We ghosted closer. Two men were were visible by the kiln, intent upon what they were doing. I didn’t need Lan’s hand tightening around my forearm to let me know that the armored man with the bristling beard was the same who had cut off Lan’s head. The second man was completely hairless, of middle years, possessed of powerful shoulders and arms, although otherwise hardly a prime physical specimen. His expression was sour and unpleasant.
Lan gasped when he saw what held the two men’s attention. On the table lay a girl child of about eight. She was very beautiful, with dark, silky hair swept into loops over her ears, and expensive silk clothing embroidered with butterflies and peonies covering her innocent form. Her slippered feet faced the closed door of the kiln, which was as large as the door of a house. It was impossible to escape the impression that the two men intended to shove her inside.
Seeking to read her chi, to learn whether she slept or woke, I realized that the girl was no girl at all, but rather a statue made from the purest white clay, her features cunningly painted on, her hair some clever artifice.
As Lan and I closed to just outside the circle of light cast by the kiln, we heard the bandit say in a rough, guttural voice. “ Hsin, when will the fire be ready?”
The bald man bent to study the color of the light. “Patience, Wang. What you desire demands a hot fire.”
“Will the head be enough? Won’t feeding it in cool the fire?”
“I have taken the head into my calculations. You came to me for my expertise. Now you second-guess me?”
Bandit Wang’s shoulders slumped and, momentarily, he looked pitiful. “No, but enough has gone wrong. I don’t want to take any chances.” He glowered at the potter. “Nothing had better go wrong, understand?”
Hsin’s expression was bitter. “I understand. I warned you, you’re asking for miracles.”
“You’d better give me one,” Wang growled, “else. . .” He made a slashing gesture that managed to convey that the potter wasn’t the only one at risk.
Potter Hsin’s gaze flickered over the empty buildings of his compound, then rested upon the bandit with something like hatred. I understood but, before I could consult Lan, he strode into the light.
“I know the story,” Lan said without pause, “of how the gods challenged Pu to make pottery with all the characteristics of living flesh, and how Pu realized that only a fire fed by his own life would work the charm. What nonsense is this?”
Doubtless, being addressed by a torso with a gourd for a head stopped the bandit’s ready blade. Not trusting him to remain astonished for long, I slid forth and pinned his arms, then removed his sword and threw it to clatter across the courtyard.
“Nonsense?” Bandit Wang growled. “I’d heard Hsin here boast that he was the equal to Pu, his very son. I’m only demanding he make good on his boast.” Then his voice broke. “My little Mei died of a fever three days ago. When I prayed for her life to be given back, I received a vision of this place and so came to enlist Hsin’s help.”
Potter Hsin sour features twisted with indignation. “Enlist? Is that what you call kidnapping my household and promising to kill each and every person if I don’t bring your daughter back to life? Tell them the rest of your vision, madman!”
Wang hung his head. “I was told a willing sacrifice was needed. I thought to offer myself, but my dreams made clear I was unworthy. I must find one possessed of great virtue.”
He looked at Lan. “I’d crossed your path more than a few times. I had seen your generosity of spirit, how although in rags you gave away most of your coin, how although without power, you did not hesitate to challenge ministers and kings. I thought that if I showed you Mei’s body, explained. . . I thought. . . But it all went wrong.”
Lan stared at him in wonder. “Why didn’t you ask me to accompany you? Why the sword, the sack?”
“I was afraid you would refuse.” Wang shook, though whether from sorrow or in an attempt to break my hold, I couldn’t tell. “I only understand force. I knew your sacrifice must be willing. I thought that if I showed you how many lives rested on your choice. . . I thought. . .”
“Thought!” snorted Hsin.
“If I help you,” Lan asked, “will you free the potter’s household?”
Nod.
“And give Hsin treasure to compensate for his anguish?”
“I planned to in any case,” came the muttered response. “I didn’t want to say so because he’d think me soft. I’d give all my gold to have Mei, my greatest treasure, laughing and alive again.”
