God Stalk

by P. C. Hodgell

  Half-stunned, she saw the dark form bending over her, haloed by the furtive light of the peepholes.

  Then, far away, someone screamed.

  The Shadow Thief froze, its hand inches from Jame's face, then, incredibly, it whirled and was gone. She marked its rapid progress down the corridor. Some instinct brought her unsteadily to her feet, sent her after it, stumbling at first, then moving more swiftly and surely. The hunter became the hunted, both now racing in the direction of that terrible, unfaltering cry. God, how could anyone sustain such a ghastly sound so long without once pausing for breath?

  Ahead, the end of the corridor was rimmed with light, momentarily obscured as the other passed through it. The scream, very close now, sank to a hideous gurgle. Jame, skidding to avoid another collision, came up against a soft, yielding surface, the back of a wall tapestry. She swept it aside, and stepped into Theocandi's private study.

  The Sirdan himself sat at his desk, his gnarled hands gripping its edge. His head was thrown back, his eyes wide, wide, open. Eyes? He had none, just dark holes punched out under the bristling brows, opening into greater darkness. A thin, hissing noise still escaped between his clenched teeth. Under its heavy chain of office, the frail chest continued to contract until the ribs themselves collapsed with a flesh-muffled crunch. And all this time, the Sirdan's returning shadow grew darker on the pages of the Book Bound in Pale Leather, spread out open on the table before him.

  "A savant of sorts," Ishtier had called this man. Clearly, he had been enough of one to summon the Shadow Thief and to unlock the runes, but the latter had proved beyond his control. Anthrobar must have looked much like this when the Book had finished with him.

  "It is a filthy thing, isn't it?" Jame said to the motionless figure. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry that this happened."

  She closed the Book and gingerly rewrapped it in its old linen cloth, shuddering at its obscene warmth. Then she slipped out into the main corridor with it in her arms.

  The hallways of the Palace seethed with people, each one intent on saving himself from the coming holocaust. No one paid any attention to the slight figure clutching a flat white parcel, who joined the general flight out into the cool night air. Frantic as they were now, how much greater the rout would be when word of the Sirdan's death spread among them.

  At the prow of the island, the figurehead brandished its grisly trophies over the swift water, the sky turning red with flames behind it.

  Chapter 14

  Untempling of the Gods

  IN THE QUIET of the temple, Jame hesitated, looking at Marc's motionless form. Then she put the Book Bound in Pale Leather in Ishtier's hands.

  "Now," she said, "keep your word. Wake him."

  But the priest seemed to have forgotten both her and his victim. With trembling fingers, he unwrapped the Book and cradled it awkwardly in one arm, his free hand turning the heavy pages slowly as he gloated over each one.

  "At last I have it," he murmured, with barely suppressed excitement. "The power, the power to set things right, to bring down the Barriers and restore my people to their rightful lord under shadow's eve. I have it, I have it, I . . ."

  "What in Perimal's name are you talking about? Will you rouse him or not?"

  "Rouse him?" The priest drew himself up, staring coldly down at her. "You petty-minded little fool, what does that matter now? You don't understand what has happened, do you? Then I will explain it — in Perimal's name — if you think your weak wits can stand it. After all, you still believe that the Kencyrath is the chosen champion of God against the ancient enemy, Perimal Darkling, Devourer of Worlds. Like the rest, you spit on the name of Gerridon, Master of Knorth, whom most call renegade and traitor because he withdrew his loyalty from your divine monstrosity and gave it instead to the Lord of Shadows. But he was right to do so. I went into exile with the Gray Lord. I saw the face of darkness and know that in all the Chain of Creation there is nothing to equal it."

  "Wait a minute . . . are you saying that the Gray Lord survived the crossing of the Ebonbane?"

  Ishtier flinched away from the question. "Nothing to equal it, I say!" he repeated, his thin voice becoming noticeably shriller.

  Jame sensed a change in the flow of power around them, a growing element of instability. The priest's control had begun to slip.

