Circle at center sc-1

by Douglas Niles

  Except for his companion.

  He noticed a circle of golden dust upon the floor and realized that he had first appeared in the center of that ring. The dust had been scuffed away in one place, where he had walked toward the pallet. Next he recognized the exit from the room, which was a panel of wood not unlike a door that might be found in a splendid house of Tlaxcala. The hinges and latch were of a hard, cold material that was not familiar to him. Still, he had no difficulty lifting the latch and pushing open the door.

  He found a short corridor extending away from his room, with a sunlit courtyard visible through an open archway at the opposite end. The faint smell of sweet pollen tickled his nostrils and he advanced with a quick, anticipatory step. He passed open, airy rooms to either side, but his eyes were fixed on the bright outdoors. From somewhere a tantalizing waft of grilling meat reached him, and his stomach rumbled at the prospect of hearty food.

  Only then did he remember his nakedness. Quickly he returned to the room, where he found a white robe with sleeves and hem of perfect length for his sturdy, powerful body. The cloth was smooth and supple, almost liquid in its shimmering texture, gentle as the softest fawn’s hide against his skin.

  Returning to the hallway, he hastened to the courtyard beyond, and found himself standing before a wide, bowl-shaped pool of water. Plants, including familiar ferns, palms, and blossoms, as well as other, more exotic foliage, grew from numerous clay pots. The sky overhead was a rich blue, but as he walked through the garden and the view expanded his steps slowed. Finally he stopped, gawking at a vista that was like nothing in the world-at least, nothing in the world Natac had known all his life.

  He stood on the paved veranda of a large, white-walled villa. The garden was forgotten as he looked across a sunlit expanse of blue water. Steep bluffs, such as the slope right before him, plunged to the shore of the lake, or perhaps it was a sea. From here the body of water looked fully as big as the entire valley of Mexico. In the center of the sparkling expanse was a large, hilly island, a place dotted with many tall buildings of white, gray, red, and black stone. From the center of that island a silver spire rose skyward, a structure as tall as a high mountain and, when viewed from here at least, as thin as a pole.

  “The priests were wrong,” he said aloud, remembering the tales of black Mictlan, with its sunless skies and midnight horizons. “The land of death is a wondrous place!”

  He was stunned, elated, and confused. By rights, he should already be embarked upon an arduous and challenging journey, with only the comfort of his loyal friends, those who had died with him. But instead, he had found this paradise, with a beautiful woman to meet him, a splendid view of a sunlit horizon, and-judging by the aroma that wafted outside to him-at least one meal that promised to be very tasty.

  And it was a place where his body seemed to work much as it had during life. His broken hand was whole, and free of pain, healed as thoroughly as his chest. After he urinated off the edge of the veranda, he turned back to the house, determined to find the source of that wonderful aroma.

  He was startled to see, amid the trees and flowering bushes in the garden, the figure of a youth or a small man-he couldn’t be certain which. The fellow was slender, and his head was surrounded by a veil of hair the color of ripe straw.

  “Hello. I’m Fallon,” said the stranger, speaking in that same singsong language that Natac now comprehended so well.

  “Hello, Fallon. I am called Natac.” The warrior wondered if this might be a son or a brother to the woman called Miradel, but he quickly decided there could be no blood relation between them. Fallon was so fair in hair and skin, where she was coppery dark, and there was a fullness to Miradel’s body that seemed utterly lacking in this young fellow-who was in fact so thin that he looked frail. He wore a green shirt with red leggings, and his ears were weirdly pointed and seemed too large for his narrow face. He carried a shiny pitcher in one hand.

  “Is this your house?” Natac asked.

  Fallon chuckled with easy humor. “It is Miradel’s house… I help here with some of her tasks. That’s all.” With that explanation, the blond man reached into his pitcher and cupped some water in his hand. While Natac watched, he raised his hand, then breathed a puff of air across the drops of liquid.

