She stood up. “It’s a pleasure to work for you, Mr. Morin.”
“You’re awful uppity,” he called after her. “I never knew a killer to care so much about life.” He ran into the hall to shout at her back, “You better do something about that beast, do you hear me? Or else I’ll notify your guild. Killer! Murderer!”
Cori made herself a small camp among a group of trees a mile or so from the dragon hill. There she sat down to work. At least, she thought, I won’t have to waste my afternoons finding mushrooms and berries, or whatever vile food grows around here. For the kind of job she had to do, the first step was a fast.
Some prey you kill with your body, that exactly trained weapon. Some you kill with the mind, reaching in to unravel the core of energy animating the lump of flesh. Either way you release the hunger at the moment of the kill, losing yourself in that dreadful ecstasy. But there are some creatures that only the hunger itself will kill. For those that force must be nurtured, built up until you can direct it, like a needle-thin spear of fire with the force of a volcano.
First she fasted, not even water touching her lips for days; in some way, the hunger grew as you denied the body’s more normal appetite. Fast and concentration. She needed to reach that storm gathering in her womb, somehow join it and gain control over it. Revulsion seized her, made her want first to run, as if she could get away from this thing inside herself, and then to cut herself open and spill the filth into the open air. She gained control over this horror, using the energy coiled around revulsion to increase her concentration.
Linnon, the first person to conquer the hunger, described seven steps to mastery. The last two, denial and emptiness, involved the actual dissolution of the curse, like picking apart a knot where each strand is a fire. Cori didn’t know if she would ever master those last steps to freedom—to try was extremely dangerous, not only for herself but for the land around her—but she knew from her training she could reach the fifth level, direction.
From the first level, attention, she passed, three days later, to empathy, reliving the deaths of all her prey. From the ghost ship, and the mad farmer who went around mutilating any girl who looked like his runaway daughter, she worked all the way back to the first “safe” kill chosen for her by the Guild, an old sick woman whose healer son wouldn’t let her die, but kept forcing useless medicine into her. The woman had wanted to die, the woman had hired her—but even so, the disgust had stayed in Cori for weeks. And now it rose in her again, only to float away as the recall slipped still further back, to Rann. Fear tried to shake her loose from her concentration. She sat immobile, eyes half closed, hands against the hard ground, and let it drain away into the Earth.
Next came fever, the body turned to oily mud, the mind lashed by hallucinations. She saw the Guild surrounding her, led by Morin Jay, who stood and laughed while her friends and teachers spit at her, kicked her. And then they changed into demons, clawing the skin from her face and belly—all except Morin Jay, who grinned, his face a mask. (Mask? The thought whisked away in a wave of fright.) Cori made herself a rock whose top alone jutted into the air while the mass remained invulnerable, rooted deep in the Earth. Against that rock the fever fell to pieces. And the hunger grew.
Finally the most dangerous stage came, forgetfulness. Her knowledge of herself, her purpose, dissolved, blown away like a fluff in a breeze, and every time she caught it there was less of her. Worst of all, the need to remember became less and less real, more and more an illusion that at last was slipping away. Peace, it offered her. Let go. You’ve reached the emptiness. Let go. It’s only the fore-mind, after all, just a mask. Release it.
Soundlessly, over and over, Cori repeated her true name, and when the syllables threatened to become a meaningless chant she carved her face into the world, on the rocks, the trees, across the moon and under the sea. When her face became meaningless lines and blotches, Coriia imagined herself naked, stripped down to her true self, that which can never be dissolved or blown away. Motionless, more real than the universe.
And when she’d overcome forgetfulness Cori dove into the hunger. She took hold of it, pressed it into a tight ball, then pulled and shaped it to a whip, a wire. On the eighth day of her fast Cori stood, feeling her mass greater than the Earth itself, lighter than the wind. She turned to the hill, and from her eyes the hunger snaked out. The rock appeared as a sponge with a thousand holes for the hunger to enter. And probe; and push.
