The Stone of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  There was no time to see more. He could only hope Ana was safe from them for the moment, now that she no longer had the Stone. Damion struggled on up the side of the dome. He clambered past one of the square gaping holes where a stone block had fallen in, and glimpsed the dim interior far below. If another block should give while he crept over it—but he would not think of that, nor of the men now closing the distance behind him. He could hear their hoarse strident breaths, like the panting of hounds in the chase. He was wounded, and they were not: it made all the difference.

  He had now reached the point where the dome’s upward swell began to level slightly, like the bottom of an inverted bowl. Not far ahead of him was the great round hole, ten paces across, that gave light to the sanctuary beneath. He got to his feet and began to run, his arms outspread for balance. In a few moments his pursuers would be running too, and they would have him. And the Stone.

  “Stop!” Shezzek roared after him. “You fool! What do you hope to gain—”

  Damion ran on. The hole was there in front of him, looking far larger than it had from beneath. He made for its stone rim, placing its rounded width between him and Shezzek. Far below he could see the domed shrine with the gold Sun Goddess on its roof, gleaming in the faint light.

  “Give me the Stone,” ordered Shezzek. He started to move around the hole, and Damion at once ran the other way. Back and forth they went, alternately changing direction—Damion had a blurred boyhood recollection of playing tag around a table. The stalemate could not last, though. The other Zimbouran was just a few paces away, and a second foe would quickly end the game. Damion broke and tried to run, but only succeeded in staggering a few steps: he was light-headed from loss of blood. He would never get down the other side of the dome: his last burst of energy was spent.

  “It is over.” Shezzek began to walk around the hole. “You only delay the inevitable.”

  Damion drew the Stone out of his pocket. Khalazar had seen it in Ana’s hand—that was good: the God-king would not now believe that any other gem was the one he sought. Damion darted back to the roof-hole. They would not be able to stop him in time—

  “What are you doing? You think to bargain with us?” hissed Shezzek. He stood still, on the other side of the gaping hole, and waved to the approaching soldier to stop his advance on Damion. “No! Do not throw the Stone down there. I will spare your life, and the old woman’s too, if you give it to me now.”

  Damion looked back at him. “No bargains,” he said. “I wouldn’t bargain with you even if I trusted you to keep your word. There’s no hope for my friends or me now and I know it. But I also know that my friends would all agree to die before they would let you have this.” He held the crystal out over the hole. Surely it would not survive the plunge to the marble floor forty paces below. His hand trembled; he hesitated. If it was not destroyed, and the enemy went into the temple and seized it . . . then all this had been for nothing.

  At least Lorelyn escaped, he thought. It was one small crumb of comfort at the end.

  The soldiers climbing the slope of the dome shouted; over their voices rose a piercing high-pitched screech. The sound grew louder, nearer: something whirred over the top of the dome, the cold wind of its passage nearly blowing the men off balance. Damion’s head jerked up. The creature that glided down to land ten paces away was not a dragon. It was the right size, but its shape was all wrong: the great outstretched wings were not leathery, but plumed like a bird’s, the primary feathers standing sharp as swords against the sky, the sunlight fanning through them in long rays. Yet the creature’s body was not plumed but furred, the four massive legs ending in broad lion-like pads. He saw the head turn sideways, showing a silhouetted profile of hooked beak and feathery crest and sharp pointed ears.

  Shezzek and the soldier behind him screamed and leaped back. The other man lost his footing and went rolling back down the slope of the dome, wailing as he went. Shezzek turned to flee, only to see more of the winged beasts that Damion had taken for dragons flying straight toward him. He leaped backwards, then before Damion could shout a warning he teetered on the rim of the gaping hole, flung up his arms, and fell in. His terrified wail echoed through the vast space below and then ended in a sickening thud as he struck the stone floor. The remaining Zimbourans gained the top of the dome, their swords flashing in the sun as they drew them; but the other flying beasts swooped down upon them, and with wings, tails, and talons sent them fleeing or tumbling away. One beast alighted on the tower where the archers stood: they panicked and tried to flee, colliding with one another, and then plummeted howling to the ground. The winged creatures exchanged high, wild, wordless cries as they swooped and soared like avenging angels about the temple’s dome and spires.

