“Enough!” Janthis whispered, and instantly the wall was a solid gray blindness. “I have done this,” he said. “It is my fault. Gone, all of them, and I did not do what I should have, I refused to recognize the truth.”
Danarion left him. He walked slowly through the council chamber, scarcely knowing what he was doing or where he was going until he found himself out under the hot sun, standing high on the terrace, the row of regal corions at his back. His pained eyes swept the healthy, light-licked reaches of the forest. Above it the tips of the city spires could be seen, giving back a dazzle that played genially and eagerly around them, and the first faint breeze of late afternoon was a stirring of fragrant air in his nostrils. I am the only sun-lord left, was the sole thought in his mind, and he could not form another.
16
Dawn was a flush of warm pink against the rim of the world when Sholia stepped from the Hall of Waiting and lingered for a moment, the safety of the Gate behind her, Shol’s hostile, withdrawn presence tempered by the stillness of sunrise. She stood and let all anger and disappointment die, thinking of Chilorn and the mystery of the Book, while first one sun and then the other, much farther away, lifted into the sky. When their light had turned from scarlet to gold and had merged into one sparkling bright nimbus, she left the path leading across the plain to the upper city and came to the foot of her own wide stair. She mounted slowly, hearing the morning bustle on the Towers of Peace come to her faintly as the night watchers left their posts to the guardians of the day, and by the time she walked in under the cold shadows that still hung about the entrance chamber, she had almost convinced herself that Janthis had been right. Nothing ailed in Shol but she herself.
With a quick word she sent the shadows fleeing, and the palace filled with her light. “Sholia’s back!” she heard someone shout, the voice echoing in the high balconies and sweeping stairs. Smiling as she made her way to her own quarters, she passed the hall of audience and glanced in.
Rilla was sitting in Sholia’s chair, her head resting on the clenched knuckles of one hand, the other arm draped negligently over the carved wood of the support. Although the chair was placed at the far end, the room glowed with sunlight, and Sholia could see the woman’s face clearly. The brows were drawn together, the eyes stared darkly into space. Sholia paced under the arch and swiftly approached Rilla, who at last was aware that she was no longer alone. The eyes lost their intensity, swiveling to follow Sholia as she came, but it was not until Sholia halted before the chair that the strange tension of speculation went out of the face and Sholia felt as though she were being disdainfully, intimately weighed in some scale of which she knew nothing.
“Rilla, you should not sit in my chair,” she said quietly. “It was made with many spells for the use of an immortal and could be dangerous to you. Please step down.”
It seemed to her then that a cloud of confusion blurred the face, but after a moment Rilla slid to her feet and glided down the two broad steps.
“What were you doing here?”
Rilla turned and looked straight into her eyes. “Waiting for you,” she said simply, yet the whole of Shol spoke to Sholia in those words with a smug threat. You are here alone, the world said to her. We have been waiting for your return. We are before you, behind you. The tall, red-clad woman smiling in apology hid a menace Sholia could feel, and though she forced herself to view the words sanely and objectively, stripped of all hidden meanings, the full load of uneasiness returned to segregate her from those around her.
“Leave me alone,” she said curtly. “I do not desire your company.”
Rilla showed neither hurt nor offense. She bowed and went away, her back straight, her head erect, the brocade of her gown stiff around her. Sholia turned to her chair, but a long black hair had been caught by the scrolling on its embossed back, glinting dark and filling her with a surge of distaste. She spoke and then stood watching as the hair curled into gray ash, but still she could not bring herself to sit.
She left the hall and climbed until she found a balcony that gave her a view of the whole plain and the topmost tier of the city. With sun-discs pressed to her cheek she watched the slow trickle of travelers moving along the path to the Gate and the flickers of activity on the Towers of Peace until her attention was caught by someone on the Tower closest to the palace. He had scrambled up onto one of the parapets that protectively ringed the building and was walking back and forth, hands behind his back, looking into the chasm of rock below. She could not see his face, but he moved with perfect confidence, swinging his legs. One or two people passed behind him but did not even glance his way, and their very indifference sent a chill through Sholia. She had raised a hand to command him backward to safety and was ready to speak into his mind when she saw him pause. His face came up, scanned the horizon, and was lifted to receive the blessing of sky and sun, his expression one of utter contentment and a dreamy satisfaction.
