"I have my lover already selected," Culluket said. "And she knows."
"Go away, then," said Kuhal Earthshaker. "I can rest here as well as anyplace. In the morning, Boduragol and the other Afaliah redactors will tend to me. Enjoy your Night of Secret Love, Brother!"
Death nodded, raised one skeletal hand, and slipped away to the masquerade.
***
Sullivan-Tonn danced with his betrothed, the beautiful young coercer Olone, knowing with sick certainty what black impulse from his own subconscious had made him choose the antelope mask with the spiral horns.
"You can't go with him! I forbid it Your father gave me his most solemn promise!"
Olone was a vision in a cloak of floating white petals and a tad flowered headdress. Her tiny half-mask was gold, the top margin ad decorated with jeweled stamens. She looked down at her elderly fiancé with a smile that blended amusement and contempt.
"Father is dead. And anyway, a King's wishes overrule those of a city-lord."
"Olone! My darling child. My untouched flower! I'd spirit you away—"
She felt the tightening embrace of his great psychokinesis. But all that was needed was a single coercive thrust, and he was crushed and weeping behind his silly antelope head, and they whirled over the soft grass and the music throbbed.
"Father pledged me to you without my consent when I was nothing but a child. You should be grateful that I still agreed to accept a human."
"No psychokinetic can match my powers!" Sullivan-Tonn blustered.
"Except him. And you're not such a prize. You're much too dumpy, and you're terribly old for one who's only ninety-six, and I think it was craven of you not to fight at Finiah."
"Don't talk like that! I love you so much!"
"Oh, twaddle." She was guiding the two of them closer and closer to the center of the dancing-ground, where the Fool and his Lady were spinning and soaring. "I know why you want a virgin. Don't think I can't read those terrible books you were showing the Interrogator just because the words aren't Standard English! Do you think we Tanu are incapable of using a Sony Translator? La nouvelle Justine, indeed! You try just one of those Lowlife tricks on me after we're married, and I'll coerce you to jelly!"
"My darling, I'd never—"
"Oh, be quiet!"
Most of those couples still on the dancing-ground now gathered about Aiken and Mercy. The Lady of Goriah was scarcely disguised at all, wearing a simple black domino and the Celtic costume that had been her choice for passing through the time-gate. The music had slowed to a languid three-quarter time. The jester and the Irish princess danced at arm's length. His face was hidden not only by the ludicrous long-nosed mask, but also by a mental curtain. Her lips were colorless, curved in a knowing smile.
The dance ended and they bowed to one another. A new melody began, jagged, eerie, impossible to dance to. The ball was over and the couples hurried toward the shadows.
Olone slipped out of Sullivan's arms and rushed to Aiken. "My King!" she said breathlessly, and curtseyed to the ground. The Fool snapped the fingers of both hands and came leaping at her. She rose, dissolving in giggles, to be met by the relentless caress of the nose.
Helpless, Sullivan saw them run away. Mercy was almost alone now in the midst of the great bowl of lawn. The musicians, all human, had slipped into the climactic bars of "La Valse." Sullivan shivered in premonition. A spectral figure that had been waiting under the plane trees came into the moonlight and beckoned. Mercy went to him slowly, then rose on tiptoe and kissed Death's fieshless mouth.
***
"Everybody ready?" whispered Sham.
"Ready," said Ayfa and the ten ogres.
They meshed minds and flung the bolt.
***
Olone's eyes were like stars. "Oh, Aiken. I never knew it would be like that."
The trickster looked slightly puzzled. "I think I surpassed myself! Maybe there's something to this maypole magic after ad!"
***
Unlike the Firvulag weddings, those of the Tanu took place in broad daylight, beneath the noon sun of May Day. The nuptial pairs, led by Aiken-Lugonn and Mercy-Rosmar, circled around the great golden maypole to a stately processional chorus, climaxed by the Song. The brides and grooms wore gowns or robes of their own heraldic colors, and over them mandes of white. The brides had chaplets of white lilies and the grooms wreaths of male fern. Mercy's sole innovation in the ancient ceremony had been the inclusion of sprigs of rosemary in the nuptial crowns. "It's a plant used to bless weddings from time immemorial on Elder Earth," she had explained, "and it's also my own plant: rosemary of Rosmar. Rosemary for remembrance..."
