Seven Princes

by John R. Fultz

  “How d-did you…” he stammered. “You speak?”

  The tip of her pale nose touched his, and her blonde mane fell loose down her back. “Each night as we slept side by side,” she said, “I took a bit of your language from your dreaming mind. Now I speak it. Does this please you, Vireon?”

  To hear her say his name was a thrill he could not express. He smiled and held her close. Their hearts beat like the Udvorg drums, thrumming in perfect unison.

  “Yes,” he told her. “You please me. Only you, Alua.”

  He fought back the tears that slipped like traitors from his eyelids.

  “What troubles you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. He could not speak of his brother. Not now. Not in front of his Udvorg wives. He kissed her neck, soft as silk, fragrant as a blossom.

  “What… what are you, Alua?”

  She smiled, tilted her head in that endearing way.

  “I am what I must be.”

  He laughed. It spilled from his mouth like blood from a puncture wound.

  “Will you come with me?” he whispered.

  She nodded, a silent affirmation. Her eyes were locked on his.

  “It will be strange to you,” he warned.

  Now it was her turn to laugh. “You are strange to me,” she said.

  She conjured the white flame and built a warm fire a small distance from the Udvorg, who needed no warmth. So they all spent the night on the hilltop in comfort, the two pale-skins wrapped in each other’s arms, the blue-skins lying on furs in the snow. There was no need to explain to the Udvorg that Alua was Vireon’s First Wife. This they all understood.

  In the morning they marched down into the lands of running water, a world of green and brown and yellow leaves, where winter was still a whispered promise.

  It will be strange for us all.

  12

  Patterns

  First came the denial of self, the surrender of ego, the death of certainty.

  Sharadza ate nothing for days, drinking only the water given by the crone. Outside the mouth of the cave, sun and moon came and went, stars and clouds danced across the sky. Winds blew and rain fell.

  Patterns.

  The hunger gnawing in her gut eventually gave way to the comfort of emptiness. Her body accepted, as her mind already had, that nourishment was not to come. She was no longer hungry at all. How many days had it taken? Time was lost to her. Day and night were opposite sides of a coin, flipped into the air. She strove to catch it in her hand.

  She meditated, sitting on the hard stone of the cave floor, in the dark, in the light, in the purple shades of twilight, the golden glow of morning. She repeated the first of many mantras, aloud at first, then quietly in her mind, revolving like celestial orbs in her consciousness.

  All is One… There are no distinctions.

  At last the crone came to her in the timeless dark, giving her a fruit like a silver-skinned pear. “The pome of Oridnis the Cloud City,” said the crone, “grown by a race of ancient savants. This is mokkra, the Fruit of Enlightenment. Eat all of it, even the seeds.”

  Delicious, it tasted of starlight, rain, and wisdom.

  The Great Oneness blossomed like the petals of a rose at the zenith of her understanding. The physical world spread about her like a spider’s glittering web. It ran through her body, through her veins, through her thoughts like silver mercury.

  All is One… There are no distinctions.

  She knew… And awareness flowered beyond her skull, beyond the walls of the cave, through the porous rock, into the rushing sky, through the continents of cloud shifting above the fluid play of earth, sea, wind, and fire.

  “The part is the whole.”

  The crone placed a small stone into her palm.

  “This is a mountain.”

  She spilled a single drop of water into her other palm.

  “This is the sea.”

  All is one… There are no distinctions.

  A flaring ember from the coals of the fire hovered between her eyes.

  “This is all fire, everywhere.”

  She blew into Sharadza’s face, breath redolent with the strange tea.

  “This is the measureless sky.”

  She took Sharadza’s hands into her own, squeezing them together.

  “This is life.”

  All is One… There are no distinctions.

  Sharadza swam the sea of clouds, but she also sat in the cave. She plunged into the green depths of the ocean, but she also sat in the cave. She burned in the fires at the heart of the earth, but she also sat in the cave, an earthen womb at the center of the Living World.