  Damion became aware of something shining brightly, down by his feet: an object bright as fire. The Stone! He had dropped it when he retreated from the first beast, and it had fallen not into the hole but onto the stone surface of the dome. As he stared at it dazedly, it seemed to him that the gem was not merely reflecting the light of the sun now, but glowing with its own internal radiance.

  A flying monster landed on the dome not five paces away, furling its giant wings. It turned its head sideways and the great iris of its eye, golden and spoked like a prayer-mandala, gazed full at Damion.

  The priest, his mind clouded with pain and loss of blood, was still trying to think where he had seen something like it before when the whole world faded from his sight, and he felt himself slip away into darkness.

  WHEN AILIA CAME BACK to herself again she realized that she lay on something soft and warm. A soothing heave-and-sigh like the breathing of the sea was in her ears, and the warm surface rose and fell with it.

  Blinking, she sat up. She and the dragon were in a cave: she was sprawled against the side of the dragon’s neck, the soft fur of the mane beneath her, the great body curved around her in a circle. The enormous animal, she saw now, was fast asleep, its sides gently heaving. Steam rose from its nostrils: the air around them was cold and thin, like mountain air.

  Ailia turned her attention from the dragon to the cave mouth close at hand and the view beyond. They were high on the side of a hill or mountain: far below lay a vast plain, gray and very flat. Hill and plain were barren and utterly devoid of life, animal or vegetable: there was not so much as a lizard or a lichen in all that austere landscape. It was very still too: no insect hum, no murmur of a stream invaded the silence. There was something else about the scene that struck her as peculiar, though her still-dazed brain was slow to grasp it. It was night, the sky was dark—quite the darkest sky that she had ever seen, almost black—and the stars were all out, shining as she had never seen them shine before. The Morning Star showed as a distinct disc, its pale bluish-white light deepened to the hue of sapphire. The hills and the plain beneath were bathed in a harsh, white light, stronger than moonlight, and the shadow of every rock and stone stained the gray-white ground black as ink. She went to the cave mouth, looked out, and was almost blinded by the blazing sphere of the sun.

  The sun—in a night sky? Sun and stars shining together? Ailia could make nothing of it. She felt curiously light-headed—no, more than that; her whole body felt light, as though it weighed half as much as usual. When she tried to walk she found herself skipping, her body lifting into the air with each step, though it took no effort at all.

  Wherever am I?

  An anxious perusal of the landscape revealed nothing, only presented more mysteries. The hills were arranged in a long, curving arc. A few paces away a small crater with a raised rim steamed like a cauldron on a fire.

  A soft sound from behind made her turn around, to see the dragon now awake and gazing at her. She felt no fear of it, only a sense of wonder at being so close to so large a living creature. The wings were neatly folded, furled back to the bone like sails upon the yards of a ship. In the sun’s light the dragon’s scales gleamed like gold coins, while the pale ventral plates below showed the soft iridescence
of nacre. The dragon’s head glittered as it moved, like some huge golden ornament studded with jewels: jewels that were its eyes, and the white opalescent lump above and between them that shimmered with half-hidden fires. The face was long and wise, and whiskered like a carp’s. The mane that framed it was all bronze and tawny-gold and auburn, chrysanthemum-colored; but the tuft of beard on the chin was pure white.

  The dragon turned its emerald eyes toward the steaming crater, then back toward her. It seemed to be urging her to do something.

  She walked, or skipped, out of the cave, and then stopped short, arrested by yet another wonder. In the sky above her hung a colossal, impossible moon, more than twice as large as normal and far brighter. It was half-lit, and its illuminated hemisphere was not whitish-gray but a beautiful sea-blue in color, with streaks and whorls of dazzling white.

