Tathea

by Anne Perry

  “Those who even after death reject the light and turn their backs on God,” Tathea answered. “They will have until the end of the world; then if they still choose darkness, darkness they shall have. Somehow she knows the Book has gone from Ra-Nufis’s power, and she has raised these creatures and sent them to take us to Tirilis.”

  “Can we not bribe them?” he asked.

  “How?”

  “Offer them something?”

  “What?” Her voice was rough-edged with pain. “God has already offered them everlasting joy, the glory of love, and laughter and worlds without end, and they have rejected it. What in heaven’s dreams could we offer them?”

  He clasped her hand. “Then can we not fight them? Is there no weapon, some sword of the spirit?”

  “To do what?” she whispered, her mind filled with a brilliance of almost unendurable clarity. “They are already in an unending night without love or hope. They have seen light and chosen darkness. What could we do to them?” She searched his face. “What could even God or the Great Enemy do that would touch what they have done to themselves?”

  “Nothing,” Sanobiel answered softly, putting his arms round her and holding her closely. The sea shone in a streaming tide. Gulls circled the mast against the dazzling sky. The wind was sharp, stinging the skin. He drew in a deep breath, searching his soul. “Nothing,” he said again, a pure flame of certainty inside him.

  Then he let her go, kissing her once, softly, on the cheek.

  “God keep you.” He smiled, then walked over to the mast and stood in front of it. He lifted his face to heaven and closed his eyes in a mighty prayer. Living flesh had no power over the damned, nor had they over him. But there was one way in which he could join battle with them, and his soul knew it. He hesitated only a moment, and then asked of God the one gift he needed, not for himself but for those creatures of hell around him.

  The light brightened across the water.

  As one man the mariners advanced toward him, their arms raised. Each struck him a terrible blow. It was the last which killed him. But he did not fall, he seemed to burn with a radiance as if in an instant he had passed from mortality to immortality. With a fearful majesty he raised his right arm and spoke.

  “In the name of Him who faced the powers of hell and overcame them, I command you to depart!”

  The mariners staggered back, stumbled, and fell. They lay like dark stains on the deck, their robes empty of substance, and a wind arose and carried them away over the side, where they sank into the water and the sea consumed them.

  When Tathea looked again at the place where Sanobiel had been, there was only a brightness in the air. She was alone, without friend or enemy of any kind. Alexius, Arimaspis, and Eleni were dead. Kol-Shamisha had given his life to save her. Maximian had too. And now Sanobiel. Each had been a victory of the soul, but the loss was vast, the hollowness unfillable.

  She stared seaward. Somewhere beyond that shimmering water lay the Maelstrom and the Lost Lands, where she must take the Book and give it back to God again. There it would be safe, beyond the reach of man or devil.

  The sails were flapping loose, the ship beginning to jib and yaw in the water.

  She went to the stern and lashed the helm, not even certain when or how she had learned to do such a thing, then reached to tighten the ropes on the sails and reel them in. The wind seemed to be rising. The ship heeled and the canvas tightened. The bow cut through the water, sending up white spume.

  She did not know how long she worked. The sun set in scarlet, dripping fire over the sea, and she sat in the dark, drifting in and out of sleep. She awoke to a slate-blue morning with the high fin of dawn pale in the east, light spilling across the ruffled crests of the waves.

  All day she traveled without smelling the Maelstrom in the air. Strangely she did not feel alone. The memories of those she had loved filled her mind as if they stood about her, and the Book itself was like a living flame, a compass in the trackless paths of the ocean, a fire in the empty spaces between the stars.

  On the sixth morning she awoke and saw land ahead of her. It was not the bright harbor of Orimiasse as she had hoped, but the long shoreline with the low hills of the eastlands of the Island at the Edge of the World. When the boat was carried high and beached, she clasped the Book in her arms, stepped over into the white water and waded ashore onto the hard strand, picking her way through the bands of weed and the tiny shells. The scent of wild lupins hung heavy in the air, and the birds wheeled and cried overhead. The sky was a softer blue here, wide and ragged with mares’ tail clouds.

