The City in the Autumn Stars

by Michael Moorcock

  There was now a distinct flickering in the sky; a shift, as if one thin plate of glass slid across another. The Autumn Stars seemed unchanged, but behind them were now fresh points of light. Libussa grew alert. ‘’Tis coming.’ She shivered. ‘Oh, ’tis coming!’

  The priestess and Montsorbier also peered out into the stars. ‘Aye,’ said my old enemy with grim satisfaction. ‘And we are ready.’

  The Earth lurched, it seemed, and became unstable, perhaps an illusion caused by what took place in the sky. There was still no sign of the spectacular conjunction Libussa had promised and I became uneasy. If all her calculations had been wrong, then what would she do? Would I be of no further use to her?

  ‘More heat!’ she demanded of the acolytes, who set to with their bellows until the crucible must surely explode. Another slight flickering above caused her to turn her eager, burning face to the top chamber of the Catinus Uteri.

  ‘Oh, Madam, we shall be consumed,’ said I.

  She shook her head. ‘Fear not. The chamber shall hold us for as long as is needed. The Grail will protect us.’

  Now I had to call upon a faith near as great as her own. Yet I knew I should possess the necessary courage while the tincture and her own brave blood flowed in me. I believed we were inviolable and that we should become one flesh, as she promised, and would emerge to rule the world in the name of Reason. My scepticism was in abeyance. As long as we were together I cared for nothing else. I was ready to step as willingly as any Shadrach into that fiery womb and feel no pain. My body was already blossoming with a delicious numbness, together with a sensation of joyous ecstasy, all from within! My flesh was armour which nothing could pierce, no weapon, no heat, no cold…

  As the Autumn Stars subtly flickered for the third time Libussa whispered very quiet in my ear. ‘You must be ready to use your sword as I direct. When that task’s done, you’ll hand me the blade.’

  Obedient, I nodded to show I had understood her instruction.

  There came a rapid, noisy shuddering in the Earth. Distantly, all around, here and there, the Deeper City’s older buildings fell as if shaken by a Tatary tremor. Slowly the shuddering ceased and there came another movement in the sky, sudden, flickering streaks of colour, new patterns appearing behind the old. When I studied them under Libussa’s guidance I made out familiar constellations, from my own Earthly realm. ‘They all come together, you see,’ she murmured. ‘A million spheres in conjunction – more! The Mittelmarch and our world combining, and as they combine, so do they marry with all the other planes of existence. And as they congregate, von Bek, so do they turn!’

  ‘Soon,’ the priestess stood beside us as if to utter an invocation. ‘Soon the Old Stars shall begin their Dance!’

  ‘And when the Dance is finished,’ said Montsorbier in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, as if he issued orders from a Tribune’s desk, ‘the new positions shall be fixed. The new order shall be established.’

  Their voices continued but became distant to my ears. I seemed divorced from them, from everything save Libussa. She squeezed my arm and led me closer to the crucible. The acolytes grew so hot it seemed their skin bubbled on hands and faces, yet crazily they continued to pump, to feed the noisy furnace. ‘It should be hotter still,’ she demanded. I had seen these creatures attack and kill, yet nonetheless I pitied their condition, though doubtless they felt little pain, as I felt none at all.

  ‘There!’ The golden priestess pointed. At last a single Autumn Star had begun to move, describing a shallow arc across the blackness. The huge pink-and-yellow disc was surrounded by a halo of dusty lilac. ‘Astra Sultant,’ murmured the girl, relishing the Latin words as another might roll wine on their tongue.

  Montsorbier’s face now seemed clear of all corruption. The depravity and cruelty fell away from him in an instant as he wondered at that marvel, his lips parting like a schoolboy’s. He craned his head back to follow the star progressing with stately majesty across the cluttered heavens.

  Another moved, as if it must surely crash into its fellow. It was smaller, faint ochre in colour.

  ‘The stars are dancing,’ said Montsorbier. ‘Oh, it is beautiful.’

  The crucible began to tremble and groan on its base. Strange, small whining noises escaped it. ‘It can be heated no higher, mistress!’ cried an attendant.

