So… Martel… you cannot have Kryn, for she has obtained what she has sought and will not relinquish the power and the glory that is Karnak. And you cannot have Rathe, for she is dead. Dead because of your carelessness. Or your unwillingness to make any commitment to anything. Have it either way. And you do not want Emily, or to be a god.
He turns his eyes from Jsalm toward the grass at his feet, then back to the gentle waves in the bay below the hillside. The nip of the salt air reminds him of Thetis. Thetis? He laughs.
No. Though a lady she certainly is. Then what do you want? Kryn… and to be me.
He turns to face the other way, down the hillside at the cottage, and at the quinces.
What are you, Martel? What are you that makes you want what you cannot have and turn from what you are?
The thought is not his, but echoes as if from a great distance.
He frowns, wondering who had been monitoring his private soliloquy, and as his eyebrows furrow, the breeze dies, and the air stills. I am what I am, and I will have what I want.
How, pray tell?
He laughs, and the laugh echoes across the hillside, down toward the cottage on one side and toward the bay on the other. In the bay, the sound freezes the waves, holds the pair of dorles in midflight, and ripples the beach like an earthquake.
Darkness wells, and spreads, and for kilos around, night falls. At last, Martel speaks aloud, and the words rumble like thunder as they roll outward over the lands from his mouth.
“Time! Time is mine, and so is the night. Day will end, must end. And at that time comes night. Enjoy your days in the sun you cannot see, for though centuries pass, though the sons of those centuries pass, I will wait, and remember. Remember till the day when night will fall, and so will you!”
This time, this one time, Martel does not release his darkness to let it disperse. Instead, he lets it break, in waves, away from him, and in breaking that dark washes around Aurore so that all on Aurore behold a moment of night.
That darkness flies across Sybernal, across Jsalm, across Pamyra, on across the White Cliffs, across a certain white villa, across beaches, and across vacant golden waters.
That instant of night wings over the lands and waters like a night eagle whose shadowed pinions cover but briefly the ground beneath.
In certain streets of Sybernal, men crouch. Some make an obscure sign dating from the depths of history; others gape. Still others fail to notice, and others observe the strange darkness and dismiss its significance. Such it is. So has it always been. Some notice. Some do not. Some are pleased. Some are not.
By the time the light returns to the empty hilltop, Martel has returned to his cottage. Returned smiling, though that smile would chill most and leave their souls frozen hulks.
Outside, it is still night, despite the light of eternal day, although the clocks state it is night. On Karnak, the Viceroy sleeps.
Part II
The Coming of the Hammer
XLI
The Lady dreams. For now, to call her Lady is sufficient. She is that, and more.
In her dream, she falls down a long, black tunnel, shot with streaks of white. As she drops she passes point rainbows of light, all the colors she can see, and colors besides those. Colors she once could see, but knows she can no longer distinguish.
She reaches out to touch the sides of the tunnel, but they retreat from her clutching fingers.
The Lady wants to cry, but knows she must not, knows she should remember why, but cannot.
She wakes… alone… in a dimly lit room. To call her chamber a small hall would be more precise. Shuddering at the all-too-familiar dream, she sits up. “It's been a while,” she murmurs, checking the time, “a long while since the last time.”
“Dreams of the tunnel?” inquires her diary from the bedside table. “Yes, it has been. Nine years, eleven standard months, roughly.”
“I wonder what crisis is coming,” she says softly. The diary does not answer.
The Lady resettles herself on her pillows and pulls the silksheen cover up over her shoulders, though she is not cold. She avoids thinking about the two questions the dream has returned to her thoughts, and after some time passes into a hot and dreamless sleep.
* * *
XLII
Tap, tap.
The sound raises Martel from his study of the small beaker, which is empty, and the bottle of Springfire, which is full. Tap, tap.
He sighs, replaces the bottle on the keeper shelf, and closes the appliance. Martel decides not to probe, hoping the intruder will leave. While the visitor does, he leaves a package.
By the time Martel reaches the front portal and opens it, no one is there. An electrobike is purring back toward Sybernal. An envelope lies squarely on the top step. Martel purses his lips. When was the last time he saw an honest envelope? From Hollie? Sometime in the days of the old Empire of Man? Before the fall of the Prince Regent? Before his former ladylove who wasn't seized the reins of power… he shunts that thought away, regards the envelope.
Finally he bends and picks it up. A large envelope, to say the least, so white that the paper, parchment really, nearly blinds. His name in flowing script assures him that he is the recipient.
Martel, it reads, and across from the name, in the same black ink, is a thunderbolt, stylized, but a thunderbolt nonetheless.
He probes the inside with his perceptions, but only inert material rests there.
Closing the portal, he returns to the main room, and to the table with the beaker. Can it be from his latest tenants?
Unlikely, for neither could write in such a flowing hand. He knows this, though he has seen neither write.
From the chief at the CastCenter, the latest of the more than several dozen for whom he has theoretically worked the “night” shift over the centuries? Also unlikely.
He sniffs, holds the envelope up, trying to see if some perfume clings to it. For the hand proclaims that a woman wrote his name. Emily?
