by Dan Simmons
“There is a decision we have to make,” said Sol Weintraub. He rocked his infant and nodded in the direction of the Consul.
Martin Silenus had been resting his forehead on the mouth of the empty bottle of Scotch. He looked up. “The penalty for treason is death.” He giggled. “We’re all going to die within a few hours anyway. Why not make our last act an execution?”
Father Hoyt grimaced as a spasm of pain gripped him. He touched his cracked lips with a trembling finger. “We’re not a court.”
“Yes,” said Colonel Kassad, “we are.”
The Consul drew up his legs, rested his forearms on his knees, and laced his fingers. “Decide then.” There was no emotion in his voice.
Brawne Lamia had brought out her father’s automatic pistol. Now she set it on the floor near where she sat. Her eyes darted from the Consul to Kassad. “We’re talking treason here?” she said. “Treason toward what? None of us except maybe the Colonel there is exactly a leading citizen. We’ve all been kicked around by forces beyond our control.”
Sol Weintraub spoke directly to the Consul. “What you have ignored, my friend, is that if Meina Gladstone and elements of the Core chose you for the Ouster contact, they knew very well what you would do. Perhaps they could not have guessed that the Ousters had the means by which to open the Tombs—although with the AIs of the Core one can never know—but they certainly knew that you would turn on both societies, both camps which have injured your family. It is all part of some bizarre plan. You were no more an instrument of your own will than was”—he held the baby up—“this child.”
The Consul looked confused. He started to speak, shook his head instead.
“That may be correct,” said Colonel Fedmahn Kassad, “but however they may try to use all of us as pawns, we must attempt to choose our own actions.” He glanced up at the wall where pulses of light from the distant space battle painted the plaster blood red. “Because of this war, thousands will die. Perhaps millions. If the Ousters or the Shrike gain access to the Web’s farcaster system, billions of lives on hundreds of worlds are at risk.”
The Consul watched as Kassad raised the death wand.
“This would be faster for all of us,” said Kassad. “The Shrike knows no mercy.”
No one spoke. The Consul seemed to be staring at something at a great distance.
Kassad pressed on the safety and set the wand back in his belt. “We’ve come this far,” he said. “We will go the rest of the way together.”
Brawne Lamia put away her father’s pistol, rose, crossed the small space, knelt next to the Consul, and put her arms around him. Startled, the Consul raised one arm. Light danced on the wall behind them.
A moment later, Sol Weintraub came close and hugged them both with one arm around their shoulders. The baby wriggled in pleasure at the sudden warmth of bodies. The Consul smelled the talc-and-newborn scent of her.
“I was wrong,” said the Consul. “I will make a request of the Shrike. I will ask for her.” He gently touched Rachel’s head where the small skull curved in to neck.
Martin Silenus made a noise which began as a laugh and died as a sob. “Our last requests,” he said. “Does the muse grant requests? I have no request. I want only for the poem to be finished.”
Father Hoyt turned toward the poet. “Is it so important?”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes” gasped Silenus. He dropped the empty Scotch bottle, reached into his bag, and lifted out a handful of flimsies, holding them high as if offering them to the group. “Do you want to read it? Do you want me to read it to you? It’s flowing again. Read the old parts. Read the Cantos I wrote three centuries ago and never published. It’s all here. We’re all here. My name, yours, this trip. Don’t you see … I’m not creating a poem, I’m creating the future!” He let the flimsies fall, raised the empty bottle, frowned, and held it like a chalice. “I’m creating the future,” he repeated without looking up, “but it’s the past which must be changed. One instant. One decision.”
Martin Silenus raised his face. His eyes were red. “This thing that is going to kill us tomorrow—my muse, our maker, our unmaker—it’s traveled back through time. Well, let it. This time, let it take me and leave Billy alone. Let it take me and let the poem end there, unfinished for all time.” He raised the bottle higher, closed his eyes, and threw it against the far wall. Glass shards reflected orange light from the silent explosions.
