by Tanith Lee
“Azhrarn warred with you for a deed of which you were blameless. I too must be given my right to savage foolishness, the glory of self-denial.”
And Atmeh tapped the acorn. It cracked in bits. Into her palm sprinkled brilliant lavender dust, all that was left of the die, ground between the struggle of the gold and two drops of ichor. These last appeared too in Atmeh’s palm, black and boiling, sudden as meteors. Her hand flew to her lips. She took those drops of death within her mouth, on her tongue. She swallowed them.
Chuz sprang to his feet. Like a young man whose wife or sister has abruptly eaten poison.
All around, the birds had stopped singin
g. The flowers wilted. A shadow masked the sun.
“It is done,” said Atmeh, looking up at him. She said it quietly, with compassion. “Now I shall live.”
Prince Madness stood staring at her.
“You are Dunizel,” he said. “She betrayed him with death. Now you do it to me.”
“Did you not say to me, once, there is all time for us to meet again? And there is this life yet. With me, it has not been a piercing weapon cast—it will be mild, and slow. I shall live a few days longer, some hundreds of years.”
“You will be a hag,” said Chuz. His face was pale and serious. “You will die. You will come back to the earth in disguise, beautiless, ugly, diseased, witless, a woman or a man. Unrecognizable. This you wanted? To see my shoulder turned to you? To see the foul side of me, and that hand which sends men shrieking to the mind’s brink?”
“Chuz,” she said, “are you not the symbol of everything—the fair and the vile, together? And you, the dealer in lunacy, a pitying father, a rescuer, the kind physician who binds the bruises of life. The spirit of poets, and prophets, the lord of frenzies, religions, music, magic, love, and wine. You are the master of the key to the inner mystery. You are the breaker of chains. I am your subject, my lord, as I am your lover. Always. And you will know me, till the last star blooms and fades. You will know me beyond the ending of the earth.”
Then Chuz kneeled once more beside her. Like two humans, they clung together, and the cloud left the sun and showed them there. The flowers lifted their heads. The birds exchanged their singing gossip. What was the world but passing things? What is it now?
“What will you do, Atmeh, as a woman?”
“What I have learned to do. But I shall love you always.”
“Love is everywhere,” said Chuz gently, stroking her hair, “and the death of love. And time, which is built of the histories of death and love. Death and time I had always conceded, and acknowledged. And now I see plainly what love is. Not in you, pretty, mortal child. But in my arms that comfort you for wounding me, in my hands which soothe you for it, in my words which say to you, in despite of me, Do whatever you must. This lesson I will not remember. Nor shall I ever forget.”
And Chuz lowered his eyes, his matchless eyes. He, magnificent, a Lord of Darkness, held in his arms now a mortal woman. As Azhrarn had discovered, that was like clasping the tides of the sea, the winds of heaven. How massively the mountains stand, while low to the ground the sand blows. The sand blows on and on. And then there are no mountains, none at all, the sand has kissed and whispered them away. And still, the sand blows on.
EPILOGUE: Three Handsome Sons
MANY THOUSANDS had come to consult the seeress, over the years. She was kind, and partial, but most significant, she was clever. She sat inside a shrine of sky-blue marble, far back in the throat of it, where the vapors rose out of the mountain. Perhaps these vapors were conducive to prophecy. Huge serpents dwelled, or had come to dwell, in the mountain, and these were the attendants of the seeress, smooth pythons and patterned anacondas. They did no harm, except sometimes to scare the unwary. It seemed the seeress-priestess had an affinity with snakes.
How old she was, the woman. Some said two centuries, or three. Others said she was a young girl of exceptional acumen, who had given herself the appearance of age in order not to tempt or anger gods and men. Certainly she had been in that place a very great time, for grandfathers and grandmothers remembered that their own grandsires had related how their grandsires spoke of her.
She had previously traveled the world, to its four corners. To its deeps, its elevations. Even under the sea, they said, she had gone. And it seemed she had married, or been loved, also, but this was normally only murmured of: She was beyond weddings and couchings now. Now she was here, a blown grain of sand come to rest.
