Phoenix in Obsidian

  It was a hall with a high arched ceiling coming almost to a point at the top. At the end of it was a dais hung with draperies. On each side of the dais was a glowing brazier, tended by servants, which issued ruddy light and sent smoke curling towards the ceiling where, presumably, it found egress, for there was only a hint of smoke in the air I breathed. As if preserved in volcanic glass, stone monsters writhed and crouched on walls and ceiling, leering, baring unlikely fangs, laughing at some obscene joke, roaring, threatening, twisting in some secret agony. Many bore resemblances to the heraldic monsters of John Daker’s world. Here were cockfish, opinicus, mantigoras, satyrs, man-lions, melusines, camelopards, wyverns, cockatrices, dragons, griffins, unicorns, amphisboenae, enfields, bagwyns, salamanders—every combination of man, beast, fish and fowl—all of huge size, rending each other, crawling over each other’s backs, copulating, tangling tails, defecating, dying, being born…

  This, surely, was a chamber of Hell.

  I looked towards the dais. Behind draperies, in some sort of throne, a figure lounged. I approached the dais, half expecting the figure to be possessed of a spiked tail and a pair of horns.

  A foot or two from the dais Morgeg stopped and bowed. I did likewise. The drapes were drawn back by servants and there sat a man very different from what I had expected—very different from the pale, sad-eyed Morgeg.

  The voice was deep, sensuous, jovial. “Greetings, Count Urlik. We are honoured you should decide to pay a visit to this rat’s nest we call Rowernarc, you who are of the free and open icelands.”

  Bishop Belphig was fat, dressed in rich robes, a circlet around his long, blond hair, keeping it from his eyes. His lips were very red and his eyebrows very black. With a sudden shock I realised that he was using cosmetics. Beneath them doubtless he, too, was as pale as Morgeg and the rest. Perhaps the hair was dyed. Certainly the cheeks were rouged, the eyelashes false, the lips painted.

  “Greetings, Bishop Belphig,” I replied. “I thank the Lord Spiritual of Rowernarc for his hospitality and would beg a word or two with him in private.”

  “Aha! You have some message for me, dear count! Of course. Morgeg—the rest of you—leave us for a while. But stay within earshot if I should want to call you suddenly.”

  I smiled slightly. Bishop Belphig did not want to risk the fact that I might be an assassin.

  When they had gone Belphig waved a beringed hand in an expansive gesture. “Well, good count? What is your message?”

  “I have no message,” I said. “I have only a question. Perhaps several questions.”

  “Then ask them, sir! Please, ask them!”

  “First, I would know why my name is familiar to you all. Secondly, I would ask if it was you, who must have certain mystical knowledge, who summoned me here. The other questions depend on your answers to the first two.”

  “Why, dear count, your name is known to all! You are a legend, you are a fabulous hero. You must know this!”

  “Presume that I have awakened just recently from a deep sleep. Presume that most of my memories are gone. Tell me of the legend.”

  Bishop Belphig frowned and he put fat, jewelled fingers to fat, carmine lips. His voice was more subdued, more contemplative when next he spoke. “Very well, I will presume that. There are said to have been four Ice Lords—of North, South, East and West—but all died save the Lord of the South Ice, who was frozen in his great keep by a sorceress until he should be called for—summoned when his people were in great danger. All this took place in antiquity, only a century or two after the ice had destroyed the famous cities of the world—Barbart, Lanjis Liho, Korodune and the rest.”

  The names were faintly familiar but no memories were awakened within me by the remainder of the bishop’s story.

  “Is there any more of the legend?” I asked.

  “That is the substance of it. I can probably find a book or two containing some sort of amplification.”

  “And it was not you who called me?”

  “Why should I summon you? To tell you the truth, Count Urlik, I did not believe the legend.”

  “And you believe it now? You do not think me an imposter?”

  “Why should you be an imposter? And if you are, why should I not humour you if it suits you to say you are Count Urlik.” He smiled. “There is precious little that is new in Rowernarc. We welcome diversion.”

