Incarnations of Immortality

by Anthony, Piers

  Therefore you need me more than she does. No woman ever truly needed me before.

  But this made no sense, she protested. No one would choose another to love because of a weakness!

  No woman would, he agreed. But a man-desires a dependent woman. Whatever he might say to the contrary. A man wanted his woman all to himself. It wasn't nice, it wasn't generous, but that was what he most truly desired-when his illusions were stripped away. A lovely, talented, and completely dependent woman.

  And while her confusion swirled about them, he shifted his body, encountering no resistance, and took her in the manner they both desired. The storm intensified, obliterating all else, carrying them both into the rapture of their passion, the physical expression of their love.

  Then they emerged into the center of the storm-and it was completely calm, a region very like nirvana. For a thousand years they floated there, gently sharing their unbound love. The intense ecstasy of the breakthrough had become the enduring pleasure of complete acceptance, physical, emotional, and mental, and the latter was more wonderful than the former. Then it was morning.

  They spent the remainder of the month as true honeymooners, going hand in hand by day, sharing a bed by night. They shared thoughts, coming to know all the details of each other's existences. They agreed that they would be married as soon as was feasible, but would keep company in the interim. It had been a desperation measure of the two Rajahs, sending them unwed to the Honeymoon Castle, because of course it guaranteed that the bride would not be virginal-but this was, after all, the twentieth century, and the rulers of nations did what they deemed expedient, regardless of the ancient proprieties. A contraceptive spell would keep Rapture from becoming prematurely pregnant; that would suffice.

  "But Orb," she inquired, concerned. "What of her?" "I gave her my magic serpent-ring," he sang. "It always informs its user of the truth, if asked. I have no doubt she knew of my defection long before I did. She had only to ask it 'Will Mym return?' and it would squeeze twice. Two years have passed; she may already have found another man. I sincerely regret putting her through this business, but she knows that I loved her when I was taken from her, that I intended to return to her, but was prevented."

  "By another love," Rapture said pensively. "That I would prefer to spare her-but surely she knew it also, if she wanted to. My respect and feeling for her has not really been changed; it has merely been superseded. But I think it will be best if I do not see her again."

  "Perhaps I should see her, to explain-"

  "No. She knows-if she wants to. We must leave her to her own life, which will surely be a rich one. With the ring, she may be able to find the Llano, the song she sought; that much, at least, I may have done for her."

  "If you are sure-"

  "You fought to protect her, to avoid diverting my love from her," he reminded her. "You meant to kill yourself. But it happened anyway, because you are what you are, and I am what I am, and the Castle is what it is. We have a new reality, and I would not change it now if I had the power."

  "Still I feel guilt-"

  "And I feel it when you feel it. But I think it will pass."

  5 -

  And by the time the month was done, it had passed.

  In the interim, Gujarat and Maharastra were allied, and this well served the political interests of both. Mym plunged into the business of the Kingdom, for . with his commitment to the betrothal had come his participation in contemporary matters. He would be the next Rajah and he had only three years to gain some solid experience. He talked in singsong, to avoid the stutter, and if any person thought that was funny, that person concealed his opinion most carefully, for the Rajah had issued a notice that any person caught making light of any other person's manner of speaking would be summarily beheaded. On the first day Mym had gone out, a man had laughed at a comment made by another, probably on some unrelated subject; the cavalrymen had charged into the crowd, knocking down those who failed to scurry clear, and lopped off the laugher's head-and that of his companion for good measure. Now no one found any subject the slightest bit humorous while Prince Pride was in the area.

  Gujarat was not in ideal shape. There was a great deal of poverty, and some starvation in the nether castes. The problems were dual; a bad drought in the central region that had disrupted the rice harvest; and overpopulation along the coast. It would have been difficult to feed all those people if the harvest had been good; as it was, it was impossible.

