Night's Sorceries

by Tanith Lee

  “And you,” she said to Pereban, “take hold of my waist and on no account let go of me, or you will be smothered in the waters or cast off into the air.”

  “Have you then traveled in this way before?”

  “Not I, but a selection of my ancestors have done so, whose histories you do not deserve to hear.”

  “And did they, these ancestors, thereby visit the sun?”

  But Idune did not reply. She whistled to the whale.

  And at this signal it plunged straight down into the ocean, and they were taken with it.

  What a dive that was. It seemed to last an hour of terror and roaring, while the unmingled black and white boiled by, formlessly yet ceaselessly patterned. Idune’s sorcery protected them from it within some cache of atmosphere, and Pereban grasped her so firmly she upbraided him. After the dive—came the leap. The great whale lifted at such velocity the sea became only a blindness, and then they broke out of it again and were shooting up through the sky of Dooniveh like an arrow, all clung round with syrupy boulders of the water.

  The sea and the cold land fell away as formerly they had fallen nearer.

  The sun drew to meet them at the apex of the whale’s gargantuan bound.

  Heat filled the air, and gilding, so they became all three beings of gold. And Pereban beheld the streamers of fiery gas which foamed from the face of the sun’s disc.

  “What of the fire?” he cried to Idune.

  But again she gave no answer, and he could only trust to her magic. For in these moments the radiations did not seem as mild as they had done.

  A moment more and a blast like that of a furnace enveloped them.

  The whale veered from the gust. Idune seized and snapped her girdle of brilliants, scattering the stones across space.

  “Hold tight to me,” she instructed, in a shriek, over the wind of the flight and the hiss and crackle of the fiery vapors. Pereban saw fit to comply. And therefore, as Idune flung herself off from the back of the whale, he hurtled with her.

  The sea beast was already dropping from them, back toward deep ocean. But they, by sorcery or impulse or solar magnetism, fell upward still, and into the core of the burning sun.

  • • •

  A plunge to the depths, a leap for the sky, a passing through fires—

  The heat had grown intense, but Idune resolutely screamed spells. Pereban considered himself toasted but not fried, and found that he could breathe the oven air. They fell rapidly through flamed auras and laval jets, into a hot billow-bath of cloud. And then they were spinning down a sky of orchid yellow.

  “We shall die. I, who might have lived a thousand years or more—”

  So Idune lamented, striking Pereban as he clung to her and they fell as one.

  “To sleep is not to live,” corrected Pereban. “Besides, though the air here is more volatile than the airs of Dooniveh, we do not descend at an excessive rate. And besides again, have you no magic to lessen our speed?”

  “You might yourself lessen it, were you to remove from your pocket the heavy useless impedimenta I now detect clanking there.”

  “You are facetious. I will discard nothing.”

  “Very well. But for magic, I am powerless in this domain.”

  Pereban did not consent to the logic of this, but Idune was adamant. Meanwhile they continued to fall down.

  Suddenly the sky beneath them cleared. There lay revealed the country of the moon-sun world, like an unrolled carpet dyed with saffron.

  It was beautiful and strange, as the moonland itself had been strange but not beautiful.

  Pereban and Idune the queen stared beneath them.

  No mountains were in sight, but instead undulating rounded hills and valleys. In certain areas lakes of water glinted, as if each were held in a golden spoon. A peach-colored forest sunned itself along the banks of a white-wine river; statelier trees, the buttered shade of crocuses, grouped about some imposing masonry.

  “A palace or temple. We shall be shattered on its roof,” observed Idune, coldly.

  At that moment their fall was arrested. A twanging barrier met them and threw them off again into the air, but on their immediate return, let them lie. A huge net had been suspended between the trees, mysteriously adjoining the area of their descent. They sprawled upon it, safe in everything but dignity.

  “Such heat,” Idune presently exclaimed, perhaps spontaneously, or in an effort to retain poise.

