The words he had wanted to say dissolved away. He felt calm. Stepping back, he put both arms about his wife, and Ghakazian saw that he knew what was to come.
“This is necessary,” he said loudly. “I need you, the cause needs you, but not as you are.”
Tagin seemed oblivious to his surroundings. He continued to play with the disc, smiling and talking quietly to himself, but Rintar shook in a final panic. “Have pity, lord,” she pleaded. “We will stay in our house, we will not be troublesome anymore,” but Natil silenced her with a short word, holding her tightly.
Dawn had come. The clouds were imbued with a creeping glow of pink light. The sky was paling to a gentle grayness tinged with color, and the shadows on the Gate stair had retreated, taking with them all traces of the hours of sweat and stubborn painful progress that had led to this end. The air was damp and fresh, and far below birds could be faintly heard, singing to the rising sun. Natil looked at Ghakazian with a patient dignity that irritated the sun-lord into haste.
“You will understand before long,” he said curtly. Then he raised an arm, and closing his eyes for a moment, he called out a word unknown to Natil and Rintar. Ghakazian did not shout it but rather sang it on a long, ululating note, strong and fiercely beautiful. The note grew until it throbbed in their ears, reverberating like a rolling drumbeat. Rintar began to cry and put her hands to her head, and Natil felt himself swaying, but Tagin gave no sign of having heard it. Ghakazian closed his mouth, but the music went on, and now it was mingled with something else, a mighty rush of sound, as though the sun had opened its mouth and was roaring across the land. The morning breeze began to tug more insistently at their bodies, whipping their hair into their eyes, and their coats flapped like ungainly flags. The breeze became a stiff wind that whistled as it stung them with cold, and they lurched against the rock wall, relinquishing their hold on one another to scrabble with iced fingers, seeking a spur to cling to.
Ghakazian watched impassively, his own hair lying soft and untroubled, his wings unruffled. Tagin prattled on. The voice bellowed now, a deafening, tossing cacophony of power, and the wind became a gale that fastened blind, greedy fingers on them and began to drag them from the stair. They fought it, their eyes forced shut, breath snatched from their mouths, small stones and rock dust stinging their faces, their ears full of the deep, insane screaming, but though they fell to lie against the steps, feeling frantically for any crack, a place to dig in bleeding fingers and scraping feet, the wind plucked them off. It jerked them over the lip of the stair and whirled them about like two streaming, multicolored leaves, and then Ghakazian spoke. Calmly he pointed at them, and after a short and definite word of command the noise and wind ceased, as though a giant hand had been clapped over the gale’s mouth. The birds sang again, the clouds hung motionless, their pink fading now to white, and Natil and Rintar plunged without a sound to the rock-strewn foot of the mountain far beneath. “You also, Tagin,” Ghakazian said. The child looked up at him, smiling. Ghakazian passed a hand over the round brown eyes, and Tagin went limp; then he tossed him away. Ghakazian did not watch him fall. He glanced up at the blue, delicate sky, spread his wings, and circling the mountain, sped toward his own hall. He had been diverted from his purpose for long enough.
9
The winged ones alighted one by one at the farmhouses. In every valley they repeated their message, knocking on doors, standing proudly in the sunlight, and speaking the words Mirak had given to them: You must climb the sides of your valley and wait. The sun-lord will give you words from the Worldmaker. Take nothing with you. Go now. Bewildered but obedient, they did so. Some went with great gladness, for the Worldmaker had sent them no message in many generations. Others, the people who had stood on the road when Tagar brought them the message of death, went with fear and a vague foreboding. But most of them toiled up the steep goat paths with an uncomplaining stoicism. By late afternoon they sat looking down over their own quiet fields, watching the smoke from their hearth fires thin and eventually die, noting placidly the erratic migration of flocks from one part of a valley to another and back again, waiting.
