Second Kiss

by Robert Priest

  “Glittervein, I love you,” Vihata enthused, his voice like tiny, grating crystals. “You have given me so many precious gifts. But this — this means I love you forever.”

  “And he is full grown.” Glittervein emitted a small, tight laugh of delight. “I’ve been watching him a long time. I was sure of it but I knew you would want to see for yourself.”

  “Let me go!” Xemion bellowed, straining at his bonds.

  Glittervein turned toward Xemion, but his attempt at a smile did not quite reach his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, Xemion. Unfortunately, you’ve failed the examination.”

  Xemion began to swear. Every foul imprecation he’d ever heard the drink Thralls hurl at one another in their drunken stupors bellowed out of him so loud he thought his throat might burst. But it wasn’t just words that welled. All sorts of impulses and fractured visions were hurtling through his brain in a mad scramble to be known.

  “Such lungs.” The Pathan nodded with approval. “He’s perfect.”

  “And he’s yours. This very night if you like. If … if you have the funds of course.”

  “Of course I do,” Vihata replied jovially, his voice taking on a glassy lilt. He reached into his robe and extracted a fat bag of coins, which he plumped into Glittervein’s waiting hand. “As agreed.”

  So many words were competing at once to come screaming out of Xemion he began to stutter and shriek in jagged, disconnected syllables.

  “You may have given him a little too much of your libation,” Glittervein said gleefully as he weighed the bag judiciously in his palm.

  “There’ll be lots more of it where I’m taking him.” Laughing, Vihata took the torch from the bracket on the wall and strode to the opposite end of the chamber. There he opened a bronze door and fog billowed in. Xemion could hear the sea crashing far below.

  “Lethir,” Vihata shouted over the sound of Xemion’s continued profanities, “Secure him.”

  Lethir stepped behind the stone chair, wrapped his massive fists about Xemion’s wrists, and, when Glittervein released the restraints, yanked Xemion to his feet with one quick jerk, pinning his arms behind his back.

  Xemion saw the Pathan step through the doorway onto the landing of a stairway outside and wave the torch. It was still very foggy and he had to wave it for a while, the billowing fog eerily lit up as though from some conflagration below. Finally the sound of a whistle was heard and the Pathan came back in and beckoned with the brand. Just as Lethir pushed him toward the doorway, Xemion brought his heel down with all his might and weight right onto the arch of Lethir’s foot. Lethir bellowed in pain and in that instant Xemion tore free of his grip and tried to bolt away. But the Cyclops was too quick for him and succeeded in grabbing back one wrist. Xemion yanked his arm with all of his might, but when he couldn’t pull free he swung round full circle with his other hand bunched into a tight fist and rammed it into Lethir’s nose full force. There was only a second while the Cyclops jerked his head back, blinking and stunned, but in that second Xemion tore his wrist free and bolted off into the darkness.

  He couldn’t see, but he remembered where the stairs were, and sensed from the way the shouts echoed back around him where to turn. Soon he was sprinting back through the banquet room and into the hallway he’d entered by. But there in the doorway at the end stood a guard.

  “Stop him!” came the shouts from behind. The guard looked uncertain, and groped at his waist for his sword. Xemion attempted to shout “Out of my way!” but as he barrelled straight at the man, what came out of his mouth was some kind of hideous bestial shriek. It startled the guard just enough for Xemion to get around him and dash out into the foggy night.

  15

  Down

  The fog had thinned a little but there was still enough to shroud his flight as he tore down the length of Phaer Point. When he got to the High Street the fog was thinner yet and he began to zigzag and take corners randomly in an effort to throw off his pursuers. All the while he kept cursing and spitting and shaking his hands as though these actions might somehow rid him of the horror and taste of that potion he had swallowed. He wanted it out of his cells immediately. He wanted to get down on his knees and stick his fingers down his throat and vomit until he was emptier than he’d ever been. But he had to get away.

