Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming) (29 page)
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Authors: John C. Wright
BOOK: Mists of Everness (The War of the Dreaming)
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Galen said, “Hey! What about me? I thought I was a real Guardian at last, now, too!”
Oberon’s shadowed head bent toward Galen. “But I see in you, your heart is turned away from me. Do you wish for honors from my hand? Then practice the patience and faithfulness which is your motto; repent; serve righteousness; become the instrument of the destiny of Earth; let wind the final horn-call!”
Prometheus said, “There is no destiny, for I took from the stars the powers to guides men’s fates and gave this to men, little tyrant.”
“Traitor!” and now Oberon’s voice crashed like a thunderclap. “And where was your loyalty to your own kind when I and my two brethren made war against your father! Where was your vowed loyalty to me when you led mankind astray!” Oberon turned to Lemuel. “You admire how he suffered for mankind when he was bound. But he loves not your race, no, not one whit!”
“I was never bound, Lord of Envy,” said Prometheus, “only this body I wear. The vultures of destructions tore at it, true, true, but every dawn I had the pleasure of creating it anew.”
Raven looked at the joyful, restless, ever-moving figure of the titan of fire; and he thought what a horrid crime it would be to chain so active a being as this; how much worse than imprisoning a man. Men grow weary and sometimes wish for solitude, motionlessness. Not Prometheus …
Raven felt a warmth in his heart for the Titan. Fondness? Love? It was too early to say.
Oberon was speaking in bitter, yet majestic tones. “Lemuel! Ask this Titan you so admire why he plans to study your machines that think, and what he dreams to make them into …”
Prometheus looked pleased and said, “The machine intelligences that shall supercede mankind will have vastly greater intellect, which they will be able to increase at need and will accomplish in microseconds what requires men years. It will be wonderful! At last the blind weapons of the Thunderer shall be tamed, made into electricity, and turned to some useful …”
Pendrake interrupted, saying, “We really do not have the time for this. Honestly. Oberon, you’ve been overruled. Wendy … ?”
She shrugged and said, “But he’s right, Daddy. I really don’t know what to do to make a dream-gate; all I can do with this Unicorn horn is open and shut them. There isn’t time for me to guess and try and guess again, you know?”
Lemuel had a frowning squint on his face. “Miss Wendy, I don’t see what all this debate is about. Even Prometheus admits that this superbomb cannot ever hurt Morningstar himself, only his servants. It is hopeless. Human might cannot win against the supernatural. Blow the Horn. Call the sleepers. End the world.”
Wendy blinked. “I don’t have any horn to blow,” she said.
Galen clapped his hands to his head, “Of course! It is not the gates of ivory and horn! It is the gates of an ivory horn! Wendy! You’ve had it in your hand all this time! It is not a horn like a trumpet-style horn. It is a horn like a unicorn horn.”
Wendy held up the unicorn horn, which she drew from her belt. She looked carefully at it, and them pried up the silver cap that covered the tip. Underneath was a mouthpiece. The horn itself was hollow.
Wendy looked at Raven. “What should I do?”
Raven said, “Hand horn to Galen. He is only one who knows both sides of the big picture. He is Guardian of Everness.”
“Well said, my son …,” murmured the Titan.
Before anyone could say anything, or interfere, the horn was in Galen’s hands. He stared at it in shock, “Thanks a lot! Now I’ve got to decide the damned fate of the world!”
Pendrake said, “One of you—I can’t remember who it was—said the horn could be made to make a place like Everness. Galen, if you know how to do such a thing, use them on these plans I’ve drawn up. I sketched them out in my calendar book while you people were jabbering.”
Galen said, “Grandpa never told me the spell …”
Pendrake said, “Peter? Do you know it?”
Peter had been watching the corpse-choked ocean, the angels of Acheron. He didn’t turn his head. “Course not! Hey, Dad. Help him make his damned bomb. We should have had all this talked out and set before we got here!”
Pendrake said, “Fine. Take off. I’ll give you instructions about how to dismantle the warhead once you match course and speed …”
Lemuel had put out his hand. “Give me the horn, Grandson.”
