He Who Shapes (20 page)

stairways leading down, and arms emerge from caverns,

waving torches that flame like liquid facesa midwinter night's

nightmare, summer go a-begging, Render knewfor he had

visited those worlds on a professional basis for the better part of

a decade. With the crooking of a finger he could isolate the

sorcerers, bring them to trial for treason against the realmaye,

and he could execute them, could appoint their successors.

Fortunately, this trip was only a courtesy call . . .

He moved forward through the glade, seeking her.

He could feel her awakening presence all about him.

He pushed through the branches, stood beside the lake. It

was cold, blue, and bottomless, the lake, reflecting that slender

willow which had become the station of her arrival.

"Eileen!"

The willow swayed toward him, swayed advay.

"Eileen! Come forth!"

Leaves fell, floated upon the lake, disturbed its mirror-like

placidity, distorted the reflections.

"Eileen?"

All the leaves yellowed at once then, dropped down into the

water. The tree ceased its swaying. There was a strange sound

in the darkening sky, like the humming of high wires on a cold

day.

Suddenly there was a double file of moons passing through

the heavens.

Render selected one, reached up, and pressed it. The others

vanished as he did so, and the world brightened; the humming

went out of the air.

He circled the lake to gain a subjective respite from the

rejection-action and his counter to it. He moved up along an

aisle of pines toward the place where he wanted the cathedral

to occur. Birds sang now in the trees. The wind came softly by

him. He felt her presence quite strongly.

"Here, Eileen. Here."

She walked beside him then, green silk, hair of bronze, eyes

of molten emerald; she wore an emerald in her forehead. She

walked in green slippers over the pine needles, saying: "What

happened?"

"You were afraid."

"Why?"

"Perhaps you fear the cathedral. Are you a witch?" he

smiled.

"Yes, but it's my day off."

He laughed, and he took her arm, and they rounded an

island of foliage, and there was the cathedral reconstructed on

a grassy rise, pushing its way above them and above the trees,

climbing into the middle air, breathing out organ notes,

reflecting a stray ray of sunlight from a pane of glass.

"Hold tight to the world," he said. "Here comes the guided

tour."

They moved forward and entered.

" '.
 
.
  
.
 
With
 
its
 
floor-to-ceiling
 
shafts,
 
like
 
so
 
many
 
huge

treetrunks, it achieves a ruthless control over its spaces,' " he

said.
 
"Got that from the
 
guidebook.
 
This is the
 
north

transept..."

" 'Greensleeves,' " she said, "the organ is playing 'Green-

sleeves.' "
                                   

"So it is. You can't blame me for that though.Observe the

scalloped capitals"

"I want to go nearer the music."

"Very well. This way then."

Render felt that something was wrong. He could not put his

finger on it.

Everything retained its solidity . . .

Something passed rapidly then, high above the cathedral,

uttering a sonic boom. Render smiled at that, remembering

now; it was like a slip of the tongue: for a moment he had

confused Eileen with Jill yes, that was what had happened.

Why, then . . .

A burst of white was the altar. He had never seen it before,

anywhere. All the walls were dark and cold about them.

Candles flickered in corners and high niches. The organ

chorded thunder under invisible hands.

Render knew that something was wrong.

He turned to Eileen Shallot, whose hat was a green cone

towering up into the darkness, trailing wisps of green veiling.

Her throat was in shadow, but . . .

"That necklaceWhere?"

"I don't know," she smiled.

The goblet she held radiated a rosy light. It was reflected

from her emerald. It washed him like a draft of cool air.

"Drink?" she asked.

"Stand still," he ordered.

He willed the walls to fall down. They swam in shadow.

"Stand still!" he repeated urgently. "Don't do anything. Try

not even to think.

"Fall down!" he cried. And the walls were blasted in all

directions and the roof was flung over the top .of the world, and

they stood amid ruins lighted by a single taper. The night was

black as pitch.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, still holding the goblet

out toward him.

"Don't think. Don't think anything," he said. "Relax. You are

very tired. As that candle flickers and wanes so does your

consciousness. You can barely keep awake. You can hardly stay

on your feet. Your eyes are closing. There is nothing to see here

anyway."

He willed the candle to go out. It continued to burn.

"I'm not tired. Please have a drink."

He heard organ music through the night. A different tune,

one he did not recognize at first.

"I need your cooperation."

"All right. Anything."

"Look! The moon!" he pointed.

She looked upward and the moon appeared from behind an

inky cloud.

". . . And another, and another."

Moons, like strung pearls, proceeded across the blackness.

"The last one will be red," he stated.

It was.

He reached out then with his right index finger, slid his arm

sideways along his field of vision, then tried to touch the red

moon.

His arm ached, it burned. He could not move it.

"Wake up!" he screamed.

The red moon vanished, and the white ones.

"Please take a drink."

He dashed the goblet from her hand and turned away. When

he turned back she was still holding it before him.

"A drink?"

He turned and fled into the night.

It was like running through a waist-high snowdrift. It was

wrong. He was compounding the error by runninghe was

minimizing his strength, maximizing hers. It was sapping his

energies, draining him.

He stood still in the midst of the blackness.

"The world around me moves," he said. "I am its center."

"Please have a drink," she said, and he was standing in the

glade beside their table set beside the lake. The lake was black

and the moon was silver, and high, and out of his reach. A

single candle flickered on the table, making her hair as silver as

her dress. She wore the moon on her brow. A bottle of

Romanee-Conti stood on the white cloth beside a wide-

brimmed wine glass. It was filled to overflowing, that glass, and

rosy beads clung to its lip. He was very thirsty, and she was

lovelier than anyone he had ever seen before, and her necklace,

sparkled, and the breeze came cool off the lake, and there was

somethingsomething he should remember . . .

He took a step toward her and his armor clinked lightly as he

moved. He reached toward the glass and his right arm stiffened

with pain and fell back to his side.

"You are wounded!"

Slowly, he turned his head. The blood flowed from the open

wound in his bicep and ran down his arm and dripped from his

fingertips. His armor had been breached. He forced himself to

look away.

"Drink this, love. It will heal you."

She stood.

"I will hold the glass."

He stared at her as she raised it to his lips.

"Who am I?" he asked.

She did not answer him, but something repliedwithin a

splashing of waters out over the lake:

"You are Render, the Shaper."

"Yes, I remember," he said; and turning his mind to the one

lie which might break the entire illusion he forced his mouth to

say: "Eileen Shallot, I hate you."

The world shuddered and swam about him, was shaken, as

by a huge sob.

"Charles!" she screamed, and the blackness swept over

them.

"Wake up! Wake up!" he cried, and his right arm burned

and ached and bled in the darkness.

He stood alone in the midst of a white plain. It was silent, it

was endless. It sloped away toward the edges of the world. It

gave off its own light, and the sky was no sky, but was nothing

overhead. Nothing. He was alone. His own voice echoed back

to him from the end of the world: ". . . hate you," it said, ". . .

hate you."

He dropped to his knees. He was Render.

He wanted to cry.

A red moon appeared above the plain, casting a ghastly light

over the entire expanse. There was a wall of mountains to the

left of him, another to his right.

He raised his right arm. He helped it with his left hand. He

clutched his wrist, extended his index finger. He reached for

the moon.

Then there came a howl from high in the mountains, a great

wailing cryhalf-human, all challenge, all loneliness, and all