The Seventh Gate (The Seven Citadels )

by Geraldine Harris

  “She became lovelier than any other woman. Men blasphemed, calling her fairer than Imarko, and loved her helplessly. A certain young captain of Joze died of his passion but she gave herself to none of them. Their love was bitter. Every longing look, every gasp of admiration, reminded her of what she had been. No one recognized the person within the beauty and she despised them for it. She vowed to live, not among men, but among beasts.”

  “Grieving, she entered the Forbidden Jungle and found there more than beasts. They came to her, the ancient people, and in her bitterness she was not afraid. Slowly they accepted her and allowed her dominion over birds and beasts, but they did not understand her and communication was difficult and slow. At last they began to perceive her grief and the causes of it. They tried in their own way to heal her and made for her the Valley of the Rocks. Over the centuries they carved her human body as they saw it: intricate and beautiful in every part. They saw no ugliness in her; to them, all creatures were fascinating in what they shared and beautiful in the ways they differed.”

  “At last she understood. She stayed in the jungle and took on the task of showing humankind to the ancient ones. She welcomed her own form again and discarded the false beauty that had walled her in with hatred. That is the story, Gidjabolgo.”

  The Forgite remained silent by the pool.

  “Now Prince,” whispered Tebreega, “open your mind - let Gidjabolgo know how you see him.”

  Kerish tried to form a clear picture, but it was constantly swept away by eddies of thought as he remembered Gidjabolgo's sour humor, his guarded loyalty, the way music possessed him, the grace that could transform his features when he looked at something beautiful. Most vividly of all, Kerish recalled the night the Forgite had risked rejection by telling him the truth and had held him when he wept.

  “Enough,” said the lovely alien voice.

  “Prince,” murmured Tebreega, “tell him what you see now.

  “A stranger. That is...I have no right to . . . I will get used to it in time,” said Kerish clumsily. “I am glad that you have what you've always wanted.”

  “A stranger,” repeated Gidjabolgo, as if he had not heard the rest.

  “Once, you refused to sacrifice your only friend for your heart's desire,” said Tebreega. “You deserve fulfillment. Which form do you choose?”

  “My own,” answered Gidjabolgo.

  The air shimmered and the handsome stranger was gone. Kerish held out his hands to his own familiar and hideous Gidjabolgo and the Forgite's face twisted with anguish.

  “Look at your eyes,” said Kerish desperately. “Gidjabolgo, look at your eyes!”

  The Forgite swung round and knelt by the pool.

  “That is no false, sorcerous glamour.” Tebreega's voice was very gentle. “I have merely made your true self more visible. All your life you have looked for beauty. There is its reflection.”

  The eyes remained the same rich green and gold. No one looking at Gidjabolgo's face would notice anything else.

  “Then I'll save the thanks I would have wasted on you,” growled Gidjabolgo, to Kerish's great delight.

  Tebreega also smiled. “Now,” she said, “we shall return to the Valley of the Rocks.”

  Chapter 11

  The Book of the Emperors: Wisdom

  The time came for the High Priest to choose his successor and the names of three priests were put forward. The three were brought to his lodging place in the Golden City and told to wait in an ante-room. For an hour they waited and then the High Priest came out and laid his hand on the shoulder of the third priest, saying, “You shall be my successor.” The other men protested, saying, “Holiness, you have never seen or spoken to us, why then reject us?” The High Priest answered, “I have judged you not by your deeds or words but by the use you made of idleness. You,” he pointed at the first priest, “you made of this chamber a pit for petty thoughts to wrangle in. You,” he pointed at the second priest, “noted every detail of the chamber but left it as barren as you found it.” Tenderly he smiled at the third priest. “You furnished the chamber with the splendors of your mind and made it a place fit for Zeldin to enter. Go and do likewise with all of Galkis.”

  Breathless from a giddy flight smothered in the folds of Tebreega's cloak, the travelers stood again in the Valley of the Rocks.

  “You thought them beautiful until you began to understand, Kerish,” murmured the sorceress. “You must think them beautiful again before I give you the key. But you, Gidjabolgo - your horror seemed to exist beside your pleasure without tainting it.”