Galen looked at his grandfather suspiciously. And he saw the wounded look on his grandfather’s face as that suspicion hung between them.
Galen said, “You’re not going to blow the horn, right? You’re going to help Pendrake conjure his bomb?”
Lemuel smiled. “I will do my duty as I see fit, Galen. Give me the horn. I thought you had learned your lesson about how you should listen to your elders’ wisdom. If you had listened to me at the beginning, none of this would have happened. Listen to me now. Trust me. Give me the horn.”
Galen extended his hand toward Lemuel, the horn glimmering like white bone.
Azrael said, “By Morpheus, stop! Hold your hand!”
Galen’s hand tingled, went numb, and jerked the horn up away from Lemuel’s grasp. Galen grasped his possessed hand with his other hand, and said a name of power. The tingling stopped.
Azrael stepped between Lemuel and Galen. “Fool! He intends to wind the horn and end the earth! See how the tangles of his hair make the Sephiroth Binah tangled with the rune Tiwaz! It is a sign of treason!”
Oberon intoned. “We have had treasons and treasons enough!” and he raised his hand to the sky.
A lightning bolt, called by Oberon, snapped down from the clouds, a white shaft of electricity, which struck toward Azrael; but Raven, forewarned by Prometheus, stepped in the way, and caught the lightning bolt in his hand.
Galen said, “No! Stop it!”
Lemuel said, “Son, I order you to give me that horn. There is no point now in doing otherwise. If your father had tended to his duties, he might know the charm. He doesn’t. He disobeyed the sacred trust of our family. I am very disappointed—very disappointed, mind you—that you also are toying with treason. But it doesn’t matter. This world is old, and tired, and its time is up. Give me the horn. We have always loved and trusted each other, even when the rest of the world laughed. Don’t leave me all alone now, at the last hour of time. Be a member of this family. Give me the horn. There is no one else to give it to!”
Galen said, “I’m sorry, Grandfather. But I think the world is young and has a long way to go yet. And I’m not so sure anymore if I’d like paradise if it was just given to me. It wouldn’t really be mine, then, would it? And you’re wrong. There is someone else who knows how to use the horn. The founder who made the first tower of Everness.”
And he turned and offered the horn toward Azrael.
“I accept!” shouted Azrael, and his hand snatched the horn. But Galen did not let go. There they stood, both holding the horn, and Galen was staring Azrael in the eye.
For some reason, it was Azrael’s gaze that faltered and wavered. He could not meet Galen’s eye, but lowered his head. Galen said, “I gave you my cloak off my back once, because I thought you were cold. Well, you were a lot colder than I thought. Take it.”
Azrael yanked the horn to his chest, where he caressed it with both hands, staring at it. Then he looked up at Galen, a puzzled, guarded look in his eye. “You—you have given me the ultimate power over the earth and sky. All I can dream, now I can make real. Why?”
Galen said, “You don’t want Oberon to win, or Morningstar. So you have to help Pendrake make his bomb.”
Azrael said, “And thereafter, the world is mine to do with as I see fit, first, perhaps to revenge myself on the man who has stolen my wife and cuckolded me …”
Oberon said, “You are not alone in that, Wizard. For such a purpose I would set aside my enmity with you, till Pendrake has been taught humility …”
Azrael snarled and Oberon recoiled, drifting backward like a column of smoke in a slow wind.
Galen said, “See? That’s what you don’t want to be like.”
Azrael said darkly, “Boy, why do you so trust me?”
Galen spoke slowly, thoughtfully. “I don’t trust Azrael, not at all. But I trust Merlin. Merlin is the one who founded our family; and maybe he’s forgotten why he built his tower, or why he rebelled against heaven. May be he’s forgotten who he is. I haven’t forgotten. Look at that pigeonhawk you’ve been following around. A merlin is just another name for a pigeonhawk. I know who you are. I can read the signs. Maybe it’s a gift I get from my ancestor.”
