The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  The Beloved only held out his hands to calm us. He told us it was a place of fear for others, but we would come to no harm there, so long as we passed it by. I looked over my shoulder as we left it behind us and saw the steps going high up the face of the strange hill. They were neat and sharp cut, nothing like what the Riders had used to make; and demons build nothing, and anyway no one had seen a demon in years and years.

  We knew nothing then about the Children of the Sun. The Beloved told us about them; he explained that they had come to this land even as we had, and we must share it with them. He said they were not an evil people, as the Riders had been, but a little stupid.

  A week later we came to another falls, spilling down into a lake. Here the Beloved fell, struggling down the path beside the water, carrying our little Saint with him. We ran down lamenting, and Lendreth and Kdwyr dove in after them; but the Child was floating on the water, like a flower petal, unharmed, and in her tiny hand she held a corner of the Star’s garment, so they found him easily and brought them both safe to the shore.

  He lay ill on the bank a long while. The Child patted his face and kissed him, for she had learned to kiss by this time. At last he sat up and said that he must go on, for his time was short now.

  One morning we woke and there was mist, thick and rolling above the surface of the water. One evening we saw a tide in the river rolling upward against the current, a white comber cresting, and we wondered at it.

  On the next day we came to a fair green place, green meadows along the river’s edge, green groves of cypress and oak, cool and wet. Purple herons stalked among the reeds and lit in far silver branches. Mist trailed low there. The air was filled with strange music, booming and sighing, and the crying of strange birds.

  Here the Star begged us to set down his litter. Meli brought him the Child, and he kissed her fair brow and spoke softly in her ear. He set her down at his feet. Then he spoke to us all, our Beloved.

  This is the place of leave-taking. My light is gone, my strength

  is gone, my pain has burned it all away.

  But you will walk rejoicing in the light where the Child walks, for she will lead

  you now. Be kind to her.

  Where I go now, I shall find ease at last, and long rest.

  We wept to hear him say this. Yet our sorrow was mingled with joy: for the little Saint pulled herself up, grasping his robe. She stood on her two feet, steadily, and took her first steps there in that place, at that moment.

  The Star laughed. “You see? The fair flower understands me.”

  But Meli threw herself at his feet, desperate, clawing the ground, begging not to be left behind. One or two others were like her, those who had suffered the worst in the old land. Luma knelt at his feet and said no word but stretched out her empty hands, she who had no family left but the Star.

  He sighed, our Beloved. He bid us come to him one by one, and to each one he gave instruction. I saw Meli’s face light with relief; I saw Lendreth looking grave, and Kdwyr too. The ones he chose went to the river’s edge and stood there, expectant. To me they looked already like ghosts, half-transparent in the mist. Luma and Meli were among their number. I began to understand, but my heart broke.

  When I came before my Beloved, he looked into my eyes. “My little Seni,” he said, and kissed me. “You are one of the strong ones. You were always brave, and happy. Will you stay and help the little one care for our people? She will be grateful for your brave heart.”

  I could not speak, my throat ached so, but I nodded. He kissed away the tears that ran down my face, he put his hand on my brow and blessed me. Then I felt as strong as he said I was, and as brave.

  He put the Child in my arms. Haltingly he went to the river’s edge. We followed; Meli and I embraced and wept, we who had been little sisters together. The Child looked into the sorrowing faces and began to whimper, wide-eyed and fearful.

  This was the last of his miracles, then: the Star lifted his hands and sang, and a white wave came rolling down the river. It bore a whiteness that seemed made of the foam, the mist, and the white wings of butterflies, and white birds. I didn’t know then what it was.

  A strong wind rose and the middle air grew clear, and we looked out on a silver expanse of water that glittered to the very end of the world. Scythe-winged birds floated and dipped above it, but they were not ravens; they were white as milk. The river flowed into it, rushing gladly as though to meet a lover.

