CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness (22 page)

A sunset happened which was the colour of a damson. The King stood watching it, and then he turned to one of his officers, a man who had been close to him during the recent campaign.

“Did you hear ever, Nassib, was there much witchcraft in that last town?”

“In Marah, my lord? No, rather the opposite. Some of them talked of a witch who will shape-change to a vulture, but she is a desert hag and who knows, may only be a vulture and nothing more, save in a story.”

“Quite so.”

“Why do you ask, sir?”

“Oh, a little matter.” The King watched the last of the sun’s disc as it hid itself in some slot of the horizon. He added rather slowly, “I heard a girl sing at Marah, one of the musicians at the dinner. She had a lovely voice. But it is more than that.”

“You fancied her, my lord? Surely you might have had her brought to you?”

“Well, but I never saw her even. And I do not wish to force any woman.”

The officer laughed, between approval and envy, for very few women would not desire the King.

Returning to his tent, the King however wrote on the paper he had left ready for another letter, only these words:
In Marah, at the desert’s brink, I heard a girl sweetly sing. And ever since that night, her voice has stayed with me, I do not know why. It seems I have been much disturbed by her song.

* * *

The crossing of the desert, what with the forays upon bandits, and the King’s mood, lasted longer than it might have otherwise.

But they lay over at a small oasis when the King called Nassib to him.

“Listen, my friend, I have a task for you if you will accept it.” Nassib declared he would willingly do so. “Wait first to hear the commission. If you wish to refuse I will find another to undertake it. You know I have been wed these past three years, and my wife has given me a healthy son.” Nassib agreed he did know this. “Custom allows me to take other women, and also to wed them, but I have never thought either act necessary since my marriage. Now I am in love. I am in love with a voice and—oh, Nassib, you will think me insane—with a vision I see of her in sleep, or awake, when sunlight fails a certain way, or a cloud scarfs the stars. Am I bewitched? I do not know, nor any longer care. Go back if you will to Marah, and seek out there the woman with the voice of silk and crystal. Though never having seen her, I can tell you how she is. Little and slender, with light hair, and eyes like blue midnight. If you doubt, ask her to sing a single note. Then you may be sure. Give her this ring with a crimson stone. Tell her, you will bring her to me, if she will go with you. I think she will. Her soul calls out to mine, Nassib, as mine to hers. Long ago, on some other earth, we have been lovers. More, we have been two halves of a solitary whole, and so remain. Tell her she shall be my second queen. Tell her,” and here the King’s face assumed such a look of bliss, his words rang strangely with it, “tell her I am dead without her, and wish to come alive.” Nassib stood bereft of speech. He was shocked beyond calculation at his own response. For it was as if all this while he had known the King uttered only the truth, and there could be no other choice. But “My regrets, Nassib,” said the King, taking his hand. “No, I do not think I am mad. I am at the sanest moment of my life. If you will trust me, do what I ask. If not, remain my friend, and I will send another. For she must be brought with some subterfuge to the city. There will be many obstacles to overcome, both of courtesy and faction. There may be dangers.”

“My lord,” said Nassib humbly, “I believe the gods have taken you and she into their hand. I cannot gainsay the gods. I will do everything you ask as best I am able.” 

Before moonrise Nassib, accompanied by eight hand-picked men, was racing back across the Harsh to Marah.

* * *

She had dreamed of him every night, as he had of her.

Awake, in changes of light she had seen him, in the faces of others or the faces of statues, or in the pouring of water, or the dazzle of sun on the strings of an instrument.

Qirisn grieved yet, seeing him so often, still she did not lose her quite unfounded hope. She could be nothing to him—yet surely she was. They could never meet—yet surely they would.

Some months after the night of the banquet, a young man, garbed like a desert wanderer, sought her in the court of the musicians’ school.

He asked her if her name was Qirisn, and if she had sung in the hall when the King of the northern city dined there. He looked intently at her soft hair and small frame, and long into her eyes.

He asked she sing him one single note. She sang it. “I am Qirisn,” she replied.

