by Lin Carter
The desert hawks stared up at it curiously, wonderingly, then shrugged, and turned back to their red work.
There were many marvels in this strange world, and all were harmless. What is one marvel more?
They would learn soon enough, and to their sorrow.
Prone in a puddle of congealing gore, a dead man sprawled. He had been a guard stationed before the Temple, more a position of honor than aught else, in this paradisical world where there were no thieves or murderers, and his weapons were ornamental, little more. But his heart had been brave and true, and when the desert men came swaggering and laughing through the streets, he had gone against them, using only his bare hands and not the flimsy weapons at his side. And they had cut him down, slashing open his belly with a careless, backhand stroke, so that his bowels fell out upon the pavement.
He had fallen, then, still striving to protect that which he was here to ward. Fallen and died there on the cobbles,
while rough men laughed and jeered and mocked him in his dying.
That had been almost an hour ago.
But now … he lived.
Jerkily—slowly—awkwardly, like a jointed puppet— the dead man got to his feet. And stood, spread legged, turning his head stiffly from side to side. His face was pale and dirty, and blood was upon it. His eyes were dull and filmed and his mouth hung slackly open.
The raiders nearest to him were piling gorgeous furnishings into a tottery heap. Fussing about them was Houm, fat, greedy Houm, his greasy lips smiling, his quick, clever eyes counting the value of the silken tapestries, the hand-carved ivory furniture, the jewel-studded vases, the precious things of jade and cinnabar and lapis.
Suddenly the smile went crooked on Houm’s fat face.
For, stalking stiffly towards him, the dead man came.
He paled then, did Houm, and plucked at trembling lips with beringed fingers, babbling crazy things. For the walking corpse, with its belly slashed open and wet bowels dragging, went over to the first man and tore his throat out with cold, stiff hands.
The second man died just as quickly, for the corpse broke his neck. The third man backed off, swearing, cutlass-shaped sword out. Hoarsely, he commanded the slayer of his two comrades to halt, and when he would not halt the raider took a cut at him. The sword made red ruin of the dead man’s face, but did not even slow him.
He twisted the raider’s head off, and tossed it aside. The grisly thing rolled across the pavement to thump into the head of a plunderer.
Houm followed it with vacant eyes. He giggled.
But not for long.
The walking corpse, now faceless, was upon Houm then. He picked the fat man up as if he weighed no more than a doll, and broke his back across a bended knee, as a man might break a rotten stick.
So perished Houm, the merchant who had dreamt of the plunder of an entire world, and who now would inherit only six feet of it, or as much as makes a grave.
And the Glory—laughed!
Xinga was at the wall. He had been supervising the destruction of the Stone Giants, but now his work was done and the last of the enchanted colossi had been rendered helpless with nets or lassoes, and reduced to gravel under pounding war-hammers, mauls and axes.
Now, Xinga wanted some of the fun the other raiders had been enjoying.
He had found a girl and had taken her away from the warrior and was admiring his bit of plunder. She was a child of perhaps thirteen, slim and exquisite, with silken hair and faery eyes like wet jewels. A bit young for his tastes, to be sure, but hip and breast and thigh were firm and round with the promise of the woman she would one day become.
She begged him with pleading, eloquent eyes, for he had bound her lips with a gag; he laughed, telling her to relax and perhaps she would enjoy it, too. Then he stripped her rags from her and lay her on the trampled ground of her father’s garden.
Ignoring her weak struggling, and the moans and whimpers which escaped from her gagged mouth, he lay down upon her and played with her bare breasts for a time, prolonging the moment when he would take her, finding the delay teasingly delicious.
Tossed into a gory heap near a broken alabaster foun
tain, her father and her brothers lay, hacked to red ruin. Now, as Xinga played with the girl, fondled and smiled as she writhed under the touch of his dirty fingers, he was too preoccupied to notice when the pile of corpses came apart and the dead boys and their father came stiffly to their feet and stalked over to where he lay amusing himself.
One took him by the leg, another by the arm, and the third by the head. They tore him apart.
