Dragonfly: A Tale of the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes (25 page)

49 Night at the Hostel

We crossed from the desert into a dusty counterpane dotted with adobe communes. The wind was beginning to pick up. Yaneth said there would be a storm. Moabene leered like a city of ghosts beyond the gorge, its glowing cubes clinging to the brink of the cliff and climbing row behind row to the back of the fold. We dropped into a lane between tottering stone walls and followed it to the hostel.

Half the ground floor was taken up by an empty stable, half by a cantina. I followed Yaneth inside. It was a small, dirty room lit a desperate chiaroscuro by a glaring silver-green tube lamp behind the bar. The only other patron was a Druin nursing a bottle at a corner table.

I accepted a tumbler of mescat and took a seat beside the girl. I saw her watching me as I drew off my mask and head covering. She looked down when I met her eyes.

“Do you come here often?” I asked.

“I grew up just down the lane,” she said. I wanted to ask her about that, but she quickly went on: “The High Road would have served you better, if you came from the terminus.”

“There were people I wished to avoid,” I said.

She mused on that a moment, playing with bits of trash on the table. “What brings you to Moabene?”

“I’m a pilgrim. I seek an audience with the Last Sibyl of At.”

She looked up at me with burning eyes. “You may find that difficult,” she whispered. She silenced the question on my lips. “Not now, not here. Later.”

“Tell me about the shrine, then. I’ve traveled a long way to see it.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she said.

“What of its image?”

“The Image is not an image. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

I was studying her face. “Are you a Druin?” I asked.

“Half,” she said. “My father was an Enochite.” She smiled bitterly. “So you see, I, too, am a misfit.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re no Druin. I can tell that from talking to you. But you’re not an Enochite, either, and you’re clearly in some kind of trouble with the Cheiropt.”

“I’m an Arrasene,” I said.

“An Arrasene! Why, then, you must—” She bit her lip. “Never mind. I’ll ask you later.”

“As you wish,” I said.

“I’ve paid for our beds,” she said. “It’s just one big room up there, but we’ll be the only guests. Are you ready?”

I threw back the rest of my drink in answer.

We had to cross the front of the building to reach the door to the stairwell. A black pall had blotted out the western sky. The wind was howling, throwing up clouds of dust. The gusts pushed us up the steps.

The dormitory was one long room. There was a cast-iron stove in the center. Cots and mattresses and folding blinds were stacked in one corner. We used these to make a little bedroom. Then I filled a tub with water from the canal outside while Yaneth boiled a kettle on the stove. When all was ready, I stripped and stepped into my bath. Yaneth sat on the other side of the blind.

“After the places I’ve been lately,” I said, settling down with pleasure, “this is very fine.”

“Why did you help me earlier?” Yaneth asked quietly.

“I liked your looks. I didn’t like his. Your friend’s. Who is he?”

“Stilerich. He’s the Exarch. He oversees Enoch’s interests in the Deserits.”

“But that’s not all he does, is it?”

“No.”

“There’s much about Moabene that I don’t understand, and you seem to be at the center of it. Tell me. Why was Enoch’s esteemed representative trying to assassinate you?”

“So it was assassination he had in mind, you think.”

“Don’t you?”

She was silent a moment. “Have you heard of Vaustus the Enochite?”

“A sun-prophet of some sort, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He began his career at a well just south of here. He lived there as a hermit with one disciple, a young man named Zilla. This Zilla was supposed to be horribly disfigured, as he never went without a veil. Well, word of them spread. That was the beginning of the Sons of Taïs. Their mission was to restore true worship in Enoch, but they never finished anything they started. On the surface it seemed harmless enough. Little more than posturing. Enoch apparently thought it no serious threat.

