Incarnations of Immortality

by Anthony, Piers

  He read them, though he was illiterate, and they burned their impressions on the inner surface of his skull, never to be forgotten. He retreated and in a moment he was back in his own room. The dream faded out, and his hand was whole again, but the seared image in his skull remained.

  Mym pondered, slightly shaken by the intensity of this borrowed experience. He was not illiterate; that was the farmer. But what was the true source of the information? The farmer could not have developed it from his own subconscious; the technical information was far too sophisticated.

  But the formula for the time bomb was only part of it. What of the spot nullifier?

  Mym nudged the sleeper toward that, and the remembered dream returned. It was similar to the first. The call came in the dream within a dream, and the door in the wall appeared. He entered and walked down the sinister passage-and his right hand became a charred mass, its malady restored. He came to the dread book. Success, the alien word intelligible even to the illiterate, fire reaching up from it. The right hand was useless; he had to use the left to lift the cover, and when he did that, the flame scorched it into charcoal. But the words were there, different words, and the fire of their formulation reached in through his eyeballs and singed their imprints on the interior of his skull. Now he possessed the nullifier, and the magic was complete.

  He backed away and emerged again, and once more his hands were restored, and he was awake, with the letters of fire against his pulsing brain. All he had to do was repeat those twin formulas to those who could interpret and apply them, and success was his.

  Mym knew that the man had done so. He now had the excellent life he had desired. Yet now that he had it, it seemed somehow inadequate. He could not tell anyone beyond the secret project of his significance, because that would make him a target for enemy agents, so he had to pretend to be no more than a simple farmer who had come into wealth. That was unsatisfying. He desired acclaim. He wanted beautiful women to seek him for his personal attributes and charm. He wanted the heads of state to consult him, to take him seriously, and to compliment him on his knowledge.

  Mym recognized the problem. The farmer had been bitten by the worm of desire for fame and could not be satisfied with only part of it. He was driven to seek more than he had, more than success.

  Perhaps stirred by Mym's realization, the dreamer entered a new phase. The dream within a dream formed.

  "I wouldn't do that," Mym said in the dream. But the dreamer shrugged him off. The worm of ambition was too strong; its poison had spread too far. It could not be denied.

  Mym withdrew himself from the dreamer. He watched as the man made walking motions with his legs, and door opening motions with his hands. Then more walking and the two hands curled up as if de-nerved, becoming useless claws.

  There was a pause, and Mym realized why; the man was trying to figure out how to open the magic volume of Success when both his hands were useless husks. After a moment, one leg stirred; he was lifting the cover with a toe.

  Mym did not stay. He could see the progression: each additional piece of information would cost a part of the body. After both feet were gone, the man would have to open the book with his teeth, and his head would be incinerated. That would be the end of him; his mundane body might seem unchanged, but his mind would be dead.

  Mym summoned Werre, mounted, and returned to the site of the battle. Chronos was there, waiting for him.

  "I thought you were going to go facilitate a shipment of grain!" Mym sang, half-challengingly.

  "I did-last week," Chronos replied.

  "But it has only been a few hours!"

  "You forget my nature."

  Now Mym remembered Chronos was the Incarnation of Time. Chronos could step into last week and return to the present. "Where is the shipment, then?"

  Chronos sighed. "I did what I could do, but found myself balked by a greater power."

  "What power is that?" Mym asked, alarmed.

  "Human corruption." And Chronos explained. He had found the bottleneck, manifested, and by dint of some fast talking gotten the train moving toward its destination only to have it held up at the next station by officials who were determined to collect a decimating tax on its wares. This was a relief train, not taxable, but they affected not to understand that, and unloaded a segment of its cargo. The same thing happened further down the line. At every stop, more was taken, until the train was empty-before reaching its destination. Corrupt officials had stolen the entire cargo. Against this, Chronos was powerless; he could manipulate time, but time was not the problem here. Human greed was. Greed had defeated Time. The grain was now being sold on the black market; none of it would reach the starving folk for whom it had been intended.

  "But the government!" Mym protested. "It should be protecting the train, not robbing it!"

  "When the train is destined for a segment of the country that is in rebellion against that government?" Chronos asked.

  There, of course, was the underlying reason. The government would not permit a rebellious province to be fed, for that could strengthen the rebellion. So it permitted the graft while protesting innocence.

  Mym clenched his fist. "There is justification in war!" he sang. "To abolish governments like that!"

  "Perhaps so," Chronos agreed. "It is a thesis you have made to me before."

  "I have?" Mym asked, startled.

  Chronos smiled. "In future years, your framework." Then he frowned. "I regret I have not fulfilled my part of the bargain. Therefore if you-"

  "No, you made an honest effort," Mym sang. He was learning more about the limitations of the Incarnations when meddling in human affairs. Mortals could be so determinedly short-sighted and wrong-headed! Were they really worth helping? "I have discovered the source of the technological breakthroughs on the manipulation of time-or part of it. A man had a series of visions or dreams that revealed the key formulas to him. Eliminate that man slightly before he eliminates himself, and there will be no breakthroughs."