“Yes, so you are,” said he. Then he gave a savage laugh. Then he begged her pardon for it. “When he was here in Marah, did you see the King?” Qirisn assented. She was very calm, long trained in means of control, as the musician must be, but pale, so her eyes seemed black rather than blue. Nassib took a breath, and asked her, “Would you see the King again?” To which Qirisn quietly answered, “I would give my life to do so.”

Then the rest of the message was detailed, and the ring of rose-red topaz pressed into her hand. And she carried it to her lips and kissed it. Nassib next told her how they would leave the town before sunset, and start out over the desert, he and his eight men her escort. She nodded but asked nothing at all, only the colour of her eyes came back and filled Nassib’s mind with a kind of blank serenity, and after this all was easy to do.

How easy indeed it was, as it had been easy to say to him, as she had, she would give her life to see the King once more.

And thus, while Qirisn and Nassib were crossing the waste, at long last the King reached his city.

Near to evening he entered the palace, and his wife the Queen came to meet him, her look radiant, her glorious hair twined with hyacinthine zircons. He greeted her publically with great affection, and then they went away into their private apartments, and here, after a slight interval, during which the radiance faded from her, the young King spoke of his love and respect for her, but then told his wife what had befallen him, and what presently must come to be.

She paid close attention. When he had finished, she raised her face, now like a paper never written on.

“What of your son, the Prince?”

“He shall continue as my heir. I will love him always—love does not cast out love, only increases it. He shall reign as King long after me.”

“And I,” she said.

“You will ever be my first wife, First Queen, and I will hold you dear. You need be afraid of nothing.”

“Need I not,” she said. And then, “Well, my lord. I wish you every felicity in your life with this second queen, who is your highest love, your spiritual mate through time. After the aeons you have waited to regain her, how marvellous will be your reunion.” And rising she bowed to him and went away.

The Queen paced slowly to her own rooms, and there she drew off her body every rich thing which she had gained through her marriage. She called in the nurse, and gazed at her son, less than one year of age. “Be blessed, my darling,” she said to her child, and gave the nurse seven zircons from her hair. Alone again, the Queen went into her compartment of bathing, and there she lay down on the marble floor and cut the vein of her left arm. Some while she watched the white stone alter to topaz red. She said to it, “He has not broken my heart, he has broken my soul.” But then she fell asleep, and soon thereafter she died.

Such was the rejoicing at the King’s return, no one discovered what had gone on until that night had passed. The King himself did not receive the news until noon of the next day. When he did, he wept. It was proper that he should, and his court and subjects revered him for his tender sorrow. The Queen meanwhile they reviled for a madwoman. Even those who knew the truth avowed he had not meant to hurt her, she was unreasonable. And of course he had
not
meant to, for no man wants, unless an utter monster or fool, to saddle himself with such a dreadful scourge of guilt. Yet through the anguish of his tears and remorse, his love for Qirisn stayed like a pearl within contaminated water. The days of mourning would be long and scrupulously he would attend and mark each one. Beyond them, heaven-upon-earth awaited him. He could endure till then.

* * *

A storm was coming to the desert, it blew from the north. Lightning flared through the clouds, littering them with thin fissures of grey-gold. The thunder drummed on the sky’s skin, as if to break through and plummet to the ground below in heavy chunks like granite, and each larger than a city. No rain fell. The dunes lit white, then brass, flickered to black, seemed to vanish underfoot.

To begin with they rode on, the escort of nine men on their horses, the girl in the little open carriage, she and its driver protected only by a canopy. But in another hour a strong wind gusted from the mouth of the storm, smelling of metal and salt. Soon enough it had the horses staggering, and snapped the posts so the canopy flew up to join the roiling cumulous above.

Nassib came to the carriage.

“There are tall rocks there. We must shelter, Qirisn-to-be-queen. No other way can we keep you safe.”

They sought the rocks then, a narrow mesa like one segment of the backbone of a dead dragon.

Lightning carved about them still, and the thunder rolled. Men and animals waited, stark or trembling, and only Qirisn was composed, afraid of nothing since her fate had found her, and she had trusted it.

