Robert Hughes - The Power and the Prophet

Like him, she waited.

Pelmen’s face, already pale from the wintertime cold, began glowing, as if reflecting back the brilliance of some white-hot beam of light. He didn’t shield his eyes, but opened them wide with wonder, as if he gazed, astonished, upon the landscape of a new world. At the same moment a tongue of blue flame erupted from the midst of the six pyramids, forming a seventh, larger pyramid of fire that engulfed the other six. Serphimera was forced at last to turn away and she faced the wall, where she watched her shadow dance and leap in the flickering of that bright blue light. Still she waited.

When at last her shadow disappeared and she dared to look again at Pelmen’s face, she found his eyes were no longer fixed on forever, but on her. His face no longer glowed, but his smile had a radiance all its own. “Now,” he murmured, “I know.”

Through the cavern’s mouth came a horrendous noise, which rose above the mournful wailing of the wind. It was the music of myriads of howling hounds, waiting impatiently for him to stop talking and start doing.

“I’ll need your hands,” he muttered, and Serphimera knelt beside him. They each took three of the objects and fitted them in place, then moved around to face each other and held the whole cluster together. Pelmen cleared his mind, and all expression faded from his face as he whispered, “In faith I plead mat six be one, if so be the will of the Power.” Slowly he pulled his hands away.

The pieces did not fall apart. They had melded into a single gem.

“Is it finished?” Serphimera whispered.

Pelmen turned the pointed object before his eyes, gazing into its sparkling depths. “It’s fused together, at least.”

“And ready to be used?”

“Yes.” Although he only murmured the words, the howling outside suddenly grew louder.

Serphimera’s head snapped around and she glared fiercely at the mouth of the cave. “Have you no patience?” she shouted, and though her human voice could scarcely have been heard above the supernatural cacophony, the myriads of beasts grew quiet.

Pelmen continued to stare into the crystal. “They’ve been waiting a long time, my love—”

“They can wait just a little bit longer.”

Her passion surprised and pleased him. Fascinated as he was by this glowing thorn of gemstone, he set it aside and looked at her. He wished he could hide the melancholy in his eyes. For all his actor’s skill, he could not. Besides, their love had been forged in integrity. He would not rob her of full participation in this, his final struggle.

She swivelled to face him with that fluid economy of motion that had so entranced the legions of Lamath.

Far more regalthan any queen, the former priestess of the Dragonfaith looked at him frankly and asked,

“What happens next, my priest?”

Pelmen blinked. “Priest? I’m not the priest in this family. You are.” He said it with a teasing chuckle.

Serphimera didn’t smile. She folded her skirt under her as she sat on a rock. Then, with great gravity, she said, “I was never the priest. And you always were.”

“What are you saying?” he asked, still trying to brush aside the subject with a smile. “I was the prophet, remember?”

“What is a prophet and what’s a priest? There has been much confusion here, Pelmen. The prophet forth-tells, rebukes, and proclaims. You were never that type.”

“That’s right,” Pelmen fervently agreed. “That’s why I passed that task on to Erri as quickly as morally justifiable.”

His continued levity annoyed her briefly. Then she subdued her own frustration and asked, “Why won’t you be serious?”

The trace of a smile drained from his face, leaving behind only the grim lines of resolve. “Because I know where this discussion leads. And I suppose I’d like to play just a few moments longer.”

“Do we have a few moments?” she asked pointedly.

“I don’t know,” he said sadly. “I guess not. Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“The other aspect of the prophetic role is that of foretelling the future. Erri has some visionary sense. He is a true prophet. In fact, there are several who are beginning to discover the ability. That was always my foremost gift.I was the real prophet of Lamath.” She paused then, to give him a chance to argue if he chose.

He nodded. “Continue.” It seemed as if he had heard all this before, but it nevertheless needed to be voiced. Their conversation had taken on the texture of a ritual.

“I was called,” she went on. “I responded. I obeyed. I interpreted events in the only way I could—and I was wrong. But through me, misguided though I was, the Power roused Lamath. It was the Power at work all along.” Pelmen said nothing, for no response was necessary. “And when the time was right—when the opportunity arose—the intertwining of personalities and events was revealed and the pattern became visible. The Power is so creative! My contribution was not foreordained or predetermined. It was and is that the Power

knows what the Power chooses to see and is creative enough to be able always to draw that pattern out of chaos.”

“And my role, too, was revealed to you?”

“You are the priest, Pelmen. You have always been the priest.”

“The Priest of Lamath,” Pelmen murmured.

“Not of Lamath. The Priest of the One Land. The one standing between the Power and the people. The one who offers the sacrifice.”

“Who offers the sacrifice?” Pelmen asked sharply. “Or the one who is the sacrifice?”

Outside, the dogs raised an enormous howl. Pelmen waved his hand toward the mouth of the cave.

“You hear their opinion!”

“But do you understand my meaning?”

“Far better, I think, than you could appreciate.” Pelmen sighed. He rose from his seat and paced around the cavern. “Call me whatever you choose—I’ve understood at least that much of my task since the day I first comprehended those strange symbols in the book Erri so treasures. I ran from it then. Later I realized the truth in what you’ve said—the Power is infinitely creative. The path I choose is the pathway to be chosen. I thought my past was to be ended with the dragon. Instead, it’s to be ended here.” He stooped and picked up the thorn-shaped crystal. This weapon will absorb Flayh’s power and leave him as he was before—a very greedy, very petty little man. It will take Mar-Yilot’s power, as well as that of Joooms, Terril, and Mast, because it will free all these powers we shape to return to the Power at last.

Many of them have been waiting eagerly for a long, long time.” The baying outside began again and drew Pelmen’s eyes back to the cave mouth. “They can hear every word we say,” he murmured and he looked back at Serphimera. “It seems strange that, with so many powers enfleshed out there as dogs, there should remain so many that may still be shaped. They are all active now, Serphimera. They’re stirred by the possibility of a gateway. They were disappointed when Sheth failed. Yet who can blame the man?

The price of opening this gateway is the life force of a shaper, and nothing in Sheth’s experience prepared him to make such a sacrifice.”

“Unlike you,” Serphimera breathed.

Pelmen nodded. “Unlike me.” He gazed at her a long time in silence. “Did you know all of this?” he asked finally.

“Most of it,” she admitted. “What wasn’t revealed to me, I’d guessed.”

“Then perhaps you realize that you still have a priestly task to perform.”

“What task?” she said wearily.

“If I’m to be offered, who is to make the offering, if not you?”

Serphimera thought a long time before responding; then she shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do that.”