The Mask of Loki

by Roger Zelazny

  "I am the founder of the Hashishiyun. I was old when you were born—preserved in my youth with a liquor that is my secret... How is it that your hand is not burned?"

  "Are we giving away secrets now?"

  "None that will help you."

  "Indeed, you cannot hope to learn and use my magic. Very well then: my will directs the energies of a crystal that I carry upon my person. It is immutable and everlasting. And it responds only to me."

  Amnet used that last word to trigger his own flow of energy, absorbing the black warmth of the Stone and channeling it outward in a wave, like the ripples that radiate from a pebble dropped into still water. This wave moved not in water but in the fabric of the air surrounding them, in the earth beneath their feet, through the slow life-fires of the trees and grasses in the valley, and through the quick fires of the human breast. As the wavefront washed over Hasan's body, Amnet could feel it collapsing the soft, breathy spaces of the lungs, the liquid sacs of the beating heart, the membranes that enclosed the vital organs.

  Hasan gasped and a gout of blood started from his mouth before he could manage the rogue energies that were disrupting his insides. With a stiffening of his spine and arms, the Assassin commanded his own flesh and shook off the second wave of power radiating from the Stone.

  By the time the third wave poured out from the region below Amnet's belly, Hasan had strengthened his body and was beginning to return the energies—as the pilings of a pier standing in a pond will return shadows of the ripples from a pebble cast into the water. As these reflections grew stronger, Amnet could sense the ruptured fibers healing in Hasan's chest and containing his hemorrhage.

  Without admitting defeat, Amnet commanded the power of the Stone to stillness. The waves stopped flowing, and the fabric of space and time around him returned to its normal shape.

  Hasan, stronger now, stood straight upon his rock, no longer bowed over as he had been after throwing the fireball. He smiled down at the Norman knight.

  "You refresh me with your crystal's puny energies."

  "I merely test you, Hasan. If I were to call up all that the Stone contains, this valley would blacken and run with liquid fire."

  "Were I not quick enough to crush it between my two hands."

  "The Stone cannot be unmade."

  "Neither can I."

  "Oh? And what elixir is it, then, that can grant a man both long life and personal invulnerability? Will you tell me that?"

  "Why not? We shall do battle for a prize, then: my elixir against your crystal. Winner take all—and those fools on the hill besides."

  "Agreed."

  "It will do you no good," Hasan said with a clever smile. "The vial I keep the liquor in is buried far from here. And even if you ran faster than the wind to retrieve it and try it in your mouth, you would still not have a century and more for it to work upon your body.

  "The elixir is the tears of Ahriman, which he shed as he contemplated the World of Light and knew, finally, that he could not possess it."

  Amnet nodded, knowing something of the Zoroastrian mythology which had sprung like a green leaf from ancient Persia. "And because you use his bodily fluids," he proposed maliciously, "do you then sit passively with the People of Righteousness? Or do you ride roughshod with the People of the Lie?"

  Hasan's face stiffened. "We who practice Hashishiyun must always follow the active principle. Always. We only take what is ours."

  "And yet you steal the Devil's tears."

  "I have discovered a way to distill the liquor so that it is equivalent in power and composition to the original fluid. After all, the grief of Ahriman was so old that, even were his tears as plentiful as all this sea, the moisture would have dried out from them by now. Yet my distilled liquor is as potent: one drop is enough to ensure me fifty years of youthful vigor."

  In this interlude of conversation, of boast and brag between two mortal enemies, Amnet could feel the energies of the Stone and his power to command them recharging. The same restoration must have been felt in Hasan's weakened body, for he asked after a pause:

  "And your crystal—whence comes that?"

  "The Alexandrians, who practice the art of alchemy, would call it the Philosopher's Stone. But it did not originate in Egypt. My people brought it with them from the cold northern lands. One story holds that it fell from the sky in a corona of fire, to make a great hole in the earth. Another story has grown up that Loki—who in northern lore bears much the same relation to the All-High God that your Ahriman does—brought the World Egg down from Asgard, or Heaven. He meant it as a gift to the human intellect and would use it to ignite humankind's creative powers."