  "Not a scientist?" Chronos asked, surprised.

  "Not a scientist. He dreams of a special chamber in which is a fiery book labeled Success, and it bums him when he takes the information."

  Chronos frowned. "All in a vision? That seems familiar."

  "Oh? How?"

  Chronos shook his head. "I-suspect I should not burden you with my conjecture, as I am drawing on memories in your future. Let me just say that I am not sanguine about this."

  Mym sagged. Chronos' incidental revelations about the future had confused him before; probably it was indeed best to let this matter drop.

  But what was he to do about the battle that remained frozen? He chewed on his lip as he looked out over it.

  "Do not be concerned," Chronos said. "When I eliminate the breakthrough, none of this will have happened. You may supervise the battle as you choose."

  Mym wasn't sure quite how that would work, but was willing to find out. "Very well." He described the location of the key man.

  Abruptly the battle resumed-but not as it had been. This time the defending farmers were getting the best of it, and no time bomb dropped.

  "You prefer this?" Chronos inquired.

  Obviously the man had been at work, traveling back and forth in time. Now reality had changed, at least for this region. The breakthrough had never happened.

  Mym shook his head. "I think I have had enough of battle for today-even if none of it happened. I'm going home."

  "This is the way it often is in my domain," Chronos said.

  Mym wondered how the man maintained his sanity. Who could guess what convolutions Chronos had endured-that never happened? He made a gesture of camaraderie and mounted Werre.

  12 - GAEA

  Rapture was away increasingly as time passed. She was very positive about her mortal job and seemed to be doing well, but it apparently made considerable demands on her. Mym was glad that she had adjusted so well, but the frequent nights alone bothered him.

  Naturally Lila was ava
ilable. When he couldn't sleep, he took walks in the garden, and she was always there. Of course she was ready, willing, and able to serve as his concubine, but a complex of considerations prevented him from exercising this option. For one thing, she was from Hell, and he still distrusted the creatures of Satan on general principle. For another, he was becoming uncertain of Rapture, and that made him less rather than more inclined to use another woman. Had Rapture been solidly established and pregnant, it would have been virtually his duty to use a concubine, so as not to place demands on the bearer of his Heir; as it was, a concubine was premature. His seed needed to be saved for the Heir, rather than expended frivolously. So to use a concubine at this stage might be to suggest that he did not desire Rapture or seek an Heir, and that was not the case. Also, and this was an insidious consideration, he was not certain that Lila was a virgin. It was, of course, necessary for a man to know a number of women, as no single woman could provide essential variety, but it was important that a woman know only one man. It would demean his princely heritage if he were to consort with an unchaste woman. The creatures of Satan, by all accounts, were of questionable pedigree, and their forms here in the spirit realm were malleable, so Lila well might be a pseudovirgin

  His pride kept him from making application to the Purgatory front office for a legitimate concubine, because of the problem with Rapture. Thus he was caught without adequate service in this respect. That was what made Lila so infernally tempting, as well she knew.

  "Alone yet again tonight?" she inquired dulcetly, appearing ahead of him as he passed the copulating statue. "Maybe you should bring your fiancée back here."

  "Where she can be corrupted by your occidental notions of female suffrage!" Mym snapped. As always, he found pleasure in the ability to speak without stuttering, here.

  "But Mym, she's a mortal," Lila said. "You brought her out of her oriental situation and planted her in the West. Things are different here. Women are supposed to have minds of their own."

  "For what?" he demanded. "Rapture was already well versed in what she needed to know."

  "For pleasing a man and bearing a son," she agreed.

  "But what about her own fulfillment?" She stretched her arms out and up, so that her gown opened in front to reveal the perfect globes of her breasts, lifting with her motion. She was very like a statue in contour.

  "That is her own fulfillment!" he retorted.

  "Not in this hemisphere," she said, coincidentally touching one of her own. "It would be grand for a creature like me, but not for a mortal like her. She needs to assert herself, to branch out, to explore her larger potential."

  "So speaks a creature of Hell."

  "I may be damned, Mym, but I'm not ignorant. I have learned common sense the hard way." She bent to adjust her fastenings, in the process exposing one leg up through the plush buttock.

  "Not as I see it!" he said, and strode out of the garden. But alone in bed, he did curse himself for foolishness. Why should he allow the words of a Hell-slut to bother him? The opinions of women mattered little, and those of a pseudo-woman even less. Why hadn't he simply used her for her explicit purpose and not listened to her at all? Discussion, after all, was no necessary part of sexual fulfillment.

  Of course he could return to the garden and do that now or simply summon Lila here to the castle. He could do anything he wanted with her and banish her without notice. That was the obvious and sensible course. That flesh she had arranged to show him-he knew that though she was of the spirit world, that body would feel completely solid and alive. She was, indeed, designed to satisfy the lust of a man.

  But that would mean a kind of capitulation, and that he could not abide. So he suffered alone. He was Mars, an Incarnation, dedicated to settling the quarrels of mortals efficiently, yet he could not settle his own.