Eventually another sound grew audible. It was that of men, unlike all others. Around the rocky hill came a cavalcade of sorts. They had lighted lamps too, and they were jolly, smiling and calling out invitingly to those who took shelter at the mesa’s foot.

One of Nassib’s men spoke in a voice of death.

“In number there are at least thirty of them. They are bandits. This is their stronghold. The gods have abandoned us.”

Nassib drew his sword. It made a rasping, jeering noise, as if it mocked them. “While we may, we fight. Do not let them take you living.” He had seemingly forgotten the girl. If he had remembered, he would have turned and offered to slay her at once. He could see his men had no chance, and nor would she have any, since these felons were everywhere noted for their profligate viciousness.

After this the bandits sprang from their donkeys, and rushing up they killed every other man that was there, Nassib too, the bandits grabbing and their leader beheading him at one blow. They recalled Nassib from the King’s forays on their kind, but tonight they lost none of their own.

When even the carriage-driver had been slaughtered, they drew the valuable northern horses aside. That done, the leader went swaggering and laughing to Qirisn. “And what are you? Not much, for sure. Yet a woman, I will grant you that.”

Perhaps she had gone mad in those minutes. Perhaps she had only been mad from the instant she fell in love.

She addressed the bandit reasonably, without fear or anger.

“You cannot touch me. I am meant for a king.”

“Are you? His loss then. You shall have me and my lads instead.”

The storm watched, missing no detail of what was next enacted at the foot of the dragon’s backbone. In the lightning, flesh blazed white, or golden, or grew invisible; blood ran like blackest adders, or inks of scarlet or green. Cries became only another melodic cadence for the thunder and the gale. Storms frequently carried, and carry yet, such crying. Who can say if it is only imagined, or if it is the faithful report of the elements which, since time’s start, have overheard such things.

At length, no one was there beneath the rock, but for the dead and Qirisn. In her, one ultimate wisp of life remained, although swiftly it was ebbing.
Come away,
life whispered to her urgently,
come away, for you and I are done with all this now.

But Qirisn’s eyes fixed on the sky of storm. The gods had forsaken her, love had, truth had. Worse than all these,
she
must now forsake
him
.

Something in her screamed in mute violence, a wordless, unthought prayer to the sky. Which, pausing, seemed to hear.

The cacophony of the cloud settled to a kind of stasis. The flutter of the lightning fashioned for itself another shape, that of an electrum knot. From this, long strands extended themselves, like searching arms. Long-fingered hands, resembling tentacles, reached as if most delicately to clasp the world. Then, from the core of heaven, a levinbolt shot downward. A flaming sword, the white of another spectrum, struck deep into the ground, at the spot where Qirisn lay dying. And after this it stood, the bolt, joining heaven to earth, pulsing with a regular muscular golden spasm. It fused all matter, sand and soil and dust, body and bone and blood, together in a disbanded union of change. Then the sword diluted and was gone. Everything was gone. And darkness sank into the space which was all the heaven-fire had left.

It is said, and possibly only Jandur, those twenty years later, propagated such a tale—for he was secretly a romantic—that hours on, when the storm had melted, demons came up on to the Harsh to enjoy its refreshment under a waning moon.

Passing the spot, those beautiful dreamers, the Eshva, paused only to sigh, before wandering away. If Vazdru princes passed, they paid no attention. But two Drin, the dwarvish, ugly and talented artisans of Underearth, did halt beside the silicate residues of Qirisn’s death.

“Something is here worth looking at!”

But a desert hare, a female, gleaming platinum under the watery moon, and with ears like lilies, galloped over the dunes. And lust stirred up the Drin at such loveliness, and they vacated the area to pursue her. Such a master was love, then, for demons, and for men.

4. The Fourth Fragment

That very moment, as he entered the highest vortex of pleasure, Razved heard his phantasmal partner call out his name in her joy. It was not a moment otherwise for anything, let alone for thought. Nevertheless, it seemed not inappropriate she should know his name. Then the colossal wave bore him through the gate and dashed him among stars, and after that flat on his back again amid the pillows, with a maiden of glass gripped in his arms.