  She said softly to me, ‘Prepare your sword, my love.’

  I slung the scabbard from my back. I drew forth that superb blade. The polished steel reflected every light, almost as if the universe in miniature lived in my sword. The pommel was vibrant, but misty, providing only a glimpse of the still-screaming eagle. His mad eyes glared urgently at me for a moment before they vanished. For all its weight the sword had uncanny balance, resting lightly in my palm. My love for Libussa informed my love, at that moment, for the blade. I looked upon it in joyful wonderment.

  All my life has been led in order to achieve this moment!

  Two more great stars moved in unison across the sky and the Dance began in earnest. From a more distant point came a dark yellow sun, moving forward, yet seeming to fade as it grew to twice its size, then it danced to the north, held steady for a moment, then to the south. Other stars swirled around it, first in small groups, then in scores, then seemingly in thousands, sweeping and swirling, describing exact geometrical figures, moving in concert as they had always moved, but at incredible speeds. It could have been the course of their original progression through the heavens, but what had taken millions of years now came about in the space of minutes.

  The sky was alive with the mellow colours of those Dancing Stars as they performed the measures of their cosmic galliard. Still precise, still majestic, there seemed a simple joy in the nature of their movement, like dignified old men and women determined to relish the life remaining to them. Sometimes they created mysterious pictures, with features shifting and transmogrifying and colours changing. The shades became subtler now, as the great stars drew closer together.

  The Witnesses moaned in awe and moved in awkward imitation of those mighty suns. The Deeper City lost its appearance of nocturnal gloom and instead promised dawn. Her buildings still swayed and tilted, whispered and creaked, but they were no longer mere black silhouettes; their brick and stone was washed with warm light revealing individual features. They lost their menace and their mystery as they were displayed in their decrepitude. Great cracks were visible in their walls, pieces of masonry flaked and fell, chimneys twisted and crumbled, windows were distorted, as were doors, while shutters hung at unlikely angles. The spiral streets were undulating, rippling like flood water down the steep hills towards the Centre where we stood upon the O’Dowd’s demolished dream. Meanwhile, beside me, the instigator of that ruin, the arch-arsonist Montsorbier whistled through his teeth as he observed the ever-moving firmament.

  Our crucible now threw off vapour from its trembling metal as if it must soon melt. Libussa turned to Montsorbier. ‘Give me the Grail.’

  He turned, abstractedly, as if he could not remember who she was.

  ‘Last night, when we made our bargain, you said you had captured something in the depths. You said I would recognise it.’

  ‘Aye.’ Casually he handed her the upturned helm, his main attention still upon the dancing stars.

  ‘Well, sir, I demand you reveal it to me before the Concordance.’

  Dreamily he shook his head. ‘No, Madam. After.’

  Then, to my utter surprise, Libussa said to me: ‘Kill them both, von Bek. Kill them, quickly!’

  I was obedient. I could be little else. I was hers. The sword, light as ever, jumped in my grasp, almost anticipating my action. And I had sliced off Montsorbier’s wide-eyed head and I had cut down the golden priestess in an instant and the sword had done what it did before, in the O’Dowd’s sewers.

  It had quartered them, all in the space of a second, precise as any experienced butcher. The limbs were neatly sliced from the torso and lay so that only by careful inspection could it
be seen that they were not all of a piece. Yet this was certainly no trick instinctively learned from the Tatars. This, I was convinced, was the chief property of the sword itself. It was no wonder the enemies of Paracelsus had feared It.

  If I said I had assassinated Montsorbier and the priestess I should scarcely describe the true sense of the event. That they deserved death was not in question, but I had acted as little on my own volition as the sword had acted on mine. I had merely been Libussa’s instrument. I felt no pang of conscience, no self-disgust. Not then, though I had performed an action at odds with all I held honourable and humane.

  Slowly, a certain distress filled me as I watched Libussa stooping as cheerfully as any farm lass gathering sticks to pick up the severed limbs and fling them into the furnace. In went an arm and in a golden head. In went Montsorbier’s mildly astonished face. Would all of us soon be reduced to miscellaneous rubbish tossed into a stove? Was this the future Libussa sought to create!

