But Set does not reply.
“Whatever,” says Madrak, “it draws near. How strong is the Red Witch? Will she give us trouble?”
"She was not so strong but that she feared her old Lord, Osiris, avoiding him for many centuries-and I am certainly as strong as Osiris. We will not be beaten by a woman-not when we have come this far.”
Madrak bows his head, mumbling, and begins to beat upon his breast.
“Stop that! You're being ridiculous!”
But Set laughs, and Anubis turns upon him with a snarl.
“I’ll tear your heart out for that!”
But Set raises his bleeding left hand which he has just torn free and holds it before his body.
“Try it, dog! Your one hand against mine! Your staff and any other weapon you have against the left hand of Set! Come closer!” and his eyes glow like twin suns and Anubis falls back beyond his grasp.
The lights continue to dazzle and spin.
“Kill him, Madrak!” cries Anubis. “He is of no further use to us! You wear the gauntlet of power! He cannot stand against it!”
But Madrak does not reply; instead, “Forgive me, Whatever You Are or Were, wherever You May or May Not Be, for omissions and commissions in which I indulged or did not indulge, as the case may be, in this matter which has just come to pass,” he says, still beating his breast. “And in the event that-”
“Then give me the glove!” cries Anubis. “Quickly!”
But Madrak continues, unhearing.
A shudder runs through the cockleshell, and magicians and poets being very good at that sort of thing, a doorway which had been doubly sealed springs open and Vramin enters.
He waves his cane and smiles.
“How do? How do?”
“Take him, Madrak!” cries Anubis.
But Vramin advances and Madrak stares out the window, mumbling.
Then Anubis raises his staff before him.
“Angel of the Seventh Station, and fallen, depart!” says Anubis.
“You use my old title,” says Vramin. “I am now Angel of the House of the Dead.”
“You lie.”
“No. By appointment of the Prince do I now occupy your former position.”
With a great wrenching movement, Set frees his right hand.
Vramin dangles Isis’ pendant before him, and Anubis backs away.
“Madrak, I bid you destroy this one!” he cries out.
“Vramin?” says Madrak. “Oh no, not Vramin. He is good. He is my friend.”
Set frees his right ankle.
“Madrak, if you will not destroy Vramin, then hold Set!”
“ ‘Thou Who might be our Father Who perhaps may be in Heaven…’ ” Madrak intones.
Then Anubis snarls and points his staff like a bazooka at Vramin.
“Come no farther,” he announces.
But Vramin advances another step.
A blaze of light falls upon him, but the red beams from the pendant cancel it out.
“Too late, dog,” he says.
Anubis circles, draws near the port where Madrak stands.
Set frees his left ankle, rubs it, stands.
“You are dead,” says Set, and moves forward.
But at this moment, Anubis falls to the knife of Madrak, which enters his neck above the collarbone.
“I meant no harm,” says Madrak, “and this is to pay in part for my guilt. The dog led me astray. I repent. I make you a gift of his life.”
“Thou fool!” says Vramin. “I wanted him prisoner.”
Madrak begins to weep.
Anubis bleeds in red spurts upon the deck of the cockleshell.
Set lowers his head slowly and rubs his eyes.
“What shall we do now?” asks Vramin.
“ ‘… Hallowed by Thy name, if a name Thou hast and any desire to see it hallowed…’ ” says Madrak.
Set does not answer, having closed his eyes and fallen into a sleep that will last for many days.
FEMINA EX MACHINA
And she lies there big with child within the chassis of the machine. A wall of the cubicle has drawn back. The wires have fallen away from her head and her spine, disconnecting the icy logic, the frigid memory banks, the sex-comp compulsions, the nutrient tubes. She is deprogramed.
“Prince Horus…”
“Megra. Rest easy.”
“… You have broken the enchantment.”
“Who did this terrible thing to you?”
“The Witch of the Loggia.”
“Mother! Her ways have always been wild, Megra. I am sorry.” He places his hand upon her. “Why did she do this thing?”
