‘I looked as he had said. For a moment, only a moment, I saw beside the trifling little creature a glimpse of something more, eyes shining with the light of suns, a silken majesty of flung mane and high purpose. Then it was gone, and the little toy horse which Urlasthes had made pranced in the meadow. But I did not understand what I had seen. Not then.’
Leona put a stick into the fire. She had come here swiftly, bearing Jasmine and Hu’ao. Hazliah had carried Thewson. She had had to leave the dogs in Orena, and Bombaroba. Hazliah stood behind her now, somewhere in the shadows with his kindred. She turned, inviting him with her eyes to sit beside her.
‘The centuries went on,’ Taniel continued. ‘We could live as long as we wished. Omburan began to go away for long times, coming to me only now and again, bringing me gifts which I could not comprehend, which I did not try to comprehend. Urlasthes was always there, always smiling, explaining, laughing. I loved them both, but Urlasthes was there.’
Thewson leaned on his spear shaft, regarding Taniel with thoughtful eyes. The spear had no blade. He had given the blade to Medlo who had laughed, saying. ‘I have given up ambition, Thewson. Almost it defeated me.’ Still he had taken the blade and sat beside the fire with it now, memorizing it with his eyes and hands.
Taniel said, ‘Sienepas was the least of us. He was envious and malicious. He went away to the west saying he would create a race greater and more beautiful than any the world had yet seen. He did not return, but we heard rumours of evil, of a race of ugly little creatures that did not please their creator. Still, the creations of Urlasthes went on, other little creatures, these bright and lovely, toylike and marvellous, filling the meadows around Tharliezalor.’
Jaer remembered the sphinx. There had been nothing toylike about the sphinx. Nothing toylike about the naiads, the unicorns. Urlasthes’s creations had not lasted, but other creatures had. Perhaps they had been made by a greater creator than Urlasthes. Jaer peered into the shadows where the tall, strange form stood, firelight glittering from its yellow eyes. It had been with them since they had come to the knoll, always there, almost always just out of focus. Jaer watched the form and dreamed.
‘Then, at last, Urlasthes wearied of it all. He decided, they decided, to do the one thing they had not done – to create themselves anew, to make themselves perfect.
‘To make themselves gods. Telasper said that to Vincepthos. That they would make themselves gods.’
Jasmine made a reverent gesture. She felt the Lady would not approve of this story, and with her belly beginning to bulge before her, it was wise to be in good standing with the Lady.
She had flown to this place on wild wings, clutching Hu’ao to her, leaving Dhariat and Lain-achor behind to mourn Sowsie and Daingol, dead from the venomed creatures who had taken Jasmine from the boat. She had left Mum-lil and the baby, and Gaffer, and the horse Tin-tan, and Fox, silly Fox who had found Hu’ao, her laughing child, made so much of by Sowsie who would never do so again. Jasmine felt tears running down her cheeks and hugged Hu’ao close, stroking the sash on her knees to comfort herself with the feel of it. She wished they would stop talking. She wanted to lie down.
‘They said,’ Taniel went on, ‘that mankind contained within himself all good and all evil, just as they had proven that he contained all beast, all spirit. Yes. That is what they said they had found to be true. Well, if that were true, then they might become perfect merely by removing all evil. That sounds well, does it not?’
Those around the fire murmured assent.
‘Yes. It sounds well. It sounded well then. They resolved to do it, to remove all passionate lusts, selfish desires, all hatred and violence, all mockery, cruelty…. They would drain all this away, they said, leaving only the pure, the good – the perfect, the true essence of mankind. There were seven of them. Talurion, Audilla, Lucimbra. Vincepthos, Telasper, Lendhwelt. And Urlasthes.’
Medlo shifted uneasily. The fringed sash was no longer upon his shoulder. He had given it to Jasmine. He saw it shining in her hands and remembered himself wearing it above the valley of ghosts at Gerenhodh. It was this girdle the ghosts had fled from, screaming across the valley – this girdle which his aunt had given him for a naming day gift; old, dull, antiquarian aunty, raiding the museums of Howbin for gifts for an ungrateful nephew. He watched it slither through Jasmine’s hands as she studied |he pattern of it.
‘They prepared to do this thing,’ Taniel said. ‘They prepared a vessel into which the dark forces should be drained away and held. They talked of it, the vessel, full of unnecessary waste, lying there, quiescent, to be stored away and forgotten. They spoke of the seal they would set upon it and the place they would store it. Then they lay down upon the tables, jesting, to sleep while it was done. When it had happened, they woke.’
‘They screamed,’ said Jaer. ‘I saw it in my dream.’
Taniel nodded, the firelight gleaming on her hair. ‘They screamed then. They realized what they had done, what they had become. Even I knew. They were half creatures. Not divine, merely crippled. What is love without the lash of lust? Where is learning without die goad of the unknown? Where is high resolve without fury at loss? What is left? Only what they were, pure, good – for nothing.
‘They tried to undo, but they could not. They tried to bind that to themselves again, but it would not. The darkness lived – it thought,
