by Janet Morris
"What are you doing, Niko?" Tempus's voice was hoarse, close by, nearly in his ear.
"What? I— Riddler, the dream lord appeared to me…" That sounded daft. He tried again: "I had a vision. Aŝkelon was in it. He said words I couldn't hear." Niko shook his head miserably, aware that it sounded like the rantings of a drunkard who mixed his wine with drugs. "Never mind."
"Go on," Tempus crossed his arms.
"It said… something… 'Throw it away' or something like that. So since I've abrogated my oath to him thrice over, I thought I'd leave this accursed armor and—"
"No! Make your pack fast. Let's get out of here before anything else happens to delay us."
"But he wants it back—"
"You don't know that. You don't even know if it was Ash—the witch is about, remember. Perhaps she can masquerade as him, I don't know. I do know that when Ash decides to appear on earth, the signs are unmistakable. And he doesn't waste his time—if he wanted you to get a message, you'd have it, not be wondering what it was."
Niko rubbed his neck, which was beginning to ache; his hand was trembling from lack of wine. "Maybe if I had just one drink, I'd be able to tell what was happening and what was not."
"Mount up, Stepson. And don't worry about half-seen visitations or manifestations. When we've got you free of wine's yoke, you'll know what you're seeing and what you're not."
It was a direct order. Niko had to obey.
And maybe the Riddler was right. The Aŝkelonian stallion, who nuzzled him as he mounted up, would surely have greeted the man who raised it, Aŝkelon, lord of shadow and of dream. And yet the horse had been silent the whole time.
Riding out of Tyse, his pack horse ponied tight, Niko could only hope the Riddler was right, that the whole thing was a figment of his drink-deprived imagination, and not a message unheeded, a warning untaken.
* 3 *
Three days south of Tyse, wizard weather combined with storms from heaven to stop Tempus and his rightman in their tracks.
They could see the lights of a nearby hamlet when the wizard weather started; its chilling mist oozed up from the ground and drifted at saddle-height through the air, icing trees and freezing varmints in their burrows. The wind on which it rose was so rank with salt and sea that wolves howled their distress and foxes ran for higher ground, yipping as they went in search of safety.
Ahead, the town's lights disappeared from view; a swirling mass of deadly cloud was all that could be seen.
"Keep going!" Tempus yelled to Niko, and they did, though they had to whip their horses, who wanted most of all to stop, turn head to tail, and wait out the unnatural storm. Without shelter, movement was their only weapon against the chilling fog that froze their eyelashes and made their fingers numb.
They raced through it blindly, their horses on the run, hoping that their own heat might save them from being frozen solid in their saddles.
Somewhere ahead, the hamlet they'd seen must still exist. Even if the mist was wound about its streets, and its inhabitants ice-statues in their beds, ahead were barns and hearths and doors that could be barred against the storm. Both men had been in Sanctuary when wizard weather roamed the streets; both knew what sort of storm this was.
Grimly, they kicked and urged their snorting horses forward, where the little town must be.
And then, from high above the tundra-hugging mist, a deep and throaty roar came down to shake the earth beneath so that their horses panicked and bolted wildly. The pack animals broke their tethers and disappeared into the fog as thunder roared and lightning flashed to earth, burning a path through the killing mist with every bolt.
It was as if heaven and hell did battle; the mist rose up, its fingers curled, as if to rend the sky. Every lightning bolt cast into the fog made it quiver like a living thing; the mist drew back, hissing when it was pierced, and where lightning struck, a stench like rotting fish began to spread.
Around the riders the lightning ranged itself like an embattled guard, so that Tempus sawed on his maddened Aŝkelonian's reins, trying to bring it to a halt and signal Niko to do the same.
But the horses wouldn't listen; they ran pall-mall right through that corridor of ozone and blue stinking light as if they'd scented their own stable. And on the far side of the weather war, they halted of their own accord, blowing hard and shivering.
Ahead of them a town sprawled, golden and enchanting, its harbors clean, its skyline clear and crystalline, waves lapping at its shore.
Behind them, Tempus saw as Niko turned in his saddle and he did likewise, was a veil of mist, rent in places, beyond which soundless lightning impo-tently raged.
