Stargate (29 page)

“You say that some of your mortals, perhaps all of them, have become hosts for Ghakans torn from their bodies,” he said. “Let us look at Shol.”

Something in his tone caused her anger to flare anew, but now it was tinged with the confusions of doubt and self-distrust. “You do not believe me!” she said incredulously, but he only put a finger to his lips.

“Watch,” he ordered and touched the wall. “Shol,” he said, and immediately the gray began to soften and run into the center as though the wall were being drained of color, leaving a velvet blackness in its place so thick and real that Sholia felt she might step through it into a new and undiscovered corridor of space. The grayness spidered toward the center, shrank, and was gone, leaving the whole wall a yawning gap leading to nothingness. Then, at the center, a light grew, was flung outward, expanded until another was spawned behind it, and another. They hurtled toward the room, filling the wall with a sizzling fire that reflected white on the faces of the two immortals, then were cut apart on the edge of the wall and vanished. Sholia felt as though she were being catapulted down a long, star-lined tunnel, but as she began to lean into it Janthis gently pulled her back and kept his hand on her arm. “Do you recognize the constellations?” he murmured. “The wall is a mirror that hangs outside the universe.” He began to name them as they raced toward him, flowered, and broke apart. The momentum began to slow. The stars rolled soberly toward Sholia until they stopped and hung shimmering, and after an astounded second she cried out, “My suns!”

He nodded. “And there is Shol, with Shon and Sumel, like three crystal beads strung on an invisible necklace. Have you ever seen anything so lovely, Sholia?”

“My suns,” she said again, but this time the words were a fluted breath of air.

Janthis beckoned. “Closer,” he commanded, and the twins and their planets grew until they filled all the wall and their light threatened to spill out into the room. For a long time he stood very still, gazing intently at what the mirror showed him, his hand leaving Sholia and tracing an absent pattern on his chin, but she did not notice, so absorbed was she in her worlds, which hung clean and beautiful, the gems of the universe. Then abruptly Janthis made a gesture as though flinging something at the mirror, and the picture snuffed out instantaneously to leave the plain gray wall and a light in the room that seemed dismal and thin to both of them.

Sholia exclaimed in dismay, and he came closer to her, forcing her to lift her eyes to his. “Now,” he chided. “I saw no blemish on your suns, no fading of their light, no haze of entrapment around them. Did you?”

“No,” she answered reluctantly.

“They shine out as steadily as ever. Shol is still whole.”

“But that is because I am still whole!” she almost shouted, drawing away from him. “The suns will show nothing until I go down, and I am slipping, Janthis, I feel, I know it. My mortals have been conquered, and I cannot remain as I am!” His calm pity infuriated her, and in desperation she smote her hands together. “Ghakazian was right! You are helpless, you will do nothing!”

“I cannot force you to see clearly through your wandering imagination!” he snapped back, exasperated. “You say Ghakazian was right, yet where is he now? Mired in his delusions behind a closed Gate. I was given life long before any sun-lord, Sholia. I wandered the universe with the Worldmaker. I knew him. Why can't you listen, and trust me?”

Perhaps you love him too well,” she swiftly came back at him, disappointment flooding in to damp down the fires of momentary rebellion and another shard of terror piercing her. “Perhaps you are not willing to throw everything you are able against him. I bring you evil news, and you turn me away!”

He sighed and went to her, taking both shaking hands in his own. “Your life is ruled by fear,” he said soothingly. “It has been so for generations. Now consider. Is it possible that the Unmaker is attacking you with all his subtlety? Suppose that through your Gate he has sent a message to your imagination, stirring it further with a great illusion?”

The hands resting in his became suddenly still. “You think that he invites me to believe that my mortals are beyond saving? That I see and feel only the extensions of an idea I have conjured myself?”

“It is possible, isn't it?”

“Yes,” she said after a while. “It is. But I do not believe it so.”

