Book of Silence tlod-4

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  The Forgotten King smiled, the Pallid Mask twisting to fit his face, and Garth realized, even before the first rumbling began, what his part in the final ritual had been. He had been destined, all along, to plunge the Sword of Bheleu into the heart of the King in Yellow.

  He stared in horror at the mask. Something was happening to the King; his blood was evaporating from the sword, and his body was fading, thinning away to nothing. The mask was melting into the flesh of his face, blending with it, reshaping itself; it sank back against the bone of the old man's skull, pulling itself tight.

  The King's yellow mantle fell open, and Garth tried to scream at the sight of what lay beneath, but something had happened to the flow of time; he was unable to move normally. An eternity wound itself past him and through him as his mouth came open.

  The King in Yellow turned insubstantial and seemed simultaneously to grow and shrink, departing from Garth's presence in some impossible direction. He was no longer more than a vague caricature of a human being. His head was a fleshless, grinning skull, the mask indissolubly joined; his fingers were gleaming bone, his whole being somehow smoky and indistinct.

  Then he was gone, and Garth remained frozen in an instant of distorted time, waiting for his own death.

  The Sword of Bheleu was still held out before him, impaling the space where the King had been; and now, as Garth watched, his mouth still opening in his need to scream, the blade puffed away in glittering, luminous powder, and the gem in the pommel burst into a shower of crystal, light, and blood. The grip crumbled away, and his hands were empty.

  He became aware of a deep rumbling all around him.

  He felt himself standing in the temple, suddenly conscious of every instant, of every action of his body. He felt his heart pumping blood, an age passing between each beat, felt his muscles contracting, and waited for it all to stop, waited to die.

  It did not stop. Time dragged on, horribly elongated. He felt eldritch energy whirling about him, filling the air.

  Then, abruptly, it was over-but he was not dead.

  He stood in the cave that had been the temple of Death, his mouth open as if to scream, but the need to cry out had passed. His mind was clear and calm. The air was still, and the forces that had filled it with tension were gone. The sword of the thing that had called itself the god of destruction was gone. The old man who had called himself the Forgotten King was gone. The strange pale mask was gone, and the old book on the altar as well. Nothing remained but a hollowed-out cave, its walls carved into ugly friezes. A dull rumbling still persisted.

  Behind him, a voice said, "So it's finally over."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Garth whirled, reaching automatically for the dagger on his belt.

  An old woman stood in the entryway; she wore heavy robes, their color indistinguishable in the dim red glow that lit the cave-aglow that seemed brighter than Garth remembered it. He attributed that to the distorting effects of whatever he had just gone through.

  The woman smiled cheerfully at him, looking utterly harmless despite the eerie light, but Garth was not comforted by her expression. He noticed, rather, that he was unable to focus clearly upon her face. Her features appeared to shift-subtly as he watched.

  "Who are you?" he demanded.

  "I am Weida, goddess of wisdom and learning," the old woman replied, crossing her arms over her chest-or perhaps they had already been crossed, Garth could not be certain. He wondered if something was wrong with his vision, or if the weird events of the last few moments had addled his brain. Nothing else was affected; the walls were as solid as ever. It was only the old woman whose appearance was uncertain.

  Even so, he relaxed somewhat. She might be a wizard of some sort, but she was obviously mad, and probably harmless. He guessed that she was a survivor of the plague who had wandered into the temple by accident. The absurdity of her presence was such a relief after the terrifying experience he had just undergone that he smiled broadly.

  "I really am Weida," the woman insisted. "Observe."

  She vanished.

  Garth's smile vanished as well.

  She reappeared again, seeming to coalesce from motes of dust. "I know," she said. "It's a trick any good magician could probably have managed a few days ago, but honestly, I really am Weida, and I am one of the Arkhein, what you would consider a minor goddess."

  "If you are a goddess," Garth asked slowly, though he was still not ready to accept the idea, "then why are you still alive? Did not Bheleu and all the others perish? What else could it mean, when the Sword of Bheleu crumbled and the Book of Silence vanished?"

