by Tanith Lee
He swayed on his feet, slipping his hand from his belt to clutch at Ceedres’ wrist and steady himself.
Tilaia’s gift, a scrap of colorless cloth, no bigger than her flamboyant thumbnail, was held for a moment between Velday’s gloved hand and Ceedres’ ungloved wrist before skimming, unnoticed, to the earth. A moment was adequate for its purpose. It was impregnated by a dermal hallucinogenic, distilled from the dregs of the Slum’s manufact gutters, a slime gathered at Maram by several who indulged in or sold such commodities. The pores of the skin were receptive to it, but the veins of neck and wrist extremely so.
Alerted, not yet aware, Ceedres looked about at Velday. What Ceedres had determined to do, Velday was not positive, perhaps simply rely on Velday’s imagined condition to fling him into misadventure. Behind them, in the crevice, Domm barked an alarm. Flank to flank, the two cats, the huge king, the lesser princeling, were flying forward off their ledge. Abruptly, one of the females cast herself after them.
Velday thrust to his gun. His marksmanship was excellent, and he was not drunk. Sighting between the foremost two lionag, he released the bolt, slowing and deflecting both of them, disabling neither. They crashed down, rolled and folded up with unsewn jaws of froth and flame. They ran immediately toward the guns, and the men who held the guns. Velday seemed to be confusedly, sluggishly, recharging his weapon, dropping back. Domm tilted his gun stem and shot for the king, but the young one came between and spun over in a tangle of smashed bone, torn pelt.
Ceedres—
“Cee!” Velday shrieked, his voice high and thin as a girl’s.
Ceedres had the gun angled incongruously toward the rock. He could not seem to maneuver it or keep it level. His face had grown mad, as if with an unlikely panic, and he mouthed something, but nothing intelligible reached his companions. Then the awkward gun volleyed, catching his shoulder, whirling him around and over, and under the body of the leaping king cat as it came down.
Separated and amplified as notes of music, Velday heard the monstrous horn claws stab in through Ceedres’ chest and raked the length of his torso, through flesh, muscle, sinew, through the sculpted cavities of lungs and belly.
Ceedres began to scream. The screams sounded disbelieving, but they ended in a tumult of blood.
The she-cat hurled herself at Velday, and he shot her head from her neck. Her forepaws slapped harmless on the rocks in front of him. Domm was shouting and the robot fired. The king lionag bounced, wallowing, and sank back slowly, dragging Ceedres’ cloak and entrails with it, smiling through its red teeth, dying.
Velday stumbled forward.
He stared down. He had known this instant before, this instant as he stared above the corpse of his friend, his brother. Velday, a terrified small boy, and to his everlasting shame, the tears, so familiar to him now, rained in Ceedres’ wreckage. Until Velday saw that absurdly, unbreathing, speechless and disemboweled, Ceedres still lived.
The polarized lids had flickered up, the orbs of the eyes turned now hest, now hespa, either in shock or the continuing aberration of the drug. Ceedres grinned. It might have been the rigor of the final agony, a muscular contraction unmotivated by reason. It did not look to be. It looked to be a grin. And then the eyes fixed and muddied. Grinning like the lionag, Ceedres died.
Naine, Uched and their robots were approaching. The dense green sunlight magnified their clamor, let it go, and a burning quiet began.
Domm’s heavy hand clasped Velday’s arm. The clasp told that here, if necessary, was a witness to innocence and accident beyond any breath of crime.
Somewhere Uched yelled, and a robot gun discharged, quenching the second female as she appeared on the ledge. Somewhere velvet heat, in motion as a breeze, sang along the plain.
Then the great quiet returned and multiplied.
Part Two
A weapon of vengeance. . . .
But no one would seek vengeance upon her, upon beautiful Vitra Klovez. Besides, who was there remaining within the borders of her world to effect that vengeance? Ceedres had perished by the machinations of Vel Thaidis’ brother. But Casrus Klarn had left no relative behind. Not even Temal, the suicide. And yet, foreboding clung to Vitra. The Fabulism she had thought to have invented now progressed dynamically without her aid. Klovez had collapsed. Casrus, who should have offered her his love, had declined to care for her, had passed to living death, and then mysteriously from life altogether. Everything had gone wrong. She was in the chains of a malign and baffling fate. She saw herself, lovely and doomed, catastrophe gushing upon her, no one to snatch her from its jaw. Except, perhaps, Vyen, whom she dreaded to speak to on the matter, who, when she did speak, swore at her, mocked her, ran away to Olvia Klastu.