There, in the center, that thick green mass. She pushed it, and the hunger whipped back at her. Again, and suddenly a roar of pain and fury battered her. She pushed again. Another roar, a shriek. All at once, like a creature buried in mud and suddenly awake, the dragon lifted into the air, biting its wings and shrieking.
Cori bounded it, using part of the hunger to make a fence. The creature crashed and kicked and beat its head against the ground.
For a moment Cori wavered. The noise—as blindly beautiful as a hurricane. Her hands clenched and opened, the sweat poured off her, the mark in her throat grew cold as ancient death. Before her the dragon’s eyes hovered, begging for release. With a shout Cori tightened the fence.
The Mark appeared, the curled arms spinning before the dragon’s face wherever it turned. Through the still center Cori drove the hunger down between the dragon’s eyes, probing through the complex streams of being for the image that formed the dragon’s true self. When she found it she would kill.
Layer after layer burned away, until she saw, like a carved jewel, the tiny image. The hunger lashed out—
No! Desperately Cori tried to pull back, send it somewhere else, anywhere. For what she saw was not a beast but a man, naked and in chains. And at that moment she heard the laughter of the thing that had called itself Morin Jay.
Wildly Cori turned the hunger around—she had only an instant before it would escape her to rage across the land, picking up energy from anything alive in its path. She threw the hunger at Morin Jay—only to have it thrown back by a mind shield stronger than Cori would have thought possible.
No time. As best as she could she barricaded herself. Then she called the hunger home.
Light. Blinding, a thousand colors, all the cells of her body burning into light. Her mind burst apart into screams, rage, agonies of hate. A thousand years of pain passed in a moment, wave after wave of blinding fire—until the Earth took pity on her, and darkness, blessed empty darkness, swept it all away.
3
Sky—hazy, grayish blue, a summer morning trying to decide whether to be clear or overcast. Whispers—leaves? people?—maybe the rocks and pebbles were talking to her. When she strained to hear it the sound receded.
She was lying naked on her back, she realized. On what? She patted a hand to the side. Something resisted, something as hard as packed dirt or stone; so why couldn’t she feel it? She touched her naked thighs, belly—solid, too smooth, too hard and cold. She made a frightened little noise.
“You’re awake. Hello,” said—what? Cori turned her head, saw for a moment a vast scaly—No, it was a man, wide shoulders and terribly white arms crossed on his chest, a smiling somewhat pointed face, with a smooth chin, a narrow nose, and very round lovely eyes. Curled blond hair fell loosely almost to his shoulders. Naked, he was squatting on his heels, his knees up covering his genitals (a red battering ram?).
“What happened to your chains?” Cori asked, her voice sounding flat.
He made a sound between a laugh and a grunt. “They’re all around.” Stupidly, she looked about, then tried to get up. Incredibly weak, she sank down again. “Relax,” he said. “You’ve been away, asleep, a long time.”
Angry at her weakness and dependence (an Assassin doesn’t need anything from anyone), she asked, “Where the blood am I?”
“Nowhere.”
“It sounds like a title.”
“Why not? It’s as good a name as any.”
“But where is it?”
He frowned and sat back, crossing his legs under him. C
ori was relieved to see his genitals were the normal size and color. He said, “I used to think it was a special place created just for me. My prison. But now that you’ve shown up, well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s where you end up when you don’t fit into any category. Not alive or dead.”
An old joke came to Cori’s mind. She grinned. “Everybody’s got to be someplace.” She thought of the shield she’d put up the moment before the hunger turned on her. If her body couldn’t survive and couldn’t die either, something had to happen. “Am I really here?” she said. “I mean, is this my body? Damn, you know what I mean.”
He shrugged. “Is this my body? It doesn’t need any food or sleep. I really don’t know.”
“But if my body is lying out there—”
“Wherever your real body is, it’s not—not out there.” He tilted his head upward, as if the real world lay above them.
How do you know?”
“I checked.” When she just stared at him, he added, “My representative.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“An ugly green dragon. Remember?”
