“Then what’s the problem? We fight, and—win or lose—you still end up in a desirable position.”
“Dead is not a desirable position.”
“Who’s talking dead? We both know that these things only go as far as they have to.”
“Ordinarily, yes. But, well… I’m a little leery about this one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, to be frank—no insult intended, mind you—I’ve heard that you’re a rogue. Once you lose your temper and start smashing things, they say, there’s no stopping you. It occurs to me that this might be the case in a combat for leadership, that you just might not stop where anyone else would if someone were to call it quits.”
“Oh, no. This is a misunderstanding of my condition—though it’s easy to see how the rumor might have gotten around. What it is, is that I’ve an old injury that sometimes acts up, and when it does the pain tends to drive me rather wild. This doesn’t occur too often, however. Years often pass between spells. In fact, I’ve just gotten over one recently, so it should be a good long time before I’m troubled by another. Generally, I even feel it coming on and have time to get away from my friends. So there’s really nothing to worry about on that account.”
“What brings them on, Tranto?”
“Oh, different things. Apart from the times when they just come on by themselves, various traumas might set them off. A CF prod, for instance. Hate the things.”
“Oh, they’ve had you on forced work crews?”
“Indeed. Usually a mistake on their part.”
“I can imagine. Well, look, you can’t blame a fellow for being cautious.”
“Of course not.”
“Then you understand my feelings. If you’re not absolutely certain what sets all of them off, how am I to know whether a thrust from me might trigger one?”
“I see what you’re getting at. Unfortunately, it’s like anything else in life: I can’t offer you assurances. On the other tusk, I think it highly unlikely.”
“Hm.”
“That’s the best I can do. Sorry.”
“But you appreciate my dilemma?”
“Of course. Life is sweet.”
“Exactly. I’m tempted just to take a walk, find another herd, and start over again. I might, too, if I thought you’d be good for the herd. I do care about them, you know.”
“I’ve never led a herd into real trouble. I’d leave myself rather than bring something bad down on them.”
“May I have your word on that?”
“You have my word.”
“That makes it a little easier then. Move on into that little grove where I used to hang out, tonight. Let them find you there in the morning.”
“I will.”
“Goodbye, Tranto.”
“Goodbye, Scarco.”
The dark form turned and moved away as silently as it had come.
* * *
Ayradyss D’Arcy Donnerjack, but late returned from the realms that describe an eccentric orbit about Deep Fields, gazed thoughtfully upon the hotel room’s simple furnishings, upon her sleeping husband, upon the pinkish-grey light of the early dawn, and sighed softly to herself. She still felt disoriented, although she thought it ungrateful to bring this to John’s attention, and Verite was strange to her. She was a creature of change from ancient Virtu and something in her rebelled at the stability that she felt within the very cells of her reborn body.
Strolling to the double glass doors, she parted the sheer curtains, pushed the doors open, and went out onto the balcony to look down at the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.
The morning air was uncomfortably chill for she was clad in only a light robe of gauzy white silk, but she remained outside, letting the chill wash over her. A small smile played about her lovely mouth as she meditated on the paradox that at one and the same time she could crave the fluidity of her Virtu home locus, a place where she could sprout angel wings from her shoulders and fly, or dive beneath the sea, as finny-tailed as the best mermaid, and yet find herself seeking cold or heat or hunger or any physical sensation strong enough to chase away the terrible fear that she was still dead.
The rising sun had washed the last of the grey from the sky, replacing it with more pink, with orange, with red, with yellow. Clouds were visible now: long, wind-sculpted shapes that in Virtu could quite well have been aerial creatures, but here were merely the workings of wind on water, water that had been pulled into the sky only to fall again to the land and thus be drawn up again in a ceaseless cycle that nonetheless had something of chaos in it. Meteorology was still more art than science for all that chaos theory and fractal geometries had added to science’s comprehension.
Science. Her Donnerjack’s religion for all he denied it. He was a practical man, a hard man, and yet there was a poet in him, a poet that had been drawn to Ayradyss: Nymph of Verite, Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons, Angel of the Forsaken Hope. In Virtu, she had fallen in love with her poet, and after the moire had touched her, her poet had drawn her from the lands about Deep Fields. At first she had followed as little more than an automaton, but as the Trails of Bones, Stars, Rainbows, and other exotic things had taken them farther and farther from entropy’s hold, she had followed John with eagerness, finally raising her voice to join his in song to cross the bridges over the obstacles that Death had set before them as any good opponent must—pro forma obstacles, almost—for John D’Arcy Donnerjack had abided by the rules that Death had set and had brought Ayradyss safely from Deep Fields into the living lands, from Virtu into Verite.
No, John D’Arcy Donnerjack had not failed to bring forth his Ayradyss—as Orpheus had failed to bring forth his Eurydice—but something in her wondered at the cold, practical man with whom she shared a bed. Often he was loving enough, attentive, possessive, but now that she knew him in the larger context of his life she wondered that he had striven so hard to take her back from Death, for he often had little time for her outside of the hours that were spent making love or engaging in lover’s chatter.
