Delerium's Mistress: Tales of the Flat Earth Book 4

by Tanith Lee

  “What is your quarrel?”

  “Off the path, stripling. The other stripling has earned himself a taste of my instrument here.”

  “Why? Because he called you ‘pig’? Are you not then,” said Sovaz, in a silver voice, “exactly what he called you?”

  At this the villain shouted and raised his murder weapon in the air—but the shout became a mysterious grunt before it finished, and the knife clattered on the floor. There, standing upright on its back legs and waving its fore trotters madly, was a bristling and most angry male pig—nor, alas, was it even a boar, but of the farmyard sort, lacking now the use not only of one weapon, but of two.

  Upon this cue, even the weariest sleepers in the tavern awoke or were awakened.

  “Sorcery!” came the cry on all sides, and over went the jars and cups and down rained the candles, and every man stampeded from the place. With no surprise, let it be added, only with a kind of smug fright. Had it not said for months, this area, that there were supernatural creatures in its woods?

  Only the pig remained stamping about the wineshop, furious but already forgetting why, and questing for something to eat among the spillages of exodus.

  “Too apt,” said Oloru with some pleasure, admiring the pig. “Let it go home now, and donate its bacon to its doxy.”

  “Better than that,” said Sovaz, “let it go home and get into bed with the doxy, and see how they both like it.” And she pointed at the pig, which gave her an unwilling glance. “Do then as I bid it, you. And when the sun rises, be a man again, if you ever knew how.”

  The pig ran out, looking irate.

  Oloru sighed. “Too lenient. Wait. I know a jackal who will chase that pig all through the town—”

  Yet, “Hush,” said Sovaz suddenly. “Look there. One who did not run away. Now why is that?”

  Then Oloru was hushed, pale as ice. He looked, as she looked, into another deep corner of the tavern. For it seemed indeed one sat there, all muffled up in smoke and shade. Cloaked and cowled in black, only a hand showing white on the table, toying idly with some little figurines that glimmered in the upset light. And on his fingers many rings smoldered.

  “Now,” said Oloru, “if I were a man, I would howl to the gods to protect me.”

  “But you are not a man,” said the voice from the corner. “And you know better.”

  Oloru gazed at Sovaz. His eyes enlarged with tears. He said softly, “Let us fly to some other spot.”

  “Do it,” said the voice from the corner. “I will be there to greet you.”

  It was a voice so fine the atmosphere was already charged by it and grew electric, as if before a storm. It was so fine, even the mice who lived in the walls, and the spiders who wove in the rafter boughs above, crept out to listen and to see, then froze there, between dream and dread.

  Then Sovaz remarked, “The night has found the power of speech.”

  The voice did not answer her. But one of the little game pieces the hand had toyed with fell abruptly to the floor and broke in bits. It had been the figure of a fair-haired damsel robed in white.

  Sovaz laid her hand against Oloru’s breast. “My companion,” she said to the corner, “is not alone.”

  But at that moment, an ass brayed rackingly, once, twice, thrice, so all the mice and spiders fled swooning and squeaking and trailing droppings and gossamer.

  “Oh, are you there then, after all,” said Sovaz.

  And she left Oloru where he stood, and kicking aside the shattered winecups, she walked to the corner and sat down on a bench facing the one in black, only the trestle between them.

  He raised his head. At first there came only the black flame of two eyes, until he put back the cowl. Then there was the face of her father, Azhrarn, sculpted and pitiless and immeasurable, and empty. She had not properly seen him some while. Perhaps not since that hour he had first taken her to his kingdom and abandoned her. She had sighted him since only once, in a forest, hunting, but far off, and not for her. Always it seemed to have been this way, distance and uninterest. He was no father, no prince, no friend to her. She owed him nothing save the inspiration of life, if she should even be grateful for such a gift.

  They looked at each other, and finally she said, in a small voice no longer silver but iron, “And do you behold in me my mother?”

  He said, “She would not have looked at me with such impertinence, or such hate.”

  “She had no cause, it seems.”