  To Pereban, the climate of the moon’s sun seemed like that of an idyllic afternoon of latest spring or earliest summer. He stretched himself in the net, in weak languor, aware of the trilling of birds—unknown it had seemed in Dooniveh—and of other creatural noises in the forest. The sky smiled with a gentle ceaseless light. It must be day in this country for ever. Pereban was swept by poignant regret once more, abruptly thinking of the earth, where there was also night, and cold alternated with warmth. In that moment he heard some high-pitched trumpet notes and the thud of drums.

  “A procession is coming,” said Pereban to the queen. “Your advent was looked for. This lucky net proves as much.”

  “But I am in disarray,” protested Idune, who was indeed.

  Just then, the net began to lower itself and the travelers were let down on the honey lawn, before the architecture they had formerly stared on from above. Nearby, the procession emerged from the forest.

  Its participants were clothed, one and all, in black, and though they might represent warriors, scholars, musicians, and persons of the ruling class, not a single gesture or expression conveyed welcome. Not even those of the large yellow salamanders many were riding.

  In the midst of the crowd was a carriage of bronze, shrouded with dark curtains embroidered by skulls.

  “Madam—” hazarded Pereban.

  “We are too late, as you foresaw.”

  In her dishevelment she was charming and pitiable, but no sorrow, and now no rage, informed her features.

  After a minute, a lordly golden-haired man came toward them, riding one of the lizards.

  “Lady,” said he without preliminary, “if you are the White Queen of the land below, you must know you have been dilatory. Our king, Kurim, awaited you, prolonging his youth and strength. Your icy barren land is inimical to us, and so he could not go to seek you and was reliant upon his messenger. Getting no word in exchange, he at length assumed you had no interest in the match, although it was fated and any other could bring you no joy. He permitted his life, then, to run its regal span, grew old, and died but thirty hours ago. Now we bear him to his dead rites, in that building which you see.”

  Idune inclined her head, but that was all.

  The lord on the salamander said to her, “Out of deference to your rank, and because of what might have been, we will permit you to follow the death car, and to render your tears with ours.”

  “There is no point in such an exercise,” said Idune. “I have no tears.”

  The lord regarded her with displeasure. Then, signaling to the procession, he led it away between the crocus trees and into the pillared building.

  When the black robes, the lizards, and the drums, had faded from sight and hearing, Idune shot Pereban a look.

  “Here am I then, marooned in an alien country, lacking my status, my husband, and all my sorcery. It is your fault I have been brought to this.”

  Pereban said, “Your injustice to me is my due. Life itself is unjust and cruel. But I will now offer you that which I brought for you, from below—since in your haste you forgot it—thinking you would need it against your wedding.” And he drew from the clanking pocket of his robe, of which she had complained, the silver casket that held the heart of the queen, or its essence, asleep. (It was this article the fearsome dog had fetched for him from the ink pool during their last game.)

  “My heart,” said Idune, gazing at the cas
ket. “What use can it be to me now? If I receive it back—for such a spell is tenable even here—I shall suffer a pang of loss, my heart will wake and break and I shall die.”

  Pereban made to replace the casket. But Idune all at once stretched out her hand. “Give it me. Let me die, then. My life has been wasted.”

  Pereban handed her the casket, which seemed to dance in his grasp from the uncanny heartbeats. Idune took and opened it. She raised it, and partly turning away, secretively swallowed the contents. That done, she flung the silver from her. She stood like a statue, then gave a low cry. The young priest expected to see her any second drop lifeless on the turf.

  Instead she darted round on him with her hair flying and her eyes ablaze.

  “My heart—oh, Pereban—my heart is awake and telling me things. It says if I had listened to it at the start events would never have come to this pass. It is an angry heart, Pereban.” And here she laughed. “Now it tells me, ‘Go into the building of death.’”

  Having said which, Idune rushed away through the trees and vanished between two columns. Pereban, agog, pursued her.

  5. Fire Work

  Within the edifice, the funeral of Kurim the Sun King had entered a massive chamber, and there deployed itself.