  Next came the unity of thought and action.

  She sipped a warm vegetable broth brewed by the crone, and drank wine from a stone goblet.

  “All that lives, and all that has ever lived,” said the crone. “All that will ever live. All are fractions of the great spirit, the unified consciousness of Being.”

  Sharadza blinked, and stars swirled in her eyes. She was still in the cave, but also in the sky… in the earth… in the ocean… in the fire.

  “The part is the whole. There can be no separation. Separation is only illusion. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then show me.”

  Sharadza stood before the crone and squeezed the small stone in her fist. The cavern rumbled, tremors running beneath her feet. A small stalactite fell to the floor, smashed into a cloud of dust. Sharadza grabbed the dust in her hand and blew on it. Outside, a great wind rushed across the forest. She sat down. The cave grew still.

  “Good,” said the crone. “The infinite can be found in the smallest of fragments. The web of life invests our world with diversity. We are the sparks that move within the greater flame, which is also ourselves.”

  “Material and immaterial,” said Sharadza. “There is no difference but that which we believe.”

  “Whatever we believe,” said the crone, “is our reality.”

  Sharadza meditated again, this time repeating the second mantra.

  Thought is Action… Non-thought is Being.

  She sat on one side of the fire, the crone on the other. Days and nights flashed by, but the cave remained unchanged.

  “As all things are one, so are the Mind and Body,” said the crone. “Your highest self is that which determines form and motion. This invisible essence is what you seek, for it is the source of all power.”

  Thought is Action… Non-thought is Being.

  “The world of flesh is a river. You have been a fish swimming in that river. But now you see that you are the river itself, and that the river is also one of spirit. Flesh and spirit, body and mind, form and formlessness. These are your tools. Seek the highest self and find there only Truth.”

  Sharadza was a ray of light, gleaming across the universe. That light gave birth to a flower, which also was her. The flower fed an insect, and she was that insect. The insect was devoured by a frog, which was her as well. Something ate the frog, and something devoured that, and she passed on through the chain of devouring… transforming, always transforming, never destroyed, never ending. She passed through a hundred lives, and then sat again in the cave with the crone and the flame.

  Thought is Action… Non-thought is Being.

  She sprouted from the earth as a newborn bud, grew into a sapling, sprouted leaves like dreams into the air. She rose toward the warm sun for a thousand years, feet planted in the earth, and stood tall as a mighty Uyga ruling over the forest of Uduria.

  The crone brought her back into the cave with a whispered question.

  “Which is more important? Thought… or Being?”

  Sharadza blinked and felt the sun moving across the sky.

  “There is no difference,” she answered.

  “Good,” said the crone. “Now sleep.”

  Third came the mastery of patterns.

  She studied the hidden patterns of nature, the expanding and repeating of organic forms. I
nfinite forms serving infinite purpose, and all those serving the ultimate Truth. She dwelled inside that inner sun of blazing, absolute Truth. From there, all things were possible.

  Even the mantras were patterns – that was all.

  She sat in the cave, on a mountaintop, on a cloud, on the endless seascape, in the branches of trees… and repeated the mantras whispered in her ear by the crone.

  “These spoken things are not the patterns themselves,” said the old one, “but merely the representation of the patterns. And yet, all is one, so they are the same. The part is the whole.”

  The universe was the cave in which they sat, day after day, night after night. The cave was a part of the universe, so it was the universe. From any point in its depths, all other points were within reach.

  She saw the patterns of endless repetition in the surface of leaves as she walked the forest groves… in the heaving patterns of the foothills… in the swirling clouds and eddying pools. She saw the patterns in the births, lives, and deaths of Men and Giants. Men, Giants – they were the same. As were tigers and fawns, hawks and mice, beetles and fish, spiders and wolves. All life was composed of the same Infinite Intelligence, expressed in patterns. And every pattern composed part of a greater pattern, which led to a greater pattern, and so on into Eternity.

