Haze and the Hammer of Darkness

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The portico is off the bedroom Martel has been in once before.

  He slips to his feet and she to hers, and they move around the linen and gold and crystal, and the white fire from her and the black from him touch and join. And join. And join.

  A black shadow, more like smoke, in the upper branches of the nearby bristlepine thins and fades.

  A yellow eagle hawk in the sky above circles, circles, and is gone.

  This time, Martel wakes first, or Emily has let him wake first. He looks over her body, tanned, smooth as if in the first flush of young womanhood, with the high breasts, narrow waist, fine features, and high cheeks under closed eyes.

  Though her hair is all golden blond, and her genes would show the same, he knows, now, that she was born with black hair like Kryn. He imagines that, changes a feature in his mind … and cold like ice cascades down his spine.

  He shakes his head violently.

  Kryn is on Karnak, the Viceroy after long positioning to succeed the Grand Duke, while Emily has been on Aurore for too long.

  He also realizes another thing. Emily has never been young. Not in eons, perhaps longer. While she plays at youth, she does not love as if she were ever young, as if she had ever been fully human. And that is why he misses Rathe, why he misses Kryn, though Kryn, he knows full well, stands at the beginnings of power, at the base of ambition that will grow. Somewhere within her, he hopes with a certain sadness, she will remember being young and in love. Perhaps.

  If she ever really was.

  The cold thought is his own.

  Emily is awake and studying him, in turn.

  “And perhaps you’re right. Again,” she says, but her hands draw him back to her, and he does not resist. Nor is he young, either, as the fires fight and join.

  xxxix

  Martel’s long strides carry him up the coastal highway. The dorles chitter from the quinces and from the zebrun trees that line the empty highway.

  Though he cannot hear it yet, he knows an electrobike approaches from the south, purring behind him toward the common destination of Sybernal.

  Likewise, he can sense the group of young natives, perhaps five or so, who are gathered on the lane that leads to the CastCenter.

  The sky is clear, as clear as it ever is under the omnipresent golden haze of the field, and the faint scent of trilia is carried from the hills on the light breeze.

  Martel frowns. His stride breaks momentarily.

  The youngsters are waiting for him. From his present distance he can sense no malice, no negative feelings, except a faint fear, combined with curiosity.

  But waiting for you, Martel?

  He shrugs and picks up his stride, letting the frown fade away.

  Martel could avoid the group that awaits him, but then he would not have a clear picture of why they are interested in him, interested enough to wait, and knowledgeable enough to know where to wait.

  From a distance he can only touch the clearest of surface thoughts, and certainly not what is behind such thoughts. Besides, their actions will tell as much as their thoughts. More, if the gods are involved.

  As his steps take him into Sybernal, into the long, narrow Greenbelt that surrounds the highway, he reaches out again to the young natives, but the picture is no clearer.

  Again he shrugs.

  Finally he tops the little hill that leads down to the lane which, in turn, leads back up to the CastCenter.

  That’s HIM!

  Three of the male students wear the gold-and-white-striped tunics of the Sybernal Academy. One, the youngest and shortest, steps forward to block Martel’s path.

  Martel stops, waits.

  The stillness draws out.

  Martel smiles faintly, but says nothing, remains motionless.

  “Honored Sir, are … are You … the One?”

  “The one what?” answers Martel.

  “The One … One…” stammers the boy. The top of his red hair is level with Martel’s shoulder.

  The Dark One … God of Night … God of Shadows … GOD, why me? Why …

  Martel looks at the others.

  The five, three adolescent boys and two girls, fidget, wanting to move close enough to hear his answer, but wanting to back off at the same time.

  Martel does not answer, and instead takes his time to run his eyes over the entire group, one by one, letting himself pick up thoughts from each.

  … he’s strange … expected the question … Elson not forceful enough … little coward …

  Dark, and the black … like a shadow … why did we listen? What if He is?

  Thought it was a joke, but … so dark … moves like a shadow …

  Silly … boys … all that way. Just has to look mysterious, and they shiver …

  Doesn’t look old. Darfid says the records don’t tell … centuries … years … all the same …

  Martel lets his eyes flick back over the six again. No mental sign of who, or which god, has put them up to their question.

  How do you answer them, Martel? You’re no god … why give Apollo the satisfaction? Either way?

  He frowns.

  They draw back, even Elson, the questioner who has blocked his path.

  “A name is only what others want you to believe.” He pauses, hoping that the pause will let the meaning sink in. “I am what I am, not what others would have you believe.”

  Martel smiles.

  “And a pleasant evening to you all.”

  Now let Apollo figure that out!

  He steps around Elson and breaks into his quick stride toward the CastCenter at the end of the lane.

  Evening? What did he mean by that?

  “But there isn’t any evening here,” protests one of the Academy students.

  “So … you have to have evening before night. Before it gets dark,” snaps the older girl, a rail-thin brunette.

  “You didn’t get an answer, Elson! You failed!”

  “No! He gave you an answer. He really did. Don’t! Don’t hit me!”

  Martel lifts a corner of darkness from beneath the light and flicks it toward the youngsters.

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s gone!”

