The Return of Kavin (10 page)

FIVE

In a place which was not a place, where there were no stars and no light, Ess… existed. It would not be correct to say that he waited, because the idea of time itself was very different in that place. He was not uncomfortable, though that place beyond space and time would have been death to any human who entered it; nor was he impatient. The entity called Ess had come across an uncountable number of years, in both directions, before he had been flung into this odd place. The kind of time known to human minds and bodies meant very little to Ess.

It was not entirely correct to call Ess by the male article, but he had long ago decided to be what, for his kind, would be called male, and was still so. “He” could, if it suited him, become “she”; but if he did so, he would divide into others, like himself. And he preferred to be alone.

Now, from the unthinkable place where Ess was, he looked out into reality, and perceived…

There was a short-lived, two-legged mammal, one of those primitive life forms of the remote past. Primitive, but one of those creatures had caused Ess to fall into this empty place, he remembered. Not with anger; Ess was not capable of anger.

Their minds were weak, tiny, operable in only one time direction; their senses capable of a very limited reception. But in this world and time, there were no others that Ess could reach and control; all other creatures except the dragon folk were too stupid, and the dragons were far too wise.

This creature would do, Ess thought. It was not as clever as most of its kind, but it had certain advantages…

He reached
down,
into the mind he had contacted many times before, gently and carefully… the mind of Sharamash, Thrice Glorious, Holder of the Throne of Thrones, Emperor of great Mazain.

Sharamash was asleep. He lay in the enormous bed, a fat and hairy man, with nothing particularly regal about the look of him; snoring gently, his black beard cased in a night-snood, but otherwise naked. The two concubines favored by the Emperor’s command for the night lay curled at his feet, also asleep.

Outside, it was a hot summer night; through the arched windows, stars glittered, reflected in the lake that surrounded the King’s House. Beyond, the lights of the great city still glowed, in spite of the late hour; Mazain never slept entirely.

Outside the royal bedchamber, a rank of armored men stood, shoulder to shoulder, axes in hand; while in a nearby room slaves pulled steadily at wooden handles, driving a fan that sent cool air through the room where the Thrice Glorious slept.

Sharamash grunted, softly, in his sleep.

He was standing in a wonderful place, lit by dim red light; great trees stood around, and there was soft turf under his feet. A queer, high pitched singing, wordless but somehow unbearably pleasurable, filled the air; and Sharamash felt a kind of strange ecstasy that was almost pain, a sensation he had never found in his waking life, though he had tried to find it through many odd pathways.

He had been in this place before, and he knew it well. As the dark glow began to form before him, he knew who was there to speak with him. With dream eyes, he watched as the shape of dark fire formed, and the scarlet eyes glowed down at him.

“Hail, O Lord of Night,” Sharamash said, and knelt, bowing his head.

“Sharamash…” the humming voice said, infinitely distant and yet near. “You have done well.”

“Your temple is nearly complete, Lord,” Sharamash said, feeling the weird black ecstasy rising stronger within him. He knelt, moaning with pleasure, shaking.

In the royal bedchamber he moaned, and one of the girls woke, staring at the Emperor with terrified eyes. She dared not wake him; her hands pressed against her mouth, as she saw the expression on the sleeping man’s face.

“Be swift, my servant,” the Lord of Night told him. “I have promised, and I will fulfill… when the temple is complete, I will make you a god, immortal, capable of all things and all joys… and I myself will come forth and give the whole world to you to rule under my hand…”

“I shall hasten, Lord, I shall…” Sharamash said, still shuddering.

The dark world faded suddenly, and the red light vanished. The Emperor opened his eyes in the dim lamplight of his chamber, and sat up, suddenly.

The concubine who was awake stared at him, and suddenly she uttered a choked scream through the fists she had pressed to her red mouth.

Sharamash’s face glowed strangely, and his black eyes were dilated as he stared at her; then he laughed, very softly. The girl had heard that laugh before; she went white and fainted.

The other concubine was awake now, too, but she was a girl of considerable self-control; she lay quietly, without a sign.

“Aaah,” Sharamash said, with a long yawn, and swung his hairy legs off the bed. He clapped his hands, once. A door opened, and a silent slave appeared with a robe; and another with a tray of wine bottles.

The Emperor sipped the cool wine, and stared at the first girl, grinning.

“So,” he said, softly. “Are you recovering, my pretty one? Good, good…” He chuckled. “You’ve had an experience, haven’t you? I’m sure you don’t realize how remarkable an experience… but you have looked upon my face transfigured by the Dark Light.” He nodded, still grinning, as the girl sat up. She stared at him with the terrified gaze of a bird held by a snake’s eyes.

“So you’ll understand,” Sharamash continued, softly. “I’m doing you a great honor indeed, girl. I’ve just decided to give you to the Lord of Night, immediately…” He stopped, at the girl’s strangled scream, and shook his head. “Really, now, let’s have no fuss. Actually, whatever-your-name-is, it’s hardly any pain at all, and you’ll go straight to the Dark Kingdom… What a noise, girl!” He snapped his fingers at the slaves. “Take her along, will you? Down to the temple, now… and I’ll be along in a moment, as soon as I’m properly dressed.”

The girl was dragged out, her terrified screams echoing in the outer halls as she went. The Emperor listened appreciatively while a slave dressed him in the black, jewel-studded garments of the High Priesthood of the Lord of Night. He had designed them himself, and as the slave finished, he cast an admiring glance at his reflection in a tall mirror, adjusting his tiara carefully.