  ‘Madam, I would not wish to do such a thing again,’ I said to her, fearing lest my disgust angered her, for my love was as fierce as ever, my loyalty to her as complete. ‘This was no part of the prescription you offered me. You spoke, as did I, against blatant treachery, immoral life-taking. And this is as bad as anything I’ve been called upon to perform in France.’

  ‘Montsorbier, Sir, was evil and ruthless. Nor was his priestess less guilty of crime.’

  ‘That’s a reason to shun them, Madam, not to kill them.’

  ‘You slew them, Sir.’

  Their blood continued to stain my steel and until it was off I had no wish to sheathe the weapon. ‘True,’ said I sadly.

  Libussa frowned. ‘It is a question of Time, von Bek. There is so little now.’

  ‘You had made a compact with that pair and you never intended to keep it.’ I did not wish to persevere with the argument. I dropped my gaze to the black ash at my feet. I could tell that her anger grew.

  ‘What, Sir?’ She challenged me. ‘Shall you betray me, also? Like Klosterheim? At this crucial hour?’

  ‘No, Madam, I shall not. But I cannot be dumb. By these actions we remain in league with the Beast. We succumb to fear, however subtly. No New Age can ever be truly that if it be founded upon the methods and the follies of the old. I learned as much in France. It is how I came to leave Paris and meet you.’

  ‘You were destined to leave and come here for your marriage.’

  ‘Aye, Madam.’

  This acquiescence satisfied her. She did not give a whit for my opinions or my sensibilities, so long as I continued to maintain the course I had committed myself to, body and soul. I would rather die than be separated from her. Yet I would have given a great deal for St Odhran’s reassuring vulgarity at that moment. I had murdered in cold blood and without a thought, there was no escaping that grim fact.

  The colours flooded over us. The monstrous stars continued their elaborate dance. The Deeper City shook and swayed and all those naked Witnesses to our coming marriage huddled back from us, perhaps convinced now that they, too, should soon be slaughtered by my surgeon’s cutlass. I had a sickening notion that they were right to be afraid of me.

  Montsorbier’s elegant bicorne, still with its tricolour cockade, lay at my feet. I picked it up and used it to clean the blade. The sword’s pommel reflected the light above, all turbulent, misty colour, but then cleared to show the eagle, flinging himself against the crystal, his coppery wings beating harder than ever, his furious claws extending and contracting.

  Libussa and I moved towards the fuming crucible. All the ashes stirred around us, reheated and smoking. Her tone was kind again. ‘Come, Sir, this is a marriage requiring no officiate. Together we already possess more authority than any living creature and soon we shall enjoy omnipotence.’

  But, though I could do nothing save obey her, the joy was gone from it. There remained the thrilling anticipation of pleasure, the satisfaction that the union was to come about, the curiosity as to what we might expect as the resolution of all that ritual, but she had refused to banish the Beast and the purity was lost for me.

  ‘We stand at the Tangential Core,’ she said. ‘No other sentient creature occupies this space. He who holds it shall impose all his dreams upon the generality affecting every future moment in mankind’s history. We shall describe those terms, von Bek. Could God Himself ask for more? We shall set down the terms of the human condition!’

  There was a roaring from above, as if an ocean were bursting through the skies to engulf us, but it was the tidal movement of the stars themselves as they began the concluding measure of their dance. Every colour there had ever been was now represented in the sky, points of hard light, swirls of soft; like watching eyes behind great war-banners blowing in the wind. But already the dance was slower.

  She began to talk with rapid intensity so that my blood and brain quickened, my memories slid away. She was so awesomely confident. ‘You’ve not hesitated thus far, Sir, and you’ve proven my sense in choosing you. You have great courage for a man, great willingness to see the world afresh, great imagination. Now, Sir, tell me you are ready for the last stages of our marriage ritual!’

  ‘I have always been ready, Libussa.’