  The warrior blinked in astonishment as a cloud of mist billowed out of Fallon’s hand. The fog swirled into the midst of the foliage, settling around the tops of the leaves and blossoms. And then it began to rain! For a minute or more the vaporous shape remained in place, and Natac heard the patter of drops, saw the moisture, as if a miniature rain cloud had been summoned upon Fallon’s command. Despite his surprise, the warrior suddenly realized that was exactly what had happened.

  “Forgive me… I have to finish the watering… No doubt you will find something to eat inside.”

  Since that suggestion was utterly in keeping with Natac’s desire, the warrior nodded, trying to conceal his astonishment as he went back into the large white house. He entered a room that was unmistakably a kitchen, and here he found a person. She was an elderly woman, her gray hair bound into a bun. She smiled shyly as he entered, and he saw that she wore a white robe similar to his own.

  “Where is Miradel?” he asked, coming to look into the pot on the stove. That cooking vessel was of a hard black substance-similar to the hinges and latch on the door of his room. When he reached into the pot, he felt the heat radiating from the sizzling food, but snatched a piece of meat anyway. He was startled by the searing temperature, but too famished to stop himself from popping the tender morsel into his mouth.

  “You’ll have to be careful,” chided the woman. “This is iron… it can be heated much hotter than the stone bowls of your own land.”

  “A miracle of Mictlan?” Natac asked, amused, but willing to be patient.

  The old woman shook her head. “This is not Mictlan. You are in a place called Nayve.”

  That brought him up short. “Do not play me for a fool, Grandmother… I know all about the land of death.” He realized with a glimmer of unease that they were speaking that language he had come to know last night. That gave him another idea. “Or is Nayve simply your name for Mictlan?”

  “Mictlan is a human fiction,” replied the woman, with a hint of sternness in her tone. “You have been brought to Nayve.”

  “Where is Takanatl?” demanded Natac, unhappy with her answer. “He died moments before me… I would find him, share food and a story with him.”

  “Takanatl is not here… there are very few humans of Earth here. You have been brought by magic.” She hesitated, then looked at him frankly. “Miradel’s magic.”

  “What is Earth? Do you speak of the world of Tlaxcala, of Mexico?”

  The matron set down her spoon and pulled the iron pot off the heat. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face him. “You have much to learn, Warrior Natac.”

  He blinked, surprised as she addressed him in the same words Miradel had used the night before. She continued:

  “Mexico and your homeland are a very small part of Earth. In truth, it is a doomed part of that world… The place you know, the existence of your people and your tribe, will be brought to a violent end only a few years after your own death.”

  “But the world is thriving!” he declared scornfully. “I myself have sanctified perhaps a hundred hearts to all the gods. And in the city of the Mexica on the day of my death I saw a thousand and more lives offered to ensure that the seasons bring rain, that the sun continues to rise into the sky.”

  “And those lives were claimed by fools!” snapped the woman harshly. “Not just fools-evil fools, who invented preposterous gods, who wallowed in their endless cruelties as a means of ensuring that their own class retains power and prestige!”

  Natac was stunned by this accusation. He had never during his life heard anyone speak so critically of the priesthood. Surely this person was asking for some brutal retaliation from the gods she’d insulted through their prie
sts. Half expectant, half curious, he waited and watched. The woman’s angry gaze never left his face, and he found his convictions wilting in the glare of her furious violet eyes.

  “Our priests are wise!” he retorted. “They know much, share their wisdom with the world! It is through them that we learn of the needs of the gods, that we may assure plentiful rain and good harvests each year!”

  “Certainly they were wise.” The woman’s reedy voice was scornful. “They held you and your people in thrall. They did what they wanted, assured of food and treasure-and lives-through the labor of the people they fooled!”

  It occurred to him, for the first time, that she might know a little more about the gods than he did-or than he thought he did. After all, judging from the evidence all around him, the priests had been more than a little misguided about Mictlan.

