beforehand, the thousands proceeded in through these
doors.
Inside the
topmost tier was only night sky. A limitless sphere of black, scattered with
stars and the dusts of stars, over which, now and then, a comet or a meteorite
would unravel its ribbons, or through which some cosmic body might drop like a
great coin. Indeed, certain children reached out and caught hold of products of
this astral hail. One child told after of snatching and retaining a moment a
star large as a cartwheel, which weighed no more than a small rock. But the
star was burning, and holding it, the child saw the red wine in its own hands
against the light, and then, though it felt no pain, its hands blistered a
little, and it prudently let go of the star, which fell away, and under its
feet, down and down, until it was no longer visible. A girl also spoke of
catching a star by its trailing roots, the point at which it had snapped off
the parent tree or vine on which it had been growing. But she too discarded it,
when she felt her face grow tight as if with too much sun. All were later agreed
that they had balanced on nothing at all, for all this heavenly debris passed
them and away below them. Yet somehow they were not in fear, and the air they
stood on felt solid as a floor. Whatever else, they knew they were much higher
in the ether than the top of the tower had been, and therefore nearer to the
gods. Yet, the gods they did not see, nor even their lesser cousins, the
elementals of the uppermost sky.
Strangest of
all, maybe, was that, as each entered this realm of savage space, he discovered
himself alone, or seemed to. Even at that, they felt no panic.
Then, they
were no longer alone. One other was with them.
Initially, it
appeared to be the figure of a man who came walking toward them across the
floorless floor of night. Almost all recognized the rogue storyteller, he of
the eagle-winged cloak, for almost everyone had seen that man on the journey to
Bhelsheved.
When he was
three or four feet from them, the man halted, muffled in the cloak. For the
interim of a heartbeat he stayed so.
And then—
An inky wind
swirled, hiding the stars, swirled and became a pillar of smoke, whirling,
devilish; condensed and became a stormcloud, heavy blue and shot with spangles,
split by a tremendous lightning flash. And out of the lightning flew a black
gull on blade-like wings, and flying, the gull became an eagle with two of the
stars seemingly in the sockets of its eyes, and the eagle grasped the night in
its talons, its pinions shrilled and it was a dragon, dwarfing the dark, black
as burned fire, mouth full of fire, of magma, a volcano. And then the flames
sank and a black wolf with fiery eyes became instead a black dog, which reared
upward and became that dog of cats, the panther, and after the panther, a
jaguar, which in turn reared up, standing on its hind limbs, grew the slim
waist and rounded hips of an amphora, the full breasts of a courtesan, a
woman’s face lovely beyond reckoning, with smiling lips, and an ocean of black
hair. And then she too transmuted, and each one who stood, or kneeled or cowered
before the metamorphosing force, beheld someone familiar to himself, a wife, a
brother, a neighbor or a child. So exact the likeness, some few were moved to
speak to the apparition, to call it by name in amazement. But then this shape
was also gone.
And now he
evolved before them in his masculine shape, after which, it was sometimes said,
all other men were shadows of a shadow, all other men, and all women, too, as
if they were unfinished statues, and he the only perfect creation, but if so,
who could have created him?
They saw him
as a Lord. A Lord of Darkness. A Prince. As his own people saw him.
The black mail
which clung to his body ran with blue dynamics. And even as it was mail and
metal, so his armoring was also of velvet. His cloak was not any kind of
material, but a waterfall of jewels, blacks and blackest greens and brazen,
too, as if
doors.
Inside the
topmost tier was only night sky. A limitless sphere of black, scattered with
stars and the dusts of stars, over which, now and then, a comet or a meteorite
would unravel its ribbons, or through which some cosmic body might drop like a
great coin. Indeed, certain children reached out and caught hold of products of
this astral hail. One child told after of snatching and retaining a moment a
star large as a cartwheel, which weighed no more than a small rock. But the
star was burning, and holding it, the child saw the red wine in its own hands
against the light, and then, though it felt no pain, its hands blistered a
little, and it prudently let go of the star, which fell away, and under its
feet, down and down, until it was no longer visible. A girl also spoke of
catching a star by its trailing roots, the point at which it had snapped off
the parent tree or vine on which it had been growing. But she too discarded it,
when she felt her face grow tight as if with too much sun. All were later agreed
that they had balanced on nothing at all, for all this heavenly debris passed
them and away below them. Yet somehow they were not in fear, and the air they
stood on felt solid as a floor. Whatever else, they knew they were much higher
in the ether than the top of the tower had been, and therefore nearer to the
gods. Yet, the gods they did not see, nor even their lesser cousins, the
elementals of the uppermost sky.
Strangest of
all, maybe, was that, as each entered this realm of savage space, he discovered
himself alone, or seemed to. Even at that, they felt no panic.
Then, they
were no longer alone. One other was with them.
Initially, it
appeared to be the figure of a man who came walking toward them across the
floorless floor of night. Almost all recognized the rogue storyteller, he of
the eagle-winged cloak, for almost everyone had seen that man on the journey to
Bhelsheved.
When he was
three or four feet from them, the man halted, muffled in the cloak. For the
interim of a heartbeat he stayed so.
And then—
An inky wind
swirled, hiding the stars, swirled and became a pillar of smoke, whirling,
devilish; condensed and became a stormcloud, heavy blue and shot with spangles,
split by a tremendous lightning flash. And out of the lightning flew a black
gull on blade-like wings, and flying, the gull became an eagle with two of the
stars seemingly in the sockets of its eyes, and the eagle grasped the night in
its talons, its pinions shrilled and it was a dragon, dwarfing the dark, black
as burned fire, mouth full of fire, of magma, a volcano. And then the flames
sank and a black wolf with fiery eyes became instead a black dog, which reared
upward and became that dog of cats, the panther, and after the panther, a
jaguar, which in turn reared up, standing on its hind limbs, grew the slim
waist and rounded hips of an amphora, the full breasts of a courtesan, a
woman’s face lovely beyond reckoning, with smiling lips, and an ocean of black
hair. And then she too transmuted, and each one who stood, or kneeled or cowered
before the metamorphosing force, beheld someone familiar to himself, a wife, a
brother, a neighbor or a child. So exact the likeness, some few were moved to
speak to the apparition, to call it by name in amazement. But then this shape
was also gone.
And now he
evolved before them in his masculine shape, after which, it was sometimes said,
all other men were shadows of a shadow, all other men, and all women, too, as
if they were unfinished statues, and he the only perfect creation, but if so,
who could have created him?
They saw him
as a Lord. A Lord of Darkness. A Prince. As his own people saw him.
The black mail
which clung to his body ran with blue dynamics. And even as it was mail and
metal, so his armoring was also of velvet. His cloak was not any kind of
material, but a waterfall of jewels, blacks and blackest greens and brazen,
too, as if
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