  Before the woman could speak, he added, "For that matter, why am I still alive?"

  "Why shouldn't we be alive?" She smiled, her face shimmering as she did, and for an instant Garth thought he saw the image of Ao, one of the Wise Women of Ordunin. Before the overman could protest, she went on. "No, never mind. I know what you're thinking-that's my province, after all. You thought that all the world would end, all the gods would die, when the King in Yellow completed the ritual. The King thought so, too. It may be that he convinced himself that would be the case, back when he first realized he would prefer death to unending life; he couldn't stand the thought of anything living on after him."

  That sounded plausible, but Garth objected. "What about all the prophecies? Everyone agreed that the Forgotten King would live until the end of time! That was the bargain he made with the gods!"

  "It was the bargain that deceived the oracles and prophets. The bargain was fulfilled, in a way, and the Forgotten King did live until the end of time. The problem lies in the exact meaning of that phrase. You must understand it, not in mortal terms, but in the way the gods meant it. It is not `the end of time,' where `time' is a common noun, but `the end of Time,' where `Time' is a proper noun, the name of a god. The King could not die so long as the gods that had given him immortality still lived-all three of those gods. He was not given eternal life by the Death-God alone, nor even by Death and Life in partnership, but by Death, Life, and Time-the god you knew as Dagha. It was Dagha-Time that created the Lords of Eir and Dыs, who in turn created the world and everything in it-myself included, and much less directly, you as well. And it was Dagha that ended when the King completed his spell."

  Garth grappled with this explanation for a moment, then asked, "But how can the world exist if time is no more? How can I move? How can we speak?"

  "Time still exists; it is Dagha who is no more. Dagha created time, but does that mean that the two must perish together? When a house-carpenter dies, do all his houses fall in? We are more than the dreams of the gods; though they created the world, it has an existence of its own. Dagha, itself, misunderstood this; it was incapable of conceiving of our world continuing after the fourteen gods who had created it ceased to be."

  "The fourteen gods are truly gone, then?"

  "Oh, yes; they had no real independent existence of their own. They were not so much Dagha's dreams, perhaps, as parts of itself-concepts that Dagha split off from itself. They couldn't exist beyond Dagha; each merged with his or her opposite and returned to the nothingness that brought them forth."

  Garth considered this. "But then why," he asked, "do you still exist, if you're a goddess?" He was beginning to believe the woman's claim to divinity; her knowledge of the King's passing, and the calm rationality of her explanations, did not accord with his theory of a mad wizard.

  "Dagha didn't create me from nothingness, Garth; Leuk and Pria did. Dagha, self-obsessed and self-contained, could not create anything directly that could have an independent life of its own, but the fragments it broke off and gave names to were not so restricted, being already incomplete and out of balance themselves. Dagha didn't create the world, either, nor living beings such as yourself; it was the fourteen beings Dagha had created who, in their turn, did that. We were all started by the Lords of Eir, and Dagha thought that, in balance, we'd all be finished off by the Lords of Dыs-but Dagha got that one
wrong. Its playing at creation threw the balance out. I wasn't sure, though, to be truthful, how much of our little world would come through intact."

  A sudden cold uncertainty soaked into Garth's thoughts.

  "How much did come through?" He had visions of finding nothing but space outside the temple cave; perhaps nothing remained alive anywhere save for himself and this peculiar self-proclaimed goddess.

  "Oh, almost everything; you need not worry, Garth. A few stars may be missing, a few things may be changed in how the world works, but in general, Garth, everything remains as you knew it."

  "You're sure?"

  "Oh, yes. I'm a goddess, Garth, and the goddess of knowledge, at that. I know a very great deal. We are not alone. The world remains much as it was; most people are probably unaware of any change, save a brief spell of dizziness."

  "And you knew that the world would survive?"