  Mym floated his royal carpet to the most distressed region. There he saw people spread out on the ground, having no place to go and no ability to work. Officers of the Kingdom were dispensing soup, but it was thin and insufficient; it only extended lives, without reversing then course. The distribution was being done in a fair and orderly manner; there simply was not enough soup to do the job.

  Mym thought of the two years he had spent confined to the palace. He had been served the rarest delicacies, which he had not appreciated, and all his servants and concubines had been excellently fed. Now he cursed himself for his selfish neglect of the Kingdom, where the present situation had been developing. Had he done his duty earlier and been on the job where he belonged, he might well have been able to accomplish some amelioration of misery. How many good citizens had starved to death, while Mym had taunted his father with his refusal to do his duty?

  As he stood surveying the ugly situation, he saw a figure walking among the dying. He signaled a minister, who hurried forward. "Who is that man?" Mym inquired.

  The minister looked, but was baffled. "Prince, whom do you mean? I see none but the dying on their pallets."

  "That man in the ebony-black cape," Mym sang.

  The minister gazed again, his brow furrowed. "I see no such man."

  Mym had had enough of this. He strode forward, the minister scurrying after him. He approached the caped figure, who was leaning over one of the pallets. "You!" he called in his fashion. "Identify yourself!"

  The figure ignored him. Angry at this contempt, Mym confronted him face to face. "Speak, or suffer the consequence!" he sang.

  Slowly the figure raised his head. Under the cowl, the face took form. It was emaciated beyond belief, a virtual skull, the eyes sunken and the teeth protruding. "You perceive me?" the strange man asked.

  Mym was taken aback. This was obviously no ordinary person! "Of course I see you! I want to know who you are and what business you have here!"

  The hollow eyes seemed to focus more specifically on him. The mouth-orifice opened. "I am Famine."

  "Famine!" Mym exclaimed. "What kind of a name is that?"

  "The name of my office."

  "Office?" Mym demanded. He turned to the minister. "What do you know of this?"

  The minister looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Prince Heir, certainly there is famine. This is why we are here. I confess I do not understand your reference to an office."

  "The office this man who calls himself Famine refers to!" Mym sang angrily.

  The discomfort intensified. "My Lord, I see no man."

  "Th-th-this one h-here!" Mym exclaimed, forgetting to sing. He reached out to touch the gaunt finger, not caring that the man was probably casteless.

  His hand passed through the figure, encountering no resistance.

  Mym paused, taking stock. "You are an apparition?" he asked Famine.

  "I am the Incarnation of Famine, the associate of War, on a temporary mission for Death," the figure said.

  "And no one else can see you?"

  "I do not know why you can see me," Famine confessed. "Normally no mortal can perceive an Incarnation, unless he has intimate business with that Incarnation."

  "Well, I am concerned about the starvation occurring here," Mym sang. "I need to ascertain the extent of the problem and decide how best to alleviate it. Do you have advice on that?"

  "Feed your people," Famine said, with a grisly grin.

  "How? We have neither food nor sufficient distribution facilities."

  "I
do not give advice; I merely invoke the consequence."

  "Well, put me through to your superior, then," Mym sang, angrily, while the minister backed surreptitiously away, deeming him crazy.

  Famine made some kind of magical gesture, "I have summoned Thanatos," he said. Then he faded, until there was nothing to see.

  Mym glanced about and saw the minister retreating.

  "Hold!" he snapped, and the minister, still greatly ill at ease, paused. "I have just spoken with the Incarnation of Famine and am about to speak with the Incarnation of Death. You will remain."

  "As my lord wishes," the minister said nervously. It was evident that he would have preferred to be anywhere but here.

  There was a flurry in the sky, and a figure appeared.

  Quickly it approached. It was a beautiful pale horse, galloping through the air without benefit of wings, bearing a cloaked rider. The horse drew to a halt before Mym, snorting vapor, and the rider dismounted.

  If Famine had been gaunt, Thanatos was completely skeletal. His bone-fingered hand extended. "Greetings, Prince," the skullface said.

