Compleat Traveller in Black (32 page)

After that, very suddenly, the moon could be viewed through the skylight.

Also the elemental Caschalanva, who preferred the taste of fire to that of ice, had gone down by the bitter vales under Rotten Tor, and a little girl who wished desperately to make the logs burn brighter had sensed in a bout of inspiration precisely what was needful to be done …

And in an inn where fleas plagued the customers, the being Lry who fostered dissension found a predilection towards greed that was emanating from the spot with such force as gales have that choose a mountain-range for organpipes. Greed being among the chiefest of his tools, he snatched at it – and when it dissipated fractionally after, upon the granting of the Shebya’s wish, he was swept along with it into nowhere.

Whereupon, learning of the fate of his companions that were a good deal more than merely companions, Quorril returned to cry that they were cheated, and – souls being his diet – seized Garch’s with a snatch of an immaterial claw that laid wide open the wall of his secret room, releasing potent fumes. The high tower of the mansion tumbled down, its foundations changed to mud and sand.

Among the ruins, with her dying breath, the lady Scail called down a doom on Quorril for what he had done to her brother, and – she being now dowered, as she had desired, with the half of Garch’s skills, and in particular that half which concerned the binding, rather than the releasing, of elementals – that being ceased his flight towards the sky, and perforce joined her, and Runch, and Roiga, buried forever beneath that stack of masonry.

* * *

“Where let them rest,” the traveller said contentedly, having viewed all this from the vantage of the same sward where he had conversed with the Shebya.

“And Buldebrime, and Tradesman Humblenode,” said a quiet voice beside him. He had not expected to be alone at such a moment; he did not look round. “And many more!”

“And many less guilty, Highness,” he appended. “Inasmuch as ‘guilt’ has any meaning to Yourself. Yet none of them entirely innocent. Willing, at least, to serve a lord whose power was drawn from chaos, it being apparent to any commonsensical mind that no mortal force could make his barren land so wealthy. Equally, prepared to apprentice children to masters who starved and beat them, for the sake of having them put to a supposedly profitable trade. …”

He shrugged, both hands clasping his staff. “No matter, though,” he concluded. “Has it not all come to a most tidy end?”

There was a silence. Also it was dark here. But it was the regular honest dark of a spring night around moonset: nothing worse.

“An end,” the quiet voice said meditatively. “Yes, perhaps it is an end. It might as well be. … You know, my friend and brother, my child and self, there’s something very curious about what has transpired!”

“Tell me,” the traveller invited, who now knew in any case the most important motive that had guided his existence. Still, there were degrees of importance, and even a triviality might provoke interest.

“Of all the qualities that I endowed you with,” the calm voice said, “the most potent has proved to be a certain witty elegance. A … a neatness, a sense of practical economy!”

“I’ve fostered it,” the traveller agreed. “Having but one nature, I must needs make the most of what I had, and that aspect of me seemed most diametrically opposed to the extravagance and wastefulness of chaos. My conclusion, I submit, was the correct one.” He gestured with his staff to encompass the barely-seen landscape. “Was it not that mode of thinking which reduced the opportunities of access for the Four Great Ones to these few should-be-barren acres?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And was that not the designated purpose of my being?”

There was no answer. After a while the traveller said, “I’m sorry. You must be feeling grievous loss.”

“I?” Beside him the One Who had assigned him to his task – She, the Genetrix and the Generatrix, come to witness this final confrontation in the sole aspect he had left to Her, the guise of a tall pale girl too thin to be alive and credible – shook back long locks beneath a wide-brimmed hat. “Loss of the other natures that were mine? Why, not at all! Is it not the goal and purpose of the universe that all things shall ultimately have a single nature? I know that to be true, for
I
decreed it.”

This was what they had not realized at Cleftor Heights: that Tuprid and Caschalanva, Quorril and Lry, and moreover Wolpec and Yorbeth and Farchgrind and Fegrim and Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes, and all the countless roster of those elementals, were the fellow natures of the One Who had conceived them in the Age of Chaos; then wearied of the instability of Her creation, and ordained an age in which no being should possess more than one nature.

And had sent forth a personage with many names as earnest of that eventual occurrence.

Accordingly the last remaining nature of that One spoke with the traveller and sounded weary.

“So here I stand, my friend who are myself and yet my opposite, to link with you like the interlocking of a pair of hands. What remains to me is what you never had; what remains to you is what I never could have. But after all these aeons you must understand that.”

The traveller nodded, and She heaved a sigh.

“Hah, yes, old friend, my age is past – past like that unnatural night which will nevermore be seen in Cleftor’s vales. Eternity at last has found its end, because the mightiest powers of chaos have been tamed. And with what little snares were they entrapped! The wish of a child to help her mother; the distaste of apprentices for their cruel master; the annoyance of a pedlarman; and the love of a sister for her stupid brother!”

“Then my time too is past,” the traveller said, ignoring that recital of his tricks-to-triumph – which was just, for all he had was in Her gift. “And … and I’m not at all sorry. I was almost coming to miss the enemies I matched against in former ages. You could have undermined me by that weakness.”

“I could.” The answer was predictable. She
could –
everything. Now, however, it was not a question of “could” but “would,” and the time for willing chaos had gone by.

More silence intervened. The traveller stretched and yawned.

“I long for rest,” he said. “But – one more thing. Who is to come after us?”

“Let him decide who he is,” said the pale girl, and took him by the hand that lacked the staff. Turning, they went together into absence.