Vitra turned off the “sun” in the Klarn salon. She could not bear it any more. Casrus, obdurate, unloving Casrus, was dead. He had been lost on the surface, in the scintillant black beneath the stars. Probably someone had killed him, some worthless Subterine outwitting the Law as she and Vyen had done. Oh, she was glad he had suffered and died. It was a suitable punishment. Yet, how his death hurt inside her. Now, certainly, she would never see him again.
And Vel Thaidis? What had become of her? Vitra had seen the last of her in the screen when Vyen depressed the keys. Racing in the Chure chariot toward the shadows of the unknown twilight zone—obviously she had been lost there beyond the sunlight, where nothing grew and the air ended. For, returning unwillingly to the screen, Vitra had seen no more of her. Instead, Velday’s life had taken up the self-perpetuating drama. But none of them counted. Not Vel Thaidis, not Ceedres, nor even Velday, his handsome face oddly altering to become a reflection of Ceedres’ face, his tears watering the bloody murder he had engineered. All the princes strove to comfort him, Domm, Ket, Ond. He was more important to them than Omevia, screeching mindlessly, tearing her hair.
The Fabulism was magic. It might never cease.
Vyen sneered when Vitra postulated this. He persisted in holding her responsible. Some schizophrenic frailty of hers forced the Fabulism on. Useless to explain that even when she kept from Rise Iu, the story-making continued. Returning, she could replay long scenes which she knew she could not have created, and not been there to create. Of course, she dealt with Vyen wrongly. She did not attack him, she pleaded. She could not help it. She wanted him to save her.
Under the new, non-solar light of the salon, the amber fungyras had turned the color of sapphires and frost in their urns. Transformation dormantly lurked in all things.
Vitra rose and went from the salon, wan and pensive in her glitter.
Vyen was already waiting for her outside the house. They were to go to a J’ara gathering at Nle Stadium, a prospect that only added, to Vitra’s fear and sorrow, the condition of boredom. Possibly, if she delayed, Vyen might grow concerned about her and come to fetch her. . . .
Vitra perversely turned to the stairway and walked to it, away from the house exit point. It was not until she found herself by the door that she realized she had retraced her steps to dead Temal’s apartment.
A pang of horror went through Vitra. What was she doing here? An unfortunate idea came to her that if she caused the door to open, she would find the Subterine girl on the other side. Vitra’s answering impulse would generally have been to back away, and it was with extreme agitation that she discovered herself going forward instead. As she did so, it seemed to her she felt eyes upon her, watching her, intensely, cruelly, and with fascination. The eyes of some fabulast who had created Vitra Klovez to play with.
The door folded aside.
Vitra let her breath out in a sigh.
The room was empty of a presence.
And yet, not empty, for the essence of that other woman remained strongly in evidence, had even intensified.
How curious, too, the heap of rent scarves and shawls had been left lying on the floor, the two leaves of the love declaration s
cattered with them, just as Vitra had left them.
The compulsion was inevitable: to read that declaration once more. Vitra glided into the room, her hands pressed to her mouth. She leaned over the heap of shawls, the pieces of paper, peering down, making out the words. Love. Knives. Fires. Blood.
Suddenly Vitra felt outrage. She, too, would have offered herself to a blade, a fire, would have spilled her blood for Casrus’ love, of course she would, if he had ever asked her.
With a bitter, self-deceiving pride she turned, literally, upon her heel, toward the door—and stopped. For in the doorway stood Temal.
Temal, amid her dark ash of hair streaked with pale vermilion. Temal bloodless, yet streaked with pale vermilion blood, no bolster now to sop up that wound. Her eyes were closed, yet her mouth was open. She seemed to be laughing.
Vitra shrieked. In all her terrors, she had never known a terror like this.
“Vitra Klovez,” said Temal, “your brother is waiting.”