  The hall was lined by the trunks of enormous trees that had been carved and painted, to a confusion of colors and shapes, but which yet lived, and filled the roof with lacy ivory foliage. On the branches sat slender birds of a brighter yellow, with excessively long tails, and elsewhere grew thick clusters of golden fruit resembling grapes.

  Into every space available below, save at the room’s very center, crammed the mourners. All wore deepest black. Black-sheathed drummers raised thunder from their black drums. Others engaged in the threnody swung acrobatically across the upper levels under the arboreal ceiling, striking brazen gongs with their feet as they went. Maidens with hair like new-minted money howled softly and shook the sistrum. The courtiers and soldiers of the dead king posed with their heads bowed.

  At the center of the room stood the catafalque. Both stage and coffin were of the same painted and carven wood as the pillar-trees, and strewn with flowers, edibles, and vessels of gold. Black-robed officers poured over the pile jars of wine, oil and perfume.

  Pereban, who had entered belatedly, was unable to get through the mass of people. With some misgiving as to the act’s impiety, he ventured to climb one of the ornate trees, using the shoulders, ears and phalluses of the carvings as foot- or hand-holds. Soon enough he had reached a high bough, begged pardon of its resident bird, and seated himself to look down.

  From this vantage, he was well able to stare into the open bier. King Kurim, an elderly man who appeared no less than a hundred earthly years, reclined there, with all his chains of kingship, his rings and armlets and collars on him, and the royal diadem upon his wizened hairless brow.

  (The pomp of the proceedings otherwise discomforted Pereban. He had been used to modest and apologetic festivals of death, whereat the gods’ forgiveness was asked for the temerity of having lived at all.)

  Idune, by dint of great labor, had meanwhile got through the crowd, and just now emerged in the space about the catafalque. She was noticed.

  Radiant in her disorder, she waited speechless as the drums concluded and the mourners were silenced. The last gong was struck and its din moaned away. Idune slowly rent her robe so diamonds scattered again. She called melodiously: “Let me mourn with you. I also have lost my lord.” And suddenly she wept, a rain of tears of all her months and decades of sleep, the store of grief kept by. So beautiful and passionate, so heartfelt, was her action, the very lord who had been repulsed by her churlishness on the lawn, now came to sustain her, and drew her to one side.

  Pereban watched all this in disbelieving acceptance. Until—over the smell of balsam and grapes—there came to him the whiff of fire.

  Men and girls stepped from the throng, carrying flaming torches, which they threw against the stage of death. Up it went. Every jot of paint and joist of wood, in its incendiary drench. The coffin became a fireball, and with it the corpse of Kurim the King.

  The yellow bird beside Pereban gave a squeak, and the young priest bethought himself of vacating his perch. For surely fire let loose in such a room of wood was tempting providence, if not Lord Fate himself.

  Next moment, a concussion occurred in the kernel of the pyre. White-hot shards and showers were sent in all directions.

  But before Pereban could accomplish retreat, he was wholly distracted. A wonder was taking place.

  Up from the collapsing pyre there rose a shining globe of golden light. Pastel rays beamed from it, and an intoxicating scent like that of a thousand unguents. From the violent discharge nothing else had caught alight—which was in itself supernatural. As the fires of the burning sank and failed, only the golden sun-bulb gave its glow.

  Pereban gazed at this unusual light, and his own heart quickened. For a moment it seemed to him that the secrets of the intellect and of the soul were about to reveal themselves. And he forgot where he was, this otherworld to which folly had carried him. That did not matter, since all places were one, were nowhere and everywhere, and perfect truth stood close, hidden only by a veil of faint smoke— But then the golden bulb-bubble burst like a firework. Only magic and a miracle went on, and the high ideal of Pereban’s priestly yearning was once again quite lost to him.

  Yet there on the smoldering ruin of the pyre, broken from the fire-globe as a butterfly from its winding-sheet: A young man. He was all clear gold, as the light had been, handsome, a king. He was clad in golden mail and a mantle of gold sewn with hyacinth stones and sunflowers of jasper and chrysoprase. On his breast lay the chains and collars of kingship, and on his fiery hair, the diadem. And Pereban realized this was none other than the ancient corpse of the king which, destroyed in flames, gave birth to itself again as a man in the fullness of youth and pride.