Dmu Dran had remained behind to oversee the desecration of the Inner Shrine of the Temple. The little gaunt fanatic knew that his master, Zarouk, and a party of warriors had descended into the depths beneath the building in pursuit of the so-called Prince who had seized power, but it mattered little to him.
He was a priest, and must be about his holy business.
He had built a bonfire of the Zhiamese scrolls and sacred scriptures—beautiful painted parchments, covered with writing unknown to him, which had preserved from the lapse of time the ancient wisdom and philosophy and speculations of the sages.
They burned beautifully, he thought.
He had dragged from the heap of bound captives, taken when the Temple was first broken into, a young priest or novice. He was a boy, sixteen or seventeen at the most, and his eyes were wide and frightened, and he was praying to his god in a half-heard whisper.
Dmu Dran had cut his robes away, so that he would watch that adolescent nakedness writhe and wriggle in the flames.
When he had stripped the boy stark naked, he dragged him by the feet across the floor, then rolled him over on his belly into the fire.
The boy had screamed. But now, blackened and shrivelled, he was beyond screaming.
Dmu Dran was bending over the heap of captives, picking another victim for his holy work, when something took place behind him that he did not notice until the sound of scraping feet made him turn and … freeze.
The burnt boy had gotten up from his bed of fire and was dragging himself on stiff, black, withered legs towards his tormentor.
His face had been seared away to the naked bone of his skull, which was brown and greasy and still smoking.
Dmu Dran stared and stared, and then his eyes rolled up into his head until only the whites showed.
The burnt boy-priest took him by the back of the neck in a grip as strong as stone, and dragged him over to the bonfire where the precious scriptures smoldered, and thrust him face down into the coals, and held him there until he died.
The coals were hot and red and glowing, but it took him all of twenty minutes to die.
One by one the fires went out, for the Glory called the clouds and commanded them to rain.
There was by that time an army of corpses, and they stalked stiffly about, clearing away the rubble. Most of the raiders were dead by this time, and, after a while, they too, had risen and walked, and now toiled beside their victims, clearing away the wreckage and smothering the last few stubborn fires, and removing the ruins from where the gates of the City had been.
Not everyone in the City had been slain, of course. Some of the men lived, and almost all of the women and children, save those who had been taken by many men and had died therefrom.
Nor had all the raiders perished. Some few, quicker of thought than their brethren, had thrown down their swords and surrendered. These now huddled together without speaking, guarded by animated horrors that had once been dead. Some of the captives wept, or cursed in ragged, breathless monotones. But most of them just sat there with dead faces and empty eyes, waiting for doom, and glancing up from time to time at the Glory which drifted here and there above the towers.
There were many of the men and boys of the City who had been injured or maimed but were not yet dead. These were brought before Kiki and he healed them, one by one, with a touch of his hands whereon the supernal light yet lingered.
There were old men and women who had looked on too much horror, and women and children who had endured too much. These, whose minds had broken under their torment, were healed by Kiki too. Serene, forgetting that which they had endured, they smiled now, seeking out their friends and families among the living.
After the slaying, you see, there is a time for healing, the Glory observed in its cool, singing voice. Is it not well, Lord Thoh?
In a hushed voice, his face as pale and dead as one of the walking corpses, Lord Thoh agreed that it was well.
You wanted war, did you not? For honor and glory and to prove your virility. Well, you have seen now, Lord Thoh, the red face of war. Did you find it.. . pretty?
Thoh swallowed with a dry, aching throat. He had been sick five times during the scenes of carnage, and he had emptied his guts until there was nothing left to vomit up. Now, shakily, he said that war was … not pretty.
Zarouk maintained a cold, impassive mien. He had, however, closed his teeth upon his bottom lip to keep from
crying out while being forced to look on as his men were butchered by the walking dead they had slain.
He had bitten entirely through his lip, and the blood bedewed his beard and stained the front of his robe.
But he had not cried out.
And you, Prince Zarouk? How do you like your conquest—and your empire? Shall I command the dead to build you a kingdom, whereover you may rule the dead men, and be served by them, forever? the Glory inquired, sweetly.