  I returned his smile. “A pleasantly sophisticated view, Bishop Belphig. However, I remain puzzled. Not long since, I found myself on the ice, travelling here. My accoutrements and my name were familiar, but all else was strange. I am a creature, my lord, with little volition of his own. I am a hero, you see, and am called whenever I am needed. I will not bore you with the details of my tragedy, save to say that I would not be here unless I was needed to take part in a struggle. If you did not call me, then perhaps you know who did.”

  Belphig drew his painted brows together in a frown. Then he raised them and gave me a quizzical look. “I fear I can offer no suggestion at present, Count Urlik. The only threat facing Rowernarc is the inevitable one. In a century or two the ice will creep over our mountain barrier and extinguish us. In the meantime, we while away the hours as best we can. You are welcome to join us here, if the Lord Temporal agrees, and you must promise to recount your whole story to us, no matter how incredible you think it is. In return, we can offer you such entertainments as we have. These may be stimulating if they are new to you.”

  “Has Rowernarc, then, no enemies?”

  “None powerful enough to form a threat. There are a few bands of outlaws, some pirates—the kind of garbage that collects around any city—but they are all.”

  I shook my head in puzzlement. “Perhaps there are internal factions at Rowernarc—groups who wish, say, to overthrow you and the Lord Temporal?”

  Bishop Belphig laughed. “Really, my dear count, you seem to desire strife above all else! I assure you that there are no issues in Rowernarc on which anyone would care to spend much time. Boredom is our only enemy and now that you are here that enemy has been put to flight!”

  “Then I thank you for your offer of hospitality,” I said. “I will accept it. Presumably you have libraries in Rowernarc—and scholars.”

  “We are all scholars in Rowernarc. Yes, we have libraries, many of which you may use.”

  At least, I thought, I would be able here to spend the best part of my time seeking to find a means of returning to Ermizhad and the lovely world of the Eldren (to which this world was in hateful contrast). Yet I could not believe that I had been called here for nothing, unless it was to a life of exile in which, as an Immortal, I would be forced to witness the eventual death of the Earth.

  “However,” continued Bishop Belphig, “I cannot alone make this decision. We must also consult my fellow ruler, the Lord Temporal. I am sure he will agree to your requests and make you welcome. Apartments must be found for you, and slaves and the like. These activities will also help relieve the ennui which besets Rowernarc.”

  “I desire no slaves,” I said.

  Bishop Belphig chuckled. “Wait until you see them before you make your decision.” Then he paused and gave me an amused look from his made-up eyes. “But perhaps you are of a period where the holding of slaves is frowned upon, eh? I have read that history has had such periods. But in Rowernarc slaves are not held by force. Only those who wish to be slaves are such. If they choose to be something else, why, then, they can be whatever they desire. This is Rowernarc, Count Urlik, where all men and women are free to follow any inclination they choose.”

  “And you chose to be Lord Spiritual here?”

  Again the bishop smiled. “In a sense. The title is an hereditary one, but many born to this rank have preferred other occupations. My brother, for instance, is a common sailor.”

  “You sail those salt-thick seas?” I was astonished.

  “Again—in a sense. If you know not the customs of Rowernarc, I believe you will find many of them interesting.”


  “I am sure I will,” I said. And I thought privately that some of those customs I should not find to my taste at all. Here, I thought, I had found the human race in its final stages of decadence—perverse, insouciant, without ambition. And I could not blame them. After all, they had no future.

  And there was something, too, in me which reflected Bishop Belphig’s cynicism. For had not I little to live for, also?

  The bishop raised his voice. “Slaves! Morgeg! You may return.”

  They trooped back into the murky chamber, Morgeg at their head.

  “Morgeg,” said the bishop, “perhaps you will send a messenger to find the Lord Temporal. Ask him if he will grant an audience to Count Urlik Skarsol. Tell him I have offered the count our hospitality, if he should agree.”