“Stilerich was one of Vaustus’ closest followers. Not many people know that. He was a rogue ghularch. Well, he vanished one day, no one knew where. He was gone for years. People assumed he was dead. Then he turned up a few months ago, bearing the seal of the Cheiropt. The prophet disappeared at about the same time, gone to search for lost cities in the Fireglass Desert. Zilla, acting as his vicar, impaled all his presbyters on charges of heresy and got himself installed in the old temple complex at the top of the city. And Stilerich moved his headquarters here from Afram, even though the mines were exhausted years ago.”

“So what you’re telling me is that this Zilla is Stilerich’s creature.”

“No! I think it was Zilla who sent Stilerich to Enoch in the first place. Stilerich worships Zilla. I mean that literally. He thinks Zilla’s a god. And he’s not alone. Countless Druins would open their veins at Zilla’s word. His agents are everywhere. And some say that he’s begun to pry into things better left hidden.”

The wind had begun to pound at the windows. It was a fearful storm. “And what does all of this have to do with you?”

“I’m the Sibyl’s handmaid. She took me in when my stepfather drove me out of my commune. The Sibyl was the only one whose word might turn the Druins against Zilla. We live in bad times; the people placate the devils of the desert places. But they listen in spite of themselves when the Last Sibyl speaks. And Zilla knows it.

“You’ll be turned away if you go to the Sanctuary tomorrow. They turn away everyone these days! The Sibyl, whose name is Althea, has vanished; an imposter sits in her place. And I’m the only one not in Stilerich’s pay who knows it. I’ve been trying to find her. That’s why I came out here tonight. I was supposed to be meeting an informant. But it was only a trap laid by Stilerich. They want to put the Sanctuary in its place under the new order.”

I had finished my bath and dried myself and dressed. I stepped out in my breechclout and harness. Yaneth in the meantime had laid aside her burnoose and let her hair down. She was dressed in a shift of soft chitin-cloth cinctured under her breasts by a broad band. Our eyes met. We discovered that we had made a pact.

The stars and the moon had been eaten up by wind-borne oblivion. The upper room was hurtling through howling void. Yaneth’s eyes glowed. “This is an awful place to live,” she said.

I went behind her and ran my fingers through her hair. She responded like a stroked taroth, then took my hand and kissed it distractedly. I drew her gently to her feet. She turned and wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me, and I took her up and bore her through the blinds to the bed she had made.

50 Exarch and Vicar

I awoke in the sunlit dormitory. Yaneth’s arm was wrapped around my chest. I extricated myself and began to dress. She rolled over. “I dreamed of you, Keftu,” she said.

“Tell me what you dreamed,” I said, slinging my sword girdle about my waist.

“I was in a bolg, one of the cysts that are said to lie at the mountains’ roots. You came in, and I saw by your face that something horrible was behind me. You saved me somehow. Then we were at the foot of a mountain with a mossy peak. I can’t tell you how beautiful it was in the sunshine. It was a place we’d often passed, but somehow we’d never seen it. We wanted to climb it, but the woods were too thick, like a wall, almost, and we couldn’t get through.” She watched me for a moment. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“To get a job.”

“What are you going to do?”

“How will I know this Vicar of yours, if I happen to see him?”

“As I said, he never goes without a veil.”

I drew my cloak over my head. “Lie low for a few days. Watch for my sign.” I turned to go.

“Will I see you again?” she asked. I didn’t answer.

It was mid-morning. The air was warm and crisp; the sand-scoured sky was a clear, dark blue. I followed the lane to the bridge. The Esta River was a gray trickle amongst the sand and dark stone in the depths of the gorge. I crossed over it to the gates of Moabene.

The highway was a winding passage in a maze of plaster and mud brick, just one of countless byways and alleys running in all different directions. There was little traffic. Many of the houses were tenantless. Roofs sagged and walls eroded into gutters. Locked doors and shuttered windows were like closed mouths and eyes.

I reached the central plaza, a level square cut out of the mountain’s sloping foot. The ancient open-air market, now practically empty, was overshadowed by high-piled walls of mud brick and dressed stone, towering temples and palaces. The highway ran along two sides and out the far corner, continuing its climb to the pass.

