Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong

by Greg Hamerton

  One of the great pillars of his life was truth. He’d always believed in truth; that no matter what, it was important not to deceive people, to be honest and to deal with the consequences—no matter how difficult it made his life. He’d been held back in the Dovecote because of that. Shamgar hadn’t taken kindly to his direct and honest observations, but Ashley had always felt right when he spoke out against untruths. Did that make him better? Such holiness seemed hollow now. What was holiness, but a particular kind of vanity? What was honesty, but a luxury of the man who wasn’t truly at risk?

  If he was dead honest with the dragon, he’d just be dead.

  Her breath stank; she was as brutal as a barbed mace, as weighty as a falling boulder. She stretched across the cavern like a lethal guardian, like some nightmare hammered out of an old mountain.

  He couldn’t tell her that, and so the truth became mutable in his hands.

  He found small things that could be distorted by close attention. If he ignored his opinion of her as a whole, if he ignored his feeling that she was a killer that farted noxious gas which exploded when she blew angry flame into it, he could notice the details that could be used to his advantage. Her scales shimmered when they caught the sudden flare of yellow light. Her breath formed swirling puffs of steam. Her rumbling purr, when she was happy, was like a great orchestral roll of drums.

  He found that the truth was a tool for one wise enough to use it. If he could guide how he looked at things, where he looked at them from, the truth could seem very different. Every awareness took its own position. The position determined its truth, but that position could be moved.

  He began to consider the ways in which he could move the position of her awareness.

  The first challenge was to get warm. He was freezing. An icy breeze came down the cleft in the wall of his damp antechamber. He didn’t want the dragon’s fiery breath in his chamber again—better to keep her eye upon him and the fire pointed the other way. But, in a moment when she snorted an irritable gust of crimson flame, he saw what he needed. Against the rocks, near the mouth of the cavern, was Sassraline’s midden, a spiked heap of skeletons and discarded trophies. He was shivering to his bones, and there, upon the heap lay a piece of pelt, feathers along its edge—the last remains of a devoted pony.

  Ashley covered his mouth with his hand. Could he actually bring himself to use it, the skin of his dead friend? He shifted his point of perception around the idea. Yes. It would be warm. That was the truth.

  “Sassraline, oh immense figure of awe, so filled with colours I have never witnessed in my brief and miserable life, your grandness will surely endure for longer than I can survive. You are a great lady, and it is your right to be praised, and it is surely my duty, but I could perform my duty for longer if I were warm. No! No! I do not have the wondrous skin that you have which protects against fire, and I have no protection from the biting cold. I am weak beside your grand strength. If you would give me just one thing from your pile of treasures, I would be warmer, and desperately grateful for your serene mercy.”

  WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

  “The leather pelt, the skin there, with the feathers on it,” Ashley explained.

  Sassraline shook herself, as if suddenly realising she had made a mistake.

  WHAT? HE WANTS TO STEAL MY TROPHY?

  She drew herself up.

  “I don’t want it for myself, I want it for you!” Ashley added hastily. “I am your servant. I belong to you already. I live by your whim. Surely you can pass something of yours to a servant? It will still be yours, because I am yours.”

  Sassraline paused.

  YES, HE IS MINE. IT IS THE SAME, WHETHER THE PELT IS HERE, OR THERE. EVERYTHING IN MY CAVE BELONGS TO ME.

  “I will live for longer, and you will hear more truths about your wonder.”

  Sassraline turned to look at the midden.

  With a sweep of her tail, she hooked the pelt from the pile. She swayed across the cavern and stuffed the pelt through the opening. Ashley fell flat to avoid the hooks and barbs. A shower of bone splinters fell off the leather bundle. As her tail pulled back through the crevice, a scale sheered off with a ping! A disc the size of his palm, green and sharp-edged, rolled across the floor.

  “Thank you,” he called out to her retreating bulk.

  I DID IT FOR ME, NOT FOR YOU! She stamped the floor and Ashley jumped with the shock. Her great eye jammed up against the hole, and it went totally dark.

