Ancient Light

by Mary Gentle

  She knows me too well, I thought, and, I have never known Ruric Orhlandis ask anyone for help. As simply as that, I let the world, the Tower roof-garden, the evening sky, all slip away. Because there was a city seen in mist and silver …

  I remember:

  The darkness is profound, so great that I cannot see how high the walls are, or how far above is the ceiling of this great hall There is only the blackness of space and the abyss, I feel its coldness on my skin. The floor beneath my feet is a mirror-blackness, made of that rare chiruzeth that only the Imperial bloodline can shape. I see my frightened face reflected: the face of an old woman of the slave race.

  I raise my head. There is a little light, enough to show the bases of great pillars; yards in circumference, vanishing up into darkness. And –

  He is there.

  Steps rise to a dais. On it is a structure both throne and mausoleum, black chiruzeth, shaped over with vines and death’s-heads. Blue-and-lilac light from one floating sphere puts a shifting blackness in empty eye-sockets. And he rests back against that tomb-throne. His pale mane shines, his hands are gold dust. I see how he stares up into that infinite darkness: the last, lost heir of glory.

  Here is no echoing ritual chant, the ritual is forgotten. Here is no soft corruption waiting the knife. Here is only emptiness.

  A young male steps out of the shadows by the throne. His dark skin and mane proclaim him one of the slave race, but his eyes are yellow. He gathers round himself a robe that is all the colours of sunrise, and kneels down on the dais. His sibilant voice hisses in the vast emptiness of that hall:

  ‘Slave, come forward.’

  My old body aches. What shakes it is not age, but fear; and I hobble closer, and kneel down upon that mirror-darkness. I bow my head, and say no word.

  ‘————————————’

  The gold-dust hands clench; his head comes up in one animal-swift movement, and this is He: Santhendor’lin-sandru, Phoenix Emperor and Last Emperor. Speaking the tongue of the Imperial Golden race, that no slave woman should know. If he should think that I …

  And he stands, Santhendor’lin-sandru, a small, bright figure against the surrounding blackness. As I kneel at the foot of the dais, I see him raise his arms as if he can embrace that annihilation:

  ‘O my sister, my lover, my self! Because she has entered the city, a great race shall come to corruption; because she has entered the city, a cancer eats at the living flesh of it, a plague that cannot be stopped nor stayed! Of chiruzeth that was living, it makes a death. Of life it makes a silence and a stillness and a light … And from the cities it spreads out, irresistible; turns earth to crystal, and will not cease until all the earth is one sterile mirror, and only the wind moves, and blows silver dust across the face of it … O Zilkezra, great is thy praise!’

  Echoes die. For one moment I fear that power, fear that the old rituals can be reborn. An imminence is in the darkness. And yet the echoes of that ancient power are fading … And Santhendor’lin-sandru again takes his place on that dark throne. He signals briefly to the dark slave male. The dark-maned male lifts his head:

  ‘Hear the word of Santhendor’lin-sandru, Phoenix Emperor, in the great halls of Archonys. Hear his word! You are Our children, We created you from the beasts of this world. Now We go down into darkness, and you must follow. Now We go into darkness too bright for mortal sight; a brilliance that swallows up cities and earth and sea.’

  He bows his head to the floor, this Voice of the Emperor; and then raises himself again:

  ‘Hear the word of Santhendor’lin-sandru, you who have hidden yourselves away in corners of the world, seeking to end this. That ancient light dawns now upon the world. Once begun, it cannot be ended. Once created, it cannot be cured. Hear his word!’

  Fear pulses through me, blinds me so that I cannot see, can only sprawl prostrate on that icy floor. Echoes whisper in the abyss of darkness above. I have thought it was my eyes that watched him, this Emperor of a dying world; and can it be that he knows what we have sought to do?

