Humility was added to the list of his virtues. Soon students gathered around him, paying rich fees to be instructed. His days were filled.
All the while he kept the stoppered bottle he had brought with him out of Eternity. Before long, he was no longer sure what it contained or what it was for. He wrapped it carefully in a cloth, placed it in a little coffer, and put the coffer in the bottom of a trunk by the foot of his bed.
So the years slipped by, and he lived like other men, even as the winged ones had seemed to prophesy. Then one day he chanced to be in the great square of the city, seated on the edge of the fountain there, lecturing his students, when right in front of him an ancient, feeble man, who seemed to have taken half the morning making his way across the square with the aid of a stick, fell down on the pavement and lay still.
One of the students went over and came back, reporting that the man was dead.
“What caused his death?” Kudasduin asked.
“Merely age,” the student said. “The fellow had been around so long it was inevitable.”
Kudasduin looked at his own reflection in the water of the fountain. He saw that his hair and beard were white. Suddenly he was afraid. He rose, dismissed his students, and hurried home. But he did not go in. He stood in front of the house, pacing back and forth, wringing his hands, muttering nervously, while memories flooded back. He remembered the time chamber.
He put his ear to the door and heard his wife within, talking to his sons. He couldn’t bear to confront them, so he ran away and hid until late that night, when he returned with stealth and, taking the smallest lamp he owned, crept into the bedroom. Careful not to wake Sansha, he unpacked the trunk and got out the stoppered vial. He went from the house as quietly as he had come, then ran through the streets until he came to a small gate, which he knew to be unguarded.
He walked with long strides across the plain, away from Ai Hanlo, toward the distant hills, searching for the auroral light where the time chamber intruded into the world. He wasn’t sure where it was. Then he thought of the bottle. Perhaps if he opened it, he would be back in Eternity.
He took it out, and was working the stopper loose when he heard someone running breathlessly toward him.
It was Evorad, now grown to be a man. He put the bottle away.
“My father, where are you going? Why have you left us so secretly? I woke up and followed you. Even now Mother does not know that you are gone.”
And Kudasduin cursed his own folly, and felt remorse, and said merely, “It is nothing, I would have come back in the morning. I came out here to study the stars.”
The two of them spent the rest of the night gazing at the wheel of heaven. When Kudasduin finally saw a light on the horizon, it was not a sign of the time chamber, but of dawn.
* * * *
“What is death?” he asked his students one day. He had over a hundred of them. They no longer met in the square, but in an academy.
“It is a journey,” someone offered.
“I am already on a journey,” he replied. “I have come a long, long way. How is death any different?”
“Your present journey is but a prologue, a preparation. You have travelled through all this life, only preparing to depart. The long road is still before you.”
“I do not understand.”
And this was a great marvel, that the wisest man in the land did not understand.
Later, Kudasduin’s granddaughter, Evorad’s child, came running to him and said, “Grandmother is dying. Come quickly.”
He could not come quickly because his joints were stiff, but, with the aid of a cane, he made his way to Sansha’s bedside.
Her face was sunken and lined, her hair a flawless white. She opened her eyes slowly. She spoke in a whisper. He leaned forward to hear.
“I thought you would be late,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave without seeing you first.”
“You’re not leaving. There is much to be uncovered. You must help me explore the world yet.”
He looked up at the doctor his sons had summoned. The man shook his head sadly and turned away.
“You are always uncovering things, my scholar,” Sansha said. “Can you do without one more mystery?”
“You are the mystery. I have not uncovered what it means to live with you, to love you. I have only begun my investigation.”
“You will have to fill your encyclopedia with incomplete results, with guesswork.”
He wept long and hard. His sons and the doctor left him alone with Sansha.
She coughed once and stopped breathing.
In panic he looked around, wondering what to do. He felt utterly helpless. All his researches, all his knowledge was for nothing if this could happen.
He noticed the trunk at the foot of the bed. He heaved the lid up, tossed aside clothing, books, bags of coins, jewelry, clutter, until he came to the little coffer. He took the bottle from within, pulled out the stopper with his teeth, and hurried to Sansha.
His hands trembling, his face a grim mask, he forced open her mouth, and poured some of the blue fluid down her throat. He had one desperate hope, that her death was still like new-poured wax, not yet hardened. He hesitated but a moment, and even then grew afraid that it was too late, before he stuck his finger into the bottle and touched some of the liquid to his tongue. There was no sensation. It tasted like air.
Time pooled around them, like water dammed up. He saw his wife’s spirit, sitting up out of her body, not yet ready to take the first step on its long journey. He coaxed it gently back into her, then, as reversed time began to flow forward again, and the instant of her death arrived once more, he breathed into her mouth.
“Husband,” Sansha said a while later, opening her eyes.
Later still he went to the window, held up the bottle in the sunlight, and saw that there was only a single drop of the fluid left.
* * * *
They lived together for many more years, their descendants so numerous they seemed to fill half the city. In time, Kudasduin retired from the academy. He became the subject of fabulous tales, of legend and even myth. He continued to write his encyclopedia. Later volumes were attributed to his successors, or other men of the same name.