  His plan was to get to the wall that bisected the city, follow it along to the place where he and Saheli had entered, then cross back over to the other side of Ulde where he could hide among its spell-crossed denizens until the morning. Just as he got to the section of the wall that curved around the Great Kone he heard a shout echo along the wall from somewhere in front of him. And from behind him, the patter and racket of numerous feet was coming closer. And now there was almost nothing left of the fog. Soon he would be exposed. Right out in the open. There was only one place to go.

  The wall around the aboveground portion of the Great Kone, whose disrepair Xemion had seen previously from the east side of Ulde, was better-maintained here. There were no gaps in the brickwork where one might see through to the actual surface of the Kone. But there was what must once have been an official point of entry. Recently, the Pathans had tried to seal it with a bronze gate bolted shut on both sides, but something had caused this structure to buckle inward, leaving a jagged opening in the middle. Xemion stepped between the rusted edges of torn bronze and found himself looking up at the topmost rim of the Great Kone itself.

  A cloud had drifted in front of the moon, but the ancient reed paper that bore the script of the Great Kone had been invested with its own luminosity, so that even at night, travellers might be able to read its text. When the Pathans first conquered the city they had tried to destroy the Kone. But these efforts proved futile, so they covered it with numerous rude scrawled messages and icons. Frightened as he was, Xemion felt anger as he beheld the desecration. He took a deep breath and let the green glow of the Kone wash through the terrible red luminescence inside him. How it soothed. How it soothed him.

  For a time he crouched just inside the opening. Slowly his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw the top of an ancient stone stairway that ran around the outside of the Great Kone, following the spiral of its text deep into the Earth. As the sound of his pursuers’ footsteps got closer, Xemion crept over to the top step and crouched on it in the darkness. He heard voices. They were right outside! Very quietly he began to back down the stairs. As he saw a foot finding its way through the ragged hole above him, he turned and bolted down the staircase.

  He ran a long time without descending very far. This was because the circumference of the Kone at this level was greater than that of a stadium. The stairs had only the slightest slant. And, he now realized, if he kept going he would be running right back to a place just under where he had entered. If his pursuers were smart they would just leap over the banister and wait there for him. Panting, the air burning in his lungs, he stopped and listened. He looked over the edge to the banister below.

  He could descend much quicker if he climbed straight down. He could hear water dripping somewhere, each drop magnified by its echo. His lips started moving. He was mumbling words again and felt like vomiting. He cupped his hand over his mouth and rocked there back and forth, considering his options. Whichever way he ran, he was trapped. But his best chance was to keep heading downward. Perhaps they would give up on him.

  Careful to keep enough distance from the surface of the Great Kone, he swung his legs over the railing and lowered himself until his feet touched the banister below. In this manner he began to climb rapidly, straight down the inside of the spiralling stairs, so close to the surface of the Great Kone he was almost touching it. The smell of burnt paper and mould increased the deeper he got. Every once in a while he would pause and listen in the hope that they had stopped pursuing him, but each time, sooner or later, a soft sound would come — it may have just been water dripping, but it could just as likely be the padding of furtive footsteps. And so he continued down, down. Beneath him it see
med as though the Great Kone was narrowing so quickly that he was sure he should soon reach the bottom. But perhaps the tales that claimed there was no actual bottom were true, because no matter how far he descended the bottom never seemed to come into view. How could he have descended so far and yet still have such depths to go? And when he reached the bottom, what then? Would he just be trapped down there until his pursuers caught him and dragged him back up?