  Mym took the hand. The bones were bare but firm. "Greetings, Thanatos. Um-would it be too much to ask that you make yourself visible to the minister, here? He thinks I'm hallucinating."

  Thanatos turned to the minister. "Greetings, Minister," he said.

  The minister's mouth sagged open. "G-G-Gre-" he began.

  "Try singing it," Mym suggested in singsong.

  Thanatos faced again toward Mym. "My associate asked me to speak with you."

  "I am concerned with the suffering here," Mym sang. "I want to alleviate it, but am bound about by circumstances I can not adequately control. I thought that, since you have an interest in this matter, you might proffer advice."

  Thanatos lifted his skeletal wrist and touched a heavy watch there. Abruptly the scene froze. The minister's look of shock remained unchanging on his face; the clouds in the sky stopped moving. Smoke from a distant fire became stationary. Nothing moved, except for Thanatos, Mym, and the great pale horse.

  "The fact that you are able to perceive Incarnations suggests that you relate to us," Thanatos said. "Therefore I will explore this matter. Chronos will know." He touched his watch again-and suddenly a figure cloaked in white stood with them, holding up a large, glowing hourglass.

  "Yes, Thanatos," the new figure said. He appeared to be a normal man. "And Mars. Good to encounter you both again."

  "Mars?" Mym asked.

  "Mars?" Thanatos echoed, seeming equally perplexed.

  "Oh, hasn't he taken office yet?" Chronos asked. "I regret my slip. I travel in the opposite direction, you know. I will erase the episode."

  "No!" Mym cried, in his stress not stuttering. "Ignorance has brought enough mischief already! I will keep the secret, if that's what it is. What has Mars to do with this?"

  Chronos exchanged a glance with Thanatos, then shrugged. "Your problem here is war. War diverts necessary resources wastefully, so that food is destroyed instead of feeding the hungry. To alleviate misery like this, you must first abolish war. Since you are to become Mars, the Incarnation of War, you should be in a position to deal with this."

  "I-become Mars?" Mym asked, dumbfounded. "But I have a Kingdom to run, a bride to marry!"

  "Well, I suppose you could turn the office down," Chronos said. "Nothing is fixed, and certainly the reality I remember can become another reality. But if you are serious about alleviating suffering in the world-"

  Mym looked out over the pallets, each bearing a starving person-men, women and children. "I must stop this!" he said.

  "Then the opportunity will be yours," Chronos said. "I am glad that the future is not to change in this respect; I have enjoyed working with you and will be sorry to see you depart-though of course that is not the way you perceive it."

  "You-live backwards?" Mym asked, returning to his singsong as the stutter threatened. "From the future to the past?"

  "True. You would think that after a decade or two, I would remember that things are opposite for the rest of you-but every so often I slip." He turned to Thanatos. "Just how long ago was the change in the Mars office made? I have been absorbed by other matters and entirely overlooked the event."

  "It hasn't happened yet," Thanatos said.

  Chronos grimaced. "There I go again! Of course you have not yet seen the change. I've been jumping about so much, including an interaction with Mars, here, that-" He shook his head. "What was the reason you summoned me?"

  "I believe you have answered the question already," Thanatos said. "I was curious why this mortal could perceive Incarnations. Since you advise us that he is to become one, this becomes clear."

  "Glad to have been of help in that case." The hourglass brightened, and Chronos disappeared.

  "If he lives backwards," Mym asked, "why aren't his words backwards?"

  "He controls time," Thanatos explained. "He simply reverses it for himself, so as to align with our frame, for a short period. But as you saw, these constant reversals can lead to confusion at times. He's a good man and an effective Incarnation, but Fate is the only one of us who really understands him. Now if your question has been answered-"

  "Wait! No! It hasn't!" Mym sang. "I don't know anything about becoming the Incarnation of War some time in the future! I only want to alleviate the suffering I see here and now!"

  "You are taking the short view," Thanatos cautioned him. "When you become Mars, as Chronos said, you will be in a position to accomplish the alleviation you seek."