The loitering Druins eyed me incuriously as I strode up the steps of the Palace of Canthes, the old seat of the demarchs. Pushing my way through the bronze doors, I crossed to the rotunda and cried out, “I seek Exarch Stilerich!”

The high, tiled dome threw my words back. A sour face appeared at a balustrade. “Who seeks him?”

“Keftu of the keen eye,” I said. The face vanished.

A moment later Stilerich emerged from a doorway. “Good!” he said, crossing the floor with extended hand. “You’ve come. I’ve been needing a man like you.” His grin might have betokened either pleasure or malice.

“Oh,” I said. “Are you sure it isn’t the veiled one who needs me?”

Stilerich’s eyes became one-way mirrors. “You work quickly.”

“I’m a man of many abilities. What is it you need done?”

“There’s a certain task I perform every night. But sometimes I have other engagements. It isn’t the sort of thing I could entrust to a ghul, or even to a Druin. I need someone with judgment and reflexes to take my place. Comport yourself well, and I may have other work for you. What do you say?”

“What’s the pay?”

Stilerich smiled. “Must our association be so mercenary?”

“What else can it be? You haven’t told me anything.”

“All in good time. What I offer you is a position, not a salary.”

I rubbed the pommel of my sword, musing. Stilerich grew impatient. “Well, turn it down if it doesn’t suit you.”

“The offer sounds good. I was just wondering if I would have time to consult the Sibyl of At about it.”

He looked sharply at me. “If you like. But they aren’t taking supplicants, I hear.”

“On second thought I won’t bother. I accept your offer. When do I start?”

Stilerich glowered. “This evening.”

“Will I meet you up the mountain? At the old temple?”

“You take risks, Keftu.”

I bowed. “I may be a bronze sword, but my edge is bright. I’m dangerous. I require expert handling.”

“Ha!” he barked. His brow cleared, but a terrible light flashed in his eyes. “Meet me at the gate of the Temple of the Sun at the end of the third watch this evening.” He turned and strode back into the shadows.

*          *          *          *          *

I left the palace and made as if for the communes, but once out of sight of the plaza slipped into an alley and began working my way to the southeast. The city showed a willful reluctance to let me through as the winding streets grew steeper and steeper. I was soon bewildered, hot, and half-blinded by the sun-bright whitewashed walls. If anyone lived in that part of Moabene, they must have stayed indoors during the day.

Once, a few boys chased after me, hooting and throwing rocks. I rushed them, and they scrambled shrieking onto the roofs and vanished. After that I went cautiously lest someone had seen me. But no one had.

I was growing almost frantic with frustration when I saw two figures walking toward me, silhouetted against a sun-drenched wall. One of them was veiled and dressed all in white; the other was bareheaded. I slipped into the forecourt of an empty house and waited for them to pass by. They were walking slowly, deep in conversation.

The bareheaded one was chattering at full throttle. He had an elongated skull and a protruding mouth; his red, pointed tongue waved energetically as he spoke. His words seemed to trip over one another in their haste to leap from his face.

“No,” he was saying, “that isn’t what I meant at all. But when you just let him dangle like that, why, he’s going to complain! Surely you see that’s only natural. Why, he has an army of misfits on his hands! Gods! What do you want him to do with them? Eh? He he! Entertain them?”

“Perhaps he had better rethink his principles,” the veiled one said menacingly. He had a woman’s voice with an edge like a rusty razor blade.