A city ripened in the valley under the mountain. A temple blossomed from the mountain’s side. When strangers stayed there, they asked, “To which of the gods is this fine temple dedicated?” But the temple was not dedicated to the gods. It was dedicated to man. And man was worshiped there. In all his stages—as a seed within a womb, as a baby, and as an infant. As a female and a male child next, then as youth and maiden, woman and man, father and mother, stoop-back and crone. And in the inner cloisters mankind was shown in beauty, or ugliness, as prince and beggar, as the leper and the strong, being crippled or upright. One found icons of the artisan and the warrior, the scholar and the slave, the king, the priest, the sage. And, cut from polished stone, effigies of the enraged and drunken, the mad, the stupid, the sly, the genius, the artist, the murderer, the savior, the innocent. All these, and more. And chiseled in the pillars here and there, or in the marble of the floor, these words:
REMEMBER THIS: ALL THESE YOU MAY HAVE BEEN,
OR MAY BE.
REMEMBER THIS: IN EACH AND ALL
THERE BURNS THE FLAME.
They said she had made the temple, or inspired it, the ancient seeress of the snakes.
Or perhaps she had only chanced upon the temple, and been prompted to remain.
Or some said she dreamed it, and her dream laid the foundation, but she was then a child in a distant land.
Whatever the truth, it was to the old woman they went, the pilgrims, for consolation, after they had worshiped their own image in the halls below.
The sun had set; there was nothing new in that.
The stars came out and crowned the mountain. Nothing new in that, either.
The moon sailed up in the east. This had happened before.
Down in the valley, where the poplars grew along the road leading to and from the city, there came a tapping sound. Tap-tap, tap-tap. The cattle had been driven home. The travelers had found their lodgings. The troupes of players, the journeymen—all these had made their camps in the grassy meadows, under trees. And the native citizens were indoors. Tap-tap. Even the brigands did not lie in wait upon that thoroughfare, out of respect for the temple in which they too, and their hungers, were represented. Tap tap-tap. Who could it be, making along the night-time road, where the moon cast the shadows of the poplars down in stripes? Along the road, toward the temple, steady and intent. Tap.
After dark, the temple too was dark; only a lamp hung here and there. But one lamp was on the outer porch above the gate, and a young priest would sit there, to watch through the night, to look at the stars, to think, and in case someone might have some need or trouble.
He saw then, the young man before the Temple of Man, a hunched inky figure, formless as a blot upon the air, inching up onto the slope of the mountain like a black snail. And it leaned upon a staff and it tapped with the staff. And for some reason, the hair shivered on the priest’s scalp. He stood and watched the tapping snail crawling up the slope, around the turns and curves of the mountain, all the while getting nearer. The priest shuddered and was amazed. He said to himself, There have been night visitors before. True, it is not quite canny. But there is nothing bad in it, surely. Besides, I never saw one of them, and now I shall. And besides again, whatever it is, I am human and will live forever. Even if a dragon comes and tears me in pieces, the fire of my life it cannot quench. Let me be easy therefore, and brave.
Finally the black being had tapped all the way to the temple gate.
There it raised its head, and the lampl
ight showed a seamed face, and lizard-lidded eyes. An old, old man, nearly old as the seeress, maybe.
“Good evening, sir,” said the young priest, mastering himself with difficulty, for to the sense of fear had now been added a curious awe. But the old man nodded, and leaned on his staff. From under his hood strayed charcoal locks. One gnarled hand gripped the staff’s neck, but the fingers of the other tapped on, upon the staffs head, which was in the shape of a black dog, long in the muzzle, pointed in the ears, with two black jewels for eyes. Just so were the eyes of the ancient, also, when he widened them at the priest, black and brilliant. In like manner, the eyes of the seeress had stayed bright in her ravaged face. For sure, this is another of her kindred, thought the priest. And he trembled.
“I am informed,” said the old man, “there is a prophetess here. Atmeh, she is named.”