She remembered another wedding.
It had taken place in the middle of last June—not a mass celebration as this was, but a more intimate one, with only the courtiers and the people of Goriah in attendance. She had not worn the blue-green of the Creator's Guild (she had not yet been initiated) but the rose and gold of her daemon lover. If he had lived, they would have reaffirmed their vow today, leading not the parade of newlyweds but the later procession in the ceremony of renewal.
Nodonn! she cried on his intimate mode. No one heard. Not the solemn little man beside her in his gold-and-black robes, not Eadnar and Alberonn, who walked directly behind them in the place of honor, not any one of the other one hundred and sixty-seven Tanu and gold-torc human couples who followed in measured figures traced around the golden shaft. They danced holding the strings of flowers that depended from the maypole's tip, weaving the ribbons ever tighter until the betrothed came all together in a tight circle facing the pole, dropped the streamers, and kissed in the final pledge.
Raising her tear-glinting face from Aiken's, Mercy-Rosmar Lady Creator held out both hands and exerted her metapsychic powers. In a soft miracle, the air filled with a fragrant tempest of tiny white blossoms that swirled about the kissing couples, settled in their hair, spilled from the nuptial cloaks to form perfumed windrows on the emerald dancing ground.
"Slonshal!" cried all the witnesses. "Slonshal! Slonshal!"
Then, with ritual finally over, the Grove of May swarmed with thousands of rama servitors and human waiters, all wearing Aiken's gold-and-black livery. The couples and the throng of guests reclined on shaded grass and partook of a picnic feast, this time with dishes and potations selected for their alleged aphrodisiac effect. There were strolling entertainers, and as evening descended, a great deal of ribald minstrelsy. A gorgeous and sensual ballet served for a final prelude to the lovemaking.
(By then the Firvulag had gone back to their own encampment, where Sharn and Ayfa and the Gnomish Council gathered around the fire, chaste and furious, and got blind drunk. Culluket kept a farseeing eye on the Foe all that night; but the mossy grottos that Mercy had so carefully prepared went completely unused.)
When the May moon rode high, the Tanu and human couples once again paired off—but more decorously than on the previous night. They came to their bowers and their couches hidden among the shrubs and found them heaped with fresh flower petals. The newlyweds spread their white cloaks, and the old married folk managed in their old familiar way, and even the casual and the desperate found sweet solace in the nightingale-haunted forest.
***
After everyone else had gone, Aiken and Mercy went to the maypole. They joined hands around the tapering column of gold and began to circle.
"Now you are mine," he told her.
"But whose are you?" she retorted, breaking into wild laughter as the triumphant grin faded from his face.
His only answer was to crush her hands and dance faster. The maypole was now free of its flowery cords and jutted like some monstrous pylon toward the starry zenith. Its sleek hardness separated them as they left the ground and spiraled upward. They had lost their bridal crowns, but the white cloaks billowed, seeming to become larger and more enveloping, and then form a rotating fluidity like a ring of rising cloud. Mercy tilted her head from side to side as they went faster and faster. Th
e night was a spinning blur except for his golliwog face and her laughing one and always the golden shaft between.
They spun above the apex, wrapped in the moonglow bubble that the capes had become. She felt she would die with the fear of him and the desire, and his eyes were two black bores and he was no longer a little man but enormous. And there was a great golden maypole that brought a great golden light and warmth beyond measure, beyond the Sun, even beyond Death.
"But whose are you?" she heard herself repeat, long after. And then, "No one's. Poor Shining One."
But by that time he was gone, and it was dawn, and time to get ready for the coronation.
***
Traditionally, the Grand Loving climaxed with the gentle deposition of the erstwhile King and Queen of May, after which the loyal Tanu subjects renewed their oath of fealty to the legitimate sovereign. This year, however, things were going to be different. Everyone knew it; the Many-Colored Land had been alive with the news ever since the successful conclusion of Aiken's progress. There were those who rejoiced and those who despaired and even a few who trusted that the Goddess would intervene at the last minute to solve what had become a grievously untidy state of affairs.
