A dark thing cries out within the light, within the night.
Madrak tilts the beaker, refills their glasses.
Vramin raises his, stares out across the wide esplanade before his pavilion, quaffs it.
Madrak pours once more.
“It is neither life, nor is it fair,” says Vramin, finally.
“Yet you never actively supported the program.”
“What matters that? It is my present feelings that control me.”
“The feelings of a poet…” Vramin strokes his beard.
“I can never give full allegiance to anything or to anyone,” he replies.
“Pity, poor Angel of the Seventh Station.”
“That title perished with the Station.”
“In exile, the aristocracy always tends to preserve small items pertaining to rank.”
“Face yourself in the darkness and what do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly.”
“What is the connection?”
“Darkness.”
“I fail to see.”
“That, warrior-priest, is common in the dark.”
“Cease the riddling, Vramin. What is the matter?”
“Why did you seek me, here at the Fair?”
“I have the latest population figures with me. They strike me as approximating the mythical Point Critical- that which never occurs. Would you care to see them?”
“No. I do not need to. Whatever the figures, your conclusion is correct.”
“You feel it with your special perceptions, within the tides of the Power?” Vramin nods.
“Give me a cigarette,” says Madrak.
Vramin gestures, and a lighted cigarette appears between his fingers.
“It is special this time,” he says. “It is not just a waning of the tide of Life. There will be a rip tide, I fear.”
“How will this be manifest?”
“I do not know, Madrak. But I do not intend to stay here longer than is necessary to find out.”
“Oh? When will you depart?”
“Tomorrow evening, though I know I am flirting with the Black Tide once more. I had best do something about my death wish again, sometime soon, preferably in pentameter.”
“Do any others remain?”
“No, we are the only two immortals on Blis.”
“Will you give me a gateway when you go?”
“Of course.”
“Then I'll remain here at the Fair until tomorrow evening.”
“I should strongly recommend your going immediately, rather than waiting. I can provide a gateway now.” Vramin gestures again and draws upon a cigarette of his own. He notices his refilled glass and sips it. “It would be an act of wisdom to depart immediately,” he decides, “but wisdom is itself the product of knowledge; and knowledge, unfortunately, is generally the product of foolish doings. So, to add to my own knowledge and to enhance my wisdom I shall remain another day, to see what occurs.”
“Then you expect that something special will happen tomorrow?”
“Yes. The rip tide. I feel the coming of Powers. There was recently some movement in that great House where all things go.”
“Then this is knowledge which I, too, wish to obtain,” says Madrak, “as it affects my former master Who Was A Thousand.”
“You cling to an outworn loyalty, mighty one.”
“Perhaps. And what is your excuse? Why do you seek to enhance your wisdom at this expense?”
“Wisdom is an end in itself. Also, these doings may be sources of great poetry.”
“If death be the source of great poetry, then I prefer the lesser variety. I feel, though, that the Prince should know of any new development within the Middle Worlds.”
“I drink to your loyalty, old friend, though I feel our former liege to be at least partly responsible for the present muddle.”
“Your feelings on this matter are not unknown to me.”
The poet takes one sip and lowers his glass. His eyes then grow all of one color, that being green. The white which encircles them vanishes, and the black points are gone that had been their centers. They are now become pale emeralds, and a yellow spark lives within each.
“Speaking in my capacity as mage and seer,” he says, in a voice grown distant and toneless, "I say that it has now arrived upon Blis, this thing that portends the chaos. I say too, that another comes, for I hear soundless hoofbeats within the dark, and I see that which is invisible in its many-strided pacings over stars. We may yet ourselves be drawn into this thing, who have no wish to participate.”
“Where? And how?”
“Here. And it is not life, nor is it fair.”
Madrak nods his head and says, “Amen.”
The magician gnashes his teeth. “It is our destiny to bear witness,” he decides, and his eyes burn with an infernal brilliance and his knuckles whiten upon the black walking stick with its head of silver.
… An eunuch priest of the highest caste sets tapers before a pair of old shoes.
… The dog worries the dirty glove which has 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 mirror comes alive with images of nothing that stands before it.
It hangs in a room which has never held furniture, hangs upon a wall covered with dark tapestries, hangs before the witch who is red, and her flames.
Looking into it is like looking through a window into a room filled with pink cobwebs which are stirred by sudden gusts of air.
Her familiar stands upon her right shoulder, its hairless tail hung about her neck, between her breasts. She strokes its head and it wags its tail.
She smiles, and the cobwebs slowly blow away. The flames leap about her, but nothing is burning.
Then the cobwebs are gone and she regards the colors of Blis.
Most particularly, though, she regards the tall man who stands naked to the waist in the midst of a thirty-five-foot circle surrounded by people.
His shoulders are wide, and his waist is quite narrow. He is barefooted, and he wears tight black trousers. He stares downward. His hair is sand-colored; his arms are enormously well muscled; his skin is rather pale. About his waist goes a wide, dark belt with a vicious row of studs set upon it. He stares downward through yellow eyes at the man who is attempting to raise himself from where he lies upon the ground.
The man at his feet is heavy about the shoulders, chest, stomach. He raises himself with one arm. His beard brushes his shoulder as he throws back his head and glares upward. His lips move, but his teeth are clenched.
The standing man moves one foot, almost casually, sweeping away the supporting arm. The other falls upon his face and does not move.
After a time, two men enter the circle and bear away the man who has fallen.
“Who?” pipes the familiar.
The Red Witch shakes her head, however, and continues to watch.
A four-armed man enters the circle, and his feet are great, splayed things, like another pair of enormous hands at the bottoms of his twisted legs. He is hairless and shining, and as he draws near to the standing man, he drops so that his lower arms come to rest upon the ground. As he does so, his knees turn outward to the sides and he bends backward, so that his head and his shoulders are still perpendicular to the ground, though now at a height of approximately three feet above it.
Springing froglike, he does not encounter his target, but meets instead with a flat hand upon the back of his neck and another beneath his stomach. Each hand describes a semicircle, and he passes, head over hands over hands over heels. But he crouches where he falls, his sides heave three times and he leaps once more.
This time the tall man catches his ankles and holds him upside down at arm’s length from his body.
But the four-armed man twists and seizes the wrists which hold him, driving his head into the other's stomach.
There is blood upon his scalp then, for he has struck one of the belt studs, but the tall man does not release him He pivots upon his heel and swings him outward. Then he turns again and again, until he moves like a top, spinning. After a full minute he slows, and the four-armed man’s eyes are closed. Then he lowers him to the ground, falls upon him, moves his hands quickly, rises. The four-armed man lies still. After a time, he, too, is taken away.