Wielding a Red Sword (15 page)

The new Prince looked up, only mildly surprised. “I look upon a life that is more wonderful than any I imagined,” he replied in a similar singsong. “I have seen a painting of the Princess I am to marry, and she is lovely.”

Mym had seen the picture and regarded the Princess as relatively plain. But perhaps Gaea had dabbled in that aspect of the man too, so that he was entirely content with his lot. Gaea’s favors were subtle but solid. No doubt her anger could be similarly devastating!

“I have a problem,” Mym said. “As you know, I am now the Incarnation of War. There is a battle going on between Gujarat and Maharastra that should not be occurring. The order to halt hostilities seems to have gotten lost in transit. I need to obtain that order and get it to the front—but I do not want to seem to duplicate myself when I get it. So—”

“I will get it for you,” the new Prince Pride said, understanding immediately. “Naturally I don’t want lives expended uselessly any more than you do; I will have to manage this Kingdom all too soon.”

He was taking hold very nicely, despite his lack of prior
training for the position he had assumed. Gaea’s work again, surely.

The new Prince pride took a carpet immediately to the Rajah’s palace, while Mym paced him invisibly on the horse. The trip was swift, as neither had to wait on traffic below, and in a few minutes they were there. Then Prince Pride asked for a copy of the order requiring the cessation of hostilities and took it with him. The moment he was alone, he held it in the air, and Mym materialized enough to grasp it. “Thank you, Prince,” he said. “May you have a long and happy life.”

He galloped back to the battle site, where things remained frozen. He brought the order to a messenger boy, put it in his hand, and phased in to his mind. No thought was proceeding, because of the freeze, but Mym projected strongly: URGENT MESSAGE FOR GENERAL.

Then he sat back on the horse, touched the Sword, and willed the release of the stasis.

The scene reanimated. The troops resumed killing each other; blood resumed flowing, and arrows completed their flights. The messenger boy looked startled, evidently not remembering how he had come to possess the urgent message, but knowing his duty. He rushed it to the General.

The General perused it. He sighed. “Peace has been declared,” he said, disgusted. “Cease hostilities. Send a mission under flag of truce to the enemy to acquaint them with this news.”

It took a while to sort it out, but in due course the armies disengaged. The battle was over, and not too many men had been killed.

But if he had handled the matter more expeditiously, there would have been no carnage at all. Mym knew he had a lot yet to learn about the performance of his office.

He gathered up his minions and returned to his castle in Purgatory. Conquest, Slaughter, Famine, and Pestilence went their ways, disappointed. They would have only a slim harvest from this day’s work.

Rapture met him at the front foyer. “Oh, beloved, I missed you so!” she exclaimed. “Why did you have to be gone so long?”

“I have an office to server,” he sang.

“To supervise violence and rapine?” she asked. “It would be better if you stayed here!”

“To stop a battle between the armies of your Kingdom and mine,” he informed her gently. “Peace has been declared, but the news had not reached the front. I was fortunate to get it stopped before things had proceeded too far.”

“Maharastra—and Gujarat—were fighting?” she asked, appalled.

“Because of us,” he agree. “We refused to marry the Princess and Prince of Rajasthan so our Kingdoms went to war with each other.”

“But actual combat? I hadn’t realized!”

“I stopped it. That was my business today.”

“But people died, before—?”

“Some died, yes. It was complicated to-”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I never wanted people to die because of s! If I had realized-”

“There was no way to-” he sang.

But she turned away from him, part of her horror extending to him.

Disgusted, he left her. It seemed they were having their first quarrel.

He cleaned up, for though he had had very little contact with mortal things, he had been under some pressure and had sweated under his golden cloak. He changed to informal garb, then went to Rapture’s quarters.

She met him in the hall and flung her arms about him and sobbed. He tried to speak, but she stifled that with a kiss.

It seemed that their quarrel was over.

Then they talked, and he learned what was really upsetting her. It seemed that the butler had explained it to her during the day.

This was Purgatory. No mortals resided here. This was not discrimination. but the simple fact that mortals were of a far more complex physical composition, possessing three physical dimensions instead of two. This was not a precise analogy, but the butler had made it simple to understand. Mortals could visit, when sponsored by an Incarnation, but could not remain.

“But you have been here a full night and day!” Mym sang, protesting.

“Yes, and I am starving,” she responded.

“But there is plenty to ear!”

“For you. Not for me. Not for a mortal.”

“You’re
my
mortal!” he sang angrily. “They
will
feed you!”

She shook her head. “They
have
fed me, Mym. But this is Purgatory food. It looks and tastes real, it feels real—but it has nourishment only for ghosts. A mortal requires a thousand times the substance found in this food. What I have eaten here has been illusion, for me. I have been existing on my own bodily resources. This is easy to do, for a short period, when the stomach seems full—but can not be maintained.”