“Tsk tsk! Don’t talk that way! I say, don’t talk that way, my sun and moon! You know how devoted he is to the Dancer! He just thinks he’s dealing with you-know-who. He doesn’t know you like I do. He’s never seen your… Don’t you think I might get a…you know, now that we’re alone… No? Eh? For old Secherim? No? Really, you should have more consideration for
me
. Here I am, going back and forth between you and this…this… Do you know what he said he would do to me if he ever…eh? No? Well, I’ll tell you some time. But here I am, going between you and all the other thousand and one parts of this…ah…this…this humming machine, he he, and making sure everything is properly lubricated, and there you are, resorting in your stage desert with that master of yours, breathing out threats—”

“Enough,” said the veiled one. The other fell silent as though switched off. The pair had drawn up to my hiding place. “Stage desert,” he said. “True enough. But not my desert. Eblis may be Vaustus’ desert, but Vaustus is Zilla’s desert. And as for that pimp, if he’s impatient with me, he has only to find a new supplier. Let him, if he likes. What do I care? All that falls to pieces is your little scheme.”

“Ah, but all my hard work! My ‘little scheme,’ you say. It isn’t so little to me. You terrify me, you—”

“Enough, I said. Listen. If it hadn’t been for that Arrasene! It wasn’t my fault that Jairus was trifling with someone like that.” He was silent a moment. “What of our friend in the Gardens? How is he?”

“Oh, they have him working on some nonsense, don’t ask me what. The things they think of! And they’re the ones at the top! Or think they are. Dah. He’ll toy prettily with them, have no doubt. Never has known what it was all about, though. Just fancy! In a man that intelligent!”

“And has he discovered
her
new location?”

“Assuredly. But I still don’t see why I need Jairus for that at all.”

“As usual, you misjudge our friend. He’s proud. If we seemed to be offering her as payment, he wouldn’t deign accept. It’s much better if we merely present our information and allow him to retrieve her himself. Not least because we need Jairus to feel useful to us.”

“Yes, well, perhaps he’s starting to feel a little
too
useful. You should hear the airs he puts on. He’s getting impatient. And I—well, what am I but a worm? But it does seem to me that, after so many months, it should surely be possible now to…”

“You don’t understand what I have to contend with at this end of things,” said Zilla. “The instruments I work with are not always as docile as I would wish.”

“You are too modest,” Secherim said dryly. “As if you didn’t lead the Sun Mage about on a leash.”

“A leash can strangle, if pulled too hard. It would have been easy enough to destroy him, but I wanted to subsume him, not break him. Do you understand? My restrictions were the restrictions of an artist. I didn’t wish to spoil things by too hasty an action. In the end he turned out rather well, I think.”

“Hmph. I suppose so. As usual, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What I’m more interested in is your other hobby.”

“The ova are to be shipped on schedule. I am still to accompany them.”

“Jairus, I’m sure, will be overjoyed to receive them, and to meet you face to face, so to speak. But while you’ve been playing with your pets, I’ve been busy about your work in Afram and Enoch.”

“Busy! Are you ever anything else? You and your schemes!”

“I do it that you may not sully your hands with such things, my sun and moon.”

“Fool! Don’t bow to me! Idiot!”

“Fool? Am I a fool? Yes, I suppose I am. But even that is for you. I do foolish things! That’s all Secherim does! He fools about!”

“I believe it. What have you fooled lately?”

“Two more tracts. My best yet. Hot off the underground press, he he!”

“Here, let me see that,” said Zilla. He swore softly, twittering to himself. “Nonsense, nonsense,” he muttered, reading. “Bah! Do you still write these yourself?”

“Indeed I do! How could I entrust the task to another? It takes a certain kind of mind, I think, to reach our intended audience. My previous communications have had their effect, oh yes they have. It was quite thrilling to see my handiwork in Hela. He he! What a moment for an artist!”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” Zilla muttered again. I heard the crumpling of paper.

“Well, you have your ways, and I have mine. You do as you see fit with the Druins. And that, I might say, if it be not impertinent, has gone quite well. ‘A people utterly rootless,’ you once said in one of your somberer moods. He he! You’ve sown your seeds among them, I can tell! Everywhere I look, I see little plants sprouting.”

“Yes, I am a sower. A people fit to be plowed!”