  She walked up the wind-combed grass to the headland. Skylarks hovered in the sun, pouring out cascading trills of sound, piercingly sweet. She would travel south. Perhaps in Kyeelan-Iss she would find a mariner who would take her past the Maelstrom to the Lost Lands.

  The country was even lovelier than her memory of it. Trees huge as clouds whispered and rustled in a breeze sweet with the breath of flowers. Wild roses climbed the hedges; daisies tangled beneath them. She passed workers on the land, shepherds, woodsmen, swineherds under the trees, a few travelers like herself. She ate apples and wild berries from the hedge.

  The sun was high and warm on her face when she saw a lean figure coming towards her along the narrow path through the grass. There was something familiar in his gait, and the flying hair fluttered a wing of fear in her heart, but it was not until he was within a few yards of her that she knew his face. It was haggard, the eyes blazing, and the gaunt body leaned on a great staff as if he needed it to support his weight. It was the Wanderer with the Staff of Broken Dreams, who had once been Yaltabaoth, Lord of Despair, until she had wounded him on the western shore.

  Now he stood in front of her, barring the way, his eyes brilliant with glee, his gnarled hands clenched.

  “I told you we would meet again,” he said softly. “I keep my promises.”

  She had no weapon, nothing with which to fight him.

  The Wanderer’s lips drew back from his yellow teeth. “You fear for your life, Woman of the Book? You have no need. I cannot kill you; I can only wound you, but that wound will never heal. The ache of it will be with you night and day for the rest of your life.” He moved so rapidly she was startled, barely seeing what he did, only the great spear whirling round his head, missing her shoulder by so little it actually brushed her garments.

  But for the Book she would rather he killed her than deal her such a wound. All those she loved were gone. But she was the only one who could take the Book back to the shore of Orimiasse. She had brought it into the world, and she could not now abandon it to be used and misused by men.

  The Wanderer had no care for the Book. All he wanted was revenge, to leave the pain of disillusion that endures forever, the gall of bitterness, which eats away everything, and the life that knows no hope.

  They stood facing each other in the silent sunlight. Then just as he stepped forward to strike his blow, there came a faint tinkling of bells, tiny bells on outlandish shoes.

  The Wanderer froze.

  Tathea swung round and away, hope singing wildly inside her.

  Menath-Dur came through the grass and the flowers, but his face was set, and his eyes never left the Wanderer’s. In his hand he carried a long staff, and his fingers around it were tight, ready to lift it and strike.

  But there was no battle. The Wanderer had time, and all mortal flesh were his victims. Menath-Dur would not be everywhere. He strode away, slashing at the grass, breaking its slender reeds, destroying the flowers in it, and where his feet had trodden the earth was left black.

  Menath-Dur stared at the blackened earth, his gray eyes sad. He lifted his strange staff, and as he did so the dead earth quickened. The green grass of life returned, and the Wanderer’s footsteps were no longer visible.

  He turned to Tathea. “Come,” he said simply. “We must go to Hirioth.”

  “No,” she refused. “I am going to Kyeelan-Iss, where I can find mariners and a s
hip that will take me to the Lost Lands ...”

  He shook his head, smiling gently at her. “You will not go to the Lost Lands. It is not time. You must come to Hirioth.”

  “You don’t understand ...”

  He took her arm gently, but his hands were strong. “Yes, I do. Come, there is no time to waste. There are other enemies who will soon know you are here.”

  “I must take the Book back to the Lost Lands.” She would not move. “It can no longer remain in the world. If you knew what—”

  “I do know.” He let go of her arm and took her hand instead. She felt a ripple of warmth incredibly sweet. “I have been from the beginning, and I shall be until all things are restored. Your path lies in Hirioth.”

