Night's Master (9 page)

Months passed. At noon, a shepherd going by the hut with his woolly
school all about him, called to Kazir: “Something is growing where your lady
lies.”

Kazir reached out and touched the shoot softly.

“Ah, Ferazhin, my blind world’s sun. . . .”

Soon the villagers began to talk afresh.

“There is a young tree pushing up on her grave. A tree all silvery
leaves. It looks a tree for flowers, but there are none.”

Months added themselves to months. Winds came and went, warm winds or
cold, shaking the leaves of the flowerless tree, stirring the pale hair of the
poet who sang beneath it. The year was woven on the loom, finished and folded
away upon the pile of other years in the tall chests of Time.

That night the poet did not bring water to the tree. He wept there and
the tears fell down to nourish its roots as his songs had fallen to nourish
them.

At midnight there came an alteration. Hard to define that change—he felt
it like the turning of a tide. Kazir touched the tree and found a dream
struggling and swaying inside its bark.

“One flower,” Kazir murmured to the tree, “only one.”

He did not see it, but he knew, the swelling of the silver thing upon its
stem, the splitting of that silver, the violet cup within that folded back,
petal upon petal, until the heart lay open.

She had come
to a dim pallid place. It was a place of ghosts, the threshold of death and
life. Why mysteries teemed there she could hardly tell. Souls, half-formed,
clamoring to be born, souls, wild with fright or anger, bursting up like gray
fires to their freedom from existence.

Ferazhin stood quite still in the floating mists, and called for Kazir.
He did not answer her. No hand grasped hers, no voice of sunlight lit up the
shadows. Only the shades fluttered about her like bats.

“Kazir, Kazir,” Ferazhin cried, but only the bat-wing voices sounded:

“On, on,” they whistled, “follow us on this great and terrible journey!”

And others, dark souls still cramped by diseased bodies or cruel lives,
hissed:

“Come, you cannot linger here. Here is No Place. Here you will forget
everything, all you were and all you might be. Here your thoughts will die as
your earthly brain has done already. Forget, forget, no one remembers you, and
come.”

But Ferazhin only wandered through the mists, entreating Kazir to find
her.

No time passed in such a spot, yet a sort of time passed. Ferazhin did
not fly upwards with the other travelers who rushed through that gate. She
searched until she was all search, she called a name until she was all one
calling cry, like a bird in the desert. She despaired and became despair. She
did indeed forget everything. Forgot herself, forgot the way from the
threshold, forgot, at last, even Kazir.

Then, into limbo, pierced an invisible thread like silken wire, which
wound about her heart so that she recollected she had one. Slowly, yet
inexorably, the thread began to tug at her, to pull her back toward that
monstrous shifting door by which she had entered. Little by little, fragment by
fragment, the thread drew her. It seemed she heard music and saw light, and she
loved them, though she did not remember what they were.

Then came a great agony, and fear and joy. They overwhelmed her, drowned
her, bore her away with them. She tumbled through seas of fire and flames of
pain, she put on flesh like a scalding garment, and knives tore wide her eyes
to a sky of black radiance.

She stood in the cup of a vast flower, as once before. She saw a man, as
once before. Seeing him, finding him, she recalled everything.

Kazir put his arms about her, and lifted her down to him. They clung
together as the stem of the tree clung to the earth. What they said and what
they promised in that moment who needs to be told?

But somewhere perhaps some dark door slammed like thunder in a city
underground.

BOOK TWO:

Tricksters

PART ONE

1. The
Chair of Uncertainty

There was a
king in the east, in the city of Zojad; his name was Zorashad. He liked to
raise armies, he had a talent for it. He seemed indeed to grow armies, as a
field grows weeds. And strong weeds they were, of bronze and iron, and
terrifying they looked when the sun flashed on their brazen marching and on
their machines of war and the clouds of dust that rose before and behind. And
terrifying they sounded when the clash of their metal was heard, the tramp of
feet and rumble of wheels, and the bellow of bulls’ horns and trumpets. The
bravest kings and princes and their staunchest captains felt their battle-anger
dilute to confusion in the vicinity. And certainly, Zorashad did not lose one
battle, and sometimes had no need to fight at all. Great lords would genuflect
before him in surrender without a blow exchanged. Not merely the armies, but he
himself seemed to carry with him a huge sense of mastery—he was impervious and
ruthless. Those who knelt at once he spared and took as vassals; those who
resisted he would mercilessly overcome, and then he would put entire families
to the sword, burn the royal palaces, raze the cities and lay waste to the
land. He was like a dragon in his fury, rending and unreasonable. His passion
was vainglory, but he was also rumored to be a magician.

This rumor was because of a mysterious amulet. No one knew how Zorashad had
come by it; some said he found it in the desert in the desolate hall of a ruin
beneath a fallen column, some that he got it from a spirit by means of a trick,
others that one night, many years before, he had come across a dead animal on a
lonely road, a creature that was like no other beast ever seen on earth and,
guided by some instinct or prophecy, he had slit open the monster’s gall
bladder and found there the amulet, in the form of a blue stone, smooth and
hard as jade. Whatever its source, however, the king took to wearing the amulet
about his neck, and who could deny its efficacy? He was presently the ruler of
seventeen lands, an empire stretching hither and thither, this way and that,
till it reached on all sides the blue acres of the sea. It was related that
even the lion would step out of his way.