  "M'lord . . ." she said sharply.

  "Then I came to Tai-tastigon," the priest continued, overriding her, rushing on. "Gods everywhere, hundreds, thousands of them, when we are taught that there is but one. But you think, you presumptuous guttersnipe, that you were the first to ask questions, to experiment with the fabric of reality in this wretched town? Before you were born, I was here, wrestling with the enigma. Seven years ago, the answer was mine at last."

  Again, he drew himself up, and an ominous tremor passed through the room. Out in the hallways of the temple, a low moaning began.

  "The force embodied in the Three-Faced God, which we are taught to fear and obey, which has controlled the fate of our people these last thirty millennia under the pretense of being the sole source of divinity in all the worlds, this force, I say, is not unique! For three hundred centuries, it has used us, deluded us, kept us from the truth. All this I have proved," he said with a wild laugh. "I! Of what worth is the Kencyrath if it continues to serve such a fraud? What price is godhood itself when any man can create it?"

  The chamber door groaned softly. At its foot, the tiles had begun to ripple.

  Jame stared at the priest. So his doubts had paralleled her own, but how had he come to such a conclusion? Then, almost against her will, she understood.

  "Oh God. So the Townies were right to blame us for their misery. While Theocandi was calling forth the Shadow Thief, you used the same knowledge to create the Lower Town Monster. But Ishtier, it's demon, not god! It lives off the life-force of children, and as for its soul. . . Trinity! No wonder it always followed Bane like a shadow: that's exactly what it was. The timing is right, the characteristics . . .

  Butcher of children, are you thinking of me?

  The image of a marble seat, dark with blood, crawling with flies, suddenly filled her mind. Once again, perhaps for the last time, her thoughts had crossed his.

  "Theocandi couldn't die until his shadow returned to him," she said with rising horror, "and neither can Bane. Ishtier, we've got to help him! He's still alive, and they're taking him to the Mercy Seat."

  "Serves him right," said the priest with a malicious snicker. "He should never have betrayed me."

  "You betrayed him first, by agreeing to carry his soul and then by using it in such a damnable manner," Jame cried, unconsciously shifting into High Kens as shock changed to fury. Cat's paws of power rippled through the room. The patterns on the floor changed at their touch. "He trusted you because you brought his mother, once the Gray Lord's mistress, down out of the Haunted Lands, because he thought—and you let him think—that you were his father. But Ganth Gray Lord was alive when you deserted him, wasn't he? You've betrayed not only Bane and Anar, your younger brother, but your liege-lord as well. I brand you coward and lack-faith for what you did then, and renegade now for trying to pull down the Kencyrath so that you might hide your shame in its ruins!"

  "Who are you," he almost shrieked, spittle flying from his lips, "to pronounce sentence on me? A petty thief and a tavern whore, an outcast from East Kenshold!"

  "I am not from the east," she cried, enraged beyond all control. "Like you, I came from the north, and from the same place. The lord you betrayed was my father, the man consigned by you to torture on the Mercy Seat, perhaps my half-brother, and I—I am Jamethiel Priest's-Bane . . ."

  ". . . WHO SHALL YET BE THY DOOM."

  With a look of horror, Ishtier dropped the Book, hands flying to his mouth as though to seal in the words he had just spoken. The god-voice flowed unimpeded, uncontrollable, through his spider-thin fingers, booming prophecy to the far corners of the room.

  Jame scarcely heard him. She had sud
denly become aware of the changed atmosphere of the room, the growing fury set loose. A demonic howling had begun, the sound of trapped energy moving faster and faster. The walls groaned. Cracks began to lace their smooth surfaces. The three Kencyrs were in the eye of the storm here, protected only by one slowly disintegrating door. Already power flowed around its edges. The floor mosaic shifted again, throwing Jame off her feet. Triangles of green serpentine, lapis-lazuli, and ivory moved under her hand.