“Oh. Oh, of course. Look, I’m sorry.”
“But you didn’t do anything. Except to yourself. Believe me, being here is punishment enough for any mistakes you’ve ever made in your whole life.”
Cori studied his face, the smile that stayed just this side of bitterness. “Who are you?” she asked.
The smile broadened. “Haven’t you guessed? I’m Morin Jay.”
Between them they pieced the story together. Morin Jay was indeed a merchant, or at least had planned to be, having been a student until his father’s death. And yes, he had bought the house overlooking the sea, acting through his father’s agents so that no one in Sorai had actually met him. Eager to see his new home he had ridden out alone, before the servants had actually come from Sorai to open the house. The ruins had captivated him immediately, so that he used the house only for sleeping, and after a couple of nights did even that among the stones. Whether the demon or simple curiosity had gripped him he couldn’t say, but slowly he became more and more drawn to the black well and its pinpoint of light. Like Cori he’d grown faint just looking over the blue stone; unlike her he couldn’t stop himself looking again and again, even when the light glowed, then rushed up at him. He made one great effort of will to break loose; and failed. There was a roar that might have been laughter if it had been human. For an instant he sensed himself alive but changed, vast, and tenuous as smoke. Then that too vanished, and he was “Nowhere.”
But if the demon had hoped to take Morin Jay’s place and be done with him he was disappointed. Though hardly a wizard Morin had learned in his studies to direct his will, and after an endless time he found he could glimpse or sense the “outside.” Just for a moment, and then his will collapsed, but it was enough to see the demon enjoying its freedom. Again Morin focused his will, powered by a hate he never would have thought possible for him.
Then suddenly, one day he was free, he could taste the air and touch the living Earth. It took only a moment before exhilaration gave way to horror as he discovered the monstrous form his rage had taken.
“Do you suppose that was Morin—the demon’s original form?” Cori asked.
“And we changed places? I don’t know. I’m not sure that thing ever owned a physical form at all, at least one that wasn’t an illusion. It might just be wild energy. Do you know what wizards mean by a pattern breaker?” She nodded. “Maybe someone, with a lot of effort, managed to imprison this particular breaker in that black well. Hoping no useless fool would set him free.”
Cori ignored his bitterness; she needed information. “Well, where did the dragon come from?”
Morin looked away. “I’m afraid that monster was me, what I’d become, made myself through hate and fear. A very graphic demonstration.”
“But you don’t know that.” She took his hands, disoriented by the dreamlike sense of feeling and not feeling at the same time. “The demon might have made that form, had it waiting for you, you could say, in case you ever broke loose. To make you give up.”
A weak smile broke his despair. “If he did, it backfired on him.” That first time Morin had stayed outside only a few moments, hurled back by shock. But success, strange as it was, had strengthened him. He tried again and again. Why the demon didn’t (or more likely couldn’t) kill him he didn’t know, but he used his small powers to devastate the “merchant’s” wealth.
And so the demon had hired an assassin, hoping to blast Morin Jay once and for all. But not just any assassin. Someone too experienced might have sensed the malignant force hidden in the plump merchant. No, he must have looked around carefully until he found just the Guild member he wanted; a stupid, arrogant girl.
When she’d finished telling her part of the story Cori stared off at the endless dull brown emptiness, where the flat “ground” merged with the blank sky. Morin asked, “What are you thinking?”
She said, “I’m wondering what ugly toad shape I’ll become if I break loose from here.”
Morin Jay laughed.
Their non-world never changed, always the same dull light without a sun or moon, the same brown flat ground you couldn’t really feel, even though it met your foot when you stamped. They walked, sometimes for hours, their minds insisted, though these bodies of theirs never tired, and it always stayed the same. Once, Cori tried to teach him the unwilled stride. But when she emptied herself of will to let the Earth move her feet, nothing came, a true emptiness that so appalled her she could only stand, paralyzed, and whimper, until Morin Jay came to hold her, lightly stroking the cold smooth body.