As Zorashad
grew in years, so his vainglory grew, and perhaps, weighted down by it, he
became also a little mad. He levied massive tribute from his vassals, and had
built for himself a temple, and here all his subjects were obliged to come and
worship him as a god.

Golden statues of Zorashad were erected in Zojad and in every one of the
conquered cities, and inscriptions in gold set in panels of snow-white marble
beneath them. This is what the inscriptions said: “Behold with terror Zorashad,
Mightiest of the Mighty, Ruler of Men and Brother of the Gods, whose equal is
not to be found under Heaven.”

The people marveled at this, and trembled, expecting any moment for the
gods to strike the cities with plague or thunderbolt because of this blasphemy.
But the gods, in those days, regarded the deeds of men much as men have always
regarded the antics of very small children. So there was little danger from the
serene country of Upperearth, where sublime indifference no doubt continued.
Danger there was, but it had another shape.

It had become a whim of Zorashad’s, when he sat and feasted at night with
his lords, to have brought in and set facing him at the table, a tall chair
carved from bone. This he called the Chair of Uncertainty. Anyone might sit in
it, rich man, prince or beggar, freeman or slave, even the murderer and the
thief might sit down at the king’s table, eat the choicest fare off plates of
gold and drink the finest of wines from crystal cups, and no one could restrain
them or bring them to justice. That was Zorashad’s decree. But at the end of
the feast Zorashad would do to them whatever he wished—either good or evil,
according to his mood; for this resembled, Zorashad declared, the uncertainty
that the gods visited on man during his life, not to know whether pleasure or
hurt, humiliation or triumph or annihilation was his lot. Some who sat in the
bone chair might be fortunate; the god-king would give them precious metal or
gems to take away. They would go out blessing him, glad they had risked their
luck. A few Zorashad might have sewn up in the skin of a wild ass and driven
braying through the streets under the lash till dawn. Others he would condemn
to the axe. It made no difference what the guest’s status might be, or his
deserts. Sometimes the high-born or the virtuous died horribly while the
murderer ran off laughing, with a cap full of emeralds. It was a chair to
gamble in, and most of the gamblers were desperate men, who considered anything
better than life as they were forced under their circumstances to live it. Yet
occasionally, a sage would come, thinking he could outwit the king and so grow
famous in the land. Several were the heads they left behind, spiked on his
gate. Generally, it may be supposed, the chair of bone stood empty.

One evening, just after sunset, a stranger entered the city of Zojad, a
tall man, shrouded in a black cloak. He passed as quietly as a shadow through
the streets, but when he came to the doors of the palace where the guards stood
with crossed spears, the king’s hounds began to howl from their kennels, the
horses to stamp and whinny in the stables and the falcons to screech in the
mews. The guards, alarmed, glanced about them hurriedly; when they looked back
at the street, the stranger had vanished.

He was in Zorashad’s splendid hall. The brilliance of two thousand
candles played over his cloak and could not pierce it. He came up the room, and
the minstrel girls fell quiet to watch him pass, even the gorgeous birds in
their cages of gold stopped singing: they put their heads under their wings as
if they felt the approach of winter. The stranger halted before King Zorashad’s
table.

“I ask a boon, O king,” said he. “To sit in the Uncertain Chair.”

Zorashad laughed. He was pleased at this unexpected diversion.

“Sit and welcome,” he said. And he called for basins of rosewater for the
guest to dip his hands, and for the best roasts and vegetables to be given him,
and for wines like ruby or topaz to be poured in his goblet.

Then the stranger drew back the fold of the cloak which had concealed his
face. There was not one who saw him who did not wonder at his extraordinary
handsomeness. His hair was blue-black like the night, his eyes like two black
suns. He smiled, but the smile was somehow unpleasing. He lightly caressed the
head of the king’s favorite hound and it slunk away and fell down in a corner.

“O king,” he said in his voice that was like dark music, “I had heard men
risked their lives to taste the fare of your table. Do you mock me?”

Zorashad reddened angrily, but the cries of his lords made him look down
at the plate his servants had set before the stranger. And there, where the
roast and the tender shoots had lain, was coiled a sinuous slime-green snake.

Zorashad shouted. A slave snatched up the dish and threw its contents in
the brazier; certainly he feared his king more than the venom of the snake. A
fresh platter was brought, and the servants once more heaped it with aromatic
food. Yet, as the stranger took up his knife, a smoke seemed to drift about the
table, and suddenly there on the plate writhed a knot of angry scorpions.

“O king,” murmured the stranger, softly and with reproach, “it is true
only desperate men will eat in your chair of bone, knowing death may await them
in exchange for their meal, but do I seem so starved that I will relish these
vermin, sting and all?”

“There is witchcraft in my palace,” bellowed Zorashad, and his court
turned pale, all but the stranger.