  He heard a mumbling voice and started with fear, but then he realized that it was he who was making the sound: incomprehensible words, but words he knew he had heard before. They were the very words Musea had bid him to remember before she died. Xemion clamped his mouth shut tight, but soon the words erupted again beyond his control. He tried to clear them from his mind but they overrode his thoughts. Desperate to stop them, he stared directly at the text of the Great Kone and read it. The words were no longer obscured at this depth and even in his terror he was aware of their beauty. Someone had exercised such artistry in the imagining of these runes. Xemion turned and saw the letter X. His eyes fastened on it, and then his foot slipped. He grabbed desperately at the banister below, but he missed and bounced off it with a scream, crashing through the paper of the Kone and into its interior. He screamed as he fell, the inverted letters rising in a smear straight up as he fell straight down. And all the while the Kone grew narrower and narrower, and the text smaller and smaller, and Xemion seemed to be shrinking smaller and smaller too.

  16

  Seven Deep

  Two days before the equinox, just after the departure of the Mammuth on another provisioning journey, Vallaine woke up in the top room of his tower on the west side of Ulde. His hand was white — so white that he could see the blue veins pulsing from within it. Startled, he shook it in the air as though he might somehow fling its pallid hue back into the dream it had escaped from, but to no avail. The hand remained drained of all colour while the dream hung there, dissolving, till all that remained was a feeling of deep dread and one word — one name, the name of the girl from Ilde: Saheli.

  He stumbled over the heaps of books that had erupted from the locket the night before and reached for the tell-kone on his desk. He had consulted it a lot lately, but had no choice but to do so again now. He grasped the handle and began to turn.

  The tell-kone looked like a spell kone but was of a much more ancient origin. Augurs had spun tell-kones since time immemorial. The mechanism was simple. The crank handle was affixed by various gears to a copper kone mounted on its tip in a frame. This kone contained six smaller concentric kones, each one inscribed with letters and numbers, each surface incised with slits of various sizes set at various angles. When the handle was turned the kones all whirled at their respective speeds until one by one they came to a halt. A practiced augur could then write down the words and numbers revealed by the slits in order to make determinations about the future. Today Vallaine’s spin achieved a most unlikely result. The small, vertical slits at the bottom of the outer six kones all lined up as one to reveal the seventh and innermost kone. The augurs had a name for this. They called it seven deep. Seven deep meant trouble. Especially when the letter revealed was an X, as this was.

  The colour drained from Vallaine’s face, then he cursed. He scanned the room, seeking something, but when he didn’t find it he grew angry and began to use one foot to sweep aside the books that littered the floor. At last, under a particularly large pile, he found what he was looking for: his camouflage cloak and his long hemp rope. Throwing them on as he ran out the door, he stumbled over some books that had spilled out onto the stairs, but the leap he took at the last moment to avoid falling ended fortuitously on the seventh step. He raced down the remaining fourteen stone steps and out into the street, as worried as he’d been in years. Taking great care not be seen, he quickly made his way across the city to the Great Kone. He needed strength, and he needed to see for himself if he was right.

  During the two years that had passed since he blasted open the bronze gate, Vallaine had developed an efficient method for descending the Great Kone. He draped the middle of his long rope over the railing and then held on to both halves of it as he lowered himself three or four banisters at a time. Then, by tugging one side of the rope, he pulled the rest of it down, folded it over the next banister, and continued the process. Long before he reached the last spiral of the steps, his sense that something was deeply wrong was confirmed. There had always been a round stone chamber at the bottom of the stairs where successful pilgrims could view the tapering point of the Kone just as it met and went through the focal point of a large lens set in a circular table. The Kone’s taper was so narrow here it was said to be “more like light than matter.” It was claimed your hand could pass through it and feel nothing. Normally the dim glow filtering back up the Kone from here was Vallaine’s first sign that he was reaching the bottom. Today though, only halfway down the Kone, he was already glimpsing a much brighter, much more searing light spilling up from the depths.

  For a moment he considered turning back, but even from where he was he could sense the power in the light. He had come here for strength and already his hand was taking on a slight red undertone. He had come here for a clearer foretelling and already he was seeing with new clarity. And if that clarity was only further affirmation of his dread, he had to know it in full. By the time he touched down on the bottom step he had to shield his eyes with his forearm because the light had become painfully bright. He edged his way forward until he got to the table and the lens through which the brilliant spectral light streamed.