“I am just beginning my explorations. Always, I am just beginning. Everything is a prologue,” he would say to Sansha.
“What have you discovered so far?”
“That being alive is a mystery. That being human is a mystery. That love is a mystery without an answer.”
“That is enough. Must you seek further?”
And he told her again, as he had many times, all he could remember of the time chamber, of his brothers who waited for him frozen in Eternity, of his desire to return to them.
He showed her the bottle. She turned it over in her hand and gave it back.
“You have such wonderful dreams,” she said.
He shrugged. “I suppose I do. But I don’t know which is the dream. Do I sit in the chamber, dreaming of Time, or am I here, dreaming of Eternity?”
She kissed him gently. “You are here.”
* * * *
One night he fell asleep at his desk while writing a page of his encyclopedia. Sansha came to him and touched him on the shoulder.
“Yes, yes, I know. It is very late. But I have so much to do. I have no understanding. My mission is not complete.”
“It is too late,” she said. “I am leaving now. I came to say goodbye.”
“Leaving? You can’t. Where are you going?” He looked up and saw that she was dressed in travelling clothes all of black, that her face was lighted from within like a paper lantern. He knew what these things meant and began to weep, begging her to remain behind.
“I have already gone,” she said. “You cannot follow.”
She receded from view. He heard no footsteps. He hurried after her. She vanished around a corner in the hall. He paused by the bedroom, and he saw her body, clad in a nightgown, leaning half out of the bed in a g
rotesque position, already stiffening.
Quickly he went to the trunk and got out the bottle. He regarded his wife’s corpse for just a second, then ran after her spirit.
When he saw her again, she was far away, along a road. He called out her name. She did not turn. She did not answer.
He felt the fabric of Time rushing against him, holding him back, but he struggled on, like a swimmer against the current. Soon the road was filled with travelers, many dressed as Sansha was, their faces glowing, men and women of every race and nation, all of them walking on their last journey out of the world.
“Sansha! Sansha! Come back! I don’t understand yet! There’s so much we haven’t done!”
He pushed his way through the crowd. He leapt up and saw her across a river of heads and shoulders. He waved and shouted, but she did not turn, and on and on they went, joined at every bend in the road by countless thousands.
At the very last, there was a flickering light ahead, an auroral 1ight. He got out the bottle. He made it to Sansha’s side.
“Come with me,” he gasped. “Come back. It isn’t too late.”
She faced him, and, very briefly, she knew him.
“It is too late,” she said. Then she walked into the light and was gone.
He was afraid, confused. He did not follow. He stumbled through the crowd and left the road.
He seemed to be standing in a field. He was unutterably weary.
He opened the bottle, and poured the last drop onto his tongue.
* * * *
“You have returned,” said Zon.
He was too weak to close the door of the chamber. Thandos closed it.
“I have seen…wonders.”
“You are wondrously transformed,” said Thandos, regarding Kudasduin’s wrinkled face, his silver hair, his bent back and withered limbs.
“I have found a wonder of wonders, a mystery of mysteries, the reason men bear the pain of age and death. All this and more.”
“I must have overlooked something,” said Thandos. “I must go again, as you did, and see what you saw.”
“Yes,” said Zon. “It is to be investigated. Go, Thandos, and come back and report. I shall question our brother while you are gone.”
Thandos put his hand on the door, then paused. He asked Kudasduin, “What is out there?”
“I…cannot say. All things and nothing. In the end I did not understand it.”
“Then I will have to go out and see.”
“No!” Kudasduin screamed, lunging at the control panel. His aged heart burst. He was dead in an instant, but his body fell against the lever he had been reaching for.
The time chamber was flung far from the world, into the darkness of the abyss.
COMING OF AGE IN THE CITY OF THE GODDESS
We live in a time of strange and terrible miracles.
—Telechronos
I.
“The Herald of the Goddess came to me last night,” Aerin said. “He stood outside my window. I know that’s who it was. He’ll come back for me tonight.”
He was fourteen years old and trying to be very brave. He sat up very straight on the wooden bench in the boot room of the house. Outside, wagons rattled by. Women shouted in hoarse voices. A piper played flat, squealing notes. It was market day in Ai Hanlo.
His sister Mora was a year younger than he. She sat beside him on the cramped bench and spoke in a hushed tone.
“Yes. I saw him too. I thought I heard him call my name as I slept, but of course he didn’t, because he lost his voice on the day the Goddess died. But I sat up, and saw him through the crack in the shutters.”
“I did too!” said Vaenev, who was ten. He crouched across from them, underneath a shelf.
“You didn’t!” hissed Mora.
“I did! I did!” He jumped up, hitting his head on the shelf, which was only a loose board. Boots and shoes tumbled down.
“Be quiet!” said Aerin. “But I did.…”
“He’s lying,” Mora whispered. “He just wants to tag along.”
Vaenev made a face and stuck out his tongue.
