Gradient

by Anders Cahill

  “Oren,” the woman said, a fierce whisper inside my mind, “are you okay?”

  “Saiara!” I tried to say, but my mouth couldn’t seem to form her name.

  “You don’t have to speak, Oren. Just think, and I will hear you.”

  “What’s… what’s happening?”

  She helped me stand. “I’m not entirely sure. I suspect the masks Dunsemai gave us are emulators.”

  “We’re in a simulation right now?” I said.

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Eledar’s breath. This is incredible. You look so… so alive.” I reached out to touch her head. Her feathers were soft and warm. She blinked her amber pearl eyes.

  “You should see yourself. If I hadn’t watched you put on that mask, I’d be terrified.”

  I looked around, hoping for a mirror. We were in a large hall like something out of a fable. The room was lit with thousands of candles, flickering on tables and mantles, guttering in the chandeliers, melting together in the yawning fireplace. A glow diffused through the room, creating an immaterial aura, as if everything might dissolve into particles of light.

  Dusty fraying tapestries hung between broad stone columns that supported the roof of the hall. Escutcheons were mounted on the pillars of stone, each one decorated its own intricate, ornate coat of arms. The vaulted ceiling was festooned with dried flowers, petals parched of color.

  At the center of the hall, a half-dozen long tables were heaped with food and drink; steaming cuts of meat; crystal decanters of wine; pastries arranged in artful configurations, glazed sugar twinkling in the candlelight. The benches of the table were empty. A feast for ghosts.

  “Look,” Saiara said, pointing past the tables.

  Above this empty court, on a throne of gnarled and leafless vines, the singer with the crown of gemstones sat stiff and still, her long fingers clutching the barren stems that wound together to form the arms of her chair. Her face was hidden behind her veil, and the only sign of life was the gentle rise and fall of the faceted amulet that hung from her neck, resting against the bare curve of her chest. I recognized it as the same amulet she wore when she sang in the amphitheater, but its kaleidoscope of colors was dimmed and absent. It shone pitch black.

  There were two thrones, both made of dried vines. She sat in the right. The left was empty.

  “She looks so lonely,” I said.

  “She’s been sitting like that since we arrived. She doesn’t seem to notice us. Watch this.” Saiara lifted her hands to her vulture’s beak and let out a piercing caw.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed. Her call echoed in the empty room.

  She pointed up at the queen in answer.

  She had not moved at all.

  “Eledar’s breath. That is eerie.”

  Saiara nodded, her feathers rustling.

  I was intensely curious to see what I looked like, so I walked over to the closest table. Keeping a careful eye on the queen, I slid a pyramid of pastries off of a silver serving tray. The queen remained unmoved. I held the tray up, reflecting my face.

  I recoiled with fear, an instinctive response. The tray fell from my hand, clattering to the stone floor. My eyes darted to the queen. No response. I brought my hands up to touch the striated scales of my face.

  Saiara was at my side. “Are you okay, Oren?”

  I nodded, mute.

  She knelt down and picked up the silver tray. She went to set in on the table, but I reached out and took it from her. I held it up again, steady this time. A wicked naja stared back at me, a hooded face with deep set, beady eyes. My tongue flicked, darting in and out of my closed mouth. I opened wide. Two long fangs curved down from the roof of my mouth, and a row of tiny, serrated teeth lined the top and bottom. It was a fearsome sight.

  “Oren?” Saira said gently, touching my shoulder.

  I turned and lunged at her, snapping my jaws just in front of her face.

  She flinched backwards. I laughed out loud. It came out as a hissing cough from my reptilian throat. “If you had wings,” I thought to her, “you’d be in the rafters right now!”

  She punched my arm. “You bloody creep!”

  “Oh come on! How could I resist?”

  “Whatever happened to the nice, shy Oren I fell in love with?”

  “I reckon he’s been spending too much time with you.”

  She punched me again. “You’re rotten.”

  “‘We create each other.’ Isn’t that what Darpausha says?”

