Infinity Concerto

  Michael felt the pressure of the book against his hip. Tarax's platform drew closer and the high priest of the Maln reached out with long fingers to touch the chains bonding him to the other bodies. "This is my only task, to release you and send you down the axis to the Mist. For all these," he gestured at the hundreds, thousands of corpses, "I have done the honors, and come back a short time later to find them here, returned by Adonna, who took from them what he needed. Most have been Sidhe. Few humans have earned such a demise."

  Tarax's robe suddenly came to life. Gray stripes rose from the black fabric, writhing and forming knotwork designs. He touched Michael's chained feet and shoved him slowly, steadily away from the floating graveyard. "Michael Perrin," Tarax announced loudly. "Antros."

  An exit opened in the opposite end of the cylinder. Michael looked ahead and saw the rainbow light of the maelstrom. Behind, the graveyard receded into a lattice of brown points, and then was enveloped in obscurity.

  He closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

  When he opened them again, he drifted through the hole and saw the flat cylinder wall rushing around him, rotating endlessly, brass and verdigris illuminated by the flickering light of what Tarax called the Mist.

  There was activity below. Something rose toward him from the Mist. Darkness sparkled. A pseudopod of night, full of potential, extended and enveloped him. Forms flashed all around, passing in a parade of metamorphosis; faces, bodies, less pleasant shapes. Michael moaned and tried to stop seeing, but couldn't

  There is no magic but what is allowed in our heads.

  "No!" He recognized the tone, the intention.

  Universes may co-exist in the same wave-train, operating as the harmonics of a complex of frequencies. Analogous to the groove in a phonograph record, which is easily distinguished into horns and strings by the practised ear - horns one universe, strings another. We may exist in all universes, but 'hear' only one because of our limitations, the valve of our desires, our practical, physical needs. All is vibration, with nothing vibrating across no distance whatsoever. All is music. A universe, a world, is just one long difficult song. The difference between worlds is the difference between songs. All Sidhe know this when they do magic.

  Michael had been struggling, but now he was limp, horrified, waiting. He had not anticipated this. He knew the voice very well - had been searching for it recently, hoping for answers, help.

  The book was withdrawn from him, and with it, memory of the poem Lin Piao Tai had sought, the first half of the Song of Power the Spryggla had thought the Isomage needed. His only secret, his last defense, was now gone.

  "You're Death's Radio," Michael said.

  / am the Realm. My body is the Realm, and my mind is the Realm.

  "Why have you helped me, if you hate me?"

  I do not hate. The Creation is flawed. Holding it together has become very tiresome. And there is not as much time as once seemed possible.... not an eternity.

  The voice became less hollow. At the same time, Michael's focus sharpened and he saw the darkness and the clouds of chaos eddy inward, flashing green and yellow and blue, becoming rosy, giving off halos of brilliant red.

  Before him, standing on the cut-stone field high in the mountains first revealed to him by Bin, was an extraordinary figure. He was a Sidhe, certainly, but like no other Sidhe Michael had seen. Despite the lack of wrinkles, the full redness of the hair, the apparent strength of bare arms and legs, the figure looked old and weary. His eyes were black as the void and without whites, and his teeth were stone gray.

  He wore a short kilt and a loose tabard tied with a length of golden rope. The kilt was decorated around the hem with branches and leaves in gold thread. Michael glanced down but could not see his own body; he was simply a pair of eyes, at least for now.

  "So you recognize me?"

  Yes.

  The Sidhe came forward. "I went to some trouble to disguise myself. Still, you've been very perceptive. It wasn't my voice you recognized, was it?"

  No.

  "My delivery. Even a god can't disguise his inmost self, I suppose.

  How long have you been. a god?

  "Not long, actually. Twenty, thirty thousand Earth years. But quite long enough. Do you know what I am?"

  A Sidhe.

  "Yes, and a very old Sidhe, too. Not of this younger generation. All the Sidhe alive today - with very few exceptions - have forgotten me. All they know is Adonna. They forget Tonn, who led them back to Earth, who opposed his own daughter and the Council of Eleu. I was the leader of the Council of Delf. Do you know who Tonn was, boy?"

  The Sidhe mage.

  "Good memory. There were four mages, boy, remember them?"

  Tonn, Daedal.

  "Manus and Aum. Others, less powerful, the mages of the lesser kinds. All are animals on your Earth now, not strong enough to re-evolve, or content with their lot. Only humans struggled back, hated us so much. Now so few of your fellows remember why they struggled back. Perhaps only one. the Serpent Mage. I imagine he remembers, oh, yes!"

  Michael didn't respond.