  But why did these patterns exist? What caused the unified consciousness, Eternal Being itself, to fragment into its individual forms? Ah, the question was a lie. There are no individual forms. All is One, and yet… there were the patterns.

  “Who set the patterns in motion?” she asked the crone. “Who set the Great Wheel of Life spinning?”

  The crone cackled.

  “Men blame the Gods for this,” she answered. “But the Gods are only patterns as well.”

  “Then why the patterns?”

  The crone shrugged. “It is the Way of Things.”

  “But if everything is illusion… separateness… diversity… patterns… all that constitutes reality, then what lies behind it? What is the Truth?”

  The crone answered with a question of her own: “Which holds more power? Truth or Illusion?”

  Sharadza thought first, then rose above her thoughts. They were only patterns.

  “There is no difference,” she answered. “All is One.”

  The crone cackled again. “Excellent,” she said. “Now rest.”

  Next came the secrets of history.

  “In the formless Before,” said the crone, “the idea of Form was born, and so the patterns began.”

  The cave faded away and they stood in a black void pregnant with glittering stars. A vast blue-green globe floated in the darkness, reflecting the light of a flaming sphere that hovered beyond. Sharadza watched the patterns of white clouds move across the globe.

  “The first patterns gave birth to the Old Breed, who moved across the world, shaping it to their whims. They floated in from the void, raising mountain ranges and carving oceans. They manifested Truth and Illusion together, and their patterns gave birth to more patterns, manifesting the infinitude of Nature.

  “They created life from fragments of their own celestial bodies, to thrive and struggle and die and be reborn across the world that was their playground. Man was not the first. Nor Giants. Many were the shapes and forms that rose from the muck and spread their patterns across the continents. They built bright, shining cities which crumbled in an eon or two.”

  Sharadza saw the masses of antique races moving across the primeval world, taming swamps, slaying beasts, discovering fire, mastering the arts of agriculture, construction, the written word. Empire after empire, they crumbled to dust, each succeeding race building its monuments and walls on the bones of the last, ignorant of those that came before. In the depths of the seas amphibious cities sent coral towers into the world above, until tidal waves shattered and pulled them under. The cycles were the same – birth, progress, culmination, extinction. An endless repetition of life forms and civilizations.

  Patterns.

  “Ages passed, and the Old Breed grew tired of this play,” said the crone. “They went back into the void, seeking distant horizons. Others grew weary and slept, and are sleeping still in the bones of the world. Still others wove themselves into the patterns below and became part of the world they had created. Some were called Gods… others Demons… others went unknown and lost even the memory of themselves. They lost themselves inside the perpetuating life cycles they themselves had set in motion, becoming what they had guided into being and observed for so long. They forsook the illusion of separateness and joined the world, but in so doing they fell into the trap of separateness. Some were reborn as new races…”

  She saw the birth of the Uduru race, bursting full grown from the sides of mountains. The Stoneborn, they were still called by some. A race of amphibians crawled out of the sea, changed by the sun and the descending spirits of the Old Breed into the ancestors of men. Some of the falling powers took their forms in deep earth-fires, coalescing into the race of Serpents, spilling flame from their great maws. These were the three races that had shaped the modern world: Giant, Man, and Serpent. Far stranger races thrived in the far and hidden places.

  She saw, from her place among the sun-gilded clouds, the Age of Serpents, when Men were devoured in thousands, until the Giants came forth to battle the Wyrms. She saw the Uduru cross the blackened mountains and built their first great city, while the Five Tribes of Man split across the continent and formed the kingdoms she knew. So fast the whole of history had passed before her eyes. But then time itself was an illusion as well.

  “There are those of the Old Breed who still remember what they used to be,” said the crone. “Men and Uduru call them sorcerers. Yet they do not know that many of these sorcerers live among them wrapped in coats of flesh and ignorance, limited by their own conceptions of reality. To learn the arts of sorcery is to relearn what you have forgotten.

