Delusion's Master (Tales From the Flat Earth) (21 page)

Presently he
raised her to her feet and held her before him.

“You have not
told me,” he said, “if you consent.”

“I have told
you,” she said. “You do not need to ask.”

“If the sun
became the moon,” he said, “that is you.”

And then he
spoke a phrase to the sky, in one of the magic tongues of Underearth, and the
sky, already fading from darkness, paled further, but only in one place that
seemed, from below, about the size and structure the round moon had been. And
this loosened piece of the night fell slowly down toward the meadow, revolving
a little as it came. Yet, as it fell, it grew neither larger nor smaller. Into
Azhrarn’s outstretched palm it fell. It was no bigger than a plate, and of a
thin, translucent blackness. The night, in itself, was not and could not be
palpable—yet Azhrarn, by his sorcery, had somehow made it so. And now he
fashioned it, deftly, delicately, until a figurine composed only of shadow
stood in his hands. It had a female shape, a woman’s shape, full-grown and
perfect, but all tiny as a doll.

He said no
word to her, but as if inadvertently, Dunizel lifted her hands to take the
shadow shape from his. As her fingers touched the shape, a soft light began to
come from it. It was like moonlight, yet unlike. Like starlight, yet unlike. It
was like the light of the Underearth itself, the subluminescence of Druhim
Vanashta, city of Demons.

The figurine
then enlarged. It soared to cover Dunizel from head to heel, next shimmering
and drawing in, conforming to her every contour, her every bone and strand of
hair. Even the lashes of her eyes it seemed to approximate. For a few seconds,
Dunizel was held within a second skin, like black water. And then the water
sank inwards, in through her flesh, and she in turn was the skin which held the
shadow. And dimly, through her skin that was so diaphanously white, you almost
saw the twilight glimmer of that shadow, like pale black fire behind alabaster.

In the east
there was a blueish sheen, evoking that of a polished knife.

The meadow of
flowers was empty.

In Bhelsheved,
among the trees that overlooked the lake, night returned unexpectedly: Azhrarn.
And Dunizel a star caught up in that night.

There were
only minutes before dawn would slit the horizon with her gilded nails. Time
enough, perhaps, to say some secretive, profound thing. Yet even as he and she
evolved on the edge of the darkness, Azhrarn beheld another was before them, a
figure which poised on the water of the lake itself. It seemed most like an
insect, a mantis, possibly, compactly yet vaguely folded in the cloudy mauve
vanes of its wing-like cloak.

Dunizel turned
to gaze at this apparition, but Azhrarn guided her head against him, away from
sight of the creature.

Yet he himself
stared across the water straight at it, and now the wing-tissue cloak stirred a
fraction, and a head was lifted, and half a face came visible in a cowl.

“Why, good
morning, handsome un-brother,” called a melodious voice over the lake. “You are
out late, are you not? The sun is almost up. Whatever can you be thinking of?”

“That need not
concern you. For yourself, I assume it is Bhelsheved’s madness which has
brought you here.”

“Hardly
Bhelsheved’s madness. That is a dull item indeed. But there is something much
more delectable.”

“Perhaps you
are in error,” said Azhrarn. “Let me suggest that you are.”

Prince
Madness, Delusion’s Master, laughed. It was a noise reminiscent of rusty pots
scraped together. He shook out his damson cloak. He smiled, or that half of the
face which was visible smiled, its eye downcast.

“Azhrarn the
Beautiful,” said Chuz lovingly, “it is your beautiful madness I have come to
see.”

Azhrarn,
shielding Dunizel both by his body and by his magic from this visitation of
Chuz—unaware, or unwilling to recall she had already met with him on a previous
occasion—shot a blasting glare of cold rage at the insectile being balanced on
the lake. The Lords of Darkness seldom, if ever, went to war with one another.
Such a notion was alarming maybe even to themselves. The warlike games they
played against each other, therefore, adhered to certain rules. What rule was
here in operation is difficult to conjecture. Nevertheless, Chuz stayed in the
lake and did not advance or unveil his double aspect. Nevertheless also, the
eastern sky was warming, the sun burning through—Azhrarn’s limitations were
more definite, and not of his own devising.