  Only then did another idea occur to him, a horrifying thought that forced him to deny everything this female was telling him.

  “You lie, old woman! My daughter… Yellow Hummingbird. She was a precious child, and beautiful. We gave her to the rain god while she was still a virgin! And for years afterward Tlaxcala was blessed with a plenitude of water from the heavens. You cannot tell me that her sacrifice was wasted.”

  “I can tell you that, and I will.” This time the woman’s face softened, and he sensed sadness in the lines around her eyes and mouth. There was something familiar about that melancholy, though he didn’t make a connection. “It is tragic when a human life ends too soon-especially so when a child dies. But you will understand, Warrior Natac-I will make you understand-that the tragedy is only compounded when the life is taken capriciously, to satisfy the will of a cruel priest who refuses to acknowledge his own ignorance! Your land would have had the same rains had you allowed your child to grow into a woman, to bear you grandchildren and to brighten the world through her natural days.”

  “Hummingbird…” Natac’s voice trailed into a whisper and he staggered out of the kitchen, pushing open doors to carry him onto another wide veranda. There were lofty mountains in the distance, but his eyes only vaguely registered the sight. Instead, his vision was focused inward, on memories of a black-haired innocent who had laughed upon his knee, who had garlanded her hair with flowers, who had, with heartbreaking solemnity that gradually grew into shrieking terror, been offered to the priests so that her family, her people, might be assured of steady rains.

  He lifted his eyes finally, looking across a verdant valley, into a region of mountains higher than any in his experience. Great cornices of snow curled along the lofty ridges, and even the swales were bright with white snowfields. Of course, the great volcanoes of Mexico were massive summits, and had frequently been crowned by snow, but never had he seen sharp peaks, jagged and stony summits such as marked this skyline.

  The mountains were dominated by a massif that must have challenged the very clouds. A huge block of gray-black stone, it was flat on the top and actually thinned to a narrow neck just below the peak. Farther down, the mountain broadened again, tumbling along steep slopes patched with snow, outcrops of rock, and verdant groves of pine trees.

  He heard footsteps behind and whirled to face the gray-haired woman, knowing that rage was twisting his face into a snarl, wanting to lash out violently against the new knowledge that seemed destined only to torment him. “Every man I killed in battle-and there were a hundred or more-I killed to the greater glory of the gods. I took countless prisoners, and their hearts were torn forth, and offered to the gods! And my nation was strong-it prospered, even in the face of the mighty Aztecs!”

  “Your nation was built on foolish cruelty and beliefs that were founded upon vile rot! Tlaxcala survived because the Aztec nation was just as foolish, and perhaps even more rotten at its core.”

  “No!” he shouted. Rage blurred his vision, flushed his mind with hatred and denial. Natac had never struck a woman, but now he came very close to attacking this aged female. His hands curled into trembling fists, and he forced himself to draw deep, calming breaths.

  “Where is Miradel?” he demanded.

  “There are more things you must learn before you find the answer to that question,” the old woman said. Somehow, he found her tone soothing, and his anger slowly dissipated into a consuming wave of despair.

  His focus gradually turned back to his surroundings. Again he noticed the blue lake, though now the valleys around the shore were cloaked in shadows. Indeed, the sky had paled, and twilight was creeping inward from the far horizon. Night was falling… but it was a different night than he knew.

  For one thing, his shadow, though pale, was still directly below him! Awestruck, he looked up, at a sun that was straight overhead, but seemed to be moving farther and farther away.

  4

  The Hour of Darken

  Sadness spirals.

  Lands unbalanced.

  Seas flee, in tangled sheets of storm.

  The ocean floor is dry.

  Swarm from Dissona, from Lignia, from Loamar, creatures of magic and fire creatures of fang and claw.

  Weeping, dying Nayve; there came a darkness drew a circle round the world.