  "Well, as I said, even I was not certain until right at the end."

  "How could you know what the other, greater gods did not?"

  "Because I am what I am, Garth, the goddess of wisdom. I saw through the deceits and partial truths that Dagha used to fool itself and its constituent deities. I knew from the start that it had done more than it knew in creating our world, creating something so removed from itself." She smiled wryly, and for a moment her face seemed solid and normal. "I must confess, however, that I had my doubts. I saw the pattern of time that Dagha had set up, and saw how neatly the world followed along its set path, and feared that it might all end as Dagha had planned. It was not until you refused the service of Bheleu, three years ago, and thereby cut short the Age of Destruction, that I could be certain the pattern was broken. That act, more than any other in all the fifteen ages, threw the world aside from its predestined course and assured it of continued existence when its creators had gone. You disrupted the whole cosmic balance, Garth, by favoring life over death."

  Garth was falling behind in following the explanations.

  "But why are you different from the other gods? Did all the lesser gods survive, whatever they're called?"

  "We are called the Arkhein, Garth, and I am not yet certain whether we have all survived. Some of us were closely tied to our creators; others, like myself, were more independent. I am not bound up in the time that Dagha controlled. The Eir and the Dыs were all predestined, with no say in their own existence; each took his turn for an age, tied to the scheme that Dagha had set up. The order of the ages was established from the beginning and the nature of each predetermined. Each had its rules, symbols, totems, and intended duration, all part of the pretty pattern that Dagha had designed for its little creations to dance through. When the pattern was finished, so were they. The Arkhein, however, were not part of that grand pattern. We were free to do as we pleased, pretty much-or at least most of us were. Dagha hadn't made us, didn't control us, and had no place for us in its designs. It hadn't made the world and it didn't control that; surely you knew enough theology to know that nobody bothered praying to Dagha, since it never did any good."

  "Yes, I knew that," Garth admitted.

  "Garth, if it confuses you so, don't worry about reasons and explanations. Just accept the situation as it is. The fifteen higher gods are gone, but the world continues. We're all free now, coasting on, as it were. There are no more predetermined ages-you survived the Fifteenth Age in the three minutes it took the higher gods to die. Nothing is set anymore; there is no more predestination. You are no longer the chosen of Bheleu, but merely an overman. There is no more Bheleu."

  Garth thought that over, watching Weida's shifting features. The rumbling grew louder, and the floor trembled beneath his feet. The red glow appeared to brighten.

  "What is that sound?" he asked. "It seemed to start during the King's spell."

  "That's the volcano. Dыsarra was built on an active volcano, you know, and the priests of the seven dark gods worked a great spell to restrain it. Now that the gods are dead, the magic they powered won't work anymore. Major theurgy is a dead art-and nobody ever called on us Arkhein very much. Most magic drew on the higher gods, either Eir or Dыs; and when they died, all their magic went with them. Their totems all burned out during the Fifteenth Age; the dying gasp of the fifteen gods, I suppose you might call it. You saw three of them go yourself. And because the magic is gone, the volcano is free; it's been pent up since the city was founded back in the Eighth Age, so I suppose it will erupt any minute now. This cave is one of its old exhaust vents; it will probably fill up with lava quite quickly."

  Garth turned around and stared apprehensively at the brightening red glow. "Wouldn't that kill us both?" he asked.

  "Oh, I suppose it will kill you, but it will take more than a volcano to harm a goddess."

  The overman turned back, enraged-and relieved to realize that it was wholly his own anger, untainted by Bheleu's malign influence. It was a clean and simple feeling, very unlike the seething, perverse fury the god's power had engendered so often. "Why didn't you warn me sooner?" he demanded.

  "Why should I? What does it matter to me if an overman dies?"

  "If you don't care what happens to me, why are you here? Why have you manifested yourself and spoken with me?"