“She told me that a thing of which I was unaware- that I am to bear Set’s child-is the reason-”
“Set!” and Horus’ fingerprints are imbedded in the metal table. “Set -Did he take you by force?”
“Not exactly.”
“Set… What are your feelings toward him now?”
“I hate him.”
“That will be sufficient.”
“He cares nothing for life…”
“I know. I shall not ask you of him again. You will come away with me to the House of Life, Megra of Kalgan, and dwell with me there forever.”
“But, Horus, I fear that I must be delivered here. I am too weak to go far, and my time is near.”
“Then so be it. We shall abide for a time within this place.”
And she clasps her hands upon her belly and closes her cobalt eyes. The glow of the machine causes her cheeks to blaze.
Horus sits by her side.
Soon she cries out.
THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL
The Citadel of Marachek, empty, not empty, empty again. Why? Listen…
Set stands his ground, facing the monster, and it lunges toward him.
For a long while they wrestle, there in the courtyard.
Then Set breaks its back, and it lies a groaning.
His eyes blaze like suns, and he turns them once again to the place where he had been headed.
Then Thoth, his son, his father, the Prince Who Was A Thousand, opens again the bottle of instant monsters and removes another seed.
Sowing it there in the dust, another menace blooms beneath his hand, then bends toward Set.
The madness that lies within Set’s eyes falls upon the creature and there is more conflict.
Standing above its broken body, Set bows his head and vanishes.
But Thoth follows after him sowing monsters, and the ghosts of Set and the monsters he fights rage through the marble memory that is wrecked and rebuilt Marachek, the oldest city.
And each time that Set destroys a creature, he turns his eyes once again toward a place, a moment, where he had battled the Nameless and destroyed a world and where the dark horse shadow his son rears and blazes; and heeding the beck of annihilation he moves toward that place, that moment. But Thoth follows, distracting him with monsters.
This is because Set is destruction, and he will destroy himself if there is nothing else that is suitable at hand or somewhere in sight, in time or in space. But the Prince is wise and realizes this. This is why he follows after his father on his temporal journey toward the altar of annihilation, after his awakening from the trance of battle against the Thing That Cries In The Night. For Thoth knows that if he can distract him long enough from his pilgrimage, new things will arise toward which Set’s hand may be turned. This is because such things always arise.
But not they move through time, filling perhaps all of time, considered from this moment of it-the wise Prince and his deadly father/son-skirting always the Abyss that is Skagganauk, son, brother and grandson.
This is why the ghosts of Set and the monsters he fights rage through the marble memory that is wrecked and rebuilt Marachek, the oldest city.
WITCH DREAM
She sleeps, in the House of the Dead, in a deep, dark, buried crypt, and consciousness is a snowflake, melting, gone now. But the motorcycle that is Time back
fires as it races by, and there, within the remembered mirror, lie the last days’ battles: Osiris dead, and gone away Set. And there is the green laughter of Vramin; Vramin, mad and a poet, too. Hardly fit Lord for the Witch of the Loggia. Better not to set an alarm. Sleep away an age, then see what Thoth hath wrought. Here, amid the mummy-dust and the burned-out tapers, here in the bottommost cellar of the House of the Dead, where none have names nor seek them, and where none will be sought; here: Sleep. Sleep, and let the Middle Worlds go by, ignorant of the Red Lady who is Lust, Cruelty, Wisdom and mother and mistress of invention and violent beauty.
The creatures of light and darkness dance on the guillotine’s lip, and Isis fears the poet. The creatures of light and darkness don and discard the garments of man, machine and god; and Isis loves the dance. The creatures of light and darkness are born in great numbers, die in an instant, may rise again, may not rise again; and Isis approves of the garments.
Dreaming these dreams and fearful, her familiar presses close against her, a little thing that cries in the night.
Wheels turning, the motorcycle’s roar grows steady, which, too, is a form of silence.
ANGEL OF THE HOUSE OF LIFE
(They come in the middle of the night, walking. There are three of them, together moving down places of belief and disbelief. They pass the places of entertainment for many species, coming at last to the well-lighted Avenue of the Oracles and moving along it, passing by astrologers, numerologists, Tarot readers and casters of the Yi Ching.
