Генри Каттнер - Lands of the Earthquake

She put out a hand and touched the sword Boyce held.

“You will help me. If you can have nothing else—am I not desirable? Look upon this frozen love of yours—and decide.”

Her arm swept out. Boyce’s gaze followed the gesture.

Down the long pillared avenue toward the throne, the Oracle of Kerak came slowly. Her hands were clasped before her, her eyes were still closed, the marble hair lay smoothly upon the marble shoulders. She walked serenely, surely, toward him as if her mind had clearer vision than her unseeing eyes.

And now he could see that these two women were indeed the same. Fire and ice, good and evil—and more than that. Deeper than simple morality. It was positive and negative, each complete—and each unearthly!

But the good was less earthly than the evil.

She came straight to where Boyce stood. She paused. And then, for the first time, he saw the lashes flicker on her cheeks. The white lids rose. Her eyes were blue—ice blue, the color that lingers deep within frozen bergs. But more than ice was here now.

Far down, deeply buried, he thought he saw a stirring of—life? Awareness? There was a mind within this icy statue, prisoned inside it as the body had been prisoned in fire until he called her under Jamai’s command. And the mind—remembered.

Boyce was shaken to his depths. He loved both women when they were one. Now they were two. In bewilderment he realized that each woman drew him, but in such different ways that for an instant he felt a shocking disorientation, as though the glass walls beyond him had drawn apart—more than that—as though he himself was being split into two parts.

Black garden of evil—scented with the poisonous perfume of flowers ablaze with sensuous color—promising untold desire fulfilled, a madness of ecstasy such as man had never known—

Goddess of shining crystal, pure and remote as the stars—a distant flame behind the cold blue eyes hinting at a love that was far and veiled by walls of ice—

Side by side they stood, those two who had been one.

And one promised more than any man had ever known.

You are my husband. You are my lover. You wedded me as well as that frozen goddess. We will walk through worlds of flame and color and sound, under seas of nameless planets, beyond the gates of space and time. Death or madness will not matter. We will plumb the last, uttermost limits of power and rule here like god and goddess.

But the distant ember behind the ice in the Oracle’s eyes promised nothing. It asked nothing.

It said— I love you . And that was all.

Irathe saw Boyce’s face change. She saw him step forward and face her, guarding the Oracle with his own body. Bitter mockery made the red mouth ugly.

“You could have helped me,” she said softly. “There is danger now, but since you will not aid there is no other way. This means your death—you fool!”

Her gaze focused beyond Boyce. She made a quick, intricate movement with her hands, while her whole slim figure tensed into a rigid statue. Then, instantly, she had relaxed.

“ They are coming,” she said. “I have summoned them before their time—before the cycle has been completed. There is danger in that.”

Boyce shifted the sword in his right hand. Irathe laughed.

“A sword against— Them ?”

“No,” Boyce said. “Against you, Irathe.”

The blade lifted—hung poised to slash her throat.

She faced him unafraid.

“What of your love, then? Harm me—and she will be harmed. Kill me, and she dies.”

Boyce lowered the sword.

“Unless you’re lying.”

“Try it and see. Do you dare?”

“No,” he said. “But I can go back to my own world, I still have that crystal. I can take her with me.”

“Try it.”

He turned away. The Oracle followed willingly enough, though her face was void of expression. He glanced back at Irathe, and saw something in her eyes that made him halt.

“Wait!” she said. “The crystal—”

He took a long stride back toward her, the sword raised again.

“I’d forgotten! You were trying to control me through it, weren’t you? But—” He hesitated. “You couldn’t do it. Is that it? You’ve lost your power!”

“Not while you live!” Irathe blazed at him. “I am not that weak!”

“You tried to control my mind,” he said. “And it didn’t work. Why?”

“There was something fighting against me…I have felt that ever since you came to the throne–room. I—listen!”

The air shivered around them. A thin, high keening sound rang in Boyce’s ears, like that ringing in the head which cannot be shaken away. Now it grew louder, clearer. There was in it the tinkling of tiny bells. And a faint chill like no chill he had ever felt except when—

“ They come!” Irathe cried. “Sooner than I thought. Oh, there’s danger here for you both—for everyone but me!” Her laughter was high and triumphant and Boyce had the fleeting thought that in its sound he heard something of tinkling sweetness like the bells They rang. Already she laughed with a voice like Theirs.

The floor shook.

Irathe glanced at the Oracle, standing serenely, hands clasped, icy eyes upon Boyce with a flicker of fire behind the ice, as if memory might be flowing slowly, softly back into that frozen mind.

“The bond is weaker between Kerak and the City while she remains here,” Irathe said abstractedly. “You feel that? A pitching like the roll of waves under the City? These lands have been pent up a long while as the City rode at anchor with Kerak for a mooring.” She laughed again, recklessly. “What a storm underfoot we should have if the mooring snapped!”

Darkness was gathering in the air of the room. Boyce glanced up and saw through the great glass dome above them a scurry of motion in the City, men and women hurrying to shelter in any palace or temple or tavern that would receive them. The streets were clearing for Them .

“Now we shall finish!” Irathe cried. “They come who made me into two—and who will enchain this One of me so that she can never again hope to control my mind.” She leaned closer and her red lip curled up in a scornful smile as she gazed into her own face frozen to the color of ice and marble.

“You thought to rule me!” she said softly. “Oh, I knew your thoughts! Remember, we were one when this man loved us. I could feel your treachery moving beneath my own mind like snakes squirming underfoot. You thought to build up the power that could take control from me when we are next made one. Oh yes, I know why! It was love that woke your envy of my strength. Love for him. He’s mine now.

“Listen—you hear the bells? They come, who split us into two—and will deal at my command with you! Prepare yourself, my sister—my more than sister! These moments are your last. Are you ready for the enchantment that will make you forever the marble thing you now only seem to be?”

She swung to Boyce, her black hair flying wide. Her face was a blaze of triumph and joyous evil. Her eyes upon his were a violet flame in the darkness and the chill of the room. They sought his eyes, fixed there—he felt an irresistible pull as if she were drawing out his very mind through the meeting of their gaze. Blackness darker than the gathering gloom around them swam through his brain. And then—

Laughter echoed through the great hall.

They turned, even the Oracle. Boyce was dizzy for an instant at the sudden release of the bond between Irathe’s gaze and his. Then he saw, down the long aisle, a motion among the pillars. As the wild laughter rang out again he saw the tiger–beasts of the Huntsman sliding toward them with their beautiful pouring motion, golden eyes lambent in the dimness.