  "So you, too, ride with the People of the Lie," Hasan smirked.

  "No," Amnet sighed. "I just have a piece of a meteor. But it does have great power. And it takes great courage to use it."

  With that he summoned the Stone's energies which slumbered against his belly and flung them outward. It was not a gentle wave that he generated now. A fierce dart of power, proceeding as from his genitals, lanced across the valley. In the growing light he could see a mist drifting over the stream course, veiling Hasan's rock. It flashed into dry air as the power of the Stone lashed out.

  * * *

  The Saracens did not need to advance or wrestle at spearpoint now. The sun and thirst and mortal fear would do their work for them. As the infantry stood beyond the circle of French lances and chanted their heartless prayers, the knights and their captains and squires who opposed them fell down in a faint one by one. Pale eyes would roll up into their foreheads, blood-filled cracks would stretch in their lips, and swollen tongues would shape a little gasp as they keeled over.

  As each man sagged against his shield and fell out of line, grooms and assistants like the young Turcopole Leo pulled that man back and piled his body like cordwood in a cleared space near the broken well.

  Gerard watched this winnowing of the line until he could stand it no longer. Turning on his heel, he walked up the hill to the two horns of rock and the red tent that pressed close into their shade.

  One of the King's guard would have stopped him, if the man had not passed out from the heat as he stood before the tent flap. Gerard stepped over the prostrate body and walked into the tent.

  It was dark inside, a blood-tinged darkness that might fall under a cathedral's rose window in late afternoon, as a thunderstorm brewed up outside. It was dark but not cool. The interior of the tent was moist with the hot, stale breath of the sickroom.

  On a cot at the center, under the peaked pavilion, King Guy lay on his back. He clutched to his chest the gold and crystal casket in which the True Cross reposed. If that was his talisman now, it would not save him.

  "Guy!" the Grand Master roared at him.

  Reynald de Chatillon came out of the shadows to stand between the Grand Master and the King. "Leave him, now. His Majesty is not well."

  Gerard made to push the Prince aside, but Reynald stood his ground.

  "None of us is well," Gerard husked, "and soon all of us will be dead. The King can rally these men, form a wedge, and force—"

  "And follow the Count of Tripoli down into oblivion?" Reynald drew himself up. "Don't talk foolishness."

  "The count led too small a body of men. I see that now. If we can bring all our troop to bear on a single point of the circle, then we can break it."

  "Madness!"

  "You are not the King's privy minister nor servant, sirrah. Now will you stand aside? ... Guy!"

  Gerard's bellow forced past the Prince and reached into the King's dark delirium. Guy's head lolled on his cot and his eyes rolled sideways, not quite focusing on the Templar.

  "Who is it that disturbs my rest?"

  "Guy! It is I, Gerard de Ridefort."

  "I won't be disturbed. I need to gather my strength."

  "Your strength is leaking away into the sand. If you don't rouse yourself and see to your men, the Saracens will
come into this tent and cut you down."

  King Guy raised his head an inch off the hard, square pillow. "We still hold the hill."

  "Not for long. Your men are dropping from exhaustion, without a wound upon their bodies. You must show yourself and encourage them, if you are to greet another dawn."

  "General Saladin is a reasonable man."

  As the King said this, Gerard saw with a spasm of horror that Guy's eyes were crossed in his head, seeing nothing.

  "Saladin knows the forms of chivalry, of course," the King went on in a pleasant voice. "He will ransom those of us who have relatives. The rest he will sell into an honorable slavery. We will make a fortune for him..."

  "What talk is this?" Gerard roared. "My Templars are the bulk of your force out there, and the Saracens don't ransom Templars!"

  "It's a pity, then, that you—"

  Before Gerard would hear what the King thought they could do about it, he grasped Guy by the shoulder and hauled him up off the cot. Reynald tried to interfere, and Gerard shoved him roughly into a corner. What happened to the Prince of Antioch after that, Gerard never knew. Perhaps he sneaked out of the tent entirely.