  “I am greedy,” answered Gidjabolgo. “I will squeeze pleasure from anything.”

  “Without a qualm? Good!” exclaimed Tebreega. “If you had won a key, you would not have wasted your immortality.”

  She moved impatiently past creeper-infested rocks and they could hardly keep up with her long strides.

  “When I was a child in Joze, I saw a man knocked down by a horse in the street and kicked in the head. His blood made exquisite patterns on the cobbles. I told my nurse so and was beaten for it. That was wrong. I was no less sorry for the man because the patterns were beautiful. All the onlookers praised the man's courage as he died and saw nothing wrong in separating and admiring that. The Ferrabrinth have many reactions to one event and so it is easy to believe them callous.”

  “Isn't there a danger,” began Kerish, “that in time only the admired elements may retain their meaning? Then compassion, and the urge to give practical help, might disappear?”

  “Where now is Vashordek the great? Where is the King of Roac?” murmured Tebreega. “Yes, that is a danger, but the aim is noble: to enrich our lives by a wider range of thoughts and feelings, all happening in one precious instant. Yet, narrowness is safer.”

  They had come to the first of the naked rocks and Tebreega rounded on them suddenly. “How do you judge a woman's beauty? My ugliness distresses you, Kerish, because you feel guilty at even noticing it. Gidjabolgo merely dislikes it as he does any unsightly thing. I take no offence. Once I would have been equally repelled by him. Only the handsome are charitable about other people's looks. Would you both prefer this?”

  The great bulk of the sorceress suddenly span round. Her cloak swirled outwards. Kerish shielded his eyes from the dazzling blue and scarlet that engulfed him. Feathers caressed his cheek and a woman laughed softly. The colors shrank back, to cling to the slender form of the Mistress of the Birds. The heavy black hair framed a face as perfect as any image of Imarko, but the lips were like fire-flowers and the violet eyes were bright with contempt.

  “This is what the men of Jenoza saw.” She moved gracefully towards them and Gidjabolgo eyed her as warily as a beast of prey.

  “Do you find me beautiful? Many did, and lived to regret their passion when I was young and angry with the world. They reached for me as children snatch at bells or colored ribbons tied above the cradle. Tawdry images. You lose yourself if you desire them. In lust, all men are alike.”

  She began to dance, sensuously, furiously, and the scarlet blurred. The figure slowed again and there was Tebreega, her chins wobbling as she gasped for breath.

  “Now look at me again.” She pushed back swathes of hair with ugly, reassuring hands. “At me. I am like the puzzle boxes that the Men of Dorak carve to give to their sweethearts: from large to small, each inside the other, growing ever more intricate and inaccessible. We can never really see ourselves but the Ferrabrinth have different skills. Vethnar understands. Now you must try.”

  She seized Kerish's wrist and pulled him after her, forcing him to look again at the rocks and touch the carvings.

  “Here I am,” cried the sorceress, “spread out among the rocks; a maze of marvels. There are gardens in my blood; see how they flower. Have you ever met so perfect a spiral? And here, no sea could boast of such fantastic creatures, but they are all contained in me. Look at this tracery, could any lace be more exquisite? Yet it is a tracery of pain. Do you begin to understand?�
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  Slowly, as they wandered through the valley, Kerish's horror began to give way to fascination and then to wonder.

  “Ah, the heart itself,” Tebreega bore down on the rust-red outcrop. “How lightly we speak of it but here is the reality. Listen to your own heart beating, Kerish, and then look. Gidjabolgo, see yourself here too, a casket of wonders.”

  The Forgite lingered beside a white rock tracing the elegant curve of a rib with his stubby fingers.

  “We are rich,” he said.

  Tebreega laughed joyously. “See the complexity of a single hair and all the colors contained in it. Now, don't shrink, look at the prison of memory, the shape of the mind itself.”

  Kerish looked steadily at the pale coils. “And we are all like this?”

  “All, and having seen it, could you ever again think a human worthless?” asked Tebreega. “You should grieve for the fall of any man as you would for the breaking of some marvelous sculpture.”

