“Pick it up!”
The Prince advances further. Wakim retreats.
“I-may not!”
“You may.”
“Something about it… It is forbidden that I touch that instrument.”
“Pick it up and you will learn your name-your true name.”
“I- No! I don't want my name any more! Keep my name!”
“You must pick it up.”
“No!”
“It is written that you must pick it up.”
“Where? How?”
“I have written it, I-“
“Anubis!” cries Wakim. “Hear my prayer! I call upon thee in all thy power! Attend me in this place where I stand in the midst of thy enemies! The one whom I must destroy is at hand! Aid me against him, as I offer him to thee!”
Vramin encircles himself, Madrak and the General with elaborate spikes of green flame.
The wall at Wakim’s back slowly dissolves, and infinity is there.
Arm hanging limp, dog-faced jeering, Anubis stares down.
“Excellent, servant!” come the words. “You have found him, cornered him. But the final blow remains, and your mission is done. Use the fugue!”
“No,” says the Prince, “he will not destroy me, even with the fugue, while I have this thing for him: You recognized him when first you saw him, long ago. His true name is now near to his ears. He would hear it spoken.”
“Do not listen to him, Wakim,” says Anubis. “Kill him now!”
“Master, is it true that he knows my name? My real name?”
“He lies! Slay him!”
“I do not lie. -Pick up the wand and you will know the truth.”
“Do not touch it! It is a trap! You will die!”
“Would I go through all these elaborate motions to slay you in this manner, Wakim? Whichever of us dies at the hands of the other, the dog will win. He knows it, and he sent you to do a monstrous act. See how he laughs!”
“Because I have won, Thoth! He comes to kill you now!”
Wakim advances upon the Prince, then stoops and picks up the wand.
He screams, and even Anubis draws back.
Then the sound of his throat turns to laughter.
He raises the wand.
“Silence, dog! You have used me! Oh, how you have used me! You apprenticed me to death for a thousand years, that I might slay my son and my father without flinching. But now you look upon Set the Destroyer, and your days are numbered!” His eyes glow through the mesh which covers his entire body, and he stands above the floor. A line of blue light lances from the wand that he holds, but Anubis is gone, faded with a quick gesture and a half-heard howl.
“My son,” says Set, touching Thoth’s shoulder.
“My son,” says the Prince, bowing his head.
The spikes of green flame fall behind them.
Somewhere, a dark thing cries out within the light, within the night.
WORDS
Between you and me,
the words,
like mortar,
separating, holding together
those pieces of the structure ourselves.
To say them,
to cast their shadows on the page,
is the act of binding mutual passions,
is cognizance, yourself/myself,
of our sameness under skin;
it rears possible cathedrals
indicating infinity with steeply-high styli.
For when tomorrow comes it is today,
and if it is not the drop
that is eternity
glistening at the pen’s point,
then the ink of our voices
surrounds like an always night,
and mortar marks the limit of our cells.
“What does it mean?” asks Lord Uiskeagh the Red, who is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side against Dilwit of Liglamenti.
His party leans through fog toward the rock where the words are graven.
“Lord, I’ve heard of these things,” remarks his captain. “They are the doings of the poet Vramin, who publishes in this manner: He casts his poems at the nearest world, and wherever they fall they record themselves upon the hardiest substance handy. He boasts that he has written parables, sermons and poems in stones, leaves and brooks.”
“Oh, he does, does he? Well, what’s this one mean? Is it to be taken as a good omen?”
“It means nothing, Lord, for it’s common knowledge that he’s also mad as a golindi at rutting time.”
“Well, then, let us urinate upon it and be on our way to the wars.”
“Very good, Lord.”
SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE
“Father?” says the dark horse shadow upon the castle wall.
“Yes, Typhon.”
“Father!”
A sound to break the ears occurs, then:
“Anubis said you had perished!”
“He lied. Osiris must have wielded the Hammer, saying that he was saving the universe, for I was losing the battle.”
“That is true,” says the Prince.
“I was not losing, however; I was winning. He wished to slay me, not the Nameless.”
“How did you survive?”
“A reflex. I went into fugue as the blow descended. A fraction of it fell upon me and Anubis retrieved me, senseless, and spirited me off to his House. He scattered my gear across the Midworlds. He trained me as his weapon.”
“To slay Thoth?”
“That was the task he gave me.”
“Then he dies!” says Typhon and rears, flaming.
“Desist, brother,” says the Prince. “He did not succeed, and we may yet have a use for the dog…”
But already the dark horse shadow has faded, and the Prince lowers his head.
He looks to Set.
“Should we follow to stop him?”
“Why? Anubis has lived a thousand years too long. Let him guard himself now. -And how? Even if we would, there is none can stop Typhon when the madness lies upon him.”
“That is true,” says the Prince, and, turning, he addresses Vramin:
“If you would serve me further, my former Angel of the Seventh Station, go you to the House of the Dead. It will soon require the presence of one who can operate the machinery.”
“Typhon was Lord of the House of Fire,” says Vramin,
“Yes, but I fear he will not remain in the House of the Dead after he has gained vengeance. If I know my brother, he will then seek out the one who wielded the Hammer. He will go after Osiris.”
“Then I shall remove me to the House of the Dead. Will you accompany me, Madrak?”
“If the Prince has no further use for me here.”
“I have not. You may go.”
“Lord,” says Vramin, “it is kind of you to trust me again, knowing the part I played in the Wars of the Stations…”
“Those days are gone, and we are different people-are we not?”
“I hope so-and thank you.”
The Prince crosses his arms and bows his head. Vramin and Madrak vanish.
“How,” says the Steel General, “may I assist you?”
“We go again to fight the Nameless,” says the Prince Who Was A Thousand. “Will you come and stand in reserve?”
“Yes. Let me summon Bronze.”
“Do so.”
The winds of Marachek stir the dust. The sun flickers its way into another day.
Vramin stands in the great Hall of the House of the Dead, holding his Maypole cane. Its streamers go forth, entering into all the passageways, visible or otherwise, which come together at that place.
At his side, Madrak shifts his weight from foot to foot and stares about him.
Vramin’s eyes glow, and the light dances within them.
“Nothing. Nothing alive. Nowhere,” he says.
“Then Typhon has found him,” says Madrak.
“Then Typhon is not here either.”
“'Then he has slain him and departed. He doubtless seeks Osiris now.”
“I wonder"
“What else could it be?”
“I do not know. But now I am master here, by delegation of the Prince. I will find the places of power and learn their functions.”
“Yet once you broke faith with the Prince…”