Echoes of the Goddess: Tales of Terror and Wonder from the End of Time

by Darrell Schweitzer

  And yet, as he did, he felt the power of the Goddess more clearly than he ever had before. It ran through his body like a fever. It shook him like a rag in the wind, so awesome, so vast it was, even as it faded, even in death.

  This power was his. He had been drawn to it. He knew, as certainly as he knew anything, that his destiny was within that city.

  He came out of the trance of psadeu-ma and began walking toward it once again, but almost at once, by a trick of perspective, like a mirage viewed from a differing angle, the city vanished. So did the plain of glass. He was standing on a hill, overlooking a rolling prairie. A herd of katas, the upright, spiketailed lizards ridden by the cavalrymen of the Holy Empire, grazed in the distance.

  He cried out in anger and despair.

  Suddenly there was a man beside him, tall like himself, but clad in black, pacing back and forth, oblivious to his presence. He took advantage of this to steal away, for the very sight of that one filled him with unreasoning dread. But his legs were like half-melted wax. He moved very, very slowly down the side of the hill, his heart pounding, his breath ragged. He tried to think of some magical way to convey himself away, but nothing came. His thoughts were scattered. Then he looked over his shoulder and saw that the other had finally spotted him, and was following. He screamed and ran all the harder.

  When the other was almost upon him, he looked back and saw that the dark man’s face was a blank oval, wholly featureless.

  The other reached out, but just as he was about to touch him, Emdo Wesa saw a door hanging suspended in the air. He opened it and stumbled through. There was no time to wonder where it came from.

  Now he was on a familiar street in Ai Hanlo. Above him near to the mountain’s peak, a soldier blew on a silver horn, signifying the third hour of the night watch. He walked a ways, his heart thumping. He came upon a guardsman of the lower city making his rounds.

  ‘‘What are you doing out this late, old man?” The guardsman lowered his pike.

  “Just taking the night air.”

  The guard looked at him strangely, but let him pass.

  He came to a square with a fountain in the middle, around which beggars slept. Above the square was a lighted window. Within, a woman sang a love song.

  He tried to weep, remembering what it was to be young and in love, so long ago, but he could not. He had no tears, having-sacrificed them in a magical experiment once. Besides, he was not sure he had ever been in love. His memory played tricks on him sometimes.

  Wearily he sat on the edge of the fountain. Some beggars shuffled away from him, looking up uneasily. He cupped his hands, dipped them into the water, washed his face, then cupped them again and drank.

  There was a light flickering at the bottom of the fountain. His eye was caught by it, and he was charmed, as a rat is by the gaze of a snake. The fountain seemed as deep as any sea. Shimmering, far, far below was a white oval. It reminded him of an egg. Then it was a new sun being born in the cloudy darkness between the worlds, rising to glory.

  Then again he knew helpless terror, as the thing became a pale, swimming monster, glimpsed through the impossibly clear water, so far down that it looked tiny, but rushing up to devour him.

  Finally the oval became a face. It was the black-clad man, ascending an invisible, spiraling staircase. He heard footsteps far away and below, muffled by the water. Every time the figure went around the spiral, it changed. Once, and it was without a right arm. Again, it lacked a left. Further, a leg was gone, and then another, but the dark man kept on coming, his footfalls louder and louder, for all that his limbs were gone and his trunk was beginning to disappear.

  All this while the face slowly assumed features, like clay being molded by unseen fingers. First there were vague indentations for the eye sockets, and a swelling where the nose was to be, but when it paused, only a hand’s breadth below the surface, it was entirely clear. The graying beard spread out on the water like a tangled weed. One eye was covered with a patch.

  The face was his own.

  “Even the greatest of· magicians knows fear when his death is upon him,” it said.

  Abstractly, removed from the situation, one part of his paralyzed mind pondered: Where had he heard those words before? Who had spoken them?

  In a flash, he knew: He had said them, many years before, when announcing to his master that he was no longer an apprentice. He had killed his master after a long duel, to prove the point, as was expected of him.

  Somehow this recollection freed him, and he ran breathlessly away from the fountain. He thought he heard the water splashing behind him.

