The Infinity Concerto (43 page)

"His people are birds, Michael. The Cledar. He was the one who seduced me, not the other way around. I had found a way into the Realm centuries before, but it was his music that opened a gateway through my house that I could not close. He was the one who attracted attention to me in the Realm, and brought the Sidhe down on me to destroy my house and enslave my wives. It was his kind that taught the Sidhe how to use music. and he let me believe / was the one controlling things. He was a mage, boy, the last of his people. I'll let you decide how long he has been waiting for this moment, and where he is, now. And how I have turned the tables on him, and on Tonn."

He stretched his arms, yawning to release his tension. "I suggest we stop this ridiculous talk. Time enough to discuss motivations and peccadillos when the song is completed. And I know you well enough, boy, to have complete faith in the necessity of your finishing the song. It's inside you already, isn't it? Whether my dream last night helped or not."

"It was a comic opera dream," Michael said. "Do you think that was what Coleridge was trying to say?"

Biri came through the patio doors with a tray of glasses and a clay pitcher dripping with condensation. Clarkham frowned and waved the pitcher away. "I have it on authority," Clarkham said. "I have always known the shape of this song, but not its fine details."

"Perhaps the song's secret lies in how its vessels transform it."

"Now you're becoming obscure," Clarkham said, taking his seat again.

"What was your dream?" Nikolai asked.

"I was in the original pleasure dome. I dreamed of Mora playing, singing. I was a poet - a wild, untamed poet, living in die forests around the palace. Mora was in the emperor's service. She was loved by the court astrologer, a magician - and I loved her, too. We would meet in the cedars. The astrologer became jealous. He advised Kubla to send his fleet to invade Japan, the Eight Islands. And he arranged for press gangs to kidnap the wild poet and send him with the fleet as a galley slave."

Nikolai listened, enthralled. Mora folded her hands on the table top. Biri had set the tray down and was pouring a glass. "And then?" Nikolai asked.

"Then the astrologer planned his marriage to the Abyssinian maid, knowing the fleet would be sent to the bottom of the sea, and his rival with it. A great wind rose and destroyed the emperor's ships, just as the astrologer had forseen, and all aboard drowned. But the young poet's will was so strong he could not be kept away, even in death. He returned to haunt the palace."

"That's what Coleridge was going to write?" Nikolai asked.

"Nobody knows what he was going to write," Michael said. "Why do you need us at all?" he asked Clarkham. "Why not just complete the song yourself?"

"The Isomage is well aware that form is crucial in a song of power," Biri said. "It takes a poet to give it form."

"Indeed," Clarkham said.

"And you think I can equal Coleridge?"

Clarkham considered, then shook his head, no. "You haven't his lyric ability, boy. But you can still give it form. You can still finish the song."

"Then I choose not to," Michael said with great difficulty. "You don't deserve the power. You abandoned your wives, and you abandoned Emma Livry. How many others did you hurt? Arno simply gave you what you deserved - some of your own medicine."

"The poor, sad German," Mora said, eyes downcast.

"I was not responsible for Mahler," Clarkham said without looking at her. "Or for his child. That was not my work at all." he smiled at Michael, abruptly calm and friendly. "I've been through a great deal, my boy. I must not be stopped now."

'Then go on without me. You fed me the dream. Give it form. If I can't equal Coleridge, perhaps you can."

"I'm not a poet."

"No!" Michael shouted. "You're a parasite. You want power you don't deserve."

"At the very least, I'm a symbiote," Clarkham said. "I interact, inspire. You've been too influenced by Tonn, I suspect, to fully understand my relationship with artists."

"Tonn said poets would rule again someday. I will not allow you to rule."

Clarkham inhaled deeply and let his breath out through his teeth with a faint whistle. "Commendable courage. And stupidity." He pointed to Nikolai. "Look at him."

The corpse in Nikolai's chair was a mass of finely shredded skin and muscle. Blood pooled under the chair. Clarkham raised his finger and Nikolai was restored. "I wouldn't have to be so immature," Clarkham said, "if I were dealing with a worthy opponent. But I'm not. So we'll get our preliminaries out of the way. Produce the final portion of the song, or Nikolai will become what you just saw. But not now. Our emotions have been engaged. There must be time to reflect, prepare."