The winged ones also waited, but in a tense restlessness. Unwilling to return home, they wheeled in ragged clouds between the crags as the afternoon slipped toward evening, and at last Mirak went to tell Ghakazian that the valleys were empty. Ghakazian spoke to Mirak from the wide sweep of his dais. “Send the winged ones forth once more, Mirak. They must say this to the people. ‘The Worldmaker has ordained a great change for Ghaka. No longer will the wingless ones be chained to the earth. In his wisdom and kindness he wishes them to enjoy the freedom of the skies also, but their bodies must change. He will change them if they display their trust in him by stepping from the peaks. He will hold them up, he will not let them fall, and he will teach them how to fly.’ That is what they must say.”
Mirak felt the trembling begin in his legs. His wings shuddered against one another. “But Ghakazian,” he said huskily, “that is not true. There has been no message. He will not hold the people up, he will let them fall, they will all fall …” He swallowed, and his voice died away. He looked long at Ghakazian standing in the ominous, dying light of approaching sunset, and it seemed to him that the sun-lord had already taken on the shadows of the coming night. His wings were a black serrated cloud. Darkness misted in his hair and shrouded his body in a garment of mystery, and his face was a pale, sickly oval striated with bands of blackness. Only the sun-disc still sparked light, but it was not the light of a healthy and joyous sun. Its rays pierced the dimness with slow, sulky reds and oranges, and its heart glowed a somber silver.
“Stop whining and think for a moment, Mirak,” Ghakazian said, his voice echoing forlornly to the high rock ceiling. He did not need to say more. Mirak, after his first horrified protest, understood very well, although he did not want to. He had been abroad all day. He had seen the wingless ones close their doors and walk the valleys, scramble over the teeth of the mountains, strain and weep to reach the top to be at the appointed places with such transparent humbleness, such simple eagerness, that he was ashamed. He had lost sight of the goal. Ghakazian knew that he had forgotten the visions of the Book under the glaring reality of Ghaka’s day. He spoke to Mirak musingly, putting all charm and affection into his voice. Not that it mattered. He could destroy Mirak as easily and ruthlessly as he had done Natil and his family. But the other winged ones were more gullible than Mirak. They would listen to Mirak because they respected him, and they would believe.
“On Shol there is a palace of such magnificence,” he said, “that it is beyond your imagination. When the Unmaker is driven back and Sholia is in the hands of a grateful council, I think I shall take it for my own. If you wish, Mirak, you may come back to Ghaka with the essences and rule here.” Mirak still stood with head sunk on his breast, and Ghakazian, after a quick glance at him, went on craftily. “The council will reward you for your loyalty and devotion to me. Janthis will give their bodies back to the essences, and Ghaka will be full of laughter and gaiety once more. Your world will be a good one to rule.”
He knew that such a thing was beyond the power of Janthis, but Mirak did not. He also knew that no sun-lord was allowed to call himself ruler. It was in the responsibilities. At the thought of them a blinding pain shot through Ghakazian’s head, leaving him sick and shaking. He quickly put away all contemplation of the duties he had kept in the forefront of his life. He had not recited them in a long time. He knew that he would never do so again.
“Yes,” Mirak responded at last, reflectively. “I love Ghaka. I would be a good ruler for her. I would harm no one. Very well, Ghakazian, but I am tired. I will go and pass the words.” He turned and walked toward the arch, a froth of sickness in his mind that dragged his feet and wings. Ghakazian let him reach the opening and then called, “Mirak!”
Mirak turned back heavily. “Lord?”
“Tell the winged ones that if any of the wingless refuse to jump off the cliffs,
they must be thrown down.”
Mirak was too far away to see Ghakazian’s face. “Very well,” he choked, fleeing the chamber.
He rose gasping from the crag as though it might suffocate him and flew clumsily upward to the crowds of his waiting kinsmen, calling Ghakazian’s message to them as he went. They listened to Mirak and did not dare to question. Most of them knew nothing of the events of the past days apart from the fact that the sun-lord had for some reason of his own decided to forbid the Gate to all mortals for a while. They accepted Mirak’s command to them because he had always been close to the sun-lord. Shells of ignorance and innocence still wombed them, and if the Worldmaker now willed that they should share their sky with the wingless ones, they would acquiesce without grumbling.
