Magician (74 page)

For some time those who escaped the
nameless terror behind the rift stand mute. Then slowly they start to
disperse. Groups break away and move off. He knows that, in years to
come, these ragged refugees will conquer this world, for they are the
seeds of the nations that populate Kelewan.

He knows he has seen the beginning of
the nations, and their flight from the Enemy, the nameless terror
that destroyed the homes of the races of mankind, dispersing them to
other universes.

Again the cloak of time is drawn over
him, creating darkness.

Followed by light.

On the plain that had been empty, a
great city stands. Its white towers ascend to the skies. Its people
are industrious, and the city prospers. Caravans of trade goods come
overland, and great ships call from across the sea. Years speed by,
bringing war and famine, peace and bounty.

One day a ship pulls into the harbor,
as scarred and ill as its crew. A great battle has been fought, and
this ship is one of the few to survive. Those across the water will
come soon, and the City of the Plains will fall if help is not
forthcoming. Runners are sent north to the cities along the great
river, for should the white city fall, nothing will prevent the
invaders from striking northward. Runners return, carrying the news.
The armies of the other cities will come. He watches as they gather
and meet the invaders near the sea. The invaders are repulsed, but
the cost is great, for the battle rages twelve days. A hundred
thousand men die, and the sands are red for months. A thousand ships
burn, and the sky is filled with black smoke, and for days it falls
upon the land, covering miles about with a fine, powdery ash. The
city of white becomes the city of grey. The sea is called Blood from
that day forward, and the great bay is called Battle. But out of the
battle an alliance is formed, and the seeds of the great Empire are
planted, the world-spanning Empire of Tsuranuanm.

Like silence descending, darkness
comes.

As a clarion sounding, light returns.

He stands atop a temple, in the heart
of the central city of the Empire. Below, thousands of people stand.
Shoulder to shoulder they fill the streets, chanting while thousands
of upraised hands pass along great wooden platforms overhead. Upon
the platforms stand the nobles of the Empire, Lords of the Five Great
Families. Upon the last platform, largest of all, rests a golden
throne, fashioned from the rarest of metals of this mineral-poor
world. Upon this throne sits a young boy. When the platform reaches
the Great Square of the Twenty Higher and Lower Gods, it is placed
upon the ground, and the throne is carried on the backs of the
citizens to the top of the highest temple.

The throne is lowered, facing
southeast, from where the nations had come in the beginning. From
deep within the temple, a dozen black-clad priestesses rush forth,
red-clad priests at their side. The Priestesses of Sibi, the Death
Goddess, point out one or another citizen in the crowd, and the
red-clad Priests of the Killing God grab them. They seize men, women,
and occasionally children. All are dragged to the top of the temple,
where waiting priests of the Red God cut their hearts from their
bodies, while the priests and priestesses of the other eighteen
orders look on silently. When hundreds have been sacrificed, and the
temple steps are bathed in blood, the Chief Priestess of the Death
Goddess judges the gods satisfied. They place a silver ring upon the
boy’s hand, and a golden circlet upon his brow, and proclaim
him the Light of Heaven, Minjochka, eleven times Emperor. The boy
plays with a wooden toy given to him at the start of the day, for he
grows bored easily, while the throng presses forward to dip their
hands in the blood of their countrymen, counting it lucky to do so.
In the east, the sky darkens as night approaches.

As the sun rises, he stands near a
magician who has worked the night through. The man grows alarmed at
what his calculations have shown, and he incants a spell that takes
him to another place. The watcher follows. In a small hall, several
more magicians react with expressions of dread to the news the first
magician brings. A messenger is dispatched to the Warlord, ruler of
the Empire in the Emperor’s name. The Warlord summons the
magicians. The watcher follows. The magicians explain the news. The
signs in the stars, along with ancient writings, herald the coming of
a great disaster. A star, a wanderer in the heavens sighted where
none has been seen before, stands motionless but grows brighter. It
will bring destruction to the nations. The Warlord is skeptical, but
of late more and more nobles have come to heed the words of
magicians. There have always been legends of magicians saving the
nations from the Enemy, but few think them likely. Still, there is
now this new convocation of magicians, who have formed something
called the Assembly, toward what ends only the magicians know. So,
with the changing times in mind, the Warlord agrees to take the news
to the Emperor. After a time an order is sent to the Assembly by the
Emperor. His demand: bring proof. The magicians shake their heads and
return to their modest halls.