  That was her truth. He’d work around it. Everything was about her. What was important was that he made it seem to be for her benefit.

  “I need—” he began and then corrected himself immediately, “You would be better served if your servant had light to see your colossal beauty. With your eye so close, although it could hold things more entrancing than the most splendorous vision in a crystal forest pool, there is not enough light to see it, and I am left with only the horror of losing the sight of your exquisite iris.”

  She gave out a bellow, long and loud, and raked her forelegs across the rock. Then with a shriek she was gone, away from his chamber, across the cavern, a flash of wings, gone. Ashley held his breath. What had he done? He was worried that he had made her too angry; that she had leapt away only to gather her anger and her fire, that she would flame him to death on her return. But he needn’t have worried. She returned soon after with a dead sapling in her talons, and she stomped over to the mouth of his cave and planted it, flaming, in the boulders clustered there.

  She had brought him a light. She lay down and snorted, looking across the cavern, away from him, pretending not to care, but her eye snapped back to him the moment he spoke.

  “See how great she is!” he cried, as if to an audience of thousands. “A merciful heart beats in her jewelled chest, she who can crush her foes with one talon and yet gives of her gifts to others, she who lies like a living blade in her secret and most special retreat and yet can be gentle to those whom she trusts, she who is kind-hearted, compassionate, she!”

  Ashley continued his litany for some time then crept a little way into the opening to gather some of the heat. Sassraline seemed content to lie and listen to him. He worked the leather flat with a pebble. It was dry and supple, with a fine crust of fire-damage which came off when he scraped it. He didn’t waste any time; as soon as it was clean enough, he wrapped it around himself. It was larger than he’d thought, and wonderfully warm. After sitting before the burning tree and thawing for a while, he turned his thoughts to what he could do with the leather. The fire would soon be out, and darkness would return. While he had a chance he should use the light.

  He used the dragon-scale to cut his outline on the leather, twice. The scale was ridiculously sharp on the lower edge and it had a circular hole near the top. When he scrutinised Sassraline he could see the hole was the way her scales locked in place, like plates of metal, studded together. She would be impossible to spear or pierce with arrow.

  With the ragged tails that remained of his pelt he made as many thongs as he could. Then using a sliver of bone as a needle, he sewed up the jacket and pants. He made a mess of it because his fingers were so cold. The skin was a bit chewed in places, but it only had three puncture-holes, and it was strong and flexible. He tied a bunch of thongs around his waist to hold the trousers up.

  I must look like a winter hunter from the snowy wastes. He looped the last piece of thong through the dragon-scale and hung it around his neck. It was too valuable to discard, but he’d have to be careful not to cut himself on it.

  None too soon. The tree-torch, now a rude finger of black coal, guttered, and went out.

  In the darkness, he realised the second challenge was to get some food. He was starving.

  That was considerably harder, and it took him two days. Two days of flattering, cajoling, coaxing, instructing and nudging her viewpoint closer and closer to his way of seeing the truth, until Sassraline finally could stand it no more—the truth that her servant was starving and that h
e had to be fed, had become her truth.

  Ashley waited for her. Her trust was more important than his freedom. He knew she would find him if he ran, find him and punish him for abandoning her. Fleeing would prove him a liar. Staying would make her believe.

  He had much time to reflect on the value of his life, for he had to convince her of it if he was to win this contest of wills. What was it that kept him wanting to live? It seemed an obvious question with no obvious answer. Because he hoped it would get better? Because there were times when life made him joyful? What was that part of him that wanted more?

  Life itself?

  The dragon brought him a great lump of meat. She even fired it for him when he persuaded her that he would be sick if he ate the flesh raw, but then, as if sensing his jubilation, she exposed her teeth at him.

  DON’T THINK YOU’LL EVER GET ANOTHER! I DON’T HUNT FOR OTHERS!