  From the First Tapestry, Tales of the Time Before

  Even though it meant leaving the College an hour early, Belynda decided to make her way to the Mercury Terrace on foot rather than float through the air in her ambassador’s chair. She hadn’t gotten any work done all day-not since yesterday afternoon, as a matter of fact, when she had learned that Caranor was dead. Since then the sage-ambassador had been dazed and listless, numb even to any sensation of grief.

  How long had it been since she had known anyone who died? A hundred years, perhaps… that had been Waynekar, an elder teacher. He had taught her the ways of elvenkind as a child-and had taught her parents nine centuries before! At the time of his passing, and still now, the memory of Waynekar brought only a sense of fulfillment, as the cycle of his life had been rich and, ultimately, complete.

  But Caranor had died untimely, and by fire. Belynda could not imagine a more horrible circumstance. Why, then, was she not distraught by sorrow, tormented by grief and confusion?

  Or perhaps she was. Certainly she was not herself, she realized, as she found herself walking aimlessly through a small market. How had she wandered off the Avenue of Metal, which would have taken her directly to her destination? Shaking her head, she consulted her small compass. The needle pointed unerringly in the direction of metal, and thus she knew she had not drifted far from her course. There was the great Gallery of Light, with its myriad crystals and prisms whirling gently under the brightness of the sun. And just beyond was the Museum of Black Rock, where the ubiquitous group of goblins slouched about on the long, shiny porch.

  The road from the market curved around until it rejoined the main avenue, and she hurried along that wide street until she reached a hilltop from which she could see the Mercury Terrace and the dazzling waters of the lake beyond. A quick glance showed her that the sun had not yet begun to recede, so she paused for a moment to catch her breath.

  It amazed her that after living in this city for centuries, she still found it possible to get lost. Yet when she looked across Circle at Center she understood how. Walking through this great metropolis, the sprawling city that surrounded the Center of Everything, was more like walking through a forest than a community of buildings. Most of the homes belonged to elves, and every elf surrounded his dwelling-be it mansion or cottage-with a surfeit of greenery and blossoms. Trees lined streets which, with the exception of the Avenues of Metal and Wood, tended to wind and curve. Furthermore, this was a hilly island, and clustered in many groves and vales were neighborhoods of faeries and gnomes that no self-respecting elf would ever visit.

  The two causeways, of course, gave solid bearings. Too, the center of the island, a ring of hills higher than any others, was visible from any good vantage in the city. From here she could see the columned facade of the Senate, ringing nearly a third of the Center of Everyth
ing. And from beyond the great edifice jutted the long, silver spire of the Worldweaver’s Loom. She had been too distracted to notice the casting of the threads today, but she took comfort as always in the lofty tower and its symbolic protection.

  Conscious now of time passing, she made her way to the terrace. The streets were crowded, as they always were just before the Hour of Darken, but the crowds gave way readily at the sight of her sage’s robe. She found Tamarwind waiting before the terrace, leaning on a railing above the lake with his back to her. Touching his arm as she joined him, Belynda suddenly felt comfort in the physical contact with another person. Her fingers lingered for a moment as he turned around and smiled broadly.

  “No prettier sight in Nayve than twilight across the lake,” he proclaimed, putting his own hand over hers.

  “Indeed.” Belynda tried to relish the beauty, saw the fringe of darkness cresting the mountainous horizon as the sun began to recede. Highest of all the summits was the Anvil, with its flat, gray-black top and the narrowed neck of cliff below the broad summit. Now the fading of daylight had rimmed that massif in purple and vermillion, a combination that should have been breathtaking.

  Instead, she felt only that pervasive numbness.

  “Shall we get a table?” the sage-ambassador asked, trying to sound bright.

  “I’ve reserved one-though I think it was your name that got us the location,” Tamarwind said with a smile.

  She kept her hand on his arm, and he seemed to welcome the contact as the black-robed host-a tall elf with an expression of utmost serenity-glided across the plaza to give them a small table at the very edge of the terrace. The lake, now a brilliant lavender, sparkled and lapped below them.