Here the weather was more than clement—it was like a summer's eve. The town before them was snuggled safe and beautiful, dreaming in a twilight that made the sea which lapped it iridescent green.
Niko urged his weary horse to sidle up to Tern-pus's. They sat there silent, staring at the seaboard town where an inland hamlet should have been until their horses began to paw the ground and champ upon their bits.
Then Niko said reluctantly, "You know what this is… where we are, Commander?"
Tempus had never heard Niko sound so hopeless. "Meridian, I expect. The archipelago of dreams."
"That's right," said Niko, who'd been here once before.
"Don't worry, Stealth. It's just Ash playing archmagical games."
"What do we do, Commander? Our pack animals, food, provisions, arms and armor…" Niko's enchanted panoply had been on his pack horse.
"Do? We ride down and find out what he wants, what else?"
They were on a little rise above the seacoast; an inland breeze brought them the sounds of hymns and chants upon the air. Beyond Meridian's quays, night was falling; in its streets, torches were being lit.
Niko took a shuddering breath, slipped off his horse, and held it by the bridle. Looking up at Tempus as if he looked at his own death, Niko said, "I can't. I can't go down there. Please… you don't understand. That man, if man he is, has got too much of me already—my rest-place, my valor, my self-respect. Coward I may be, but I'm not going into Meridian at nighttime, when all men's nightmares come to life."
"A wise choice, Niko. I need you here, to watch the horses. We can't have them bolting to their stable, not when we'll need them to ride out again." Tempus had to let the boy know he didn't blame him—that this was wisdom, not cowardice, in the Riddler's eyes.
Sliding off his own horse, he handed Niko its reins: "Watch them well. Don't fall asleep now," he teased.
Niko managed a shaky grin: "Sleep? Here? Not while I'm alive."
And with that Tempus left him, striding off down the hill. He looked back once and saw the boy reaching in his tunic, then fondling something in his hand—a talisman or charm, no doubt. Tempus hoped it would keep him safe, whatever it might be.
With a foul taste in his mouth, he trod the ensorceled sod of Meridian, the largest island in a chain that belonged to the entelechy of dreams and to the seventh sphere, and manifested on earth only occasionally.
Tempus tried not to wonder what the occasion was as he wandered streets paved with gold and Meridian's changeling nature became obvious: buildings shivered, shuddered, came and went; people who were doubtless sleeping in their beds some safer place dashed madly to and fro, living out their dream lives, be they horrid, wondrous, or grave, oblivious to one another's fates.
He'd just passed a woman changing into a fish-tailed girl, pursued by a handsome man with seaweed-colored hair, when Aŝkelon appeared before him.
All the impermanence of the dreamers here and there then faded. With Aŝkelon was a processional: drum-beaters, horn-blowers, pipe players with short horns upon their heads and ram's bottoms, rosy-cheeked children who must have died in their sleep eons past. They carried high a red-lacquered chair and in it Aŝkelon was borne, high on the shoulders of men from every race and women of every color.
When he saw Tempus, he made a sign and his bearers all knelt down. Stepping out
upon their backs and down onto his ground, Ash said, "Greetings, Tempus. I'm pleased that you could come."
The gray, sad eyes of Aŝkelon, so like Cime's full of char and smoke and hell, impaled him.
Tempus shook the first spell off. "What do you want, Ash? That boy you've terrorized can't even bear to find out, so I've left him behind." At Ternpus's hip was the sword Enlil had sanctified; with it, he was willing to try and skewer the dream lord if he had to.
On Aŝkelon's wrist, as he raised it to finger a long-suffering smile, was a talisman, a bracelet called the Heart of Aŝkelon which, should it be pierced just right, would consign this dream and shadow lord to his fate, long overdue.
"I want to talk to him; that's why I did this." Aŝkelon came close. "Come, sleepless one, let's take a walk. I'll convince you that I mean well, show you my domain…"
Tempus held his ground and kept his distance. "I won't hand him to you. I assume you can't get to him yourself. Why is that, do you think?"
Ash only smiled and shook his head.