  And suddenly there is a sound, a voice like the wind in dead leaves. It is he, the Last Emperor, speaking that tongue the Witchbreed do not deign to speak: the language of slaves:

  ‘Do you think We do not know you? You who skulk in corners, call yourself Master, passing your feeble memories from life to life … thinking that because We do not exterminate you like vermin, We do not know you …’

  I look up, past the prostrate and terrified form of the Voice of the Emperor. Santhendor’lin-sandru smiles: that hawk-face brilliant and cruel. That rusty voice whispers on:

  ‘Run, little animal, We will let you go. Run, hide. Seek out some lair in the south, in the Rasrhe-y-Meluur or the Elansiir. Use Our works, as you have done for uncounted ages, to pass on your little lives, one Master to another … This age is ending, and Our works will not outlive that ancient light. Your age-long life is at an end, little animal.’

  Some lair in the south. I am shaking too hard with fear to stand, or to speak. Does he know? Can he know what we are making, in terrible haste, in the south; a last attempt to kill the cancer that has been set in the flesh of this world –

  And Santhendor’lin-sandru gazes down from the mausoleum-throne. Black chiruzeth gleams in that light the colour of lilac and lightning. I can do nothing but look up at that face. His eyes are yellow, yellow as sunlight, as the eternal noon and infinite summer of Golden rule …

  ‘Try, little animal. Try to kill that living light. You may even halt it for a time, We will allow that. But you cannot hold it back forever. It cannot be killed. And soon, a few heartbeats or millennia, and you will join Us.’

  Far to the south is that structure later ages will call the Tower. Far to the south, we strive to hold back the devastation that eats away at this world …

  ‘Run, little animal. Run.’

  Now the dark male rises from the floor, gathering his sunrise-robes about him, and steps down from the dais. In his hand there is a flash of brilliance: a ritual knife:

  ‘Hear the word of Santhendor’lin-sandru, Phoenix Emperor, in the great halls of Archonys. Hear his word! You are to carry Our speech to your companions in the southern lands – but you are not to return to them unmarked …’

  ‘Christie. Christie S’aranth.’

  The vast dome of the sky arches over me, webbed with light, flowing with the brilliance of Orthe’s summer stars. The scent of kazsis-nightflower and arniac are chokingly strong. I can even look at my dirty human hands, and not lift them to wipe away the nightmares of blood hanging in my eyes …

  ‘S’aranth.’

  ‘Yes.’ A deep breath; some control. ‘You – I – the Hexenmeister should never have gone to him; too dangerous!’

  Ruric Orhlandis grinned, as she squatted on her haunches by me. ‘So long as the body comes living, or newly-dead, to the Tower, the memory-transfer can be made. You s’aranthi would say we need “living cells”. That isn’t accurate, but it’ll serve.’ She chuckled. ‘If I ever die outside, make sure my body gets back here! Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. Now it’s too dangerous. I don’t leave the Tower. Christie, are you all right?’

  Her chatter anchored me in physical reality. The Tower garden, the cold siir in ceramic bowls; the night winds blowing from the city. And, distant, blotting out stars, the Rasrhe-y-Meluur.

  ‘You’ll have to tell me one thing,’ I said. ‘How you managed to destroy ancient light –’

  And then I could only stare at her.

  ‘That’s right,’ Ruric said softly. ‘You know it. Ancient light can’t be destroyed. Not once it’s created. All we could do was hold it back. We are still holding it back. And, yes, that “radiation” that so interferes with your technology isn’t a result of war damage – it’s all that holds ancient light at bay. If you like, call it …’ she was plainly searching for Sino-Anglic terms ‘… a suppressor? Counter-radiation?’

  I was abruptly conscious of the Tower, a
ll the levels below me; created from Golden technology that no longer exists, and cannot now be reproduced …

  ‘It’s housed here,’ I said.

  Ruric stood up, stretching. She glanced down at me. ‘Here. Yes, here. And if that’s all you know, that’s all I’ll tell you. But now you know why, above all else, the Tower must survive. And now you know why I’m afraid.’

  27

  Silence, Stillness, Light

  Gravel scraped under my boots as I stood up. The night wind was warm against my face. Arniac rustled. I stumbled, unsteady, and the Orthean woman caught my arm. Above us the sky was a slow blaze of light; the Heart Stars, silver and crimson and blue; so thickly clustered that the edges of the Tower roof were a black silhouette against them. I looked up into that depth, that vastness … and had a sudden, almost physical comprehension of the thousands of years that have passed since the Empire fell.

