Her mind went blank.
And then through the blankness, a fixed point. Upon this she concentrated everything in her spirit. The Gold Gong.
“Monster!” she cried, twisting her head to gaze up at him again. She saw that he too was staring out at the spill of one reality into another. She saw that he perceived far more than she could, and that what he saw rendered him sick. “Monster!” she cried, but her voice could not reach him. His eyes stared out, beholding the flight of stars, the destruction of worlds. Tears welled up and spilled down his face, and she saw his lips moving in feeble prayer. “Song Giver, give us grace! Song Giver, give us mercy!”
The Masayi were taught from the time they entered the doors of the Golden Mother’s house to depend on nothing and no one beyond themselves. Sairu, staring up at that stricken face above her, felt a sudden swelling sense of betrayal and, following that, determination. The heat rose up against her, and she told herself, “This is a dream. You’ve dreamt before. You know what is possible in dreams.”
She let go her hold on the cat-man’s sleeve. With a violent twist, she pulled herself free.
At first she fell. Had she been entirely sane, she would have thought she’d made a mistake, would have believed she’d miscalculated her chances. But she was not sane just then, and in her madness she did not doubt. As she fell, she spread wide her arms and her legs, and felt the heat catch in her voluminous robes.
In dreams it is possible to fly.
She had little control. She never did when she dreamed of flight. And slowly she sank from that awful height, closer and closer to the burning lake below. Soon she was close enough to see the crevices in the black rocks, to feel the spray as scalding bubbles burst. She felt that there was more here as well. Though she could not see it, she felt the presence of a vast Dark Water beneath her, and it too churned and boiled like the molten lake of fire. It was all one, now that the Heavens had spilled into the Dream and the Dream into the Heavens.
Sairu would not think of that. She focused ahead to where the Gold Gong stood. She focused on the two figures lying collapsed atop a great hammer. Though she dipped close to the fire, she struggled and, through sheer force of will, would not allow herself to sink. Thus her feet touched the shore just before the gong, and she fell to her knees, gasping.
Evil surrounded her. She sensed it on all sides, above, below, even inside herself. The glaring light of the red lake was gone, along with the lake itself. Here the darkness was intense and living; the only light by which she could see came from the gong itself, and that light was more evil than the darkness. She pulled herself up and approached the gong. Blood dripped down its surface as though the gong itself bled. No other source presented itself to her vision, and she did not seek more closely for answers.
Jovann lay upon the ground, one hand still holding limply to the hammer. He gazed up at the gong, and Sairu saw he was near fainting with terror. And Lady Hariawan, beside him, stared at the gong as well, a deathly smile upon her lips as she watched the spill of blood.
Sairu flung herself at them, heedless of the evil. The force of love was upon her, and she could not stop, not now. Though she could scarcely see for terror, she felt the Path opening at her feet even as it had across the Dream wasteland. There was still hope.
“My mistress!” she cried, falling before Lady Hariawan and taking her by the shoulders. Lady Hariawan did not respond to her touch or her voice but remained as she was, gazing into a world, into a nightmare Sairu could not perceive. Sairu tried to lift her but found that her mistress’s body had gone leaden and would not be moved.
Only then did Sairu turn to Jovann. He seemed to be unaware of her. His grip on the hammer’s handle tightened and relaxed and tightened again. His cheeks were so sallow, so sickly green, she feared for a moment that he was dead even as he held himself upright. She took his face between her hands, gripping him hard, as though she wished to crush his skull. “Jovann! Jovann, wake up!” she urged. “Jovann, I am here! We must go. We must go, my love!”
His eyes, unseeing, rolled in their sockets. His lips moved, but she could not hear what he said until she put her ear close to his mouth. Then she heard him moaning, “Hulan! Hulan! Oh, why are we forsaken?”