Colonel Kassad stepped closer and laid long fingers on the poet’s shoulder.
For a few seconds the room seemed warmed by the mere fact of human contact. Father Lenar Hoyt stepped away from the wall where he had been leaning, raised his right hand with thumb and little finger touching, three fingers raised, the gesture somehow including himself as well as those before him, and said softly, “Ego te absolvo.”
Wind scraped at the outer walls and whistled around the gargoyles and balconies. Light from a battle a hundred million kilometers away painted the group in blood hues.
Colonel Kassad walked to the doorway. The group moved apart.
“Let’s try to get some sleep,” said Brawne Lamia.
Later, alone in his bedroll, listening to the wind shriek and howl, the Consul set his cheek against his pack and pulled the rough blanket higher. It had been years since he had been able to fall asleep easily.
The Consul set his curled fist against his cheek, closed his eyes, and slept.
EPILOGUE
The Consul awoke to the sound of a balalaika being played so softly that at first he thought it was an undercurrent of his dream.
The Consul rose, shivered in the cold air, wrapped his blanket around him, and went out onto the long balcony. It was not yet dawn. The skies still burned with the light of battle.
“I’m sorry,” said Lenar Hoyt, looking up from his instrument. The priest was huddled deep in his cape.
“It’s all right,” said the Consul. “I was ready to awaken.” It was true. He could not remember feeling more rested. “Please continue,” he said. The notes were sharp and clear but barely audible above the wind noise. It was as if Hoyt was playing a duet with the cold wind from the peaks above. The Consul found the clarity almost painful.
Brawne Lamia and Colonel Kassad came out. A minute later Sol Weintraub joined them. Rachel twisted in his arms, reaching toward the night sky as if she could grasp the bright blossoms there.
Hoyt played. The wind was rising in the hour before dawn, and the gargoyles and escarpments acted like reeds to the Keep’s cold bassoon.
Martin Silenus emerged, holding his head. “No fucking respect for a hangover,” he said. He leaned on the broad railing. “If I barf from this height, it’ll be half an hour before the vomitus lands.”
Father Hoyt did not look up. His fingers flew across the strings of the small instrument. The northwest wind grew stronger and colder and the balalaika played counterpart, its notes warm and alive. The Consul and the others huddled in blankets and capes as the breeze grew to a torrent and the unnamed music kept pace with it. It was the strangest and most beautiful symphony the Consul had ever heard.
The wind gusted, roared, peaked, and died. Hoyt ended his tune.
Brawne Lamia looked around. “It’s almost dawn.”
“We have another hour,” said Colonel Kassad.
Lamia shrugged. “Why wait?”
“Why indeed?” said Sol Weintraub. He looked to the east where the only hint of sunrise was the faintest of palings in constellations there. “It looks like a good day is coming.”
“Let’s get ready,” said Hoyt. “Do we need our luggage?”
The group looked at one another.
“No, I think not,” said the Consul. “The Colonel will bring the comlog with the fatline communicator. Bring anything necessary for your audience with the Shrike. Well leave the rest of the stuff here.”
“All right,” said Brawne Lamia, turning back from the dark doorway, gesturing toward the others, “let’s do it.”
Th
ere were six hundred and sixty-one steps from the northeast portal of the Keep to the moor below. There were no railings. The group descended carefully, watching their step in the insecure light.
Once onto the valley floor, they looked back at the outcrop of stone above. Chronos Keep looked like part of the mountain, its balconies and external stairways mere slashes in the rock. Occasionally a brighter explosion would illuminate a window or throw a gargoyle shadow, but except for those instances it was as if the Keep had vanished behind them.
They crossed the low hills below the Keep, staying on grass and avoiding the sharp shrubs which extended thorns like claws. In ten minutes they had crossed to sand and were descending low dunes toward the valley.
