Air and Darkness (47 page)

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, Aura. You've done as you promised and … well, you can do whatever you please now. I have no claim on you.”

“I have nothing to do, nowhere to go,” the sprite said. Her expression was calm, her voice lilting but emotionless. “If you permit, I will stay with you until you leave or are killed.”

Corylus kept his face still, but there was a moment's hesitation before he said, “Yes, you're welcome to stay with us.”

She was just viewing the situation clearly, after all. The way a Scout would, though another Scout might not have blurted his analysis so baldly.
Everybody knows what the risks are, but we don't ordinarily dwell on them aloud
.

Because the dragons were curled Corylus couldn't be sure how long they were, but probably about twenty feet. Their bodies were covered with blue scales, iridescent for the most part but marked with bands of duller gray-blue at intervals.

Their wings, four each, were sheets of ridged transparency like those of dragonflies, sticking out at right angles to their bodies from sockets on their shoulders. The creatures were much larger than any bird Corylus could imagine. Though slender as otters, they must weigh at least a thousand pounds each: as much as cows.

Bion stood, lacing his fingers behind his back and stretching his powerful shoulder muscles. “Well, what do we do now, Captain?” he said.

Corylus looked at the sailor. He didn't snarl, because that would have been just as pointless as the
stupid
,
pointless
question.
If I knew what to do, I wouldn't be standing here like a dock piling!

“Aura?” Corylus said, letting amusement wash over his frustration. He spoke quietly, but he didn't whisper. “Do you know why the dragons are sleeping?”

Aura shrugged. “They were awake when Zetes and I saw them before,” she said. “They walked to the end of their chains and then walked back. You see how the ground is worn.”

Corylus started to ask, “The passage to the Waking World is through the cave?” but he swallowed the words. Aura had said so in the past; he didn't need to hear it again. He was only looking for a way to delay what he knew had to be done.

“All right,” he said. “Bion and Aura, I won't need your help further.”

There's no help they can give.

“I'm going to go between the dragons and into the cave. If you want to follow after I've gotten through, you're welcome to do so, but wait until I'm clear.”

Bion blinked and said, “What if they wake up?”

He may have been a very good helmsman,
Corylus thought,
but he must have been a trial to his captains. I've never known a man with such a genius for uncomfortable questions that can't be answered.

“I'll deal with the situation as it arises,” said Corylus, attempting—rather successfully, he thought—a lofty unconcern. He wondered how often his father had given a similar answer to similar questions.

And he came home wealthy and with a knighthood,
Corylus thought. And smiled and thought,
But most of the men who'd enlisted with him left their bones on the frontiers.

Corylus twitched his dagger in its sheath—needlessly; the orichalc didn't bind—and shrugged his shoulders. Holding his staff at the balance in his right hand, he walked toward the cave and its guardians.

The dragons didn't move, though as Corylus approached he thought he heard a burring sound like that from the interior of a beehive. The creatures had six legs, short compared to the size of their bodies but still as long as a man's. Rather than being retracted, the claws on the three-toed feet were drawn upwards to keep them from being worn blunt when they weren't needed to rend prey.

Corylus reached the dragons, holding his breath. He didn't think breathing was going to awaken them if the sound of his sandals didn't, but it was
something
to do.

He smiled and let out his breath softly. He had every right to be frightened; but it wouldn't do any good, so he wouldn't give in to it.

The dragons were curled three feet apart, plenty of room to walk between. To Corylus' surprise, their bodies radiated warmth. Their heads were sharply triangular, more like that of a praying mantis than a snake. The silvery links of the chains attached to the neck collars rang in faint counterpoint to the burring from their torsos.

Corylus walked past the dragons and to the cave mouth. They could still turn and follow him in to the length of their chains, but the pressure that had been squeezing his chest released him.

He heard a jingle and looked over his shoulder, missing a step. The dragons had gotten up and were stretching. One of them turned its head to look at him, but they seemed no more interested than a pair of doves watching from the roof of their cote.