“Say what you
want,” Azhrarn said to Chuz. He spoke contemptuously, politely. He gave no hint
of his agitation, but it was self-evident. He could not face the sun. In a
minute or less, he must abandon the girl—or take her with him underground, an
act not without complexity, seeing she was adult and psychically unprepared for
such a descent.

“I have said
what I want,” said Chuz, “I am deliriously content.”

“This maiden
is mine,” said Azhrarn. “You knew that?”

“Oh, trust me,
my dear. I do indeed know. I have overheard your whisperings, I have watched
you lying in each other’s arms, still as the blue-purple jewel in the tomb. The
madness of love. I have been entertained, since I am partly responsible. I
brought about Nemdur’s madness. His madness brought about Baybhelu. And
Baybhelu brought about Bhelsheved. And Bhelsheved enticed you from the cellar.
And now here you are, and here is a mortal woman who will bear you a daughter.
A madness of extreme and magnificent proportions. Actually, un-brother,” said
Chuz, swaying a little, like a poisonous water-plant over the lake, “I came to
stand uncle to your unborn child. And to offer her a gift.”

In the east a
gate began to open. Birds sang frenziedly in the trees—it might have been a cry
of fright as much as of gladness. A freckle of palest yellow started in the
lake—but it was only a fish, leaping.

“My lord,”
Dunizel said to Azhrarn, “I do not fear him. He means me no ill, for once he
told me so and was courteous to me. The sun is near. Leave me, I shall be
safe.”

“He may be
courteous,” said Azhrarn in an acid tone, “but he has two sides to him. What
gift?” he inquired of Chuz off-handedly.

“What else but
something dear to me? Let me approach,” wheedled Chuz, smiling and smiling over
his writhing mauve reflection in the water.

“You,” said
Azhrarn, “can render nothing I may not render. In certain lands, your title and
mine are mingled. I too am a master of delusions.”

“And I,” said
Chuz, sweetly, musically, “have sometimes been called, as you are called: The
Beautiful. Though only by those who saw me from the
right
side.”

Suddenly he
raised his left hand—black palm, red nails—and flung something over the water
to the land. It fell with a brief bright sound at the feet of Dunizel. It was a
single die, and seemed made of amethyst, strangely marked in black.

Azhrarn bent
swiftly and took up this thing. No sooner had he taken hold of it than he
hurled it back into the lake. But Chuz reached out and caught it just before it
broke the water. Smiling still, he kissed the die Azhrarn had momentarily held.

“I have also,”
said Chuz, “three drops of rare Vazdru ichor, hard as adamant, which I
discovered among the dunes about Bhelsheved. They say these drops are the blood
of Azhrarn. Do you remember the young man with the whip? Do you remember
grasping the tongue of the whip and how the blood spilled? The price of telling
parables is high. You will not be the last to find that out.”

Chuz turned
suavely, and began to walk away over the lake, under the arched bridges which
supported the temple. As he did so, a small horrid thing happened: scores of
fish, brushed by insanity, flopped out upon the shore, convinced they might
live in the air, and drowned in it at the margins of the colonnades and
gardens.

As Chuz
vanished, the east opened like a fan.

Azhrarn drew
his black cloak over and about himself. Looking after Chuz, his eyes shone
malevolently, but the foretaste of the sun, like fear of fire to one already
burned, drove him down into the earth. He was storm, then smoke, and thereafter
gone, without the space to say to her one commonplace word.

Dunizel stood
alone. On her hand she found he had set, she did not know when, a ring of
silver lit by a gray-green gem. On her wrist was a bracelet like a silver snake
with eyes of sapphire, and from her ears hung silver filigrees that softly
chimed to her as she moved—demon jewelry, Drin work, of surpassing fineness,
and wondrous, too, in the unobtrusive manner of the giving.

But as the sun
filled the east, in her womb Dunizel felt a slight but unmistakable twisting.

