How soon will Yaleen destroy the Godmind's rose garden on the Moon?
How soon will the Godmind decide that Project Mindbumer might just as well commence?
Soon, perhaps.
"Infanta Farsi! Redfog eclipses Blindspot! Tis time to leave the inn!"
Check your orange-painted face one last time in the brass-framed mirror. Make haste. Unlatch the door. Your talent-trader, Seer Makko, awaits.
His hair is freshly oiled and his comb poised jauntily. He sketches a quick bow, casual, almost affectionate. This man of Tusk respects you, wonders at you. During the long voyage of many landfalls you have, what's more, become his friend.
His strongman, Innocence, lingers further along the buckled wooden corridor; knife tucked in his belt, sack slung over his shoulder containing your portion of the treasure dowry of Bark. Pod, who farsees distant worlds, is her own treasure by now. She is a veritable Princess of Talents. So perhaps her dowry has come to seem excessive, albeit no jewels are included. Half a dozen gingerworms wrapped in a leaf might be more suitable. Yet since the traders set out with that sack, deliver it they must.
"We must hasten, 'Fanta!"
Along the corridor. Down squeaking stairs. Into the flaking whitewashed vestibule betwixt boozery and kitchen where Mistress Umdik presides—"Mild days, Mistress!" "Mild days, Sirs and 'Fanta!"—and out on to the cobbled thoroughfare.
Already, as Blindspot shines through the fringe of Redfog, the street of timbered houses is gilded. By the time you reach the marriage mart the daylight will be full orange. No one gets hoodwinked when Blindspot hides; so goes the saying. During Blindspot's eclipse a person can look everywhere, consider all aspects of a bargain. Indeed you could even glance directly at Blindspot, masked as it is by Redfog, transfiguring Redfog into a huge glowing fruit in the sky; though no one would dream of such rashness.
Up Stargazy Road you go. Across the Avenue of Heartchoke, and you're there.
The marriage mart itself is a white dome set on pillars in the midst of Omblik Square. Omblik Square is where the blackfish vendors usually sell the fruits of the sea, kept fresh in all manner of tanks: tanks made of glass, of stone, of caulked wood, of canvas. Today only the permanent tanks are present, some brimful, some empty; some pure, some rank. No vendors; not of fish, at least.
Soon you're moving amongst infantas of other isles accompanied by their traders. Some wear silken saris—of purple, pink and patchwork—far more elegant than Pod's kirtle, shirt and plaid. Nobles and humbles of Omphalos circulate and chatter and assess; any of whom is more richly robed than the most princely person on Bark. Already dowries are set out on tables; Innocence hastens to set out Pod's. Some dowries are splendid indeed; perhaps the infantas in question are poor in talent. Perhaps where these infantas come from such a heap of riches is considered a humble dowry fit for a powerful talent.
Redfog bums orange in the sky. The burly marriage mistress claps her hands; she wears a full black weed-veil set with sparklers, dropping down from the crown of her head to her toes.
"Because of extraordinary claims, I call first upon the Infanta Farsi-podwy, all the way from far Bark."
"Claims!" mutters Makko. "She insults you."
"She left out the last part of my title!"
"If the Infanta hides as huge a talent as we've heard," continues the veiled woman, "why does she not bless the outer isles with herself? So that we can balance and build our abilities throughout all of LordeviTs Dark?"
"Tm she," Pod calls out, "and I shall only wed a Wizz. None less. Together we shall speak to the stars. Tis why Tm here."
"Your traders have voiced it about that you shall only wed a Wizz —but has any Wizz heard this?"
"Yes indeed," calls a tall slim handsome fellow. A cloak, clasped at his throat with a golden buckle, swirls about him as he forges through the crowd. On his head he wears a slouch hat with tail feathers of fowls sticking out behind like the rudder on a windmill.
"You, sir?" The veiled woman's tone is hesitant, shy.
The tall man doffs his hat and bows. For a moment or two, while his hat is off, he flickers and is someone else: someone old and small and chubby with a mischievous smile. As soon as he resumes his hat, he appears as he was before.
"Ah!" Makko murmurs into Pod's ear, "It's a master of illusions! If he takes to you, he shall pay me well for my work."
