Path of the Eclipse (67 page)

This woman is a Christian, of the sort called Nestorian in the West, but there are many good churchmen who would find her customs of worship disturbing. Her congregation wished to send her to the West with the purpose of finding other Christians. As I am to leave soon, I offer to pay you whatever price your uncle gave for her so that she may continue the journey she began about three years ago.

Your trader has visited me and we have agreed on a route and a departure day. He has assured me that it will not be difficult to get passage into Egypt, and so I have authorized him to secure a proper vessel and crew for the voyage. As I have told you before, I am a very bad sailor, lamentably.

Let me say that I believe the Sultan will find the new Rani of Natha Suryarathas a most excellent woman. She is intelligent, educated and responsible. You have met Padmiri, and you know for yourself the quality of the woman. In her life she has seen many changes of fortune and will not make hasty decisions or unwise promises.

Your message to me asks if I long for my home—yes, I do, intensely. I have seen much of the beauty and horror of the world and have traveled far, very far. Yet there is a special joy I feel when I stand on my native earth that is like no other in this world.

I beg you will excuse the brevity of this note. There is much I have to do before sunrise. I thank you again for what you have done. If an Infidel’s gratitude has any worth to a follower of the Prophet, then you have mine, Jala’-im-al.

May Allah watch over you and reward you.

Saint-Germain

in the eighth year of the reign of

the Sultan Shams-ud-din Iletmish

Epilogue

A letter from the Rani Padmiri of Natha Suryarathas to Saint-Germain.

To the foreign alchemist called Saint-Germain from the Rani Padmiri, greetings.

I have given this to my messengers with instructions that it be given to Jalal-im-al Zakatim in Delhi, who will know what trader can find you. Doubtless this will not reach you quickly, but that is of little importance.

When you left me, I feared to think of you at all, and did not want to know what had become of you. But that was more than six years ago. Now that I have a little time to myself, I think often of you, and I have wished to tell you that all you gave me was not lost.

When I consider my life, it appears to be a shadow, nothing more than a crude outline on a wall, until I knew you. For all those years I was hidden, and glad to hide, paying myself with a few pleasures, so circumspectly. My scholarship protected me as much as my isolated house did. To be sure, there are other protections. I now sleep with a guard at the foot of my bed and another outside the door, and no matter where I go, or when, slaves come with me so that there will be no doubt as to my importance. This protection is a ritual, but the other was more pernicious, for I was ill with it, and never knew it. You intruded on that. When we spoke together, I believed that only my curiosity was being satisfied. When we lay together, I thought that you awakened only my senses. When you were gone, I began to see what my life had been and what it had become.

That does not mean I wished at first to become Rani. When my brother’s daughter died, I thought that it was wrong for me to rule, that I should find one of my male relatives to govern here. But all of them were dead, a few from old age but most of them from the rebellion against my brother. There were five boys, none of them older than seven, who are fairly distant cousins and might one day succeed me, but there was no one then, and will not be anyone for several years, who might have assumed the throne. For the first year, I wanted most fervently to retire to my house again and content myself with studies. The second year I found my tasks difficult but I was not as eager to leave them. Now I have come to appreciate my position. I cannot say whether or not I like it, only that it is appropriate. They call me the Just Mistress, Saint-Germain. When they speak of my brother Dantinusha, they call him the Wary. Of Tamasrajasi they do not speak at all.

Two years ago I took a lover—my sixth. He is ardent and obliging, but I have come to realize that all we do together is ultimately intended to please him. He is more satisfied when I am aroused, and so he rouses me. It has been so with all but you. Only now have I come to understand that all you did to give me pleasure was for my pleasure, not for yours. You told me, I recall, that your pleasure was in my pleasure. At the time I had no comprehension of what you meant. Now I know I have been most fortunate and have had a very rare gift from you.

Now I am near the end of my life. There is a winter in my bones that the sun cannot thaw. The Wheel turns for me as it does for everyone—even you. When my funeral pyre is lit and my body consumed by the flames, my soul will be at ease. When you left, I called you a man of Shiva, because of your nature and your needs. I have thought of late that this is not so. Shiva would dance on the Burning Ground where my pyre will be, and he would smile, as would all his creatures. But I think that you would not dance, or smile. You are too much bound to life to be any part of Shiva, and for that you doom yourself to the pain of loss: does having the moment pay for its loss, Saint-Germain? For if it does, then I will not mind that you are not with me now, and that you may never answer this question.

How long you have been alone! When you had been gone a fortnight I thought I could not bear it, and even now your loss is not easy to endure. You have had eons of loss and loneliness: what is mine by comparison?

My love for you did not cease when you left Natha Suryarathas, and it may not end when my life is done. The opinions of the Brahmins are divided on that. There is little merit in it either way, but I find that I do not love for merit.

Where this will find you, and when, I do not know. If the gods will that you read this, nothing will prevent you from receiving it, and if they will that these reflections are mine alone, then there is nothing in the world mighty enough to overreach them to bring this to you. It pleases me to think that you will see this and remember the time we spent together.

We have said farewell once, but let me say farewell again, beloved.

the Rani Padmiri

sister to the Rajah Kare Dantinusha

Natha Suryarathas

in the sixth year of her reign

Other Tor books by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Blood Games

A Candle for D’Artagnan
*

Crusader’s Torch

A Flame in Byzantium

Hotel Transylvania

The Palace

*
Forthcoming

“It would make you what I am…”

“But a vampire?” The myths haunted T’en Chih-Yü. To her shame, she trembled. This time she actually considered the matter. It struck her then that she knew very little about this foreigner, about his life and the gift that he offered her. “This is my land, its safety has been entrusted to me. If it is defeated, then I must fall with it.” Saint-Germain started to protest but she silenced him. “But if it is saved, then I will not refuse your salvation.” She could not meet his eyes as she said this, but slowly raised her face, and for one enduring instant their passion flared.

“Chih-Yü…” Saint-Germain began, but before he could move to reach her, she fled the room, leaving him to stand alone in the darkness.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

PATH OF THE ECLIPSE

Published by arrangement with St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24th Street

New York, N.Y. 10010

Cover art by Sanjulian

ISBN: 0-812-52810-7

Can. ISBN: 0-812-52911-5

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 80-53085

First Tor edition: July 1989

eISBN 9781466807631