The other concubine, who was much cleverer than she looked, gazed at him and emitted a sound of awe and admiration. The Emperor glanced at her and chuckled.

“Ah, thank you, my dear,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I noticed that you seemed a shade more—well,
interested,
during the course of our games a few hours ago than the other wench. As you see, your Emperor notices everything.” As he passed the bed, he gave the girl an affectionate slap. “All right, now, back to your quarters.”

The Emperor passed out of the room, and the stately progress through the ancient halls began. The palace echoed with the clash of arms presented at his passage, and the sound of feet as the priests and guards moved in his train. Several high nobles joined the procession as it wound downward toward the Gate of Chariots; all of them wore carefully arranged expressions of zeal, with one exception.

The exception, Paravaz, First Chancellor of the Realm, wore his usual stony expression. He was growing bored with the new religion adopted by the Emperor, and doubtful of certain points; furthermore, he had been busy all day, unlike most of the court, and had not managed to catch enough sleep. The day’s problems were, he felt, directly traceable to the new cult, which again robbed him of his earned rest. Paravaz was not pleased.

The sacrifices were all very well, he thought sourly, as he moved behind the Emperor and they passed under the torchlit arches of the Gate. Paravaz rather enjoyed a well-organized, properly emotional blood sacrifice now and then; he had never thought much of the modern god-ways, most of their rites asking nothing but an animal or two at best.
Couldn’t take that sort of god seriously, Paravaz thought.
But on the other hand, this Lord of Night had quite unreasonable demands, much beyond the deaths of slaves.

All that silver especially, Paravaz thought, remembering the day’s accounting of tax receipts. Not to mention some of the other materials, metals nobody had any use for till now, and costing more than gold, some of them. His mouth set in a hard line.

The King’s House, an enormous and ancient mass of walls and towers, had always occupied most of the island in the lake, in the center of the sprawling city of Mazain. At the end of the island, until recently, a wide pleasure park had
lain,
a lovely place built by a remote ancestor of Sharamash; and around it a circular road, which had once been used for exercise of chariots. Now, where the groves had been, a squat, gigantic pyramid
rose
, a structure of black stone, lit with flaring torches. A gate opened for the Emperor and his train, and priests bowed before him as he entered the fane of the Lord of Night. Pipes wailed, while somewhere within the girl who had been sent for sacrifice shrieked again.

The interior of the pyramid was a lofty space, floored with shining obsidian blocks; so high that torchlight did not penetrate the dense shadow overhead.

Across one end of the wide space, the high altars of the Lord of Night were lit by the firelight, rising tier upon tier, gleaming whitely in glittering reflections… altars that were like no other that anyone had ever seen before. The Emperor himself had given detailed instructions concerning that strange structure, and had watched it built, step by step. Once or twice the builders had attempted to cheat a little, although they had been clearly told that the Emperor had received the plan directly from the god, and would tolerate no changes at all. Those builders had gone first to the sacrificial altar, and there was no more cheating now.

The altar structure was still not quite finished, Paravaz knew all too well. Though how anyone could tell when such a mad array was finished, he couldn’t guess. Great rods of silver, inches thick, twisted in strange ceiling shapes around cylinders of rock crystal; webs of silver wire stretched from column to column, and queer cages of silver and copper rose around the whole insane array. Paravaz knew, to the ounce, how many loads of silver had already gone into that structure—not to mention the constant leakages of silver into various palms.

It looked, to Paravaz, like an enormous gateway, a barred gate that might be part of a birdcage fit to hold a bird twice the size of a dragon. Except that behind it there was only stone wall.
A gate to nowhere.

Still, Paravaz reflected, it was unhealthy to oppose an Emperor’s whims, even a mad Emperor.

Now, the priests were chanting, pipes and gongs were making a considerable amount of noise, while incense smoked. Everyone, including Paravaz, was kneeling, bowing repeatedly, while the Emperor himself stood with outspread arms before the towering mass of silver. Behind him, the minor priests were busily killing the girl, who had been flung down upon a huge black block that was carved with bloodstained channels. They were doing it as slowly as possible, but with horrible inventiveness.

“Receive, O Dark Lord of Night, this flesh brought to thee, this soul given into thy hand,” the Emperor was chanting. “We, thy servants, wait eagerly for thy coming, daily we toil at the task of building thy altar…”

Well, Paravaz thought, daily
someone
toils, that’s true enough. And some of them were beginning to object, too.

Now the altar was flickering with those odd lights that Paravaz had never really understood, and the Emperor was finishing the chanting. The object of the sacrifice had stopped quivering, and it would appear that the weekly rites were over. Paravaz gave silent thanks for that, to whatever god might be listening; he rose, stiffly, and followed as the Emperor moved out.

Past the Chariot
Gate,
and within the palace again, Paravaz moved closer to the Emperor’s elbow as they entered the Great Hall.

“Thrice
Glorious
,” Paravaz said, in a low voice. “A word… I was unable to speak with your Illustriousness this afternoon.”

“Oh, I was resting, Paravaz,” the Emperor said. “In preparation for
an enlightenment
… and I received it, you know.”

“Most wonderful lord,” Paravaz said, “I am greatly pleased… but lord, I am concerned with matters that have less to do with the divine. Charged as I am with the burdens of state…”