“Give me my head,” Lan said. “I will gladly go into the fire.”
“Lan! You can’t mean this,” I cried, appalled.
Lan shrugged. “One life for many and a daughter back into her father’s arms? How could I not? My only regret is that Wang did not think to ask.”
I was shocked to the core. Demons are capable of self-sacrifice, but for strangers? This was purest insanity. Moreover, Lan had no assurance his death would restore this child’s life. Gods are tricky sorts.
“This is all wrong!” I protested. “There must be another way.” Remembering Pu’s legend, I thought I saw a way. “Master Potter, as I recall, the gods where shocked when they realized the sacrifice Pu had made to fill their request.”
“Yes,” Hsin replied. “The gods had only wished to learn if Pu’s power was from heaven or hell. When they learned what he had done, as an apology, they made him the patron god of potters.”
“Very well,” I said, “let us assume the gods do not wish Lan to die so that another will live. That would be an unprofitable exchange. One for one. Lan has made the offer. I am in his employ. I insist on taking his place.”
Lan shook his gourd so wildly that I thought it would fly off. “Kai Wren, no!”
I smiled and dropped Wang to the ground, certain he was no longer a threat. “I offered to aid you to find your head. I’m not going to let you burn it to ash as soon as we do. You know something of me. Let me undergo this trial in your place.”
Lan frowned, but perhaps he remembered what manner of creature I was. Reluctantly, he nodded. I grinned ferociously and lifted a box that rested near the forge. “Reclaim your head, that my first duty will be completed.”
Before the astonished gazes of Hsin and the Wang, I removed the gourd from Lan’s shoulders and set his head in its place. Retrieving Wang’s sword from where I had thrown it, I tapped the severed edges of Lan’s neck.
“As this made you two, let it make you one again,” and, as simply as that, Lan’s head rejoined his neck. I doubted that either Hsin or Wang could see that the tremendous surge of chi that sealed the gap came, not from me, but from Lan himself. Wang had been correct—Lan was a creature of great virtue, one of those rare humans who become Immortals, although I do not think even Lan himself suspected this.
“Now, Master Hsin. Is the fire ready?”
The potter checked the color of his flames, added a bit more fuel, and, after pursed lip inspection, nodded.
“I will bear Mei into the fire,” I continued. “When I have done so, close the door after me. Keep the fire fed. When the sky shows true dawn, check to see whether you are indeed a true son of Pu.”
I gave none time to protest, but gathered the form on the table into my arms. It was heavier than I had expected. I realized that Hsin had shaped his clay over the girl’s dead body.
“Open the door,” I commanded. When Hsin did so, the heat billowed forth like something solid. However, I had bound dragons and knew something of fire. With a nod, I strode over coals into the flames: one step, two. . . At the third, I heard the door of the kiln close behind me.
I had no illusions that I could raise the dead. Mei’s living or dying would be up to her father’s gods. My task was to supply what chi was needed and, incidentally, to keep both her and myself from burning to ash.
I knew something of fire, but that did not mean I was immune to heat or to pain. As I stood in the heart of the kiln, I felt both with
an intensity beyond anything I had anticipated. I was tempted to flee—I could do so without even opening the door of the kiln. Wang and Hsin would believe I had burned to death and Mei with me. Lan would make sure that Wang spared Hsin’s household. Why then should I suffer for the return of a human’s short life? It was laughable.
But more than I craved relief from this suffering, I craved to rise to be among the great. When this tale reached the demons—as it would, whether by Lan’s agency or another’s—I would have taken a step up in the estimation of my kind, for this was great magic. So I stood in the fire, letting agony burn away my illusion of humanity, centering my concentration on not so much resisting the fire as letting it become part of me. Breathing deeply and evenly, I channeled power into the still form in my arms and waited for the door to open. Then, only then, would I know if I burned alive for naught.