Decades pass, and the magicians conduct
a campaign of propaganda, seeking to influence any noble of the
Empire who will listen. The day arrives when the news is proclaimed
that the Emperor is dead and his son now reigns. The magicians gather
with all who can travel to the Holy City for the coronation of the
new Emperor.

Thousands of people line the streets,
while slaves bear the nobles of the land in litters to the great
temples. The new Emperor rides the ancient golden throne, born by a
hundred husky slaves. He is crowned, while a slave is sacrificed deep
within the halls of the temple of the Death God, Turakamu, as a
petition to the gods to allow the old Emperor’s soul to rest in
heaven.

The crowd cheers, for Sudkahanchoza,
thirty-four times Emperor, is well loved, and this will be the last
time they will ever look upon him.

He will now retire to the Holy Palace,
where his soul will stand forever vigilant on behalf of his subjects,
while the Warlord and the High Council conduct the business of
governing the Empire. The new Emperor will live a contemplative life,
reading, painting, studying the great books of the temples, seeking
to purify his soul for this arduous life.

This Emperor is unlike his father and,
after hearing the grave news from the Assembly, orders the building
of a great castle upon an island in the center of the giant lake in
the midst of the mountains of Ambolina.

Time . . .

. . . passes.

Hundreds of black-clad magicians stand
atop towers that rise from the city of the island, not yet the
magnificent single entity of the future. Two hundred years have
passed, and now two suns burn in the sky, one warm and yellow-green,
the other small, white, and angry. The watcher sees the men work
their magic, the greatest spell cast in the history of the nations.
Even the legendary bridge from the outside, the beginning of time,
was not so great a feat, for then they had only moved between worlds,
now they would move a star. Below he can feel the presence of
hundreds of other magicians, adding their power to those above. The
spell has been wrought over the last few years, each step taken with
the greatest care, as the Stranger approaches. Though powerful beyond
compare, this enchantment is also delicate in the extreme. Any
misstep and its work will be undone. He looks up and sees the
Stranger, its course marked toward the path of this world. It will
not strike Kelewan, but there is little doubt that its heat added to
Kelewan’s already hot star will render the planet lifeless.
Kelewan will hang for over a year between its own primary and the
Stranger, in constant daylight, and all magicians agree that only a
few might survive in deep caves, to emerge to a burned-out planet.
Now they must act, before it is too late to try again should the
enchantment fail.

Now they do act, all in concert,
incanting the last piece of the great arcane work. The world seems to
stand still for a moment, reverberating with the final word of the
spell. Slowly that reverberation grows louder, picking up resonance,
developing new harmonies, new overtones, a character of its own. Soon
it is loud enough to deafen those in the towers, who cover their
ears. Below, those on the ground stand in mute wonder, looking to the
sky where a blaze of color begins to form. Ragged bolts of energy
flash, and the light from the two stars is dimmed in momentarily
blinding displays that will leave some who viewed them sightless for
the rest of their lives. He is not affected by the sound or light, as
if some agency has taken care to protect him from their effects. A
great rift appears in the sky, much like the one the golden bridge
came through ages ago. He watches without emotion, his strongest
feeling being detached fascination. It grows in the sky, between the
Stranger and Kelewan, and begins to move away from the planet, toward
the invading star.

But something else occurs. From the
heart of the rift, more violent than at the time of the golden
bridge, an unprecedented display of erupting energies comes forth.
The chaotic scene is matched with an overwhelming wave of hatred. The
Enemy, the evil power that drove the nations to Kelewan, still abides
in the other universe, and it has not forgotten those who escaped it
ages ago. It cannot pierce the barrier of the rift, for it needs more
time to move between universes than the life span of the rift, but it
reaches forth and warps it, sending it away from the Stranger. The
rift grows larger, and those on the ground see it is going to engulf
Kelewan, bringing the planet back into the dominion of the Enemy.