"For the same reason the god did battle with your mist, I'd say," Tempus guessed.
Then the dream lord expelled a weary breath. "What is it with that child, that you would risk my wrath to save him, the gods battle in his stead?"
It was a rhetorical question Tempus didn't answer: if he and Ash came to contest, the outcome— not just for them, but for the fabric of the land of dreams—could not be predicted.
"Won't you bring him to me? He needs counsel and some witch has given him a token which prevents my helping him."
"That's the best news I've heard all day," Tempus grunted. "He doesn't want your help. You're keeping him from his mystery, you've invaded his rest-place, he says, driven him to drink. Aren't countless hapless souls enough for you, benighted thing? Or have you lived so long your wits are addled?"
"No more than yours." The dream lord rubbed the heart upon his arm ruminatively. "Why must you spurn my counsel? By all the powers, you surely need some. Rattling around in the affairs of puny mortals not capable of giving you even a contest; aren't you tired of being a figurehead for the gods? You're as helpless as a baby, swept by fate—and you don't have to be. I can lift your curse and grant you mortality, if you wish it… Why not, aren't you tired? Wouldn't you like a restful sleep?" The dream lord's voice was singsong, soothing.
But Tempus knew the power and the danger of Meridian's lord. "As you saved my sister from herself? She'll be young and beautiful eternally, so she tells me, yet she's as vicious and as murderous as ever."
"That's free will and human choice, no work of mine. Surely even you'll agree I've kept my bargain." But Aŝkelon's gray eyes darkened, the light from them now cold.
"Your bargain? With my sister? You got eternal salvation—or at least salvation for a time. And now you plague my fighters. Ash, I'm warning you, stay away from Niko."
"You're warning me? As did your new god? You saw what short work I made of him—you're here, aren't you?"
Tempus's hand was on his swordbelt, but Aŝkelon's eyes held him fast: he could not draw it out.
"Don't try me, little demigod. We have to coexist, you see. You affright them and cull their numbers with your wars; I'll take care of their dreams. Now's here's my final offer: reunite your Niko with my servant, Randal. At that time, I'll leave him be until he comes to me on his own. He'll have his mental refuge back; he can consider his word to me unspoken."
"And for this, you want what? You came to him, he says, and gave a message he couldn't understand."
The dream lord looked away, the first time Tempus had ever seen him do so: Ash was not one to shrink from a confrontation or defer a fight. "I can't get to him, I told you—he doesn't sleep, or if he does, he's too full of drink or drugs for me to help him."
"Help him to what?"
"You really don't know," Aŝkelon said pityingly. "He's your successor, Tempus. When he takes up his burden, you can put yours down. Finally, after all these years… come, don't tell me it isn't tempting."
"Not one whit. And besides, you old liar, he's just a boy, nothing more."
"And what were you, one time? Or your sister? What was she?"
"So," Tempus said slowly, fighting every temptation Aŝkelon could bring to bear. "All I have to do is hand that child to you, and I'm free of my curse? No thanks."
"You'll kill him with it, otherwise." "Men are born to die."
"My point, exactly Riddler. Don't you long for death? Can't you see that this new god is worse than being without one? In Enlil's stead you can do no good, but only evil. I'll prove to you—"
Tempus stopped listening; far behind, amid the crowd, he saw a woman he'd once loved—Jihan, a supernal sprite, and with her, a wizard's son who could have ended the war with Mygdon if only Tempus could have brought him there.
The dream lord followed his gaze, then said:
"You see, they're happy here. Their fates are sealed.
They have each other; they live in pleasant dreams."
"Jihan!" Tempus bellowed. She didn't even raise her head.
"Shamshi!" he called out to the boy, the child didn't turn a hair.
"That's no use—she'd be a mere wave in an eternal sea by now, if not for me. And the boy was born to die young. They have more with me than they'd have any other way. As you may, if you just let me help you…"
Then Tempus heard Enlil's voice in his head: "Strike now; strike hard; My might is with thee!"
This time, the sword came easily from its scabbard, its metal shining redly in Meridian's fading light.
And Aŝkelon, with a howl and a shudder, his arms up to protect his heart, gave back a pace, then two.
