Natil set Tagin on his feet, took his hand, and walked away, Rintar following. Mirak watched them go until he saw them as he had first seen them, a patch of bulky shadow against the grayness of the road. Then he soared up, flashed over them, and was lost to sight.
Though he stayed close to the road, he glimpsed no other travelers. Soon the Gate stair was before him, a spiral of paleness interspersed with darkness that seemed to hold the mountain tightly in upon itself. He was about to twist himself vertically in order to skim the side of the mountain when again something caught his eye, and he dropped gently back onto the road and stood peering ahead to where the first step beckoned. There was a feeling of dank unapproachability between himself and the rock, an invisible stream of something that he could not interpret. A whiff of some distasteful odor came with it. He strained to see, but the mountain’s star-shadow was deep, and for all his keen sight he could make out nothing. Summoning up his courage, he went closer. The smell intensified, and the feeling was like a barrier against him. If it had not been for Ghakazian’s order to investigate the road, he would have taken wing, for a fear flowed into him also, but he squared his shoulders and stepped across the almost touchable line of shadow. His foot met resistance, something heavy and soft, but cold. He bent.
It took a long time for the reality of what he was seeing to gather into one perception, but as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he knew. Tagar was a lonely thing, the first fruit of a new and ugly seed. He said it would not be pleasant, Mirak thought incoherently, frozen with horror. I must accept this, I must not be less than he is. But the accepting was still buried under his new visions of pomp and power, and he could not see the bloating form of Tagar as a consequence.
He rose slowly, hardly daring to breathe, and backed carefully into starlight. He could no longer see it, but that did not matter; he knew it was huddled there. Softly, afraid to make the slightest sound, he took to the air, hovering for a moment to brush the soles of his feet where they had pressed Tagar’s leg, and then with a shudder he careened upward, away, to where the air was fresh and clean.
He spent longer with his kin than he had intended, standing uneasily against the Gate cave wall and listening while they laughed and chattered, answering briefly when they spoke to him but otherwise gazing out through the Gate to the forbidding reaches of space. He was afraid to leave them and venture out into the night, where that thing crouched, but he felt almost as exposed and vulnerable where he was. There are shadows all over Ghaka, he thought, appalled, and when the sun-lord takes the essences, those shadows will become as full of terror as the foot of this mountain. He edged closer to the Gate, but no comfort was to be had out where the stars burned away. He will take my essence also, Mirak thought. I can only go with him to Shol if I agree to become like … Tagar. Agree? Do I have any choice? He cried out with pain as all at once, for the first time, the full import of what it would all mean came clear in his head. His companions had stopped talking and were looking at him, and like a drunken man he pushed himself away from the wall. “I must return to Ghakazian,” he said thickly. “I am expected.” He did not want to walk back into those shadows, but to reach free air he had to. Without another word he ran down the tunnel, to where the cave mouth glimmered faintly, a window on escape. Where is the essence of Tagar? his mind whispered to him. It lurks somewhere, watching you, Mirak, watching all of you. He imagined that he felt lips brush his ear, a hand impress itself against his back. With a scream he flung himself out of the mountain. Sweating, pouring fear, he spun, his wings stiff and heavy, then regained control and strained for more height. He would fly upward forever, he would arrow to the sun and burn rather than touch Ghaka again. Before he overcame his blind panic, the Gate mountain had half-sunk below the dark horizon, and he had returned to the sun-lord’s funnel. “He will let me read the Book again,” Mirak gasped out loud as he felt rock graze his stomach, and he put his arms around the crag and closed his eyes. “I will read how it will be, and then I will be comforted.” He launched himself down, falling into faint sunlight and the rustle of Ghakazian as he hovered above his ledge.
The sun-lord seemed to have overcome his uncertain temper. As Mirak stumbled clumsily to find his footing on the ledge he came and stood beside him, smiling. “Well, Mirak?” he enquired, but before he could go on, Mirak clutched at him, his breath still ragged, sweat still glistening on his face.
“Oh, Ghakazian!” he blurted. “I found Tagar! You told me how it would be, but I did not realize, I did not understand! Tagar, he … he stinks.”