Then the priest sighed. The voice of the old man was so beautiful, so full of music and power, yet so full of darkness, too. The very sound of it swept through the young man, like water through a channel, like a drug through the veins.
“Just so,” stammered the priest, “you will be welcome to go in, doubtless. As are the rest of her family.”
“Her family?” said the old man. “Who might they be?”
“Well, she is aged, aged as trees and hills, sir. But it would seem, late in life—or through some magical means—she bore three sons, and by three different fathers—three kings, they say. But I have never seen them—” And the priest grew silent, faintly ashamed to have disclosed so much, and to one who presumably knew it already.
But the old man pondered. He said, “You must tell me more of this.”
And it seemed to the young priest that very definitely, he had no choice in the matter.
So, he told the story, as he had often heard it, from those who had witnessed the priestess’s three night callers. They did not, it appeared, ever arrive together. Nor were they at all alike.
Except that each was handsome, and each was rich—what could it be but that, in her extensive life, Atmeh had conceived and borne them? And that their fathers were kings, who could doubt it from their wealth and their demeanor? Apparently they thought it best to travel incognito here, and steal up the mountain alone, to pay their respects to their mother.
One wore clothes the color of a sunset, orange and gold, and his skin was brown as a nut. He was the most dutiful son, and had stopped by the most often. Sometimes even he was early, and several pilgrims had beheld him in the westering light, sitting on a rock at the wayside. And these declared he was then dressed as a beggar, the further to mask his regal person. The second son was less dutiful and had not been seen so frequently. He was blond of hair and complexion, wore magenta and diamonds, and his beauty upset the evening birds, who would begin to bleat like sheep. (And there were other things when he was about—doors opening in unexpected directions, milk fermenting to alcohol, the hair of girls plaiting itself.) An odd one, the second son. The third son, he wore pure white raiment, and patently he had been fathered by a lord of the black races. In the beginning he had never once called on his mother, being the least dutiful of the three. Yet, in recent months, he was noted often. “He is trying to make it up to her,” they said.
The old man in black, when he had heard this recital, gave a laugh. It was melodious, but not good to hear, somehow. “And I,” he then said. “What do you suppose I am? The lady’s father, perhaps?”
“No, honored sir,” said the priest, “since you are not old enough.”
“Nevertheless,” said the old man, “I will go in.”
“Nevertheless,” said the priest, “I am not inclined to prevent you.”
At that, the old man drew close to the young one, and putting out his elderly claw, he touched the priest upon the breast, once. This touch was gentle as a kiss, yet from it such a rush of ecstasy ran through his body that the priest fell to the earth. And reaching sightlessly, he caught the hem of the black mantle to his lips. “Oh supreme master, you are surely a god, a loving god, you warm me like wine, like love itself. The sun by night—you are that sun—” But there seemed under his mouth and fingers only a fierce beating like colossal wings—
Coming back to himself, the priest gazed around him. No one was by. The gate was shut. The lamp burned placidly, and all the motionless stars.
“Did I dream it?”
The night wind, browsing in the grasses, answered Yes.
“Yes,” agreed the young man. “A dream.”
The priestess-seeress was sitting within the shrine. By day, it was the color of the sky, but by night pale, like a smoky moon. Inside the shrine, the vapors floated and the pillars stood still, both substances with a liquid glimmering on them. Between, on a ledge, was Atmeh.
Her robe was blue and fresh in the light of the little dishes of oil which burned there. Yet she was bent nearly double, she had shrunk and withered, her skin to parchment, her hair to gauze. Only her eyes blazed on, as if the flame of life itself directly kindled them. They were keen, her eyes. A snake, which if it had stood up on its tail would have knocked the high roof with its skull, lay about Atmeh like a coil of costly rope, its head quiescent on her lap. Atmeh said now to the snake, “See, beloved. Here is one you must bow down to. Or he may change you into a cat.”
The snake obediently looked, then, where Atmeh looked—into the shadows—and lifting itself, the snake let itself down again to the floor in a fluid obeisance. That done, it swam away across the shrine, and twined itself about a pillar, seeming to sleep, open-eyed in the fashion of its race.