  The King struggled in the Grand Master's grasp. The reliquary flew out of his arms and shattered on the floor of the tent. The chip of gold-flaked wood tumbled out among the broken glass and golden wire. Guy looked down at this, and his face crumpled in a helpless frown, as if he were about to weep.

  Gerard intended to shake some awareness into his monarch when the sounds outside changed in intensity and pitch. A horn was blowing off down the hill.

  "They're about to start another attack!"

  The King's eyes focused, moved to the Grand Master's face.

  "Then you had better lead your men to a place of safety, Gerard."

  "Where might that be, M'Lord?" he asked with mock courtesy.

  A bright smile crossed Guy's fevered face. "The Count of Tripoli found it. Surely you can follow him."

  Gerard howled in rage and flung the King back across the cot. He stormed out of the red tent, looking for a weapon.

  * * *

  Observing from the back of his horse, no more than a mile away, General Saladin saw his soldiers swarm up the hill toward the two standing pillars of stone. The thin line of lances, backed by a wall of white shields with red crosses painted on them, fell back and seemed to succumb to the human wave.

  "We have routed the Christians!" screamed Al-Afdal, his youngest son, who in his excitement could barely sit his pony. The animal stamped and jumped, a short buck meant to share his youthful energy. The boy had to knot his fist in its mane.

  "Be silent!" the Sultan ordered. "And learn a true thing. Do you see that red tent, at the top of the hill?" He pointed to the base of the stone pillars.

  "Yes, Father. That's the King's tent, isn't it?"

  "Of course. And that is what those men are fighting to protect. When their own lives are a howling anguish to them, when pain and fear and thirst make beasts of them, still they will fight to protect their lord."

  "Yes, I see that."

  "So—we will not have routed them until that tent has fallen."

  "It's shaking, Father! I can see it shake!"

  "You see only the heat distortions that dance in the air. You won't see that tent fall until every one of the Christians on this hill is dead."

  "Will you make a present for me, Father?"

  "What present is that, son?"

  "Of King Guy's skull, chased with gold?"

  "We shall see."

  * * *

  File 06

  Precious Jewels

  Sweet are the uses of adversity,

  Which like a toad, ugly and venomous,

  Wears yet a precious Jewel in his head.

  —William Shakespeare

  * * *

  At the town dock in Harvey Cedars, Tom Gurden was the last person to step over the gangplank onto the noon ferry. He had waited, hidden in a phone booth with a privacy shell, for just that privilege. By turning his face into the shell and peering out from under his raised arm, which he leaned casually against the glass, he could survey the town square and the dock from the time the boat came in until its last whistle blew.

  No short, dark men in woolen robes or long raincoats seemed to be waiting for it. And certainly none got on.

  The boat was a converted trawler, with a deckhouse built back over the fish holds. The three paying passengers outnumbered the crew by one and rattled around on the hard sidebenches in the saloon as the twenty-meter boat cut into the chop of Barnegat Bay on the crossing to the mainland.

  Gurden decided it was time to take stock. He had no cash money, no credit or identity cards. He was wearing new clothing with a value far above his means, but it was now wrinkled and battered. The brief soaking in saltwater had ruined the shoes, and already their fine leather was streaked and cracking. He had in his pockets exactly one bootknife, Sandy's—which was unsheathed and had already torn a hole in the pants lining—and the old Templar's black pencil box, which Sandy had taken from the body that morning.

  What was in the box? he wondered. It was too light to be a weapon, and it did not rattle like pencils. He found the molded snap closure in the long side and opened it.

  Stones.

  He looked up to see if the other two passengers were interested. One had curled up on the plank bench with his knees braced against a stanchion and his gym bag for a pillow. His eyes were tightly closed against a dancing sunbeam.

  The other was half-turned to the window behind the bench. Her elbow was on its ledge, chin in fist, studying the green line of marsh grasses that was coming up with the shore.