  He came to his wagon at last, in the alley, and crawled in the back. There he found the book left open on a mat, and the lamp burned out. He slumped down by the book, asleep.

  And awoke with a shriek, the head ·of the diminishing man in his lap.

  “Even the greatest of magicians knows fear,” it said.

  He scrambled out the front of the wagon, over the driver’s seat, tripped, and fell headlong into mud. There he lay panting, unable to get up, for all he was sure each breath would be his last.

  Nothing happened.

  Eventually, he caught hold of the wagon and dragged himself to his feet. He picked up a board from the ground and spoke a word, transforming it into a battleaxe with a flaming blade. This in hand, he crept around to the rear. Over the tailgate he saw a figure in a blue-and-red-striped robe asleep by a book and a burned-out lamp.

  Then Emdo Wesa awoke with a start and crawled to the back of the wagon, looking this way and that for someone he thought he’d seen peering in at him. There was no one. The alleyway was empty.

  Above, near to the dome of the Guardian, a soldier blew on a golden horn, heralding the dawn.

  * * * *

  Therefore Emdo Wesa took the smallest and sharpest of his knives and, mirror in hand, cut a tiny piece out of the flesh of his remaining eye. With it he made a dadar, a living projection of himself, spreading it first into an inchoate black mass, more like a hole in the air than a solid thing, then shaping it into the dark silhouette of an eagle. Since so little flesh had been used, it would not live long. It was a thing of the moment.

  “Go and see as I would see ,” he commanded it. “Fetch me a dreamer who can dream this dream of mine more fully than I.”

  Then he launched the bird, and it departed in the muted thunder of its wings. An hour later it returned, holding a boy in its claws by the hair, setting him down gently just before it dissipated.

  At first the magician was startled. Then he was dismayed. The boy was naked, trembling and weeping, his eyes wide with fear and pain, his back and thighs criss-crossed with the bloody marks of a whip. But still he knew that this was his dreamer, so he took him into the wagon, put oil on his wounds, and wrapped him in a blanket.

  For a while, the boy was so befuddled that he could not speak. His teeth chattered, and he stared about warily, like a caged animal. But when he seemed more at ease, Emdo Wesa questioned him.

  “How many years have you?” he said.

  “Thir—thirteen, and a few months—I don’t know, exactly. I’ve forgotten. Since I was small, I—”

  “The number is best forgotten. I have more years than you could probably count with all the numbers you know. I don’t worry about it. But tell me, have you a name?”

  “I am called Tamliade, Master.”

  “Tamliade, are you truly a great dreamer?”

  “Yes—I mean, that was why my owner punished me. A dream came to me and I stood up to walk into it and the chain around my ankle tripped me and I fell flat on my face and woke up and all the others were laughing and the man said I was an idiot and he would not buy me and—”

  “You were a slave, then?”

  “Yes, Master, I am.”

  “You do not have to call me Master. When I am done with you, I shall set you free.”

  Tamliade only looked at him dully, then bowed his head.

  “Tell me of your dreams,” E
mdo Wesa commanded him.

  “When I was little—I think I was five—I was playing in a puddle, making boats out of leaves and sticks. Suddenly I forgot what I was doing, where I was, who I was, everything. The sky was dark and I was in a strange place. I saw, far away, a city made out of flames. It was pale red, and the towers were almost frozen in place. But they flickered. I thought it was the famous holy city of Ai Hanlo that everybody was always going to. I am from Hesh, in the forest country. I had never seen the city, you understand. I told my parents about it. My father said I was mad. My mother wept. I promised her I would stop seeing the place if it would make her happy, and she tried to smile, but I couldn’t help it. I saw the place many more times: Any time, no matter what I was doing, suddenly I would be in a dream. I saw many other things. I tried to keep it all a secret, but everyone knew. I almost got run over by a cart that way once. Then, one night, when I was eleven—my mother had died by then—I suddenly found myself in that other place as I was, wearing my night tunic. It was not like a dream at all. All around me, all around the city of fire, the ground was smooth and hard and cold, like glass. I was barefoot and it was like walking on ice. My feet stuck to it. I could feel the air blowing against my legs. There was a little wind and it blew from behind me, toward the city, stirring up clouds of sparkling black dust. I got so close that time that I could almost reach out and touch the walls. They were not flames, but a kind of glass, and faintly warm. The tops of the towers were so high that I could not see them above me. I looked up and saw them disappearing into the sky, and I noticed that all the stars were out of place. They didn’t make any of the usual patterns. Then the sun rose suddenly, blinding me, and the city was gone, and I stumbled into the branches of a soft hair-needle tree. When I could see again, I found myself in a forest. There were men crashing through the bushes all around me. The whole village had come to search for me. They were glad to find me. But my father was angry. He dragged me home by the ear. Then he said I was stupid and useless and he threw me out of the house. Later, bandits caught me and sold me as a slave.”