"I don't need time," Michael said. He had given Clarkham his last chance, and the homage had passed it by with a threat. "I can write it down now."

"I insist," Clarkham said.

Mora contemplated the tree roses in the garden, her face impassive. Nikolai simply looked as he had the night before, out of his depth and bewildered. He hadn't felt a thing.

"Let Mora give you and your friend a tour. There's much to see here. The pleasure dome was quite a remarkable pattern, and I've gone to a lot of trouble to recreate it. It would be a pity if the object of my efforts were to plunge ahead without full benefit of such labor." His smile was almost sweet. "We'll conclude our little dance later. It's a lovely day. Off with you." He lightly fanned a hand in Mora's direction and left the table.

"You must not underestimate him," Mora said as she led Michael and Nikolai across the marble and ice floor. "The Isomage is a very powerful sorcerer."

"I'm sure he is," Michael said.

She turned and regarded him with a pained expression.

"Then why do you anger him?"

"Because for months now, I thought he was the one who would show me the way home and help the humans in the Realm. Now it's obvious he just wants power. He wants to be another Adonna."

Mora shook her head slowly, almost pityingly, her large eyes steady on Michael's face. "No one comprehends the whole. That is what the Isomage has said, and he must be correct. There is always mystery and surprise."

"Besides, he won't harm me until I've given him what he wants. And"- Michael felt the hornets hum within-"I don't care anymore. I'm ready to give it to him. So let's tour and get it over with."

Mora cocked her head to one side. "You are saying that a poet from Earth, given a chance to tour Xanadu from end to end, is not even interested?"

This bothered Michael. The opportunity was unparalleled, certainly; but he was not sure he could be enthused by anything now. "I suppose," he said.

"Then come. We'll start at the top___"

To one side of the dome, in the middle of a neat circle of cedars, was a black marble staircase leading down into the hill. Mora removed a lantern from a brass plate on the wall and preceded them down the steps. Nikolai followed her closely, and Michael trailed a few steps behind.

"How do you serve Clarkham?" Michael asked her.

"As he wishes me to," she answered, barely audible over the whistle of the wind in the shaft.

"And how is that?" Michael pursued, aware he was touching sensitive areas.

"When the Isomage came here, there was nothing but sea. The Maln had ceded it to him in the Pact. He was bitter and exhausted. He had nothing. He had lost everyone he loved; there was only Harka and Shahpur, and they were of little use to him then. He had his power, but no."

She held her hand up in the air and Michael felt her probe him for the right word.

"Inspiration?" he suggested.

"Yes. I also was lost, cast out because I had loved a human. I wandered by the sea, and the Isomage took me in. He was no longer alone, and his strength to imagine returned. That was when he started on the pleasure dome."

"How did the Isomage create all this?" Nikolai asked as they descended into darkness and cold.

"He did not," Mora answered, her voice echoing. "The song already has a variety of forms. He simply took the song as it existed and let it shape the Realm within his territories."

Michael felt the walls with one spread hand; they were ice veined with rock now, and very small veins of rock at that. Ahead was a roaring grumble. The steps vibrated in rhythm with the rise and fall of the grumble.

"The Realm is built on ice," Mora said, "but that ice does not begin for miles yet. This is ice required by the song, cold in the midst of dark. It melts to form the river. And the river-"

They turned a comer and cold blue-green light fell on them. Moisture dripped from smooth slick walls of ice. Rivulets gathered in gutters to each side of the stairway. "The river empties into the sea," Mora said. "It waters the grounds first, so that ice leads to life - cold to warmth. That, too, is part of the song. Some things are not mentioned in any manifestation of the song." She stopped and pointed. Deep in the ice were twisted, elongated fish with the heads of cats and deer. Michael looked closer and saw they were not real, but illusions created by fine cracks; looking again, he saw not fish but frozen reeds capped with eyes. "The song must always be more than its singer can convey."

The steps ended as the floor leveled and they walked directly on ice. Nikolai stumbled in a narrow crack and Michael grabbed his arm. "Not safe for tourists!" the Russian commented wryly.

The ice around them brightened to a pale blue-green, more alive than the dead green of thick glass. Mora led them on to an expansion in the tunnel. "Come," she said, beckoning toward a broad ice bridge.