“You are not forsaken,” Sairu growled. “I am with you!” With that, she wrenched the hammer from his grasp and heaved it away. Jovann moaned and fell against her. She could smell the stench of dragon poison in his breath, in his hair, in his skin. He shuddered, and she knew that he must be in great pain. “Jovann, can you hear me?” she begged, helping him to sit up and lean back against the dragon-shaped pillar. Then she took his head between her hands once more and whispered, forcing her voice to disguise the panic and reveal only calm: “Your pain is here. Beneath my hands. Feel it here beneath my hands.”
His face went greener than ever, as though the poison did indeed gather where she touched him. She felt her stomach heave but forced her hands to slide down his neck, down his shoulders. “Your pain is here, Jovann,” she whispered. “Feel it here. Feel your pain.”
As she moved her hands, the poison drained away from his face, leaving him pale but once more human. But his agonized arms shivered, and she continued with deliberate urgency. She slid her hands to his wrists, and then her palms were pressed against his, pressed ever so hard.
“Your pain is here. Hold your pain. Hold your pain in your hands.”
Jovann groaned, and his eyes rolled again, staring up at the gong and the dripping blood. He saw things she could not see, experienced agonies she could not share.
“Hold your pain,” Sairu said, desperation welling up in her heart. “Hold your pain. Hold it here. Oh Jovann, try! Please try! Hold your pain.”
“No. Let me hold it.”
Sairu, startled at the voice that spoke beside her, dropped her hold on Jovann’s hands and turned. She could not see, or not entirely see, the one who knelt beside her. But she felt his presence, more solid and more real than anything she had ever before experienced. She recognized the voice as the one that had been calling to her, guiding her along the Path in the Dream. Perhaps guiding her for longer than she realized.
“Do you know who I am, Sairu?” the voice asked.
“I do,” she said, though until she spoke she had not known.
“What is my name?”
“Lumil Eliasul,” she responded without question. “The Giver of Songs.”
Then a sob caught in her throat, and she could not speak, not in words, though her heart cried out, “Where have you been? Where? Where? Where have you been?”
“I have been here,” said the voice. The blood falling from the gong seemed to spill through the air in a sort of shape, a sort of image that Sairu could almost, but not quite, see. “I have been here all along. And now I will hold his pain.”
The image formed in blood reached out and took Jovann’s hands even as Sairu had, palms pressed to palms. And the voice spoke in soaring echo of Sairu’s, but with a truth in the echo that her own voice could never have matched. “I hold your pain, Jovann. I hold your pain in my hands.”
So Sairu watched the poison pass from Jovann’s body, from his spirit. She watched as he began to breathe again, full, normal breaths, and the color crept back into his skin. More than that, she knew that what had been broken inside him was now, for the first time in his life, made whole.
He moaned. He opened his eyes. “Sairu?” he whispered. “Is that you, little miss?”
“Oh! Jovann!” she cried and leapt forward, seizing his arms.
Even as she did so, the gong above them sounded again: DOOM.
The space of reality around them shivered and cracked in extreme agony, and the roar of the Dragon reverberated with the gong’s own voice.
DOOM.
The voice spoke in Sairu’s ear. “Take him now, and Umeer Melati. Lead her as far as you can from this place, but take care you do not follow her. She will walk her own Path. You must follow mine. Go now, for the End is upon
us. Go!”
He did not leave. Though all perception of him fled her, Sairu knew that he was still near. This knowledge gave her courage, and she strengthened her grip on Jovann’s arm.
“Up!” she commanded, though she could scarcely be heard in the ongoing din of the gong and Dragon’s roar. “On your feet. We must carry my mistress between us!”
Jovann shook himself and stared around at the blackness and the gong. He no longer beheld the horrible sights to which he had been witness, but they were not gone from his memory. But without the image of Hulan and her suffering immediately before his eyes, he found he could move, even enough to follow Sairu’s orders.
They bent to Lady Hariawan, who remained inert through all. Taking her by the arms, they hauled her to her feet and, between them, carried her away, fleeing the long shadow of the Gold Gong. They fled into darkness but, even as the voice of Lumil Eliasul had promised, a Path presented itself at their feet. Like a white stream flowing with ripples of light, it appeared, and they found that when they trod upon it they could run.