“You have such disdain for your followers! May one inquire into what it is exactly that moves you to work so assiduously, if not humble vainglory?” Zilla began to make answer, but they had moved off again. Soon they were out of earshot.

Cautiously, I crept from my hiding place. The street was empty. Two crumpled paper balls lay where they had tumbled into the gutter. I picked one up and straightened it out. It was a tract. With a sensation of vertigo I recognized the hand behind the one I had seen in Sabhenna. I crumpled it up again and shoved it into my pouch. Then I made after Zilla and Secherim, dashing to a place where I knew they would soon pass, and hid myself again.

I didn’t have long to wait. Secherim was saying, “Yes, well, that’s all very well, but we’re not all so honorably zealous in our unbelief as you seem to be. No, and not all of us are unbelievers. I, for one, am a believer. But my belief jumps with your unbelief, to be sure, he he!”

“You! What do you believe in?”

“Is it possible you don’t know? Do you promise not to laugh?”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” muttered Zilla.

“Do you? Eh? Do you?”

“Yes, yes, whatever you like. Yes, I promise.”

“I believe in…you! Yes, you! You are my king, my sun, my god! You are my alpha and my omega, my beginning and my end!”

“Bah! Fool! Get up off the ground! Don’t do that!”

“Oh please, oh please! Oh, let me see—” Secherim’s voice was cut off. I heard the sound of blows, animal squeals and groans. “Ah,” Secherim panted, coughing a little. “Ah, even abuse at your hands is bliss.”

“Fool,” said Zilla. “Get up.” I heard Secherim struggling to his feet. Zilla went on as though nothing had happened. “What was that you said about the first sacrifice? You told me you would explain.”

“Mm? Eh? Oh. Yes. I was speaking of the Recusants, of course.”

“The Recusants! Again with the Recusants! Every other tract mentions them these days. They’re no obstacle, surely.”

“No, of course not,” said Secherim, still gasping for air. “No obstacle at all. Who could be? But their confounded stick-in-the-muddedness makes them uniquely useful. The Cheiropt saw that long ago, oh yes it did. They’re secretive. They refuse to adapt. They’re a living reproach. They’re suspected by all. Most importantly, they will never recognize your rank. You see? Yes! Let them burn like candles upon your accession! Oh, what a delight! Oh, what a feast for the people! Let the smoke of their bonfires rise up to heaven! Let their spilled blood cement the foundation of your reign! The masses will adore you, if they can only be shown that in doing so they’ll have to hate those skulkers in darkness. Trust me! But never will your hands be dirtied with the business, have no fear. Clever mechanisms that sound reasonable but cleave right through the heart of them. That’s the key. The masses will pile the fuel themselves without even asking themselves what they’re doing.”

Zilla trilled enigmatically.

“And I say, let the Enochites cling to their petty rites, if they so desire. Just so they adore you as they adore the Cheiropt, before all and over all. And they will adore you. Even as I have adored you, ever since that day.” There was a protracted silence, and then Secherim said in a low, wheedling voice, “Oh, please. Just once. It’s been so long.”

“So be it. Just this one time before the final unveiling.”

“Yes, yes. Just this once.”

There was a pregnant pause. I leaned out a little to look. And then I was running, reckless of the turnings, beating my fists against the walls, running, running.

I’d been prepared for any amount of deformity. A gorgon wouldn’t have frozen my heart. What I hadn’t expected was unearthly beauty. The shock of it was driving me almost out of my mind.

For he was beautiful, the veiled one, as lovely to behold as a terrestrial angel, his face inhuman and serene, snowy soft and golden white, with slanting, solid black eyes half-lidded by lavender, long-lashed lids, a gentle swell of a nose sloping smoothly down to the tip of a pointed lip, a small mouth turned up at the corners in a mirthless smirk of beatitude and lofty irony.

It was the face of the predestined god-emperor of earth.