by Diane Duane
It was a roar, and slowly the Mountain began to shake with it, a huge sympathetic tremor, like fear in a heart finally decided.
“I choose!” Ith said. “7 choose for my people! We will walk with the light, in the sun, in the free sun that You cannot control; we will walk with these others who struck us down only when there was need, rather than for pleasure or for power. And if we die of the light, of our own hunger freely found, then that was still worthwhile. For we would have owned ourselves for that little time, and an hour’s freedom in our own bodies, our own lives, under the sun, is worth a thousand years as slaves, even pampered slaves, in the dark under the ground, or killing other beings under strange stars!”
The Old Serpent was hissing softly to Itself now, while still slowly unwrapping Itself from around the Tree. Fool, it said—again that soft voice, the anger never overt—fool of a race of fools: too true it is that you have overstayed your time in this world. You shall not overstay it much longer—
“Too late for that, Old Serpent,” said Rhiow, said Iau. “The Choice is made.”
And already things were shifting. The landscape looked less rocky; the catenary looked less like a restlessly bound energy flow, but more than ever like a river, and one in which fire flowed like water. Rhiow, within Iau, rejoiced at the sight of it, for now she saw that this was where the River of Fire belonged—at the roots of the Tree: at the scene of the battle, where the souls of all felinity would at one time or another pass through the place of Choice, of the Fight, the gaming-ground that was the mother of all bouts of hauissh. All would see it and remember, or be reminded between lives, of the incomplete Choice, of the business still to be attended to, not in the depths of time behind them, but in the depths of time yet to come. Except that time was not as deep as it had been, anymore…
“The Change is upon them now,” said Aaurh, moving slowly forward. “You might destroy this whole race, and still they would find possibilities they would never have known otherwise because of this their Son, their Father, Who Chose them a different path. They will go their own way now.”
They will die! the Old Serpent hissed.
“And whose fault is that? They will pass,” said sa’Rrahh, “but to what, You will not know for aeons yet. And meantime You have a passage of Your own to deal with.”
“Old Serpent,” cried Iau then, “stand You to battle; this is Your last day… until we fight again!”
The Serpent reared away from the Tree, and Rhiow realized belatedly that Its withdrawal had been strategic only. Now It threw Itself at them, Its whole terrible mass coming down at them like a falling tree, lightnings flailing about it—
What started to happen after that, Rhiow had a great deal of trouble grasping. All the Four threw themselves upon the Old Serpent; claws and fangs blazed, and blinding tracks of plasma burned and tore where Urrua’s claws fell; fire spouted and gouted from Aaurh and sa’Rrahh, blasting at the Lone Power. As Haath had, It healed itself. The Four kept attacking, with energies that Rhiow was vaguely certain would have been sufficient to level whole continents, if not to devastate the surfaces of some small planets. Rhiow fought as she might have in her own body, clutching and biting, feeling fangs slash at her and find their mark: But the terrible pains she suffered still had triumph at the bottom of them, like blood welling up in a wound; and the violence she did, and sensed all around her, had a stately quality to it. They had done this many times before, and would do it again—though this time there had been minor changes in the ritual.
But then came one change that was not so minor; it particularly attracted her notice. Suddenly there was a Fifth among them; and sa’Rrahh laughed for joy and plunged anew into the battle beside that Fifth one; and the others cried out in amazement. For it was another Serpent, a bright one, as great as the Old Serpent, and its scales glittering like diamond in the light of their own fires. It thrust its mighty head forward and sank fangs like splinters of star-core into the great barrel of the Old Serpent’s body, just behind the head; and the bright Serpent wrapped its coils around the Old Serpent’s coils, and they began to strive together—
Rhiow suddenly thought of the twined serpents on the staff of the ehhif god above Grand Central. Haw did they know, she thought, how did even the ehhif suspect, and we never—
—and in their battle, the bright Serpent began to get the better of the Old Serpent, and started to crush the life out of It, so that It writhed and thrashed and made the world shake. And the Tree began, ever so slightly, to lean.
