The Crystal Empire (58 page)

“Our ancestor,” the Sun was saying, “ordered in his wisdom that the matter be pursued, through special suggestions made before the Drea
m
ers slept, also by a thorough search for similar references in the archives a
l
ready collected. It was not long before dreams of illuminated pears led to those of wall-switches—We were lucky there, one of our Dreamers was a house-carpenter in some other existence—transmission-lines, transformers, gen
e
rators.”

He clapped his hands in delight.

Fireclaw was not displeased that the Princess had moved close beside him—some subtle scent she wore offset the murky odor of the place—as the Sun rambled on.

“In this manner We learned to fly, the making of sophisticated we
a
ponry, the surest means of taxation, a billion other things which, toget
h
er, comprise the civilization of Han-Meshika. We are free to choose among the most efficacious of methods, making strides of a century’s progress in but a few months if We will it.”

Still the looks about him were uncomprehending.”

He shrugged, beginning again.

“You have seen how this hallway splits and splits again until it has become a thousand hallways?”

“A thousand twenty-four,” the Rabbi Shulieman offered, great we
a
riness coloring his tone.

“Very good,” replied the Sun. “A thousand twenty-four, then two thousand forty-eight, and so on—the same being true for some five hu
n
dred levels of this tower.”

Ayesha opened her mouth.

“Maadaa qulth!
Five hundred—”

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl nodded.

“Reckon it for yourself, girl. This island—the Spire standing upon it—is five hundred eighty paces long, about a third of that in width. The Spire’s height is three times the greater of those measures. In all, close to twenty-three million cubic paces, perhaps a quarter taken up by corr
i
dors and such necessities. The remainder is divided among these cub
i
cles, three paces wide, three paces deep, three paces high. Six million Dreamers slumber here, a living sacrifice providing indispensable food for thought to their sovereign, the Sun Incarnate.”

The earth beneath them shimmered once more, just at the edge of n
o
ticeability. Ignoring the unsettling phenomenon, the Sun Incarnate turned, slapping his hand upon the jade wall which formed the junction of two passageways.

“They are like the splitting branches of a vast tree, are they not? An ancestor of Ours had the Spire of Dreamers constructed in this som
e
what bizarre manner to teach himself a lesson. You see, the universe itself is constructed in this manner.”

He pointed a slim finger at Fireclaw.

“Suppose a moment that you’d ne’er left your home upon the eastern coast, great warrior. Suppose you’d ne’er traveled prairieward. You’d not be here now, would you, but in some other place, doing something else, is that not so?”

The warrior shook his head, a grim expression upon his face.

“Is there not enough trouble in the world, Zhu Yuan-Coyotl,” he a
n
swered in the Helvetian the Sun had employed, “to be o’erworried about might-have-beens?”

“Upon the contrary, mighty Fireclaw, the Spire of Dreamers’s all about might-have-beens. ’Tis concerned with naught else. For in some might-be world as real to its inhabitants as ours appears to us, you
did
remain upon the eastern coast, to suffer or enjoy whatever consequences that decision earned you.”

He turned to David Shulieman, looking down at the rabbi where he sat quiet and weary in the wheeled chair.

“Likewise, scholar, in some other world you decided to become a sailor, whereas in that world, or perhaps another, your friend the Co
m
modore, here, followed a path of religious erudition.”

Light was dawning upon the rabbi’s pain-seamed face. He turned his head slowly, looking about the place as if for the first time.

“I see,” the Sun exclaimed, “that you begin to understand! Those worlds exist! Our other selves exist within them! Enough worlds so that everything which
can
come to pass
has,
branching out from one another, growing in their trans-infinite number as each of us makes decisions—or perhaps with each random fall of the dice.”

“Is this religion?”

Fireclaw felt nothing but disgust. Six million tortured captives for the sake of a mad boy’s fantasies.

“Or fact?” the Helvetian asked. “If so, how’d you come to know it?”

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl laughed, showing them into a third cell where an old woman was dictating.

“I dreamt this period,” she spoke in a cheerful, grandmother’s voice, “of a blunt-nosed winged vessel stooping like a scorch-breasted bird u
p
on the ruined surface of the moon until, unfolding wheels beneath itself, it raced upon an avenue a million paces in extent, restrained by cords across its path which brought it to a halt.”

She leaned forward, tapped the already attentive scribe upon the shoulder.

“People wearing glass-faced armor—I among their number—debarked, entering arch-topped dwellings, half buried in the soil, where we were greeted lovingly by kinsfolk.”

She leaned back with a contented expression.

“We were home.”

The Sun Incarnate stepped outside again, addressing the Helvetian wa
r
rior.

“There are many religions, Fireclaw, some tens of millions of which We’ve encountered through Our Dream-scribes and their supervisors. There’s but one Fact, of which the many smaller truths which comprise the universe are but minor aspects.”

With a twinkle in his eye, he repeated the old woman’s gesture, lea
n
ing forward, tapping Fireclaw upon the chest.

“We know this, for Our Dreamers tell Us ’tis so.”

“As I thought,” the warrior snorted, “religion.”

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl laughed again.

“We understand your skepticism, Fireclaw. Were We confronting this establishment, what it has to teach Us, for the first time, We hope We’d be as wary as you are. Nonetheless—”

He folded his arms, rested his chin upon one hand.