  She went to the edge of the round, steaming pit, and found it was full of water. Hesitantly, she dipped her finger in: it was not hot, but pleasantly warm. Rolling up her sleeves, she sank her arms in to the elbows, splashed some of the water on her face. At once a tingling sensation spread through her whole body. It was not like the Pool of Purification, that brought peace and tranquillity: this hot spring awakened in her a sudden vigor and renewal of energy, a healing of the body rather than the mind. The aching tiredness left her muscles, the assorted scrapes and bruises she had suffered during the course of her travels ceased to hurt. She felt rejuvenated, full of strength and life. I’m not dead, then—I certainly don’t feel like a spirit! But where am I? What is this place?

  She looked up at the huge blue hemisphere again, noticed for the first time that there were large jagged patches of color on it, beneath the white markings: patches of green and brown and rust-red. They seemed somehow familiar . . .

  Ailia caught her breath.

  For a long time she stared at those sprawling shapes, unable to believe her eyes. For she knew them, had studied them years ago on her father’s old maps and navigational charts. The borders were not there, nor the pastel colors that identified them, but these jagged outlines were as familiar to her as the features of her own face. There, unmistakably, was the coastline of Maurainia, the long green strip of the East Coast . . . There was Great Island, half obscured by a swirl of cloud, and parts of the Northern and Southern Archipelagoes lying scattered across the blue of the ocean . . . The Antipodes were hidden from her view on the far side of the globe, lost in the vast shadow that was night. Her eyes moved to the north pole, traversing in the merest fraction of a second the thousands of leagues that the galleons had taken weeks to cross: and there was Trynisia, a lone green land surrounded by white ice . . .

  The world. She was looking on the world itself, from some unimaginable height.

  Then I really am in Heaven. It wasn’t at all the way she imagined the Afterlife—this dreary, empty wasteland. Where were all the other spirits of the departed—the angels—the Celestial City?

  The dragon emerged from the cave and stood gazing at her. There was a jewel-glint of benevolent intelligence in the green depths of his eyes. “Oh please—am I dead, then? Can’t I go back home?” she entreated, moving toward him.

  His pointed ears pricked forward, like those of a dog or horse when it is given a command. Then the dragon stretched out his long neck upon the ground, inviting her to mount again. She did so, clutching at the chrysanthemum mane as the dragon rose and walked carefully to the edge of the hilltop. She felt again the tensing of his enormous muscles; then the great forward spring as the wings lifted behind her.

  And they were airborne again, soaring over the dreary desert. She could see the dragon’s wide-winged shadow gliding along the gray plain beneath them. Nothing else moved, not even a wind stirred to blow the dry dust.

  And yet there had once been life in this desolate place. As they flew over the gray wastes she saw, far away beyond the high hills, shallow depressions and meandering gullies that must have been the beds of lakes and rivers. The plain or basin below was completely surrounded by the hills—in fact, the chain was almost perfectly circular, she saw with surprise as they gained altitude. In the center a hill of gray rock rose abruptly from the flatness of the plain. Tall, steepling shapes surmounted it, at which Ailia stared in puzzlement: they were not like any natural formation.

  Then as they passed over the hill she caught her breath. Those pinnacles of rocks were not natural at all: they were the towers of a palace such as she had never seen before in her life. It was not like a Maurish or Elei structure; it seemed a palace built for gods or giants rather than mere men. Very tall and narrow in shape, with high steep walls, its towers were slender as spears, thin and attenuated: their long stark shadows lay broken upon the rugged rock beneath, where a causeway led to the distant hills. And on one hillside she thought she glimpsed a gateway very like the one on Elendor: two tall white pillars rising from the ground.

  The bowl-shaped plain had been a lake once, the central hill an island. Her gaze swept back in wonder to the palace: the whole structure looked strangely top-heavy to her. Shouldn’t those impossible, needling towers have fallen long ago, dragged down by their own weight? The walls beneath, she saw, were breached in places, as though by some invading force; and beyond these jagged wounds, and through the peaked windows and the high gaping gates, lay a darkness dismal and profound. A sense of ancient disaster, of some incomprehensible catastrophe, haunted her as she and her strange steed flew over the courtyard that was half plunged in the shadow of the high walls.

