Delusion's Master (Tales From the Flat Earth) (6 page)

So she entered
the stone tower, climbed the stairs, because, after Baybhelu, climbing up
stairs had become the most normal of activities to her, and found Jasrin in her
chamber.

Both were
startled, both exclaimed. Nemdur had inconvenienced them both in greater or
slighter ways. They were, in a curious fashion, bound. And in their abject
state, mortal restraint dismissed, they presently ran together and sadly
comforted each other. In that embrace, their tears mingling, one who had been
sane lost a fraction of sanity’s burden, one who had been a maniac grew calm.

That blending,
more than duty accomplished, drove punctilious Prince Chuz from the vandalized kingdom of Sheve.

But just as Chuz, one of
the Lords of Darkness, was departing from that place into whatever
incomprehensible place he meant to go, he met another in the midnight desert.
And by the moon’s cool torch, Chuz perceived that other to be also a Lord, one
of his un-kindred.

Uhlume, Lord
Death, Chuz might have anticipated, but not necessarily Azhrarn.

Neither was
Azhrarn solitary. Behind him, ranged on the dark powder of the sand, were some
of the princes of the demon Vazdru. The moon lit perfectly their pale and
marvelous faces, the black-burning coals of their hair and eyes. They rode, as
frequently, on the macabre elegant horses of the Underearth, of Druhim
Vanashta, black horses with manes and tails like clear blue gas, and
everything, of horse and rider, aclink and aglitter with gems and silver. These
were demons, artisans of wickedness, yet they held their handsome features a
touch aslant from Chuz, Prince Madness. They were being careful, even they, how
they glanced at him, lest they see more than they desired. But as they did it,
they pretended they had other reasons for the angle of their heads and eyes,
toying with their rings, petting their steeds, perusing the sky. For these were
demons whose pride was such that mortal pride beside it was like a blade of
grass beside a cedar tree.

Only Azhrarn
himself, Prince of the princes, looked directly at the hooded blond half-face
of Chuz, directly in the uncanny single eye. Azhrarn the Beautiful (and
beautiful he was, beautiful being a poor description) was one of the few who
dared outstare Chuz; and come to that, Chuz was one of the few who dared
outstare Azhrarn. Their stares were, nevertheless, wary, contemptuous,
interested and enigmatic. So Lords of Darkness responded to one another.
Somewhat attracted to, rather offended by, each other’s existence.

Presently,
Azhrarn the Beautiful (beautiful being a poor description, but the wondrous
words of the flat, four-cornered earth, that did him, even so, the barest
justice, are no more), presently Azhrarn spoke. He spoke in a voice that lay
like dark music on the air. Chuz smiled, mouth courteously closed in Azhrarn’s
presence, at the sound of it. Probably Chuz was learning the voice by ear, in
order to add it to his other sweeter vocalisms.

“This desert,”
said Azhrarn, “is strewn with dead. Your doing, un-brother?”

“Yes,” said
Chuz, in his nicest current voice, be it admitted, nearly as fair as Azhrarn’s.
“And no.”

“But if no,
then what are you doing here, un-brother?” inquired Azhrarn, with a display of
most chillingly ironic ingenuousness.

“I might ask
the same,” murmured Chuz, Prince Madness.

Now Azhrarn,
and all demonkind, came often to earth by night. But what had drawn them to
that exact spot and in that exact hour, could only have been Baybhelu. Maybe
the odor of the Tower’s peculiarity had enticed them for a long while, and
maybe they had been regularly in the vicinity, intrigued and titillated, as
ever, by the self-destructiveness of men. Watch and proximity might support the
idea of the black eagle who had rescued Nemdur’s second wife. On the other
hand, the eagle could have been coincidence or a phantasm of another type. It
is conceivable the demons had not involved themselves in the Tower of Baybhelu until this very night, had not even learned of it, their genius concerned
with unrelated evils. It might be that they had only come up here from
Underearth now in the investigating manner of tenants in the basement who had
heard a prodigious bang on the floor above.