  “All Giants, and those born of Giants, carry the seeds of Old Breed power in their blood. You are of this breed, Sharadza. As was your father. As are all who walk the path of sorcery.”

  “Yet men can learn sorcery as well,” said Sharadza. “Can they not?”

  “For those descended of the Old Breed, as the Giants are, it comes as naturally as it has for you. As for the rest… they mumble incantations and invoke forces beyond their understanding. They think themselves true sorcerers, but such men only skirt the edges of Truth. Children playing with fire.”

  “So then every Uduru, once aware of his heritage, can wield true sorcery?”

  “Child, the Uduru are sorcery.”

  “You yourself must be one of the Old Breed.”

  The crone gave her a toothless grin, and they were sitting in the cave again.

  “I am one who has never forgotten,” said the crone.

  “And are there others who remember?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the crone. “A few… They seek to shape the world still. They weave secret patterns that bring change to the world. Theirs is an ancient struggle, a disagreement played out through a billion billion lives and numberless kingdoms living and dead.”

  Suddenly Sharadza knew. The crone was not a crone at all. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I am many beings,” said the crone. “Whatever or whoever I choose to be. As are you.”

  Next, the awareness of other worlds.

  “The Living World is composed of four elements,” said the crone. “Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. These are the substance of the patterns in which we live, breathe, and work our wills. To see the unity of these four is the first step to mastering them all. Yet each is its own domain. Each requires dedication and study. But these are only the elements of the Living World. There are many others.”

  The World of the Dead was a cipher, an illusion that existed alongside the illusion of the Living World. They were united, yet separate. To master one was not to master the other, but to master them both would be to master the Whole. Truth lay where the tw
o met and one became the other. Neither was eternal.

  The World of Spirit was a realm beyond the reach of physical forces. Only by realizing its crucial relation to the solid world could one master its patterns. Spirits often manifest in the physical world, but physical things cannot manifest in the Spirit World. An accomplished sorcerer must belong to both worlds. This might take a lifetime.

  The Worlds of Past and Future were also illusions. But since all things were equally Truth and Illusion, they might be used by a sorcerer to influence and alter the patterns of the Living World. However, becoming lost in Past or Future were terrible dangers, so these worlds could only be manipulated by the greatest of mages.

  The Outer Worlds were without number. Some were formless, some contained form, and others were mixtures of both traits. These were the most dangerous of realms for the sorcerer to contemplate or to meddle in. Realities wavered, shifted, and patterns could not be counted as stable or even patterns at all. Great intelligences, and great hungers, dwelled in the Outer Worlds, some benign, some malevolent. To open the way into such worlds was to risk torment, annihilation, and madness. The absence of patterns was also a pattern: the void.

  The gates of these worlds were best left alone.

  Now choices must be made.

  “There is much to learn, Princess,” said the crone-who-was-not-a-crone. “Your inner eye has opened. Now you must decide where to begin.”

  Sharadza stood on the hilltop, watching the sun sink into a fog of scarlet and purple.

  “My father,” she said. “Do you see him alive or dead?”

  The crone looked west toward the Cryptic Sea, somewhere beyond the woodland horizon.

  “Look for yourself…”

  Sharadza sent her mind into those faraway waters, gliding like a silver fish through the depths. A great ravine in the sea bed called out to her, glowing with a weird phosphorescence. She floated over the edge and saw the spires of a splendid city carved from coral. In shades of amber, scarlet, saffron, and azure it rose from the depths, and glistening sea-things darted about its towers like birds. It was not so unlike a city of the dry world, with its ramparts, gardens, bridges, colonnades, and domes. Amid the winding streets swam crowds of glittering mer-folk, busy as the citizens of Uurz or Udurum, yet wrapped in the bubbling peace of the marine world.