She wondered if she bored him: clipped-winged angel, tailless mermaid, nymph-no-more, merely woman. A woman possessed of unique, curious knowledge, true; a program crafted for Virtu now residing as a woman of flesh and blood in Verite, but still nothing more than a woman.
Ayradyss, returned so recently from the realms orbiting Deep Fields, heard her new husband stir in his sleep, turned and saw through the window curtain how his arms reached for her and did not find her, saw how he woke to greater awareness and to horrible fear.
“Ayra!” he called and his voice carried the bone-shivering terror that only one who has lost a lover to Death can know.
Ayradyss pushed apart the curtains and hurried to his side, saw the relief that flooded his blanched, anxious face with blood. Sliding into the bed at his side, she felt his burly arms clasp her to him, heard his murmured endearments, felt the rapid beating of his heart begin to slow as he assured himself that she was indeed with him once more, doubted no longer his love, wondered only at the odd shapes that love can take even in Verite where no human is a shapeshifter.
* * *
“A problem?”
Abel Hazzard and his wife Carla regarded the imaged tour executive, a Mr. Chalmers, in their family virt space.
“What sort of problem?” Abel asked him. “Lydia is all right, isn’t she?”
“Oh, yes. Quite all right,” Mr. Chalmers assured him. “What we seem to be faced with is a small—retrieval problem.”
“Retrieval? You mean you can’t bring her back?”
“Well, when her time was up the recall sequence was initiated after a small grace period to allow her to finish whatever she was about. So far, she has not responded to the signal.”
“Why not?”
“It seems she is still—occupied. The grace period has run into a number of extensions.”
“Occupied?” Carla asked. “How?”
“Indications are that she is with a lover.”
“Oh. Well, she is there to enjoy herself. Let Lydia have her fun. If there is no physiological danger in extending it a little longer, let her stay on. She’ll tire of it in a while, and we can let her spend some extra time recuperating before she goes back.”
“Thank you,” Chalmers said, smiling. “It is not without precedent, of course, but we are required to keep parents and guardians aware of these matters. Half a day is hardly serious. We’ll notify you as soon as she is returned.”
“Thank you.”
* * *
Arthur Eden wore the garment of the lowest grade initiate—a red-and-gold patterned dashikilike affair—though he had not achieved this status. He waited in the courtyard before the temple with a small group of other, similarly clad individuals, both of Virtu and Verite. A service was currently in progress beneath a star-filled sky, which also bore two signs and several portents shining brightly at midheaven.
Slowly, a light descended from the sky, taking on the form of a silver sailing ship, passing overhead, entering through some hidden opening in the roof of the temple. A small ensemble at the left hand of the priest began to play then, a thing of strings and flute. A sigh rose from the congregation, and the priest intoned, “The god has arrived, to oversee the lesser initiation. Let any who are unready speak now and save yourself a profaner’s damnation.”
None responded.
There followed an intoned prayer, then—as in the rehearsal earlier in the week—the musicians moved to a position near the temple doors. The initiation candidates turned in that direction and advanced with slow, measured steps. As they did, the doors were swung open with matching deliberation.
The musicians moved again, entering, and Eden’s party matched them to form a procession. The rest of the worshipers remained behind in the courtyard.
Ahead, Eden saw candlelight through a dimness, and he smelled incense. Advancing into the theatrically shadowy interior, he realized that there were dark doors in the walls at either hand as well as a tall, narrow silver pair directly ahead. All of them were closed. The bright pair to the chamber’s rear was elaborately embossed with abstract, curving designs amid which the candles’ light swam like bright fish in a garden pond.
They continued until they were well inside. When the music grew slower they halted. A small draft ceased and they knew that the doors had been closed behind them.
They stood for a long while, waiting, listening to the music, preparing themselves spiritually as they had been taught. Abruptly then, the music ceased and the silver doors began, slowly, to open. A moment later, he could see that there was something very bright behind them.
* * *
Above the music of the lost that might be reclaimed, Death heard Mizar’s cry. The bone woman whose hand he held came apart as the howl was broken off, and he rose and turned three times in a circle, widdershins, but the sound had been too brief to determine its source. He walked then to the twilit crest of a hill, held forth a pale hand and captured the cry.
Too brief, too brief to take him all the way. Yet— He cast it before him down the farther slope and followed its echo. As he walked the twilight flickered about him and the hillside grew level and he moved in a brightness of full day down a busy thoroughfare where none took notice of him save for a single, old woman who turned and stared into his eyes. He reached out and touched her shoulder, not ungently, and she slumped to the pavement. He continued on, not looking back, and turned right at the next corner.
The city faded and he walked across a lake. Several fish turned belly up and floated to the top as he passed. When he reached the farther shore he came to a field and began walking through it.
Partway through the field, he halted. Red-and-yellow flowers bloomed about him, save in a patch to his left where a multitude hung withered upon their stalks. He directed his gaze in their direction, and after a moment a patch of black rose from one of these and fluttered to a fresh blossom in full bloom. A few moments later, the flower began to droop.
“Alioth,” he said then. “Come to me.”
The black butterfly rose from the wilting flower and fluttered across the space between them to light upon his extended finger.