“Quick,” cried the bright Serpent, “the wound, it must be healed!”
“Once more the Serpent’s blood must flow,” said Urrua, and Rhiow in Iau looked, and saw him rearing up on his hind legs and holding, in his huge paw, the sword. At least an ehhif a long time ago, seeing it or hearing it described, might have taken it for a sword. It was a hyperstring construct, blindingly bright to look at, but a hundred times narrower than a hair. “Just hold It there, Ith,” he said, “this won’t take long. Yeah, right there—”
The Old Serpent shrieked as Its head was chopped from Its body and rolled down the trunk of the Tree to lie bleeding over the roots. Its blood ran down into the River of Fire, and tinged its flames, as had happened many times before…
…while above, from the thrashing, headless trunk, the blood ran flaming into the wound in the Tree. The whole Tree shuddered and moaned, and heaven and earth together seemed to cry out with it.
Then the moaning stopped. Slowly, as they watched, the wound began to close. As slowly, the body of the Old Serpent began to fade into the darkness, the last of its blood running into the River of Fire. Soon nothing was left but a scatter of glittering scales among the stones; and the Tree stood whole—
Silence fell, and the Five looked around at one another.
“Are we alone again?” Arhu said, looking around him with some bemusement, for his form had not changed back to his normal one, nor had those forms of the rest of the team.
Rhiow listened to the back of her mind and heard only herself… she thought. “After that,” she said, “I’m not sure we can ever, any of us, be sure we’re alone … but it’s quieter than it was.”
Saash smiled. “A lot. Ith, that was a nice job.”
The Bright Serpent blinked. A moment later, he was back in his true form, though there was an odd look to his eyes, a light that seemed not to want to go completely away.
“I’m told,” he said, “that I have passed my Ordeal.” His tail lashed. “I’m also told that it is not unusual to find the details … obscure.”
Rhiow chuckled at that. “What happened to us all,” she said, “had something to do with mine, something I’d been putting off. Obscure? I’ll be working on the details of this one for years. But I think we’ve got our job about done.”
“One thing left,” said Saash. “Let’s get back upstairs—”
Rhiow blinked. They were back upstairs, near the “pool” created by the binding down of the main catenary trunk.
Urruah looked around him with his “good” eye and swore softly. “I told you this place was malleable.”
“I may have done that,” Ith said. “I do not yet understand the nature of space down here. This was where you wanted to be?”
“Just the spot,” Saash said. She paused to look up at the balconies, which were much less crowded than they had been earlier. “I think I can keep this from jumping right out and destroying everything.” She leaned down and got ready to put a paw down into the pool.
“Is that safe??” Arhu said.
She smiled at him. “This time it is. Watch—”
Saash reached down, dabbled in the cold bright flow of light—then stood up, stood back. Slowly the light in the “pool” reared up, bulging like a seedling pushing itself up out of the ground, then, more quickly, began to straighten, pulling branches and sub-branches of light up out of the depths of the stone beneath the bottom of the abyss. Still more quickly it started to reach upward, a tree of fire bran
ching upward and branching again. Then all in one swift movement it straightened itself, shaking slightly as if a wind was in its branches. The separate branchings started to drift into their proper configurations again, the bemused saurians getting hurriedly out of the way of the slowly moving lines of energy as they passed through walls and carvings like so much cheesewire through cheese.
The saurians stared down at them.
“Well,” Arhu said, staring up at the reconstructed catenary tree, “that’s handled. Now what?”
Ith looked up at the balconies, at the many curious faces looking down. The feeling of hostility that had been there before now seemed, for the moment at least, to be gone. He looked over at Arhu then and smiled.
“Now,” he said, “we bring my people home.”
Chapter Fourteen
They started the walk upward through the tunnels and balconies wondering how much explaining they would need to do … and found that little was needed: for every saurian who saw Ith immediately seemed to recognize him and to be willing to listen to him, if not specifically to obey him.
“Well,” Rhiow said, “he’s their father. Why not?”