Sholia began to shake. I cannot fight this kind of madness, she thought, and as she hesitated the man spread his arms, bent his knees, and jumped, still smiling. For a second he seemed to hang suspended over the abyss, as though Shol itself did not yet understand what he was doing, but then in silence he dropped out of sight beyond the rim of the plain. Still the people came and went. Some of them stopped to peer over the edge of the parapet, then shrugged, made a comment, and passed on. Sholia, watching aghast, knew then that Shol was no longer within her control, nor was it Shol. It was Ghaka, distorted, twisted out of shape, still suffocating under the disguise of Shol but already beginning to extricate itself, burst free in order to become a caricature of the true Ghaka.
Sickened, she backed away from the balcony. If Shol is no longer Shol but the embryo of Ghaka, she thought, then I am no longer sun-lord here. My powers are diminishing, and somewhere out there, among the pretty houses and steep streets of Shaban, Ghaka’s sun-lord bides his time, waiting to rule a counterfeit Ghaka when Shol has forgotten her identity.
She ran from the balcony and sped through the passages, and when she reached the hall of audience, she turned to face the archway, flinging wide her arms and shouting words that brought a seal to shimmer instantly and impenetrably from ceiling to floor. She walked unsteadily to her chair, sat down, and leaned back, closing her eyes. Into the suns, she thought incoherently. My only refuge. Easily she slipped away, leaving her body relaxed and inert. Her nearer sun knew that she was coming and sent eager arms of white flame to embrace her. She sank into its fiery maelstrom like a drop of rain absorbed into the mighty rushing of a river. Its simple, awesome mind wrapped her around, and its pleasure was like a soothing balm spread over her. She felt no questions. It was content to cradle her with docility, and for a long time she nestled within it, her own strength growing, fed from its original source, closing the eyes of her mind to everything but the deluge of life the sun poured into her. Then she uncurled and looked out upon the universe.
She watched as Shol, Shon, and Sumel revolved in obedient submission around her, and with her fiery eyes she saw their colors flaming in the blackness, green, blue, and red. Far behind her she saw her other sun, distant and smaller. I do not belong on Shol, she told herself again. I am not of the earth, I am of the suns, the wheels of space, I was born to flame the flare out across the universe forever. The suns are the true lords, unchanging, unwanting. But there, in the purity of otherness unimpeded by the silent whispers of the mortals’ agonies, she saw clearly that this was not so. Though she might find the peace of inaction in her suns and be content to lie in their embrace forever, they could not give her happiness. They were less than she. They had no destiny other than to passively illuminate the universe and give beauty to the worlds, but she had been created to participate in both. The suns were in her veins, but the mortals were in her heart, and her responsibility to them would not let her rest. Her planets rolled slowly past her while she quietly considered what to do, and as the years went by she rediscovered the purpose for which she had been made.
There in the sun she was a guide without a people. She must go back.
Reluctantly she shook herself loose, leaving the hot womb from which the Worldmaker had called her into life and drifting back to Shol. Her moment of weakness had passed. She no longer wished to run away, for she had run and been comforted, and now returned to her responsibilities. Three Shol-years had gone by; she had seen them pass like a dream from the unhasting heart of the sun, and it was time to plunge back into the turbulence of life.
She opened her eyes onto her quiet hall, aware that well-being and harnessed power hummed through her body as it had not done for many ages. But the atmosphere on Shol had changed. There was now an edge to the formless anxiety she had felt seething slowly in Shol’s air and in the movements of men, as though it had intensified in her absence and was being sharpened to a fineness that would cleave the world apart. She savored it carefully as she rose and walked to the arch. The first thing I must do is close the Gate, she said to herself. Then I must try to regain control of Shol. I must find Ghakazian, learn why he has done this, try to persuade him to work with me to salvage what I can. The people must accept what they have become. There will be compromise.