  “Where? He was just walking away.”

  “That couldn’t have been a shadow … could it?”

  “Look! Up there!”

  An enormous raven/night eagle circles overhead, low, glittering black, dripping shadows, dives away, and disappears behind the low hill on which the CastCenter sits.

  “See!” answers Elson. “If that isn’t an answer, then what is?”

  … what is … The thought echoes in eight minds, and Martel senses that one is not his or the youngsters’.

  He emerges from behind an ancient pine, certain that no one has seen his descent, and enters the empty CastCenter. On time. Again.

  xl

  The hillcrest is bare. Bare except for the grass, and for the view of the lands leading northward to Sybernal and south toward the sacred peak. Bare except for the man in black who stands looking southward down at the bay.

  The time is midnight, Aurore, and midnight, Karnak Standard, but irrelevant, since the eternal light varies only with the weather. Tonight there are no clouds, only the normal sea breeze.

  So now she’s the Viceroy?

  The Grand Duke, the acting Viceroy, is dead, and the Regent’s Guard has hailed the Lady Kryn as Viceroy. Not as acting Viceroy, but Viceroy.

  The Third, Fifth, and Seventh Fleets have also acclaimed her. New Augusta has accepted the inevitable and confirmed her position.

  Martel draws a dark square in the air, concentrates, and is rewarded with an image of the black-haired woman, dressed in the blue and gold he has remembered for so long.

  Shaking his head, he releases the picture, and it dissolves into a swirl of black glittermotes.

  Emily?

  This time his headshake is more violent.

  Her soul is cold.

  So … are not the souls of all gods cold?r />
  You could become a god.

  With that thought, his eyes lift toward the peak Jsalm. Though it lies beyond the reach of unaided vision, he can see its dark bulk and ice-tipped summit, can see the figures in the air above its needled tip.

  So … Martel … you cannot have Kryn, for she has obtained what she has sought and will not relinquish the power and the glory that is Karnak. And you cannot have Rathe, for she is dead. Dead because of your carelessness. Or your unwillingness to make any commitment to anything. Have it either way. And you do not want Emily, or to be a god.

  He turns his eyes from Jsalm toward the grass at his feet, then back to the gentle waves in the bay below the hillside. The nip of the salt air reminds him of Thetis.

  Thetis?

  He laughs.

  No. Though a lady she certainly is.

  Then what do you want?

  Kryn … and to be me.

  He turns to face the other way, down the hillside at the cottage, and at the quinces.

  What are you, Martel? What are you that makes you want what you cannot have and turn from what you are?

  The thought is not his, but echoes as if from a great distance.

  He frowns, wondering who had been monitoring his private soliloquy, and as his eyebrows furrow, the breeze dies, and the air stills.

  I am what I am, and I will have what I want!

  How, pray tell?

  He laughs, and the laugh echoes across the hillside, down toward the cottage on one side and toward the bay on the other. In the bay, the sound freezes the waves, holds the pair of dorles in midflight, and ripples the beach like an earthquake.

  Darkness wells, and spreads, and for kilos around, night falls. At last, Martel speaks aloud, and the words rumble like thunder as they roll outward over the lands from his mouth.

  “Time! Time is mine, and so is the night. Day will end, must end. And at that time comes night. Enjoy your days in the sun you cannot see, for though centuries pass, though the sons of those centuries pass, I will wait, and remember. Remember till the day when night will fall, and so will you!”

  This time, this one time, Martel does not release his darkness to let it disperse. Instead, he lets it break, in waves, away from him, and in breaking that dark washes around Aurore so that all on Aurore behold a moment of night.

  That darkness flies across Sybernal, across Jsalm, across Pamyra, on across the White Cliffs, across a certain white villa, across beaches, and across vacant golden waters.

  That instant of night wings over the lands and waters like a night eagle whose shadowed pinions cover but briefly the ground beneath.

  In certain streets of Sybernal, men crouch. Some make an obscure sign dating from the depths of history; others gape. Still others fail to notice, and others observe the strange darkness and dismiss its significance. Such it is. So has it always been.

  Some notice. Some do not.

  Some are pleased. Some are not.

  By the time the light returns to the empty hilltop, Martel has returned to his cottage. Returned smiling, though that smile would chill most and leave their souls frozen hulks.

  Outside, it is still night, despite the light of eternal day, although the clocks state it is night.

  On Karnak, the Viceroy sleeps.

  part two

  THE COMING of the HAMMER

  xli

  The Lady dreams. For now, to call her Lady is sufficient. She is that, and more.

  In her dream, she falls down a long, black tunnel, shot with streaks of white. As she drops she passes point rainbows of light, all the colors she can see, and colors besides those. Colors she once could see, but knows she can no longer distinguish.

  She reaches out to touch the sides of the tunnel, but they retreat from her clutching fingers.

  The Lady wants to cry, but knows she must not, knows she should remember why, but cannot.

  She wakes … alone … in a dimly lit room. To call her chamber a small hall would be more precise.

  Shuddering at the all-too-familiar dream, she sits up.

  “It’s been a while,” she murmurs, checking the time, “a long while since the last time.”