Neither did they balk at Ghakazian’s last order to Mirak. They could not imagine why any wingless one would want to defy the Worldmaker and not launch himself forth, but if some refused to do so, the Worldmaker’s wishes were clear. Word passed from mouth to mouth. In their rustling thousands they beat their way swiftly down the valleys, and soon their honeycombed peaks stood silent in the rays of the setting sun.
The wingless saw them coming, great clouds that jostled the air, drew nearer, became flocks of giant birds bearing down on them. Each valley felt the shadows flicker and pass, each crowd lining jagged cliffs and crags drew back in momentary uneasiness. The winged slowed, hovered above the people who peered upward wondering, then came to rest behind them. Spokesmen stepped forward, and in the calm of a red sunset began to recite.
Mirak had led his own flock of winged ones to the valley that had once sheltered Tagar and his numerous descendants. These were the mortals who had listened to Tagar’s breathless warnings. These had obeyed him and tried to reach the Gate and had been turned back by a blaze of light on the road and the incomprehensible sight of Tagar plummeting from the sky, never to move again. They faced Mirak with silent suspicion, the precipitous drop to the valley floor behind them, and when he had finished speaking, the feeling of wariness had deepened. There was no Natil to step forward and question, but a whisper sighed through the crowd, and it swayed. The Worldmaker? … Jump off the cliff? … Why does he want to give us wings? … A chance to fly! I cannot believe it! … A chance to tread the clouds …
“The Worldmaker’s mind is not our mind!” Mirak shouted. “It is not for us to ask why. He deigns to give you the power of flight. Who will trust him and go?”
The muttering died away. All eyes were fixed on him, and he strove to stand tall and proud, willing his gaze to travel the bewildered faces that thronged him with confidence and assurance.
“Where is the sun-lord?” someone shouted, the voice high and tense. “Let Ghakazian himself come and tell us what the Worldmaker wants of us!”
Wants of us, Mirak thought. If the wingless had no doubts about the message, they would have said “wants for us.” He looked at all of them as he answered with words that came from a mind already darkening with a multiplicity of alternatives, all of them lies.
“If he came and stood before you, your decision would be influenced by your love for him,” he said loudly. “A sun-lord is forbidden to coerce his subjects, even by his presence. When you meet him in the sky, he will express his approval of your trust in him and in your Maker. He believes and hopes that you can obey without relying on his advice. He bids me tell you to accept this change with dignity. Ghaka has matured.”
For a long time they simply faced him unmoving, their faces and the very stiffness of their stance betraying the agony of their thoughts. Mirak felt the mellow warmth of the descending sun on his back. He saw his shadow and the shadows of the winged ones beside him lengthen to lie across the trampled grass and climb the grim crowd. Wind from the valley below came to insinuate itself among them, leaving the smell of sheep and wet flowers on their rough-woven clothes, in their nostrils, speaking dumbly to them of fire new-kindled on their hearths, of the evening meal eaten around the friendly flames in cheerfulness, of their own beds, where they would lie content and drowsy and listen to the night sounds while starlight filtered through the open windows. They did not want the change the Worldmaker had offered them so suddenly and capriciously. They wanted to go home.
Then a young man elbowed his way to the front and faced Mirak, his blue tunic covering broad shoulders and the well-muscled thighs of a shepherd, his face comely and brown and framed in short flaxen hair.
“I am content to live without wings,” he said clearly, his words distinct in the evening air. “All my life I have walked the valleys, watched my sheep, and felt good earth beneath my feet. But the Worldmaker speaks. For the first time in many generations he concerns himself once more with the affairs of Ghaka, and we greet his gift to us with grumbling and suspicion. I love the soil, but who am I to say that I will not learn to love the sky? The Worldmaker made us. He knows what is good for us, even if we do not. I will accept his desire for me. I will step from the cliff.”
All at once the rows of stiff figures unfroze, drawing closer together and talking in hushed, excited whispers. Mirak caught his breath and did not dare to blink as the young man turned from him and began to walk toward the edge of the cliff. The crowd parted for him. He reached the brink and paused, looking up into the reddening sky. He smiled. Slowly his eyes slid down, surveying the dizzy fall of sheer rock that dropped from his feet to be lost in the evening dimness already spreading over the peaceful valley. Then he raised his arms.
“I believe!” he shouted. “I trust!”