  He didn’t ask her what it was because he didn’t want to know. He was so hungry he had considered eating his clothes. Ashley munched on the meat, aware that he was eating something that had been living only moments before, yet he realised another truth. When he was hungry enough, he’d eat anything. He chewed on the gift of life.

  What was life, if not a gift? A gift from something else, always—a gift from his parents, a gift from the land, a gift from the world that had come before. Something had died, that he might live. Every day he was alive, things died—living things were ended, to fuel his insatiable hunger. In many ways, people and dragons were the same. They lived. They ate. Things died because of them. He should not feel the nagging guilt, and yet he did.

  Humankind always felt the guilt, he decided. No matter how small the feeling was, it was there in the depths of their minds. Maybe that was why everyone did good deeds. They were trying to pay back the debt of all the lives they’d taken to be alive themselves—their life debt. Some people denied it, some ignored it, but everyone was nudged by their life debt toward good deeds. A dragon had a greater life debt than most. He wondered if he could work with that truth, whether a dragon could be persuaded to perform a greater service because of all the killing.

  It was true that she wasn’t a dumb animal. She had a highly developed consciousness. No, what was he thinking? She was a predator. Her highly developed consciousness was so wrapped up in its own importance it saw little else. It was going to be a real challenge to get her to care about his life. He rose and followed the sound of the drip to his clear puddle at the back of his cave that periodically quenched his thirst.

  It took him many days to get food again. Slowly the dragon began to trust him, but all the time she kept him in her lair, and never once did she allow him to enter her great cavern. He followed the thin trail of hope. His beard grew in the gloom as he worked with the truth, and the many ways it could be used.

  31. A PERFECT SLICE OF PI

  “In the absence of wisdom rely on knowledge,

  Without knowledge, principles;

  with no principles, good luck.”—Zarost

  The wizards of the Gyre took their places around the black stone dining table—an oblong slab that dominated the narrow room. Sprites glowed in bulbs upon the walls, reflecting off the polished stone, making the arcane gold designs within the table stand out brightly. Silver cutlery gleamed. Tall glasses glinted. Outside, a red-fired desert sunset was fading over the distant dunes, visible through the open west wall. The Sanctuary was a beautiful place, Tabitha thought, but most of it felt surreal, as if it was too clean, too sterile—too ordered. She wanted to fill the dining room with plants, colour and life, as she had done in the meeting chambers.

  The wizards themselves seemed comfortable in the strange space. They bantered away to each other as they shared out the food. Bread was broken in the hand, plates were loaded with hearty portions and a decanter of pale blue drink they called aluvir was passed around freely. The meal was borne on platters which the wizards guided to speed around the table.

  Tabitha tried a little aluvir, but found that it tasted too strongly of fennel, and it seemed to stretch the inside of her head in all directions, somewhat akin to the beginning of a Transference spell. She ate a small portion of fruit and cheese instead.

  The Mystery, seated beside her, offered her a different glass. “Fallwater,” she said. “Much less punch.” It was cold and clear, with a minty aftertaste. It turned her breath to a little cloud of mist when she exhaled. Tabitha put her hand to her mouth. The Mystery smiled.

  “It must be wonderful to have an ear for the Lifesong,” said the Lorewarden from across the table. He had dressed for dinner in an elaborate orange shirt covered with spiralling black script, a language that was twisted upon itself like a struggle of snakes. “Where did you learn the words for your verses?”

  “My mother wrote some stanzas, but I heard them first in a dream, sung by many voices. I still hear those voices when I sing, the voices of the harmony.”

  “The echoes of Ethea? I remember… I read about that long ago. Something ... ”

  “Lorewarden?” The Mystery looked at him askew. “You have forgotten something?”

  “No! I…ah… Yes.”

  The remaining wizards exchanged concerned glances in silence.

  “Did you have time enough to complete your rest?” asked the Senior.

  “I think so…yes. I can’t…remember all of that either. How strange.”

  “Lorewarden!”

  “You never forget anything!” exclaimed the Spiritist softly.