Ghakazian coolly shook himself free of Mirak’s trembling fingers. “What do you mean, you found Tagar? I left him lying on the road. I presumed that you had seen him many times as you passed back and forth.”
“No, no! He has been moved. Someone has … put him by the Gate stair.”
Ghakazian rounded on him. “The Gate stair! Who? How long?” A thought smote him, and he whirled to grip Mirak violently by the wrists. Muddy orange light suddenly flared from him, and he shook Mirak. “What did the guards say?” he roared. “Has anyone been to the Gate?”
Mirak turned his head away, straining against the heat and turbulence that rippled under the skin of the golden body.
“A Trader went through,” he managed.
“When?”
“At twilight, I think. Please, lord, I cannot bear this!”
But Ghakazian did not release him. Shafts of red light ran giddily around the rock walls, and under Ghakazian’s fingers Mirak felt his flesh cringe and cry out against the fire.
“Did the guards see Tagar on their way to the Gate?”
“I do not know. I do not think so. They said nothing of it. Lord!” The plea echoed and at last came to Ghakazian’s ears. He let go, and Mirak slumped against the wall.
“Did the Trader see Tagar, then?” Ghakazian murmured to himself. “If he did …”
“Tagar was horrible,” Mirak said brokenly. “Will I be like Tagar, sun-lord? Is that how it will be?”
“It does not matter, Mirak, can’t you see?” Ghakazian retorted. “Your essence will not care how your body rots away!”
“Rots away?” The words were hardly more than a movement of Mirak’s lips.
Ghakazian considered him briefly, then dimmed his fire and spoke kindly. “Come, Mirak. Have you forgotten so soon the exalted position I have called you to? The Book knows.”
A pathetic eagerness lightened Mirak’s face, and he left the wall. “May I read it now?”
“In a moment. Were there any abroad on the road?”
Mirak remembered. “Yes,” he replied. “I saw Natil and his family. They were on the Gate road. They said they were going to visit Natil’s brother.”
It did not really matter, Ghakazian knew, whether Natil tried to hide on Roita. He could talk his way past the guards and purchase a little time for himself. It was not Natil’s flight that sent Ghakazian into a spasm of haste and fear but the stubborn disobedience behind Natil’s action. I will not have him defy me, Ghakazian thought. I will take him, and I must hurry. Even now the Trader may be walking through Danar’s Gate. He swung to Mirak.
“Go out and gather all the winged ones. Send them to the wingless with this message. They are to gather above their valleys, on the cliffs, on the peaks. Tell them …” His face suddenly lit with sly humor. “Tell them that I have a message for them from the Worldmaker.”
“You will lie to them?” Mirak’s eyes grew round, and Ghakazian hung grimly to his last shred of patience.
“There is no time to try and make them understand,” he said slowly and deliberately. “Go and do what you are told, Mirak, and then you may read in the Book if you wish.”
Unhappily Mirak hesitated, nodded, then flew slowly up to where black sky capped the ragged circle of the funnel’s mouth. Longing for what had been filled him, and for just a moment he did not want to share in his sun-lord’s exalted destiny. He only wanted to go home in peace.
Ghakazian wa
tched Mirak until the darkness engulfed him, and then he went through his hall to the windy slit in the mountain that was its front entrance. He stood looking out over a floor of puffed, solid cloud hanging motionless in the night quiet. He had hoped to sway Natil, to persuade him to stand beside him and show the other wingless ones that they had nothing to fear, but Natil had spoken to him without shrinking even while Tagar’s body lay at his feet, and now he crawled toward the Gate in impudent disobedience. Ghakazian knew he could do nothing against such stubbornness. Shall I speak to him at all? the sun-lord wondered. Or shall I find and kill him and be done with him? For the present he had forgotten Shol and Sholia’s imminent alliance with the Unmaker and all his fine words concerning the preservation of Shol and Ghaka against black fire. His mind was full of spite toward Natil, and that spite began to encompass all the wingless ones. He saw himself killing Natil, and with the picture came a red tide of satisfaction, a greed to flaunt his ownership of all of them. Blindly he gazed into his shadow, which spread thin and menacing over the clouds, cast by the feeble sunlight left in the hall. When he had sucked all the sweet juices from his visions, he stepped into the darkness, spread his wings, and began his search for Natil.