  “Then it seems I’ve created a monster.” She chuckled, a musical chortle from her avian beak.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. But you should come have a look at these tapestries.” She took my hand, leading me to a vantage where we could take in all three of the giant weavings hanging from the hall’s western pillars. The tapestries depicted a multitude of different scenes, moving from lightness on the left to darkness on the right; from quiet idylls, with people lounging in fanciful garb beneath the eaves of trees, eating, talking, playing music, to vicious battles, soldiers brandishing archaic weaponry, spearing and gouging and slashing, disintegrating beneath blasts of liquefying energy.

  “Brutal,” I said, pointing at the warriors.

  “It gets worse.” She gestured to the rightmost of the three tapestries. It was an apocalyptic vision, a ragged, mountainous world of cinder and ash, fires smoking on the polluted horizon. There were fewer people in this tapestry than the others, and all of them were suffering. A monstrous, headless giant with its face on its torso was tearing a man apart, stuffing his limbs into the mouth on its stomach. Three lechers with the heads of hyenas surrounded a terrified woman, wielding molten hot iron brands, stabbing and scalding her. In the lower right corner, a half-dozen people were tangled together. At first, I took it for some perverse orgy, but then I saw that they had been melded together like clay, arms and torsos and faces jutting out at horrid, impossible angles. My eyes were involuntarily drawn in towards this depraved image until I forced myself to look away.

  I lingered the longest on a winged man falling from the sky. He was naked, with a smooth and sexless body that made me think for a moment of the corrupted shipheart from Arcturea. I shook my head, chasing the thought away, focusing back on the image. The man’s wings were on fire, silver feathers withering in the flames, ashes trailing behind him as he tumbled towards the world below. But what struck me the most was how calm he looked. Every other person in this doomsday mural was in a state of pain or raw terror, but his face was placid.

  Then, as I tracked my eyes between each tapestry, I saw it.

  “Saiara!” I said. “Look at this man.”

  “With the burning wings?”

  “Yes. Now look here. And here.” I pointed.

  “He’s in all three tapestries!”

  “Right. And look who’s next to him here.”

  In the leftmost tapestry, the world of peace and plenty, he sat on an ivy throne, lush with green leaves and blossoming pink roses. His wings were draped over the back of the throne, and his blue eyes gleamed bright against his cinnamon skin. And sitting to his left, holding his hand, was a pale woman with a gemstone crown and the crystal amulet hanging from her neck. Nothing covered her face. She was gorgeous, icy eyes beaming with happiness as she presided over the tranquil paradise with her king at her side.

  Saiara turned from the tapestry to face the silent queen in the throne room.

  A loud crash echoed through the quiet chamber, making us both jump.

  The queen turned her head towards us. She lifted her hands and parted her veil. Her face was aged beyond measure, sagging with ruined, wrinkled flesh. “Welcome,” she said, her voice loud and clear, “to the saeculur feast.”

  * * *

  From the opposite end of the throne room, the main doors had swung open, crashing against the wall, and people were pouring in. The queen was not looking at us. She was looking past us, welcoming them into the hall.

>   The people paid us no mind as they took their places at the tables. There were maybe fifty or sixty, dressed in finery from a forgotten era, scarlet and silver fabrics patterned with stripes and spirals and geometric forms. They ranged from middle-aged to elderly, and their clothing, for all its artfulness, was like everything else in this place, fading and tattered. But none of them were ravaged by time like their queen.

  They whispered to each other as they made their way to the tables. They seemed to be waiting for some signal from her. Her veil had fallen back down over her hideous face, and she stood tall and poised as the people settled down on the benches.

  When everyone was seated, she spoke again. “Liegemen of Carus,” she said with the confidence of a seasoned orator. “After another saeculum of silent vigil, it feeds my spirit to be with you again. As your Autarchess, my faith in our lord is more than the sorrowful hope of a wife pining for her husband. I am duty bound to my vigil to bear the weight of all the years we’ve lost in our wanderings.