“My business
is my own,” said Azhrarn. “Yours seems somewhat broadcast.” And he nodded to a
bloodstained brick not two paces from his horse’s silver hooves.

Chuz tossed
his dice, and caught them. They were gray by this moonlight.

“Madness
called me. Madness I brought. Men wished to invade the apartments of the gods.
The gods threw them down.”

“The gods?”
said Azhrarn. A couple of the Vazdru spat upon the sand, and the sand shone
like fire for a second where they had spit. “The gods are stale.”

“Stale or not,
the story of this night will linger. You shall see new altars raised and new
temples built and much reverence offered in panic to the stale gods, after this
night. Shall you be jealous, un-brother Azhrarn?”

“What is a
mortal century to our Lord of Lords?” called out one of the Vazdru scornfully,
but still not quite looking at Chuz. “In the blink of a long-lashed eye in
Druhim Vanashta, that century is gone.”

“In a
century,” said Chuz, “humanity may forget—many things.”

“What is
keeping you, Chuz?” said Azhrarn. “You must be irked, being from home so long.
I will not detain you further.”

“Nor will you
dismiss me,” said Chuz. “Even you, my dear, have had, or will have, a taste or
two of me.”

Then Chuz
vanished.

The Vazdru
maintained a distraught quietness, awaiting, disturbed, their Lord’s reaction.
But after a little, Azhrarn said softly: “The stink of madness is unsubtle
here. Let us be going.”

And like a
stormy dream, the Vazdru also disappeared, leaving the desert empty, but not
empty enough, under the cruel moon, forever above and never below the scope of
men.

PART ONE

The Souring of the Fruit

CHAPTER 1

Storytellers

There was strong music in
the sky: the music of sunset. In the west, a wall of clear red amber through
which the sun went blazing down. The remainder of the sky was smoky rose, a
color like a perfume—musk. The earth had given up its tinctures. Heights and
depths and long dunes were melting into the air. But there was another music on
the earth, a music of drums, tabors, bells and pipes, a music of voices and
shouts, the churn of wheels and the stamp of feet. And presently, too, as the
limitless lamp of the sky burned low, the small yellow lamps burned up on the
plains beneath, a swarm of fireflies, all moving, and all one way. The music of
the setting sun and the music of men flowed together into the west.

“Where are you
going?” they had asked on the broad roads, the slender tracks, at the gates of
oases and by village fences. “Where are you going with so much song?” And the
answer was returned with the song: “We are going to Bhelsheved, to worship the
gods!”

And the
question, being as much a tradition as the answer, was the signal in the places
by the way. The people here put aside their buying and selling, their
husbandry, their toil, gave over their quarrelling and their deeds of love, and
followed the procession, adding to it their own music, with the flames of new
lamps in their hands. On this route alone, seven thousand went dancing, to the
beat of drums, over the desert to mystical Bhelsheved.

When the sun
was gone, the seven thousand halted, though the sound of their music
intermittently continued. To such an accompaniment, a sprawling campment was
made, and fires were kindled, scattering the sands, as if droplets had rained
from the falling sun. The scents of roasting meat and baking bread rose with
the melodies and the lights. But there was scarcely any order in that camp, and
scarcely any watch was kept. What need? Religious fervor was the motivation of
this people who danced across the desert. The cold of the night could not harm
them, nor the predatory roaming of wild beasts. No thieves or villains of any
sort could linger in such a company. No hint of deceit or wickedness.

And the sky
faded, became a pale glimmering blue, like the ashes of a flower. The stars
appeared from behind the sky. And from the desert, a man, tall and slim, came
walking like a panther among the tents and fires.

A girl was
kneeling in the pool of the dusk, feeding three or four black sheep. She raised
her head, and looked after the man as he passed. When her tan-haired sister
came from the tent, the girl pointed. “See, Zharet,
he
is here again.”

“Indeed, one
cannot mistake him, even from the back,” said the second girl, and her eyes
shone like still flames. “He walks like a king.”

“But he has no
servant with him, and no guard.”

“Perhaps he
has no need of them, being his own state.”