Nobody is coming by that way to rescue me
. Corylus allowed the thought to bubble out as laughter. Nothing had changed, after all.

The cave was circular in cross section, like a section of water pipe. There were no chisel gouges or marks from casting forms.

Something hung in the air before Corylus, shimmering without solidity. He paused, frowning, then walked forward. Perhaps it was what he had come to find.

It was a circular mirror, hovering at the height of Corylus' face. He saw himself in it, perfect in reduced detail.

There was a flash. Corylus could not move. He was looking toward the entrance of the cave. The huge figure of Rupa walked toward him.

“I have been waiting for you, Publius Corylus,” she said, and reached out. There was no contact, but his viewpoint moved toward the entrance. “Soon your lover will arrive. In return for your release she will give me the Godspeaker's ear and I will finally be able to take my vengeance on the West. If she does not—”

Corylus was shifted to look into Rupa's magnified face.
She's holding me in her hand.

“—then you will spend eternity in this mirror.”

*   *   *

V
ARUS AND THE NAKED OLD
MAN
stepped into windswept ruins and bitter cold. It was bright though the sun was low on the horizon, but the sky was the pale white of watered milk. The sea was behind them, and in all other directions ice glittered on the horizon.

The ancestor looked about. He didn't seem to feel the cold.

Govinda must have sent us back not too long after the time I fled,
he said.
The houses had been thrown down, but the wind hadn't started to pull the sides off the frames.

Varus heard the ancestor speaking Greek. He had a pronounced Ionic accent quite different from the Athenian dialect spoken by orators, but the “words” rang in Varus' mind rather than coming through his ears anyway. The old man had a material body here in Anti-Thule: his feet crunched on the gravel of the shore.

They stood at the edge of the community in the center of the green enclave that Varus had seen in visions, but the houses were bare sticks to which the paper walls and roofs hung in shreds. The few freestanding monuments had toppled, and stone foundations were gapped and crooked.

“Did the meteor knock everything down when it brought the Blight?” Varus asked.

He shivered despite his tunic and the sandals that kept his soles off the cold ground, but he didn't expect to have another opportunity to learn about Anti-Thule. Varus might not survive more than an eyeblink after he returned to Govinda's palace—the king certainly didn't wish him well—but that was no reason not to gain as much knowledge as he could in the time remaining.

No,
said the ancestor.
When the Godspeaker brought me to help him, the houses had been repaired. It was a ball of iron, not a rock, and sparks from it started fires before they cooled. I could still smell the sour smoke, but the houses had been rebuilt.

The ancestor started into the ruined city, going toward where the Temple of the Moon had stood in the visions beneath Govinda's sanctum. Varus paused, then bent and picked up the object that had caught his eye.

It was a long bone, probably a thigh. If Varus had found it on a street in Carce, he would have guessed it was a goat's. Here it must have been from a Tylon. One end had been gnawed off.

I don't know what happened to the Tyla,
the ancestor said; he too had paused and was looking back.
Without the Godspeaker there was nothing to stop the cold. I suppose the cold killed them, that and the crops dying.

The green fields of Govinda's vision were now gray smears on the ground. Freezing had burst the internal structures of whatever plants the Tyla grew for food, not only killing them but also turning them to jelly. The Tyla themselves could not have been much better able to accept the sudden chill.

Varus tossed the bone down. He had noticed furry shadows skittering among the fallen houses. Anti-Thule had mice or things like mice. They remained to scavenge the bodies of the Tyla who had died of exposure, but the mice would die also. The cold was bitter under the long summer sun; when winter came, the ice would cover all of what now was bare ground.

“What happened to the Godspeaker?” Varus asked as he and the ancestor picked their way through the shattered community. The house frames were jumbled like storm wrack on the shore. “Did the Blight kill him?”

