Finally he reached for the hour of Melfidor’s death, but a new and terrible thought stopped him. What will happen to me when Melfidor goes to the Gate? When I must flee his body and leave both his essence and his body to the Messenger that will come for him? Must I find another host, a Sholan who is strange to me, and discover and knit all over again?
Suddenly he realized that in the blind intensity of his thoughts he had mounted the railing of the balcony and was standing on its frail rim, leaning against the stone side. Horrified, he jumped backward. I must never forget that I have no wings, he thought, his heart scudding. Perhaps it would be safer to close myself off from Melfidor, let him live again without knowledge of me. I can watch him and learn, I can nestle in his mind while his consciousness goes through the days and nights. Yes, I will do that. I will relinquish his senses until I become accustomed to the prison of the earth, for if I do not, I could kill him or make his sun-lord suspicious when she returns. Mirak’s gaze turned inward. He opened the door to Melfidor’s consciousness, knowing that, in letting him in, Melfidor had relinquished authority over himself and would withdraw again when ordered to do so.
Melfidor caught the balcony rail in both hands and looked about him, bewildered. Why did I come up here? he thought. Is Sholia back? I don’t remember rising this morning. It’s cold, being so high. For a moment he stayed there, his head aching, feeling sad and very tired for no reason he could find. His attention was distracted by a flock of birds arrowing noisily up from the misty plain beneath. Darting and whistling, they drew nearer. He shuddered and stepped back from the rail, turning to the little door behind him.
12
Ghakazian watched the Gate until the violet birds had fluttered to immobility and the stars had been blotted out, then turned and made his way down the short Gate tunnel, now thick with a stygian blackness. So it has happened to me, he thought. My Gate is closed. I am immured on Ghaka, and I am alone. He was calm, almost detached as he came to the mouth of the cave and stood slowly surveying his world. But this time they were wrong. This time they have closed a Gate against the only aid capable of halting the All’s descent into the bowels of black fire. The time draws in on me, and I must swiftly learn how to shake myself free of Ghaka. It will come, I know it will. I have been obedient to the Book, laying myself beneath its discipline, and the last venture must follow.
Ghaka was silent below him. He judged it to be about noon, but time meant nothing on the stricken planet. No eyes glanced to the sun, no feet carried strong bodies to the white cottages to break the fast of the morning. Even the flocks had scattered, leaving the burned grass of the valleys and wandering toward the mountains, driven by the stench of death hanging like an invisible miasma to where the high winds could not reach. The sun bulged purple in a black sky and cast dark shadows on the ground.
Ghakazian, about to launch himself forth, paused with one hand on the rock arching low over him. For a long time he studied the sun. How many years are left to you and thus to me also? he wondered. Are you diseased with an illness that is eating you away, or simply wounded, unable to recover yet not sliding into death? He did not bother to probe it. My essence lives as long as you survive he said to it but more to himself, and once my essence has found another body on Shol I am safe until that time.
He pushed himself away from the rock wall, but as he did so he heard his hand click and scrabble against the stone. Startled, he brought his fingers up before his face. Curved dirty-yellow talons fanned out under his gaze, and the skin of his hands was leathery to the touch. He turned the fingers this way and that, then bent to examine his feet. The same cruel claws gripped the lip of the cave mouth. Angrily he tried to wrench them off, but they would not come, and the first pain of his life shot up his leg. Slowly he twisted them again, exploring the sensation. I hurt, he thought, appalled. How can that be? My immortality lifts me far above all mortal hazard. Very well. I am diminished but not powerless. I will go on.
He fell out of the cave mouth, opened his wings, and began the long flight to his home, beating steadily and surely between the peaks, whose feet drowned in shadow. He could not see what lay in that shadow, but he knew. The updraughts from the valley floors were warm and stronger than he had ever known them to be, though he had flown this way countless times. As he went he glanced into each cave, thinking that they looked like sockets from which the eyes had been violently wrenched, and saw how the black blood that had trickled down the face of the crags had dried indelibly. He missed none of them, a ruthless pride sweet within him. He came at last to his funnel, dark now without the obliging obedience of his sun, and folding his wings, he dropped inside.