  ". . . WHO MAY YET SAVE THE CHAIN OF CREATION OR DESTROY . . ." Ishtier's altered voice was crying, each word like some great weight crashing down. The priest was on his knees now, hands scrabbling at his face, staring wildly at nothing. The power that he had scorned had him by the throat. No help would come from him now.

  Through all of this, Marc had not stirred. Jame staggered to her feet, clinging to him as to a rock in storm-maddened seas. His broad shoulders were warm and steady to the touch. Her dazed mind slowly cleared, then began to focus on what she must do next. When her self-control had fully returned, she carefully stepped away from him, bowed to the towering image of her god, and began to dance.

  It was like weaving through fire. The dark joy she had felt in molding the dreams of men turned to agony, a flaying of body and soul. This was the maelstrom where god and man met. The god-head itself was flowing through her, consuming what it touched. She struggled to control it, grimly, desperately.

  ". . . CHAMPION, FRATRICIDE, TYR-RIDAN . . ."

  Tyr-ridan?

  No, ignore it, concentrate, concentrate. . . . So much power and no place to channel it. Had the floor begun to shake? They would all die unless she found an outlet here, beyond . . . yes, there was a place, many of them, waiting, filling the night with their hunger. No time to ask what they were, no time for anything but to send the power spiraling out to them through the movements of the dance.

  ". . . TORRIGION . . ."

  That-Which-Creates. (A roaring noise . . .)

  ". . . ARGENTIEL . . ."

  That-Which-Preserves. (Quickly now, increasing, louder. . .)

  ". . . REGONERETH."

  That-Which-Destroys. (Done.)

  Ishtier, in his own voice, began to scream. The sound pursued her, ringing down the halls of her failing consciousness until at last the final echo died away. Then all was still.

  * * *

  MARC HEARD the scream too. it seemed to come from a great distance at first, weaving through his trance-numbed mind, growing rapidly louder. Then he forgot it as memory returned. Was he dead and his pyre somehow neglected? While the body remained, so did the shadow, a soul trapped by death, held naked in the presence of the hated Three-Faced God—or so Marc had been taught. Cautiously, fearfully, he opened his eyes.

  A book lay before him, its pallid cover uppermost. The mosaic of ivory and semi-precious stone beneath it had been shaken loose from its pattern. Vaguely, he remembered some upheaval. That must have been when the animal got in, for assuredly there was one somewhere in the room now, its voice raised in a yammering frenzy, broken at intervals by a slobbering sound. He turned stiffly to look for it.

  What first met his gaze, however, was a crumpled figure several yards away, lying at the center of a large, well-defined spiral, which certainly had not been there before. Recognition and alarm cleared his wits instantly. He rose painfully, cursing the cramped legs, limped over and knelt beside the still figure. A moment later, Jame's eyes fluttered open.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, helping her to sit up. "You look a proper mess."

  "I'll bet I do," she said with a shaky laugh, wiping blood off her face. "Like something the cat threw up, probably. I ought to be dead."

  "So should I."

  Jame gave him a startled, remembering look, then launched into a rapid explanation of the night's misadventures. "And now that that's been cleared up," she said at last, "what in Trinity's name is making that uproar? It scarcely sounds human."

  They went to look, and found Ishtier crouching on the far side of the altar, quite mad, trying to gnaw off the hand that had touched the pages of the Book Bound in Pale Leather.

  "What do we do about him?" Marc asked, eyeing the priest doubtfully.

  "Nothing." The cold hatred in her voice surprised him. He had not, after all, been there to hear her speak to Hangrell in just such a tone. "He brought this on himself and more besides. Let's just get out before something else happens."

  She picked up the Book, grimacing at the feel of it and at the darkening patch on the binding where it had hit the floor. "One man dead because of this, another insane, and all it has are bruises," she said with disgust, much to Marc's confusion. "I've a mind to throw it into the first fire we come to, but I won't. Guardians never get off that easily. Besides, the damn thing would probably find some way to come crawling back."

