Stargate (7 page)

Light as a bubble, he drew his feet out of the soil's grip and glided forward, scented wind filling him with intoxication, sun glittering in his pale eyes. He floated over the fields toward the lip of the cliff he somehow knew was there, and suddenly the ocean was below him, a rich carpet of blue and green, whitecaps dazzling to his unaccustomed gaze. A ship was passing the headland, whitewash gleaming as its prow split the water, its golden sails billowing. Singing rose to him faintly, calling up a vast longing within him, an unformed sadness. Just as he was poised to drift down closer to the ship, he found himself looking up through cool greenness, surrounded by the quiet words of the water in his pool.

He rose in one clumsy, anguished movement, jealousy curdling inside him, his nostrils still quivering with Shol's sweet, hot air. I did not command that vision, he thought, standing trembling on the edge of the pool. Where did it come from? But he knew, he knew.

“Enough!” he called aloud. “I will take the treasure to Danar, and so be myself once more. Then the fish will not die, and change will once more wheel about me, not inside me.” He stumbled to the chest, wrenched it open, and lifted out the casket with fingers that shook. It weighed heavy in his hands, heavier than it ever had before, the steady sunlight in the room making no gleam on its dull surface, and it seemed to Ixelion that he held in his grasp something entirely Other, something outside and beyond the universe. It was aloof, lying there quietly waiting for him to make his choice.

But if I take it now, he thought, then I will never know what it is. May I not just look at it, just once? No! something in him shrieked, wild with fear. No, no! But other voices clamored, voices of envy and lust. They hold you light, Ixelion, the rest of them. You are the sun-lord of a worthless world full of simple people, far from the wonders of Danar, the riches of Shol. What is the crystal of Lix compared to the fragrant woods of Danar, the breathtaking stones and metals of Shol? You are worthless to all but your simpering, stupid people, who worship you because they know no better. Do you not deserve a little dignity? A brighter sun? A drier world? Does Janthis give your words as grave a consideration as Ghakazian's? He writhed in the grip of the words that came whispering, pouring into his mind, trying to catch the screaming denial behind them all and hold on to it, and so gain the strength to say with his mouth what he knew he should say, but all he could see was the vision of Sholia, encompassed by all the pomp of Shol, and himself gliding over verdure in full, hot light.

Staggering, head down, he went to the window and collapsed onto the sill, the casket tight in his grip. Raising his head, he looked out. Evening was falling. It seemed to him as though evening was always falling on Ixel, the sun always divorced from the earth, the rain always pattering, the mists always hanging in the trees, the rooms of his palace, his hair; he even fancied that it seeped into his body, making it thick and cold.

He tried once more to save himself. I was made for this world, he said to himself. My body is thin and supple as a fish. My feet and hands cleave the water as cleanly as those of my people. My lungs recognize both air and water. I
am
Ixel, its soul, its life. I was fashioned out of the water and the soil. Yet your blood is the royal blood of the sun, the insidious voice whispered back, and though the earth of Ixel is your mother and the Worldmaker your father, the sun is your other self. You long for it, you desire its heat, you thirst for dry land beneath your feet. “Yes,” Ixelion whispered back. “Now I do. Once I was content, but no longer. Why should I, out of all my kin, be so deprived?”

He shut his eyes, and his hand moved to grasp the lid, lifted it, laid it back gently. Blindly he explored the thing that lay exposed in the casket. He felt a coolness and indentations of many shapes. He did not know what he had expected. A circlet of power, perhaps, or a vial full of some strange, magical elixir. Something potent that would burn his hand or explode knowledge in his face. But not this puzzling labyrinth of tiny hills and valleys. With a last shudder he opened his eyes and looked down.

At first he could not understand what he was seeing, it was so simple, so ordinary, and he let out his breath in relief, feeling an urge to laugh. Falia, for some reason of her own, had tricked him, lied to him yet again. Then, like a wave of fresh terror, the indentations suddenly came together to form a pattern. Dread shivered over him, prickling in his hair, drying his mouth, and he slammed the lid shut and rose. Throwing back his head, he screamed and screamed again, the sound echoing out to fill his chambers with agony. The sun dimmed and struggled to rekindle, but Ixelion did not notice. He pounded his fist on the closed lid, crying. “Not this!” he wept. “No! No! Ah, not this!” The words came back to him softly, sibilantly, mingled with the fountains, slid down the walls and curved with the water that fell between the balustrades to flow over the floor of the hall and out into the river.