Arhu, walking close behind Ith, found this funny, and after all the difficulties associated with getting down into the abyss, it amused him even more that the team was regarded with some suspicion, but no overt hostility. As far as the saurians were concerned, if Ith vouched for the felines, that was all right with them: and soon they were near the head of a huge parade of the creatures, all eagerly climbing upward into the heights where none but workers were normally permitted.
“They really will be able to live up there, won’t they?” Arhu said to Rhiow, worried.
“Oh, of course. Much of what you were hearing down there was the Lone One’s lies to them, to keep them enslaved. They’ll spread out over the surface of this world and find plenty, once they’re used to hunting in the open. The other carnivores may be a little annoyed at the competition, but they’ll manage. There’ll be plenty of prey for everybody.”
“And meantime…” Urruah said to Rhiow, from behind. “What about us?”
“What about us?”
“Well, we’ve been dead.”
Rhiow sighed, for that had been on her mind, and it had struck her that this cheerful walk up to the surface was likely to be their last. She looked over at Saash.
She had done this several times and kept having to smile, for now she thought she knew why Saash’s skin had always been giving her trouble. It was not until she saw her friend suddenly manifest after her death as Aaurh the Mighty, the One’s Champion, that Rhiow realized that Saash’s soul, after nine lives, had simply become too big for that body; and that her Tenth Life was not merely a possibility, but a given. It was an added source of amusement that someone who could so perfectly meld into the persona of the irresistible Huntress, the Destroyer-by-Fire, could nonetheless be so hopeless at catching something as simple as mice. But then maybe the body was just resisting the role it knew was coming.
“Not that I’m going to need to catch things to eat for much longer,” Saash said, and sighed.
“That was really it, was it?” Rhiow said sadly.
“That was my ninth death, yes,” Saash said. “And now … well, after I cross through the gate back home, we’ll see what happens.”
“But the rest of us…” Rhiow looked at Urruah, who was chatting with Arhu at the moment. “He was as dead as you were.”
“He may be short a life when we get home. I’m not sure: he’ll have to take it up with the Queen. I mean, Rhi,” Saash said, “we’ve been gods, and some of us rose from the dead while we were gods. And if you’re a god and you rise from the dead, I think you stay risen. For the time being, anyway…”
“But what about you?” Urruah said. “Look at you!”
“Look,” Arhu said, “it’s the upper caverns.” He loped on ahead.
The saurians were hurrying out after him at the first glimpse of some light that was not the cool, restrained light of the catenary tree. Rhiow and Saash and Urruah hurried to keep up with Arhu and Ith, partly to keep from being trampled by the eager crowd behind them. The light ahead, pale though it was, grew: spread—
—and there was the opening. Rhiow, though, wondered what had happened to the downhanging teeth of stone, and found out; many had fallen in the shaking of the Mountain. No surprise, she thought, many things almost fell today.
But not that, she thought, as she came out of the cave, onto the wide ledge looking over the world, and turned.
The weather was cuttingly clear. It was just a little while before dawn; high up the brightest stars were still shining through the last indigo shadows of night, and to the east, the sky was peach-colored, burning more vividly orange every moment. Rhiow looked at the Mountain, which lay still in shadow: but far up, on the highest peak, a spear of light was lifted to the sky, bunding—the topmost branches of the great Tree, catching the light of the Sun before it cleared the horizon for those lower down. The saurians piled out of the cave, as many of them as could, and stared… stared.
Some of them were looking westward and gaped open-mouthed in wonder at the round silver Eye gazing at them from the farthest western horizon: the full Moon setting as the Sun rose. Rhiow watched their wonder, and smiled. “Night with Moon” indeed, she thought: the ehhif Book was better named than maybe even the ehhif wizards knew. How many other hints had been scattered through Earth’s mythologies, hinting at this eventual reconfiguration?
“Is that the Sun?” one of the saurians said.