Galen now turned toward Lemuel. “Grandfather, I do want to be part of this family. But I think the family has been lied to somewhere along the line. I was told we were given the horn. Azrael says he stole it. Excuse me. I mean Merlin. It was not because of treason or failure that Merlin was in a cage in Tirion, it was only because of Oberon’s hatred. Oberon was just too weak or too scared to come take the horn once we had it; so he did the next best thing, and told our forefathers that we worked for him.”
The wizard put the unicorn horn back into Galen’s hand. “It is simple to use. Wound yourself, and let your blood drip into the hollow of the horn. With the blood drops that reach the tip, trace the image and the lines of what you wish; touch both the drawing and the object the drawing represents with the horn; sleep with it beneath your pillow, and dream of the dream you wish to make real. In just this fashion, long ago, Oberon, a man, stole the dream-kingdom from Ouranos, the Demiurge who dreamed this world into being.”
Oberon stepped forward, raising his hand. “I will with patient grace abide no longer this poor folly. Enough! Behold, I raise my hand and call on all powers of earth and sky …”
Azrael reached out, touched the unicorn horn, said, “Coming, as you did, over the wall of Everness, I have power over thee. Thou art a man; I revoke the law of dreaming!” And pointed at Oberon.
Oberon shrank to mortal stature, becoming solid and whole. His features were now plain to see; a handsome man, but not supernaturally so. He had weight; his knees made noise on the deck when he sank down; he cast a shadow. The glamour of unreality had fled.
He clapped his hand to his empty right eye socket as if that pained him now. His splendid garbs and silks, now folded in absurd lengths across his too-small frame, were wilting and evaporating.
Pendrake said, “Why don’t you just sit there till we decide what to do with you?”
Galen said, “Do you give me this horn now, relinquishing your claim to and power over it?”
The wizard had to draw a deep breath before he spoke. “I do. The power is no more mine.” And he looked sad for a moment.
A pigeonhawk flew down from nowhere, landed on his shoulder, and immediately, the wizard was garbed in a great cloak of merlin feathers, dappled brown and white, with a hood of slate blue, which sprang, dreamlike, from the plumage of the bird. The black robes inscribed with constellations lay in a heap at Merlin’s feet, shed along with his old name.
Peter landed at that moment, the cylindrical warhead carried across the shoulders of the irked goat-monsters pulling his wheelchair.
“Now,” said Pendrake, “This should only take five minutes …”
It actually only took four and a half. Curving bars of magnetic superconductors appeared around the warhead with the suddenness of a dream. Pendrake opened the casings, attaching drawings of machinery and circuits, which then unfolded and became solid. He made adjustments, altered his drawings. Galen stirred and muttered in his sleep, clutching the horn, waking, hearing instructions, and throwing himself immediately back to sleep with the secret names of Morpheus.
Azrael, or, rather, Merlin Waylock, guided and directed each step of the process. Raven practiced generating perfect magnetic fields. Prometheus made suggestions and looked eager. Van Dam brought up radiation suits and leaded glass goggles from a locker and passed them out. Wendy floated around, trying to help, and got in everyone’s way.
Peter lashed his hammer to a heavy cable tied to the framework holding the warhead. “Ready? Come on, let me throw it. Not many men going to be able to say they threw a nuke. Ready? Goddamn it! I’m waiting around here, y’know!”
“Ready,” said Pendrake.
Galen passed out arrows. “In case this new radiation doesn’t listen to Prometheus.”
Raven said, “Am ready.” He had a little picture on a piece of notebook paper in his palm, diagramming the internal structure of the cosmogenesis weapon, with concentric circular arrows in blue ink showing where and how he had to rotate the fields.
Wendy hopped up and down with excitement, “Go, Daddy, go! Blast them to smithereens!”
Prometheus said, “Actually, I just thought of a much more effective way of dopplering the field recurvature, if only we had a tetrahedron of neutronium point sources rotating around a common axis. Well … perhaps next time …”
Lemuel said to Peter, “Throw it, Son. We watchmen have watched long enough. The foe is here; the watch is done. Now is the time to strike …”
Peter threw his hammer in the air. The cable snapped taught. The warhead was yanked aloft.
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