Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

And there were gods there, standing huge before the two bound girls.

The Luff’Eresi surrounded them. Shifting and indistinct they were, but their human arms were outstretched, and their men’s faces stern—tall and awesome beyond anything Zephy could imagine. Was this the sacrifice, then? Zephy turned her face away in dread; but she could not help but turn back. She stood staring, in a terror of apprehension, trying to push forward, to somehow stop what would happen, but unable to move.

A god came close to the Children but did not touch them, she sensed that he could not: he seemed not real in the same way that Meatha and Clytey did, seemed not so solid. But then came a figure from beside the Luff’Eresi, a human figure stepping out dressed in pale robes. She came to the Children; Meatha’s face was white as the woman touched her. Yet as Zephy watched, Meatha’s face lost its fear. The woman released Meatha’s bonds, then those of Clytey, and stepped back.

Zephy watched Meatha and Clytey approach the Luff’Eresi as if they were enchanted, saw them reach up to the closest god in awe—and saw they could not touch him. It was as if they were touching air.

Then a Horse of Eresu came forward and bowed his head and knelt. Zephy could feel his warmth as Meatha and Clytey climbed onto his back. He rose in a gesture that was startling and beautiful: from his kneeling position he flowed to stand, then his wings took him into the sky in one liquid motion. She could feel, as if she rode there, the rough silk of his mane in her hands, the wind sweeping her. She moved with Meatha and Clytey as they were carried above the mountain, above incredible peaks; the Horse of Eresu’s strong wings knifed and turned the wind; the mountains, jagged, swept below. Then the valley came into view, a valley so terribly green . . .

She saw Eresu and it was as if her vision were many-faceted. She saw the green secret land honeycombed with terraces and bowers, saw the valley and inside the caves and bowers all at one time, moved within the lighted caves with their tumbling falls of water; and it was as she had dreamed. She saw the Luff’Eresi moving freely on the wind above the cliffs and terraces and on the low green hills. She saw Meatha happy among them and others like her. This was Eresu, so Meatha must be dead; yet Zephy didn’t understand how that could be, for the Luff’Eresi had not killed her.

Then something began to happen to Meatha, Zephy could feel the change in her. She gathered with the other Children of Ynell, Clytey, the girl who had released her, all of them. There were no more than a dozen—boys, girls, men and women—and they began to march out of the valley. Zephy could see them going along the white path and down along the river, down and down along the hills, walking silently. Then there was sudden darkness, and she heard Meatha cry out to her in her mind; then a silence that was terrifying in its emptiness. She could see Meatha no more; only the sense of her remained, and Zephy thought she was whispering, Now you will come. Now you must come to help us.

Meatha’s words faded so Zephy was not sure they had ever been. Her sense of Meatha became quickly contracted as in the darkness of an unhappy memory. As one might remember someone long dead.

Did Meatha live? Zephy had no sense of how to distinguish what death was. The atmosphere around her began to grow more solid. Then it was suddenly as if what had gone before could now be seen as a dream, and she had awakened at last to stand, fully in charge of her senses, in the valley of Eresu.

Five winged gods came away from the rest in the valley, and she trembled as they approached her. They were more magnificent than anything one could have imagined. The dignity and the joy in their faces was as if joy was the very essence of life. Their faces might have resembled human faces except for their perfect strength and for that joy. She was drawn to them so she could not look away, even had she wanted.

Their movement was like water over stones, their golden bodies shifting with light and their wings—their wings were tapestries of light glinting, shattering; it was as if she saw them through a curtain of shifting air, not steady as Meatha had appeared. Yet so real, more than real. And there were Horses of Eresu there among them. And though the Horses of Eresu mingled with the gods, they were solid to look at; Zephy could see them clearly, where the gods shifted as light shifts on blowing leaves. The wings of the Horses of Eresu were not blinding, but were wonders of velvet-toned grace. They still looked like horses despite their differences, while the gods were like no animal or man, not like any creature of Ere.

Then one Luff’Eresi shifted and was standing close above her, huge, his horselike body far taller than her head, his human face solemn, his eyes, from their great height, holding her completely. Above the silken coat of the horselike body—a dark, burnished shade—his torso was muscled and full of powerful grace, and his terrible strength made Zephy tremble. His expression and dark eyes sent a wave of awe and wonder through her that made her kneel; but his voice roared at once in her mind, Rise, child, do not kneel before me!

When he spoke, it was as Ynell, silently in her mind; and it was as if all her life she had waited for this. She rose and stood before him, and thought only, You are the god of Ere!

Mortal! His silent words thundered in her mind . I am mortal! Not a god, Child of Ynell. I am as mortal as you! She stood staring at him, not believing him. Yet he was forcing her to believe, to stretch her mind to believe him. Her thoughts would not come in any kind of order, only in the overwhelming sensations that swept her. If you are not a god, she thought at last, then there can be no god. There can be no being meant for us to worship if you are not he.

1 am a mortal creature. The Luff’Eresi spoke this time so sternly that she drew back, chastened. I am mortal just as you. I am only different. To call me a god is to humble yourself, human! And yet —and his voice-thought grew softer now, gentler. And yet there is the spirit, the spirit that all mortals yearn for. But it is not here on Ere, Child of Ynell. No god is here. The gods we seek—and all of us seek them, Zephy Eskar—the gods we seek are spirits so far removed from Ere and from this time and place, that few can guess at the reality of their beings. To be mortal is to understand mortality. But beyond that, the next step of your spirit’s life can only be grasped when you are ready.

Zephy felt as insignificant as a grain of mawzee—yet she felt, at the same time, a sense of continuity, of a stretching out before her, felt a lift and exultation as the Luff’Eresi showed her the meaning of his words, gave her the sense of layers of life, of intricacies she could not unravel but which laid a richness on her mind, a richness and maturity on her very soul.

At one moment she felt she could almost touch the varied planes of existence, the plane, different from her own, where the Luff’Eresi dwelt, the plane that came closer to Ere in the Waytheer years. She could almost understand the physical differences that made their two worlds not quite touch, not quite mesh. She could almost embrace, for a moment, concepts quite beyond her experience, could almost make sense of them.

But why—if this were true—why didn’t Cloffi and all of Ere teach this true wonder, make prayer for the reality instead of—instead of . . .

Instead of worshipping false gods! The Luff’Eresi bellowed into her thoughts. And the feel of his laughter overwhelmed her. Instead of worshipping us. You are right, Zephy Eskar. Your people have been led as donkeys are led. You have been given chaff when there was whole good grain to serve you. You have been lied to, to feed the evil lust for power that the Cloffi masters have nurtured like a sickness in their breasts.