He shakes his head. He cannot imagine the writing of a goddess, or the reasons why she would take the time to write. He holds the envelope, hesitates, puts it down on the table, and stands there.
Why are you afraid? You, the dark shadow of Aurore? Not denying his fear, he walks around the table, stares out the window at the nearest quince tree, the latest of the generations he has planted, and down at the main house, rebuilt last year for the fiftieth time since he purchased it from Mrs. Alderson's estate. After all the years, why now?
He knows the answer. He has felt it on the wind, and in his probes of what lies beyond the energy field that is Aurore.
“There is a season…” And after the season of light comes the season of change. Has he not said so himself?
He replaces the beaker on its shelf and walks back to his sleeping room, toward the wardrobe and the black tunics and trousers. He dons tunic, then trousers, and for the first time in many years, instead of the plain black belt, puts on the one with the triangular silver buckle. The black boots follow.
Fully dressed, he walks back to the table, regards the envelope.
After a time, he picks it up and touches the flap, which unseals at his touch, as he knew it would. Three holos tumble out on the table, all landing face up. Rathe Firien, snub-nosed, red-haired, full-breasted under the clinging tunic, and friendly, the warmth obvious, as if the holo had been canned the day before.
Marta Farell, not the stern-faced CastCenter chief, but smiling as if to welcome her lover, and wearing a golden gown. And… at the end, Kryn Kirsten, daughter of the Grand Duke, golden-eyed and black-haired, in tunic and trousers of blue shot with threads of gold. Slim like a bitch goddess, and bitchlike in her own way.
A narrow slip of parchment remains in the envelope. Martel leaves it there as he studies the pictures. Two dead women, one who loved him, and one who hadn't. Both dead because of him. And a third, possibly the most powerful person in the Empire of Light, immortal and yet not a goddess, and not on Aurore. The enigma
he has not seen in more than a millennium, her holo in with that of two dead women.
An obvious conclusion to be drawn, one meant to be drawn. But why now? And by whom?
Underlying all was the assumption that he would care, that he had to care, that he could care.
The three-dimensional images looking up from the table asked a question, too. Two of them, at least, and Martel dislikes the question.
Is he going to let someone else die, as he has the other two, because he will not listen? Or is someone using the question to force you to act? Does it matter? He shrugs, not sure that it does.
Who knows him well enough to ask the question in such a knifing way? Emily. She is the only answer.
She is the goddess Dian, but Emily will do. Has always done between them. He takes the narrow slip from the envelope, reads it.
The No-Name. 2200. My love.
Her love?
He tosses that question into his mental file with all the other unanswered questions he has ignored over the centuries, knowing that it cannot stay ignored, not this time.
He looks down at the images of the three women, all beautiful in their own way, all intelligent, and, in their own way, all dead to him. If you believe that, Martel, you're crazier than Thor.
He wonders who expressed the thought, then realizes it is his own, not letting him lie to himself this time.
The stars have changed, and his time has come round at last, rough beast, and it may be time to slouch forward… he does not finish the thought, but, instead, fingers the slip and lets it burst into flame.
The ashes are light and drift from his fingertips into the still air of the room and slowly toward the floor.
Martel locks the rear portal onto the porch, as well as the front as he leaves, for the first time since he originally entered the cottage with Rathe Firien. He will not be back soon.
The three holos gaze adoringly at the wooden beams of the ceiling above the table, and the black thunderbolt on the envelope protects them.
A man who is no longer just a man, clad in two black cloaks, one fabric, one shadow, strides along the coast path toward Sybernal, and those who see him do not. But they shiver as he passes, not knowing why.
* * *
XLIII
In the strictest sense of the word, the old Empire of Man “fell” with the death of the Regent and the succession of the Grand Duke of Kirsten. Practically speaking, however, the impact was the permanent division of the Empire. Both the “eastern” Empire, ruled from New Augusta by the Emperor, and the “western” Empire, ruled from Karnak by the Viceroy, claimed to be only parts of the new Empire of Light.
In a strange way, the claims were true. In the millennium that the Empire of Light existed, never did either ruler contest a prior claim of the other, nor was there a recorded instance of the fleets of one firing upon the fleets of the other.
To the Viceroy, of course, most credit should be given. Never before or since in human history has a ruler endured, not only relatively sane, but apparently young and healthy, for a millennium. During the same period, there were twenty-four Emperors, five palace revolts, and three lineal changes associated with the Emperors of New Augusta…
—Basic Hist-Tape
Hsein-Fer
Karnak 4413
* * *
XLIV
The golden goddess glitters.
Glitters as she walks, glitters as she never glittered before, and the words she has not spoken dance across the dull air to shimmer from the darker corners created by her very presence in Sybernal. Seldom has she donned her aspect so blatantly in the city of gold sand beaches and eternal sunlight that comes from no sun and turns the seas golden-green at all hours. Seldom has she been seen in recent centuries, not since she was rumored to have consorted with the god who is and never was.