  “Maybe something was done to him while he rested,” ventured the Mystery.

  The Lorewarden looked at her in alarm.

  “Relax, old man,” said the Mentalist, “it’s probably nothing fundamental. There are always a few loose connections in a mind.”

  “Ah so! I remember. The echoes of Ethea run through all time. They are ancient omnicursors like the Word, and three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven—”

  “Lorewarden!” warned the Mentalist.

  “Ah, yes, forgive me. The song is an irreplaceable aspect of this existence. We exist, therefore there is a Lifesong; there is a Lifesong, therefore we exist, but there is so little recorded about the lore! They knew of it in the time of the bards, but nothing survives of their knowledge because it was an oral tradition. The Goddess Ethea has been absent from our world for so long.”

  Yet now she had returned, and somewhere in the lowlands, far, far away, the Goddess Ethea was chained to a wall in a rising pool of blood and rain, her sodden wings dragging her ever downward, her face shadowed by grief. In a way, Ametheus had tied Tabitha to that rock. Time was running out and instead of racing to save Ethea, Tabitha was dining and making polite conversation. She felt like a traitor, all because she hadn’t wanted to let them know how temporary her power as a wizard might be.

  The Mystery cast a sideways glance at her. “You keep something hidden in your heart, Lifesinger, something that greatly pains you. We can speak in private, if it will help.”

  Tabitha gathered her nerve. She would do it now.

  “I am going to need your aid, all of you. The Sorcerer has captured Ethea, and I need to save her.”

  The silence was complete.

  “Why didn’t you say something before?” the Mystery asked her at last.

  “You were all arguing in the chambers, and I didn’t know when I should speak of it.”

  “Good Lord!” exclaimed the Spiritist. “But such a thing is impossible! The essence of the Gods is not on the physical plane. You must be mistaken, Lifesinger!”

  “Ethea is ethereal, she is not incarnate, she has no flesh!” argued the Cosmologer. “She is a principle. How can you trap that?”

  “And when the principle begins to identify with the flesh it is in?” asked the Senior. “You can violate a principle.”

  “But giving form to spirit? Changing it? That is an impossible achievement!” replied the Cosmologer. “Isn’t it, Spiritist?”

  The
Spiritist held her hand to her mouth. “If he considered the spirit, in the past, present and future, and exerted his power equally through a range of time, he might be able to change spirit to matter. It could be a second-axis spell, linking energy and matter on the animatus axis, but way out on the chaos side, for it bends time to achieve it. and somehow, it traps life in its coil as well. No, I cannot believe it.”

  “Save us! Is this his first ninth-level spell?”

  The Mystery cocked her head to one side. “If the Sorcerer did have the Goddess, he would have killed her, and the Ending would have come and passed. We are still alive, so it can’t be true.”

  “No, that’s not correct, the song would linger even without the Goddess,” said the Senior. “Everything we have learnt about time points to it being a circular pattern and not finite. It cannot end as you suggest, Mystery, it can only pass into a new cycle. However, such philosophy is irrelevant. I agree that it is impossible for the Sorcerer to hold a Goddess like Ethea.”

  “Senior, can you be sure?” asked the Lorewarden. “We don’t know this lore, we are guessing in the dark.”

  The Mentalist chuckled. “Listen to yourselves. The Sorcerer has captured the Goddess? How would he do such a thing, eh? Even with the greatest ninth-level spell Oldenworld has seen, he could not achieve it. Ethea is God-kind, just like the others, she exists beyond the Veil of Uncertainty. She could never be trapped by the Sorcerer, she does not possess dimensions of the kind he could manipulate. The God-kind are beyond our influence, they span all existence. Ethea must have been there at the beginning and must be there at the end, or we would not exist at all. The Sorcerer could not threaten the Goddess Ethea without threatening his own life. I’ll tell you what has happened, Lifesinger. You have been given a sending by the Sorcerer. You have been made to see something which is not there. You have been fooled.”