  He climbed up on top of the table and positioned himself with one foot on either side of the lens as he held his open palm over it. The piercing light at his feet shrieked up at him and he did his best to centre his mind and let it radiate through him, his hand slowly taking on a deeper flush as he did so. This light streamed in at him from infinite worlds. That was his belief. Somewhere just beyond — just a little deeper down, the Great Kone shared its last infinitesimally small and pointless point, with every other Great Kone’s final pointless point. This streaming light came not only from the very edge of this world but from the edges of all the worlds created by those other Great Kones, too — all possible worlds. That was why this was the best place to receive intimations of all possible futures. Until now his journeys here had always been encouraging. They strengthened and fortified him with a sure sense of hope. But wherever he gazed now he saw imminent calamity. No matter what future his mind fell upon there was no place for his city and the Phaer way he cherished. No future but one — and survival in that one unlikely future would be dependent on one person. The name he had awoken with sounded for the thousandth time in his mind.

  Even as he pictured her face the way it had been that first day he saw her in Ilde, he heard a muffled voice that seemed to vibrate up through the lens. The sound of chanting rose and fell then died away, but after that he continued to sense a presence, an intense agony nearby, saturating every thread of shimmering light. Shielding his eyes with his hands he bent down on one knee and peered more closely into the Nexis below.

  The long, tapering ends of infinite kones tilted in from all directions, meeting in a hub at first too bright to look at. But it was from here that the mumbling originated. Gradually as he squinted he began to discern the outlines of a body slowly revolving about that hub. There was a spectral translucent quality to it as though it were more illusion than matter, the lines of light brilliant beneath its skin. As the face came into view Vallaine saw the wrenched features of Xemion, his eyes closed but his lips moving very slightly. Then he heard again that mystical mumbling. Vallaine shook his head, took up his rope, and said, “And now I rescue him a third time.”

  The ancient mages who made this viewing chamber had constructed one hatch at the back. It was a round black door with two symbols beveled into the top of its frame. One was the symbol for infinity and the other for the void. In all his many visits to the Great Kone, Vallaine had never dared
open it before. But today he had to take that chance. The light spilled in even brighter as he inched it open. Before him were seven steps, which led down to a stone platform overlooking the centre of the Nexis.

  He made his way through the doorway and down the steps and saw that he was on the inside of a large sphere that looked to be carved out of solid granite. From every point of its surface, barely detectable lines of force zeroed in on that bright light at the centre where Xemion whirled. At first Vallaine’s perception of distance was skewed, but as he focused he realized that the luminous hub they all met in was only about twenty feet away. Vallaine took both ends of his rope and leaned way out from the platform so that he could pass the loop at the bottom over the slowly whirling figure. He was sure he was doing the right thing. The light flooding in and radiating through him from everywhere told him so. He needed this boy — this man. He was crucial to the Phaer Purpose.

  When Xemion had completed one more slow spin, thereby winding the rope about his midsection, Vallaine tugged at the rope. As he pulled Xemion out of the centre, the light lessened a little, but still remained searingly bright. He dragged him up like a drowned man over the rough granite edge and laid him on the stone floor. Xemion twitched and jerked and continued mumbling and whispering for a short while, but then he suddenly stopped. Vallaine feared he might be dead, for his body was extremely cold and his flesh had taken on a slightly blue colour. But he was breathing shallowly, so slowly it was almost undetectable. Vallaine knew what this was: spell-shock. The boy had been trying to cast a spell — a very powerful spell. Vallaine grew more and more alarmed. He had to do something. His hand was now a deeper scarlet than it had ever been before. Indeed, the intense red had even spread up to his forearm and past his elbow. It felt hot and powerful. He pinched the webbing at the back of Xemion’s thumb and forefinger until he began to see a slight grimace appear on the boy’s face.