“I must begin at once,” he said aloud. “I must have courage, I must not flinch. This night must find me on Shol.” He settled himself on the ledge and brooded in the darkness. But what of the Gate? Now that it is closed, how can even my essence leave this place? He drew out from his memory every bright scene he had witnessed while reading the Book to assure himself that he had been proceeding correctly, and once more he saw himself crouching behind the shrubs that lined the terrace of Sholia’s palace, watching as the Unmaker talked to her. I must trust and obey the Book, he concluded, and first I must shed my body. The rest will follow, providing I do not turn aside. He leaned out over the airs that stirred around him, rising from the silent depths below. He imagined the bottom of the funnel, far beneath the level of the earth outside. He saw it as a bed of pointed rocks never blunted by the passage of wind and weather, black with moisture that trickled in a thin stream to drip into caverns even deeper. He refused to feel fear, to place himself on a level with Mirak. He brought his wings forward and wrapped his arms around them, holding them tightly before him, and then he jumped.
He pulled his wings closer to his waist and closed his eyes. Down he fell, turning slowly, the wind of his passage screaming in his ears and buffeting hot against his body. He no longer knew where the ledge was, or where the mountain’s teeth waited to bite into him. He brushed against rock. It grazed his arm, and he loosened his grip on his wings for just a moment, a reflex of preservation, but it was enough. Of their own accord the wings flapped back and spread, and he found himself hovering in tight darkness, rock enclosing him. Without thought, gasping and trembling, he shot upward, reached the ledge, and hurtled through the arch into the wide coolness of his hall. Not that way, he thought frantically. Out under the sky.
He skimmed through the hall and left the mountain, flying down to where the serried range of cliffs bounded the nearest valley. Coming to rest on top of a cliff, he launched himself forth once more, not caring that he should join the dead wingless ones whose bodies littered the foot, but again his wings played him false and refused to remain imprisoned.
For a long time Ghakazian tried to destroy his body. He jumped from a dozen heights. He made fire and plunged into it, but fire could not hurt him. He lay beneath the water of a river, gulping and breathing coldness and a taste of greenness, but he was Ghaka, earth, fire, and water, air and mountains, and Ghaka, sick though she was, knew him and would not harm him. Finally he crawled up onto the damp, soft moss of the bank and lay on his stomach, dripping and laughing. He laughed in desperation, laughed at his own mad antics, and when he had finished, he lay quietly, listening to the utter blankness of evening around him, defeated.
When the absence of sound began to oppress him, he flew to the Gate, night hurrying on his impatient heels. He knew that even he could not bear to spend the hours of darkness with the rotting reminders of his perfidy. Standing before the Gate, he thought of all the words of coercion and command that were his to use but could find none that did not depend on a sun’s power to bring them to life, and he was afraid to wrench more life from his own sun. There is nothing more I can do, he thought, a panic rising in him.
I am trapped here, and I am full of terror. Shall I go back to my hall? But this would mean flying once more over the obscenity of the valleys, and he did not dare. Shall I take my min
d into my sun and stay there, forgetful of Ghaka, forever?
He began to pace up and down before the Gate, tugging unconsciously at his wisping feathers. I must get out, I must. The words chased around and around in his mind, and he began to mutter them, the echo of his low voice whispering back down the cave tunnel. Then he stopped and faced the Gate, standing rigid and angry. He pushed against it with his hands, shouting at it, and pounded it with his fists. “Open! Open, open!” he screamed. “Help me, someone, something, anything, help me! Open my Gate!” But though his hands bruised black and his voice grew hoarse, the Gate stood solid and mute, resisting him. Finally he aimed a savage kick at it and flung himself to the ground, sitting hunched and glowering against the rock wall, wings curving around him like a dark cloak.
Then his name was called.
Ghakazian …
He did not hear it with his ears, or only in his mind. It seemed to quiver gently in his hollow bones like the first caress of his sun when he used to rise from his funnel to greet the morning. He looked up as though he expected to see the source of that soft voice, its tones still trembling warm in his flesh and in his mind, and it came rippling over him again in shivers of comfort and pleasure.