A film seemed to disperse from Vitra’s eyes, while abruptly, and with a corresponding shock, she saw that it was not Temal in the door at all, but one of the Klarn robots. An extraordinary trick of the lamps, the unfamiliar shadows of the room, had played upon the dark and white metal of it, and upon the torn vermilion scarf which, in the way of such servants, it had retrieved from the floor at its entry. Not a ghost, after all.
And yet—
In a vile horror which, now, had no grounds for itself, Vitra fled from the room, running toward Vyen with a hopeless knowledge that he could no longer save her from anything that might be in pursuit, of flesh, or spirit, or her own mind.
* * *
• • •
It was a short journey to Nle Stadium, precluding much talk. However, after two or three minutes, Vyen spoke.
“Have you been to Iu this Jate?”
“No,” said Vitra.
Silence.
“Oh come,” said Vyen, “why try to camouflage your idiosyncrasies?”
“If you suffered as I suffer,” Vitra exclaimed, “you would anticipate commiseration.” This retort was habit. She was now beyond such retorts.
“I should get it, too. But then, you don’t deserve commiseration. Probably you keep too many J’aras. That might account for your mental incompetence, the Fabulism you won’t stop—”
Vitra’s nerves snapped.
“I’ve told you—” She began to scream of bewitchments, phantoms, even of Fate.
“Use the dream-wash,” cut in Vyen icily. “It will clear your head.”
He smirked with half-closed eyes. He had grown less fearful over past Jates, as neither machine nor man linked Vitra’s drama with their plot against Casrus. As for Casrus’ death, it had consolidated Klovez’ luck. That Vitra lamented for Casrus revolted Vyen, and with sulky humorousness he dripped acid in her wounds to pay her out. He had come to assume that the unwise lingering of the Fabulism was part of her lament. He did not believe, or would not let himself, that it had a soul of its own. After all, she had lied about it before, saying she had concluded it when she had not.
Before Vitra could reply, if she intended to, the Stadium of Nle spread its arbor of starry neons, and the chariot-car dashed in.
Just through the gate, a ramp ascended onto a balcony of rime-white tiers and arches that overhung a brazen racing track beneath. Here Shedri Klur was to drive one of the exercise chariots behind a team of four dogga. It was a fresh occupation for him, reminiscent of Casrus’ feats. As the Klovez car pulled up, Shedri faced about and lifted his cup to Vitra in an archaic champion’s salute.
In the middle of the rectangular track, a pylon of white silver threw fierce erratic blasts of blue light at the high ornamental roof. Nearby, unseen, the noise of gunshot and the hiss and scrape of fire-swords, cries of irritation and laughter. Vitra searched in vain for somewhere that her eyes and her ears might rest.
“Look,” said Shedri, guiding her up the tiers, and pointing to three chariots currently clattering over the metal track. “It’s not without risk, but I find it excites me.” Vitra watched the expected slap of boredom stunning even her apprehension. “Ensid is racing against my cousin and one of the Klinns. Naturally, Casrus used to race. I never saw him, but I gather he was a fine rider.”
“I’m sure you are the finer,” said Vitra automatically.
“At least I haven’t dishonored my name. Forgive me, Vitra, I shouldn’t remind you of those unhappy events.”
At the corner of the rectangle, Ensid’s chariot, the usual steel plank slung between great wheels, careered out of continuity with the big dogga who hauled it. In a moment, Ensid was flung on the track, the chariot collided with the barrier, the dogga, harnessed two by two, reeled around on each other and began to fight.
Shedri grimaced contemptuously, a connoisseur.
Vitra stared with glazed eyes, seeing instead Casrus, racing very fast and with consummate skill, seventeen years old, about the Uta track.
“It’s my race now. Ensid’s is finished. You must time my speed by your chronometer.”
Shedri went away down the tiers and stepped onto the track as Klastu robots persuaded the large snarling dogga from each other’s throats. Ensid limped, pointing again and again to a metal-scorched calf. Vitra giggled and lowered her dark head to her goblet. Her oppression was almost over-whelming.
Olvia, in viridian furs, was offering candies to Vyen, who brushed them aside. Vyen would not look at Vitra.