She reached the seal and saw that beyond it stood Rilla, her form shaking with quiet undulations. Calmly Sholia bent and touched the ground three times, and the seal vanished. She walked through, and Rilla stepped convulsively to her.
“You sealed the hall,” she said almost reproachfully. “I could not come to you.”
“That is my prerogative,” Sholia answered levelly, “and any business you have with me, Rilla, will wait.” She strode away, but Rilla followed.
“You have shut us out for three long years,” she protested. “Are you angry with us, Sholia?”
Sholia stopped abruptly and swung around, taking the long fingers in both her hands and smiling gently. “No,” she said, “not with you. There is much you do not understand.”
At once a tiny glow of amusement flared behind Rilla’s grave eyes, and Sholia let the fingers drop with an inward stab of impotence. I will not be turned aside, she thought obstinately. “Baltor your father did not question my doings. It was not his place to do so, and it is not yours, either. You must learn to be silent and not impede me. You are not my jailor or my judge, Rilla.” Again a flicker of malicious humor stung her, but she ignored it. “I want to talk to you, but later. I am on my way to the Gate.” She began to walk away, and Rilla followed.
“Are you leaving us again?” Rilla asked as together they passed through the entrance.
Without slackening her pace Sholia answered, “No, never again. I am going to close the Gate.”
Ghakazian halted, stunned. It’s a trick, he thought. She will not close the Gate and shut him out, not if the Book is true. Where has she been for the last three years while she sat tranced in her empty hall? Did she go into the past, or into one of her suns? Or was she wandering in the corridors of space, seeking him? Did she find him, and does she go to the Gate to welcome him? What shall I do?
He ran down the stair and caught up with her as she reached the foot and started toward the Hall of Waiting. He grasped her arm and she glanced at him, seeing Rilla’s troubled eyes and pale, trembling lips.
“You cannot!” Rilla burst out. “Would you refuse Shon and Sumel to the people? Why, Sholia? Are you prepared to deny yourself the company of your kin? You will never see Danar again if you continue this madness!”
Sholia fed heat into the hand that gripped her, and immediately was released. “What do you know of Danar?” she said softly, her eyes suddenly narrowing. “I speak to you now, Ghakan whoever you may be, and not to Rilla. I know you are there. I know that your sun-lord walks somewhere on Shol, free and watchful. Danar is the only untouched world left, and it is too precious to leave threatened by my open Gate. Tell Ghakazian that I will not relinquish power on Shol to him. I will settle with him soon.”
“Will you?” Rilla replied with a deepening of her voice. The large eyes had gone hard, and the mouth had thinned to a line. “The sun-lord of Ghaka is mighty. Only he dared to do the unthinkable. He knows your perfidy, the darkness in you that you hide so cleverly.”
Sholia made no retort, though the voice tingled in her mind on the verge of a memory, and behind Rilla’s eyes was the hint of long familiarity. She turned and strode on.
Ghakazian watched her go. I will settle with him soon. She is going to the Gate to greet the Unmaker, I know it. This is the time, the moment I saw in the Book.
He spun on his heel and ran back up the steps shouting, “Mirak! Quickly!” He sped through the entrance, and Melfidor met him as he raced toward the mortals’ quarters. “The time is almost upon us,” he panted. “Hurry down into the city, alert every Ghakan, send others also. Sholia waits for the Unmaker by the Gate. She has threatened to keep power and destroy me, and she will call her mortals to arms against us if we do not move first and slay them before they can answer her. Hurry!” Mirak nodded and left him, and he began to go from room to room of the palace, knocking on doors. One by one they acknowledged him as he called them, the black hair coming astray from its tight knot on the smooth head and tendriling around Rilla’s face, the tense, beringed hands gesturing, the small, soft-slippered feet rushing like a wind through the corridors with the red and silver brocade gown whispering after them. “It is time!” he shouted into every room, and Rintar emerged past Chantis’s mind and smiled at Ghakazian, Natil looked at him through Fitrec’s mild gaze, and Maram felt fear squeeze tight about Veltim’s heart.