  Morgeg bowed and left the chamber.

  “And now, while we wait, you must dine with me, my lord,” Bishop Belphig said to me. “We grow fruits and vegetables in our garden caverns and the sea provides us with meat. My cook is the best in all Rowernarc. Will you eat?”

  “Gladly,” I said, for I had realised that I was famished.

  4

  THE LORD TEMPORAL

  THE MEAL, THOUGH somewhat rich and overspiced for my taste, was delicious. When it was over, Morgeg came back to say that the Lord Temporal had been given the message.

  “It was some time before we could find him,” Morgeg said, offering Belphig a significant look. “But he will give an audience to our guest now, if our guest desires.” He looked at me with his pale, cold eyes.

  “Have you had enough to eat and drink, Count Urlik?” Bishop Belphig asked. “Is there anything else you desire?” He wiped his red lips with a brocade napkin, removed a sauce stain from his jowl.

  “I thank you for your generosity,” I said, rising. I had drunk more salty wine than I should have liked, but it helped dampen the morbid thoughts of Ermizhad which still plagued me—would plague me for ever, until I found her again.

  I followed Morgeg from the grotesque chamber. As I reached the door I looked back, thinking to thank Bishop Belphig again.

  He had smeared some of the sauce over the body of a young boy slave. As I watched, he bent to lick at the stuff he had put there.

  I turned quickly and increased my stride as Morgeg led me back the way we had come.

  * * *

  “The Lord Temporal’s province is called Dhötgard and lies above this one. We must go to the outer causeway again.”

  “Are there no passages connecting the various levels?” I asked.

  Morgeg shrugged. “Aye, I believe so. But this way is easier than searching for the doors and then trying to get them open.”

  “You mean you do not use many of the passages?”

  Morgeg nodded. “There are fewer of us now than there were even fifty years ago. Children are rare in Rowernarc these days.” He spoke carelessly and once again I had the impression that I spoke to a corpse brought back from the dead.

  Through the great main door of Haradeik we passed and into the cold air of the causeway that hung above the dark bay where the sluggish sea spread pale salt on the black crystals of the beach. It seemed an even gloomier landscape than it had seemed before, with the clouds bringing the horizon so close and the jagged crags on all other sides. I felt a sense of claustrophobia as we walked up the causeway until we came to an archway which was little different in style from the one we had just left.

  Morgeg cupped his hands together and shouted through them. “Lord Urlik Skarsol comes to seek audience with the Lord Temporal!”

  His voice found a muffled echo in the mountains. I looked up, trying to see the sky, trying to make out the sun behind the clouds, but I could not.

  There was a grating noise as the door slid in just sufficiently for us to squeeze past and find ourselves in an antechamber with smooth walls and even less light than that which had barely illuminated Haradeik. A servant in a plain white tabard was waiting for us. He rang a silver hand-bell and the door moved back. The machinery operating these doors must have been very sophisticated, for I could see no evidence of pulleys and chains

  Morgeg looked around at the room and his expression was one of discomfort.

  “I will leave you here, Count Urlik. Doubtless the Lord Temporal will emerge soon.”

  When Morgeg had left, the servant indicated that I sit on one of the benches. I did so, placing my helm beside me. Like the room, the desk was bare, apart from two scrolls placed neatly near the end. There was nothing for me to do but look at the white walls, the silent servant who had taken up a position by the arch curtain, the almost bare desk.

  I must have sat there for an hour before the curtain parted and a tall figure entered. I rose to my feet, hardly able to restrain the expression of astonishment which tried to come over my face. The figure signed for me to sit down again. He had an abstracted look as he walked to the desk and sat behind it.

  “I am Shanosfane,” he said.

  His skin was a flat, coal black and his features were fine-boned and ascetic. I reflected, ironically, that somehow the rôles of Shanosfane and Belphig had become muddled—that Belphig should have been the Temporal Lord and Shanosfane the Spiritual Lord.