When they could discern the foot of the Gate mountain, Natil, Rintar, and Tagin rested for a while, sitting with hands clasped. Tagin fell asleep, his head in Rintar’s lap. Natil watched the clouds hang over him and the twinkle of far stars. I do not need the universe, he said to himself. I ask only Rintar, Tagin, and Ghaka. I have a right to these. But I am only a mortal, and Ghakazian is my disposer. “Come,” he said to Rintar, who was nodding with tiredness over Tagin’s heavy form. “It’s not much farther now.” He picked up Tagin, who woke with a protest, and set off again, Rintar trailing behind. He did not know what he would do when they had climbed the stair, what he would say to the guardians. Deep within himself he did not believe that they would reach the Gate, but he was doing all that he could, and he would not give up until the end.
In another hour they stood before the stair, looking up its steep, unlighted height. Rintar groaned. “I cannot face it,” she whispered. “Let’s sleep for a little while here at the foot, and go up just before dawn.”
“It is already just before dawn,” Natil whispered back, his eyes drawn to where he knew Tagar still sat. Dread stole over him, prickling up his spine, and he did not need to see into the blackness to trace the outlines of what filled the shadow. A stench lingered here, but Rintar was too distrait to notice it. He turned his back on it.
“Courage!” he said. “When we reach Roita, we can rest, and there are many places where we may hide.” He did not even convince himself.
“It is not courage I lack,” Rintar hissed back, “but new feet and a chance to warm myself. How cold the night is! Anyone would think it was winter.”
Natil felt as though the presence behind him was sliding nearer. He swung Tagin onto his back and placed a foot upon the first step, not waiting to see if Rintar would follow. He began to climb.
Rintar was glad of the darkness, which hid the terror of the nothingness that fell away on her right. With one hand against the sheer wall of the mountain to steady herself she mounted, her eyes on the step in front, her attention fixed on the Gate far above. Fear of falling grew in her. She, too, had passed lightly and thoughtlessly up this stair many times, but that had been in the dream years. She brought to mind the comforting cave tunnel. Determinedly she saw herself walking along it behind Natil, safe rock at either hand, and as the minutes went by she pictured the Gate itself, but somehow it no longer beckoned her to places she had once known and loved. Its invitation was curt, almost violent, and she stood before it trembling, compelled to go forward, afraid to go back, yet not knowing what now lay beyond its arrogant carved wings. Natil paused, and she found herself with face pressed to stone, palms flat beside her cheeks, her knees weak.
“Dawn is not far off,” he said. “The sky is lighter, I’m sure. We have passed the halfway point, Rintar.”
She lifted her head to look at him, but he had started forward again. She thought that she could see him more clearly now, the slim back bowed under Tagin’s drowsy weight, the confidence in the well-placed feet. Greatly daring, she turned and looked out over Ghaka. Clouds drifted just below her gaze, grayish now, and though she could not see the earth, the horizon had begun to divide once more into sky and world. Dizziness swept over her, and quickly she averted her face, summoning up her courage, and lifted herself onto the next step. She knew that whatever happened she could never make the journey back down to the floor of Ghaka. She was close to collapse.
In the hour before the rising of the sun, after he had searched the road and every farmhouse that lay along it, Ghakazian returned to the Gate mountain, hovering above it. Time was being wasted. Natil was causing him to expend himself in foolishness, and Ghakazian’s maliciousness grew with his impatience. He had been about to alight at the cave and talk to the guardians when out of the corner of his eye he caught slow, dogged movement. He considered commanding the sun to pull itself free more quickly, to pin them to the side of the mountain with a sudden gush of heat, but the dragging, painful rhythm of their climb had already claimed his attention, and he watched them with curiosity. He drew back a little, under the edge of a cloud, and when they rounded a corner and were lost to sight, he followed. Even had he not attempted to conceal himself, he did not believe that they would have seen him. Everything in them was focused on the Gate, and he could almost hear the breath wheeze ragged in their lungs as they labored on. For a long time he surveyed them coldly. There was no pity in his gaze, only a callous interest that caused him to calculate their degree of endurance. They paused for a moment. Ghakazian could see Natil half-turn to speak to his wife, and then they went on. Not until they were at the last circuit of the mountain which would bring them to the Gate did he close in, fluttering down to the stair above them, just out of sight, and waiting.