Ghakazian.
“Yes, yes!” he answered dry-mouthed, scrambling to his feet.
You want to leave Ghaka?
“I do,” he replied, scarcely able to speak for the flush of ecstasy now pulsing through him and gaining strength, “but the Gate is closed.”
So it is. Why is it closed, Ghakazian?
He knew that the voice had no need of explanation, but he did not dare to say so.
“Because the sun-lords believe that I have betrayed the Law and ruined Ghaka.”
And have you? the voice asked, amused.
“No. I am trying to save the remnants of the worlds from the Unmaker, but they do not understand.”
I see. Anger flicked through the warm washing of pleasure and humor, and Ghakazian felt it, a prick of pain instantly submerged. And what will you do if I release you from Ghaka?
“But the Gate is shut.” Ghakazian smiled, caught up in the exuberance of his body.
What will you do?
“I will go to Shol, where my people are, and when the Unmaker passes through Shol’s Gate, we will rise up against him and destroy him.”
How will you do that? The voice was humoring now, indulgent, and the rivers of sweetness coursing through Ghakazian’s blood seemed to thicken to a syrup. He felt all at once surfeited with pleasure.
“I do not know. All I know is that I will go, and I will fight.”
Ah. What will you give me, sun-lord, for taking you to Shol?
“I have nothing to give, and besides, the Law forbids …”
The Law, the voice said disparagingly, and Ghakazian was buffeted by its sharp annoyance, yet under the irritation the stream of intoxication went on. The Law, the voice repeated. But I am above the Law, Ghakazian. The Law is my servant. I break it when I wish. As for your gift to me … There was a pause, and when the voice came again to Ghakazian, it hurt him, filling his veins to the bursting point with its sweet magic, lapping in his bones, singing in his mind. You have much to give that I will accept. Ghaka is yours to give away. I will take Ghaka. And when you have entered Shol, I will take it also.
“Who are you?” Ghakazian whispered, doubt faltering in him, and the voice laughed.
You know who I am, my son, my sun-lord, my loyal Ghakazian. See!
Then memory returned. Ghakazian found himself in his body on Danar, in a time ages gone, circling the council hall while below him the table was full of a smiling, chattering assembly. In the great carved chair raised to fit the dais steps, the Worldmaker watched them all, smiling, hands resting on his knees, dark eyes softly glowing in his thin face. Ghakazian fled the memory, and the voice chuckled. You still love me, Ghakazian, it whispered. Admit to me that you love and worship me. Perhaps I will take nothing more from you than that.
Ghakazian bent his head, trying to battle the spell he now knew had been cast upon him, but he no longer had the strength of innocence. What does it matter? he thought dimly. I can use him to get to Shol. Perhaps I have flirted too deeply with his fire in order to empty Ghaka, perhaps I am seared after all, but I will right everything when I wrest power from Sholia and cast him back into deep space. The greater good overshadows the lesser evil. Languorously, slowly his head rose, and when he spoke, he knew that he was telling the truth. Sholia, Danarion, all of them admit their love for him, though they no longer obey him. What is the difference? “Yes, I love you,” he managed drowsily. “I, we, all of us have never ceased to love you.”
Do you worship me, also?
The distinction was beyond Ghakazian’s diminished powers to apprehend. He nodded. “Of course I worship you, as my people worship me.”
Good. You are quite right. You do indeed worship me in the manner in which your people abase themselves before you. With those words the tide of ecstasy receded and was gone, and Ghakazian found himself shaking with cold. I cannot open the Gate, the voice went on, now toneless and stern and curiously bereft of timbre, like the whispers of the Messengers, but I can pull you from Ghaka and toss you into the corridor, providing you are willing. You must be willing, sun-lord.
Ghakazian felt the voice present to his mind a vivid and grotesque picture of his valleys and what they held. He knew he was being coerced, but he had no strength to resist. “I am willing,” he choked.