  “Every cause. But she was the honeycomb. You, conversely, are my child, through and through. Unforgiving, arrogant, and proud; the wicked callousness men worship when they say my name, all is in you. But your wings of malice are not yet hardened. When you are able to take the skies with them, then we shall see what you can do. Dunizel’s daughter? No, you are only mine.” And he smiled most gorgeously upon her.

  When he did so, Sovaz spat at him like a snake. But the spark of demon spit altered instantly to a silver flower. He caught it in his hand and held it out to her, still smiling. Sovaz rose to her feet and turned and walked three paces away. No longer looking at him, she said, “Women you may woo, but not this one. You have told me, I am yourself. In vain then your blandishments or threats.”

  “Do you suppose I could not destroy you in a second?”

  Sovaz looked over her shoulder at him. “Do it.”

  Azhrarn let the flower fall on the table. It was gone. “You forget,” he said, “you are my puppet that I made and mean to use. I have said, Let us wait until you harden in the mold. When the paint is dry on you, you will come to me, and show me the virtuous respect a daughter should.”

  “Then,” said Sovaz, “may all the seas be fires.”

  Seated cross-legged on a nearby table, a handsome young man in a purple robe observed, “Alas, I am forgotten.”

  “Not so,” said Azhrarn. “Be flattered, Chuz, I came seeking you. The woman is not much to me, which she sees, as we note from her rage. You, I have taken trouble to close upon. You I have pursued like your lover.”

  “Yes,” admitted Chuz-Oloru from the adjacent table, “I am distinguished enough now to tempt even your palate. But it would not be politic, Azhrarn, for two Lords of Darkness to couple, as it would not be sensible for them to engage in enmity. These are joys we must forgo.”

  “Must we. I promised you war, Chuz. My promises I keep.”

  Chuz said indolently, “One blow shared between us will obliterate the town. If we duel, how much of the earth may be damaged before one of us bests the other? And the earth is dear to you, I believe. Besides, can you slaughter me? I, too, must be reborn. While there is madness, there I am.”

  Azhrarn in turn rose. As he moved from the corner, all the blackness of it seemed to come out with him and to leap simultaneously into lights. Firmaments and whirlwinds were caught about him, in his black hair, the wings of the cloak which restlessly beat. Stars crashed in every ring on his hands, and in his eyes worlds ended and began and ended. To this apocalyptic background, he gently said, “I mean to pay you out. It will be done. You harmed what was dear to me and under my protection.”

  “I have said before,” said Chuz, yet perched on his table, yet almost like a man, “it was no fault of mine. Blame that other one, he whose murmurings seem to have driven us here, Lord Fate. Blame yourself. Blame Dunizel for her destiny as a sacrifice. Blame everyone but me. What am I? Only the world’s servant.” Then Chuz himself raised his golden head. The face was still flawless, still Oloru’s. But no longer Oloru’s at all. And out of the eyes looked some appalling red-black thing. “But I lie,” said Chuz. “You know I lie. It is my homage to you, as was my careful disguise, and my frantic running away all this time. Yes, conceivably her death may be seen as my fault. If so, I do not know why I should have wanted it, for she was lovely, innocent, and wise. But insanity does nothing by the book. Guilty then, unbrother, as you wish.” And Chuz came from the table and went to Azhrarn. And standing there, meeting his terrible eyes with eyes equally as terrib
le, Chuz said this: “You may not eradicate me. You would be as foolish to fight with me as I would be fighting with you. But see, I offer myself before you and will accept any penance you decree, provided it may be compassed. Such an offer is madness, therefore fitting. Take your vengeance then, chastise me. But, Azhrarn, you do it by my agreement only.”

  At these words, Azhrarn cursed Chuz. Every flickering candle in the tavern died at once. Outside, the last lamps of the town perished. The very stars seemed to falter overhead, though probably they did not.

  “You are clever, Madness. Yes, there is no other means,” said Azhrarn in that black quiet. “I accept your terms. We will so conclude our quarrel. This the first night, tomorrow the second; at the third expect my answer, and your punishment. It shall not be nothing, Chuz. You are warned.”

  Then, where the Prince of Demons had stood was only a column of scarlet searing lightless flame, which, going out, left a cold-hot wound in the dark, that faded slowly.