  They went out through the ruins of the door, which crumbled to dust at a touch. The outer halls were quiet. Though the directing influence of the priest was gone, it would be weeks before the power here built up again to a dangerous level. By that time, Jame hoped, help would have been sent out by those sensitives in the Kencyrath who, however distant, could scarcely have failed to note the chaos unleashed in Tai-tastigon that night.

  She and Marc began to get some idea of it as they stepped out of the temple.

  "Something's wrong with the skyline," said Marc, pausing uncertainly on the threshold. "We should be able to see the Tower of Bats near Judgment Square from here, and Fumble's Folly, and look: Edor Thulig is gone."

  There were in fact many unfamiliar gaps in the city's skyline, especially near at hand, where whole rows of deserted houses had tumbled down, greatly increasing the circle of ruin about the temple. Beyond, most structures except a few of the tallest still stood—or at least leaned—though over all hung such an unearthly air that it was hard to think of the whole as Tai-tastigon at all. Odd lights played out across the sky, blooming silently from the labyrinth of streets and quickly fading back into it. Hollow, booming sounds were heard in the distance, almost but not quite resolving themselves into words. The odors of incense, burning, and death rode the cross-winds.

  The two Kencyrs looked at each other, baffled, then back at the strangely altered city. Marc gave a sudden exclamation. A light was coming toward them, growing steadily brighter. Within seconds, they could distinguish over the intervening rooftops the spark that flew upward from it and the tower of smoke that rose at its heels. Jame gripped her friend's arm.

  "Dalis-sar!" she said.

  Before he could react, she had thrust the wrapped Book into his arms and was gone, racing off through the mounds of dust toward the approaching blaze. He followed as quickly as he could, with a curse at his still-cramped legs. Jame disappeared around a corner at the circle's rim. When Marc caught sight of her again, she was at the far end of the street, silhouetted against an inferno whose brilliance made him look quickly away, seeing nothing but gigantic wheels of fire rolling slowly on, hearing only the roar of the flames and Jame's voice shouting over and over:

  "Bane! Its name is Bane!"

  Then the greater light was gone, southward bound. In its wake, everything burned—houses, rubble, even the slight, dark figure that had thrown itself face down on the ground, arms wrapped about its head.

  Marc was hobbling to the rescue when something else came down the street. It was about half the size of the first apparition and appeared at first to be nothing more or less than a small ambulatory storm cloud, complete with fitful flickers of lightning and sharp little thunderclaps. The rain it let fall extinguished most of the flames its predecessor had left behind. When Marc came up to Jame, she was on her feet, slapping at the patches of her soaked jacket that still smoldered. Staring down the street after this strange procession, Marc saw that there was something in the heart of the retreating cloud, something that hopped along jauntily in time to its own warlike music and seemed, by what tight there was, to be a particularly vivid shade of green.

  "Gorge?" he
said incredulously. "But how? What in all the names of God is going on?"

  'They're on their way to the Lower Town to destroy its monster," said Jame, still slapping at her clothes. "Armed with fire, water, and its true name, they ought to succeed. Dalis-sar has waited a long time for this. I suspect he sensed from the start that it was a Kencyr affair, but there was nothing he could do about it as long as he remained securely templed. As for Bane, now at last he can die. I suppose in a way it will even be an honorable death, what with Ishtier, Dalis-sar, and myself all contributing to it. Perhaps that was all he ever really wanted from me. Now I will never know."

  Marc was still staring after the two gods.

  "How did they come untempled?" he asked, bewildered. "I've heard tell of one god breaking loose before, but two at once?"

  "I think I know," said Jame, "but let's go home. If I'm right, we'll find out soon enough."

  At the first step, she stumbled. Marc, hastily catching her arm, realized then that the light of Dalis-sar's war chariot, so painful even to him at a distance, had temporarily blinded her. Well, if she didn't want to speak of it, they wouldn't, nor of her torn lip, which was clearly the work of someone else's teeth. All in good time. They set out for the Res aB'tyrr with his hand on her shoulder.