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Finally he bends and picks it up. A large envelope, to say the least, so white
that the paper, parchment really, nearly blinds. His name in flowing script
assures him that he is the recipient.
Martel, it reads, and across from the name, in the same black ink, is a
thunderbolt, stylized, but a thunderbolt none-
theless.
He probes the inside with his perceptions, but only inert material rests
there.
Closing the portal, he returns to the main room, and to the
table with the beaker.
Can it be from his latest tenants?
Unlikely, for neither could write in such a flowing hand.
He knows this, though he has seen neither write.
From the chief at the CastCenter, the latest of the more than several dozen
for whom he has theoretically worked the
"night" shift over the centuries?
Also unlikely.
He sniffs, holds the envelope up, trying to see if some per-
fume clings to it. For the hand proclaims that a woman wrote his name.
Emily?
He shakes his head. He cannot imagine the writing of a goddess, or the reasons
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why she would take the time to write.
He holds the envelope, hesitates, puts it down on the table, and stands there.
Why are you afraid? You, the dark shadow of Aurore?
Not denying his fear, he walks around the table, stares out the window at the
nearest quince tree, the latest of the gener-
ations he has planted, and down at the main house, rebuilt last year for the
fiftieth time since he purchased it from Mrs.
Alderson's estate.
After all the years, why now?
He knows the answer. He has felt it on the wind, and in his probes of what
lies beyond the energy field that is Aurore.
"There is a season ..." And after the season of light comes the season of
change. Has he not said so himself?
He replaces the beaker on its shelf and walks back to his sleeping room,
toward the wardrobe and the black tunics and trousers. He dons tunic, then
trousers, and for the first time in many years, instead of the plain black
belt, puts on the one with the triangular silver buckle. The black boots
follow.
Fully dressed, he walks back to the table, regards the en-
velope.
After a time, he picks it up and touches the flap, which un-
seals at his touch, as he knew it would.
Three holos tumble out on the table, all landing face up.
Rathe Firien, snub-nosed, red-haired, full-breasted under the clinging tunic,
and friendly, the warmth obvious, as if the holo had been canned the day
before.
Marta Farell, not the stern-faced CastCenter chief, but smiling as if to
welcome her lover, and wearing a golden gown.
And ... at the end, Kryn Kirsten, daughter of the Grand
Duke, golden-eyed and black-haired, in tunic and trousers of blue shot with
threads of gold. Slim like a bitch goddess, and bitchlike in her own way.
A narrow slip of parchment remains in the envelope.
Martel leaves it there as he studies the pictures.
Two dead women, one who loved him, and one who hadn't. Both dead because of
him. And a third, possibly the
most powerful person in the Empire of Light, immortal and yet not a goddess,
and not on Aurore. The enigma he has not seen in more than a millennium, her
holo in with that of two dead women.
An obvious conclusion to be drawn, one meant to be drawn. But why now? And by
whom?
Underlying all was the assumption that he would care, that he had to care,
that he could care.
The three-dimensional images looking up from the table asked a question, too.
Two of them, at least, and Martel dis-
likes the question.
Is he going to let someone else die, as he has the other two, because he will
not listen?
Or is someone using the question to force you to act?
Does it matter?
He shrugs, not sure that it does.
Who knows him well enough to ask the question in such a knifing way?
Emily. She is the only answer.
She is the goddess Dian, but Emily will do. Has always done between them.
He takes the narrow slip from the envelope, reads it.
The No-Name. 2200. My love.
Her love?
He tosses that question into his mental file with all the other unanswered
questions he has ignored over the centuries, knowing that it cannot stay
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ignored, not this time.
He looks down at the images of the three women, all beau-
tiful in their own way, all intelligent, and, in their own way, all dead to
him.
If you believe that, Martel, you're crazier than Thor.
He wonders who expressed the thought, then realizes it is his own, not letting
him lie to himself this time.
The stars have changed, and his time has come round at last, rough beast, and
it may be time to slouch forward ... he does not finish the thought, but,
instead, fingers the slip and lets it burst into flame.
The ashes are light and drift from his fingertips into the still air of the
room and slowly toward the floor.
Mattel locks the rear portal onto the porch, as well as the front as he
leaves, for the first time since he originally en-
tered the cottage with Rathe Firien. He will not be back soon.
The three holos gaze adoringly at the wooden beams of the ceiling above the
table, and the black thunderbolt on the en-
velope protects them.
A man who is no longer just a man, clad in two black cloaks, one fabric, one
shadow, strides along the coast path toward Sybernal, and those who see him do
not. But they shiver as he passes, not knowing why.
XLIII
In the strictest sense of the word, the old Empire of Man
"fell" with the death of the Regent and the succession of the Grand Duke of
Kirsten. Practically speaking, however, the impact was the permanent division
of the Empire. Both the
"eastern" Empire, ruled from New Augusta by the Emperor, and the "western"
Empire, ruled from Karnak by the Viceroy, claimed to be only parts of the new
Empire of Light.
In a strange way, the claims were true. In the millennium that the Empire of
Light existed, never did either ruler contest a prior claim of the other, nor
was there a recorded instance of the fleets of one firing upon the fleets of
the other.
To the Viceroy, of course, most credit should be given.
Never before or since in human history has a ruler endured, not only
relatively sane, but apparently young and healthy, for a millennium. During
the same period, there were twenty-
four Emperors, five palace revolts, and three lineal changes associated with
the Emperors of New Augusta....
 Basic Hist-Tape
Hsein-Fer
Karnak 4413
XLIV
The golden goddess glitters.
Glitters as she walks, glitters as she never glittered before, and the words
she has not spoken dance across the dull air to shimmer from the darker
corners created by her very pres-
ence in Sybernal. Seldom has she donned her aspect so bla-
tantly in the city of gold sand beaches and eternal sunlight that comes from
no sun and turns the seas golden-green at all hours. Seldom has she been seen
in recent centuries, not since she was rumored to have consorted with the god
who is and never was.
Yet she is, and she glitters as she walks from the Petrified
Boardwalk down a narrow lane toward a narrower staircase.
The women rum away without looking, and the men look and turn away, wishing
they dared to look longer, but knowing that she has chosen the dark god, the
one no one dares men-
tion, and been rejected.
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Inside the No-Name, a man dressed in black sits alone at a table. The row of
tables nearest his is vacant, and the bar is slowly emptying. No one wears
black in Sybernal, no one of Aurore, not without tempting the gods or the dark
one, and the man in black does both.
A rumormonger who has seen better times mutters, "The [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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