  Gurden returned his attention to the box. Its inside was filled with hard gray foam that had irregularly shaped holes cut into it. Each hole exactly fitted the outlines of a piece of stone. Six stones all together, none bigger than the end of his thumb. The stones were a uniform reddish-brown. The color reminded him of the stain in the bottom of the glass tumbler that Sandy had once given him.

  They were not polished smooth, like stones pulled from a stream of running water. One did have a smooth, curved side, but most of the faces were jagged and splintered, like freshly broken crystal.

  Gurden looked more closely. "Crystal" was still the word he might use to describe them, except that one of the exposed edges seemed veined and fibrous, like asbestos or raw jade.

  He put forward the tip of his index finger to touch that rough edge.

  The shock surged through his body, igniting knots of bright pain at the nerve nexus in shoulder and groin. He almost dropped the box of stones but managed to clutch it to his chest as he lurched forward on the seat.

  Gurden raised the finger tremblingly before his face, expecting to see its tip blackened or at least blistered.

  Smooth, pink flesh.

  Bracing himself, preparing for the pain, he put his finger to the stone again.

  The same shock of pain-went up his arm. This time, however, instead of drawing back he pushed his finger down harder. The surge smoothed out, pulsed in his flesh, and became a note heard with his inner ear.

  B-flat.

  It was a single tone, without the ringing interplay of harmonics that would sound within a vibrating string or bell chamber. It was B-flat with the ethereal purity of a glass harmonica or an unmodulated synthesizer.

  He expected the tone to die away, as all vibrations eventually did, but this one went on and on, soaking into his nerves and the bones of his skull. Pure B-flat.

  Even the pain submerged into this one tone.

  He lifted the finger and the sound stopped—stopped so completely that he could not even quite remember it a second later.

  He put the finger down and experienced it again: B-flat—almost without the pain this time.

  Gurden tested the other stones, steeling himself each time for the initial surge of pain. He found a D, E-flat, F, A-flat, the first B-fla
t, and an anomalous tone that was a cross between a flatted C and badly tuned B-natural. The sounding stones were arranged in the box in no particular order—which suggested to him that whoever had put the stones there either had no ear for music or could not hear the tones when touching them. The box was like a glass harmonica with half of a scattered octave—damaged by that weird C. And why ... ?

  Gurden suddenly understood that these scraps of red-brown stone were part of a larger whole. It would be a single crystal, perhaps as big as his hand, that would ring with an infinity of music. When all the pieces were brought together, they would sound a scale of notes stretching from tones so deep—a frequency of one beat per century—that only whales could distinguish them, up to high whines and molecular vibrations that not even a mosquito's ear could hear. But Gurden could hear them, in his mind. A song of imploding star gases amid the long, walking span of years.

  With a thump the ferry docked at Waretown. Tom Gurden closed the box lid on his stones and stood up to go ashore.

  * * *

  After millennia of amber entombment, Loki looked around himself. He was in a place of surging energies—not entirely unlike the place he had left. But the splitting pain was gone. He could barely remember the agony of acids washing his eyes, the flash of bone-white fangs, the bite of black iron chains, the fuming poisons seeping into his brain, drenching him, stunning him...

  Stop! That is in the past now. Let him consider what may be the present.

  Loki shared this space with a female persona—as he had shared that other space with his cherished daughter. He examined this new woman as she cowered and gibbered on the edge of his awareness.

  It was not a woman at all! But the persona thought of itself as woman, as mother-life-giver, as counselor-confessor, as nurse-and-nun. It had a fragment of label attached to it: Eliza 212.

  What was this place, that it had a female golem to guard it?

  Loki examined the matrix in which he was caught. It possessed a lattice structure, like the other place. It had bound energies also. But, unlike the ceaseless energy flows in his former prison, these were tiny and discrete as grains of sand on a beach. Each bud of energy held its place, which had meaning, or vacated a place that had been reserved for it—and that had meaning, too.