  Perhaps it was only a trick of the eye, or a wraith of dust raised by a random eddy of air; but for an instant Ailia thought she saw a figure go striding across the court beneath—a figure far too tall to be human, all swathed about in gray-white robes that trailed behind it like cerements. She blinked—there was nothing there but the bare pavement of the courtyard. And then the strange palace with all its grandeur and mystery dropped behind, and faded into the desolation of the landscape.

  The deserts now lay spread beneath her, and she could see the odd circular basin in its ring of hills, and hundreds of other ring-shaped ranges like it, some gigantic and others quite small, some overlapping at the edges like rain-rings in the surface of a pool. They reminded her of the craters she had seen in Trynisia, gouged into the ground by the fallen stars. But there were many more of them, and they were much larger. The whole of the gray waste was pocked and pitted with them as far as the eye could see.

  But only when the horizon bowed into a curve, and the pale shining place beneath her took on the form of a vast half-sphere, did she realize where she had been. And the knowledge made her grow faint even as the air opened up before them again in a chasm of light.

  SOMETIME LATER SHE AWOKE again to find herself lying on soft cushions. Sunlight beat upon her face; the air was warm, and smelled of flowers. Somewhere birds sang.

  Ailia opened her eyes and sat up. She lay on a cushioned divan, in a little gazebo or summerhouse built of what looked like marble. Where was she? Had she fallen asleep? She sat very still for a moment, trying to sort out her memories and make sense of them. She recalled the dragon, and—with a slight shiver—the dreamlike strangeness of the lunar landscape. The scene she now looked on was as far removed from it as possible.

  Where the moon-country had been bleak and barren, this land was lush and verdant, full of life. All about her were tall, graceful trees, heavy with blossom: the scents blowing from these were sweet, penetrating, seductive in their intensity. The grass underneath them was clipped short, like a lawn of green velvet. The sun was close to setting, in a flood of soft, apricot-colored light behind a distant range of mountains. It looked enormous, perhaps because it was so low in the sky. The vault above was a mass of clouds, dyed pinkish-gold on their undersides by the sunset, and above them she glimpsed a pale band, like a cloud only more solid-looking, and more remote than the loftiest cirrus-strands: it was arch-shaped, following the curve of the sky’s dome. She puzzled over this for a few moments before
turning her attention back to the mountains. They were tall, towering shapes with sharp-pointed summits, higher even than the Numiendori.

  She was no longer on the moon, at least, but neither was she back in Trynisia. I’m in a sort of park, she thought at length. The grounds were well kept, the trees and shrubs had a healthy and well-groomed appearance. Could this really be Heaven at last? Had she traveled bodily to those celestial realms that Welessan was able to visit only in visions? The moon—the moon was the First Heaven. The one above it was the sphere of Arainia, the one with a paradise in it. Is that where I am—in the Second Heaven?

  There was no sign of the dragon anywhere: she was completely alone. She rose and began to walk through the neat, ordered groves, looking about her in wonderment. It was difficult to feel alarmed in a place so beautiful, so manifestly made for pleasure. She kept stopping to smell the flowers, to caress their moist petals and hold them to her face. One leafy hedge was covered in white rose-shaped blooms with a citrus smell so sharply sweet that it made her mouth water. A more delicate aroma came from a grove of trees beyond it, laden with oranges and pale blossom. It might be spring in the northern lands of her world, but here in this unknown realm summer was in full flower.

  The flight of a bright-breasted bird overhead caught her eye. Glancing up, she saw through a gap in the foliage above a smooth-sided hill, and standing atop that hill a palace: no sad and empty ruin this time. Its white walls and towers were whole and undamaged, softly radiant in the sunset. They were to the eye what a trumpet fanfare is to the ear: they took her breath away. Here was a palace out of the faerie tales, out of her daydreams, and she knew in the instant she saw it that she must go there: somehow she felt certain that the answers to all her questions lay within its walls. She need not reason it out; already, before the thought completed itself, her feet were pointed in that direction, drawn irresistibly toward the palace of her dreams.