How long passed before that door opened? Objectively, only a handful of hours. Subjectively, I lived more years than had already been mine and—although I was young by the standards of my kind—I was still over a thousand years old. I lived through waves of pain, doubt, fear, regret. . . Time and again, I contemplated retreat. Time and again, held only by pride, I kept my place.
At last the heat of the fire began to ebb. I heard the ping as the porcelain in my arms cooled and settled. Hsin was indeed a master of his craft. Even with this unconventional firing, with the temper of a human corpse at its center, the figure he had formed remained intact, the glazes and paints he had laid upon it fresh and bright as life.
But did I hold a child or only a doll?
When the door opened, I was stiff with stillness of centuries in my bones. I stalked forth, unable to find the chi for even a simple illusion disguise. Lan must have told Wang and Hsin something of my nature for, although their eyes widened, they showed no surprise.
Carefully, oh, so carefully, I set the thing I carried upon the table. As we fixed our gaze on this figure shaped like Mei, we knew we looked upon a miracle of the potter’s craft. Did we also look upon a miracle of divine mercy?
Stillness. Silence. Sorrow. Then dark lashes fluttered, the child stirred, breathed. Her father rushed to hold her, his tears falling upon flesh that did not hiss as cooling pottery would have done.
“Baba,” came a voice as sweet as the music of Lan’s flute. “Baba, I dreamed such strange dreams.”
Mei’s gaze rested upon me without the least trace of fear. I felt glad. It would not do to help bring a child to life to then kill her with fear. I looked over at Lan.
His eyes twinkled. “I believe your promise to aid me is discharged, Kai Wren.”
“Thank you.” I turned to Potter Hsin. “Truly, Hsin you have proven your boast to be a son of Pu. I would learn your craft from you. Would you take me as a student?”
“Gladly.” His face lit in the first smile I had seen, transforming him as fire transforms clay. “I won’t even insist upon a fee.”
Creatures of Foam and Mist
by Gio Clairval
Set in the universe of Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness:
On an unnamed planet, the sea stretches above and beneath the atmosphere. Here, the Prince Who Was a Thousand keeps his wife Nephytha, who was disembodied and cannot survive on a normal planet. Here also, a large reptile frolics in the mist.
Pharaoh, the King of Ter, dreams, and in his dream a waterfall of beer fills the largest fountain in his garden. The frothy liquid overflows the stone rim, splashing on his sandaled feet as he bends to replenish his jug.
The court gathers around the suzerain, he who rules over the oldest of the six human races scattered across the universe. His servants chant: “Blessed be the divine beverage!”
“Praise Nephytha,” the Great Priest intones, “goddess of Death, darkness shining in the night.”
“Praise!”
The King drains his jug and replenishes it.
“Glory to Nephytha,” says the Great Priest, “who presents us with the ever-flowing liquid gold of the divine Pharaoh.”
“Glory!”
In his dream, the King’s throat and tongue grow tense, and he makes a sound as if he were choking.
He awakes in a fit of coughing, on sheets flecked with blood, and he knows he is going to die.
*
Nephytha hovers in mid air, unsubstantial, a breath under the moving sea that is the ceiling of her world, her playground and her prison. Above, glowing fish swim at the bottom of the sea, like stars spinning across the sky. And below, the land sparkles with the reflection of the light on scaly, wiggling bodies. If only she could transport herself away, as her husband does. Nephytha used to be one of the four great gods of the lands north and south of the Mother River, but she renounced her wings when she married the divine Thoth, three times great, wielder of the arts, Thoth the Wise, Thoth the Teacher, self-begotten and self-produced. He who resurrected the dismembered Horus, but could not restore his wife after the Thing That Cries In The Night destroyed her material body.
The birds she created to keep her company sing for her. She must find a way out.
*
The King’s servants, seeing their master on the brink of death, call the Superintendent of the Royal Bedroom, who in turn summons the healers. Pharaoh recounts his dream, and the healers pronounce as one that Nephytha should be placated by copious offerings of beer.