He stumbled to his feet and ran, the casket held out before him in both hands. Down to his hall, out the vaulting door, into the darkness, still weeping. Straight to the Gate he sped, slipping on wet undergrowth, pushing aside the flower-ridden tree branches with his slim shoulders, splashing up the river to where it became imprisoned in the torchlit tunnel that led to the Gate. The guards saw him come and stood upright, the light flooding from him catching fire on their capes of scale, and he went by them like a wind, eyes wide with panic. Then, on the rocky lip of Ixel, out beyond the Gate, teetering on the edge of the universe, he stopped. If I take it to Danar, it will torment Janthis until he is impelled to open it, and then the Gate on Danar will have to be closed and the halls of the sun-lords will be inaccessible to the rest of us forever, he thought. The risk is too great. I will keep it here on poor, wet Ixel, least of the Unmaker's concerns, where his malevolent eye seldom turns. All at once Ixelion's feverish horror left him, and he felt as though a weight had rolled from his back to go tumbling out into space. His spine straightened. Slowly he turned back through his Gate and walked home smiling in relief, the treasure tucked under one arm. He was not aware that his world had grown darker, a steady dark like a soft twilight.

As soon as he stepped under the portals of his doors, he knew that he was not alone. He stopped dead, fingers tightening around the treasure, eyes darting about the hall, but the water poured on gently, the mist hung very still high above. Was Sillix above in the high chamber, with more calamitous news? Angrily Ixelion waded through the hall and up the broad, water-filled ways to his topmost room, wanting only to deal with Sillix and his whines so he could be alone. He was so preoccupied with the certainty that Sillix stood beside his pool, that meek smile on his face, that he strode under the dripping stone without caution. Then he came to an abrupt halt.

A man stood beside his pool. No, it was not a man but a Trader. Ixelion could see the outline of the window and the drizzle-drowned forest roof blurring through the semitransparent body, the long arms and legs. Around the opalescent head went a voluminous scarf, the mark of a Trader, and with a queer convulsion of his heart Ixelion saw that it was black, the ends slashed in brilliant orange. He could not move. He felt as though he had suddenly become one with the water that swirled and trickled around them both; he was melting, oozing into the endless, restless flow.

“Who are you?” he croaked. “How did you get in here? My halls are sealed.”

The Trader inclined his head, and the lipless mouth smiled briefly. “I greet you, Ixelion, sun-lord. As you can see, I am but a Trader, and in answer to your second question, which you ought to be able to answer for yourself, I am not hindered by any seal. I am not mortal and I am not immortal.”

“Well, what do you want?” Ixelion rejoined sharply, the awful cloud of fear lifting a little. “If you seek crystal to take to other worlds, you must see the miners on Lix.”

The Trader's smile grew broader. “I do not seek goods for trade, sun-lord. I have come for something that does not belong to you, that is forbidden to all those of the suns. I gave it to Falia to take to the council, but she did not take it to Danar, did she, Ixelion? She gave it to you, wicked Falia. Now I will take it to Janthis myself.”

Ixelion drew in a deep, shaking breath, his mind racing, the treasure in his grasp suddenly heavy and bitter cold, as it had been once before this day. He did not speak; he could not. But she slew you, he thought. She killed, she destroyed you. The Trader from Tran.

“Come,” the Trader said more briskly, his strange, slitted eyes glittering. “Give it to me and I will be on my way. I serve neither black fire nor the council. I serve only the Law, and the Law states that what you have in your hands is forbidden to you until the end of the ages.”