Dish after dish was brought, but none would the stranger eat and no man
blamed him for that. Al1 manner of horrors sprang from the plates, even the
sweetmeats changed to pebbles and wasps. As for the wine, the goblet of yellow,
upended, spilled stinking urine, the red was unmistakably blood.

“O king,” said the stranger sorrowfully, “I had thought it your custom to
mete out fates impartially, but I see it is your habit rather to slay your
guests at the board.”

The king leaped up.

“You have spoiled the food yourself. You are a magician!”

“And you, sir, are a god, or so I was told. Cannot a god defend himself
from such silly tricks as any poor traveler might have about him?”

Zorashad, overcome with rage, roared out to his guard:

“Seize the man and kill him!”

But before one brazen foot could take a step, or one bronze-gloved hand
could grasp a sword, the stranger said, most gently: “Be still,” and not a man
or a woman could move, and all sat in their seats as if their limbs were turned
to stone.

A deep silence came down on the hall then, like a gigantic bird folding
its wings.

The stranger rose, and going to stand by the king as he sat shrinking yet
frozen in his chair, bowed deeply and spoke in a caressing tone the words of
the inscription.

“Behold with terror Zorashad, Mightiest of the Mighty, Ruler of Men and
Brother of the Gods, whose equal is not to be found under Heaven.”

Only the eyes of the petrified king could move. All through the hall only
eyes were moving, darting like frantic jeweled fish as they followed the
progress of the fearful stranger. He walked about the table smiling.

“I await, magnificent king,” he said, “the axe of your vengeance. Pray
get up and deal me my punishment. Am I so much your inferior that you will not
deign to humble me further? Am I to endure forever the shame of your pity?
Speak.”

Zorashad found then he had once more the ability to do so. He whispered:
“I see I have wronged you, mighty one. Only release me and I will worship you,
build you a temple to touch the sky—bring you a ton of incense every dawn and
dusk, and sacrifice always in your name.”

“My name is Azhrarn, Prince of Demons,” said the stranger, and at the
words, the two thousand candles flickered and went out. “I am not worshipped,
only feared, by men who are not gods. Under heaven, on earth or beneath it, I
and I alone am without equal.” Zorashad whimpered like a dog. In the dim flare
of the braziers, which was all the light left burning in the hall, he saw the
Prince’s hand come toward him and felt the magic amulet snatched from breast.
“This is your power,” Azhrarn said, holding it in palm, “this, and nothing
else. This is what made men dread you, this is what made you love yourself.”
Then he spat on the stone and let it fall on the table.

At once a silver dancing flame sprang up where he had spat. The flame
gnawed at the amulet; it glowed and seemed to grow white-hot and presently
shivered in pieces.

There was uproar in the king’s hall. Men, freed from the spell of stone,
leaped to their feet and collided. Only the king lay in his chair like an old
man sick with fever.

The stranger of course was gone.

That night
there were many wonders. In the palaces of sixteen kings, sixteen omens. Many,
lying asleep, woke up with a start to shout for their priests to read a dream.
Ten spoke of a huge bird which, flying into their chambers, murmured to them in
a musical voice. In five kingdoms a serpent sprang out of the flaming hearth
like a coal and called aloud its message. And in the north, a young and very
handsome king, walking sleepless in his garden under the moon, met a man in a
black cloak, whose bearing was princely and who talked to him like a friend or
a brother and kissed him before leaving him, with a touch as fearful and as
thrilling as fire. And the substance of all these miracles on the night of the
sixteen kings was this: The sorcerous amulet of Zorashad the Tyrant is
destroyed, and his power is ended.

Vassalage to Zorashad had not been sweet to them. The heavy tributes had
worn them out; their pride ached like an old wound. They banded together and
soon fought with Zorashad a colossal battle on an eastern plan. No longer was
Zorashad a god. His hand shook, his face was white as paper. His brazen army
slunk away and left him and presently he was slain. But his old cruelties were
not forgotten. Like vultures the sixteen kings swooped on Zojad and razed it.
The palace burned, the treasure chambers were sacked, and the Chair of
Uncertainty itself was broken into splinters. The household of Zorashad they
put to the sword, as he had put to the sword so many households. Seven sons and
twelve daughters and all the wives of Zorashad perished on that night, even his
hounds and his horses they slew, even the birds that nested in his trees, such
was their hatred and their fear. Afterwards they rejoiced that they had slaughtered
every living thing that had belonged to the god-king of Zojad. But one living
thing had escaped them.

There was a child born that night, the thirteenth daughter of Zorashad.
The mother the soldiers found and slew, but an old woman, a nurse, had snatched
up the baby and run out with it. She ran along the great highway which led out
of Zojad, between the statues of Zorashad the god. And as she ran, she cursed
him. Near dawn her fragile heart cracked inside her and she fell dead. The
child dropped from her hands upon the paving of the road. Both its arms were
broken at the blow, and its soft face, scarcely formed, was ruined by the sharp
stone and the brambles that speared at it as it went rolling down among them.
By chance merely, its eyes were spared. It set up a feeble thin scream of
agony, but only the wind heard, the wind and the jackals creeping towards the
smouldering city.