The Godspeaker could not stop the Blight, even with Mamurcus and me beside him,
the ancestor said.
He knew of a greater power, though, a power greater than all others on earth in all times, that of the eternal beings who created the tablet. The Godspeaker determined to raise the Eternals against the Blight.

Though the ancestor did not seem to feel cold, his body had normal physical limitations. He paused, then walked around a tangle of frames so twisted that portions of the paper covering remained attached. Varus thought he saw a Tylon's withered body cocooned inside, but he didn't bother to examine it more closely.

The Tomb of the Eternals is near where I was born,
the ancestor said.
It was in an ancient ruin called Dreaming Hill. Even sealed it was a vast reservoir of power, and I used that power to grow great. The Godspeaker opened a passage to the tomb in Dreaming Hill and unsealed it.

The ancestor and Varus had reached the plaza. Debris had blown onto the stone pavement, but the surface was clear of ruined dwellings. Across from them was the fallen Temple of the Moon.

The Priests of the Moon had little power individually, but there were forty of them,
the ancestor said as he and Varus walked toward the temple.
The Italian Mamurcus was a great wizard. He had forged an image of his god of openings from metal of the ball which brought the Blight here. I was greater yet, and the Godspeaker with his tablet was a greater wizard than anyone else of his race or mine could be. Together we succeeded in opening the tomb.

He stopped and brought his left arm around in a sweeping gesture, indicating the devastation.
We succeeded in doing this. We roused the Eternals from their rest to do the Godspeaker's bidding. The Eternals scoured the Blight away with a flame that pierced the sky. And then the flame washed over the Godspeaker, all but his right ear.

Varus shivered. It was the cold, or at least most of it was the cold. “What happened to the Eternals?” he said. “Are they still…?”

He looked around. For the Eternals, he supposed, but he didn't know what they would look like if he saw them. Everything seemed the same as it had been when he saw Anti-Thule for the first time, but it was so chaotic that he couldn't be sure.

You needn't be afraid of the Eternals,
said the ancestor. His mouth quirked into what was probably a smile.
They returned to their tomb as soon as they had destroyed the one who had awakened them.

“How did you get to India?” Varus said. He spoke slowly, because his mind was occupied in trying to fathom the destruction around him. The ancestor had referred to the event as “the catastrophe.” There was no better description of what had happened to Anti-Thule.

I found the half tablet that was free and went back to my home,
the ancestor said.
The passage the Godspeaker had opened remained. I saw Mamurcus taking the Godspeaker's ear.

“What use is the ear?” Varus said.

The ancestor shrugged.
I don't know,
he said,
but Mamurcus was a great wizard. And the Godspeaker was greater yet, even without the tablet.

Varus was still shivering. “All right, there's the temple,” he said. “Let's get the rest of the tablet and go back.”

He strode forward. The ancestor walked at his side, but without the assurance of moments before.

What do you suppose Govinda, my descendent, will do when you return?
the ancestor said.
He will kill you, will he not?

“I don't know,” Varus said, considering the pry bar as a weapon for a moment. “He may try. I suppose he will.”

Varus looked at the older man and said, “I know that I don't want to remain here. I would certainly freeze if I did.”

If I return…,
the ancestor said,
I will not die, because I died a thousand years ago. I will again become a shadow in a speculum, a slave to my descendent who will live forever through the power of the rejoined tablet.

“I'm sorry,” said Varus. “I'm not going to stay here. I'll take my chances with Govinda.”

With the Sibyl's help, Varus wasn't afraid of Govinda. He smiled wryly.
I am a citizen of Carce. I'm not afraid of any benighted barbarian, whatever airs he may give himself.

Varus was joking … but not really. Not at the core.

The temple had been carved from stone so dark that it could pass for black in the lighter grays of its surroundings. Varus remembered bright-colored clothing and the patterned coverings of the houses in the visions of Anti-Thule. These ruins had been bleached monochrome by weather or the catastrophe itself.