  “Dreams of the tunnel?” inquires her diary from the bedside table. “Yes, it has been. Nine years, eleven standard months, roughly.”

  “I wonder what crisis is coming,” she says softly.

  The diary does not answer.

  The Lady resettles herself on her pillows and pulls the silksheen cover up over her shoulders, though she is not cold.

  She avoids thinking about the two questions the dream has returned to her thoughts, and after some time passes into a hot and dreamless sleep.

  xlii

  Tap, tap.

  The sound raises Martel from his study of the small beaker, which is empty, and the bottle of Springfire, which is full.

  Tap, tap.

  He sighs, replaces the bottle on the keeper shelf, and closes the appliance. Martel decides not to probe, hoping the intruder will leave. While the visitor does, he leaves a package.

  By the time Martel reaches the front portal and opens it, no one is there. An electrobike is purring back toward Sybernal.

  An envelope lies squarely on the top step.

  Martel purses his lips. When was the last time he saw an honest envelope? From Hollie? Sometime in the days of the old Empire of Man? Before the fall of the Prince Regent? Before his former ladylove who wasn’t seized the reins of power … he shunts that thought away, regards the envelope.

  Finally he bends and picks it up. A large envelope, to say the least, so white that the paper, parchment really, nearly blinds. His name in flowing script assures him that he is the recipient.

  Martel, it reads, and across from the name, in the same black ink, is a thunderbolt, stylized, but a thunderbolt nonetheless.

  He probes the inside with his perceptions, but only inert material rests there.

  Closing the portal, he returns to the main room, and to the table with the beaker.

  Can it be from his latest tenants?

  Unlikely, for neither could write in such a flowing hand. He knows this, though he has seen neither write.

  From the chief at the CastCenter, the latest of the more than several dozen for whom he has theoretically worked the “night” shift over the centuries?

  Also unlikely.

  He sniffs, holds the envelope up, trying to see if some perfume clings to it. For the hand proclaims that a woman wrote his name.

  Emily?

  He shakes his head. He cannot imagine the writing of a goddess, or the reasons why she would take the time to write. He holds the envelope, hesitates, puts it down on the table, and stands there.

  Why are you afraid? You, the dark shadow of Aurore?

  Not denying his fear, he walks around the table, stares out the window at the nearest quince tree, the latest of the generations he has planted, and down at the main house, rebuilt last year for the fiftieth time since he purchased it from Mrs. Alderson’s estate.

  After all the years, why now?

  He knows the answer. He has felt it on the wind, and in his probes of what lies beyond the energy field that is Aurore.

  “There is a season…” And after the season of light comes the season of change. Has he not said so himself?

  He replaces the beaker on its shelf and walks back to his sleeping room, toward the wardrobe and the black tunics and trousers. He dons tunic, then trousers, and for the first time in many years, instead of the plain black belt, puts on the one with the triangular silver buckle. The black boots follow.

  Fully dressed, he walks back to the table, regards the envelope.

  After a time, he picks it up and touches the flap, which unseals at his touch, as he knew it would.

  Three holos tumble out on the table, all landing face up.

  Rathe Firien, snub-nosed, red-haired, full-breasted under the clinging tunic, and friendly, the warmth obvious, as if the holo had been canned the day before.
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  Marta Farell, not the stern-faced CastCenter chief, but smiling as if to welcome her lover, and wearing a golden gown.

  And … at the end, Kryn Kirsten, daughter of the Grand Duke, golden-eyed and black-haired, in tunic and trousers of blue shot with threads of gold. Slim like a bitch goddess, and bitchlike in her own way.

  A narrow slip of parchment remains in the envelope.

  Martel leaves it there as he studies the pictures.

  Two dead women, one who loved him, and one who hadn’t. Both dead because of him. And a third, possibly the most powerful person in the Empire of Light, immortal and yet not a goddess, and not on Aurore. The enigma he has not seen in more than a millennium, her holo in with that of two dead women.

  An obvious conclusion to be drawn, one meant to be drawn. But why now? And by whom?

  Underlying all was the assumption that he would care, that he had to care, that he could care.

  The three-dimensional images looking up from the table asked a question, too. Two of them, at least, and Martel dislikes the question.

  Is he going to let someone else die, as he has the other two, because he will not listen?

  Or is someone using the question to force you to act?

  Does it matter?

  He shrugs, not sure that it does.

  Who knows him well enough to ask the question in such a knifing way?

  Emily. She is the only answer.

  She is the goddess Dian, but Emily will do. Has always done between them.

  He takes the narrow slip from the envelope, reads it.

  The No-Name. 2200. My love.

  Her love?

  He tosses that question into his mental file with all the other unanswered questions he has ignored over the centuries, knowing that it cannot stay ignored, not this time.

  He looks down at the images of the three women, all beautiful in their own way, all intelligent, and, in their own way, all dead to him.

  If you believe that, Martel, you’re crazier than Thor.

  He wonders who expressed the thought, then realizes it is his own, not letting him lie to himself this time.

  The stars have changed, and his time has come round at last, rough beast, and it may be time to slouch forward … he does not finish the thought, but, instead, fingers the slip and lets it burst into flame.