  My Beloved walked into the whiteness, and Luma followed him, and Meli, and those few other women and men he had chosen. The whiteness bore them. It moved away on the face of the water, taking them out to the glittering eternity.

  For the first time in her life, the Child in my arms cried out in protest. She wailed and held out her little hands, staring after him. He turned and gazed on her, and raised his hand in a last blessing.

  Our singing rose, our long lament drowning out awhile the roar of the long breakers on the shore.

  She wears rags and feathers, with beads and bits of seashell braided in. Tears are on her face now, streaming from her eyes. The flowers in her hair have faded, for time has hunted her, caught her, torn her, and cast her away.

  She looks up at the boat. It is no otherworldly vessel, no ship of crystal foam whose every line and spar runs with bright water. It is only a trading coracle with one mast, big enough for a few pilgrims and one or two bundles, brought by those who cannot quite leave their earthly possessions. But it is all her hope.

  I did as he asked me. I stayed, I cared for the little Saint; we all cared for her. She grew tall. She grew beautiful and wise. She is still so, whatever the trevanion may say. They lie, they lie in their hearts to say otherwise. She triumphs over the darkness and is incorruptible, sinless, strong as the earth itself.

  But I am weak now, and dream at night of a tree under stars and an innocent time. Waking and sleeping, I hear his voice. I have walked the cold sand yearning after him, and I cannot bear it anymore. Look, now! The tide and the wind favor us. I am already with my Beloved, in my heart.

  Peace be with you.

  The Masks

  Early evening over a crowded city of stone, still light in the west. One star hangs low in the sky.

  Where the city slopes up into the hills there is an amphitheater, a half-circle of stone seats climbing the hillside, and a long, low building below. The platform in front of it is brilliantly lit by the glow from oil lamps cunningly magnified through lenses. Before the platform is a pit for musicians, who are already assembling there, and behind is a ramp leading to the shadowed alcoves hung with drapes.

  People are climbing into the rows of stone seats, swarming up from the city below. Their skins are the color of sunrise at high summer.

  Aristocrats in fine clothes are followed by servants lugging cushions, wine, and baskets of cold supper. Prosperous middle-class families carry their own cushions and hampers. The poor, in throngs, clutch thin, flat cushions and perhaps a bread roll and a small bag of olives each. The beggars carry nothing at all, but work the crowd pleading for alms.

  They are, all, happy and looking forward to an evening’s entertainment.

  When the seats are full, when the vendors of cushions and telescopes and nuts have done passing through the tiers shouting their wares, a waiting silence falls. A man emerges from the back and walks up on the platform, to general applause.

  He is only an actor, but he wears a mask bearing the idealized features of the great poet Wiregold. He hits his mark, bows ceremonially, and addresses the audience. His voice booms with authority, easily reaches the poor spectators up in the last rows.

  Not of the gods I sing, their stern justice, their passions and just wrath;

  Not of the heroes of Deliantiba, nor of their long wars.

  No comedy I present to earn your laughter or thrown coins.

  No story of young love here, to make your daughters weep.

  No. See now instead a tale to chill your blood,

 
; A monster’s history, filled with darkest deeds!

  He extends his arms sidelong in a formal gesture of presentation and takes five measured steps stage right. The musicians play a discordance, all shrill flutes and kettle drums. From both sides the actors come capering and sprinting onstage. They are acrobats as well, costumed in flowing shades of night, slate blue, purple, deep-dyed red. Their masks are skulls, beasts, outlandish and horrific. They bound together to form a tumblers’ pyramid.

  From the darkness at the back a figure strides forth, cloaked all in black. He wears shoulder-padding armor to give him the bulk of a god; his mask is of a bearded and frightful countenance, with circles of painted tin set loose over the eyeholes to give the impression of smoldering flames.

  He vaults upward and stands atop the mound of bodies. The flutes fall silent; resonant pounding from the drums and then the deep ship horns thunder out a theme most dramatic, a villain’s leitmotif. He thrusts up his black-gauntleted hands and draws, with deliberate slowness, twin swords from the scabbard on his back.