  Could it be so? God could take back the Book anywhere, the whole earth was His. It was only memory that told her it should be Orimiasse, because she could see so clearly the sky and the water and the vast spread of light. But perhaps the forest was the way.

  Menath-Dur waited while she pondered it in her heart, allowing the peace to grow inside her and the knowledge of truth.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “We will go to Hirioth.”

  “Good. Come quickly. There are many forces abroad, and I can battle some of them, but not all.” And he set off with his rapid, easy step through the grass and under the shadow of great trees, out into the sunlight again and along hedgerows tangled and bright with flowers. She had to walk as fast as she could to keep up with him. When he stopped at last to pick wild fruit for her to eat, she was aching with tiredness and the Book had grown heavy and awkward to carry.

  But he allowed her little respite. The sun was sinking, and the air took on a patina of gold. Poplars shimmered like columns of satin, every leaf stirring in the sunset breeze. The daisies in the grass caught the light and became a million fragile stars. Homing birds swirled across the sky like a shower of leaves thrown up.

  They were on the edge of the great forest, its outer saplings lissome, silver-trunked, leaves whispering and turning. The great-skirted oaks leaned towards the earth. Under them, as they trod the first path inward, the very air was green.

  Menath-Dur stopped, his face grave. “I can go no further. The rest of your journey you must walk alone. Go with the light of God ...” He hesitated, as if he would say more, but all that his heart meant was in those few words. After touching her hand once, he turned rapidly and without looking back walked away, the bells on his shoes tinkling until they were swallowed in silence.

  She was left alone to follow the earthen path into the deepening shade. Far above her the wind murmured in leaves bright in a luminous sky, but the way before her was as calm as deep water. The ancient trunks were beautiful in their motionless writhing. Vivid moss crusted their roots, and ferns spread delicately against the numberless shades of brown.

  She had walked for some time, and the gentle evening was still glowing across the sky and shedding enough light for her to see quite clearly when she met a man leaning against a giant oak, as if he were waiting there for her. He straightened up and came forward, slender, graceful, his face marvelous in the perfection of its bones, his black hair springing from a fine brow.

  She stopped, her heart racing. There was something familiar about him, a memory stirred from some deep recess in her heart. He smiled, and when he spoke his voice was soft.

  “So you are ready to give up the Book for which you paid such a price. The world has beaten you!” There was no anger in him, only sorrow.

  She was startled, these were not the words she had expected. She had thought of taking the Book from the world to resolve man’s use of it for evil. It had never occurred to her that it was a surrender.

  The man smiled. It was like spring sunlight, bright without warmth.

  “The truth is in the Book, the power to save the world,” he said. His eyes did not leave her face, nor once glance at the Book in her arms.

  “I know. But they still have the knowledge from within it. No one can take that away,” she answered.

  “Ah, but they can!” he argued. “Without the Book, what is only copied from it can be twisted, altered, and in time no one will know anymore what it truly said. Had you not thought of that?”

  She stood still. For the first time her mind was confused. What he said was true. It could be lost, changed. It was happening already.

  “They have abused it.” She looked at his beautiful face that tugged at her memory with such terrible longing and ache of passion. “They use it as a symbol of power, to get dominion over each other.”

  “There will always be someone who misuses it,” he said gently. “Is that a cause to rob the rest? If you struggled with them, labored to bring them understanding, would that not be a far nobler thing to do?”

  He was right. She was running away. Was this, after all, the final test of love?

  He was standing very close to her now, almost at her elbow. “With that Book and the knowledge that is in it, used with wisdom, guarded against the unrighteous, you could be the savior of the world! Every man and woman who lives or has yet to live could be freed from sin, guided away from error and false belief. Generations to come would bless your name!” He was watching her face. “No one ever born would be loved as you would be.”

  “All ...” she repeated in slow wonder. “I could save them all?”

  “Yes, you could! Not a single soul need be lost ...”