The stair bent up and around, and with a sigh Natil carefully hitched his son into a more comfortable position and prepared to take the last corner. Beyond that was the heart, and a rock floor for his feet, and the short, easy walk to the Gate itself. He heard Rintar panting behind him. “Natil, my leg is pinched,” Tagin whispered in his ear, a tickle of warm child-breath that stirred his hair and made him smile. He aimed a kiss at the straight little nose. “You can get down soon,” he replied and took the next few steps with a lighter heart. The stair fanned out, the stone steps became imperceptibly broader, and Natil quenched an urge to run at them. The corner was there, now he was around it. As a sudden premonition of failure gripped him he glanced up, then cried out and let Tagin slip from his arms to teeter on the step behind. Rintar shrieked and grabbed for the boy, and all three of them swayed over the abyss.
Sitting on a step just above Natil was Ghakazian, elbows resting negligently on naked knees, his wings pulled to either side of him like a cape that gleamed sullenly in the strengthening, heatless light of dawn. The soft brown hair lifted spasmodically from the neck, stirred by the breeze that had sprung up. The dark eyebrows were raised in mock surprise, and the mouth greeted a shocked and bitterly angry Natil with a smile of mild disapproval.
“Well, Natil,” Ghakazian said in tones of loving but injured reproof. “Have my wingless ones suddenly lost their hearing? Did I not forbid the Gate to all of them? And does the Gate not lie there”—waving behind him but never letting his eyes leave Natil’s white face—“behind me, so close, oh, far closer to you now than your dear brother’s farm? Why did I forbid the Gate to you, I wonder?” He paused and gave Natil an enquiring tilt of the head. “I see that you have forgotten, so I will remind you. I have work for you to do. I told you so when we met on the road. Do you remember that? How selfish you are, the three of you! Since you were born I have asked nothing of you, and now that I require your help, you behave as though I had become a monster, a tyrant, a thing to be evaded and despised. You return my love with suspicion,
and my warnings and admonitions with disregard.”
“I tried to tell you, Natil,” Rintar screamed from behind him, “but you would not listen!”
Ghakazian’s smile widened. “Women are often wise in their intuitions, aren’t they, Natil? Why should you suppose that just because Ghaka has lain peaceful and sunny all these years, there would be no changes? The universe is changing, ah, yes, so quickly, and Ghaka must bend to take the load upon herself. Look at me, Natil!” The last words were sharp and commanding, and Natil had no choice but to raise his eyes to the glittering dark ones above him. As he gazed a last tide of love for Ghakazian, a helpless, hopeless welling of worship and the desperate need to trust filled his heart, and tears came hurtfully to trickle down his face. “A sun-lord’s business is his own. It does not concern a mortal, nor should it. A mortal is born to obey in silence. You have not obeyed me.”
“No, Ghakazian,” Natil whispered, emotion strangling him, “but I have loved you, just as Tagar loved you.”
That name seemed to act on Ghakazian like acid. He rose and shook out his wings, towering over Natil, and the sad, indulgent smile hardened into a cruel line.
“The universe will not be saved by love!” he spat. “Love is a luxury for the times of peace! I will not be insulted by the offering of your little love. Tagin, come here.”
Fearless and uncomprehending, the boy wriggled from his mother’s clutch, squeezed past a frozen Natil, and scrambled to the sun-lord’s feet. Ghakazian bent and lifted him easily, and Tagin’s fingers went at once to the smoldering sun-disc on the broad, hollow chest. Rintar moaned. Natil tried to speak again. Words of argument and denial, of things not reasoned but perceived, churned within him, but under the spell of Ghakazian’s gaze he could do nothing but fix his eyes on the disc his son was fondling with such absorption. Two amber wings flared proud and shining at either side of it, and the chain was a range of golden mountains running around Ghakazian’s shoulders, tiny yet perfectly etched. Wings and mountains, Natil thought. But that is only half of Ghaka. Perhaps we wingless ones with our green valleys and our white flocks have never meant as much to him as the sky men and the wind howling through the high, barren passes of the crags.
Stargate Page 13