  “I begin to understand,” said Kerish, “but illness, age, death . . .”

  “Much of what you see is never blemished by age and even the form of disease can be beautiful: alien flowers in the body's garden. Death is something for the mind to struggle with and you have done so. I wanted you to understand the glory of life more fully,” whispered Tebreega, “or acceptance of death will not be the great step that it should be.”

  She stooped to kiss his cheek and Kerish stood frozen, understanding more than she had said aloud.

  “The last rocks in the valley,” Gidjabolgo had caught them up. “Why are they bare? Is the work unfinished?”

  “Yes, in spite of all my centuries with the Ferrabrinth,” admitted Tebreega. “Those rocks are for carvings of the human soul. Many times we have talked of it, but they do not yet understand.”

  “They have no souls?” The Forgite's voice was sharp with curiosity.

  “There is no such word in their language,” said Tebreega with her lopsided smile.

  “And their gods?” asked Kerish.

  “In the youth of their people, “ began the sorceress, “they had deities and you have trodden two of their sanctuaries: the island of Vethnar and your father's garden. They say that they have grown out of deities as children do out of toys.”

  “I see now why they were not afraid to create life,” said Kerish thoughtfully.

  Tebreega nodded. “Perhaps they have lost the gift of fear. All my attempts to describe what we understand by a soul have failed. I need help. Perhaps it would take the voices of all the humans who have ever lived in Zindar, or perhaps only one new voice. I do not know and my very immortality makes me the worst suited of all mankind to attempt such a task,” Tebreega sighed. “The Ferrabrinth will not leave their seclusion and share their knowledge till the carvings are completed and they have understood the whole of humanity.”

  “Then they must wait forever,” said Gidjabolgo harshly. “Like all who seek perfection.”

  “It may be so,” agreed Tebreega, “but I will do my uttermost, even to the extent of exposing the Ferrabrinth to you.” She smiled absently. “This is my meeting-place with them and this is our time. Will you stay?”

  They both nodded.

  “Then I will begin my summoning.” From the folds of her cloak she took a bone pipe, worn by centuries of her fingering. “Keep very still.” Pursing her full lips she began to play.

  At first the travelers could hear nothing, but their skin prickled and their limbs swayed to a silent rhythm. The jungle seemed to move with them as if the whole earth was rocking. Kerish was gripped with the idea that the firm ground he had always walked on was an illusion. This was the reality: constant, violent movement and how could he ever have hoped to keep a footing? Slowly the music became audible - high and piercing, full of juddering discords and unexpected pauses, as if they were still not hearing all of it, or were incapable of supplying the necessary response.

  Kerish became conscious of his heartbeat quickening as if it was anxious to escape the alien rhythm. Yet there was something familiar in the sound. His eyes met Gidjabolgo's and they remembered. Long before, as they camped beyond the Forbidden Hill, they had both been drawn by such music. No, not music. It was the speech of the Ferrabrinth and Kerish wondered what the ghosts of Vashordek had cried out to them that night.

  Tebreega's fingers were still but the sounds continued. She was answered and suddenly a Ferrabrinthin was with them. Its furled wings were all the colors of the sunset, like the feathered crest that streamed from its head. Kerish hardly noticed the rest of its tall body - the slender, eight-fingered hands, the grey skin with its labyrinth of delicate veins - the face held him. At first, it was turned sideways, contemplating him with a bright black eye; the extraordinary profile, with its long fretted bill, startlingly clear. Then the head swiveled round on the narrow shoulders and the huge eye in its forehead burned into him with a different kind of sight.

  Tebreega played something on her pipe and the Ferrabrinthin replied. Kerish tried to fit words to the image of the creature in front of him and could not describe it even to himself. His vision blurred as his mind retreated from a strangeness too complete for it to struggle with. Through the haze, the third eye still burned and Kerish felt as if he was being drawn forward and minutely examined. He tried to see himself as the Ferrabrinthin must - wingless, short, heavy-boned, thick-skinned, flat-faced, half blind - yet neither hideous nor beautiful, simply alien.