Tempus followed, disquiet in him: a war with Aŝkelon would never end, but add insult to injury and complicate his fate. Yet he shouted: "Leave that boy alone, or deal with me," and leaped into the crowd of Aŝkelon's minions as all around him the very ground began to heave.
The heavens sheeted colored light and grumbled, rumbled, split, and thundered.
Around him, the buildings and the people began to shake and break apart.
And darkness descended over everything, a dark sometimes reddish, sometimes blue, so that Tempus could find no enemy to fight, just light and cold and cloudy firmament.
As the cold began to seep into his lungs, his sword got hotter. He thrust at nothing, and something squealed like iron grating on a slate, and yielded.
Then blinding sparks showered from his sword tip, so that he had to shut his eyes.
And when he opened them, he was standing in a dell on open ground, in mud half-frozen.
Above, silhouetted in gentle moonlight, he could see four horses grazing and one man, sitting with his knees up and his head upon his arms.
When he'd climbed the tricky, wintry hill, he looked back the way he'd come: down the slope lay a hamlet, small and lit here and there with torches. No sea gleamed anywhere about; no cymbals tinkled, no drums beat.
He knew that the Meridian he'd been to was the Meridian of his own perception, that the Ash he'd met there was all things to all men. But he was glad that for the first time ever he'd tried to fight the dream lord. When Ash had swept his sister up for a year of bondage, Tempus hadn't dared to lift a hand to stop him.
He turned back and realized that Niko was dozing where he sat upon his saddle cloth.
He knelt down and touched the youth's ashy hair. Beside the boy an empty wineskin dripped out dregs, but Tempus could forgive that: he'd been beyond the veil and come back wiser, if not happier.
He was glad to be alive and in one piece and able to say to Niko, "Wake up, it's all over."
"What? Riddler! I thought I'd lost you!" Niko, for the first time, hugged him.
Tempus was so shocked it took a moment before he thought to growl and pull away. "No chance of that, Nikodemos. This time you've a partner you'll not be quit of quite so easily."
The boy, embarrassed, said, "The pack horses came back; I'll fix us something to eat."
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As Niko got out pot and provisions and knelt to build a fire, Tempus pondered, then said: "Never mind that. We'll eat in town. Ash tells me you've a charm to ward him off, now. Can I see it?"
"A charm? Against Aŝkelon? I don't… that is, I didn't know… Here."
Niko handed Tempus the bit of hair and bone.
"Where did you get this, Stealth?"
"From Grippa. It's been in his family for years," said the haunted youth. "Did the dream lord say what the message was?"
Tempus chuckled. "He wants you to throw this away—it keeps him from bedeviling you. If I were you, I'd keep it."
"You can be sure of that," Niko said, accepting it from Tempus with new reverence. The Riddler didn't have the heart to tell Niko why the little bit of bone and hair was so potent, or who the gift was really from. He'd do his best to help the boy, but right then the riddles spun and spells done seemed beyond his power to avoid.
He almost advised Niko to throw the charm away and bury the panoply right here in Rankan soil, far from any they could harm. But there were too many unknowables ahead; he couldn't counsel Niko wrongly. Therefore he didn't try at all.
It was comforting, in a way, to have the youngster beside him—another who hardly ever slept, who strove to master his own fate, who'd not ask questions that had no answers to make demands.
Off and on, those next few days, Tempus thought of the denizens of Meridian. The once-loved sprite, Jihan, had seemed happy in her unknowing way; the child-wizard beside her was better off in dreamland. But those two were special cases. Tempus couldn't bring himself, though he did try, to consider Ash's offer seriously: Meridian was not for him, or for Niko. Cime had been right when she'd called it the land of boredom; Niko knew in his heart that even his rest-place was worth the price of his freedom from that fate.
And Tempus, who craved only worthy enemies to fight and clear-cut human problems, banished all thoughts of the deal he might make with Ash for eternal peace.
He had too much to do: a war to win or at least a contest at the Festival of Man; a new god to get to know; an emperor to unseat; a youth to whom he'd pledged the Sacred Band's oath of trust and honor to help become his own man.