  "You won't remember this exchange, either. Not for a while. Wouldn't do the great majority of the Sidhe any good to know that Adonna was once one of them. A mage is impressive, but a god must be infinitely more impressive. Aloof. I know my people, how to chastise them and keep them in line. But life in my Realm is just not enough. I've labored long and hard to keep the Realm going, to reconcile all its inconsistencies. all the poor judgments of my own creation. And I've sacrificed, too. Whatever personal life I may once have had. the respect of my offspring. and my own wife."

  Michael remembered the skull-snail on the Blasted Plain.

  "Yes, yes," Tonn said, coming even closer, until he seemed right next to Michael. "The time has come for a change. Perhaps the Council of Eleu was right, Perhaps Elme was right. It is time for the Sidhe to return to the Earth. Ah, if only poor Tarax could hear me now! He'd lose the very foundation of his life. He'd melt with shame. You, a pitiful human child, must carry the burden - not a powerful and faithful Sidhe. But then, Tarax is remarkably ignorant. All my people are ignorant, except perhaps the Ban of Hours."

  Michael conjured back an image of tall figures around his bed on Earth, discussing him. You? he asked.

  "No, indeed," Tonn said, pulling up a block from the stone field with the palm of his hand and sitting on it. "Not even the Maln, or the Council of Delf. The Council of Eleu chose you, I and they would be very distressed to know I concur. But before any of our plans can be carried out, some obstacles must be cleared away. Some old greeds. We do not precisely agree, but each of us has a use for you."

  Then I have no will of my own?

  "You have all the will you'll ever need. And you won't need this." He held up the black book. It faded from his hand. "Nor will you need Death's Radio. Time now for forgetting."

  The stone field's blackness intensified and smeared up to take in the sky and clouds, to sweep around Tonn and obscure him.

  Once, poets were magicians. Poets were strong, stronger than warriors or kings - stronger than old hapless gods. And they will be strong once again.

  The cloud of creation was back in its place. The receding blackness sparkled and churned.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Michael walked and whistled tunelessly, caught himself whistling and stopped abruptly. He looked around warily, his armhairs tingling. Then he frowned and sat down, wondering why he was still alive. He had been in the Irall.

  He felt for the book. It was gone. He looked around frantically, pushing aside the grass to see if he had dropped it. Everything in his memory was jumbled.

  The broad river flowed nearby, noisy as it rushed slick and turbulent over boulders. A few hundred yards beyond the river was one wall of a canyon, and much closer - overshadowing - the opposite wall. Both were gray stone streaked with rusty red, jagged and scarred as if the river's gouging had been neither gentle nor discreet. Each wall rose at least five hundred fee
t and stretched for as far as Michael could see. Trees clustered in fives and tens along the banks, leaves swaying in a /cool, persistent breeze - a canyoned river of air to complement the river of water.

  "What happened?" he asked, taking a step one way, then back, then another. He remembered meeting Death's Radio, a tall fellow in a kilt and tabard. but who had that been? He remembered being told certain things, but he couldn't recall what the things were.

  Tarax he remembered quite clearly, and he shivered.

  "Michael! Michael!"

  Two figures clambered down a rugged trail in the canyon face nearby.

  "Nikolai!" he shouted. His difficulties were temporarily driven out by joy. "You didn't make it back to the city!"

  "And you did?" Nikolai and Bek ran across the river sand, skirting patches of grass. Michael and Nikolai embraced and Michael was surprised and embarrassed at how good Nikolai's warm, strong body felt in his arms. Bek stood to one side, smiling faintly at the reunion.

  "I was captured," Michael said.

  "We were filtered out, then. by the Ban," Nikolai said. They laughed and embraced again. "We were sent here. And so were you. By the Ban? Did she rescue you?"

  Michael explained as much as he remembered, which wasn't very helpful. He described the interior of the Irall, the ride below the Realm, and the cylinder above the Mist. "After that. I think I was dreaming."

  "Here? Most unlikely," Nikolai said. "Whatever it was, it must have been real."

  "My book was taken away. I've forgotten some things." His face fell. Thinking of the book automatically sent his mind back to "Kubla Khan." He couldn't remember past the first few lines.

  "But you survived! No one has ever come out of the Irall alive - no human, anyway."

  "And no Breed," Bek said, running his hand through his silky blond hair. "Nikolai told me you were special. Now I believe him! A special antros."

  Michael was ready to be offended by the word used so often as a curse, but he probed Bek deftly and found no animosity. Bek returned the probe and met Michael's instant shield. The Breed smiled broadly and shook his head in appreciation and wonder.

  By evening, they had gathered dried sticks and grass for a fire. They ate from Nikolai's foraging of the day before - some fruit and roots - and rested, saying very little. Nikolai cast proprietary glances at Michael now and then.

  The fire became smoke and ashes and a few crackling embers. Bek and Nikolai slept. Michael felt as if he had slept an age and might never sleep again. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees and looked at the drifting smoke, wondering how he could feel so good when he had lost the final thing of importance to him, when he had no future and no foreseeable prospects. When he was still in the Realm.