On the track, Shedri was climbing onto his plank, securing the reins of the four pale beige animals, waving at her to notice him.
Vitra waved dutifully in return. The jewels on her wrist blazed in the blue pylon light.
While somewhere, far overhead, Casrus’ bones were charring into the wastes of endless night.
* * *
• • •
Thinking of Casrus’ death, Hejerdi spat, and his spit froze where it landed. It was one of the coldest Marams he had ever known. Ice had formed on his beard even within the facial shield. He kept J’ara perforce. Though his burns had healed, they had left him stiff, and Dorte had spurned him when he approached, begging his former employment as surface ganger. His share of Casrus’ wage was gone with Casrus. What followed was predictable and inexorable. Credits unpaid, he was ousted from the hovel in Aita Slink. Now he sat out the freezing misery of the hours in one of the Subterior’s shack-like taverns, drinking alchafax much diluted by the free ice that hung from the internal rafters. At the other side of a tiny basin of coals squatted Zuse. Being himself in work, he had bought the coals, and the drink. He had also, in a stuttering growl, related his enforced part in Casrus’ slaughter. Reiterating frequently, “Dorte, that piece of dirt, he forced me to it—I couldn’t do anything but what he said,” Zuse had confessed taking Casrus to the curious building on the planet’s surface, strangely like a temple associated with the sun-side Fabulism. Over and over, Zuse retold the climax of the venture, as if Hejerdi must get it by ear to recite. “The floor went down and shut him in. I’d vowed to release him next Jate, and sew up some tale for Dorte about an escape. But when I did come back, the floor opened—and Casrus was gone. He’s an aristo, I said, he’ll have tinkered with the machinery, got free on his own. So I searched about a bit, but never found him. And he never came down here again. There was no route out of that under-room that I could see. But the other thing, did I say?” “Say it again,” said Hejerdi. And Zuse would comply. “The first time, when we shut him in, after the floor closed over, I seemed to see a glow—a glare—come up through it. We took ourselves off—the other was with me—I was frightened. Then, when I came back for Casrus, I’d reasoned myself from that, and there wasn’t any light. But I wonder—some burst of energy from the planet’s vitals, could it be? Enough to—” Zuse dropped his voice on each occasion when he said, “to incinerate a man, skin, skeleton, clothing, as if for an
urn?” “Maybe,” said Hejerdi. And on the fifth retelling, he spat.
He was uncertain precisely what he felt. Anger at Zuse, of course, snarling impotent range at Dorte. But for Casrus, what? Eventually, he was able to assure himself that the grief in his stomach was simply, and quite properly, at the forfeit of the shelter and credits Casrus had shared with him.
Presently Zuse drank himself into a maniacal bravura, and rolled woodenly from side to side, threatening Dorte and scheming his demise. Hejerdi stayed quiet, and his mind ranged on its own black wanderings.
Since Casrus Klarn and fortune had deserted Hejerdi, a select memory had involved him. The memory was of the aristo woman, the blue and silver princess, who had come to the door-mesh and shaken it, and to whom Casrus had said, You intended that I be sent here. Her name was Vitra—Hejerdi had heard that too, before Casrus had requested privacy with her. But naturally, though Hejerdi had willingly given them privacy, he had not moved too far away. He had supposed they might warm to each other when alone, and had been intrigued by the idea of Klarn displaying passion. But the passion had been all on the woman’s side, and, since she had often utilized her vibrant little lungs to the full, Hejerdi had acquired more knowledge than he subsequently admitted to.
At the hour, Hejerdi had been vastly interested, but had no dream of acting on the interest. It appeared the princess had falsely incriminated Casrus, insuring his banishment to the Subterior. That was Klarn’s problem, not Hejerdi’s. Hejerdi had neither the inclination nor the incentive to pursue this phantom.
Now, however, Casrus absent and doubtless slain, it had come to Hejerdi that if the princess Vitra and her brother could outwit the Law one way, they could do so another. Dorte had appeared to give the order for Casrus’ sub-surface immuration, and give it as a torture rather than a death sentence. But maybe it had been a definite sentence all along, put into practice by Dorte—but at the explicit, if concealed, order of Vitra.