The man's eyes bore into Pod's, piercing any illusions she herself may have.
Farsee, Pod! Farsee!
(Shift! Shift!)
Briefly puzzlement is writ on the master's face. Soon, fascination —and bewitchment.
With a jolt, the world slows. Other fiercer jolts continue. The Worm has left Umdala far behind; Umdala with its geometric rows of blockhouses, Umdala with its estuarine marshes. Onward, northward, the Worm courses, smashing through ever more swelling waves which are whipped by wind and ocean width and by the torque of the world, as the estuary widens out into the wild dire salty seas where no one ever dare sail.
Spray drenches you, girl, as you crouch in the Worm's maw, wretched, on the point of puking.
And you remember: how long it took you to arrive here. How long, since Guineamoy. How the tapestry has evolved meanwhile.
The waves jog other knowledge too: knowledge of a wild storm on a waterworld of islands many "months" ago.
Where does this knowledge come from?
Worm?
What?
I'm some place else, as well as here! I'm in many places! You tried to kill me in the time temple. No, that's wrong! You did kill me. What's happening now is what would have happened, if you hadn't killed me. It's what-was-possible. It's happening just as if it's real.
Oh what a potent potentiality this is! It could become real indeed. You're sure of it. But then, what price your other selves? Would they be lost? Would you be lost?
Are you feeling okay, Yaleen?
Of course I'm not! I feel like spewing my guts all over you.
Not much of a sailor, are we?
This isn't sailing. This is lunacy. How much further?
Just till I reach where I was formerly. Soon, soon.
The Worm's head rolls through a hill of water. Spray smashes into the open jaws.
Of a sudden, the onward motion ceases. The Worm lolls.
Have we arrived?
Yaleen! It's starting! Mindbumer's starting! Oh the light, intolerable light! Oh the dying! The lens o/Kas is forming. Oh the power—it's sweeping all the stars. I can't shelter, can't protect—/
Worm?
A scream in the mind.
Escape! Track back. Shift, shift!
Mount Mardoluc, in falling upon you, broke your leg. You stayed on at the temple, scoffing gourmet meals while your bone mended. Peli also stayed. Credence made her peace with you.
Then you stayed on some more, really getting yourself involved in the synchronous rite and the periodic rite. By the time The Book of the Stars was in print everywhere, you were too deep into the rites of Being to tear yourself away. Besides, the river guild would dearly have loved to lay their hands on you.
Some tens of weeks later, while you're en-tranced in the synchronous rite, Mindbumer strikes. . . .
Shooshi and Zelya saved you from suffocation; and Credence fled. She jogged back to 'Barbra. To win her way into the favours of the river guild, she not only told where you were—she betrayed the whole scheme to distribute The Book of the Stars secretly everywhere from Tambimatu to Umdala.
A runner arrived with a warning, not far ahead of Donnah's guards. You fled the temple, with Peli and Peera-pa. Papa, of course, couldn't flee. By forest and jungle ways you fled, ending up at last with friends of the 'Barbra cultists in Ajelobo.
Donnah burnt down the glorious secret temple; so an Ajelobo newssheet reports. The story doesn't say whether Papa Mardoluc was inside at the time. . . .
You didn't open your big mouth to boast, aboard the Crackerjill docked at Guineamoy. You blamed Stamno the renegade for the publi
cation. You blamed the river guild for bringing him to Pecawar to corrupt you. You were shocked. You bitterly regretted. Donnah believed you.
In the end Mindbumer comes. When the Worm is quenched and wrenched through time and space, your shield is gone.
And the Godmind slays you impersonally. Not even in revenge for blighted roses. More like piranha-mice on the rampage, hungry for every last living morsel. . . .
You stand atop the Spire at Verrino, looking down upon town and river, remembering your first view of this vista.
Suddenly, there appears below you the bowl of a valley instead. Farms, forests, lakes of flying fowl, and a strange town (yet not so strange)—all enclosed by a great rim of crags.
One tiny fierce sun glares through a second foggy red sun, like a life-seed incandescent in the yolk of an egg. The seed is near the edge of the yolk. There's also a third sun, mellow yellow. A moon of bone shares the sky.
An inner light blinds the universe. A worm writhes and withers. Mindbumer!