They fought at first. Cori wanted to get out, through will or hate or whatever means she could find. Morin Jay wanted company. He reasoned with her; her body was safe—probably—and when it woke up she would snap back to it—probably. He shouted, called her a “selfish bitch murderess”; he cried, trying in broken sentences to tell her of his loneliness. Cori stamped off, thinking how she had always been alone, how only an assassin really understood loneliness, thinking, “I can’t stay here. I can’t stand this place.” And thinking finally that Morin Jay had stood it, by himself, for years. She walked back to him, and never mentioned leaving again.
It was the cold that moved them closer. Not the air—that always stayed insipidly warm but the cold deep in their “bodies.” They began to huddle together, fighting for warmth. They pressed and stroked each other and suddenly Cori was thrown back a dozen years to Rann kissing her breasts, her belly. “No,” she said, “I can’t.” She tried to pull away, but not very hard, for Morin was able to hold on, whispering, “It’s all right. Believe me.”
“It’s not all right,” she wept. “You damn idiot. You don’t understand. I’m an assassin.”
“Not here.”
“Here, anywhere. You don’t know what that means.”
“Not here. It doesn’t count here.”
She stared at him as warmth moved in her for the first time since she’d arrived, no, for the first time in years. The warmth opened up inside her and Cori sobbed, in fear, in joy, in memory at the infinite loneliness that ended as Morin Jay entered her.
Years later, Cori would try obsessively, like a bleary alchemist mixing formula after formula, to work out how long she and Jay had spent in that place without time, how many days in a world without night. However long was too short.
Their lovemaking was curious, wondrous and unsatisfying at the same time. Their bodies nearly melted into each other, yet neither would ever climax in the usual sense. Often they simply lay in each other’s arms, talking of their lives outside, while their hands moved of their own accord across each other’s body. Jay told her of his studies, of his childhood in a house so big he grew scared he’d get lost and no one would ever find him. Cori also talked about her childhood, and sometimes about her life now, and the way people looked at her or left the room if she entered in her uniform. She never told
him, however, about the moment those two lives merged, that day with Rann on a grassy hill.
They talked and made love, and played silly games and made love, and when Jay started to speak of all the things he missed outside, Cori kissed him or joked or picked a fight. One “day,” in the midst of their peculiar passion, Cori lost, for just an instant, even that dreamlike sense of her body pressed against his. For a moment she was alone and lying on her back, with a cloudy sky and a warm breeze washing her face. Then it flickered away again, leaving her rigid and scared, with Jay holding her, asking what had happened. She tried not to tell him, to make something up. When he insisted and she gave in, he said nothing, only sighed and walked away. “Are you angry?” she asked. From the beginning she always expected him to in some way dismiss her, from boredom, or from disgust.
“Angry?” he said, and turned his stricken face to her. “Oh, Cori.” They held each other, trying to form one creature stronger than the emptiness surrounding them.
“You ran away from me,” she said.
He shook his head. “Darling Cori, don’t you understand? You’re leaving me. And I’m so damned jealous.”
“No,” she said, “it’s not true. I’ll never leave you.” As he held her she heard a sound, like whispers, like the movement of grass, or faraway waves.
The next time they made love it happened again, this time long enough for Cori to glimpse rubble around her. Without a word she and Jay stopped making love, stopped even holding each other except when the nearness became unbearable.
What amused them before—Jay’s stories, Cori’s acrobatics or self-deprecating jokes—now became embarrassments, as if they could hear a voice saying, “Is this all you can think of to spend your last moments together?”
When it came it happened in such a simple way. Jay was telling her something about his father; long afterwards Cori tried to bring back what he’d been saying and could never remember a single word. As she watched him his voice vanished, just as if he were playing a child’s game to make her think she was deaf. In its place she heard birds, and the vague sound of summer wind. He must have seen the look on her face (what had happened to her assassin impassivity?) for his mouth hung open a moment, then simply closed. She shouted his name, not knowing if he could hear her, and reached for him.
The Sword & Sorcery Anthology Page 40
