Mazirian the Magician (20 page)

Down from the plaza, down the leafy lanes of Saponce came Guyal, indignant and clamped of mouth, though the pit of his stomach felt tender and heavy with trepidation. The ritual carried distasteful overtones: execution or sacrifice. Guyal's step faltered.

The Castellan seized his elbow with a hard hand. “Forward.”

Execution or sacrifice … The faces along the lane swam with morbid curiosity, inner excitement; gloating eyes searched him deep to relish his fear and horror, and the mouths half-drooped, half-smiled in the inner hugging for joy not to be the one walking down the foliage streets, and forth to the Museum of Man.

The eminence, with the tall trees and carved dark houses, was at his back; they walked out into the claret sunlight of the tundra. Here were eighty women in white chlamys with ceremonial buckets of woven straw over their heads; around a tall tent of yellow silk they stood.

The Castellan halted Guyal and beckoned to the Ritual Matron. She flung back the hangings at the door of the tent; the girl within, Shierl, came slowly forth, eyes wide and dark with fright.

She wore a stiff gown of yellow brocade, and the wand of her body seemed pent and constrained within. The gown came snug under her chin, left her arms bare and raised past the back of her head in a stiff spear-headed cowl. She was frightened as a small animal trapped is frightened; she stared at Guyal, at her father, as if she had never seen them before.

The Ritual Matron put a gentle hand on her waist, propelled her forward. Shierl stepped once, twice, irresolutely halted. The Castellan brought Guyal forward and placed him at the girl's side; now two children, a boy and a girl, came hastening up with cups which they proffered to Guyal and Shierl. Dully she accepted the cup. Guyal took his and glanced suspiciously at the murky brew. He looked up to the Castellan. “What is the nature of this potion?”

“Drink,” said the Castellan. “So will your way seem the shorter; so will terror leave you behind, and you will march to the Museum with a steadier step.”

“No,” said Guyal. “I will not drink. My senses must be my own when I meet the Curator. I have come far for the privilege; I would not stultify the occasion stumbling and staggering.” And he handed the cup back to the boy.

Shierl stared dully at the cup she held. Said Guyal: “I advise you likewise to avoid the drug; so will we come to the Museum of Man with our dignity to us.”

Hesitantly she returned the cup. The Castellan's brow clouded, but he made no protest.

An old man in a black costume brought forward a satin pillow on which rested a whip with a handle of carved steel. The Castellan now lifted this whip, and advancing, laid three light strokes across the shoulders of both Shierl and Guyal.

“Now, I charge thee, get hence and go from Saponce, outlawed forever; thou art waifs forlorn. Seek succor at the Museum of Man. I charge thee, never look back, leave all thoughts of past and future here at North Garden. Now and forever are you sundered from all bonds, claims, relations, and kinships, together with all pretenses to amity, love, fellowship and brotherhood with the Saponids of Saponce. Go, I exhort; go, I command; go, go, go!”

Shierl sunk her teeth into her lower lip; tears freely coursed her cheek though she made no sound. With hanging head she started across the lichen of the tundra, and Guyal, with a swift stride, joined her.

Now there was no looking back. For a space the murmurs, the nervous sounds followed their ears; then they were alone on the plain. The limitless north lay across the horizon; the tundra filled the foreground and background, an expanse dreary, dun and moribund. Alone marring the region, the white ruins — once the Museum of Man — rose a league before them, and along the faint trail they walked without words.

Guyal said in a tentative tone, “There is much I would understand.”

“Speak,” said Shierl. Her voice was low but composed.

“Why are we forced and exhorted to this mission?”

“It is thus because it has always been thus. Is not this reason enough?”

“Sufficient possibly for you,” said Guyal, “but for me the causality is unconvincing. I must acquaint you with the void in my mind, which lusts for knowledge as a lecher yearns for carnality; so pray be patient if my inquisition seems unnecessarily thorough.”

She glanced at him in astonishment. “Are all to the south so strong for knowing as you?”

“In no degree,” said Guyal. “Everywhere normality of the mind may be observed. The habitants adroitly perform the motions which fed them yesterday, last week, a year ago. I have been informed of my aberration well and full. ‘Why strive for a pedant's accumulation?' I have been told. ‘Why forego merriment, music, and revelry for the abstract and abstruse?'”

“Indeed,” said Shierl. “Well do they counsel; such is the consensus at Saponce.”

Guyal shrugged. “The rumor goes that I am demon-bereft of my senses. Such may be. In any event the effect remains and the obsession haunts me.”

Shierl indicated understanding and acquiescence. “Ask on then; I will endeavor to ease these yearnings.”

He glanced at her sidelong, studied the charming triangle of her face, the heavy black hair, the great lustrous eyes, dark as yu-sapphires. “In happier circumstances, there would be other yearnings I would beseech you likewise to ease.”

“Ask,” replied Shierl of Saponce. “The Museum of Man is close; there is occasion for naught but words.”

“Why are we thus dismissed and charged, with tacit acceptance of our doom?”

“The immediate cause is the ghost you saw on the hill. When the ghost appears, then we of Saponce know that the most beautiful maiden and the most handsome youth of the town must be despatched to the Museum. The prime behind the custom I do not know. So it is; so it has been; so it will be till the sun gutters like a coal in the rain and darkens Earth, and the winds blow snow over Saponce.”

“But what is our mission? Who greets us, what is our fate?”

“Such details are unknown.”

Guyal mused, “The likelihood of pleasure seems small … There are discordants in the episode. You are beyond doubt the loveliest creature of the Saponids, the loveliest creature of Earth — but I, I am a casual stranger, and hardly the most well-favored youth of the town.”

She smiled a trifle. “You are not uncomely.”