“I don’t know if he did or not,” said Aerin. “Nobody can know, except him.”
“I did,” said Vaenev so softly they couldn’t really hear him.
The three of them sat in silence for a while. Vaenev fidgeted with the fallen shoes.
“We’ll have to tell Mother and Father,” Aerin said finally. He looked into their faces. Mora was clearly frightened. Vaenev was sullen. He didn’t show much when he was afraid, Aerin knew. His brother didn’t like to seem the youngest. But now, in just one more night, none of them, not even Vaenev, would be children any more.
* * * *
Their mother wept when she heard the news. She set aside her needlework and leaned back in her chair and wept softly for a long time. Aerin’s face went red. He didn’t know what to do. He felt helpless at the very time he wanted to be strong. He merely watched the tears running down his mother’s face.
Mora took her mother by the hand and said gently, “It’ll be all right.”
“I know. I know. It will be.”
Aerin could tell she didn’t believe that. Vaenev stared at his feet, flexing his toes. When a servant girl wandered in, their mother calmly told her what had happened.
The girl put her hand to her face, her mouth forming a wide “O.”
“All three at once?”
“None of your business! Go fetch my husband right now!”
The girl ran from the house. and returned a few minutes later with the children’s father. He wore an apron, and was covered with flour up to the elbows.
“Aerin, tell him,” Mother said.
“We…last night…the Herald came.”
Father looked quietly at Aerin, then at Mora, then at Vaenev.
“All three of us,” Aerin said.
For a time, Father comforted Mother.
“You and I were both Summoned. We both had our Revelations. We’re none the worse for it.”
“I know,” she said, “but still I am afraid. They’ll be changed. Will they even know us? What if we lose them completely? Things like that happen. the Goddess is dead. Who’s to prevent it?”
“Hush. Nothing will happen to them. They’re just growing up. You’ve been listening to idle gossip.”
“There was the little girl of—”
“Hush.”
“All three…at once.…”
“It’s better that way. It’ll all be over at once. Then there will be nothing to worry about.”
Father wiped his hands on his apron and addressed the children, almost as if they had just arrived in the room.
“Well. I’ll get cleaned up, then we’ll go see a priest.”
* * * *
The three children were dressed in their very best as their parents led them up narrow streets that were so steep they had steps cut in them. Aerin wore a velvet tunic with a belt of woven gold, Mora a white gown with a sash and shoes embroidered in silver thread. Vaenev’s tunic was white and starched. he looked uncomfortable in it.
None of them said anything. Aerin studied the faces of the people they passed. Sometimes he saw a kind of understanding. Many were indifferent, a few awed or afraid. Once an old lady made a sign of good luck, furtively so only he could see it.
It occurred to him that such things must happen every day. He knew that the population of the city was declining, that there were great, abandoned districts, but still there were enough people left that children must be having their Revelations constantly. He had heard of it. He had seen children led away before. A friend of his had been through it all, but would say nothing about it. Aerin wasn’t sure how he had been changed, save that he had become secretive. But all those things were abstractions. It was so different, now that the thing was happening to him.
High up Ai Hanlo Mountain the lower city met the upper in a broad square with a fountain in the middle of it, beneath a wall. Mendicants gathered there, waiting for th
e times when the priests would appear atop the wall and bless those below. But they never passed beyond that wall. No man of the commons ever did. The inner city was reserved for the Guardian of the Bones of the Goddess and his court.
Still, there was a door in the wall which anyone could open. Father opened it. The five of them crowded through, into a little room that was completely dark when the door was closed again.
Father dropped some coins into a bowl and rang a bell. After a few minutes footsteps came from somewhere in the darkness. A shutter slid back, and they could hear the priest breathing.
“Yes?”
“My children,” Father said. “They’ve seen the Herald of the Goddess, all of them.”
“All? How many children do you have?”
To Aerin, the priest’s voice sounded old and tired, perhaps a little bored.
“Three, Reverend One.”
Mother spoke. Aerin could tell she was trembling. “Is that…bad? That…all three at once, I mean.”
“No,” the priest said, and now his voice had become friendly and reassuring. “There is nothing wrong with all three at once. When the Goddess was alive, all children who were twelve years old saw the Herald at the same time. It happened every year in the spring. It must have been easier to manage that way. But that was centuries ago, and now that the Goddess is dead, her power is fading. Her Herald still comes, but he comes whenever he will. But still he is the Herald, bringing revelations, and it is all the same. So let us go and prepare.”
The priest came out. All of them filed into a little, private courtyard. There he gave each of the children crowns of stiff cloth, half black and half white, with black ribbons hanging from the white side and white from the black, symbolizing, Aerin knew from many recitations, the dual nature of the Goddess.
And then he knew why he was afraid. With the death of the Goddess, her will had been extinguished, but fragments of her power remained, undirected, settling at random. What came to him in the night could be from her evil aspect as readily as from her good. That was the way of things. The world was uncertain.
Echoes of the Goddess: Tales of Terror and Wonder from the End of Time Page 25