  “Each century, we gather to enact the saeculur feast in honor of our Autarch’s last crossing. It is an act of remembering. It is also a prayer for his safe homecoming. For when Autarch Carus returns from beyond the rim of the universe - and return he shall - he will bring with him great knowledge that will repair the world that our arrogance destroyed.

  “So I bid you, eat of this food, for it contains the dreams of our beloved liege, left behind when he crossed the lightless horizon. It will restore you. And drink of this drink, for it holds the promises he made to forge the pact of peace with the Heliots. It will release you from your pain.”

  One of the people closest to the queen handed a golden chalice up to her.

  She nodded her thanks, and raised the chalice high. “To our liege Carus,” she said. “May he find his way home from the darkness. May he bind us again with the light of promise. May he bring us the wisdom of the final truths.”

  The revelers lifted their glasses. “To our liege Carus,” they cheered in unison.

  Then they drank, glugging down the blood dark fluid. It spilled over their cheeks, dribbling down and staining their clothes, but they were heedless. Empty glasses crashed down onto the table. The elderly poured more, drinking again. The middle-aged stopped drinking and tucked into the food. Soon, though, everyone was eating, tearing at the meal like beasts, hands and cheeks greasy with oil and fat.

  Everyone but the queen. She sat back down on her throne of vines and drank, watching her subjects gorge themselves. Whenever her glass was empty, someone came and poured her more. As she drank, the amulet on her neck turned from dark black to blood red.

  “Oren,” Saiara said. “Look at them!”

  I gasped.

  They were getting younger.

  * * *

  Liver spots disappeared. Flesh smoothed and tightened. Bald heads sprouted hair. Silver hair turned blonde or auburn or black. And still they kept eating and drinking, gorging themselves on the fare and provisions of juvenescence.

  “Enough, you fools!” the queen said, jumping up from her throne, her sanguinary spirit splashing from her chalice. “Our gluttony almost ruined us once. Even now, the Heliots are watching. Waiting. I can sense them. Do not be greedy for more than is your due.”

  The revelers looked at each other, shamefaced, stained with the carnage of their feasting. They were all youthful now. The oldest among them had become vigorous men and woman, and the youngest were now barely more than children.

  One of the eldest stood. His silver tunic was ruined with oil and blood, and his salted beard was sticky with grease, but he stood with refined dignity. “Please accept our most humble gratitude, Autarchess,” he said, bowing his head to her, “both for your generosity, and for the discipline of your spirit, which is the only shield that protects us from ourselves in the absence of our liege lord.”

  “Begone,” she said, turning her head away, and waving her hand at them. Her posture looked tired. Deflated. “The feast is over. Soon I shall renew my vigil, lest the Heliots come out from the shadows to take our lives as their own. I need to gather my strength.”

  Chastised, the queen’s subjects stood up from the table. The youngest among them wore expressions of insolence or rejection, much as a punished child might. The older were stony, tempers cool. They shepherded the young ones out of the hall before raw emotions devolved into tantrum.

  “Saiara,” I whispered, pointing towards the people.

  Moving among the queen’s subjects were other figures, transparent almost to the point of invisibility. People with the heads of animals.

  “Other audience members!” she said.

  “They must be,” I said.

  As the revelers filed out, members of the ghostly audience moved with them. Some individuals crept in close, shoulder to shoulder with the departing revelers, so close I was sure they would be noticed. But the people ignored them. Others followed at what seemed to me a safer distance, moving in pairs and groups after the main crowd, until the room was almost empty. A few stayed behind in the great hall, wandering around the room, examining the tapestries or the remnants of food and dishware on the tables. The queen sat inanimate on her throne.

  “I get it, Oren!” Saiara said.

  “Get what?”

  “We can go anywhere! Anywhere we want. It’s brilliant really. Depending on where you start and where you go from there, you’ll probably never see the same performance twice…” A look of worry crossed her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We might not have much time left!” She started moving for the door.