  "But that won't help these starving folk now!"

  Thanatos nodded. "True. In the interest of good relations between Incarnations, I will summon one who may help you now." He faced into the sky. "Gaea-will you answer?"

  "Gaea?" Mym asked. All of this was highly confusing.

  The air seemed to be thickening about them. Thin mist formed. It became fog, then a smoke-like formation that coalesced into a vaguely human shape. The details clarified into those of a large, solid woman dressed in green. "Thanatos," she answered.

  "This man, at the moment mortal, is to assume the office of Mars at a later date," Thanatos said. "Chronos mentioned it. But right now, there is a concern about the folk here who are starving."

  Gaea considered Mym. "In that case, it behooves me to oblige him. I can improve the local climate, so that the crops flourish-"

  "That would require at least a season," Mym sang. "These here will all be dead by then."

  She considered. "Then I will provide manna."

  She stretched out her arms, became fog, and dissipated. "Manna?" Mym sang, even more perplexed than he had been.

  "Gaea's ways can be strange," Thanatos said.

  The thinning fog settled to the ground and coalesced. Mym stooped and scooped up a bit of the residue on a finger. He put it to his mouth, tasting it. "Manna?" he repeated.

  "Perhaps the concept is not in your legends," Thanatos said. "In the Judeo-Christian mythos, it is a nutritious substance that appears on the ground. I suspect it is some kind of rapidly reproducing fungus."

  "Food," Mym breathed, understanding.

  "I suspect you owe Gaea a favor," Thanatos murmured. Then he mounted his pale horse, touched his watch, and rode off into the sky.

  The scene returned to life. "Set men to collecting the manna," Mym sang to the minister. The man did not even try to argue; he got on it, evidently understanding very little of this development.

  In this manner a number of starving people were fed. The manna came every day and fed them all, and no one quite understood this phenomenon, except perhaps Mym himself. But he had a number of serious questions about the larger picture. He-to become the Incarnation of War? Not if he could help it! He had business to complete as a mortal. Yet the plight of the starving people had touched him deeply, and if there were some way to eliminate this kind of misery in the future-

  Time passed, and no further supernatural manifestations occurred. He began to believe that his
encounter with Famine, Death, Time, and Nature had been a hallucination, and the manna a coincidence. Rapture of Malachite remained loving and dependent, and he took hold of the reins of government with increasing competence as his direct experience grew. The Rajah sent him on missions to other nations and to other parts of the world, so that he could work on the broader scale to benefit his Kingdom.

  He discovered himself to be surprisingly effective at this type of endeavor. He took Rapture with him to speak for him, literally. She was beautiful, so that none of the old men who ran the other nations objected to her presence, and she was trained in all the graces of royalty, so that the old men's wives found her compatible. But mainly, she understood Mym; he could convey his meaning to her by a few gestures and facial expressions and some faintly hummed words, and she would translate these to exquisitely rendered English. Since international dialogues often required the intercession of translators, no one found it remarkable that this handsome young prince of a nation of India used one, and some did not even realize that it was because of his stutter, not his ignorance of the language, that this was so.

  But Gujarat's most pressing need was for modernization, and for that it required money. This meant a loan from Uncle Sugar to the West.

  Mym pondered the matter. He realized that even Uncle Sugar expected some minimal quid pro quo. What did a poverty-stricken, backward kingdom like Gujarat have to offer in return for money?

  Mym came to a conclusion. He took Rapture and went to brace the Rajah. "My beloved says he can get a loan of one billion dollars from the West," she announced brightly.

  The Rajah almost did a double-take. He had evidently not appreciated just how well Mym and Rapture worked together. Normally women did not speak on matters of government, as they were, in the Rajah's view, incompetent for such matters. But after all the effort he had gone to gain Mym's agreement to the betrothal, he was glad to tolerate Rapture in whatever manner she manifested. "And how should this miracle be achieved?" he asked.

  She glanced at Mym, who hummed, "Base."

  "There is a military base that-" she began.