“You must stand firm. He wants Shol more than anything else, and he will worm his way into your world by any means he can,” Janthis said, and Sholia was shocked at the bitterness that crisped his words and cooled his fingers. “He is unable to breach a Gate himself until the forerunners of his power have done their work and broken a world, and too often you forget that those mind-swaying pinpricks of his can easily be repulsed if only you will say a simple no to them. Ah, Sholia,” he went on, “you know all these things. Why do you keep running to Danar like a frightened child?”

“Because I am a frightened child,” she responded in a low voice, withdrawing her fingers. “I am his child. I am lonely. I miss Ixelion and Falia, but Ghakazian most of all. You, me, and Danarion are the only ones left, but we find no comfort in one another anymore. Come to Shol, Janthis, I beg you! Judge these things for yourself, and then tell me that I dream on the edge of the abyss!”

“I will not come and so add fuel to the fire of defeat already burning in you, Sholia. Stop behaving like a cringing mortal woman in fear of her life. You are not mortal. Take up your immortality. Use the powers that are yours to maintain a world that even Ghakazian used to call the crown of the universe.”

She drew herself up, words of pleading and abasement on her lips, the prospect of returning to Shol alone so devastating that she was tempted to kneel before Janthis and beg him to let her stay on Danar, but she did not. Instead she brushed by him and stalked to the door.

“You and he,” she said contemptuously. “You complement each other. You are in league with him, aren't you, Janthis? The link forged between you in the beginning has never been broken. No one aided Falia. No one cared to wonder at Ixelion's distress until it was too late. Why is it always too late, Janthis? He has picked us off one by one, and when Danarion and I are destroyed, then you and he will be free to divide the universe between you.”

“The sun-lords fell by their own choice,” he answered mildly. “What would you have had me do? Close all the Gates in the beginning in the belief that none of you were worth trusting? Have you forgotten the Lawmaker, to whom the universe belongs?”

“I have not forgotten him,” she ended with a wounded pride, “but he has forgotten me. I am sorry, Janthis. You are wrong and I am right, and Shol will be the price of your foolishness.” She swung the door open with a crash that echoed to the jeweled roof of the dome and was gone.

Very well, she thought enraged as she strode the vacant, placid corridors. I will go home. I will tear apart every mortal and toss every Ghakan essence out through the Gate, and when I have purged Shol, I will close the Gate myself. I will put the Law aside and use every power I have to create a new Shol. It is not possible that on a world as thickly populated as mine there are not some Sholans left untainted. They and I will rebuild together, and the Unmaker will be shut out forever. So will Danarion, another thought rebuked, and you will never walk these halls again.

She groaned and came to a halt, the new determination evaporating with her despairing anger at Janthis. She could not think. I belong here, not on Shol. A world is for mortals. Let them make or break as they choose, I ought not to be responsible. I am a sister of the suns, I do not understand the earth. But of course Janthis would chase me away.

Wearily she approached the terrace and stopped once more, but this time her mind flew furiously. Janthis will not help me, but there is help of another kind here on Danar. How could I have forgotten? The Book. The Book will tell me whether or not I move through an illusion, it will chart a course for me to follow. She felt as though a door had swung open behind her, and beyond it some friendly, invisible hand beckoned. She turned and ran back through the hall and found the narrow winding stair. When she reached the foot, she paused and raised her head, listening, but the maze of halls layered high above was quiet, so she crept along the short, dark passage, holding her breath. The thick wooden door leading to the little room that sheltered the Books of Lore was shut tight, and no light showed under its rim. There the passage ended, so she retraced her steps and found another door set tightly into the dim wall. Without sound, diffusing no light, she turned the massive iron ring in both hands, and the door swung open, taking her with it. Then she stood and looked about, her heart fluttering.

There was light in the room, but not enough to filter out into the passage. The sun of Danar had apportioned a constant, low glow to shine here at Janthis's command. The chamber was bare, the walls a plain white, the floor of stone, the ceiling beamed in haeli wood, but in the center stood a reading pedestal like the one in the next room. At its foot a corion crouched, its green wings folded flat on either side of its furred spine, its whiskered and frilled head resting on its paws. Sholia stared at it, but it seemed asleep. Its mouth was slightly parted, showing a glint of polished teeth, and the long lashes of its closed eyes quivered as it breathed deeply and evenly.