Brawne Lamia led the group. She wore her finest cape and a red silk suit with black trim. Her comlog gleamed on her wrist. Colonel Kassad came next. He was in full battle armor, camouflage polymer not yet activated so the suit looked matte black, absorbing even the light from above. Kassad carried a standard-issue FORCE assault rifle. His visor gleamed like a black mirror.
Father Hoyt wore his black cape, black suit, and clerical collar. The balalaika was cradled in his arms like a child. He continued to set his feet carefully, as if each step caused pain. The Consul followed. He was dressed in his diplomatic best, starched blouse, formal black trousers and demi-jacket, velvet cape, and the gold tricorne he had worn the first day on the treeship. He had to keep a grip on the hat against the wind that had come up again, hurling grains of sand in his face and sliding across the dune tops like a serpent. Martin Silenus followed close behind in his coat of wind-rippled fur.
Sol Weintraub brought up the rear. Rachel rode in the infant carrier, nestled under the cape and coat against her father’s chest. Weintraub was singing a low tune to her, the notes lost in the breeze.
Forty minutes out and they had come even with the dead city. Marble and granite gleamed in the violent light. The peaks glowed behind them, the Keep indistinguishable from the other mountainsides. The group crossed a sandy vale, climbed a low dune, and suddenly the head of the valley of the Time Tombs was visible for the first time. The Consul could make out the thrust of the Sphinx’s wings and a glow of jade.
A rumble and crash from far behind them made the Consul turn, startled, his heart pounding.
“Is it beginning?” asked Lamia. “The bombardment?”
“No, look,” said Kassad. He pointed to a point above the mountain peaks where blackness obliterated the stars. Lightning exploded along that false horizon, illuminating icefields and glaciers. “Only a storm,” he said.
They resumed their trek across vermilion sands. The Consul found himself straining to make out the shape of a figure near the Tombs or at the head of the valley. He was certain beyond all certainty that something awaited them there … that it awaited.
“Look at that,” said Brawne Lamia, her whisper almost lost in the wind.
The Time Tombs were glowing. What the Consul had first taken to be light reflected from above was not. Each Tomb glowed a different hue and each was clearly visible now, the glow brightening, the Tombs receding far back into the darkness of the valley. The air smelled of ozone.
“Is that a common phenomenon?” asked Father Hoyt, his voice thin.
The Consul shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It had never been reported at the time Rachel came to study the Tombs,” said Sol Weintraub. He began to hum the low tune as the group started forward again through shifting sands.
They paused at the head of the valley. Soft dunes gave way to rock and ink-black shadows at the swale which led down to the glowing Tombs. No one led the way. No one spoke. The Consul felt his heart beating wildly against his ribs. Worse than fear or knowledge of what lay below was the blackness of spirit which seemed to have come into him on the wind, chilling him and making him want to run screaming toward the hills from which they had come.
The Consul turned to Sol Weintraub. “What’s that tune you’re singing to Rachel?”
The scholar forced a grin and scratched his short beard. “It’s from an ancient flat film. Pre-Hegira. Hell, it’s pre-everything.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Brawne Lamia, understanding what the Consul was doing. Her face was very pale.
Weintraub sang it, his voice thin and barely audible at first. But the tune was forceful and oddly compelling. Father Hoyt uncradled the balalaika and played along, the notes gaining confidence.
Brawne Lamia laughed. Martin Silenus said in awe, “My God, I used to sing this in my childhood. It’s ancient.”
“But who is the wizard?” asked Colonel Kassad, the amplified voice through his helmet oddly amusing in this context.
“And what is Oz?” asked Lamia.
“And just who is off to see this wizard?” asked the Consul, feeling the black panic in him fade ever so slightly.
Sol Weintraub paused and tried to answer their questions, explaining the plot of a flat film which had been dust for centuries.
“Never mind,” said Brawne Lamia. “You can tell us later. Just sing it again.”
Behind them, the darkness had engulfed the mountains as the storm swept down and across the moors toward them. The sky continued to bleed light but now the eastern horizon had paled slightly more than the rest. The dead city glowed to their left like stone teeth.