  He was alive. That was enough. So often he had resigned himself to death - or worse. He thought of the weightless graveyard and the acrid dust.

  Even if Clarkham turned out to be useless to him - and vice versa - even if he was a pawn -

  He heard a rustling in the grass. What he saw, beyond the sandy oval where Nikolai and Bek slept, made his back go rigid.

  Bin stood in the grass, dressed in a black robe with red shoulders and arms. He stared fixedly at Michael and held out his hand, beckoning.

  Michael stood and brushed sand from his travel-stained pants. He followed Bin away from the camp until they were out of earshot, their conversation covered by the river's tumult.

  "Is this some sort of crossroad?" Michael asked, his voice almost failing him. He cleared his throat.

  "No crossroad. I've brought something that may still be of use to you. It is yours, by law. You have survived your punishment, and it has been imprinted." He gestured to a copse of trees. There, visible in the light of the pearly band, was the blue horse. It nickered and walked forward. Michael reached out to it hesitantly. It nuzzled his palm.

  "I've gone through a lot because of this horse," Michael said. "This isn't another trick?"

  Biri shook his head. "Tarax was furious not to find you back in the cylinder, dead. He released the horse, but not in the same place he was commanded to release you."

  "What are you doing here?"

  "Fulfilling Adonna's ruling."

  "And.?"

  Biri looked down at the ground. "Because of Adonna, I have no horse. Because of Tarax, I have no faith in Adonna or the Irall. All my training has been for nothing. My people are dying. We are withering inside. I blame Adonna." The look he gave Michael was almost pleading. "I went to the Ban of Hours. She and her attendants are the only ones who seem to know something has gone wrong in the Realm."

  "The Council of Eleu," Michael said.

  "Yes. What do you know of them?"

  "Not a great deal."

  "Would you like to know more, as much as I know?"

  Michael nodded. If Clarkham was an unreliable savior, then the Council of Eleu might be able to help.

  "Ride with me, then. or rather, since I have no horse, allow me to ride with you. While your companions sleep."

  "Where to?"

  "Not so very long ago, I would have thought it an accursed place and shunned it. Now I am much less certain. It is not far, if we ride."

  Michael looked back at the camp and the sleeping shapes of Nikolai and Bek. He knew Nikolai was asleep, but Bek.

  "Why shouldn't they go with us?"

  "The human has never undergone discipline. He would not survive. The Breed." Bin shrugged. "It would not matter to him. He is without a people, a loner. He does not care that he is a Breed, otherwise it might have some importance to him."

  Michael considered briefly. "Lead on."

  The blue horse allowed both of them to mount, this time, unlike with Gwinat, Michael riding behind and Biri in front. "I was in the Irall," Michael said.

  "Yes."

  "Did you see me?"

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you help?"

  "No one interferes with Tarax. Besides, you were going to Adonna. Even initiates know the futility of trying to cross Adonna."

  Michael urged the horse forward. Then, fully aware of the consequences, he gave the Sidhe animal a chance to run. and to fly. "Tell us where to go," he told Biri as the horse's body blurred and silvered under them.

  "South," he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  For a time the horse followed the river and canyon. Michael couldn't tell if they were flying or running, or even precisely where they were. Everything was disarrayed. With a twist of his head the world became a different place, filled with streamers of light and rushing clouds.

  "Abana," Biri shouted. "Tell the horse abana."

  Michael repeated the word, and what was left of the Realm dissolved. The night became twilight, the streamers and clouds oriented to form a gray-blue heaven. Below, city lights moved across the grassland like water flowing on a wrinkled cloth. "It looks like Earth!" Michael shouted. The wind tasted electric on his tongue.

  "It is one of many Earths," Biri said. "The Earths between your world and the Realm. Where the horses go when they aband."

  The city lights coalesced into streets and buildings, tilting and swaying far below. Everything was greenish, a very memorable tint indeed - the tint of the Between where Lamia's sister stood guard. "How many Earths are there?"

  "Far more than can be counted," Biri said.

  "And the horse crosses over?"

  "We are only visiting. We are not actually there unless we fall off. The horse grazes the surface, skips along the Earths surrounding the Realm."

  The city lights vanished and everything became mixed and indistinct again. To Michael's hand, reaching around Biri and grasping, the horse's mane felt like cold fire. The horse turned to look back at them. Its eye was cold and deadly blue, like a ball of ice lit from within. Its lips drew back and its teeth were as sharp and long as a tiger's. Between the Realm and the Earth - or Earths - it was a very different beast indeed, a true nightmare.

  "We're getting near," Bin said.

  The
horse shivered and the swirl became less intense. He could feel the horse's muscles tighten beneath his legs, preparing to run instead of aband.

  The Realm returned. The horse galloped over a rocky field studded with tiny trees. The night air returned, cold and dry. The sky was filled with sharp white stars.