  When Rapture showed up again, the change was more apparent. She was not satisfied to remain placidly in bed;

  she wanted to converse about unrelated things. She was full of detail about the students she was helping to educate and their interest in the quaint customs of the Orient, where science was little practiced. She now had classes at all levels, ranging from adult to juvenile. She loved the experience of independence, of being able to make decisions based purely on her own preferences. She was developing a confidence in herself and her individual worth she had never before experienced. She was acquiring an occidental wardrobe, so that she could avoid being taken for an Indian at times when she preferred to be herself. She even wore jeans in public.

  "What?" Mym demanded.

  "Trousers fashioned of denim material, blue in hue," she explained. "Very convenient and comfortable for-"

  "For laborers!" he exclaimed in singsong. "Not for princesses!"

  "I am no longer a princess," she reminded him, quite undisturbed by the demotion.

  "I have seen the occidental women in those abominations!" he sang. "Their posteriors practically rip open the fabric!"

  "Yes, that is one of the appealing aspects," she agreed.

  "For every passing male to see!" he concluded indignantly.

  "They don't object," she pointed out. "In fact, I have received some compliments."

  "You are my woman!" he raged. "Only I should see such detail in you!"

  She laughed. "Where do you think you we, Mym? In archaic India? In the western world, the wealth is shared."

  "Are you sure you haven't been talking with the demoness?"

  "Lila? No, I haven't seen her since I moved to the mortal realm. But I have been learning about the real world, Mym."

  "I think you had better resign that job and return here."

  "I will do no such thing!" she exclaimed. "I am supremely happy with my new life. For the first time, I feel genuinely independent and useful, and I know they need me at the museum."

  "I need you here!

  "Oh, pooh! You have everything you need without me."

  "I do not! I spend too many nights alone."

  "Alone? What happened to Lila?"

  "I haven't touched her."

  "Why ever not, Mym? She's your concubine."

  "I don't want a concubine, I want you!"

  She smiled. "That's sweet. But no need to go to extremes. When I'm not here, use the damned concubine."

  Mym was shocked, at her language as much as her sentiment. He wasn't certain whether she was swearing in the occidental fashion, or referring to the status of a creature of Hell, or both.

  "Well, let's get this over with," Rapture said, and moved her beautiful body against him.

  Get this over with? What did that imply? But he realized that further dialogue might only result in his having to spend another night alone, so he let it pass.

  The business of Mars became routine. Mym remained somewhat dissatisfied with the details of it and with the passions of the lesser Incarnations he had to associate with, but he was satisfied that, to an increasing extent, he was bringing war under control and permitting it to wreak less havoc among the mortals than would have been the case without his supervision. There were indeed causes that deserved promotion and that could achieve it only by violence. War, properly managed, was certainly better than the alternatives of oppression or dispossession. But how much better it would be if the causes of war did not exist! If mortal man could simply exist in peace and harmony and plenty, requiring no Incarnation to supervise his violence.

  But the mortal realm was as it was, and human nature was intractable. Therefore the various Incarnations were required, and Mym was satisfied to perform this necessary office. It was not his job that bothered him, but his home life.

  That proceeded from unsatisfying to disastrous, in a single step.

  Rapture appeared and dropped it on him. "Mym, I'm leaving you," she said abruptly.

  "W-w-w-what?"

  "I have found a nice mortal man, and I'm going to move in with him."

  "Y-y-y-" Mym remembered his singsong and invoked it. "You're marrying a mortal?"

  "N
o. I am moving in with him. If it works out, then maybe I'll marry him, but there are no commitments yet."

  "But you are my woman!" Mym protested.

  "Not any more, Mym," she said. "We have grown apart, since you became Mars; you have your life, and I have found mine. It is best that we recognize this and take proper action now."

  "I won't let you go!" he protested. "I love you!"

  "What will you do-make war on me?" She smiled compassionately. "Mym, you never loved me; you loved my body and my complete dependence on you. I loved your appreciation of me. But I don't love your present position, and if I am to be a sex object, I prefer to be it as an independent agent. So it is better with John than it is with you, and I am simply recognizing that fact. I hope this parting of our ways can be amicable, but amicable or not, it is occurring."

  If Rapture had been dependent, she was so no more! Mym was so angry at this betrayal that he could not even speak in singsong.

  "Well, farewell," she said, and turned and walked away. Now Mym saw Thanatos in the adjacent chamber, ready to convey Rapture back to the realm of the mortals. She had come only to inform Mym of her decision.

  Mym tasted blood in his mouth. In his rage he had bitten his tongue. Now that blood was triggering a rage of a different nature. He would deal with this "John" others!

  He grasped the Red Sword and willed himself to the mortal realm. He knew where Rapture worked and where she lived; from there he should be able to trace this mortal man John.

  But then he paused. Was he, the Incarnation of War, to exert his power in a purely selfish, negative way? To hurt the one he loved, or had loved, or thought he had loved? How much of his ideal of peace would he be spreading that way? And this John-surely an innocent young man, for Rapture would not have told a mortal about her relation to an immortal. A man who liked Rapture very well, who probably needed her more than she needed him, and wanted to get to know her as well as he could.