When Ghakazian had completed the alarm, he went outside and slowly descended the stair. What of the nomads, he thought, the fishermen, the miners on the far shore of the ocean? Will they know? Yes, they will. The whole of Shol will know when the Unmaker sets foot before the Gate, and the Ghakans will understand.
He came to the foot and stood for a moment, looking out over the empty plain. No sound rose from the city, no swiftly rising murmur as Melfidor and the others sped from house to house. The wind that had soughed over the grasses of the plain for days, dreary and biting, had suddenly ceased, taking with it the dry rustle of the dark-green shrubs, the faint rumble of Shaban, the even fainter sound of the ocean foaming onto the shore of the bay. The stillness deepened, locking the sky into a uniform, heavy gray through which no sunlight could penetrate, and with it came an oppression that bowed Rilla’s slender shoulders and sent the birds that wheeled high above the plain flapping awkwardly to settle on the ground.
Standing before the Gate, struggling with herself, Sholia felt her mind go dim and her own warm fire flicker in her veins. Why do I wait? she thought in anguish. It must be done. Yet as she hesitated a thousand pictures welled up in her, sweet and happy. She saw Danarion and herself walking beneath the haeli trees, and the Hall of Waiting seemed to fill with the scent of the drifting red blossom. She saw herself in the corridor in the days that had gone, free and unconquerable, every world open to her. She stared out through the square of the Gate, and saw the stars burning like white candles, calling to her, singing their music, which brought forth an answering yearning in her blood. But Danar’s fate hung heavy in her hands, and beneath the swiftly growing weight of an alien oppression the determination to do what she must was hardening.
She pulled herself upright, moving as though a rock had been strung about her neck. Her arms came out and felt as heavy as Shol itself. Her mouth opened, the formal words of closing on her tongue, but then she stopped. Far out in space she saw a thin mist, darker than the blackness between the stars, writhing toward Shol, and with it came a dread and confusion that froze all thought and chilled her limbs. Slowly it snaked to the Gate, began to curl through it and past her, filling the Hall and drifting out onto the plain. She heard something shout in her head, Close the Gate! Close it now! and fought to form the words, knowing what she was seeing, but her tongue would only stutter, and her fire thickened and cracked from her fingers like a cold, dead tree branch. The voice went on sho
uting at her in a rapid, shrill tone of panic, but beneath it a whisper came. Don’t you want to see him again after so many ages? He is coming to you. Will you shut him out?
One last time she tried, drawing herself erect, but the words had now formed a mad dance in her head, and she could not catch them. With a cry she turned and fled through the murky Hall, out onto the dour, gray-laden plain, and across to the foot of the palace stair, now glimmering pale under the low, threatening sky.
Stumbling up it, she caught a flash of red out of the corner of her eye as she saw Rilla crouch down behind one of the shrubs now resting motionless in its dull orange tub, but she did not stop. Sobbing, she raced to her chamber and flung herself across her chair, covering her head in both quivering arms. “No,” she wept, “no, no,” and her newfound strength melted away, leaving the dregs of terror and failure bitter in her mouth.
The fog found her and roiled slowly into the room, smelling of ice and timelessness. Though it sifted despair into her consciousness, it could not penetrate her essence, and presently she rose and stood facing the door, which was now scarcely visible. I should have closed the Gate the minute I returned from Danar, she thought dully and wearily. But it is too late now. The time of Shol’s falling has come at last, and I have failed.
The stifling atmosphere seemed to intensify suddenly, an equally crushing silence woven into it. The people of Shol looked at one another, the solid sky, the sullen earth with mounting horror, a panic surging through limbs that could only tremble with the need to flee, for the suffocating weight bearing down on mind and body prevented movement or coherent thought. Sholia felt it as a great fatigue that pressed against her eyelids, and for the first time she was overwhelmed with a desire to let them close, to lose herself in the state of half-rest, half-dream that was the mortals’ domain.
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