“Look you, recall the vases We struck upon the ground floor? Like Our ancestor, we, too, wish to teach a lesson, if only to Ourselves. We’d those jars placed there to that purpose. The outermost containers ring together when only one of them is struck because they’re identical—they resonate with one another—while the inner ones aren’t and don’t. ’Tis the principle upon which many sophisticated communications d
e
vices—”

Ayesha, listening, had become pale.

“Chanaa la chabhgham.
What has this to do with these Dreamers whom you victimize so cruelly?”

The Sun smiled upon her, switching back to Arabic.

“We are, put in the bluntest of terms, parasites. What of it? It is no more than a word. A civilization peaceful, ordered, yet—a par
a
dox—progressive. What need of individual ‘creativity’? Why tolerate the i
n
disci
p
line it engenders, when you can steal its fruits from others? Yes, Our domain is advanced. But why suffer the economic or political di
s
placements which follow in the wake of advancement, when you can control the introduction of each innovation, avoiding the eccentric pre
j
udices of the inn
o
vators themselves?”

Noting the expression upon her face, he went on.

“In another world, Princess, perhaps you refused your father’s co
m
mand, remaining instead in exile, perhaps upon the island Malta where your mother once lived.”

Ayesha nodded understanding of this much, refraining to ask him how he knew of these things.

“Very well, can we not make use of whatever similarities might be between the strong-willed Ayesha who refused her father—and the only slightly less strong-willed Ayesha who journeyed here in spite? There must be many, is it not possible, chiefmost of the mind? When one Ay
e
sha sleeps, does not her unguarded mind perhaps resonate—as did those va
s
es—with the other Ayesha’s equally open dreaming mind?”

She took a step backward, away from Zhu Yuan-Coyotl.

“Is it not possible,” he continued, “that, locked thus in resonance, many of the first Ayesha’s experiences are communicated to—look out, som
e
body, catch her!”

Ayesha’s legs had failed her.

She shuddered and collapsed in Fireclaw’s arms.

“Seek you help in patience and prayer, for grievous it is, save to the humble who reckon they shall meet their Lord.”—
The
Koran,
Sura I

“A
h, well.”

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl raised an eyebrow as Fireclaw lifted the Princess Ay
e
sha into the safety of his arms.

“We suppose we ought to have looked for this to happen.”

Lips tight with a rising anger threatening, he feared, to transform i
t
self into mindless blood-haze, Fireclaw spared a brief glance for the young man, athletic, tanned and smooth of skin, handsome of face and form—and, in the Helvetian warrior’s estimation, more marrow-evil than Oln Woeck had ever thought to be.

“We see you disapprove of Us.”

The Sun had not failed to observe the warning in the warrior’s eyes.

“You think Us harsh,” he offered, with an amused twinkle in his own eyes, “o’erbearing and inhuman. You’d tell Us the measures We find r
e
course to are excessive.”

Still speaking, Zhu Yuan-Coyotl turned his back to the man to face the wall. The older man couldn’t see the sly expression upon the youn
g
er’s face, nor could he have known what it meant in any case.

Oln Woeck might have told him.

“You’ve led a much-sheltered life, mighty Fireclaw, one most limited in its scope, learning all but naught of the universe you live in, nor of the million catastrophes an unrestrained, unguided, and uncertain human
i
ty’s e
n
gendered—”

The warrior let his hand creep, almost of its own volition, toward the dagger at his side. Encumbered as he was with Ayesha’s limp form, he couldn’t use
Murderer.
Thinking better of it—another time and place, but
soon
—he drew the hand back again, supporting the unconscious girl with
it.

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl whirled, staring into Fireclaw’s eyes as if looking for something there. His own expression, the man noted, was an almost disa
p
pointed one.

“Why, We’ve lost contact entire with a hundred civilizations for no be
t
ter reason than that they’d learned how to destroy themselves—and saw no reason not to use what they’d learned!”

He gazed down at Ayesha, a kindly look upon his face.

“We’re patient. We could sweep the Mughals and the Saracens aside and rule the earth, Fireclaw. In some respects, We do. Yet We’ve wider ambitions, not just to rule one small planet, but, in due course, each globe within the realm of Our celestial aspect’s attractive influence—and perhaps someday beyond.”

With a gesture he’d used before, he reached out to stroke the unco
n
scious girl’s hair. Fireclaw pivoted a shoulder, taking her out of the Sun I
n
carnate’s reach.

Zhu Yuan-Coyotl shrugged.

“Futile defiance doesn’t impress Us, friend. Nor do gifts from rival potentates. We brought you to this place, for We’d heard of the girl’s dreams. We realized the question would arise whether her life might be spent to greater profit as one among Our Dreamers in the Spire than as a Bride to the Sun.”

He turned his head, taking in several of the cubicles and their hel
p
less occupants.

“True,” he mused as to himself, “were circumstances different, she might well provide us, in her own small way, with further insight. Howe’er, We doubt that she—or you—would regard as much of an i
m
provement upon her lot this grim alternative.”

He lifted his arms, taking in the entire building they stood within, with all of its occupants.

“At this moment We’re considering a proposal put forth by the s
u
pervisors—and Our physicians—to increase its efficiency or reduce the bu
r
dens of its cost.”

He peered at the Rabbi David Shulieman, addressing the injured scholar in Arabic.