The Book of Night With Moon (58 page)

Don't apologize,
came the thought of Iau Hauhai'h, and it was humorous, if momentarily grim.
Usually gods don't. Not in front of
that
One, anyway. Say what It needs to hear! We've got a lot of work to do.

Rhiow stood there, feeling the majesty cohabiting with her… and then held her head up, thinking of that statue in the Met, poor cold copy that it was. "
Am I not the One,
" She cried, "
to make power against death strong, and power for life stronger still? Shall I allow the darkness to prevail against My own? Their life is in Me, and of Me: save that You destroy Me as well, never shall they be wholly gone; and Me You cannot destroy, nor My power in Them. Rise up then, Aaurh My daughter, and be healed of Your dying; the dark dream is over, and awakening is come!
"

Off to one side, where a shape lay dark and charred on the stone, there was movement— and then a flash of fire. If a form can burn backward, this one did. Flame leapt from nowhere to it, filled it, wrapped it round— not the cold white fire of the catenary, but flame with a hint of gold, the sun's light concentrated, made personal and intense. Substance came with the fire: the shape filled out, rolled to its feet, shook itself, and stood, looking proud, and angry, and amused. It was a lioness, but one in whose pelt every hair was a line of golden fire, and the Sun rode above her like a crown— though it was not as bright as her eyes, or as fierce. "
I am here, my Dam and Queen,
" said the voice of Aaurh the Warrior, the Queen's Champion, the Mighty, the Destroyer-by-Fire; but it was Saash's voice as well, and Rhiow could have laughed out loud for joy at the sound of that voice, itself nearly shaking with laughter under the stern words.

Oh Iau, Saash— I mean,
oh— And Rhiow
did
laugh then: it was amazing how your vocabulary could be lessened by realizing you suddenly had the One inside you, and that it sounded surpassingly silly to be swearing at, or by, Yourself.
Saash, are you all right?

A snicker.
Are you kidding? I'm dead. Or I
was.
But live by the fire, die by the fire.
And she chuckled.
It's an occupational hazard.

"
Rise up then, sa'Rráhh My daughter, and be healed of Your sore wounding; stand with Us against the Old Serpent that would have worked Your bane!
"

The prone form that lay clutching painfully with its foreclaws at the stone now lifted its head and slowly began to glow both dark and bright, like its fur— night-and-moonlight, the pale fire and the dark one mingling, starfire and the darkness behind the stars: the essence of conflict and ambivalence. But neither fire burned less intensely for the other's presence; and as the tigerish shape rose up to stand with its Dam, the eyes that looked out of its mighty head were terrible with knowledge of past and future, decisions well made and ill made, and action and passivity held in dangerous balance. Those awful, thoughtful eyes looked down at the body they inhabited… and suddenly went wide.

"
Look at me! Just
look
at me! I'm a
queen!"

Iau Kindler of Stars let out a long sigh. "
Son,
" She said, "
shut up. It happens to the best of us.
"

Rhiow put her radiant whiskers right forward in amusement. It had not occurred to Rhiow that
Arhu
might manifest as sa'Rráhh, but the Tearer had always been as ambivalent about gender as anything else. "
Oh all right,
" said the Dark One. "
I am here, my Dam and Queen. Now let me at that ragged-eared—"

"In a moment. Rise up then, My consort, Urrua Lightning-Claw; be risen up, thou Old Tom, O Great Cat, O Cat Who stood under the Tree on the night the enemies of Life were destroyed. Urrua, My beloved, My Consort, rise up now, and stand with Us, to slay the One Who slew You!"

Off on the black stone, where blood lay pooled around a torn, silver-striped shape, darkness now pooled as well. It gathered together about that shape and began to weave brilliance into itself, the tabby coloration shading pale, to moondust grays and silvers and a brilliant white like the Moon at full, a light as pitiless in its way as the Moon looking down from a clear sky on those who would wish to hide, and can find no hiding place from what stalks them silently. That shape stood up, and was a panther's shape, heavy-jowled and white-fanged, with unsheathed claws that burned and left molten spots on any stone they touched. The mighty shape shook itself, shedding silver light about it, then padded over to join the others, looking at them with one eye that was dark and terrible, knowing secrets; and the other that burned almost too bright to look upon, for battle was in it, and the joy of battle.
"I am here, My Dam and Queen, My Consort,"
he said, and then added,
" 'My consort,' huh?"