  “So your dreams have not done you much good, have they?”

  “No, Master.”

  “Do you know what they are?”

  “No, Master.”

  “I have an idea,” said Emdo Wesa. “I think they are manifestations of the Goddess, the most powerful to have touched anyone in many years. They are echoes in a cave from the shout of her passing.”

  All along, the boy had merely recited the tale of his life as if it were an abstract thing about people who had lived long ago. But suddenly there was a frightened tone in his voice. He had been shocked into the present.

  “But why me? I’m nobody important. Why should it come to me? I don’t want it.”

  “Tamliade, listen. When I was your age—and that was long and long ago—I had a master, by which I mean a teacher, who told me that I was filled up with magic, even as you are filled with dreams, that this magic whirled inside me like a storm building in fury. I was frightened. I said what you have said: Why me? And he told me that there is no why. When a river cuts a new channel, he said, the water flows through. Does the part of the bank which gave way ask, Why me? Why not six yards further downstream? No, the thing merely happens. Thus it did not matter that I was frightened. That affected nothing. My teacher next told me that I would be a great magician one day, greater than he. I was no longer frightened. I was proud. So he told me the story of Nordec Ta Haincé, the great singer who lost his songs on account of pride and wandered the world in despair for three hundred years, kept alive by his own emptiness, searching for an echo of his own voice. And hearing that I was humbled. Finally, my teacher laughed, and said it was a silly story, and I was silly to believe it. Nordec Ta Haincé would have lost his songs at the same time whether he was proud or humble, since it was his destiny to do so, pre-ordained as all things are. This was a very difficult lesson, but when I came to understand it, I knew it to be a great one. There is no why.”

  Once more the boy sat passively, silent. Emdo Wesa sat beside him, also silent. Then he got out of the wagon, made a fire in the alleyway, and set a pot of tea on it.

  After a while, Tamliade looked out, still wrapped in the blanket.

  “What are you doing, Master?”

  The magician handed him a steaming cup.

  “Drink this. It will make you sleep. When you wake you will be healed and the pain will be gone.”

  Tamliade hesitated, then drank slowly.

  Emdo Wesa took him in his arms, asleep, wrapped in the blanket, to a tailor shop and laid him out on the counter. The tailor gaped in terror, but obeyed, barely able to control his hands, when the magician bade him take the boy’s measurements and make him a suit of clothing like his own, only without ornamentation.

  Then he left, taking Tamliade with him. The tailor would know where to deliver.

  That day at noon, he carved a horse out of air. Toward evening the clothing arrived. At midnight, he carved another horse. Shortly after dawn the next day, he left the city through the Sunrise Gate, which was firmly locked. The guards did not see him. He made the wagon so thin it slipped through the crack.

  The street urchins had a lot to talk about.

  * * * *

  Near mid-morning, Emdo Wesa pulled the wagon over to the side of the road, got down, went around to the back, and looked in over the tailgate. The interior of the wagon was divided into two compartments by leather curtains tied firmly shut. The boy was sitting with his back to them, surrounded by wicker crates.

  “Are you awake?”

  Tamliade stirred.

  “Then get out of there.”

  The boy climbed down, walking unsteadily, looking down at his clothing. He felt himself gingerly, unsure he was really healed. The magician led him a few yards back the way they had come, to a bend in the road.

  Far away, across tilled fields, the golden dome of Ai Hanlo shone on the horizon like a sunset.

  “It is a custom of travelers,” said Emdo Wesa, “to take one last look and pray that they might one day see this sight again.”