Proudly he stepped forward, leaned outward, and with a cry he launched himself into the abyss. The people rushed to the edge, fists clenched, bodies straining. “Fly, Crenan, fly!” someone shouted. But Crenan plunged down, turning over slowly as though a giant wheel had impaled him on its axis, and though the people could not hear him strike the ground, they saw the jagged rocks leap to shatter his spread-eagled body.
For a second there was profound silence again, a silence filled with shock and disbelief. Then the people turned, and a woman began to scream, falling to the grass. “You lied!” someone yelled at Mirak. “Liar! Liar!” They surged toward him, rage in the groping hands, the incoherent words, but at a signal from Mirak the winged ones rose gently into the sky, and those below could only shake their fists. Some had already begun to move away weeping, seeking the goat track that they had toiled up, their stricken minds already running to their own doors.
“Cast them down,” Mirak ordered. Swiftly the winged ones obeyed, gripping hair, placing strong, relentless arms beneath thrashing shoulders, catching at a fleeing cloak. Like a storm gale howling out of the mountains panic rushed across the exposed hilltop, spreading a madness of terror. The youngest children, seeing their elders run here and there demented, thought that it was a game and shrieked with laughter, but the older ones knelt screaming in the grass and covered their faces.
Like the dregs left after an autumn wind, like deadwood to be disposed of, the people were plucked from the cliff. On the fringes of the melee winged ones hovered, darting to gather those who stumbled inland. All the latent disdain that had slept uneasily within the sky people, all the mute hints of their own superiority that had lain buried deep with their pride suddenly burst into flames of contempt and maliciousness. With an increasing eagerness they went about their task, hands gripping shrinking flesh without pity, power surging new and unchecked, a tumult of exultation. “Die!” they screamed. “Die, mud-diggers. Die, sheep-herders.”
Mirak watched it all from high above. So this is authority, he thought. This is real power. I speak, and I am obeyed. I deploy, I dispose. He felt nothing as the cliff top emptied. When nothing stirred there but the grass bending in the wind, and the sun had gone to leave night drowning the valley, he alighted with the others and walked to the edge. He glanced over. Only glimmers of paleness told him where the mounds of his broken kinsmen lay. The winged ones gathered round him panting and laughing, their eyes gleaming. “Crawlers!” they
exclaimed. “That will teach them to do as they are told. What made them think that the Worldmaker would give wings to such as them in any case?” But as they regained their breath and the sweat began to cool on their slippery bodies, their laughter died away to be replaced by an awkward silence. None dared to look at another. What, then, was the meaning of the Worldmaker’s orders? None asked aloud why they stood there in the gathering darkness while others piled the feet of the mountains with blood and smashed bones and death.
Mirak, his moment of aloofness gone, began to shiver. He remembered the horror of Tagar by the Gate, and his own panic. Now, as he had feared, the shadows were again brimming with a hostile force that longed to clutch at him. His nervousness was communicated to the others. Silently they lifted and flew, circling far inland so that they did not have to feel the caress of the death-laden wind rising from the valley, and then turned toward their caves. Only Mirak did not glide to perch, relieved and spent, at his entrance. Alone he winged his way to the sun-lord’s spire. Ghakazian would be waiting.
Through the dragging, creeping hours of late afternoon Ghakazian paced his hall, the Book of What Will Be in his hands. Occasionally he stopped and looked at it, running his fingers reflectively over the smooth cover, but he did not open it and read. He knew his destiny. He was no longer anxious at the passing of time. No matter what words the Trader spoke to Janthis, no matter what decision the council took, it would avail them nothing. The Book had told him so, and the Book was true. Soon, he thought with a quiver of anticipation, I will be on Shol. Even now the essences of my people are gathering. He fancied that he heard their cries, faint and far away as the light in the hall slowly faded. So will the fallen people of Shol cry out, he told himself, when the avenging arms of my subjects smite them. Is the Unmaker nearing Shol? Is Sholia even now sitting by her window, toying with the fascination of black fire? How strangely, how smoothly all things are drawing to a point. I am the hinge of the universe. I have the power to pivot it this way or that.
Stargate Page 14