  ‘All of it,’ I said, ‘the telestres, the Coast families, the Rainbow Cities, the Barrens – all of it growing up in those years, whole civilizations, not knowing what’s held back from them; that devastation …’

  Ruric let go of my arm, and brushed the black mane back from her face. There are some expressions unknown to those of us who live a single lifetime: hers was one. I felt isolated, alien.

  I said, ‘What about their past lives? Ortheans wouldn’t forget how Golden science works, and they wouldn’t forget that ancient light isn’t dead, only … quiescent.’

  The Orthean woman chuckled, and that was all Ruric, all Orhlandis. ‘Christie, my temper doesn’t improve either, when I’m scared … Very well, I’ll give you an answer, but you know it: the Witchbreed themselves could barely comprehend the science the Eldest Empire bequeathed to them, and they never let the slave races have much comprehension of it. Though it may be that we understood it better than our masters … And as for the others, they may have assumed that devastation had a natural limit, reached it, and so ceased.’

  Then, more soberly, she added, ‘It may be that they do know. I can’t say. There has been nothing they can do about it, except bury it so deeply they never think of it …’

  Silence hung over the roof-garden. That gravelled space, filled with stone tubs and arniac and kazsis-nightflower, so very like the roofs of Morvren and Tathcaer: too mundane, almost, for such revelations. And no robed Master to speak of it, only this middle-aged and crippled Orthean woman, dressed in plain britches and shirt, one sleeve knotted up; and with the scar of an exile on her face.

  A little whimsically, to gain time, I said, ‘And am I Hexenmeister now, or partly so?’

  The woman broke into a laugh. It’s the first thing I ever noticed about her, in that Residence eight years ago in Tathcaer: how her dark and sober face is illuminated by laughter, how those eyes almost physically glow.

  ‘No, S’aranth. You’ve touched the edges of it. I have a dozen apprentices here like you. Except that, being alien, you may still have some different reactions from ours … Still, you have the first stage. Not all.’

  Nearly 19.00; Douggie’s contact would be due. I stood indecisive, watching the face of amari Ruric Orhlandis, Ruric Hexenmeister.

  ‘All I have are memories, and memories aren’t always reliable. Ruric, you’re going to have to show me proof.’

  For all I’ve seen the satellite-images of devastation, the sterile wastelands of the Elansiir, the north Barrens, the Glittering Plain; for all that there is an atmospheric distortion that affects Earth technology – and for all that my memories of that crystalline death are so clear – still, I need proof. I will always need proof.

  Ruric, quite cheerfully, said, ‘You always were a suspicious old … now let me see, I have an Anglic vocabulary, what is the word I want?’

  ‘Er, I don’t think we want to go into that too deeply …’ Is it possible to laugh and shiver simultaneously? Her knowledge of that language comes from my mind, eight years ago … and her use of it is nothing but a smokescreen.

  ‘If you want my help, you have to show me proof.’

  ‘Christie, do you have any idea how hard it is for me to trust anyone?’

  I hear echoes in her voice of that old man who was Hexenmeister eight years ago, echoes of the T’An Commander of the Hundred Thousand, and of phrases that I myself use. How many others, how many generations, live now in her memory? She watches me, this alien woman: that six-fingered and claw-nailed hand clenching, the starlight bright on sharp-edged ribs and dry-textured skin. I wish I could follow telestre custom, groom out that tangled mane where it roots down her spine, comfort her as one Orthean comforts another. But I have only human hands.

  The Orthean woman fixed her eyes on my face. Then she nodded, once, and turned to walk back through the garden. I followed, almost taken by surprise. She said no word as we came to the Tower entrance. A brown-robed male ushered us down into the artificially-lit corridors, down into brown-walled chambers that I dimly remembered from my time here with Blaize and Rodion.

  ‘Ruric –’

  Without turning, she said, ‘This may be the most unwise thing I have ever done. Christie, I owe you a debt, eight years old. Prove I’m not as unwise in trusting you as you were in trusting me.’

