“Not I.”
“What has happened to your right arm?”
“The shadow fell upon it.”
“And we shall both of us go in this manner, beneath the shadow, if you do not recall your emissary. Typhon has changed the picture completely. We must contact the Prince-seek to bargain with him, to placate him.”
“He is too clever to be deceived by false promises, and you underestimate Wakim.”
“Perhaps we should bargain in good faith-not to restore him, of course…”
“No! We shall triumph!”
“Prove it by replacing your arm with one that will work!”
“I shall.”
“Good-bye, Anubis, and remember-not even the fugue works against the Angel of the House of Fire.”
“I know. Good-bye, Angel of the House of Life.”
“Why do you use my ancient title?”
“Because of your unbecoming fear that the old days are upon us once more, Osiris.”
“Then call off Wakim.”
“No.”
“Then good-bye, foolish Angel, most fallen.”
“Adieu.”
And the window is full of stars and power until it is closed, with a left-handed movement between the flames.
There is silence in the House of the Dead.
SKETCHES
… An eunuch priest of the highest caste sets tapers before a pair of old shoes.
… The dog worries the dirty glove which hath seen many better centuries.
… The blind Norns strike a tiny silver anvil with fingers that are mallets. Upon the metal lies a length of blue light.
THE COMING OF THE STEEL GENERAL
Upward stares Wakim, seeing the Steel General.
“Faintly do I feel that I should have knowledge of him,” says Wakim.
“Come now!” says Vramin, his eyes and cane flashing fires green. “All know of the General, who ranges alone. Out of the pages of history come the thundering hoofbeats of his war horse Bronze. He flew with the Lafayette Escadrille. He fought in the delaying action at Jarama Valley. He helped to hold Stalingrad in the dead of winter. With a handful of friends, he tried to invade Cuba. On every battleground, he has left a portion of himself. He camped out in Washington when times were bad, until a greater General asked him to go away. He was beaten in Little Rock, had acid thrown in his face in Berkeley. He was put on the Attorney General’s list, because he had once been a member of the I.W.W. All the causes for which he has fought are now dead, but a part of him died also as each was born and carried to its fruition. He survived, somehow, his century, with artificial limbs and artificial heart and veins, with false teeth and a glass eye, with a plate in his skull and bones out of plastic, with pieces of wire and porcelain inside him-until finally science came to make these things better than those with which man is normally endowed. He was again replaced, piece by piece, until, in the following century, he was far superior to any man of flesh and blood. And so again he fought the rebel battle, being smashed over and over again in the wars the colonies fought against the mother planet, and in the wars the individual worlds fought against the Federation. He is always on some Attorney General's list and he plays his banjo and he does not care, for he has placed himself beyond the law by always obeying its spirit rather than its letter. He has had his metal replaced with flesh on many occasions and been a full man once more- but always he hearkens to some distant bugle and plays his banjo and follows-and then he loses his humanity again. He shot craps with Leon Trotsky, who taught him that writers are underpaid; he shared a boxcar with Woody Guthrie, who taught him his music and that singers are underpaid; he supported Fidel Castro for a time, and learned that lawyers are underpaid. He is almost invariably beaten and used and taken advantage of, and he does not care, for his ideals mean more to him than his flesh. Now, of course, the Prince Who Was A Thousand is an unpopular cause. I take it, from what you say, that those who would oppose the House of Life and the House of the Dead will be deemed supporters of the Prince, who has solicited no support-not that that matters. And I daresay you oppose the Prince, Wakim. I should also venture a guess that the General will support him, inasmuch as the Prince is a minority group all by himself. The General may be beaten, but he can never be destroyed, Wakim. Here he is now. Ask him yourself, if you'd like.”
The Steel General, who has dismounted, stands now before Wakim and Vramin like an iron statue at ten o’clock on a summer evening with no moon.
“I have seen your beacon, Angel of the Seventh Station.”
“Alas, but the title perished with the Station, sir.”
“I still recognize the rights of the government in exile,” says the General, and his voice is a thing of such beauty that one could listen to it for years.
“Thank you. But I fear that you have come too late. This one-this Wakim-who is a master of temporal fugue, would, I feel, destroy the Prince and thus remove any basis for our return. Is that not so, Wakim?”
“Of course.”
“… Unless we might find a champion,” says Vramin.
“You need look no further,” says the General. “It is best you yield to me now, Wakim. I say this with no malice.”
“And I reply with no malice: Go to hell. If every bit of you were to be destroyed, then I feel there would no longer be a Steel General-and there would never be again. I think a rebel such as yourself deserves annihilation, and I am here.”
“Many have thought so, and I am still waiting.”
“Then wait no longer,” says Wakim, and he moves forward. “The time is here, and begging to be filled.”
Then Vramin encircles Madrak and himself with green fires, and they look upon the facing of the masters.
At this moment Bronze rears, and six diamonds flash among the colors of Blis.
THE TOWN SCRIER OF LIGLAMENTI
Horus has entered the Middle Worlds, and he comes to the world of mists that is called D’donori by its inhabitants, meaning Place of Contentment. As he disembarks from his chariot that has crossed the cold and airless night he hears the sounds of armed strife about him within the great mists that cover over all of D’donori.
Slaying with his hands the three knights who fall upon him, he comes at length to the high walls of the city of Liglamenti, whose rulers have in the past had some reason to consider him a god kindly disposed toward their welfare.
D’donori is a world which, though it lies within the tides of the Power, has never been subject to the plagues, the wars, the famines that limit the populations of the other Midworlds. This is because the inhabitants of D’donori take care of their own problems. D’donori is made up of numerous small city-states and duchies which are constantly at war with one another, uniting only for purposes of destroying anyone who attempts to unite them on a permanent basis.
Horus approaches the great gates of Liglamenti and bangs upon them with his fist. The booming sound carries throughout the city and the gates creak upon their hinges.
A guard hurls down a torch through the gloom and follows it with an arrow which, of course, misses its mark-for Horus is able to know the thoughts of his attacker and mark the line of the arrow’s flight. He steps to the side as the arrow whizzes past him and he stands in the light of the torch.
“Open your gates or I'll unhinge them!” he calls out.
“Who are you that walks about weaponless, wearing only a loincloth, and would give me orders?”
“I am Horus.”
“I do not believe you.”
“You have less than a minute to live,” says Horus, “unless you open these gates to me. Your death will be the proof that Horus does not lie. I will then unhinge these gates and enter here, walking upon you as I pass in search of your Lord.”
“Wait! If truly thou beest he, understand that I am only doing my duty and following orders of my Lord. Do not think me blasphemous if I should refuse admittance to any who may call himself Horus. How do I know but that thou art an enemy who would say this to deceive me?”