  Then at last she knew him. She saw the darkness in the soul behind his eyes and understood that she looked upon the face of Asmodeus himself. He was not horror, bestiality, decay, but the holiest of all truths distorted. It was the corruption of what had once been sublime. The path to hell was not a violent fall but a slow descent—one subtle, shallow step at a time.

  “No ...” She held the Book closer in her arms. “No, I cannot save the world. Another, long since, has lived and died to redeem all from the death of the body. You know that—you were there! I am not taking truth from the world, only the Book, which has become a token of dominion because they do not yet understand it. They want salvation without labor and without pain. But God will never cease to speak to the heart of everyone who listens.” She faced him with total conviction at last, her fear and doubt fled away. “I will not keep the Book, nor will I use it to gain dominion for myself—or for you.”

  He stared at her as if he could not believe defeat. Then when at last he knew it, the mask fell from him. She saw hell in his eyes, the irretrievable darkness of one who has looked upon God and has denied Him.

  She knew him and understood his life. He had no more power over her.

  He threw back his head and let out a roar, a huge, bellowing rage of sound that reached up to the stars.

  From between the trunks wraiths took form, like smoke rising from the ground. They separated one from the other until they had the semblance of men, but misbegotten, with limbs and organs that melted and altered from one moment to the next. The only thing that never changed was the hunger in their faces, the devouring appetite that consumed them. They came forward slowly, eyes questing in the light.

  One snatched a squirrel and stuffed it into his mouth, his features twisted with glee as if he had attained an eternal prize.

  A fallow deer appeared, and another wraith seized it, forced open its jaws and stretched his arm inside the beast, his own body fluid, shape-shifting to crawl inside its body and become one with it, devouring it from within.

  Every formless creature of hell strove to consume, to possess, to eat and make some small creature part of it, or to slide and penetrate and enter the larger beasts and possess them.

  The mortal creatures strove to rescue each other whatever the risk or cost to themselves. One after another they laid down their lives, a song thrush for a badger, a bear for a weasel, a horse for a fox. Even the trees and the flowers and grasses tangled the feet of the formless, snared their arms and were trampled and torn up.

  The hideous battle swayed back and forth as the legions of hea
ven and hell met for the victory of life. The eyes of hell were avid with hope. The souls of the shapeless who had followed Asmodeus fought the unborn of the earth for the bodies they should have.

  The air was shivering dark, splintered like ice. As one beast after another gave itself in sacrifice, another damned soul felt the body slip from its grasp, and the gates of eternity close forever against it. Hope vanished like the last glimmer of a sun which shall never rise again as a night begins from which there is no daybreak and no dawn, no spark or sliver of light forever after.

  One by one, with a terrible desolation, they melted away, knowing at last their master’s payment and tasting the dregs of its despair.

  In the silence Asmodeus looked at Tathea once, with freezing, endless hatred, then turned on his heel and strode away into the trees, leaving an iciness in the air so savage the leaves in his path withered and fell. Even the bark of the trees was petrified instantly to stone, as though the hand of death had touched them all.

  Tathea traveled on in a daze. Darkness came slowly, green and perfumed, without fear. When she could no longer see the path before her feet, she climbed into the broad arms of a tree and slept.

  She walked all the following day also, deeper and deeper into Hirioth, and at sunrise of the day after, she came at last to the shore of a mere. It was surrounded by trees so vast and so ancient they must have stood since the birth of the land. Boughs were dense and twisted with age. Moss like an elfin forest carpeted the earth between the roots, and lacelike ferns descended from hollows and cups in the wood.

  The water was smooth as stretched silk, and the first rays of the sun lay on its face as if the night sky had been caught and pinned to the earth in all its splendor of light and shadow.

  Then she saw a man on the shore coming towards her slowly, smiling. He was like Asmodeus, slender and dark with a face of marvelous beauty; and yet he was also utterly different. In him was the knowledge of pain and glory, and his eyes shone with the light in his soul.