Guyal said somberly, “Over-riding the condition of my person is the fact that I am a stranger and so bring little loss to the town of Saponce.”

“That aspect has no doubt been considered,” the girl said.

Guyal searched the horizon. “Let us then avoid the Museum of Man, let us circumvent this unknown fate and take to the mountains, and so south to Ascolais. Lust for enlightenment will never fly me in the face of destruction so clearly implicit.”

She shook her head. “Do you suppose that we would gain by the ruse? The eyes of a hundred warriors follow us till we pass through the portals of the Museum; should we attempt to scamp our duty we should be bound to stakes, stripped of our skins by the inch, and at last be placed in bags with a thousand scorpions poured around our heads. Such is the traditional penalty; twelve times in history has it been invoked.”

Guyal threw back his shoulders and spoke in a nervous voice. “Ah, well — the Museum of Man has been my goal for many years. On this motive I set forth from Sfere, so now I would seek the Curator and satisfy my obsession for brainfilling.”

“You are blessed with great fortune,” said Shierl, “for you are being granted your heart's desire.”

Guyal could find nothing to say, so for a space they walked in silence. Then he spoke. “Shierl.”

“Yes, Guyal of Sfere?”

“Do they separate us and take us apart?”

“I do not know.”

“Shierl.”

“Yes?”

“Had we met under a happier star …” He paused.

Shierl walked in silence.

He looked at her coolly. “You speak not.”

“But you ask nothing,” she said in surprise. Guyal turned his face ahead, to the Museum of Man.

Presently she touched his arm. “Guyal, I am greatly frightened.”

Guyal gazed at the ground beneath his feet, and a blossom of fire sprang alive in his brain. “See the marking through the lichen?”

“Yes; what then?”

“Is it a trail?”

Dubiously she responded, “It is a way worn by the passage of many feet. So then — it is a trail.”

Guyal said in restrained jubilation, “Here is safety, if I never permit myself to be cozened from the way. But you — ah, I must guard you; you must never leave my side, you must swim in the charm which protects me; perhaps then we will survive.”

Shierl said sadly, “Let us not delude our reason, Guyal of Sfere.”

But as they walked, the trail grew plainer, and Guyal became correspondingly sanguine. And ever larger bulked the crumble which marked the Museum of Man, presently to occupy all their vision.

If a storehouse of knowledge had existed here, little sign of it remained. There was a great flat floor, flagged in white stone, now chalky, broken and inter-thrust by weeds. Around this floor rose a series of monoliths, pocked and worn, and toppled off at various heights. These at one time had supported a vast roof; now of roof there was none and the walls were but dreams of the far past.

So here was the flat floor bounded by the broken stumps of pillars, bare to the winds of time and the glare of cool red sun. The rains had washed the marble, the dust from the mountains had been laid on and swept off, laid on and swept off, and those who had built the Museum were less than a mote of this dust, so far and forgotten were they.

“Think,” said Guyal, “think of the vastness of knowledge which once was gathered here and which is now one with the soil — unless, of course, the Curator has salvaged and preserved.”

Shierl looked about apprehensively. “I think rather of the portal, and that which awaits us … Guyal,” she whispered, “I fear, I fear greatly … Suppose they tear us apart? Suppose there is torture and death for us? I fear a tremendous impingement, the shock of horror …”

Guyal's own throat was hot and full. He looked about with challenge. “While I still breathe and hold power in my arms to fight, there will be none to harm us.”

Shierl groaned softly. “Guyal, Guyal, Guyal of Sfere — why did you choose me?”

“Because,” said Guyal, “my eye went to you like the nectar moth flits to the jacynth; because you were the loveliest and I thought nothing but good in store for you.”

With a shuddering breath Shierl said, “I must be courageous; after all, if it were not I it would be some other maid equally fearful … And there is the portal.”

Guyal inhaled deeply, inclined his head, and strode forward. “Let us be to it, and know …”

The portal opened into a nearby monolith, a door of flat black metal. Guyal followed the trail to the door, and rapped staunchly with his fist on the small copper gong to the side.

The door groaned wide on its hinges, and cool air, smelling of the under-earth, billowed forth. In the black gape their eyes could find nothing.

“Hola within!” cried Guyal.

A soft voice, full of catches and quavers, as if just after weeping, said, “Come ye, come ye forward. You are desired and awaited.”

Guyal leaned his head forward, straining to see. “Give us light, that we may not wander from the trail and bottom ourselves.”

The breathless quaver of a voice said, “Light is not needed; anywhere you step, that will be your trail, by an arrangement so agreed with the Way-Maker.”

“No,” said Guyal, “we would see the visage of our host. We come at his invitation; the minimum of his guest-offering is light; light there must be before we set foot inside the dungeon. Know we come as seekers after knowledge; we are visitors to be honored.”

“Ah, knowledge, knowledge,” came the sad breathlessness. “That shall be yours, in full plentitude — knowledge of many strange affairs; oh, you shall swim in a tide of knowledge —”

Guyal interrupted the sad, sighing voice. “Are you the Curator? Hundreds of leagues have I come to bespeak the Curator and put him my inquiries. Are you he?”

“By no means. I revile the name of the Curator as a treacherous non-essential.”

“Who then may you be?”

“I am no one, nothing. I am an abstraction, an emotion, the ooze of terror, the sweat of horror, the shake in the air when a scream has departed.”

“You speak the voice of man.”

“Why not? Such things as I speak lie in the closest and dearest center of the human brain.”

Guyal said in a subdued voice, “You do not make your invitation as enticing as might be hoped.”

“No matter, no matter; enter you must, into the dark and on the instant, as my lord, who is myself, waxes warm and languorous.”

“If light there be, we enter.”

“No light, no insolent scorch is ever found in the Museum.”