The watcher looks on impassively,
unlike those around him, for he knows that this is not the end of the
world. The rift rushes toward the planet, and one magician comes
forth.

He is somehow familiar to the one who
watches. The man, unlike those around him, wears a brown robe,
fastened round with a whipcord belt, and holds a staff of wood. He
raises the staff above his head and incants. The rift changes, from
colors impossible to describe to inky black, and it strikes the
planet.

The heavens explode for a moment, then
all around is black. When the darkness lifts, the sun, Kelewan’s
own, is dropping below the horizon.

The magicians who are not dead or mad
stare upward in horror. Above them the sky is a void, without stars.

And the man in brown turns to him and
says, “Remember, things are not always what they seem.”

Blackness . . .

. . . heralds the passing of time
again. He is standing in the halls of the Assembly. Magicians are
appearing regularly, using the pattern on the floor as a focal point
for their transit. Each remembers the pattern like an address, and
wills himself there. A message arrives from the Emperor. He begs the
Assembly to solve the problem, promising them whatever aid they
require.

The watcher moves forward through
generations to find the magicians again upon the towers. Now, instead
of the invading Stranger, they regard a starless sky. Another spell,
years in the fashioning, is being incanted. When it is finished, the
earth reverberates with violent energies. Suddenly the sky is ablaze
with stars, and Kelewan is again in its normal place.

“Things are not always what they
seem,” says a voice.

The Emperor sends a command that the
full Assembly should come to the Holy City at once. By ones and twos
they use the patterns to travel to Kentosani. The watcher follows.
There they are taken to the inner chamber of the Emperor’s
palace, something unheard of in the history of the Empire.

Of the seven thousand magicians who
gathered a century before to thwart the Stranger, only two hundred
survived. Even now that number has increased but slightly, so that
not even one magician for each twenty who stood upon towers against
the Stranger answers the Emperor’s call. They advance to stand
before Tukamaco, forty times Emperor, descendant of Sudkahanchoza,
and Light of Heaven. The Emperor asks if the Assembly will accept the
charge to stand ever vigilant over the Empire, protecting it until
the end of time. The magicians confer and agree. The Emperor then
leaves his throne and abases himself before the assembled magicians,
something never done before. He sits back and, still on his knees
before them, throws wide his arms and proclaims that from this day
forth the magicians are the Great Ones, free from all obligations,
save the charge just accepted. They are outside the law, and none may
command them, including the Warlord, who stands to one side, a frown
upon his face. Whatever they desire is theirs to ask, for their words
will be as law.

And a magician smiles knowingly at
another nearby.

Darkness . . .

. . . and time passes.

The watcher stands before the Warlord’s
throne. A delegation of magicians stand before the Warlord. They
present him with proof of what they have claimed. A controllable
rift, free from the Enemy’s influence, has been opened, and
another world has been found. This is unsuitable for life—but a
second has been discovered, a rich, ripe world. They show him a
lifetime’s worth of wealth in metals, all found lying about,
discarded. He who watches smiles to himself over the Warlord’s
eagerness at the sight of a broken breastplate, a rusted sword, and a
handful of bent nails. To further prove this is an alien world, they
present him with a strange but beautiful flower. The Warlord smells
it and is pleased with its rich fragrance. The watcher nods, for he,
too, knows the richness of a Midkemian rose. The black wing of
passing time covers him again.

Once more he stood upon the platform.
He looked around and saw that the full fury of the storm was breaking
around him. Only by his unconscious will had he been able to stand
upon this platform, while his conscious mind was occupied by the
unfolding history of Kelewan. He now understood the nature of the
test, for he found himself exhausted from the energy he had expended
during the ordeal. While being instilled with the final instruction
in his place in this society, he had been tested with the raw fury of
nature.