“But who,”
whispered the first girl, “has ever seen him pass among us by day?” Tan-haired
Zharet thought,
I should be happy enough to see him by night
. She was to
be married to a cousin she had scarcely met. She pictured the stranger as her
bridegroom, and closed her eyes.

But by now,
the stranger, in his inky cloak, had disappeared from their view, though others
saw him, looked at him, whispered similarly, dreamily:

“Who is he?”

“Who has seen him
under the sun?”

“I saw him by
moonlight.”

“Was he a
ghost, or a spirit?”

“Only if they
are very handsome, for he is so.”

Others were
less pensive.

“There goes
that dark one. On such a journey as ours, there should be no malcontents, but
he
is bent on mischief, I believe.”

“In all the
years I have gone to Bhelsheved there was never anything stolen or any trouble,
yet three nights ago my cousin’s black goat vanished from its pen. Only the
bones were found—”

“He has a
murderer’s stealth.”

“He walks like
a shadow.”

And some who
were not elegant said: “He is too elegant to be honest.” And some who were not
tall said: “He is too tall to be trusted,” and some who were intuitive
shuddered, though they were not sure why.

Other things
happened, as the stranger passed. A pet bird pecked through the last bit of
wicker on its cage—it had pecked at the wicker very earnestly for three
successive nights, each time the stranger had gone by—and flying out of the
cage and through the tent opening, it darted after the black-cloaked man, and
fluttered round him. Though he did not slacken his pace, the man reached into
the air and took the bird in his hand. It was a notable hand, articulate and
strong, with long, long fingers. The nails were also rather long, like those of
some mighty ruler who need do no work, yet not pointed, but squarely and
smoothly tipped, and with each a silver crescent marked on it. The bird
trembled in this cool and gentle grip, and stared up into the face which was
visible only to itself, for a fold of the man’s cloak otherwise obscured his
countenance. A moment later, the tiny bird soared into the deepening sky. It
seemed to think itself an eagle, or some great mythical fowl of night. It cast
itself toward the vault of heaven with an impassioned inspiration surely too
fierce for its fragile wings to sustain.

(In just such
a way, the black goat had eaten an exit from its patched-together pen. It had
followed the stranger into the desert, and a lion had crept up on both of them.
Seeing the man, the lion had thrown itself down, rolling on its back like an
enormous kitten, growling and purring. But when the man had gone, the lion
remembered the goat, and turned immediately to kill and devour it. The man had
looked over his shoulder once. His eyes, appearing for a second from the midnight of his cloak, gleamed like two black stars, with a cruel pity, an ironic,
sympathetic, merciless regret.)

A skin of wine
stood in the sand before a pavilion. The cork leapt from its mouth as the
stranger’s shadow slid over it, upsetting the skin, so it toppled. The wine
gushed into the sand, like a libation.

A lean dog
howled for no apparent reason, and burrowed under the cushions of its master’s
bed.

A mechanical
doll, which for a year had not stirred, suddenly began to march up and down on
a child’s knee.

A rose, in a
pot, shed all its petals.

A dead twig,
in a bundle ready for the flames, put forth a bud.

At one large
fire, near the center of the camp, certain philosophers and elders, and men in
authority of various kinds, sat about, and nearby there were professional
storytellers seated under their scented lamps. Many of the people who had come
on the joyous religious pilgrimage to Bhelsheved were gathered here, to listen.
As was suitable, the tales were all concerned with the glory and beneficence of
the gods.

At this hour,
just before the moon’s ascent, they were telling the antique and relevant
history of the foolishness of Nemdur, the king of Sheve. How, seeking to
belittle the gods, he had built a blasphemous tower of many tiers, destined to
pierce heaven. But the gods, aware that such knowledge and such powers as the
Upper Regions might afford men would be damaging to them, had prudently cast
down the tower. Only Nemdur’s queen, who had implored the pardon of the gods, they
had saved. Thereafter, the area had been sacred. Men would come from far and
wide to witness the ruins of the mighty tower, and the ruinous city nearby,
forsaken Sheve, and to make sacrifices and offer prayers to the masters of
heaven.