I cannot remember any of this, uttered the beast, moaning.
“You now have all of eternity to remember,” she replied. “All of eternity, or until the world ends, for you are now outside of time, and around you is the bottomless well. You yourself have chosen it to be thus. Your choice, to see not truth but through the veil of Illusion.”
Help me!
“I cannot. The spirit of your mother lives within me even now, but briefly. And the spirit of Amarantea was in me for only a moment. And yet they are still both here, even now, for they are at your side, the only ones who will never leave you. I will not leave you either. For together we hold your soul at the edge of the bottomless well, we hold you tight and keep you from sinking forever.”
The woman came to kneel before the beast, and, looking into its murky eyes, whispered,
“We are your last hope . . . and we alone can see you through the thick layers of Illusion that now surround you. If you choose, look for us in return.”
Then she rose and turned her back, and walked to the doors of the sepulcher where she knocked loudly, calling to be released from the night of hell.
Behind her, the beast was fading already, for only the gaze of her ghostly eyes upon him had kept him here, and now there was nothing left.
She turned around for a moment as the doors were being opened from the outside, and a shaft of pale dawn light came striking the stone floor and the old flower ashes. As she looked behind her, the beast came for a last time momentarily into view, and then its form curled in upon itself as it lay down, poised between death and time.
“Sleep . . .” whispered the queen without eyes. “And thus only will they see you. When you sleep, and when Illusion is weakest around you.”
And then she walked outside, into the dawning daylight and the voices of nervous soldiers and into the arms of the Prince who loved her.
And thus I have told you the story of time.
The Prince Lirheas who married the queen without eyes, became a king and thus taqavor, and for many enlightened years he ruled the greatest empirastan that comprised the whole world
—or so it was claimed.
The queen without eyes and without a name gave birth to three children over the course of time, and the first child, a girl, she called Amarantea. On that same day, the queen also took this name for herself, saying that it was in honor and in memory, and in hope. Their great city stood like a blossom in the heart of the desert for many years, and in the Palace, in the center of a great stone hall floated a four-pointed star that was the world’s first Compass Rose. Occasionally, when the dusk fell a certain way and shadows gathered, some claimed they saw the shape of a peculiar nameless beast hunched over the Rose, and muttering soft words that echoed through the hall. But then, it was all an Illusion, they knew, and in time even this legend was forgotten.
When the great taqavor and his queen Amarantea had died in their old age, much beloved by all, their heirs obeyed their last wishes, and opened a forgotten domed sepulcher in the middle of the Palace gardens.
Within were many old weathered coffins filled with dust and ashes, and not a sign of human remains. The coffins—since their purpose and true contents were unknown—were respectfully lidded up, and then three new coffins were placed in the center, all made of shining brass. The bodies of the taqavor and his beloved taqoui were laid in the two outer coffins, while the middle coffin was left empty, as instructed, and its lid was shut over gaping nothingness. That center coffin was thus a mystery.
But the children of the taqavor loved him so much that they did not question it, and simply closed the sepulcher tight, and, after grieving for the departed, went on with the business of living.
With time and with generations, it was rumored that in the empty coffin was contained the world’s greatest evil. But of course it was nonsense, since many knew that it in fact contained nothing.
Only some very old ones—a decrepit grandmother of another great-grandmother who had lived so long ago—remembered that in their younger days things had been dark and bitter, things that had made the great empirastan what it was.
That coffin—they muttered, prompted to reminiscence by certain peculiar shadows in the corners under a certain light of dusk—that coffin is yet to be filled. It waits for someone. The coffin waits for a soul which will one day step forth from the bottomless well outside the universe and back into the river of time to embrace death—for time is a cascading sequence of cause and effect, and death is the separator of memory of that sequence, the great delimiter. But it will only be filled after the soul’s choice is made to embrace the fullness of truth and to reject Illusion.
Thus it was spoken. But eventually even this legend too was forgotten. Time swept through the empirastan and the great city, and with centuries the earth shifted and great oceans advanced to flood the desert. Around the city was formed an island, for somehow even the waters were unable to sweep this peculiar bit of land away in its entirety, as though something outside of time and the universe lay reposing here, some unfinished business. The silver water sang, and waves came rushing softly upon an ashen ebony shore. And with time the men and the women and all remnants of the great empirastan had left the island, and the once great city lay in ruins. While elsewhere in the world, it was said, new empirastans were created, and new vibrant things took root, in all the directions of the wind—
North, South, East, and West of the Compass Rose.
The Compass Rose itself—who knows what really became of it? Very likely it lies still, no longer floating, but in a dried-up basin of a pool—truly, a great cup of water fit for a giant—in the center of a stone hall of a ruined palace, in an abandoned city, on an island of dreams that shimmers at the edges of time.
One thing is certain. As it stilled for the last time in the final moist dregs of the basin before this liquid too evaporated, the single lodestone-weighted point of the Compass came to rest in such a way that it still points North.
But maybe you will one day find out for yourself as you go searching for it, in search of your own directions, and lured forward toward wonder by the music that comes from your dreams and has no name, except as an ancient memory.
Amarantea beckons you thus, beckons all of us, and, if you do find it, then take a moment to refill the great cup of the pool and let the Compass Rose float free once again, fulfilling the next moment and the next in this neverending story of time.
THE END
About the Author
Vera Nazarian immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at the age of 17, and since then has published numerous works in anthologies and magazines, and has seen her fiction translated into eight languages.
She made her novelist debut with the critically acclaimed arabesque “collage” novel Dreams of the Compass Rose (2002), followed by epic fantasy about a world without color, Lords of Rainbow (2003). Her novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass from PS
Publishing with an introduction by Charles de Lint made the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2005. Her debut short fiction collection Salt of the Air, with an introduction by Gene Wolfe, contains the 2007 Nebula Award-nominated “The Story of Love.” Recent work includes the 2008 Nebula Award-nominated, self-illustrated baroque fantasy novella The Duke in His Castle (2008), the Jane Austen parody Mansfield Park and Mummies (2009), and Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons (2010).
Vera lives in Los Angeles and is working on a number of book-length projects including Lady of Monochrome, a sequel to Lords of Rainbow, a new Compass Rose milieu novel Gods of the Compass Rose, the Airealm trilogy, and medieval-gothic Cobweb Bride. She uses her Armenian sense of humor and her Russian sense of suffering to bake conflicted pirozhki and make art .
In addition to being a writer and award-winning artist, she is also the publisher of Norilana Books.
Connect with Me Online
Official website: www.veranazarian.com
Twitter: http://
twitter.com/Norilana
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Norilana
My blog: http://norilana.livejournal.com/
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank with all my heart Alan Rodgers, John Gregory Betancourt, the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, Paul Barnett, Jane S. Fancher, Charles de Lint, Diana L. Paxson, Lisa Silverthorne, Rachel Holmen, Paul Melko, Lois Tilton, Stephen Leigh, Beth Bernobich, Lazette Gifford, Linda J. Dunn, Terry McGarry, Roby James, Melisa Michaels, Laura J. Underwood, Mike Resnick, West Flanagan, Modean Moon, Tom Hise, Amy Sheldon, Paul Witcover, Amy Sterling Casil, Tom P. Powers, Kurt Roth, Pat Fogarty, Jeffry Dwight, and at least a hundred other kind friends at SFF Net who tore apart first drafts, slaved over cover art, and in other ways advised, encouraged me, and stood by my side all these years since the strange word
“Amarantea” first came to me in a dream.
Most of all, I would like to thank Sherwood Smith, who changed my life.
Dreams of the Compass Rose Page 38