On the morning of May second, Lady Morna-Ia sent out her far-spoken summons, and by noon the Conclave of Tanu had assembled in the grassy bowl of the festival ground. More than 6000 of them were in attendance, perhaps two-thirds of the total number left alive after the Flood. The Firvulag guests were there, too, clustered in a sullen knot, ad wearing their obsidian armor and deeply hung-over. At the fringes of the exotic gathering was a mighty mob of humans that spread out into the parkland surrounding the amphitheatre—perhaps 15,000 stiver-tores, grays, and barenecks who had come not only from Goriah and its satellite plantations and mining villages, but also from as far away as Rocilan and Sasaran, expressly invited by the usurper to witness his hour of glory.
The dais had been cleared of its Maytide decorations. The flower-decked thrones were gone and in their place stood two unfamiliar chairs of unadorned black marble.
A single note sounded from a glass carnyx. The crowd fell silent, watching the dais, and abruptly Elizabeth was there. The minds and voices gave an involuntary cry of astonishment. Elizabeth wore Brede's great black-and-red headdress and costume, and held the glass chain of silence high in her hands. A wave of thought rolled out from her, calming the anxious Tanu minds, reminding them who had given her this rôle.
And then Aiken was there beside her, wearing his gold-lustre armor. His head was bare.
"Choose freely," said Elizabeth. "Will you have him as your king?"
The reply was quiet, numb, inevitable. "We will."
"The Tanu kings have no tradition of coronation," said the Ship-Spouse's successor, "just as they have no tradition of peaceful accession to the throne. For your race, a monarch has always been a battle-champion, his only crown a warrior's helmet. But this king has asked for a new symbol, and so I give it to him."
Elizabeth handed Aiken a simple circlet of black glass. He nodded to her and set it himself upon his springy dark-red hair.
Another sound swelled from the crowd: perhaps an indrawn breath, or one let out, or a sigh of relief, or a sob suppressed. Elizabeth bent over Aiken, speaking to his mind alone. Again he nodded, and Elizabeth disappeared. Where she had stood were now sixteen Tanu—and Mercy.
"I present to you your new High Table," Aiken said. His physical voice was quiet, but even the most distant bareneck heard his words.
"First, my Queen and Lady Creator, co-ruler of my city of Goriah: Mercy-Rosmar." She knelt before Aiken and received from him a green circlet. He took her hand and led her to the two marble thrones. They ascended. One by one, the High Table candidates approached, touching their tores as their minds pledged silent fealty.
"The President of the Guild of Farsensors, the Venerable Lady Morna-Ia Kingmaker ... the President of the Guild of Redactors, Culluket the Interrogator ... the Deputy Lord Psychokinetic, Bleyn the Champion ... the Second Lord Psychokinetic, Kuhal Earthshaker ... the Second Lord Creator and Lord of Calamosk, Aluteyn Craftsmaster ... the Second Lady Farsensor, Sibel Longtress ... the Second Lord Coercer and Lord of Amalizan, Artigonn ... the Lord and Lady of Rocilan, Alberonn Mindeater and Eadnar ... the Lord of Afaliah, Celadeyr ... the Lady of Bardelask, Armida the Formidable ... the Lord of Sasaran, Neyal the Younger ... the Lord of Tarasiah, Thufan Thunderhead ... the Lord of Geroniah, Diarmet ... the Lord of Sayzorask, Lomnovel Brainburner ... the Lord of Roniah, Condateyr the Fulminator."
Aiken surveyed the newly accoladed Great Ones. "I myself assume the presidency of the Guild of Coercers and the Guild of Psychokinetics. The post of Second Redactor is left temporarily vacant. Since neither Lady Estella-Sirone of Darask nor Moreyn Glasscrafter, city-lord of Var-Mesk, are here at this conclave, I withhold naming them to the High Table until they personally offer oaths of fealty."
He rose from his throne and stood silently for a moment looking over the throng of exotics and humans and hybrids. His solemn manner softened and the old jesting smile appeared as he tapped the blazon on his glass breastplate. It was so stylized and encrusted with yellow gemstones that the digitus impudicus was hardly recognizable.