A procession forms from the royal apartments to the temple of Nephytha, but, despite the jarfuls of ale sluiced onto the sacrificial altar, the King still chokes, face blue, eyes rolling up into their sockets.
Pharaoh’s youngest page, who’s been known to discern otherworldly shapes in the clouds, raises his voice to cover the brouhaha of the terrified court. “I saw the goddess Nephytha in a dream.”
The healers and the Great Priest snicker, but the lesser priests, upon hearing the holy name, belt out: “Glory!”
“She spoke to me. Let us go down to the Lord of the Fish itself, the Mother River, and pour all of the King’s liquid gold we can find into its sacred waters—until the Goddess (Glory!) relents.”
Pharaoh nods between two fits of coughing.
While the Nihil River waxes golden with beer, and papyrus boats hurry toward the shores, fowlers refrain from throwing nets, and maybe a smattering of water gods ceases gossiping, the young boy raises his arms and sings:
O luminous Nephytha, darkest angel,
Consciousness glowing in the dead of night,
Flowers of white shall fall in utter darkness,
As the souls—who are cold—disperse in water.
O Goddess bright, mélange of blackened buds.
The King’s cough subsides, and he of the holy flail rises from the bloodied sheets to his feet, smiling, for he is healed.
(Glory!)
*
The Prince Who Was a Thousand walks along the beach.
Within the waters hanging above him, there appears the outline of a woman. He takes a step forward then, arms stretched upward as to retain her, but the woman’s shape resolves into a school of shiny fish, and his name, which is “Thoth,” vibrates in his ears like wind in a shell.
His throat aches as he calls out her name, but no sounds, not the tiniest echo, respond.
Alone, he stands beside the sea and also beneath the sea. He tosses a stone into the waves but, when he opens his hand, expecting the stone to return, nothing comes back. His shoulders droop.
The backwash fills his footprints after he is gone.
*
Nephytha turns to a mastodon-sized saurian she made out of green mist.
“Fancy some ale?”
The reptile stares with shining eyes and bows its head.
“Drink the sea, then,” she says, “and the beer will come.”
Now the saurian arches its long neck to drain the sea that is above and below, and water rushes into its body in never-ending flows—not slimy any more, not any more. The abyss inside the beast has no bottom and a ferocious blizzar
d roars within.
When the sea has disappeared into the reptile’s infinite stomach, the churning beer from the Lord of Fish, the Mother River, gushes into the unnamed world that is the goddess’ home, her garden and oubliette. Ale whirls down the saurian’s mouth, and neck, and the caverns within. The fishes with translucent bellies are gone; myriad golden bubbles dance on the ceiling of the world; a refreshing surf bathes the shore.
Nephytha plunges into the frothing crests and swims between rushing whirlpools as her soul dissolves into foam. She is free.
*
Sam the barkeep wipes the stainless steel sink. The mirror above the splash-back reflects an old traveler’s tired face, obscured by black hand-painted letters spelling the bar’s name, “House of Life.”
“So you lost her,” Sam says with professional intensity.
The traveler stares at the bottom of the mug. “I wasn’t able to save her.”
He raises his empty glass. Sam takes a clean mug and drafts a thick creamy stout, but the old man wags his finger. “Not that one. I’ve been drinking ale.”
Sam taps a finger on his lips. “Right. Dunno what I was thinking. Sorry ‘bout that.”
“You haven’t heard a word I said.” The traveler holds up a hand to halt the flow of apologies. Something in the old man’s movement—a fluidity that belies those round shoulders—catches Sam’s attention, makes him perk up.
“I’ve heard everything,” he lies. His hand clamps around the pump.
“I can’t see her in dark beer.”
“What is it that you see already?” Sam glances at the tag: this patron is at his twentieth pint. Time to shut the tap. But the expression on that lined face is so wistful Sam decides to let the man have one last pint.
Shadows & Reflections: A Roger Zelazny Tribute Anthology Page 10