  On all sides the courtiers were tearing off their black to reveal bright holiday garments. The musicians smote their instruments, the maidens sang joyously and waved white plumes. The birds in the trees preened, and grapes descended hard as hail.

  The golden king stepped from his holocaust. The fire had done its work very well; not a surface of him that was not burnished. It seemed his memory, too, was reborn, unimpaired. He went directly to the spot where Idune was standing, with her topaz hair blown like thistledown and her silver eyes large as an owl’s.

  “I am honored by your presence at my funeral,” said Kurim, the Sun King. Idune did not speak. Kurim took her hand. “You are more lovely even than I had imagined. And though I had been warned you were heartless, I see it was a mistake.” Idune blushed like the dawn, a phenomenon unknown either in her country or in his. Kurim the king said, “Will you consent to be my wife and rule beside me? There is neither sadness nor sickness here. And when we grow old, if you wish, we shall enter the fire together, and so shall be reborn, as you have seen happen to me.” Idune spoke. She said, “I never ruled in Dooniveh, I slept. It seems to me that never before was I ever awake, until you touched me.”

  Then the court applauded, the trumpets pealed, the birds twittered and flew about. And Pereban sat on the bough and considered the flawless completion of the mythic tale, as it was enacted below. But then Kurim and Idune embraced. And Pereban turned his glance away, feeling a vast impatience and a deep loneliness consume him.

  • • •

  The wedding of the Golden King and the White Queen was very lavish, as might be expected. The sunny city of that world resounded to the melodies and firecrackers of celebration. And all the nightless, winterless, untimeable day, which may have lasted three months by an earthly calendar, there was feasting and theater, game and show. But as, in any case, very little of a serious or business nature was seen to in the sun world; though the marriage was much enjoyed, its revels were not greatly out of the o
rdinary.

  For Pereban, entirely forgotten by Idune in her bliss, meandered with the crowds, and soon enough learned he would pass as one of the sunworlders. Indeed, this was quite irksome because, seemingly their own, it was taken for granted that he knew all their customs, besides their history, beliefs, and details of their land and city. Fortunately, the language of the moon’s sun was almost exactly that of Dooniveh, to which he had been made privy by Lord One. Nevertheless, Pereban was caused to be uneasy by his ignorance, and the astonishment it now and then elicited. Presently, finding out what was usual, he sought for himself an unoccupied and palatial apartment in the city, and dwelled there in the way of other unattached sunnish gentlemen.

  The apartment was composed with many windows of gold-veined crystal. It was furnished with extravagant carpets, beds, and such domestic articles, and also with instruments of music and diversion that he was mostly at a loss to comprehend. Flowers grew within the buildings as without, and birds came and went as a commonplace, singing sweetly and fouling nothing. For food or drink one had only to wend to a public square or hall of the city, where choice dishes and vintages were endlessly set out for any who were inclined to hunger or thirst. The sustenance evolved by sorcery, or so it seemed, for though sometimes certain citizens took a fancy to serve their peers, this was obviously a fashionable fad. In the same way fruit hung constantly on the trees, requiring no attention except perhaps praise and the casual plucking of the passerby. No rain fell, the weather never altered. The flowers did not wither, even when they had been picked. Tired of her garland, a girl would simply drop it on the earth, where it would take root in half a minute. The people of the sun were also ever young, though not immortal. At a great age they would die, apparently solely of experience. For Pereban beheld a funeral or two of this type, with the fair young corpse lying peacefully on its bier—and thinking the dead had perished untimely, commiserated, only to be stared at. He was then informed of the number of hours the deceased person had lived, which ran of course into intolerable billions, since the sunworlders had no other unit of reckoning save the hour. These were therefore measured off by peculiar clockworks in their homes, in groups of one hundred, and the score meticulously kept: Each individual clock was naturally halted upon the owner’s demise, and buried with him or her in the grave.