  “Time for what?”

  “Before the experience ends!” she called, still heading away from me.

  “Saiara!”

  “Don’t worry, Oren. I’m going to go explore.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” she said, holding up her hand to stop me from following. “We should split up. Dunsemai - or whoever designed this place - has built a whole world for us to explore. Who knows how deep it goes. If you stick with me, you’ll miss the experience you were meant to have.”

  “Meant to have?”

  “The gift of this place is freedom, Oren. The wall between audience and performer is thin. It may even be permeable. We are ghosts here, and we can choose the manner of our haunting.”

  “But how will I find you again?”

  She laughed her chortling bird laugh. “No matter how far apart we are in here, we’re still right next to each other. Whenever this ends, we will wake up in the amphitheater.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Open up, Oren. Follow your intuition. Let it lead you.”

  “Okay… Okay, I will. But what are you going-”

  “See you on the other side, snake man!” she said before I could finish my question, and then she was gone through the door.

  I stood in the middle of the hall by myself, feeling a little silly. An audience member with the head of a sea kraken ghosted by, nodding to me as he passed. I nodded back, tempted to talk to him, but before I could think what to say, he was out the door too.

  I looked up at the queen on her throne, sitting alone in her silence. On impulse, I walked straight towards her, climbing the steps of the dais to her throne. Her chin hung down, draping her veil against her chest, and she did not stir at my approach. Her chalice sat half-emptied at her feet.

  I crouched down, keeping an eye on her as I lifted the cup. I took a quick sip, letting the fluid linger on my tongue. It was sweet and metallic, but even that small taste was invigorating. After a surreptitious glance around the room, I tipped my head back, opened my mouth wide, and tilted the rest of the drink down my throat. Energy surged through my body.

  I set the cup down and stood up. I felt incredible, as if I might do anything.

  Fingers latched around my wrist.

  The queen stared up at me through her parted veil, ice blue eyes rimming with tears, despair on her beautiful, youthful face.
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br />   “You have finally come for me,” she said.

  Panic lumped in my throat. I could not speak.

  “I dreamed I went to Manderley last night,” she said. “Sweet, secret Manderley, with its gold light and dark passages. But as I approached its edge, where the city meets the shore of the island, I found that the way was barred. I could not pass. I threw my hands up in despair, and cried out. Then my spirit lifted, my body hollowing out. The barrier became like a gossamer web, and I pushed through, tearing it down with my hands and arms and eyes.

  “Oh sweet Manderley, I thought, your golden glow is mine now. I flew ahead, skimming above the pools of light. But as I passed, the lights went out. One by one, guttering, blinking off. Darkness followed in my wake. Ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea, and I knew then, with certainty beyond doubt, that none of us could ever go to Manderley again. For you see, the city sinks into the sea.”

  I tasted salt air and the smell of burning wood.

  “He is never coming back,” she whispered. “His hunger corrupted him, and we are trapped here, forever, playing out his damnable rituals. Our worship sustains him, out there beyond the lightless horizon. If anyone knew the truth, they would take my flesh as vengeance.”

  I tried to pull away, but her grip tightened like a vise.

  “No!” her sonorous voice cracked. “Don’t leave me here alone. I am not sure how much longer I can keep the ruse. Please. You must take me with you.”

  * * *

  I don’t even know where I am, I thought to myself. How could I take her anywhere?

  “You do not need to know where you are!” she hissed. “His strictures prevent me from leaving alone, but with you at my side, we may be able to cross over. I can show you the way.”

  “You can hear my thoughts?” I said.

  “You drank of his promises, heliot. You are bound now to this plane.”

  I thought of Saiara’s parting words, urging me to trust my intuition. I nodded. “Then I will help you,” I said.

  She stood up, sliding her hand down from my wrist and lacing her fingers with mine. With her other hand, she reached up and lifted off her crown. She dropped it to the floor. One of its gemstones chipped on the stone, scattering flakes of amethyst at our feet.