  Shanosfane wore loose, white robes. The only decoration was a fibula at his left shoulder which bore a device I took to be the sign of his rank. He rested his long-fingered hands on the desk and regarded me with a distant expression which nonetheless betrayed a great intelligence.

  “I am Urlik,” I replied, thinking it best to speak as simply.

  He nodded, peering at the desk and tracing a triangle upon it with his finger. “Belphig said you wished to stay here.” His voice was deep, resonant, far away.

  “He told me there were books I might consult.”

  “There are many books here, though most are of a whimsical kind. The pursuit of true knowledge no longer interests the folk of Rowernarc, Lord Urlik. Did Bishop Belphig tell you that?”

  “He merely said I should find books here. Also he told me that all men were scholars in Rowernarc.”

  A gleam of irony came into Shanosfane’s dark eyes. “Scholars? Aye. Scholars in the art of the perverse.”

  “You seem to disapprove of your own people, my lord.”

  “How can I disapprove of the damned, Count Urlik? And we are all damned—they and I. It has been our misfortune to be born at the end of time…”

  I spoke feelingly. “It is no misfortune if death is all you have to face.”

  With curiosity he looked up. “You do not fear death, then?”

  I shrugged. “I do not know death. I am immortal.”

  “Then you are really from the Frozen Keep?”

  “I do not know my origins. I have been many heroes. I have seen many ages of the Earth.”

  “Indeed?” His interest grew and I could tell it was a purely intellectual interest. There was no empathy here, save possibly of minds. There was no emotion. “Then you are a traveller in Time?”

  “I am, in a sense, though not, I think, the sense you mean.”

  “Some several centuries—or perhaps millennia—ago there was a race of folk lived on the Earth. I heard they learnt the art of time travel and left this world, for they knew it was dying. But doubtless it is a legend. But then, so are you a legend, Count Urlik. And you exist.”

  “You believe that I am no imposter, then?”

  “I think that is what I believe. In what sense do you travel in Time?”

  “I am drawn wherever I am called. Past, present and future have no meaning for me. Ideas of cyclical Time have little meaning, for I believe there are many universes, many alternative destinies. The history of this planet might never have included me, in any of my incarnations. And yet it might have included them all.”

  “Strange…” Shanosfane spoke musingly, raising a delicate black hand to his fine brow. “For our universe is so confined and clearly marked, while yours is vast, chaotic. If—forgive me—you are not insane, then some theories of mine
are confirmed. Interesting…”

  “It is my intention,” I continued, “to seek the means of returning to one of these worlds, if it still exists, and using everything in my power to remain there.”

  “It does not excite you to move from world to world, from Time to Time?”

  “Not for eternity, Lord Shanosfane. Not when, on one of those worlds, is a being for whom I have an abiding love and who shares that love.”

  “How found you that world?”

  I began to speak. Soon I discovered that I was telling him my whole story, everything that had happened to me since John Daker had been called by King Rigenos to aid the forces of Humanity against the Eldren, every fragment of my recollections of other incarnations, everything that had befallen me until the Rowernarc patrol had met me on the beach. He listened with great attention, staring up at the ceiling as I spoke, never interrupting me, until I had finished.

  He said nothing for a while, but then signed to his patient servant. “Bring water and some rice.” For a few moments more he considered my story. I thought he must surely believe me a madman now.

  “You say you were called to come here,” he said eventually. “Yet we did not call you. It is unlikely that, whatever the danger, we should place much faith in a legend of the sort that has existed throughout history if my reading is accurate on the matter.”

  “Are there any others who might have summoned me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bishop Belphig said this was unlikely.”

  “Belphig shapes his thoughts to fit his moods. There are communities beyond Rowernarc, there are cities beyond the sea. At least, there were, before the Silver Warriors came.”

  “Belphig mentioned nothing of the Silver Warriors.”

  “Perhaps he forgot. It has been some while since we last heard of them.”

  “Who are they?”