  While in all the land about, dogs wailed, and winds howled, and leaves rotted from trees, and a brief rain fell that stained the walls of the dwellings of men like diluted blood.

  “If I were a woman I would say, What now will become of you? And I would weep. You will be ripped from me for some living death he will devise. I cannot think what. But so it will be.”

  “If I were a man, I would hold you in my arms, as I do, and kiss your hair, as I do, and the blue tears of your blue, blue eyes would spring into my eyes, as they do. And I would say, What else is to be done?”

  “Why did you kill my mother?”

  “Did I kill your mother?”

  “Why did you kneel to my father?”

  “Did I kneel to him?”

  “Liar and fool.”

  “What is any of this to us? Time is endless and ours. Love and death are only the games we play in it.”

  “You have been my father, you have been my brother, and my beloved. If I were a woman, if I were a child, I would weep. Oh, let me weep.”

  3

  TWO DAYS and a night between them. What to do then, with these last seconds before the ending of the world? Unhuman beings, they made the time seem to stretch for them, yet, such vistas before them, eternity, how swiftly this small ration ran away.

  The cottage was a mansion. They lured to it by sorcerous means a host of people, feasted them, created for them an orgy of pleasures, and lorded it, prince and princess, and loaded with presents the ensorceled guests. And some of the donations were sumptuous and goodly; some turned to frogs and owl pellets on the route home.

  The mansion was a cottage. They spent a day as peasants. Sovaz baked black bread and cooked a broth of herbs and roots. Chuz (you could not call him Oloru now, though still he wore Oloru’s shape) cut grass for hay and logs for the fire. With garlands of wild flowers in their hair they ate the impoverished meal, where, garlanded with rubies, they had just previously supped on transparent wines and magic meats.

  In the second night, those two days’ center, they roamed about the trees. The pools of the wood sprang to diamond, the foliage spangled, and breathed disembodied music. Birds which sang by day stirred and sang for them by night. They lay down there, the lovers, and loved. Remember me by this, they said, as lovers then, now, have always said, who must part.

  But the third night, after their humble peasants’ day, they arrayed themselves like kings and left the cottage deserted. They went deep into the wood, to a place that was so dense and black nothing came there ever, not bird or beast, not man, nor even demon, probably, till then. And here they waited for Azhrarn.

  A long while, too, they waited, or a long while Azhrarn, the Prince of Demons, made them wait. The moon passed over the black place, and one thin wire of light probed through, and then was drawn away again.

  She said at last, all pretense over, “Do you guess what he will demand of you?”

  “I think I guess. I believe in a manner I have been foretold of it by him.”

  “It is fearful?”

  “Perhaps. And just, in its way.”

  “Cease speaking as a man. Speak as Prince Chuz now, my guardian, my lord.”

  “Oh, beloved,” he said, “my lady, my soulless soul’s dream of night and sunrise.”

  “No,” said Sovaz, “unless you will refuse him.”

  “Impossible. It must be done.”

  “What will the legends say of you?” inquired Sovaz bitterly. “You, a Lord of Darkness, to accept the bane of a Vazdru who only hated you for slaying his mistress.”

  “Once it was, ‘Why did you kill my mother?’”

  “Once. But she was only his. Does the wine call the jar ‘Mother,’ when the wine is spilled? So I was for her, wine for his use.”

  But then the moon came back into the dark. Not one dull wire now, but a vast iridescence, as if dry water poured through the trees, or a heatless conflagration.

  He had announced himself, knocked upon the door. It was not politeness, only a threat; they should notice and be careful.

  Azhrarn walked after the light, entered the glade, and stood in it with them.

  And as she had said to Chuz, so the Demon said to him instantly: “Do you guess?”

  “It would seem I do.”

  “Do you consent?” said Azhrarn.

  “I admire you too well,” said Chuz, “to wrangle.”

  “Azhriaz,” said the Demon.

  But she answered, “That is not my name.”

  “It is your name,” said Azhrarn. “Azhriaz, what will you do, when he is lost to you? You are nothing to me as yet, but I am curious.”

  “Stay so,” she said. “I shall only follow him.”