He started at her. “Purgatory food—can’t feed you,” he repeated.

“Mym, I must return to the mortal realm, if I am to eat.”

He was appalled. “No wonder you were upset! It’s so nice here, and now—”

“Now I must leave. I can visit only a few hours at a time before hunger and thirst—oh, I feel that thirst, now!”

Mym shook his head. “Rapture, I never knew about this! I never would have brought you here, if—”

His distress seemed to ameliorate hers. “I have only t find a mortal home. I can be here each day when you return. I can spend the nights with you. It can be very much the same; I can be gone only when you are gone.”

“But I have no idea where you can go!” he sang. “It can’t be Bombay-”

“The butler says he can arrange something, and I’m sure he can. But—it must be soon, because-”

“Because you are wasting away!” he finished. “oh, my beloved-”

“It will be all right,” she said, though he knew she was deeply distressed. She had wanted so much to be with him always and now she could not.

They went immediately to the butler, who explained that there were those mortals who cooperated in special
matters like this and maintained a system of hostels for displaced associates of Purgatory. They were discreet and understanding. “In fact you can stay with Thanatos’ consort, Luna Kaftan,” he said. “She is in mortal politics, but because of Thanatos, she understands perfectly. You will be fully comfortable with her.”

And so it was arranged for Rapture to stay with Luna, who lived in Kilvarough. Thanatos himself came to escort them down. Rapture almost fainted when she saw the skull-face, but then Thanatos drew back his hood to reveal an ordinary human face, reassuring her. It was all right-for now.

 
8
 
SATAN

Other nights, Rapture would come to stay with him in the Castle of War. But this night she was back on Earth, for she had a day’s eating to catch up on and needed to acclimatize. Mym had known the instant he met Luna, who seemed oddly familiar, that she would take good care of Rapture; she was a beautiful, brown-haired, occidental woman, whose house was filled with artistry and guarded by griffins. It was no palace, but it was the kind of place the Princess could feel at home in.

So Mym slept alone—and discovered that, though Rapture might be dependent on him, he had become dependent on her, too. He had grown accustomed to sleeping beside a loving woman and felt ill at ease by himself.

In fact, he was unable to sleep. After more than an hour or restless turning, he sat up and looked for something to read. There was nothing; evidently his predecessor had not been a literary man.

He got up and donned slippers and night robe and walked out into the dusky hall. The castle staff had retired; all was quiet. Did the spirits of Purgatory require sleep? Perhaps so, if they required food. As he was coming to understand it, the lives—the afterlives—of these
people were similar to those of mortal folk, but more diffuse and extended. If they did not eat, they would not starve—not within a century or so—for they could not die; they were already dead. But they would become uncomfortable. Likewise, probably, with sleep. So let them sleep; it did help differentiate the days, which surely were dull enough. Purgatory was not supposed to be torture, as he perceived this Western mythology; it was merely a state of indecision, a working-off of the debts of an imperfectly lived life. Westerners had no second chance by way of reincarnation to expiate their faults; they had to get it straight in just one life one life and then pay the consequence in the long stretch of eternity thereafter. He did not envy them their system.

But, of course, he was part of it, now. He should have been a better Hindu, so as not to stray into this inferior framework. This was really his own next incarnation, the Incarnation of War in an alien framework, and now he was bound by its laws. Punishment enough!

Yet reward enough, too, for it had solved the problem of his voided betrothal to Rapture and the war between their two kingdoms. Had this office not come to him when it had, he would have faced disaster. So fate had not been cruel to him; it had been kind. Most kind.

Also, he rather fancied the challenge of this new position. He had made mistake on his first day-but what person didn’t, when learning the job? He now had a far better notion how to proceed and expected to do better on his next battle. The powers of his office were phenomenal and could be a great force for good when properly applied.

He came to the garden region that had so enraptured Rapture. Now it was dark; the cycles of Purgatory mirrored those of mortal Earth. The exotic plants seemed larger, the shadowed statues more alive, somehow. He walked on through it; it was indeed a lovely region, the kind that a woman could spend much time appreciating. It seemed almost natural—as if crafted by the forces of nature, rather than those of man.

The clouds parted to allow a shaft of moonlight down, and the leaves and statues turned silvery. A gentle breeze
wafted through, stirring the trees. The smell of the wild came through more clearly, luring him on. The path twisted about, taking him past increasingly intriguing exhibits.

He paused to examine one statue more carefully. It was a representation of two figures, male and female, both naked, locked in close embrace. In fact they were engaged in the act of physical love. Such representations were common enough in India, but this one was unusually specific. The figures almost seemed to move.