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Authors: Tanith Lee
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spiders may spin there? Or is it your
religion which makes you proud, that sweet and succulent fruit of faith? A
fruit may sour. Whatever else, if any Lord of Darkness was unwise enough in the
past to have saved you from yourselves, he will not do it ever again.”
It was only
much later that they noted he had spoken of mankind as “you,” and not as “we.”
When he had
finished, an uncanny thing occurred. Although the air was still, a wind came,
without sound and hardly any motion, and blew out the lights in each of the
lamps, and smothered all the flames round about, so that suddenly the whole
area was in blackness, but for the glints of the stars, millions of miles away.
In the
blackness, he was gone. And, relighting their fires, they were glad of his
departure, though they did not know him for Azhrarn. Some indeed, weighing
their rage above their unease, set out to search for him, for the philosophers
vowed such a blasphemer must be scourged.
It is
conceivable that they had already scourged Azhrarn, centuries of this
particular scourge, they and their forebears. Although it is unarguably true he
had no right to take the attitude with them that he did. No rights at all to
his righteous anger, he who had played games with humankind for eons, and
before humankind, who knows but that he had not played games with the little
creatures that crawled from the seas of chaos aboard the flat, four-cornered
earth, the minuscule sparks and atomies with which mortal life had begun. And
having played so often with them—like a child who fears to lose its toys—so he
had seen the loss of them. He had once sacrificed himself to save the world
because without the world to torment and tangle, he knew his own immortality
would be dull. Or so they said, the poets, the songs, the stories.
Certainly, he
had known for centuries that his act had been mislaid, set at the wrong door,
that of Upperearth. But certainly now, demonstrated so vigorously, their
forgetfulness stung him, the shock all the more violent for being delayed,
perhaps. If he beheld this frenzied worship of the indifferent gods and was
jealous, how much more bitter to find himself unremembered—worse—remembered
wrongly. Azhrarn the Beautiful, to be recalled as shambling and hideous . Maybe it was this slight upon his vanity that had the most
incensed him.
Or could it be
that this Lord of Fear had committed, for whatever selfish reason, an act of
unique and total love, and some part of him had expected to be loved for it?
And now he discovered he was not. Discovered that he was laughed at.
Discovered, more terrible than anything, his own unrealized, erroneous
expectation.
Several bands of young men
went searching through the campment for the blasphemer. They carried staves and
sticks, and some had knives ready, and one or two had the long bull-hide whips
they had brought with them on this journey to alarm lions and men alike.
“How shall it
be,” they had said to each other, “that we should gain the holy city with this
wretch walking free in our midst? Does the city not sing a welcome as men
approach it? And surely will it not groan with anger if this devil goes near?
Let us hurry after him and beat him.”
So they
searched up and down and round and about, causing a great commotion,
overturning cooking pots and the fragile supports of tents, blundering among
the goats and the sheep, frightening the children and the young girls, and all
the time uttering furious oaths and threats.
At first,
there was not a sign of the stranger. He might have dissolved into the air or
been changed into sand. Then they began to catch glimpses of him—at this
turning, or that; among the shadows between two pavilions; crossing through a
pen of animals, not disturbing them any more than the passage of night itself.
Yet, whenever the pursuers pursued, the stranger was no more to be seen.
There were
three brothers, full of wine and religion and with a whip apiece, and soon
religion which makes you proud, that sweet and succulent fruit of faith? A
fruit may sour. Whatever else, if any Lord of Darkness was unwise enough in the
past to have saved you from yourselves, he will not do it ever again.”
It was only
much later that they noted he had spoken of mankind as “you,” and not as “we.”
When he had
finished, an uncanny thing occurred. Although the air was still, a wind came,
without sound and hardly any motion, and blew out the lights in each of the
lamps, and smothered all the flames round about, so that suddenly the whole
area was in blackness, but for the glints of the stars, millions of miles away.
In the
blackness, he was gone. And, relighting their fires, they were glad of his
departure, though they did not know him for Azhrarn. Some indeed, weighing
their rage above their unease, set out to search for him, for the philosophers
vowed such a blasphemer must be scourged.
It is
conceivable that they had already scourged Azhrarn, centuries of this
particular scourge, they and their forebears. Although it is unarguably true he
had no right to take the attitude with them that he did. No rights at all to
his righteous anger, he who had played games with humankind for eons, and
before humankind, who knows but that he had not played games with the little
creatures that crawled from the seas of chaos aboard the flat, four-cornered
earth, the minuscule sparks and atomies with which mortal life had begun. And
having played so often with them—like a child who fears to lose its toys—so he
had seen the loss of them. He had once sacrificed himself to save the world
because without the world to torment and tangle, he knew his own immortality
would be dull. Or so they said, the poets, the songs, the stories.
Certainly, he
had known for centuries that his act had been mislaid, set at the wrong door,
that of Upperearth. But certainly now, demonstrated so vigorously, their
forgetfulness stung him, the shock all the more violent for being delayed,
perhaps. If he beheld this frenzied worship of the indifferent gods and was
jealous, how much more bitter to find himself unremembered—worse—remembered
wrongly. Azhrarn the Beautiful, to be recalled as shambling and hideous . Maybe it was this slight upon his vanity that had the most
incensed him.
Or could it be
that this Lord of Fear had committed, for whatever selfish reason, an act of
unique and total love, and some part of him had expected to be loved for it?
And now he discovered he was not. Discovered that he was laughed at.
Discovered, more terrible than anything, his own unrealized, erroneous
expectation.
Several bands of young men
went searching through the campment for the blasphemer. They carried staves and
sticks, and some had knives ready, and one or two had the long bull-hide whips
they had brought with them on this journey to alarm lions and men alike.
“How shall it
be,” they had said to each other, “that we should gain the holy city with this
wretch walking free in our midst? Does the city not sing a welcome as men
approach it? And surely will it not groan with anger if this devil goes near?
Let us hurry after him and beat him.”
So they
searched up and down and round and about, causing a great commotion,
overturning cooking pots and the fragile supports of tents, blundering among
the goats and the sheep, frightening the children and the young girls, and all
the time uttering furious oaths and threats.
At first,
there was not a sign of the stranger. He might have dissolved into the air or
been changed into sand. Then they began to catch glimpses of him—at this
turning, or that; among the shadows between two pavilions; crossing through a
pen of animals, not disturbing them any more than the passage of night itself.
Yet, whenever the pursuers pursued, the stranger was no more to be seen.
There were
three brothers, full of wine and religion and with a whip apiece, and soon
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