  “Master, when I was little I heard of the holy city, and like everyone else I wanted to visit it, but when I was brought there in chains to be sold, I saw it differently. I don’t know if I want to see it again, ever.”

  “Either you will pray or you will not, as the river flows and the bank gives way.”

  Tamliade did not pray.

  * * * *

  A week passed. To Emdo Wesa, Tamliade was more puzzling than many of the mysteries of magic. He observed the boy as he would some new creature kept in a cage. In the end, he confessed to himself that he simply did not understand him. And yet, he had been young once, too, and had been alone in the world more often than not, and he knew what it was to be frightened, to be mistreated. More than that, he knew what it was to have a vision so overpowering that it drives away all other concerns. Yet he had been isolated so long, with his art for lover, for kin, for master, that he felt nothing. He knew this was not good, but there wasn’t even a struggle toward emotion. He was hollow inside. Therefore he merely noted things:

  Tamliade was always eager to please, and distinctly unhappy when there was nothing for him to do. So the magician let him prepare the camp at night and perform whatever chores he could, whether necessary or not.

  When they came to a town, he bought the boy a book, a long romance “filled with magicians, wizards, heroes, monsters, and all sorts of extravagant things,” the storekeeper had said. Tamliade read it slowly, with apparent difficulty, but without asking for help. He seldom spoke.

  In another town, he left the boy to mind the wagon while he went for supplies. When he came back, he found him cowering in the seat, surrounded by a flock of young girls who would reach out to touch him, then dart away in a storm of giggles. One of them stood a distance away, blew several kisses, and began to unlace her blouse. The boy gaped and blushed, frozen where he sat. All of them shrieked in merriment.r />
  When they saw the magician, they ran off.

  Wesa noted all this. It occurred to him upon reflection that it was very sad how the boy did not seem to know how to express himself, to feel, to reach out and touch the world. Perhaps his spirit was broken. Or else it was the dreaming. Still he did not understand.

  * * * *

  “Tamliade, do you like music?” the magician asked one night as they made camp.

  “Yes…I suppose so.”

  “Then play this.” He gave the boy a flute.

  Tamliade played, every third or fourth note a false one, and the magician danced, awkwardly. He laughed and clapped his hands. His laughter was coarse, grating. He tried to sing, but this, like his laughter, was more like something he had forgotten and was trying to imitate than like real song.

  The boy only stared at him.

  * * * *

  “Master, where are we going?” Tamliade finally asked one night.

  An image flashed into Emdo Wesa’s mind, of a tortoise coming out of its shell, very slowly. He made a smile, remembering how to do it. Then he grew grim.

  “We are going to that city you have seen in your dream. We must find this manifestation of the Goddess and gain the power of it. Has that not been obvious all along?”

  “But how can we go into a dream by riding on a road?” Then the boy put his hand over his mouth and looked down, afraid he’d said too much. “I mean—Master—I know you can do much magic—”

  “Ah—well asked. I will tell you this much about the art. We do not move because we will come to the city that way, but so that my brother cannot see us. Did I ever tell you about my brother? No, because you did not ask. But now I shall. His name is Etash Wesa. He is a monster. He does not see as men do. He can reach out and know where everyone is, but his vision is like a fog and it takes time to settle. So when I move around, it takes him time to find me again. He is my enemy and seeks to destroy me. Do not ask the cause of our enmity. It is long and deep and more than you could understand. Not even I can comprehend all that he has become, but believe this: the world would be better off without him. He has drifted far, far into strangeness. Magic has that effect, changing the magician slowly, subtly, but inevitably. Often he must take parts of his own body and make dadars, living beings which are extensions of his will. This must be done with great care and a minimum of times, or the magician loses all that he once was. My brother has not remembered to be humane and compassionate, and the strangeness has devoured him. It has cost me much to fight him, all this time. You may wonder how you figure into all this, why you should be a part of our deadly quarrel. Yes, you are a part. Almost certainly the overseer who beat you was one of his dadars, perhaps the bandits who sold you also. I am sure that his design was to kill you before I could find you, so I would not be led to this thing we seek. I am sure the man would have beaten you to death had I not snatched you away suddenly.”