She wept then.

The sun made
her tears golden. It combed her hair with gold. It clothed her and shone through
her. She was perhaps even lovelier by daylight, and Azhrarn, save in some
blurred mage-glass, could never see her as now she was.

Her tears
ended quickly. She walked under the shade of the trees and the columns, mindful
of what grew within her.

PART THREE

The Bitterness of Joy

CHAPTER 1

Seventeen Murderesses

It was winter in the
desert. By day terrible winds blew back and forth, the shrunken sun was netted
in sand. At night, rime armored inches thick along dunes. The reeds by the
waters were brittle as green sugar. The palms took on a sulky iron hue. The
trees in Bhelsheved had lost everything now, blossom, leaves and birds. The
strewn dust grated over the mosaic tiles, before their tidal magics swept it
away. The lake had a myopic look, like a beautiful eye which went blind. It was
a harsh winter, dry, acrid, the old-age of seasons.

The priestly
servants of Heaven walked dreamily about in the dust and frost, bound in their
contemplation of the gods. They had been trained to ignore bodily discomfort,
indeed to incorporate it as a part of their religious pleasure. With this
tunnel vision of the senses they missed a lot. They almost missed the dire
miracle which was occurring in their midst.

She had
carried his child now into the seventh month. Truth to tell, she had not grown
big, her supernatural pregnancy was barely obvious: she resembled, in that
seventh month, a woman in the third month. Nor was there any heaviness to her,
any laxity or sluggishness. Dunizel glided, her swan-white hair drifting about
her. The bright shadow of Azhrarn’s child shone from within her—but none of
them might have noticed. She did not speak. She moved as ever about the
shrines. Some nights she wandered in the gardens of the holy city. Once or
twice or three times, some priest, mooning in the twilight over the gods,
glanced up and saw a black cloud rush from the sky on black wings. At midnight, certain of the groves seemed haunted by strange intensities, perfumes, and hints
of melody. At noon, Dunizel walked in the shade. Where the winter sun fell in
stingy bars, she turned aside. When alone, she did not seem alone. When she
worshipped in company with many others, she seemed quite alone. But they did
not really see. They were in love with heaven. What else could she be in love
with? The watchful yet mindless sorceries of the place confirmed her a virgin
still. Her celibacy, her innocence, her loveliness, were all unchanged, or
enhanced.

They almost
missed the marvel Dunizel had to show them.

Or maybe, such
a marvel could not, by the laws of the miraculous, ultimately be missed.

One day, an
hour after sunrise, there came a susurration, as if feet passed over the echo
chambers beneath the desert roads leading to Bhelsheved. When the susurration
ended, there came a furious knocking on the western gate, as if hands smote
there.

It was not the
time of year for any to visit, certainly not the time for any to be admitted.
The priesthood gazed uncomprehendingly at each other, the rocking gate, the
silent fanes. Soon they flitted away, paying no heed to the external uproar.

Voices began
to cry on the far side of the gate, over the howl of the winds: “Let us come
in. We demand judgment and justice. We demand an answer of heaven.”

To those
priests who heard the cry, it must have seemed gibberish. Nothing was ever
demanded
of the gods.

The gates were
not opened.

The knocking
grew quiet.

Wind-driven
skeletons of hag-like leaves hurried down the city walks after the priests.

Outside the walls of
Bhelsheved, the crowd straggled, disconsolate and sullen, aside from the gate.
There were in all some ninety-eight persons, and of these, seven were young
women who walked or stood all together, and perforce, since each was roped to
another by her left wrist. Their hair unbound, their eyes reddened from the
winter winds, from lamenting and from rage, they murmured viciously to their
neighbours, or to themselves.

The rest of
the crowd conferred. Presently, as at times of festival, they drew off and
pitched a haphazard campment a hundred paces from Bhelsheved’s walls.

Later in the
day, another crowd appeared, from the south. Its aspect was not dissimilar.
Three girls were roped in its midst. Seeing the first crowd, the second crowd
joined it. Voices again were raised, but now no one knocked at the gate.