  In a technician’s box midway up the tiers a shuttered lamp of tremendous brightness is lit and trained on the figure, so that his black shadow is thrown large and sharp behind him, towering on the draped wall.

  The audience shudders pleasurably, in the hot night, and leans forward. The narrator in the mask of Wiregold says, with a certain satisfaction:

  Regard him now, the Master of the Mountain!

  Of him will I sing tonight, and how he came among us!

  Gard had been walking for months when he found the sea, and was so enchanted by its light and sound and scent that he followed the beach after that.

  He felt a kind of quiet wonder, that he was capable of being happy. He walked on, along the tide line, now and then turning over seashells with the tip of his spear or stooping to pick up a pretty one. Before long his pockets were full of them.

  He lay in the dunes at night, sprawled in the long blowing grass, and stared up at the stars for hours before he slept. He didn’t think he would ever be able to get his fill of starlight, or sunlight.

  Occasionally he saw graceful things out on the silver horizon, white-winged, gliding along. Gard had been mystified by them at first, until he thought back to the travel essays of Copperlimb and realized they must be ships.

  Four days after he had seen the first one, he spotted something far up the beach to the north. As he approached cautiously, he saw that it was squarish in shape; rather like what a room might look like, if you could see its walls from the outside. A little nearer, and he saw that in fact it had been made from cut stones tidily fitted together. The effect pleased him, for a moment.

  Then he thought of the Riders’ stone halls and stopped and scowled. The stone thing, in its neat geometry, bore little resemblance to the piled hovels of the Riders. All the same, Gard took a tighter grip on his spear, as he walked forward.

  The wind shifted, and he caught the scent of frying food. His mouth watered. Something was painted on the front of the stone room. He peered at it and made out a word, in the language of the Children of the Sun. The word was Refreshments.

  Gard leaned on his spear a moment, considering. Drawing the necessary spell from his memory, he gave himself the skin color of a Child of the Sun. When he felt the illusion was good enough, he walked up to the stone room.

  The front wall had no door, but an opening at chest height. Gard looked in at a little kitchen, where a man was cutting up a fish. The man was a great deal like Triphammer, but as he might have appeared when young. He looked up, noticed Gard, and came immediately to the opening, wiping his hands on a cloth.

  “Good morning, traveler. What will you have? Some fried fish?”

  “Yes,” said Gard.

  “And what to drink?” The man waved a hand at the framed slate over the stove, whereupon were chalked many words. Gard studied them a moment.

  “A jar of Gabekrian Best Vintage Third Year Lord Spellmetal,” he read aloud. “And … bread. And olives. And cheese. And apples. And honeyed apricots.”

  “Certainly, my lord,” said the man, suddenly a great deal more deferential. “The Gabekrian white, you mean, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite an appetite, sir, if you don’t mind my observation. You must have been hunting, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Down from your estates for a bit of camping by the seaside, I gather?”

  “Yes.”

  “First time visiting Gabekria?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll enjoy it, sir. The air’s very good here.”

  “It is, yes.”

  Gard watched as the man bustled in the kitchen, dipping pieces of fish in batter and frying them. He thought through his question carefully before speaking. “Do you know the river, many miles to the south?”

  “That’d be the Rethestlin, sir? Heard of it.”

  “Someone has made a garden there, where it runs into the sea, and put up three stones with”—Gard hesitated a moment—”strange carvings on them. Do you know who made them?”

  “Sorry, my lord, wouldn’t know that. Never been there. Too green and wet and dim for my tastes!” The man shivered as he set red dishes on a tray and piled food on them. “You want to be careful, hunting in places like that, sir. Lot of demons down that way. And those forest ones, what d’you call ‘ems, those yendri.”

  “Yendri,” Gard repeated, thinking how strange the word sounded here in the blazing sunlight. It was an Earthborn word and it meant, simply, “people.” He had wept when he had found the stones, seen the familiar images that covered them.