  The presence withdrew and forcing himself to move, Kerish bowed in the Galkian fashion with his hand over his heart. Suddenly the wings were unfurled, dazzling with a red such as he had never seen, even in the hottest fire or the richest sunset. The many-fingered hands moved, striking the Ferrabrinthin's chest with a note like a drum. As suddenly as it had appeared, the creature was gone.

  Gidjabolgo dropped to his knees, his eyes still reflecting the glory of the Ferrabrinthin's wings. The world rocked gently, as if it were trying to lull them back to sleep. Kerish realized that the sorceress was putting away her pipe and speaking to him.

  “You are honored, sweetheart. He greeted you as an equal and be assured you startled him as much as he did you. Gidjabolgo, are you happy now?”

  The Forgite did not seem to find the question odd. He grunted in reluctant assent as Kerish helped him to his feet.

  “We can all go home then,” said Tebreega.

  *****

  There was no feasting in Tir-Jenac that night, only a simple meal beside the pool which they prepared themselves. While Tebreega murmured to her birds, Kerish had the task of gathering a basketful of fruit from the edges of the glade. He was guided by two monkeys who screeched disapprovingly or chattered encouragement beneath each tree. Gidjabolgo was given a rather blunt knife and a pile of knobbly roots. He attacked them with gusto, peeling his own fingers as often as the thick green skins.

  “We've spice enough without your language,” remarked Tebreega, coming out of her tent with a bowl of creamy sauce.” And that will do. There's enough there to feed even me three times over. Besides, you must not spoil your fingers for the zildar. The Ferrabrinth do not really understand our distinction between speech and music. To them, all forms of communication are art.”

  “And how long do they take to cry for help?” asked Gidjabolgo. “A chorus and twelve verses?”

  Tebreega laughed as she squatted down beside him. “Almost. It was a very long time before I realized that their need for me was as great as mine for them. I would enjoy translating some of your remarks to them. Surprise is considered inelegant among the Ferrabrinth but I have learned to know the signs.” She chuckled. “Perhaps I could make them laugh at last.”

  “How would you know amongst that cacophony?” asked Gidjabolgo.

  “How indeed? An interesting problem. Their speech sounded full of discord to me too, at first,” said Tebreega, “but they have their own sense of harmony. As a musician you would find it interesting and the pipe is easy enough to play though the human voice cann
ot encompass their language. Kerish, I didn't see you standing there. Sit down.”

  They began their simple supper.

  “Sweetheart, you're not eating,” said Tebreega after a minute, “and your eyes are bright enough to drive all the questions in Zindar out of the shadows. I warn you, Kerish, I cannot betray my trust by telling you more about the Ferrabrinth than you need to know.”

  “There is one thing. It's not really a question, just a guess. You don't have to say anything. In the caves of Gultim there were pictures of men dwelling in trees and in the Five Kingdoms they seem to preserve the memory without understanding it. Now the Ferrabrinth are winged and live chiefly in forests and jungles . . .” Kerish's voice trailed away and he looked expectantly at the sorceress.

  “There is a legend among the Ferrabrinth,” murmured Tebreega, “only a legend, as they have often stressed to me, of an age when they dwelt in another land beyond the Great Ocean. There they lived in huge hollowed trees and they tamed the birds and beasts of the forest. One of these beasts showed more intelligence than the rest and that species became their cherished companions. Over the centuries they lavished great care and affection on generations of the beasts, teaching them to perform simple tricks and tasks. Gradually, the species became quicker to learn and its method of communication grew more complex. Then the creatures grew harder to train to obedience. Some ran away into the forest where wild colonies sprang up.”

  “One day a great sage amongst the Ferrabrinth was making a journey through a remote part of the forest. There he discovered an expanding city of trees. No craftsmen of the Ferrabrinth had worked on it. It was made by the creatures; a crude but functional copy. The sage returned to his people and told them that they must leave their homes, for he had seen the future of the land and it was not theirs. Other wise ones were consulted and finally the gods themselves, and it was agreed. The entire nation of the Ferrabrinth sailed across the Great Ocean to a new land but they always feared that they would be followed. They have a proverb, `Only our children have the power to destroy us.'”