten men to get him home. He heard Gram’s voice, as loud and present as if she had whispered in his ear. Nayn rabonim kenen keyn minyen nit makhn ober tsen shusters yo. Nine rabbis can’t make a minyan but ten shoemakers can. In other words, you make do with what you have.

  The Mikulalim and the Bedu shared a common ancestor. Perhaps there was a scrap of ancestral memory in them now that he might use. But first he would have to convince the Mikulalim not to eat their dead, because how could he get the Bedu to trust the Cursed Men if they committed that abomination here, in front of their eyes?

  Holding his broken arm, trying his best to ignore the pain, Daniel approached the Mikulalim. I want to speak with you in your own tongue, he thought to them, projecting his thoughts as he had learned from Junal. Can you hear me?

  Havig stepped forward. You might have removed your curse if you’d gone down to Lord Azazel, Havig thought. His words crashed into Daniel’s head like thunder. Yet you chose to remain. Why? Have you come to accept what you are?

  Daniel wasn’t quite sure what he was now, nor what he would be. I’ve come to ask you a great favor, he thought.

  You want us to refrain from eating Dranub.

  How did you know?

  Your thoughts leak like a broken barrel, Havig thought. We sensed Marul’s magic in the palanquin. And we saw the Tree of Life drawn in the sawdust.