Ixelion swallowed, his fingers tightening about the casket protectively. “Tran,” he whispered. The Trader nodded, smiling again, and rounded the pool to stand close to Ixelion, his body shimmering like a waterfall. “I carried it from the ruin of Tran,” he said. “I was in haste and did not know whether the Unmaker had knowledge of the thing I found in the smoke and fire. I took it to Falia, believing that in her hands it would be safe, for Fallan's Gate was still open. I did not relish being consumed by black fire.” His smile split his face, and Ixelion suddenly hated that smile. “I was consumed by white fire instead”—he chuckled—“but I am many, Ixelion. I am like the Messengers, not understood by the worlds, a creature of deep space, tolerated because of the work I do, but I am less respected than the Messengers. And rightly so. I do not die easily, even as the sun-lords do not, for I can make my body thin, so thin that fire passes through me, or thick as a tree to withstand time. I died on Fallan,” he sneered. “Oh, yes. I am not as strong as a sun-lord, or as powerful, but I have many lives. Enough talk. Give me the precious thing, and I will be gone.”

Coldness crept into Ixelion's mind, and he knew at once that never, never would he give up the thing. The time of excuses, arguments, lies to himself was over. He wanted it, and he would keep it on Ixel, no matter what.

“I do not believe that you will take it to the council,” he said. “How do I know that you are not from the Unmaker, and he will take it for himself?”

The Trader shrugged. “Even if I were to give it to him, what of it? It is not forbidden to him. He has a right to it, just as he has a right to you and every other sun-lord. Every created thing. All of us, his.”

“No. We belong to the Lawmaker.”

“Pahl” The Trader's smile had gone, and peevishness marred his face. “Where is he, then, in all your distress? He is a myth, nothing more. Has it ever occurred to you, sun-lord,” he sneered, “that for a thousand thousand ages Janthis may have been lying to you? That the Worldmaker has never ceased to be what he was, and it was really Janthis who changed and hid his change from you? Why do you follow him like an adoring mortal, eh? He lies to you all, he manipulates you to his own ends. How can the Worldmaker, more powerful than all of you, be changed, without yourselves changing in turn? Faugh! You sun-lords with your arrogance and your petty little games of sun power. You make me disgusted.”

Ixelion tried to battle the doubt seeping into his mind at every word the Trader said, but he knew his weakness, and every word spat at him found an answering chord in him. It really is too late, he thought in anguish, looking into the twisted face before him. I can never go back, for to go back implies that I am not as I once was. My wholeness has therefore become hollow like a shell. I know now what I have done. Be silent, you tool of black fire. You have done your work. Even without you, I was condemned by my own hand.

“Let me tell you something, Ixelion,” the Trader went on softly. “I did not come here for the treasure. I knew before I passed your Gate that you would refuse to give it to me. I serve the Law, as I told you before. It is dear to me as nothing else is dear. Listen to me. The treasure will tell you what you should do, and it can help you if you will let it. It is forbidden to you, but why? Because the one who possesses it possesses more power than any other. What I say is true. Falia opened and saw and knew, but Falia did not have the courage to use it, so it destroyed Fallan. You have the strength.
You
can use it to outwit the Unmaker. The Law is above dark and light, and so must you be if you want to save the universe. Defeat the Unmaker with it, Ixelion. Restore the balance of the Law!”

The Law is not above dark and light, Ixelion thought, forcing his mind to reject the Trader's smooth argument, though the effort was like pushing his way through mud. The Law divides dark from light. The Worldmaker placed himself outside the light, and thus outside the Law. “Surely the treasure can tell me what I will do, not what I should do,” he managed huskily. His head swam, and the Trader nodded mockingly.

“Time divides here, now, in this room,” he said. “You must choose the path of the future. Destruction, Ixelion, or the help of your treasure?”

“I will take it to Janthis,” Ixelion replied stubbornly, faintly, and the Trader laughed.

“Do you trust him that much? Or yourself? Give it to me, and I will deliver it. To Ghakazian, perhaps, or the beautiful Sholia. She, indeed, has the power to use it.”

Ixelion was galvanized. He leaped back. “Go away!” he snarled. “Ghakazian, Sholia, we are all equal.”

“Oh? Really?” And the Trader was gone, walking on the surface of the water, out of the room, out of Ixel, laughing. “Hurry, Ixelion,” his voice floated back. “The ocean is beginning to die.”

Heart pounding, Ixelion walked unsteadily into the room, where his chair invited him to slump onto it. Very well, he thought. Very well. I think I knew that it would come to this, from the time Falia thrust the haeli wood box into my innocent hands. Mine. Not Ghakazian's, or Sholia's. It came to
me.
Jealousy needled him, a stab of sudden hate in his mind. I will open it and I will learn, and then I will fight.