"And as my wedding gift to you, dear Podwy," the small chubby old man promises, "I shall weave the grandest of all illusions!"
You're on the topmost platform of Master Aldino's tower. Flagstones spiral outward from an open stairwell, each flag painted with a different faint and flaking but still potent symbol, work of the previous owner. The circuit wall is a shade too low for comfort. It's barely waist-high. Immediately below, there's turf. Then jagged crags drop away. On the north side of the tower these dive down to the black sea. Southward, they tumble into the valley. To east and west the chain of hills strides away. This keep is poised on the sharpest ridge of all, as if balanced on an axe blade.
A path winds steeply down the south face; none down the north face. Omphalos harbour lies far away, beyond the softer southern crags.
As hat, the tower wears a cone of wood on stilts. A system of gutters pipes rainwater down into tanks on the floor below. One of these tanks is heated—spasmodically, clouds permitting—by a mirror contraption jutting from the wall, which by means of clockwork follows the path of Homesun to concentrate its rays. Thus there is hot and cold running water in the living quarters, gravity-fed from overhead. This is only one of the ingenious comforts. As a home, the keep isn't to be sniffed at; though admittedly it's a strenuous climb down to the valley and back to fetch groceries. If the crags were a bit nearer vertical, a bucket on the end of a rope mightn't be a bad idea. Two other wives already reside in the keep, along with a number of servant lads—potential Wizzes. So there's company, besides Aldino's.
He gestures grandly across the valley, almost overbalancing. "This afternoon, yon vale of Omphalos shall wear any guise you choose. Um, within reason."
And tonight, in the bedchamber, shall he don his best illusory body in Pod's honour?
So long as old Aldy isn't too drunk to concentrate (said senior wife Lotja, teasing—or bitching).
"Choose, my dear! Choose one of those other worlds which you farsee! We shall let the good folk of Tomf wend their way for an hour or so bemused through alien thoroughfares. Um, I hope no other Big Wizz gets annoyed. Still, why should they? We're all friends, after a fashion. It's my third wedding day. Licence is allowed."
"Shall other Wizzes be coming as guests?"
"Perhaps some shall peep in, from far." Aldino's finger wavers about till he locates the fretted bump of another keep away to the east. "Perhaps Master Airshoe shall float over. Let's hope he doesn't bother. Has an eye for my Lotja, does Master Airshoe; and this evening I shall have my attention diverted, eh Podwy?"
Time to prompt Pod.
"Do tell me, Master, how do you manage to weave such wonderful illusions for all to see?"
"Um. Well, let me see. Waves of energy are forever rebounding off the world. Some of these waves—only a few, mark you, out of many—pass through the windows of your eyes. Right? So already youTe gathering in just one aspect of a reflection. What's more, your eyes don't actually see. They simply gather the waves. When those waves wash against the back of the eye, echoes are made. And those echoes of an aspect of a reflection travel onward into your head."
He taps his balding pate. "In here your brain dreams up images which it believes to correspond to those echoes. By now you're at four removes from reality. Count them: image, echo, aspect, reflection. What I do is reverse this process. I imagine that I'm seeing something quite different, something I wish to see. I send out echoes of stronger, more potent aspects. Other folk in the neighbourhood reflect those echoes—and they dream that they see what I'm imagining."
With that mischievous grin of his, he adds, "Leastways, that's what I feel that I'm doing, my dearest. That's the way I have to feel to accomplish illusions. Yet mayhap I'm really doing something entirely different! Mayhap what I've described is only the emblem which I show to myself, wherewith to unlock my magic." He stabs a demonstrative finger at various symbols on the stone flags. "An emblem such as those ones; though my own emblem is inscribed inside my head, out of sight. Of course, while doing all this I need to bless the name of Lordevil who empowers me."
You confer with your hostess.
Pod says, "Master Aldino, I've decided which world I wish to see spread across this vale."
"Dino to you, dearest girl." He pats and tweaks Pod's shoulder, where some flesh is exposed. "Would you care to give me a teasing glimpse?"
Wedding hour. Homesun beams down. Blindspot bums through Redfog. Bigmoon is a faint white bone aloft.
