Damon Knight - Orbit 16

Exhaustion.

Yes, child, we’ll stop and sleep here. You see, the dune isn’t far away now.

Tomorrow.

Yes, tomorrow we’ll reach the dune, child. Tomorrow.

The Prince Hyersios died.

The Prince Herdunt succeeded him, and the Prince Blillil succeeded the Prince Herdunt. And the dynasty endured a long time.

And the centuries passed, and still more centuries.

Pharès was still the principal port of the Northern Ocean, but that no longer mattered very much. On Shangui-H’e, the human race was coming to the end of its term. The planet had lost most of its inhabitants at the time of the New Emigration and man was disappearing little by little, giving place to others. So it goes, and so it should go.

The last Prince of Pharès was called Moyann. He was master of nothing but a few old farmers and an immense city falling into ruin, almost deserted. But that did not matter very much.

When the Prince Moyann felt his approaching death, the same that had struck down his ancestors and that was about to strike now for the last time, he went to the sanctuary. There he was in the presence of Emidhin.

“Greeting, Emidhin.” The Prince Moyann advanced slowly toward the wall. His left leg dragged behind him, and that was almost a blessing, for the paralysis was winning out over his pain.

“Greeting, Moyann the Prince.” The little camera stared at the Master of Pharès.

Moyann, with that little grimace which the Princes of Pharès had made for so many generations, sat down on the only chair in the sanctuary. The pain subsided a little.

“My race has done you much harm, Emidhin.” He shook his head slowly and closed his tired eyes a moment.

“You are not responsible.”

The Prince noticed that the paint on the wall was flaking more and more, leaving tiny green spots on the dusty tiles.

“Yes, in a way, I am responsible.” Moyann was almost whispering. It was becoming difficult to speak.

“What do you want from me, Moyann the Prince?”

The Master of Pharès took a breath. The air flowed down his windpipe, inflated his lungs, and minuscule things struggled and yelled to keep it from purifying his blood. But it succeeded all the same, once more, before it withdrew. Then the minuscule things subsided. In the time of a breath.

“I’m going to give you back your freedom, Emidhin.”

It’s strange, thought the Prince suddenly, how that spider spins its web. He gazed at the dark little creature on the wall near him. He couldn’t see the spider very well, but its movements seemed unnatural. It climbed the wall slowly, no more now than a moving spot on the green background, and presently the sick eyes of the Prince lost it. Perhaps it was only an illusion, he thought. But suddenly the creature reappeared before him, motionless a few centimeters from his face, hanging from the ceiling by a slender thread that glimmered blue. Is it you, Sickness? thought the Prince. Is it you, come to announce your victory? Or to watch me while I enter the edge of darkness? Or are you the image of Death that watches me sinking slowly into the marshes from which no one can escape? The mud is up to my neck already and it’s harder and harder to breathe. The gray sky above me. And all this silence. I’m sinking into the mud and into silence. I don’t cry out and I don’t struggle to escape from the darkness crouching below me. Why break this silence which gives me its last salute? For many years the Princes of Pharès have committed an offense which nature does not pardon. The mud pulls me slowly, sucks me down, swallows me. What is there left for me to do? What should the last Prince of Pharès do, before disappearing once for all into the marsh of oblivion? I have no pardon to beg. I’ve restored to Emidhin all that I can restore and the Sickness has punished me for the crime we committed. I’ve paid. There’s nothing left for me but to let myself be swallowed up in that darkness, looking at the landscape while I still can. The landscape of Shangui-H’e, which gives this silent salute to the last Master of the Western Provinces, the vanquished. The gray sky. There’s no wind today, and the leaves of the tomb-trees are motionless and silent. The blue-gray marsh has almost no ripples in it, only those caused by my slight movements. All this is beautiful, for it’s the very image of my planet, calm, harsh and marvelous. And there’s that little black spider sitting on a reed and watching the bluish mud rise to my mouth.

“But not my body of light?”

The spider is gone. This room is very cold, thought Moyann. The light? That minuscule glimmer lost somewhere in the depths of space?

“No. I don’t know how to send you back.”

I don’t know how and none of the others knew either. The only one who might have known was Tahn, the little man, the one who sold you to us. No, the one we forced to lure you here. But who knows his secret? What evil we have done!

“In fact, I’ve suspected that for a long time. What do you intend to do?”

He is calm like our planet. He is of the race of stars.

“I’m going to set your Enashins free. Perhaps with their help you will find a way to regain your body. I hope so.”

“Thank you.”

“No, don’t thank me. I wish I could have helped you more.”

Outside, the morning breeze from the sea rises over Pharès. It helps the ruins crumble a bit more.

“You have already done much for me.”

So little. I’m dying and you are being reborn.

“Do you think your planets are still alive?”

“I think so. They are good planets.”

Moyann painfully got up out of the chair and moved slowly toward the metal wall. The little camera turned in silence. The Prince pushed the wooden button and with a faint click a punched metal card thrust itself half out of a console. The Prince took it. Now, he thought, nothing ties you to me henceforward. You are still a prisoner, but I am not your jailer. The oppression of the Princes of Pharès is done with forever. He would drop this plaque into acid and no one would ever be able again to enslave a sun, at least with the little man’s machine.

“Now I’m going to leave you.”

He turned and went out, dragging his dead leg.

“Farewell, Moyann the Prince.”

The last Master of Pharès stopped and glanced at the metal wall. Cold prison.

“Good luck, Emidhin the Sun,” he said, then left without closing the sanctuary door.

Look, child, look, the dune!

I see.

Well, come on, child, come on. We’re here!

The spine of the universe curved a little more.

Wide-eyed, turning for centuries around the exploded carcass of an old Haggirian ship. His guts like a cortège.

Or else:

Swollen cadaver coming apart in tatters, a choice meal. At the bottom of a blue lake on Samoth.

Or else:

Eyes hollowed by age, white hair like a waterfall. Motionless. Leaning against the trunk of a lyre-tree, under the clear sky of the planet Douce. Insects in his mouth.

Dead.

Most of the Enashins.

Come, child, I beg you, come!

Cold.

We’re almost there! The dune is there! Come on, child, try to get up. I can’t carry you. I beg you, child!

Cold . . .

The metal creature advanced down the main street of Pharès and the sand crunched underfoot. The sea wind blew softly and murmured the song of time among the ruins. The metal creature came to the deserted great square and stopped to examine the palace of the Princes of Pharès, its green façade almost intact, windows useless.