Now, as they advance, they move from light to lesser light, from dimness and dankness to twilight and squalor. The sky hangs clear above them and the stars shine down. The street grows more narrow, the buildings lean toward them; the gutters are filled with refuse; children with sunken eyes stare at them, nearly weightless within the circles of their mothers’ arms.
They step over the rubbish; they walk through it. And none dare accost these three. Strength hangs about them like an odor and purpose gives them a certain distinction.
Their bearing is graceful and their cloaks are rich. They walk where the cats scramble and the bottles are broken, and it is as though these things were not
Above them, there is a blaze in the heavens, as the light from a world that Set destroyed finally reaches this one, coming like a new star in the sky and splashing them with colors red through blue
The wind is cold but they do not heed it. The word for copulation, in ninety-four languages, is scrawled upon one wall, but they do not notice.
It is only when they come to a dilapidated machine that they pause before an obscene drawing upon its door way.)
FIRST
This is the place.
SECOND
Then let us enter.
THRID
Yes.
(The first touches the door with his silver-headed cane and it swings open.
He enters, and the others follow.
They pass along a corridor, and he touches another door.
It, too, opens before them, and they pause once more,)
HORUS
You!
(The one whose eyes flash green within the shadows nods.
Why are you here?
THE MAN WHO WEARS THE IRON RING
To tell that your father is dead.
HORUS
Who are you?
THE MAN WHO WEARS THE IRON RING
You knew me as the Steel General. I slew Osiris and was broken myself. The Prince collected me and I wear the flesh once more, for a time. I come to tell you that this thing is so, and to say to your face that it was not a deed of stealth or malice, but an open act of combat in time of war.
HORUS
You are a man of truth. Among all creatures, I do not doubt your word. And I seek no satisfaction if the deed was fair and in time of war.
And how went the war?
FAT MAN, ALL IN BLACK WHOSE ONE EYE IS A GRAY WHEEL, TURNING
The Prince holds the Middle Worlds once more.
VRAMIN
And we are his emissaries, come to request your return to the House of Life, that you may rule there now in your father's stead, as Angel of that place.
HORUS
I see. What of Set?
VRAMIN
He is gone away. None knows where.
HORUS
This likes me. More than a little. Yes, I suppose I’ll return.
MADRAK (dropping to one knee beside Megra of Kalgan.)
What child is this?
HORUS
My son.
MADRAK
The son of Horus. Have you a name for him?
HORUS
Not yet.
MADRAK
Congratulations.
GENERAL
Yes.
VRAMIN
Many.
HORUS
Thank you.
VRAMIN
I give him the pendant of Isis, which is a thing of power. I know she would like her grandson to have it.
HORUS
Thank you.
GENERAL
I give him a ring that is a piece of my first body, which served me well. It has always reminded me of humanity, in times of need.
HORUS
Thank you.
MADRAK
I give him my staff, that it may comfort him. For there is an ancient tradition that staves have a way of doing that. I don’t know why.
HORUS
Thank you.
MADRAK
I must depart now and begin my pilgrimage of repentance. Hail, Angel of the House of Life!
HORUS
A good journey to you, Madrak.
(Madrak departs)
GENERAL
There is a revolution I must encourage. I go to find my horse. Hail, Angel of the House of Life!
HORUS
A good revolution to you, General.
(The General departs.)
VRAMIN
And I go to the House of the Dead, where I now rule. Hail, Angel of the House of Life! The Prince will contact you one day from Marachek. And the other Angels of the other Stations will assemble to pay you honor.
HORUS
A fine poetry and a good madness to you, Vramin.
VRAMIN
Thank you, and I guess that’s about all there is to be said.
HORUS
So it would seem.
(Vramin raises his cane and a poem falls and blazes upon the floor.
Horus lowers his eyes to read it, and when he looks up again the green man is gone.
As the poem fades, the Angel of the House of Life knows that it was true but forgets the words, which is as it should be.)
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