“Hi, boss. Fancy meeting you here.” ‘
“It was not, really, a matter of chance,” Death responded.
“Didn’t think it was. Just making conversation.”
The dark figure nodded. Alioth could never tell when Death was amused.
“For that matter, I might even venture a guess as to why you’re out and about in the flesh, so to speak,” Alioth ventured, still wondering. “I heard Mizar’s howl, too.”
“Ah!”
“Yes, but broken off after only a moment.”
“Indeed. It was too brief for me to respond properly. I was hoping that, from your position in the scheme of things, you might have been able to obtain a better notion as to its direction.”
“I am not certain,” Alioth replied. “But it did seem to phase from a more central locale.”
“Then let us take a look,” Death said, and he raised his other arm.
Landscapes swept by them at such a rapid rate that Alioth was unable to sort them. And the pace increased until it was only a succession of lights and darks, then blacks and whites, and finally a throbbing grey. Alioth knew that his master scanned everything that passed, however.
Their course took upon it a spiral aspect then, and the sequence through which they had just passed was reversed. When they halted, Death stood at the base of an enormous mountain whose top was lost to sight beyond the clouds.
Death leaned to examine a small crater. Alioth fluttered above it, dipped down into it.
“Piece of reddish cable embedded in the side here, Lord.”
Death dropped soundlessly into the hole and extended a hand. He removed the object from the wall, raised it, studied it.
“One of Mizar’s tails,” he said. “I wonder what aspect of him it represents?”
He rose up out of the hole then and followed a line of footsteps which lightened as they went and then vanished after a double-dozen paces.
“He appears to have made his way into another space.” Death lowered himself and extended a hand above the final tracks. He moved it in a slow circle. His hand and arm vanished and returned, vanished and returned as he did so. “Continued through many,” he said, “fading, fading. Gone.”
Death rose, glanced upward. Glanced back down.
“What happened to him?” Alioth asked.
“Speculation is fruitless at this point,” he replied.
Death threw back his head and howled. The sky was darkened, and a passing flock of birds fell dead at his feet. The earth began to tremble, from there out through the spaces of Virtu.
Jagged bolts of lightning played about Mount Meru as the wailing continued, and the ground was cracked and fissured at its base. The entire mountain was swayed imperceptibly, and grasses withered and trees fell down. Lakes overflowed their bounds, and rivers ran backwards.
When he had ceased he waited. For a long, long while he waited. But there was no response.
* * *
From his hilltop vantage Donnerjack could view the sea in several directions as well as the work in progress below him. Considerable digging had gone on, he understood, for the better part of the week. The foundation was now in place, and he compared its actuality with the print on the pad screen he held in his hand. He turned to the woman at his side.
“It is what I have asked for, thus far,” he said. “It seems to be moving along right on schedule, too. Any thoughts?”
“I am happy to be here,” she replied. “It is so strange, so different… Yes, it must be good.”
“I was afraid that the isolation—”
“No, that’s good, too,” she said. “I want it. I want a long time of it, after—after that other.”
He nodded.
“We will check back again periodically as it grows into our home. And when we tire of it we
can always walk in your world.”
“Though it is not exactly my world any longer.”
“Both will always be your worlds, Ayra.”
“Yes, and it will be good. There is so much I wish to learn of this place—of both places, really. And I wish to help you with your work. I have a unique perspective.”
“Yes,” he said, taking her small hand in his burly one. “Perhaps you can.”
During the months that followed they visited the isle regularly, watching the black castle in its growth. It seemed impossible to know exactly what it had looked like in an earlier incarnation, so Donnerjack had been free in his designs, incorporating what features he would from existing structures of a similar nature. It grew tall, dark, and more than a little formidable against its bleak backdrop, though it was plumbed and heated to modern rather than medieval standards and contained lines of fiber-optic cable as well as concealed microwave antennas.
And they would walk through it as it grew—he, tapping joints with his stick; she, running her fingertips over surfaces—and they would smile and nod to each other. If it were not raining, they would stand on their hilltop for a time and look down on it. They watched the flyers come and go, bearing materials and labor, and then they would go away themselves to one of their honeymoon apartments in some other country to pass the time.
And when the time was right he worked there himself, building the Great Stage beside his workroom—full-scale, state of the art. And transfer chambers, for full visitation to Virtu. And on his workroom he lavished at least as much attention.
Working late one night after the laborers had departed—for there were some parts of the installation he had intended for no eyes but his own—Donnerjack heard a low moaning sound from somewhere below. He investigated, stick in hand, but discovered nothing untoward. But the winds blew about the incomplete castle, finding entry at every opening. He nodded and went on with his work. The sounds came and went throughout the night.
Over a series of such nights Donnerjack installed everything he would need to conduct his business. Its delicate nature was not the only reason he craved isolation. Ayradyss was. There was no record of her existence in the well-enumerated society of Verite, and the safest way to create her identity, he judged, would be incrementally, over a period of time, a stroke here, a stroke there, a small retroactive datum every now and then. First, of course, his system would have to be in place; it would not be operational until after they had taken up residence.
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