Brawne Lamia took the lead again. Sol Weintraub sang more loudly, Rachel wiggling in delight. Lenar Hoyt threw back his cape so as to better play the balalaika. Martin Silenus threw an empty bottle far out onto the sands and sang along, his deep voice surprisingly strong and pleasant above the wind.
Fedmahn Kassad pushed up his visor, shouldered his weapon, and joined in the chorus. The Consul started to sing, thought about the absurd lyrics, laughed aloud, and started again.
Just where the darkness began, the trail broadened. The Consul moved to his right, Kassad joining him, Sol Weintraub filling the gap, so that instead of a single-file procession, the six adults were walking abreast. Brawne Lamia took Silenus’s hand in hers, joined hands with Sol on the other side.
Still singing loudly, not looking back, matching stride for stride, they descended into the valley.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DAN SIMMONS’s first novel, Song of Kali, won the World Fantasy Award, his science fiction novel Hyperion received the Hugo, and the Horror Writers of America awarded him its highest honor for his novel Carrion Comfort. Simmons is also the author of Phases of Gravity, Hugo and Nebula Awards finalist The Fall of Hyperion, The Hollow Man, and two collections of short fiction, Prayers to Broken Stones and Lovedeath. He lives in Colorado along the front range of the Rockies.
Turn the page for a special preview of
ENDYMION
by
Dan Simmons
Dan Simmon’s brilliant novels Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are among the most thunderously applauded science fiction creations of recent years. Now the author returns to the world of Hyperion to complete the tale of mankind’s destiny among the stars. Endymion begins 247 years after the events of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. In the opening scenes, previewed here, you will see how shepherd Raul Endymion becomes a convicted murderer. Soon the ancient poet Martin Silenius will choose the discredited Endymion to be the bodyguard to the next messiah: Aenea, the girl who stepped backward in time in Hyperion, whose message will change humankind’s fate. This novel, along with its companion volume, The Rise of Endymion, is woven across the fabric of a hundred worlds and a fantastic mix of races and individuals rarely encountered in a single tale—including, of course, the horrifying Shrike, part prophet and part killing machine, whose origin and purpose will at long last be revealed. Don’t miss ENDYMION; from Bantam Spectra Books.
ONE
You are reading this for the wrong reason.
If you are reading this to learn what it was like to make love to a messiah—our messiah—then you should not read on because you are little more than a voyeur.
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If you are reading this because you are a fan of the Old Poet’s Cantos and are obsessed with curiosity about what happened next in the lives of the Hyperion pilgrims, you will be disappointed. I do not know what happened to most of them. They lived and died more than two centuries before I was born.
If you are reading this because you seek more insight into the message from the One Who Teaches, you may also be disappointed. I confess that I was more interested in her as a woman than as a teacher or messiah.
Finally, if you are reading this to discover her fate or even my fate, you are reading the wrong document. Although both our fates seem as certain as anyone’s could be, I was not with her when hers was played out, and my own awaits the final act even as I write these words.
If you are reading this at all, I would be amazed. But this would not be the first time that events have amazed me. The past few years have been one improbability after another, each more marvelous and seemingly inevitable than the last. To share these memories is the reason that I am writing. Perhaps the motivation is not even to share—knowing that the document I am creating almost certainly will never be found—but just to put down the series of events so that I can structure them in my own mind.
“How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” wrote some pre-Hegira writer. Precisely. I must see these things in order to know what to think of them. I must see the events turned to ink and the emotions in print to believe that they actually occurred and touched me.
If you are reading this for the same reason that I am writing it—to bring some pattern out of the chaos of the last years, to impose some order on the essentially random series of events that have ruled our lives for the past standard decades—then you may be reading this for the right reason after all.
Where to start? With a death sentence, perhaps. But whose—my death sentence or hers? And if mine, which of mine? There are several from which to choose. Perhaps this final one is appropriate. Begin at the ending.