Run they did, dragging along their burden. And suddenly the darkness was gone, and even the rippling Path, and they found themselves once more upon the empty, formless wasteland of the Dream.
“Where now?” Jovann demanded, for though he turned every which way, he could see no landmarks by which they might be guided. “How do we escape this realm?”
Sairu also scanned the horizon, but she sought something more specific. Sure enough, she spotted a familiar figure racing toward them on small white feet.
“Monster! We’re here!” she cried.
“Great Iubdan’s beard and mustache, I can’t believe you’re alive,” the cat yeowled in reply. He was so close now, she could see the gold rims of his eyes.
Then a blast of fire and a plume of black smoke smote the wasteland between them and the cat. A shadow fell across all, and Sairu and Jovann looked up at the hovering form of a young dragon.
“Sunan!” Jovann cried.
“Well met, brother,” said the dragon.
The Lady Moon hangs in her chains, and one by one her children tear into her. She does not wear a form of flesh, so they tear her spirit, and her spirit bleeds. They tear her heart, and her heart bleeds. And her blood flows across the skies.
The Dragon bending over her is bigger than worlds, and his malevolence shrouds everything within the Moon’s sight. Her gaze is far-flung, for she looks upon all worlds, she shines and offers comfort to all beings. But now all beings behold only her pain.
“Will you now despair?” the Dragon asks, as yet another of her children rends her through the heart, savaging with its horn. “Will you now speak?”
Her Song has ceased. For a moment and a forever, the worlds hang suspended in her Silence. Her children ravage her body, but this pain is as nothing to the pain she feels at seeing them ravage themselves. To see them torn from their dance, to see them torn from one another, from her own heart. To see them burn, burn, burn without end.
Her children. Her beautiful children.
The loss is too great to be borne.
“I see it in your face, Hymlumé,” said the Dragon. “I see your desolation. Speak it now. Speak it into this Silence. And declare to all the worlds my greatness!”
She says nothing.
The Dragon roars, enraged. He lashes his great tail, striking the gong so that it resounds its bellowing DOOM! and the Moon is shattered to the core.
“See what I have wrought?” the Dragon cries. “See my power? Long have I labored to bring about your end. Long have I plotted, schemed, unbeknownst to your great Lord. Is He so all-powerful, so all-seeing? If so, then He is evil, for He did not prevent me. Or perhaps He did not know. Perhaps He did not see. Perhaps He is too blind to notice the workings of traitors in His own household. His great love of which you sing has made Him weak.
“See my power, Hymlumé. I spread my shadow across every world. Not only your heavens, from which I cast your children in flame. Not only the mortal world where men and women flock in terror to my worship. Not only here, not only there, but everywhere, Hymlumé. My influence spreads like poison through veins, and He did not stop me. He did not intervene.
“Worship me, Hymlumé. Worship me as mortals do. Worship me and declare my supremacy.
“Speak now, Hymlumé. Speak now your despair.”
She cannot raise her luminous eyes. She cannot raise her head. She bleeds from too many wounds.
But she feels a gentle hand touching her face.
The Dragon’s venom pours down upon her head, venom and fire both. “You are abandoned, Hymlumé. If you were not, would He allow you to suffer so? Would He allow your children to fall? You are abandoned. The Love you believe in is false. You are abandoned. Abandoned. Your name is not Harmony. Your name is Forsaken!”
All is lost.
Everything is taken away.
The Dragon bends over her, cupping her face between his massive hands, his claws tearing at her eyes, her hair, her cheeks, her throat. He forces her to look at him.
“Speak your despair, Forsaken One.”
The Silence is long. It covers the worlds in crimson. All hearts wait, though they may not know it, straining to hear the Silence end. Waiting to hear what will fall from the sky above. In the mortal world, the battle waging along palace walls ceases suddenly, and even the warriors drop their weapons and stare up at the sky. The knight in the Wood is upon her knees, her hands clasped, her mouth moving in feeble prayers. The queen on the mountaintop raises her arms, ready to receive whatever destiny rains down, even doom. Everywhere, in every world, the Silence strains to the breaking point, and it must end.