Yet she is, and she glitters as she walks from the Petrified Boardwalk down a narrow lane toward a narrower staircase. The women turn away without looking, and the men look and turn away, wishing they dared to look longer, but knowing that she has chosen the dark god, the one no one dares mention, and been rejected.
Inside the No-Name, a man dressed in black sits alone at a table. The row of tables nearest his is vacant, and the bar is slowly emptying. No one wears black in Sybernal, no one of Aurore, not without tempting the gods or the dark one, and the man in black does both.
A rumormonger who has seen better times mutters, “The Emperor kills the truth,” before collapsing on the hardwood counter, and, yes, it is real hardwood, genuine steelbark from Sylvanium, that counter of the nameless bar where the media downers congregate, where they ignore the one called Martel who sits among them, where they tempt fate and gods by remaining in his presence. Martel knows the collapsed one could not have been a good newsie, not after spouting such garbage. The news itself kills truth, for the news media can never encompass all that happens and, by omission, present only a scattering of accurate facts sufficient to kill the truth. Rulers, among them Emperors and Viceroys, merely use the media's reported facts to ensure that the truth remains dead and buried.
In waiting, Martel has drunk too much Springfire, more than anyone should drink, he knows, and particularly more than he should drink. Still, he hesitates to change his metabolism to burn it off… yet.
“Martel…” The voice has a golden sound, but its fullness cannot quite hide the trace of silver bells beneath.
He turns and looks through the glitter. Even without the coruscating auras, the veil of glittermotes, and the projected sensuality, she is still impossibly impressive. Her natural, but genetically back-altered, golden hair streams over her shoulders like a cloak. The golden ruby of her lips and the clean lines of her still—and forever-young face combine with her tan and slenderness to strike a silence deeper than that at the bottom of the well of souls.
Martel, wishing again he could have remained merely a newsie, but knowing she had indeed sent him the three holos, ignores the temptation to see her as she wishes and concentrates on her as she is. Physically, of course, there is no difference, but, without all the attributes, she stands before him as a collection of clashing traits—the face of a girl with eyes that have seen Hell, the figure of a virgin with the body posture of experience, a complexion that demands dark hair with golden.
“Emily, Queen of Harlots and Whore of Gods, nice of you to pay your respects.”
“Martel, your words have been nicer. Not to mention your actions.”
The two newsies closest to the arched doorway scuttle through it and up the stairway into the light. Another crouches in the corner of his solitary booth.
Martel readjusts his metabolism, holds back the churning in his stomach, and wipes the instant sweat boils off his forehead as his system burns off the poisons he has so recently drunk from the jasolite beaker.
“That was then. When I was young and did not know you weren't, and when I had not learned the price. Not that I have yet paid it, but I will. Oh, I will.”
“Not that one, I hope.” She turns.
Martel watches, not quite ready to follow, not quite rid of the Springfire toxins.
The golden girl turns up her glitter, spraying the room with the hope that kills. The single woman, a caster from Path Five, sees that false hope and hates. Hates instantly, and dies nearly as instantly.
Martel reaches out with a twist of thought and readjusts her thoughts before her death is final, before she knows she has died. But he leaves the hatred. That is a personal matter.
Wiping off the last of the sweat-poison boils with a towel flown from across the bar, he stands away from his table and strides through the sparkling motes left by the golden girl, letting them cloak his black tunic and trousers for the instants before they understand what he is and expire.
Like a knife of night he cuts through the residues of the worthless hope left by Emily as he tracks her from the No-Name.
On the long beach called Beginning he finds her. On Aurore any beach can be a beginni
ng, for it is on the beach that most who would be gods find their calling. There are no shadows on the beach. He ignores his thought and lets his steps take him to Emily, who watches the waves break, who holds her cloak of glittermotes to call attention and repel it.
His own shield of darkness wraps around him tighter than his cloak. The breeze swirls his black hair into patterns no geometrician would dare probe, but he ignores it.
“Still the same stolid Martel,” observes Emily, releasing her cloak of lightmotes back into the field.
Martel looks through her shallow/deep gold eyes. Why did all those who merely accepted godhood have eyes, eyes that miss nothing but understand nothing? Maybe that is the answer, he thinks. “A thousand years, and you still think about eyes and philosophy?”
“How many thousand and you still don't?” he counters.
Shielded or unshielded makes no difference. Her powers have not grown.
Martel stands fractionally above the soft sand that would climb into his boots, given half a chance. The nouveaux riches of the Empire flock to Aurore to lie on the beaches, to tan, and to let the sand drift over and about them, hoping the god field would select them. And Martel stands above the sand, well above the salt.
“Philosophy is a substitute for power, or a rationale for not using it.”
“Did you intrigue me out here just to insult me?” Martel knows he should have waited until Emily made her offer, whatever it is. But the time has passed, long passed, for him to take matters on her terms. You think so? Martel does not answer.
Emily gathers back her light cloak and draws upon the field. She expands until she is half again Martel's height, until she has a fistful of small lightnings within her right hand, until dark clouds swirl over the beach called Beginning.
Martel ignores the temptation and watches the always regular breakers coasting in to foam up on the square-lined beach that stretches kilos north and south.
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