Above, vaults of ice and marble formed curious traceries, vegetal fans of mineral mixed with the translucent water. Below, the accumulated melt careened from the right and cascaded to the left. The cavern bearing the melt was easily five hundred yards across. The chunks of ice seen from afar now took on more meaningful proportion; they were the size of houses, even mansions. And not all the chunks were ice. As Coleridge had described, pieces of rock were mixed in the tumult. The ice bridge - twisted and doubled-back, obviously natural yet too convenient - took the blows of the rushing bergs and boulders without a shudder.

They walked along the span, Nikolai reluctantly, afraid of slipping off the rounded surface. The air smelled of cold and mist and was filled with noise: high-pitched grinds and squeals, pounding spray, a deep and momentous impression of motion.

They crossed the bridge and passed into a narrow, low-roofed tunnel, once more as much rock as ice.

Near the exit, rock predominated. They emerged into the dim overgrown light of a deep wedge in the hill - Coleridge's "romantic chasm." Deeper still, a hundred yards below, where they stood on an unfenced ledge, the melt fountained, carrying its ice and rocks in a frothing torrent. Trees formed a canopy over the ledge, glistening with drops of spray. Nikolai shivered.

The ledge took them to the rim of the chasm, overlooking the gardens. The sinuous river flowed like sluggish bronze beneath the warm sky. On the opposite side of the chasm were the steps they had climbed to reach the dome on their arrival. Michael stared down at the base of the falls and the bobbing ice in the deep blue pool there.

"Now we descend to the gardens," Mora said. Michael resisted her hand on his arm.

"We're just wasting time," he said.

"Please," she said.

"Either I do what I was brought here to do, or I leave - now," Michael said sternly. Mora backed away and folded her arms across her breasts. Nikolai stood awkwardly to one side, thumbs hooked in his belt.

"Why do you wish to hurry things?" Mora asked. "There is always time."

Michael looked down the slanting path and saw Harka and Shahpur seated on flanking boulders. There was obviously no chance of escape. "Lead on, then," he said.

The empty Sidhe and the white-wrapped human accompanied them without comment on the rest of the tour. Michael paid little attention to the gorgeous landscaping, the mazes of perfect and ever-blooming flower gardens, die delicate, jewel-like Sidhe animals. In the early afternoon, Nikolai professed to being tired and hungry, and they made their way up the opposite side of the chasm and returned to the soapstone gate. Harka, Michael and Shahpur hung back a bit before entering the silken tent. At Harka's signal, Michael stopped. Shahpur approached and nodded his shrouded head at the Sidhe.

"We think it wise to warn you," Shahpur said to Michael. "The Isomage will not accept much more defiance."

Harka sighed. "He has been here a long time, with little to do, and not all of his thinking is clear. He still has great bitterness."

"He is powerful," Shahpur said. "He will do you great harm."

"You know that we are different," Harka said. "I have not always served the Isomage in ways that pleased him. He punished me."

"And you still serve him?"

"We have no choice. Now, we warn you only because he thinks you could learn from us. We tell you only because he wills it. I fled from the Maln with Clarkham; I was his partner. We quarreled, and he gained the upper hand. He poured my self from me like wine from a jug. I have only the hollowness. Shahpur."

"Once, the Isomage was filled with hatred and it bred a disease in his brain like worms in rotten meat," Shahpur said. "It made him weaker, so he cast a shadow. But the shadow was too strong to simply fade away. He had to cast the shadow onto someone. The Isomage chose me. I carry his past foulness."

"He has treated us this way," Harka said, "and yet we have never done him great wrong. If you defy him, refuse him what he most desires, he will consider that a very great wrong indeed. Even empty, I shudder to think what he will do to you, to your companion."

"Then I won't defy him," Michael said. "I'll give him just what he wants."

"What did the humans and the Sidhe lose when they separated?" Clarkham asked after they had finished the early dinner. Bek and Tik cleared away the plates as Mora brought out a tray of brandy snifters. "One lost magic, and the other lost a sense of direction. Bring them together again - that's inevitable - and both will benefit. Ah, but how to bring them together smoothly? Who understands both Sidhe and humans?" Clarkham lifted his snifter and urged Michael to do the same. "Not Tonn. Not an old, decrepit mage losing control of a universe he himself made. Not Waltiri. Not Tarax, a hard and resolute Sidhe with no sympathy for the old enemies. Only a Breed."