“Speak,” says the Dragon.
And the Lady Moon opens her mouth.
She says: “Rise up, my heart.”
Like the first drop of rain upon a desert floor.
Like the first wave of heat from the hearth fire upon a frozen face.
Like the first whisper into a deaf man’s ear.
Like a crack of light piercing the eye of the blind.
“What did you say?” the Dragon demands, his hands still crushing her head.
The Lady Moon speaks again: “Rise up my heart. Affirm thy adulation in pain—”
“What? What did you say?” The Dragon drops his hold as though he, who cannot be burned, is suddenly struck with the heat of searing brands. “What did you say, Forsaken One?” he roars, and it is his voice that is filled with pain. For now her song is swelling. Now it will not be dammed but will spill from her mouth along with her tears, along with her blood.
So Hymlumé sings:
“Rise up, my heart: Affirm thy adulation
In pain, rejoicing in thy Lord on high;
Exalt Him here and throughout all Creation,
Thy Song emblaz’ed across the ringing sky!
Rise up, my heart: renew paeans divine,
And to His hand thy children now consign.”
As her Songs build and her blood flows, the Dragon screams. And it is as though scales drop from his eyes and he sees what has been before him all along, but which he had been unable to perceive. Like a mortal gazing into immortal secrets, so was he before that mighty Truth standing before him.
He sees the Lumil Eliasul, the Giver of Songs, the Prince Beyond the Final Water. And the Dragon knows then that his Enemy has stood there between him and Hymlumé all along.
Hymlumé, her gaze still too full of suffering to see that mighty light which far outshines both Sun and Moon, nonetheless raises her voice in greater strength:
“Rise up, my heart: Declare thyself content
Belonging wholly to thy gracious Lord.
Thy soul, thy heart, in offering present
Once more surrendered to the One adored.
Rise up my heart: Thy best beloved given
In hallowed pledge unto the Lord of Heaven.”
So she collapses in her chains, her spirit exhausted. And yet her Song continues, rollin
g across the battered Heavens, across every sky and every nation under those skies. She is as still as one dead. But her Lord reaches out and breaks her chains, taking her from the gong and pressing her to His heart.
Then the Lumil Eliasul turns upon the Dragon. The Dragon, who had been larger than worlds, and who is now small, so very small that his Enemy reaches out and picks him up in one hand.
“I will show you a wonder now, Death-in-Life,” says the Lumil Eliasul, speaking the Dragon’s true name. “I will show you what you have never before seen. And you will try to forget, for you cannot hold such a memory and survive. But I will show you. Look!”
The Giver of Songs lifts the Dragon to His face, up to His very eye. And that eye is huge. It is as far beyond the Dragon’s understanding as the Gardens of Hymlumé were beyond Jovann’s. That eye contains the Sun, the Moon, the whole of the starry hosts of Heaven. That eye contains this world, that world, all worlds, and all Betweens. That eye contains the Boundless, and yet there is still more, and more. The Dragon looks, and he sees that all of Time is but a grain of sand within that eye, and Space itself is smaller still.
“No! No, please!” The Dragon screams, struggles. He tries to find the vastness of his wings, but they are as infinitesimal as his own imagined might. “Let me go! Let me be free!”
The Lumil Eliasul gazes upon him, upon the whole of him, the beginning, the end, and the Nothing of him. And that gaze is more than the Dragon can bear.
He flames. He dies. He lives again.
Yet he cannot escape.
“Poor, foolish thing,” said the Lumil Eliasul. “Do you see now? Do you see the truth? Nothing you set your hand to will be accomplished beyond my will. Now even your foul work will I turn to greater good, to greater glory, beyond anything you have imagined. Behold.”
Once more the Dragon stares into that eye. Now the speck that is Time grows, as though crossing millions of light-years in seconds so that it may spread before the Dragon’s gaze. And he sees what he has done. He sees it in full. He sees that the greatest workings of his evil—the silencing of the Song, the blood across the sky, the fall of the stars themselves—is too small to be seen. The weight of glory is too much; it crushes all beneath it.