She turned her attention to the pedestal itself, hardly daring to breathe for fear she would wake the beast that took its responsibility so lightly. The Book of What Will Be seemed to gaze back at her with a disinterested otherness that made her reluctant to disturb it. The faint, unvarying light in the room gathered strength where it met the hard, smooth cover of the Book, sliding over it as though it were a dark mirror.

Creeping slowly, she approached it, and with each carefully placed step she felt desire mount, so that by the time she was close enough to touch it, her whole mind throbbed with a need to slake all doubts, to kill them forever with the long and cooling draught the reading of the Book would be. I should not be here, she thought giddily, excitedly, but the other voice in her prompted her. Janthis has rejected you. You are guiltless in seeking aid from someone else. For it seemed to her that the Book was not a thing but an infinitely mysterious person who called her to explore the complexities of its mind.

With one hand clutching her sun-discs tightly, she reached out, touched the surface, which begged reverent fingers to glide gently over it, and carefully raised the cover.

Then she felt the corion stir at her feet, and she snatched her hand away, wanting to kick the beast. She looked down. One intent brown eye was fixed on her, and seeing that she was aware of its scrutiny, it rose onto sleek haunches.

“I am addressing the sun-lord of Shol, I believe,” it said in its rich, earthy purr, the iridescent green feathers on its head rising. “I am Chilorn. Were you seeking me? Do you bring a message from Janthis?”

Yes, yes! Sholia wanted to shout, feverish with the need to turn a page. He wants to see you immediately. Go at once! But in another second she was very glad that she had not, for the liquid, round eyes of the corion held her with something more than a friendly twinkle. Behind the respectful warmth was a steady, solemn appraisal and the clarity of a mind used to judging the doings of mortal and immortal alike with swift wisdom. It knows, she thought. If Janthis had wanted it, he would have spoken into its mind, and it knows that also. She felt as though the corion were laughing kindly at her, willing her to lift her lust for the Book and her agonies over Shol into the healing realm of humor.

“Forgive me, sun-lord,” the beast said, drawing its lips away from those needle-sharp teeth. “Winter is almost here, and my long sleep approaches. Already I am drowsy. I did not hear your reply.”

“That is because I did not speak, Chilorn,” she answered with asperity. “I think you know that Janthis has not sent for you, and that I did not come to this room seeking you.”

The corion nodded once in confirmation. “Forgive me again, sun-lord,” it went on gravely, “if I point out that there is nothing here for you. Would you be so kind as to close the cover of the Book? I would not like to scratch it with my clumsy paws.” It lifted a paw, and suddenly six black, hooked claws fanned out. It looked at her enquiringly, but again she sensed sober, incorruptible purpose behind the wide eyes, and all at once she laughed harshly, reaching out to flip the Book shut.

“My dear Chilorn,” she said caustically, “don't you know that with one word I could reduce you to a tiny pile of ashes? You see, I am not as polite as you. Your hidden threats mean nothing to me.”

The feathers on the corion's head flattened and then rose again, and it withdrew its claws, licked its paw, and met her eye. “You will not harm me, just as you could not lie to me. My humblest apologies, Sholia, for having the temerity to speak disrespectfully. Soon the Book goes into the mountain with Storn. Do you want to stay and talk to me?”

She shook her head, numb with disappointment, and went to the door, but with one hand on the iron ring she turned back to Chilorn. The beast had sunk to the floor again with its black nose between its two big paws, and the eyes stared at her steadily. She answered its gaze, and out of the corner of her eye the Book called her with one last enticing whisper. Has Janthis read it? she wondered. A wave of sick craving for it shivered over her, and almost without thinking she murmured, “Please?”

The corion did not move, but a low rumble of sound erupted from its throat, whether a growl of warning or a purr of farewell she could not discern. After a moment she went out, closing the door quietly behind her. But she carried the ache of unfulfilled need with her, and when she set her feet on Shol, the burden had not been whirled from her by the soundless, tearing energies of the corridor.