Delerium's Mistress: Tales of the Flat Earth Book 4 by Tanith Lee Page A

color of the blood orange, and you saw
that every stain upon it formed a most intricate and pleasing pattern, just as
did every tear in it, as though each had been skilfully painted on or cut out.
The begging bowl was not merely gilded, it was evidently gold, and dappled with
somber jewels. His staff of rotten driftwood, too, was elaborately carved and
had budded dark gems, and up it ran a slender ginger lizard, to perch on his
shoulder, and look about with eyes of fiery jasper. The eyes of the man were
rimmed with gold, blazed with it; their hue was not to be seen, nor was it easy
to meet his gaze—indeed, more trouble than it was worth.
    Oloru sighed, and lowered
his lashes. Chuz said, “Unwelcome, uncousin.
Or are you an unbrother to me? I am inclined to forget.”
    “Our relationship is
often deemed a close one,” conceded the traveler.
    “Why are you here?” said
Chuz by means of Oloru, and he threw a golden die at the lizard, which caught
it in its mouth.
    “Do not feed my pet,”
said the traveler, and extracted the die, which, in his grasp, turned to ash
and sifted to the floor. His nails were golden also, and very long. The lizard
rumbled like a tiny lion, balefully, at Chuz. “Why am I here? Why not? I must
pass everywhere at all times. You see me in this place. Others concurrently
perceive me elsewhere. And even you have not left the earth particularly sane
by your apparent retreat. Some essence of you, too, mad Prince Chuz, roves and
roars the world about.”
    During this exchange,
Sovaz had stood to one side, watching and listening. Now she spoke again.
    “I know you,” she said,
“and do not know you. A beggar king? You named yourself, did you not, at the
door?”
    The man turned and
inclined his head to her, smiling. A golden diadem evolved upon his hairless
burnished skull. The lizard looked up at it and purred like a kitten.
    “Which name did I use?”
    “Fate.”
    “Then I am Fate.”
    “King Fate, one of the
Lords of Darkness,” said Sovaz, and she swept him a scornful bow such as some
young warrior might have made him, though every line of her was woman. “A
gentle reminder that even I will not elude you?”
    “Oh, come. Have you
spent so long with him, and learned nothing?
I am only the symbol of the name. Like poor exhausted Death, tramping about the
earth with his carrion baskets, longing to get back to the quiet soft arms of
his handmaiden, Kassafeh. Or like that very one, there, who has gone mad
himself to prove he exists and is real, not only a symbol. While under our feet this instant there prowls another, your own
father, Wickedness. But he was always different. He firstly existed, and then
took on the rôle. We humble others the rôle itself has created.”
    “What nonsense is this
peculiar fellow talking?” inquired not Chuz, but Oloru, languidly. “It seems
he presumes on the maxim ‘Enough is never enough.’”
    But Fate, if so he was (and so he would seem to be),
looked at Sovaz and said, “He is close behind you.”
    “Who is that?”
    “Azhrarn. Who else.”
    “Fate warns me of my
fate. Does unhumbly rôle-playing Prince Wickedness wish to kill me?”
    “How could he? How could
he wish it?”
    “You are mistaken,” said
Sovaz. “He has no interest in me.”
    Fate looked about.
Politely, he examined the hall of the wondrous mansion, touching the tapestries
and crystal cups. The tiny lizard mewed and jumped down to chase sunbeams on
the floor. And here, leaving the aura of its master, it took on the tints of
sun and floor, becoming nearly transparent, for it was changeable, too, a
chameleon.
    “Are you then,” said
Sovaz to Fate, “Azhrarn’s messenger?”
    “Do I, a king, with my
own kingly business to attend to, seem likely to perform duties for another?”
    “Discuss your own
business with me, then.”
    “I am here,” said Fate
simply and not unkindly. “You have glimpsed me. And that is all which is
needed.”
    And so saying, he
summoned the lizard