Then stand straight, bid farewell to your wings, and leave yourself open to me.
It has all gone too far, Ghakazian thought faintly, doing as he was told. Even if I wanted to turn away from all I have done, I could not bring the people back or heal my sun or myself. Farewell, Ghaka. I am sorry, for I have loved you. He opened his eyes wide and turned to face back toward the tunnel, hoping for a last glimpse of his world, but a light was growing in front of him, the strangest he had ever seen. He wanted to call it darkness, but it was more than that, as though he had passed through to darkness’s other side, where its heart glowed, its source, far from the fringes seen by created being. The darkness burned with a snaking, slow black flame. It did not crackle and spit as a mortal’s fire would, nor did it burst out gaily like the white brilliance of a sun-lord’s aura. It oozed outward, hung heavy, and slid back to its source. Ghakazian could not see any form at its center. Fear tendriled with the slide of those black tongues, and an unimaginable power mingled with the fear. Ghakazian knew that his own immortal powers, even in the days of his changelessness, were like crude toys beside those of this being who had once spoken the All into existence and who now had pulled himself small to fit a cave on Ghaka.
The fire expanded, sizzled cold along the floor, and slid toward Ghakazian along the walls, in no hurry to encircle its prey, for nothing could escape it. There was nowhere in the whole of the universe to flee to. Slowly it began to envelop him, its cold stunning him, killing the golden warmth of his blood and instantly freezing his mind. Yet the cold burned. Ghakazian wanted to scream, but fire scoured his mouth, leaped from his eyes, seared his throat, and he knew himself to be a pillar of coiling blackness. His thoughts fled into the safety of his essence, burrowing deep, and together mind and essence began to loosen from his body, not silently and easily, as he had always imagined, but with a tearing that made him writhe in agony.
Then he was looking at himself. He hovered over his body, peeled and shivering, and his body sank to the floor of the cave tunnel and lay black and limp, the wings crushed beneath it, the limbs splayed dark across the empty chest. He had no time to assimilate the shock, for an invisible force lifted him. Rock was all around him, yet he did not feel it. Then Ghaka’s night sky opened, a panorama of blazing stars that seemed to streak toward him, leaving streamers of white fire, before he realized that the stars were still and it was he who sped. The voice by the Gate roared behind him, “Shol! Shol!” and Ghakazian found himself in the corridor, Shol’s twins ro
lling nearer, two blinding orbs that filled his vision, tugging him obediently toward themselves. Then Shol’s Gate was there. Ghakazian clutched for the lintel, felt for the lip with feet he thought for a moment he still had, and propelled himself through into the Hall of Waiting.
It was jammed with people. Light filled the big room. The farther door stood wide, and beyond it the crowd spilled out under a windy night sky, talking, singing, and laughing. Red haeli flowers were banked against the walls. So Sholia has returned, bringing flowers from Danar, Ghakazian thought. But why? Carpets had been flung haphazardly down, and on them people sat eating and drinking, calling to one another between the slow rivers of humanity meandering along where no carpets lay. Ghakazian’s gaze flicked over the Hall, and he finally saw her sitting in her chair against a wall, bending toward a man who squatted at her feet. For a long time he fixed his attention on her. She was dressed in white, and Shol’s copper glinted dark pink on her brow and her arms. The gold of her body’s light bathed the wall behind her and those who stood or sat near her. She was speaking steadily, her eyes on the man, her hands sometimes raised in a gesture but more often lying on the arms of the chair, and every so often he would nod gravely. Mortal and immortal were so perfectly attuned, so drawn together under the circle of light that they seemed blended into a soft skein Ghakazian could almost feel. The man rose easily, sat in the low chair beside her, and turning to her, began to answer or expound. He is an old one, Ghakazian thought, now able to measure him better. He reminds me of Tagar. Yet Tagar never came to me to converse, merely to pay his respects once a year, and it was I who went among my people, traveling the farms and crags, seeking them out. I had a simple and ignorant race of mortals not worth governing, he thought hotly. Shol is the sophistication of long ages. How great will be its fall.
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