  She stroked my flesh. ‘We shall be combined soon, sweet love. One flesh, one mind, one soul. The greatest prophecy shall be fulfilled and the yearning of all those mighty adepts shall find resolution at last. The golden work has always led to this moment, for thousands of years, since my people first began their search.’ She held up the battered helmet. ‘And here’s the key, without which we might never have succeeded. With it, we cannot fail. Is it not the very essence of harmony?’

  ‘You must let me slay the Beast,’ I said.

  She either did not hear me or refused to listen. The colours were breaking and merging again. The massive stars grew threadbare. It was possible to see through them to new constellations, hard and sharp, upon the misty black. A vast disc dropped below the horizon and as it fell its very substance shredded away, like breath on a winter’s evening. Another great body simply faded into invisibility. Yet still the dance continued, slower and slower, with fewer suns at every moment. It seemed the remnants of our Autumn Stars were staggering now, shivering with the fatigue of simply maintaining their existence. They had squandered their last few thousand years of life upon that single, splendid galliard.

  ‘It is coming,’ she murmured and held my hand tight. ‘When this finishes, von Bek, it is the Concordance. Are you still loyal?’

  ‘To perform the marriage?’

  ‘Aye, to your destiny.’

  We were very close to the crucible. I understood now that she meant to consign us to those flames. It was her madness, yet at that moment I was no more free of it than she. If she intended to die, then I would die with her, for that was better than living without her.

  In the shadows behind the crucible the Lion was prowling. I saw light fall intermittently upon his tawny skin. I heard him give a sound, half questioning whine, half threatening growl. Was he afraid he would lose his mistress? Or was she his sister? I remembered my dream of the Minotaur.

  Star by noble star the great orbs faded and were gone. Again the sky appeared to shift while at the same time it grew deeper to reveal layer upon layer of points of light and shining swirls that were galaxies, still moving but now apparently close to their ultimate positions. It appeared that the point of space upon which we stood was the only fixed matter in the whole universe, as if the Earth, or our part of it, refused rotation. Perhaps that was why the tall buildings of the Deeper City had still not ceased their swaying; they resisted the general gravity.

  The Lion made a low, unsettled noise. The crucible, groaning and whispering, was still white hot. Libussa herself bent to heave upon the bellows. There was a rush and flame flowered. It achieved a steady roar. She smiled as she moved closer to the crucible. She reached her hand towards me. ‘Quickly. We must become one at the very moment of Concordance. Quickly, von
Bek.’ Her red lips opened as if she were swallowing fire. Her powerful body vibrated with anticipated lust – or was it merely greed? ‘Come!’

  ‘Libussa,’ said I, ‘I love you for who you are. I love you as a human creature.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘You are the perfect woman. Your femininity is positive and potent. Your spirit is the bravest, your mind the keenest, your body the most beautiful. I love you, Libussa of Crete, and I offer myself to you in matrimony.’

  ‘Come, then, Sir. Come. Let’s get on with it.’ Her back was almost against the fiery metal of the crucible. I looked at her wonderful, naked body and I almost wept. She held the helm in her left hand and beckoned to me with her right. She was smiling. Her lips were soft. She cajoled me. ‘Come, Sir…’

  ‘This is no casual decision of mine, Libussa.’

  She smiled. ‘Your pride remains with you, my dear. Very well, if you wish it, I acknowledge your masculine generosity.’

  ‘I give myself up to you.’ I moved slowly towards her. Her lips were parted again, her red lips. Her teeth gleamed and her eyes were cloudy with desire. ‘Come, little one.’

  The crucible sputtered and the charcoal hissed. I saw a blackened hand twisting in the furnace as if Montsorbier waved a sardonic farewell. Libussa threw open the crucible’s door and she was careless of its heat. Within I saw white fire glaring. ‘In here, little one. For the final blending. We shall be a single body. The Two shall become the One. Do you understand, little von Bek?’

  I was now standing close to her, my naked flesh touching hers. The heat was terrific, but I could feel it no more than she. We were truly invulnerable, it seemed. She bent her head to kiss me upon the lips. She took a long, delicious kiss, as if she savoured me for the first time. And she sighed. ‘Ah, Sir, you cannot know what joy your courage purchases. But it will not be long before you are rewarded. Give me your sword, little one.’