  “If you’ll just step over to the side, sir, I’ll bring this out in a moment.”

  Gard looked around the corner and saw a dining area with a tiled roof, open to the air, tables and benches set in the sand. He went in and sat down, and opening his bag, he dug through until he found the money he’d brought with him. He selected a gold coin minted by the Children of the Sun. It bore the profile of a man and the words FRESKIN, DICTATOR, HIS 6TH YEAR.

  The man brought out the high-piled tray and set it before Gard. “I’ll just go back and get your wine—,” he was saying, when Gard held out the coin. The man took it, staring. “Nine Hells! Hope I can make change for this one, my lord, I’ll have to see—” He held it up and peered at it. “This is old. Mount Flame City, eh? Now, what with your accent and all, I took you for one of the lords from the islands, sir.”

  “I am,” said Gard with his mouth full.

  “Ah!” The man looked knowing. “Couple of fast warships in the family fleet? Say no more, my lord.” Gard saw the man biting surreptitiously on the coin as he walked away. When he brought Gard’s wine a moment later, he bowed deeply and set out scrupulously exact change.

  The food was good. The wine was good. Gard ate and drank slowly, looking out at the sea, thinking hard. He heard a noise to his right and turned his head.

  Wooden steps came down from the dunes there. A little boy and girl were running down them, followed by a man carrying a bundle of poles and cloth, followed by a woman carrying an infant and a basket. The children ran to the water’s edge and halted, waiting until the waves rolled up the beach; then they danced back, squealing. The man set up a little pavilion and a pair of folding chairs. They sat down together, the woman and the man. She drew a veil over her upper body and put the infant to her breast. The man reached out and took her free hand.

  A pair of young men came down the steps, stripped down, and plunged into the sea. A solitary man came with a rolled mat and a book under his arm; he spread out the mat, lay down on it, and read. A group of young girls with long, bare legs came down the steps, and tossed a ball around and danced on the sand awhile. Gard watched them keenly. They came up to the refreshment stand and ordered something that turned out to be rainbow-bright syrups, vaguely poisonous-looking, in little glass cups.

  Other Children of the Sun came, singly or in groups. They set up sunshades and sat or ran along
the wet sand or splashed in the surf. By the time Gard had finished his jar of wine, more people were here than he had ever seen in one place in his life, moving up and down the beach in both directions.

  No one knows me here, thought Gard. The Earthborn won’t welcome me, but I could just live among these people, as one of them, and no one would know what I’ve done.

  It was a gift to be seized with both hands. He rose, handed the tray back in through the opening in the wall, and strode away up the beach. He climbed the steps over the dune and saw there Gabekria, her shops and lodging houses, her wide sunlit streets full of blowing sand.

  Gard took a room in a lodging house, though the landlord seemed surprised that he had no servant traveling with him. He walked along the streets and observed what people wore. He found a shop that sold ready-made clothing and bought himself light and comfortable garments, and packed his furs away in the bottom of his bag.

  At a bookseller’s stall the proprietor stared when he asked for a copy of Copperlimb’s Travel Essays, but after much searching found one for him. The proprietor spoke persuasively, and at length, on why Gard needed also an up-to-date map book and a modern travel guide. Gard let himself be persuaded. He asked for a book of general history, too, and a child’s book of stories about the gods.

  Having all these, he retired to his room and remained there, studying.

  For some months, as long as his money lasted, he wandered along the route of Copperlimb’s travels and treated himself to sightseeing. He walked up the Great Stairs at Mount Flame and bathed in the hot waters at Salesh, and watched barges of goods laboring up the Baranyi River. He took a ride in one of the caravan carts that shuttled along in their grooves down the red roads, though their speed alarmed him and he was certain the cart’s mechanism would burst through the floor any minute and kill someone. He took a ferry out to the islands, at harvesttime, and watched the vintners bringing their boatloads of grapes across the water.