  "Ah, you've seen through me. I do care, Garth, at least somewhat. I wanted to watch the fireworks, to see the end of our old order. I wanted to speak with the mortal involved, and to congratulate you on the part you've played in everything. Most of all, I was curious; it goes with wisdom. Only the curious ever learn much. That's why I alone am here, of all the Arkhein. But that's all done now, and it's not the place of a goddess to become too attached to a mortal. You must die eventually, after all-and have I not now warned you?"

  Garth heard the rumbling grow louder, and the stone floor shook from a sudden shock far below. He glanced back at the red glow, which now seemed dimmer.

  "You have a few minutes yet, Garth," the goddess said.

  "A moment," Garth said. "If the god of death is gone, can I still die?" He wondered if the goddess, if she was in fact what she claimed to be, might be amusing herself at his expense. Could it be that he had inadvertently obtained immortality, not just for himself, but for all the world?

  "The old god of death is gone, The God Whose Name Was Not Spoken, who was a Lord of Dыs and a part of Dagha, but there is still death. There must always be death. We have a new god of death now, one that you helped to create."

  "What?"

  "Certainly. You didn't see the King in Yellow die, did you? You were watching; he changed, and moved out of your realm of perception, but he did not die. He merged with the Pallid Mask, assuming the power it signified, and became Death himself. You saw it happen."

  Garth remembered what he had seen beneath the King in Yellow's mantle and knew that Weida-if it was Weida-spoke the truth. A perverse amusement twitched his mouth into a smile. "Then after all that, he didn't die? His great spell was for nothing?"

  "Hardly for nothing, Garth. The human part of him perished utterly, and Yhtill of Hastur is no more. The King in Yellow no longer has any material existence, but he still goes on, the embodiment of the power and concept of Death."

  Half a dozen other questions came to mind while Garth puzzled this over, but the rumbling changed again, with a deep, slow, grinding sound, and the overman decided that any further inquiries were inessential. He ran toward the entrance.

  Weida might or might not have stepped aside to let him pass; he was not sure whether she did, or whether he passed through her, or some impossible combination of both. Disconcerted, he stumbled against the wall of the passage and glanced back.

  The woman was gone-or the image, or goddess, or whatever it had been.

  The voice, however, lingered, calling, "I think you had better hurry, overman."

  Garth righted himself and hurried on. While moving, he asked aloud, "How is it that you materialized here before me in this cave? None of the other gods I was involved with ever did that, not Aghad, nor Bheleu, nor any o
f them. Bheleu could only speak to me in visions."

  "They were Dыs, Garth, and not tied to this world as we Arkhein are," the voice said quietly, speaking from the air near his right ear.

  "All right, then, if the Arkhein can manifest themselves where the Eir and Dыs could not, why have I never heard of it happening before?"

  "The rules are different now," the voice replied. "We were restrained by Dagha's rules, confined by the power of the higher gods even while we drew much of our own power from them. Now, things have changed. Everything has changed. Even I don't know all the differences yet; I have never been so free before and have not yet had time to learn what this freedom means."

  A brutal shaking distracted Garth from the conversation; he staggered up the dark passageway, grateful that there were no branches where he might make a wrong turning. Ahead, he glimpsed a pale gray glimmering; he moved onward and saw that it was the first faint light of dawn.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Frima had been blindfolded as well as bound and gagged, and did not see what happened to her captors. She heard a rumbling, then a crashing, and then the deafening roar of an angry warbeast, mixed with human screams. The hands that had held her fell away, and she tumbled heavily to the floor, bruising her elbows on the stone. She tried to call out, but the gag stopped her voice. She struggled with her bonds in an attempt to work the loops of rope and fabric down over her hands.

  She heard thrashing sounds and the scraping of stone on stone in those brief instants between the warbeast's growls and roars; the screaming of its victims was almost constant. At least once she heard a crunching she knew to be the splintering of bones. Something warm and wet sprayed across her legs where they protruded from her disarrayed robe.

  Finally, when the roaring seemed to be almost upon her, the screaming faded and died.