No flicker of expression showed in the stony eyes of the Desert Hawk. “You are the victor here,” he mumbled through maimed lips. “Do with me what you will.”
I shall, indeed! laughed the Glory. For in every contest, there is the victor and the vanquished. Shall I do with you, O Zarouk, as you would have done with the vanquished, had you been the victor here?
Zarouk said nothing, but no longer did he hold his head so high. He was a beaten man.
And when it was all finished, and the City was cleared for rebuilding, and the injured healed and restored to their loved ones, there came a time for ending.
The Glory directed the army of the walking dead to leave Zhiam. They marched out into the great blue valley and dwindled from sight into the distance. Far, far from the City the unnatural vitality which sustained the illusion of life within them would withdraw, and they would find lonely graves in the wilderness, there to sleep forever.
Now this is my decree, said the Glory. The victors shall dwell here with the vanquished, and together they shall toil to rebuild the City. Shoulder to shoulder they shall labor together, and perchance they shall in time discover
they are no different, one from the other, for all men are as brothers, although they forget this simple truth and let vain words and bits of painted cloth called flags and other futile, flimsy, frivolous things divide them, one from the other.
And, once again, I say unto you: abide by the Vow! Shed not the blood of beasts or men, nor slay aught that liveth, but dwell in peace and harmony with all life. Do this, and I, Child-of-Stars, shall be thy friend forever. But break the Vow, and I shall break thy City asunder, and drive thee forth into the wilderness to live like beasts, naked and comfortless, to sweat and toil beneath the lash of storms.
And the people of the Lost Nation, and those who lived of Zarouk’s band, bent their heads before the Glory and repeated again the Vow their ancestors had sworn, long ago.
The Door I shall seal forever, that none may again be tempted to flee into Tomorrow, and the Keystone shall be riven into dust, aye, and that false replica made by the cunning of the priest. You shall dwell here in the past for all your days, you and your children and your children’s children, far from strife and want and peril.
And the twin seals were ground into dust before the eyes of all, and, far off at the head of the valley, a doorway veiled in glittering metallic mist closed, and was solid rock again, nevermore to open.
My priesthood I withdraw from the line of Valarda, but not to chastise her for failing to restrain the warlike passions of her subjects. Instead, I bequeath it unto the child, Kiki, who hath partaken of my spirit and who hath close affinity with me. He in his time shall pass my spirit on to whomsoever he chooseth, that I may be served forever.
Valarda bowed in submission, then raised her face to the Glory.
“And what of me and mine, Lord? What is your will?” she whispered.
The Glory looked down upon her, in all her beauty and humility, then looked to the strong, grim-faced Earthling who stood very near. And the Child-of-Stars laughed!
You have love for each other, you two, after the ways of your flesh, it said gently. Why do you deny the passion written in your hearts? Go unto each other, my children, and make many fat babies! And you, Valarda, shall reign over this people as their Princess. And you, Earthling, shall rule beside her whom thy heart loveth. Be strong and fair and just and vigilant in that rule, for behold, among you there yet live those who were thine enemies, Zarouk and Thoh. See that you hold steady the thrones that Child-of-Stars hath given you.
“We shall hold them, Lord,” said Ryker. And it was a promise.
Do so, then! … Love each other; rule in peace; and find happiness after the manner of your kind. Now I grow weary, I who have slept the ages by, dreaming of that which I shall never find, that which will ever remain unattainable … another like unto me to companion me through all the aeons to come. Leave me, now, my children, for I would return to my dreams, wherein alone I may find the happiness else denied me.
And the Glory sank into the City, and the ground opened before it. But for a moment it lingered, lingered—
But wake me, in just a little time—as you measure time—so that I may look upon the first of those fat babies. Now, farewell!
The ground closed in thunder, and the Glory was gone.
And Ryker took Valarda’s hand in his own, and they
went down from that height into their City, where Herzog and Melandron and Kiki and many others awaited them, to wed and to rule, to issue their commands and decrees. And, very likely, to live happily all their days, after the manner of their kind.
And the evening and the morning were the seventh day.
