Tanith Lee - The Birthgrave

She carried in one hand a golden whip, in the other a silver rod. Behind her, three warriors, dressed as the skeletons had been, in golden armor and green cloth, green plumes trailing from their helms. They bore no resemblance that I could see to Maggur, Giltt, or Kel; Mazlek, Slor, or Dnarl; Fethlin, Wexl, or Peyuan. On the third wall the woman stood for the last time, behind her the symbol of a sinking bloody sun, and in her two hands a knife I remembered well—the Knife of Easy Dying, its sharp point directed at her breast.

I would not look at it. I turned to the fourth wall, over which a long curtain was hanging. I reached for it, and tore it down, and beyond it there was a wide golden couch, and on it a white-skinned woman in a green robe, her hair plaited with gold and pieces of jade, with a veil of gauze across her face. I did not know if she were statue or embalmed thing, but I knew now well enough what place I had entered. It was a tomb. And the tomb was mine.

My impulse was to fall to my knees, to whimper with fear, but one last curiosity drove me on. I leaned across the creature, which could so easily be me, and I pulled the gauze away.

No, this was not my body, after all. I stared down at her a long while. A carving of something beautiful, yet no words had ever come from the pale mouth, no brain had ever woken behind the wide forehead.

Her closed eyelids were like two green leaves that had fallen on the sleeping face.

“You forget,” I said to the room, “you forget what I am. You forget that I have been made to know myself.”

And I turned.

I understood then what had given me light to see all these things. On a block of stone, a smooth stone basin, and in it a bright flame leaped and burned. The voice began as no more than a whispering. I would have shut it out.

“So—So—So—”

“Be still,” I said. “Be still.”

I began to edge around the walls toward the stair shaft.

“So. Ahhh! So—So Karrakaz enorr—” sizzled the no-voice in my brain. I had never heard such power in it, such electric triumph. “I am Karrakaz the Soulless One. I—I—I—”

“No!” I shouted. “You are nothing.”

“I am I—I remember. I remember our bargain at the place men call Kee-ool—and that we did not keep it. But all that is dust now. I remember the wagoners on the road to the Dark City, and the Chief Priest, and the battle before Belhannor. You have fed me well. Lie down now, and die. You have done much.”

I could not seem to reach the stairway. My limbs were lead, dragging me down. I began to crawl on my belly, pulling myself forward with my hands clamped to the slippery floor.

“Die,” whispered the voice. “Sleep-death. Silence. Peace. Die,” whispered the voice. “Only pain in the world, and trouble, and misery. Sleep.”

My hands were on the oval door-mouth. The marble burned and blistered them. A web seemed to hang across the opening. I pushed my head very slowly outward, and through the web, and it hurt very much. I could no longer feel my body, only my face and my hands.

“Fethlin!” I called, and knew he would never hear me.

“Do not call,” the voice whispered. “You have no other needs. Only sleep.”

“Fethlin!” I cried, and my voice came stronger, and cracked itself against the marble walls. Scarlet pain splintered my spine. “Fethlin!” I screamed. The scream was huge and terrible. It seemed to rock the tower to its base. Far below I heard the crash of the onyx door thrown wide, though how they opened it I could not tell.

“Better to die,” crooned the voice.

There were running feet on the marble stairs. I tried to pull myself down the steps toward them, and could not. A colored lightning split the room behind me. Nearer and nearer the running feet—a dark shadow moved upward toward me.

“Death comes,” said the voice.

I thought I saw then the trick it had played on me, the he-she thing in the stone. I struck out blindly and wildly at the assassin on the stairs, but he caught my hands, and, after a moment, I knew that it was Fethlin after all.

He dragged me clear of the doorway, and ran with me down the steps, holding me up by a grip around my waist, while my numb feet tried to make running motions and failed. I sensed and answered to his urgency, but did not understand why. In the last hall Wexl waited, and Peyuan held open the door.

We fled out of that place, Wexl and Peyuan holding me now by the arms. My feet touched the grass, and a little sensation came back to them. They were running. The ground spun by beneath me, the sky overhead. And the sky was black with storm. Out of the shadow of the fir trees, into the open valley. I found my feet and legs. I began to run. The air hummed around us.

Suddenly the world tipped sideways. We were flung down into the cruel grasses, among the thorns and skulls. We scrambled to our feet, and struggled on again until the next shock overtook us. The valley grass rippled without wind. We had reached the lower steps of the hill. Shrubbery clawed out and caught at clothing, hair, skin. The earth drummed angrily.

I crawled and clutched and tore my frantic way up the hill, my face to the greenness, unseeing. When the thunder came, I thought it was the end for us, but the quake was spent. Lightning washed across the sky.

Fethlin laid his hand on my shoulder, and I turned and saw that the valley was still, secretive, poised once more in its deathly enchantment.

“I led you into an evil place,” I said. “I am sorry.”

We reached the summit of the hill, and Fethlin looked upward at the thunderclouds.

“Did you find what you sought?” Wexl asked me.

“No,” I said, “not what I sought. There is no answer for me here, after all.”

I stood still and empty. I could think of nothing, no solution or hope. What was there for me now? My life had been a meaningless journey indeed. I stared back at the valley. Perhaps I had been wrong to call for help. It would have been easy to lie down beside my other self, and give myself up to the dark.

“We must find shelter,” Fethlin said. “Sunset is near, and the storm may mask it. We cannot reach the sea before the night comes.”

I glanced at their faces. I could tell they were not afraid, yet their looks were set and stern with unease.

They did not trust the ruined cities by night.

No rain had come with the storm, yet a twilight chill settled as we followed Fethlin over the boulders and the broken walls. The thunder folded itself away into the sea, leaving an immense silence.

Darkness gathered. In the hiding place Fethlin had found us—a tiny sunken room, still roofed over, and with a low narrow door-mouth—we crouched around our little fire. Wexl and Peyuan had piled loose stones against the door, now only a small hole remained. The room became very smoky, and even so the orange warmth of the fire leaked away. I did not know what it was we hid from, neither, I think, did they.

Old tales and older instinct had combined to make them wary.

They ate oatcake and cheese, and Fethlin set a watch—himself first, Wexl second, and Peyuan last, through the hours of the night. I was not included, whether out of politeness, or because he thought me incapable, I am not sure. I did not argue the point. I curled myself into a corner where a stubborn bush was growing, and slept wearily, not even caring what dreams or memories came.

But it seemed at first an empty, quiet sleep. Once I woke, and saw that Wexl had replaced Fethlin by the door hole.

The second time I woke, things were very different. Wexl was no longer at his post, and beyond the fire were no longer stretched the sleeping shapes of Fethlin and Peyuan. The fire itself was out, yet I was aware of a great glow in the blackness beyond the door.