  “Thus let it be,” said Azhrarn. “Now I shall tell you what you will follow. He has been a man, and fair, and he has been pleased to claim all such deeds are his madness. But by our agreement now, to give me some recompense he must relinquish his state and his powers, and even the evidently charming mortal guise that he put on for you. Mad now Chuz shall be. Truly mad, as a mortal knows it. Mindless, screaming, foaming, and tearing himself. More beast than any ass or jackal. Less a man than any man he has artistically dressed himself to imitate. A shunned outcast of the tribes of the earth, a mock for every unearthly thing. To demons, a new joke they will indulge and disdain. No longer a lord, a prince, or a magician. Foul and disfigured, each side of him—allow that I miss no quintessence of the irony—matted and maimed, and so to go scrabbling over the world. That the world may see, if it is able, that even his day-playing peers must be courteous to the Master of Night. And all this, for a mortal lifetime, he must and will endure, till some gross mortal death rids him of the vile disease that is himself. Only then, Chuz, may Chuz be Chuz again. The whole sentence you will serve. Or serve none of it, and we will find another way.”

  “My dear,” said Chuz, languidly, “what greater happiness can there be for me than to experience—if for such a little, little while—the life-style of my own subjects?”

  “Go then,” said Azhrarn. “Be happy.”

  “No,” said Sovaz. She spoke coldly and she seized the wrist of her lover. “You were Oloru. You are mine. You may not leave me at his whim, to suffer for his disgusting sport.”

  “He will leave you,” said Azhrarn. “He will suffer.”

  “Then he too betrays and deserts me,” said Sovaz. “Chuz, do you hear what I say? If you obey him, I conclude it must be your will and your wish.”

  But the face of Chuz had subtly altered. He said to her, “As men die in the flesh, so the undying, too, have their deaths. This it would appear is to be a death of mine. And he, he has died often. One night, he will recount the stories. For now, Oloru tells you this: Of all the stars, the flowers, the songs of earth, or beneath or above the earth, you are the brightest, loveliest, best. What is there to fear? There is all time to meet again.”

  And then he walked away from her, under the black, light-touched waves of the wood. Out of which there soon came the braying cry of an as
s, and then a strange wavering shriek and the splintering of branches. And birds that had slept there burst upward to be gone in haste.

  Presently Azhrarn, who had stood looking off into the dark, said, “I am satisfied. For the moment.” And he glanced at the girl and said to her, “There is the road he took, if you mean to go after.”

  Then she did begin to go that way. And as she went by Azhrarn, Sovaz spoke to him, one word of Underearth which the crude filthy-minded dwarfish Drin, lowest caste of demonkind, sometimes wrote up on the walls of each other’s habitations.

  “That I call you,” said Sovaz, “and that you are.”

  “For your mother’s sake,” he said, “I will restrain my hand. But there will come some midnight when you will make amends for it.”

  “When the seas are fires and the winds seas and the earth glass, and the gods come down on ladders to lick the feet of men. Then I will. Perhaps.”

  Azhrarn said no more. Nor she. She had said surely enough.

  And turning from him, she fled away through the trees after Chuz, like a frightened child.

  PART THREE

  Fair is Not Fair

  1

  MADNESS there had always been, in one form or another, on the earth. When first it came, it was nameless, as were all things. But soon men coined a name for it, since there must be names for every mote and seed. And after the name came the name’s Being, which was called Prince Chuz, and became Prince Chuz, and was.

  One of his own subjects now, Chuz. All Azhrarn had said he would be. No longer fine. No longer, at his own choice, half shining bright, half eerie sinister shadow—like the lunatic moon. Now a lumbering fear-shape at which to slam and bolt the doors, to say, What beast passes? But the beasts themselves flee from it, the forests sink silent. It flounders through mire and swamp, through the high palisades of thorns. The ducks rise from the reeds, exclaiming. In a dead tree it halts to rest, if rest it must. In a village street it appears, and the men fling stones at it, even take their bows and hunting spears and let fly with those. Till, quilled like the porcupine, it absconds, squealing, hurt, but hit in no vital spot—for its time to end is far off. Did Azhrarn not promise?