  The Brown Tower is, like most things on the Coast, nine-tenths under the surface. I have myself been into levels that connect with the complex under the Rasrhe-y-Meluur. Now I expected us to go far below ground level, but instead the Orthean woman walked briskly through slick-walled corridors, past the library-room and its windows, to a chamber that would be perhaps one level below the city outside. A large chamber, low-roofed, with the same slick-textured brown walls; and I was about to comment, when I saw the brown-robe who stood at its entrance.

  ‘Give you greeting,’ I said. ‘Tethmet Fenborn.’

  The artificial illumination struck highlights from his skin, green-gold, with its fine, waterproof texture. Stick-thin limbs, hands with hooked claws – he is one of the aboriginal night-hunters that still exist in the Great Fens. Membrane blinked down over those large, dark eyes. He glanced at Ruric.

  ‘When you first brought her here, master, I warned you against her …’

  ‘Old friend, you don’t let me forget it; and now I’m about to do a thing you will like even less. See that no one disturbs us.’

  Both spoke in the language of the Fens. I had a brief memory (my own) of fever, exhaustion; mudflats and reeds and fenborn hunters. Putting it aside, I followed Ruric into the windowless room.

  Soft yellow light came from no discernible source. It illuminated stone benches, metal shelves, ridges of that wall-material that jutted out into platforms; blue-grey chiruzeth sarcophagi, like those in the ‘Archives’, many levels below … All the flat surfaces were swamped with piles of books, parchments, half-finished artifacts of wire and metal and crystal, earth-trays with plants just beginning to shoot, arniac bowls with a scum of liquid drying in them, broken mirrors …

  ‘Camouflage,’ I said. ‘Like the library-room that you keep for visitors. Am I right?’

  The dark woman grinned. ‘Only partially. I have been given to experimentation, over the years, but this is not where most of it was carried out.’ And then she became serious. ‘One thing I can show you, Christie. I was unwise enough, for a few generations after the fall of Empire, to experiment myself; see if there was not some way, still, of destroying ancient light. It had the result you might expect. I no longer experiment, because I no longer have the science to control what I create.’

  She walked between the piles of junk on the floor, to a chiruzeth tank not much smaller than those in the Archives.

  ‘I’ve seen something like this before,’ I realized. The resemblance was strong that octagonal hall in Rakviri telestre, where Barris Rakviri activated the growth of chiruzeth. About to join Ruric, I suddenly stopped.

  She looked up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something odd. If I were superstitious … No.’ Briefly, I explained what I meant; knowing she would remember simil
ar occurrences. ‘It’s just that there were four of us present at – participating in – that vision. Only a few months ago. And out of those four, three are now dead …

  ‘Barris was killed, Jaharien committed suicide – and this morning, in Kel Harantish, I saw Molly Rachel dead. Murdered.’ I met Ruric’s gaze, held it. ‘I will find out who’s responsible. I can’t let it pass.’ And thinking of that young woman, her body by now back on the orbiter in cryo-storage, makes coincidences trivial. I walked over to join Ruric at the tank.

  She said, ‘The past is not always as dead as it should be. And I don’t refer solely to “ancient light” – that’s the physical manifestation of … something quite other.’

  Black brilliant light. They fell in love with that bright shadow, Death –

  She walked round to the other side of the tank, opposite me. The black mane fell across her forehead as she looked down. Lines of strain showed round her eyes, and membrane slid across that yellow gaze. I at last recognized that strained stillness for what it was: fear.

  ‘I made this,’ she said bitterly. ‘It took me three generations, and was almost as foolhardy as showing it now to you, Christie S’aranth. Look.’

  The chiruzeth tank was half full of earth, and stunted shrub arniac, and withered del’ri. It was the pale earth of the Desert Coast, and that sourceless illumination cast a fuzzy shadow round each pebble and stick. A cluster of kekri-larvae squirmed beside a larger rock. A puddle of water glinted –

  a mark, a lichen, a flower; chiruzeth is turning under his hand to dead crystal; spreading as swiftly as a crack in a shattering mirror

  – no, not water, but light shining from a patch of stones and gravel that is clear now as glass; as crystalline, and as dead.

  ‘See.’ The dark Orthean woman put her hand on the edge of the chiruzeth tank. The air in the interior shimmered. A wave of heat hit me in the face; faster than the eye could follow came a flash of silver; I cried out – and all was still again.