Below in the living quarters a feast awaits: of spit-roast fowl, gingerworms baked in sweetcrust, pickled cumber, decapod claws, wrack cake, rasperry pud, ricewine.
Up atop the tower here, Lotja plays airs on her xithar whilst midwife Polloo chats to Master Airshoe who did indeed float over. He arrived on a fluffy little cloud of his own conjuring. When Airshoe walks on air, he prefers not to see too much empty space yawning beneath. He's a well-built fellow with a neatly jutting beard and a big tuberous nose. His lips are fat and juicy. Studiously ignoring Lotja for the nonce, he occupies himself with Polloo.
Plus several more guests; no doubt including some uninvited ones who aren't present in person, only in the mind's eye. However, the guest list shall shortly include every soul in Tomf, and in Omphalos valley too. Hand in hand with Pod, Aldino poses at the parapet. He looks outward. He breathes deeply. He looks inward.
Now, Pod! Farsee!
And shift!
Shift back.
Appears Verrino. . . .
You're high atop the Spire (of course). Below in the vale is Verrino town, just as it was before the Sons trashed the place. No ash heaps or rubble. No broken windows; no smashed terracotta urns.
You can see all these details clearly, for Verrino town is magnified, enlarged. Verrino fills up half of Omphalos valley—surely Aldino got things out of proportion! Verrino isn't superimposed on Tomf, one to one. Tomf is totally submerged by the visionary city. Maybe a single Verrino plaza or wine-arbour holds the real Tomf hidden within. Far from having to blunder through the alien alleys of another world, the good folk of Tomf can only stare amazed at this city of giants which has suddenly sprung up, swallowing and dwarfing their mini-ville.
Where are the giant inhabitants? No one is about in Verrino. It must be very early morning.
Beyond Verrino, bends the river.
Ah, now you understand the workings of this vision. The whole vista is as if seen through the eye of a fish. Consequently the heart of Verrino town is enlarged, and fills up the foreground. At the outskirts it bends away, shrinking fast. The river also bends away, curving beside increasingly distorted shores. The whole illusion seems wrapped around a globe of air, or a balloon, which nestles in Omphalos vale.
The vision is how you imagine one of those goose eggs which Dario's brother said he painted; if instead of men's nude bodies curving around the shell you had a whole town and river, with the vale as the eggcup.
It's a circle of Ka-space, wrapped compactly around itself—writ large. It's an electon
, hugely magnified.
The electon encloses a whole town. It could easily enclose an entire world. It's only a conjured illusion. Or is it?
"Bravo!" applauds Master Airshoe. Lotja riffs her xithar, repeating the same phrase a dozen times over.
"Your wedding gift, my dear," puffs the proud conjuror.
"Oh Dino," breathes Pod, "for sure, you're the Wizz of Wizzes."
And of course this vision of Verrino—and of the river bending away in the background—comes complete with a worm, thin as a thread upon the shrunken water, yet blackly visible.
"One more boon, husband-to-be! You bring me this vision through your skill—but also through the power of Lordevil, isn't that so? Shall you summon Lordevil himself? Shall you make our black lord manifest in some guise or other? If only as a voice in our midst! Let Lordevil bless our union personally."
"Humph. Is that all? Perhaps you should also like Blindspot as a brooch?"
"Oh Dino, do you mean you can't contact Lordevil?"
"Course you can," chips in Master Airshoe. "Big Wizz like you."
"I shall tire myself. This is a conspiracy!"
"Nonsense, old friend. Shall I help? Shall we join forces? Do permit. Let this be my wedding gift to yourself and your beautiful bride."
"Ach, you already have your eyes on her too! One of my wives isn't sufficient to seduce!"
Verrino flickers and wavers; then holds firm again.
"No such thing, old friend! Curb your wild suspicions."
"Hrumph."
"If that's what you suspect, shouldn't you prefer me to exhaust some of my—ha, ha—over-abundant energy?"
"That," remarks Polloo, "might be a good idea." She eyes Lotja, who looks somewhat crestfallen and strums a discord.
"Oh very well. The two of us in concert. You take the lead, Airshoe. I shall sustain my vision. Though mayhap I should let it pop? Dear Podwy has already admired one marvel. Now she cries for stronger music and for madder wine."
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