A man walked from the shadows then. He was marvelously handsome, with hair that shone like blue-black fire, and clothed in all the magnificence of night. If any from the temple, or the city, any pilgrims or passersby had seen him, they would have exclaimed: “Why, we had supposed the seeress had three handsome sons, but here is a fourth!”
But there again, the faces of the three sons formerly noted had had a similarity of expression. They were enigmatic, perhaps, but benign. What expression did this fourth prince convey, so pale, so black of hair, in his mantle of black that seemed to hold the light of a thousand black-blue lightnings? Expressionless, this one, yet surely not benign.
“Lord of lords,” said Atmeh, firmly, softly, “pardon me if I do not, as the serpent did, render you the correct homage. But it is a mortal failing, this stiffness. My spirit bows down to you, even if my frame may not. Will that do?”
“Mortal,” he said. “There you are.”
Atmeh replied, “And here also are you, my father.”
Azhrarn’s face assumed an expression then. It was one of blasting contempt, or repugnance. But, after a pause, he spoke to her again.
“The Drin,” he said, “take pride in their ugliness, for beside the unsurpassable glamour of the Vazdru and the Eshva, what is there left for them but to be hideous—a paltry comeliness would not suffice. The Drin, nevertheless, convey their rejected beauties by what they make, and everything they make, from the most complex artifact to a tiny pin, everything is exquisite. Yet when a Drin makes anything that fails to please him, which—to his mind—is imperfect, he destroys it instantly. It is a habit indeed with all demonkind to eradicate a fault. And you,” said Azhrarn, the Prince of Demons, “you, who were made by me, from sable shade and clear nocturnal light, you, carried in the flawless vessel of Dunizel—I regard you now. To this abjection you have brought yourself. What should I do, confronted by that fact?”
“My death is near,” said Atmeh. “You need only wait.”
“Yes, he will have told you so, that third ‘son’ of yours, Uhlume. He is readying a tender stony cup for you. But the end I might present you with would bring you pain, I think.”
“If that is your wish,” said Atmeh, “to cause me to die in agony, then do it. I will not struggle or deny you.”
Azhrarn’s face altered. It was not friendlier, only different.
He said, “With such words, your mother came to me, at
the first.”
“She loved you from the first.”
“Love,” he said. “Why pretend you have invented it?”
“Was I not,” she said, “a demon, once? And did not the demons invent love?”
“Not the love you mean.”
“Are not all loves secretly the same? A hundred flowers sprung from a single root. The body’s love will teach the spirit how to love. The spasm of the body’s carnal pleasure, forgetting all things but ecstasy itself, teaches the body to remember the ecstasy of the soul, forgetting all but itself, the moments of oneness, and freedom. The love a man feels only for one other in all the world will teach him, at length, love of all others, of all the world. A cry of joy, whatever its cause, is the one true memory of those wonders the flesh has banished. A cry of love is always a cry of love.”
Then Azhrarn’s face truly and utterly altered. He looked at her, and though he was the dark incarnate, yet darkness fell away from him.
“Little girl,” he said, “I would have killed you seven times over, each death a death more vile. Humanity is my plaything no longer, only a toy for those that are mine under the earth. But you, you are her child. You are hers. You are Dunizel. Not mine. Never mine. Though I made you to be my curse upon the world. Though I made you to be myself. You are Dunizel, that I loved, Dunizel who was the moon and sun together. Your mother’s daughter. I could no more hurt you than I would tear the stars from the sky.”
Then Atmeh got to her feet, old and bowed and withered in her robe of sunny blue, and she went down to him, across the floor, peculiarly graceful, as a crumpled dying leaf has grace. When she stood by him, Azhrarn kneeled before her on the ground. He bowed his head, and she set her hands upon it, upon that midnight ocean of hair, that case of ivory bone beneath that held the firmament of his brain.
“Dear Father,” said the crone, “do not weep.”
He said, “That is the bane on me. I cannot.”