"Don't get any ideas, you… the post is purely ceremonial.— Lone Power, Old Serpent, for these murders, now We pronounce your fate—"

"No, wait a minute,
him
first,"
said sa'Rráhh suddenly.

Slowly, very slowly, Haath had begun backing away as he first caught sight of his Lord and Master beginning to unwrap Itself from the Tree. By the time Queen Iau had begun to raise Her dead, Haath was already running away across that great dark expanse at the best speed a tyrannosaur could manage, which was considerable. Now, though, the Queen looked after him… and suddenly Haath appeared directly in front of them again, and fell on his face with the suddenness of his translocation.

"Haath, Child of the Serpent,"
said Rhiow and the Queen as he struggled to his feet,
"you have brought your fate upon you: but still it lieth with you to save yourself, if you will. Renounce your false Master, and you may rejoin your kind, though your wizardry, not coming from the One, is confiscate."

Haath crouched, his head low, and looked from the blazing, terrible forms before him to the dark radiance still in the process of slowly, slowly slipping from around the Tree. "I…" he said. "My Master… perhaps I was deluded in thinking…"

Allow Me to save you this crisis of conscience,
said a huge, soft voice,
by first renouncing
you.

Haath looked up in horror, already feeling the changes in his body. Rhiow knew, as Iau knew, that the Lone One had not told Haath the whole truth about his immortality: that even for the gods, death comes eventually, and mortals who try repeatedly to put it off may succeed for a while, but not forever. With his master's renunciation, all of Haath's deaths simply caught up with him at once. All that could be seen of the process was the look of shock and rage and betrayal on his face, those twelve claws lifted for one last wizardry… but there was no time for anything else, either action or reaction. Suddenly, he simply was not there; and if there was even a little dust left, the wind blowing through the darkness swept it unregarded into the River of Fire.

The Serpent's cool eyes dwelt on this, unmoved. And then another voice spoke. "Great One," it said, "Lord—"

The Four turned their attention to the source of the voice. It was Ith. He stood now, gazing at the Serpent with an odd intensity.

Ah, my son,
said the Old Serpent's voice.
Now that the other is gone, we may speak freely, you and I.

This
should be fun,
said Aaurh silently to the others.

Pay no heed to the strange violence you have seen done here,
said the Old Serpent softly.
These creatures are our ancient enemies, and need have nothing further to do with our kind or our power. Our kind have different needs, different desires.

"Lord," Ith said, "the Sun. The world above…"

None of our kind can live in that light without My help,
said the Old Serpent, slow, persuasive, reasonable.
It is fair, but it kills. Nor would they, would you, be able to find food enough for all. You will die there unless you are ruled by one who is wise, who knows time and the worlds. Long I have ruled you, to your advantage. It shall be so again. And
you
shall be My Sixth Claw, this time. You have won the right. You have proven Haath flawed, and that flaw would sooner or later have done your people, My people, great harm. Now you shall rule in his stead, and order all things for Me.

Ith swayed, looking up into the great, dark, wise, forgiving eyes. The others watched him.

They will bow before you like a god, a true god… not like these upstarts. But you must in turn surrender yourself to Me, to be filled with the power. This you must see and do.

A pause.

"…No."