"And what about the rest of you? Do you accept me wholeheartedly as King of this Many-Colored Land?"
"Slonshal!" thundered the minds and voices of his subjects. "Slonshal King Aiken-Lugonn! SLONSHAL!"
The Firvulag said nothing. By the time anybody thought to look for them, they had ridden away on the trail to Nionel.
***
THE END OF PART TWO
PART III
The Gigantomachy
1
IN HIS SLEEP he called out to her: Mercy! Only to awake again to the grotto of living rock surrounding him, impervious to any telepathic impulse.
Mercy! his mind screamed, but the sound that emerged from his lips was barely audible. As always, he tried to rise. As always, he could move only the muscles of his face and neck. A warm wind, laden with the scent of the blooming maquis, stole along the cavern wall. He was very thirsty. Turning his head, he concentrated his will on the good arm, commanding it to move, to reach out to the nearby flask of water. The arm remained limp. He was helpless.
Goddess, let me die, he pleaded. Let me die before Isak Henning and Huldah come back.
A fly settled on his face, crept maddeningly about his cracked lips. He called down vain anathemas upon the miserable creature. The hot wind skipped about, lifting dust and dropping it onto him. His skin was now exquisitely sensitive. He could feel every irregularity in the cave floor beneath his fur mattress, the damp hairs of the furs themselves. As the sun sank, its strong beams shone directly upon him for a brief time, making him break out in sweat. The thirst was appalling.
The fly on his mouth flew away. But then came his most dangerous insect enemy, a kind of large black-and-white warble fly that pierced the skin with a needlelike ovipositor and laid its egg in living flesh. Terror and loathing welled up in him at the sight of it. He flung his coercion at the filthy thing, strove to push it away with his PK.
It settied onto his belly.
He uttered a strangled shriek. A long shadow thrust down the cave's length and the wind brought a familiar smell of musk. He grunted with desperate urgency and she came running, dashing the warble fly off him with her bare hand just as it began to prick.
"There!" she cried, stamping it into the dust with her horny feet. "There, it's dead, the devilish thing!" She bathed the defiled spot in cool water and gave him to drink, then cradled his head against her breasts, crooning. Grandpa came in with rabbits from the snare and gave them a derisive look. Huldah paid no attention.
"Are you all right now?" she asked.
"Yes."
"No other bites? No pebbles hurting you?"
"No. Just give water." She let him drink again, then brought the ceramic bedpan. While she cleaned him up, Isak skinned the rabbits and spitted them. The smell of r
oasting meat was mouth-watering.
He could chew and swallow with ease now. Huldah had been very hurt when he adamantly refused the lip-to-lip feeding, but now he was able to close his jaw tightly against her, and so she no longer importuned him.
"There's going to be a lovely moon tonight," she announced. "Nice and full. Would you like to go outside? You and I could sleep on the grass and Grandpa in the cave."
"No," he said flatly. "Stay here."
"All right. But tonight is special. Grandpa says so." Her eyes were shining and she tossed her stringy flaxen hair. "After supper, there'll be a surprise!"
His heart went cold. A full moon in spring warmth? "What month?" he asked.
She bent over him, listening, and he repeated, "What month ... is this?"
The evil old man heard and came back to stand over him. "We call it May, Lord God! You call it the time of Grand Loving. Loving! And didn't you used to have a fine time—you Tanu and your bloody fertility rites? But no more! Your people are gone, Lord God. All washed away in the avenging Flood. The Flying Hunt hasn't come from Muriah since 'way last fall. It'll never come to Kersic again."
"I told you that, Grandpa," said Huldah placidly. "But you wouldn't believe me."
"Just because you're nothing but a half-witted slut," Isak Henning muttered. "But you were right about that."
"And I was right about my God waking." She stared at her grandfather with peculiar intensity. "Someday soon, he'll be all well."
The shabby ancient skipped over to the cooking fire. "When he is, he can use his PK to move his wooden hand!" The old man chuckled maliciously. "And scratch his own lice, and wipe his own ass. Hee hee hee!"