Rhiow laughed softly and looked eastward again, where the sky was swiftly brightening. “Turn around,” she said, “and just wait…”
They waited. The shifting and rustling of scales died to a profound silence. Only the wind breathed through the nearer trees, rising a little with the oncoming day. Rhiow looked up at the Tree again, wondering: Are there really eyes up there, the eyes of those gone before, who look down and watch what passes in the worlds? I wonder what they make of this, if they are there indeed?
Someday I must sit under those branches, and listen, and find out…
A great breath of sound went up, a hiss, a gasp—and the sunlight broke over the edge of the world and sheened off all the saurians’ hides, and caught in all their eyes. Rhiow had to look away, near-blinded by the brilliance.
She leaned over to Urruah. “Let’s get out of here and leave them their world,” Rhiow said. “They’ve suffered enough for it. Time for the joy…”
* * *
The team made their way over to the gates, which were all in place, warp and weft sheening with power as usual: the reconfiguration below and the release of the catenary tree had completely restored them to their default settings. Through the central gate, Track 30’s platform was now visible: they could see T’hom, looking back at them and seeming extremely relieved. He was sidled, which was just as well, for the place was full of ehhif going about their business, and he was doing the usual shuffle to keep from being knocked off the platform.
Urruah looked at the gate with some concern and turned to Rhiow. “Well?” he said.
She looked at him, shook her head, then rubbed cheeks with him.
“Consort,” he said. “I liked the sound of that.”
“You would,” Rhiow said. “Sex maniac. Go on… and good luck. Get yourself sidled when you go through. But otherwise, if worst comes to worst, look us up again, next life. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Urruah snorted, meaning to sound sardonic, but his eyes said otherwise. He leaped through the gate—
—came down on the other side, a silver tabby, back to normal size, quite alive; Rhiow could see the scars. She put her whiskers forward, well pleased.
Arhu, less worried, came over to the gate next. He looked up at Ith, who walked with him and peered through curiously. “Your world … Is it like this one?”
Arhu cracked up laughing. “Oh, yes, exactly. Not a whisker’s difference
.”
Ith looked at him sidewise.
“Yeah, right. Look, Ith, come on through and have some pastrami,” Arhu said.
Ith bent down toward him, gave him the bird-eyeing-the-worm look, but it was absolutely cordial, the salute of one member of the great Kinship to another …even though there was still a glint of appetite there.
“I believe you would say, ‘You’re on,’ ” Ith said. “I will come shortly. Meanwhile, my brother, my father … go well.”
Arhu slipped through … and was small and black and white again.
Rhiow and Saash looked at each other. Then Rhiow slowly leaned forward and rubbed cheeks with her friend: first one side, then the other.
“Stay in touch,” she said, “if you can.”
“Hey,” Saash said softly, “it’s not like I’m going to be dead or anything. Just busy…”
Rhiow took a long breath, gazed around her, then stepped through onto the platform on Track 30—
—and came down light on her paws. She lifted one to look at it. Small again: the central pad unusually large: normal for this world…
Rhiow turned and looked through the gate. Saash was standing there in her Old Downside guise, a tortoiseshell tigress momentarily glancing over her shoulder at the ancient world, the dawn coming up, its glitter and sheen on the hides of the saurians watching it for the first time. Then she turned, locked eyes with Rhiow, leapt through the gate—
The Downside body stripped away as she came, and Saash was surrounded and hidden in a swirl of—not light as such, but reconfiguration, self and soul shifting into some new shape. Not vanishing, please, Iau—
That swirling, shifting, faded. Saash stood there … but not in her old body, which seemed to have declined to continue any further. This new shape was one that no nonwizardly ehhif could have seen, and even an ehhif wizard might have had to work at it if the body’s owner didn’t wish to be seen. To Rhiow’s eyes, she was still looking at Saash .,. but something subtle had happened to her; her physicality seemed to have been refined away, leaving her standing in the familiar delicate form, but now filled with forces that made Rhiow blink to look at them steadily. They were the forces with which Saash had always worked so well… and it was now obvious why, for they filled her the way light fills a window.