The Lone One's eyes suddenly went much darker. "But this I
do
see," Ith said, and paced slowly over to stand straight and still beside sa'Rráhh, or Arhu in her shape, now flowing with fire both dark and bright. "Our kinship with these others is greater than You claim. He came into my heart, the one You say is my enemy, and tried to save me. And I saw into
his
heart, and his mind. He had pain like mine, loneliness like mine, and anger. But he rose up again, through them, and tried. Death and hunger came to him, but he did not give in to them, did not cast himself in the fire. His clutchmates all died, but he lived, and
kept
living, though the pain pierced like a claw. And when we met, he felt pain for me, and did not run away, but bore it. This is
his
Gift. To try again. We tried once and failed… and never tried again, for You told us that trying was no use. But gifts can be passed on to others who need them, even when the others are old enemies; and choices can be remade.
They can be remade!
"

It was a roar, and slowly the Mountain began to shake with it, a huge sympathetic tremor, like fear in a heart finally decided.

"I choose!" Ith said. "
I
choose for my people! We will walk with the light, in the sun, in the free sun that You cannot control; we will walk with these others who struck us down only when there was need, rather than for pleasure or for power. And if we die of the light, of our own hunger freely found, then that was still worthwhile. For we would have owned ourselves for that little time, and an hour's freedom in our own bodies, our own lives, under the sun, is worth a thousand years as slaves, even pampered slaves, in the dark under the ground, or killing other beings under strange stars!"

The Old Serpent was hissing softly to Itself now, while still slowly unwrapping Itself from around the Tree.
Fool,
it said— again that soft voice, the anger never overt—
fool of a race of fools: too true it is that you have overstayed your time in this world. You shall not overstay it much longer—

"Too late for that, Old Serpent,"
said Rhiow, said Iau.
"The Choice is made."

And already things were shifting. The landscape looked less rocky; the catenary looked less like a restlessly bound energy flow, but more than ever like a river, and one in which fire flowed like water. Rhiow, within Iau, rejoiced at the sight of it, for now she saw that this was where the River of Fire
belonged
— at the roots of the Tree: at the scene of the battle, where the souls of all felinity would at one time or another pass through the place of Choice, of the Fight, the gaming-ground that was the mother of all bouts of
hauissh.
All would see it and remember, or be reminded between lives, of the incomplete Choice, of the business still to be attended to, not in the depths of time behind them, but in the depths of time yet to come. Except that time was not as deep as it had been, anymore…

"The Change is upon them now,"
said Aaurh, moving slowly forward.
"You might destroy this whole race, and still they would find possibilities they would never have known otherwise because of this their Son, their Father, Who Chose them a different path. They will go their own way now."

They will die!
the Old Serpent hissed.

"And whose fault is
that?
They will pass,"
said sa'Rráhh, "
but to what, You will not know for aeons yet. And meantime You have a passage of Your own to deal with."

"Old Serpent,"
cried Iau then,
"stand You to battle; this is Your last day… until we fight again!"

The Serpent reared away from the Tree, and Rhiow realized belatedly that Its withdrawal had been strategic only. Now It threw Itself at them, Its whole terrible mass coming down at them like a falling tree, lightnings flailing about it—

What started to happen after that, Rhiow had a great deal of trouble grasping. All the Four threw themselves upon the Old Serpent; claws and fangs blazed, and blinding tracks of plasma burned and tore where Urrua's claws fell; fire spouted and gouted from Aaurh and sa'Rráhh, blasting at the Lone Power. As Haath had, It healed itself. The Four kept attacking, with energies that Rhiow was vaguely certain would have been sufficient to level whole continents, if not to devastate the surfaces of some small planets. Rhiow fought as she might have in her own body, clutching and biting, feeling fangs slash at her and find their mark: But the terrible pains she suffered still had triumph at the bottom of them, like blood welling up in a wound; and the violence she did, and sensed all around her, had a stately quality to it. They had done this many times before, and would do it again— though this time there had been minor changes in the ritual.

But then came one change that was not so minor; it particularly attracted her notice. Suddenly there was a Fifth among them; and sa'Rráhh laughed for joy and plunged anew into the battle beside that Fifth one; and the others cried out in amazement. For it was another Serpent, a bright one, as great as the Old Serpent, and its scales glittering like diamond in the light of their own fires. It thrust its mighty head forward and sank fangs like splinters of star-core into the great barrel of the Old Serpent's body, just behind the head; and the bright Serpent wrapped its coils around the Old Serpent's coils, and they began to strive together—