Turning, he trudged on.
The shadows had borne him to his cache near Twilight, where he stored the magical documents he had accumulated over the years. He wrapped these carefully and bore them with him into the east. Once he achieved Twilight he would be relatively safe; when he passed beyond it, he would be out of danger.
Climbing, he worked his way into the Rennsial Mountains, at the point where the range lay nearest Twilight; there, he sought Panicus, the highest ridge.
Mounting above the mist, he saw the dim and distant form of Morningstar outlined against the Everdawn. There on his crag, couchant, unmoving, he faced the east. To one who did not know, he would have seemed a wind-sculpted pinnacle atop Panicus. Indeed, he was more than half of stone, his cat-like torso a solid thing joined with the ridge. His wings lay folded flat upon his back, and Jack knew-though he approached him from the rear-that his arms would still be crossed upon his breast, left over right, that the breezes had not disturbed his wire-like hair and beard, that his lidless eyes would still be fixed upon the eastern horizon.
There was no trail and the last several hundred feet of the ascent required the negotiation of a near-vertical face of stone. As always, for the shadows were heavy here, Jack strode up it as he would cross a horizontal plane. Before he reached the summit, the winds were screaming about him; but they did not drown out the voice of Morningstar, which rose as from the bowels of the mountain beneath him.
"Good morning, Jack."
He stood beside his left flank and stared high into the air, where Morningstar's head, black as the night he had left, was haloed by a fading cloud.
"Morning?" said Jack.
"Almost. It is always almost morning."
"Where?"
"Everywhere."
"I have brought you drink."
"I draw water from the clouds and the rain."
"I brought you wine, drawn from the grape."
The great, lightning-scarred visage turned slowly toward him, horns dipping forward. Jack looked away from the unblinking eyes whose color he could never remember. There is something awful about eyes which never see that which they were meant to look upon.
His left hand descended and the scarred palm lay open before Jack. He placed his wineskin upon ii. Morningstar raised it, drained it, and dropped it at Jack's feet. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, belched lightly, returned his gaze to the east.
"What do you want, Shadowjack?" he asked.
"Of you? Nothing."
"Then why do you bring me wine whenever you pass this way?"
"You seem to like it."
"I do."
"You are perhaps my only friend," said Jack. "You have nothing that I wish to steal. I have nothing that you really need."
"It may be that you pity me, bound as I am to this spot."
"What is pity?" asked Jack.
"Pity is that which bound me here, to await the dawn."
"Then I'll have none of it," said Jack, "for I've a need to move around."
"I know. The one-half world has been informed that you have broken the Compact."
"Do they know why?"
"No."
"Do you?"
"Of course."
"How?"
"From the shape of a cloud I know that a man in a distant city will quarrel with his wife three seasons hence and a murderer will be hanged before I finish speaking. From the falling of a stone I know the number of maidens being seduced and the movements of icebergs on the other side of the world. From the texture of the wind I know where next the lightning will fall. So long have I watched and so much am I part of all things, that nothing is hidden from me."
"You know where I go?"
"Yes."
"And what I would do there?"
"I know that, too."
"Then tell me if you know, will I succeed in that which I desire?"
"You will succeed in that which you are about, but by then it may not be what you desire."
"I do not understand you, Morningstar."
"I know that, too. But that is the way it is with all oracles, Jack. When that which is foreseen comes to pass, the inquirer is no longer the same person he was when he posed the question. It is impossible to make a man understand what he will become with the passage of time; and it is only a future self to whom a prophecy is truly relevant."
"Fair enough," said Jack. "Only I am not a man. I am a darksider."
"You are all men, whatever side of the world you call home."
"I have no soul, and I do not change."
"You change," said Morningstar. "Everything that lives changes or dies. Your people are cold but their world is warm, endowed as it is with enchantment, glamourie, wonder. The lightlanders know feelings you will not understand, though their science is as cold as your people's hearts. Yet they would appreciate your realm if they did not fear it so and you might enjoy their feelings but for the same reason. Still, the capacity is there, in each of you. The fear need but give way to understanding, for you are mirror images of one another. So do not speak to me of souls when you have never seen one, man."
"It is as you said-I do not understand."
Jack seated himself upon a rock and, as did Morningstar, stared into the east.
After a time, "You told me that you wait here for the dawn," he said, "to see the sun rise above the horizon."
"Yes."
"I believe that you will wait here forever."
"It is possible."
"Don't you know? I thought you knew all things."
"I know many things, not all things. There is a difference."
"Then tell me some things. I have heard daysiders say that the core of the world is a molten demon, that the temperature increases as one descends toward it, that if the crust of the world be pierced then fires leap forth and melted minerals build volcanoes. Yet I know that volcanoes are the doings of fire elementals who, if disturbed, melt the ground about them and hurl it upward. They exist in small pockets. One may descend far past them without the temperature increasing. Traveling far enough, one comes to the center of the world, which is not molten- which contains the Machine, with great springs, as in a clock, and gears and pulleys and counterbalances. I know this to be true, for I have journeyed that way and been near to the Machine itself. Still, the daysiders have ways of demonstrating that their view is the correct one. I was almost convinced by the way one man explained it, though I knew better. How can this be?"
"You were both correct," said Morningstar. "It is the same thing that you both describe, although neither of you sees it as it really is. Each of you colors reality in keeping with your means of controlling it. For if it is uncontrollable, you fear it. Sometimes then, you color it incomprehensible. In your case, a machine; in theirs, a demon."
"The stars I know to be the houses of spirits and deities-some friendly, some unfriendly and many not caring. All are near at hand and can be reached. They will respond when properly invoked. Yet the daysiders say that they are vast distances away and that there is no intelligence there. Again...?"
"It is again but two ways of regarding reality, both of them correct."
"If there can be two ways, may there not be a third? Or a fourth? Or as many as there are people, for that matter?"
"Yes," said Morningstar.
"Then which one is correct?"
"They all are."
"But to see it as it is, beneath it all! Is this possible?"
Morningstar did not reply.
"You," said Jack. "Have you looked upon reality?"
"I see clouds and falling stones. I feel the wind."
"But by them, somehow, you know other things."
"I do not know everything."
"But have you looked upon reality?"
"I-Once... I await the sunrise. That is all."
Jack stared into the east, watching the pink-touched clouds. He listened to falling stones and felt the wind, but there was no wisdom there for him.