Part 2 (2/2)

”Yes, I knew...indeed.” In fact he had thought that all the G.o.ds were long dead, or departed from the world of humankind. ”And why is he-like this?”

”He has fallen in battle, mortal. I and he and others have laid siege to Cloudholm, and it has been a long and bitter fight. We seek to free his father, Helios, who lies trapped in the same kind of enchantment there. Through Helios' entrap-ment, the world of old is dying. Have you heard of Cloudholm, old mortal?

Among men it is not often named.”

”Ah. I have heard something. Long ago...”

”It stifles themana-rain that Helios cast ever on the Earth. With a fleet of clouds.h.i.+ps like this one, we hurled ourselves upon its battlements-and were defeated. Most of the old G.o.ds lie now in tormented slumber, far above. A few have switched sides willingly. And all our s.h.i.+ps save this one were destroyed.”

”How could they dare?” The words burst from Borma.n.u.s, the first he had uttered since boarding the cloud-vessel. Then he stuttered, as Je's eyes burned at him: ”I mean, who would dare try to destroy such s.h.i.+ps? And who would have the power to do it?”

The G.o.ddess looked at the boy a moment longer, then reached out and took him by the hand. ”Lend me your mortal fingers here. Let us see if they will serve to drain enchantment off.” Borma.n.u.s appeared to be trying to draw back, but his hand, like a baby's, was brought out forcibly to touch the statue-figure's arm.

And Zalazar's hand went out on its own once more; this time he could not keep it back, or perhaps he did not dare to try. His fingers spread on rounded arm-muscle, thicker by far than his own thigh. The touch of the figure made him think more of frozen snake than flesh of G.o.d. And now, Zalazar felt faint with sudden terror. Something, some great power, was urging the freezing near-death to desert its present captive and be content with Zalazar and Borma.n.u.s instead. But that mighty urging was mightily opposed, and came to nothing. At last, far above Zalazar's head, as if between proud kings disputing across some infant's cradle, a truce was reached. For the moment. He was able to withdraw his hand unharmed, and watched as Borma.n.u.s did the same.

The G.o.ddess Je sighed. It was a world-weary sound, close to defeat yet still infinitely stubborn. ”And yet I am sure that there issomething in you, old man...or possibly in your young companion here. Something that in the end will be of very great importance. Something that must be found...though I see, now, that you yourselves can hardly be expected to be aware of what it is.”

He clasped his hands. ”Oh great lady Je, we are only poor humans...mortals...”

”Never mind. In time I will discover the key. What is written anywhere, I can eventually read.”

Zalazar was aware now of a strong motion underneath his feet. Even to weak human senses it was evident that the whole cloud was now in pur-poseful and very rapid flight.

”Where are we going?” Borma.n.u.s muttered, as if he were asking the air itself. He was a very hand-some youth, with dark and curly hair.

”We return to the attack, young mortal. If most of our fleet has been destroyed, well, so too are the defenses of Cloudholm nearly worn away. One more a.s.sault can bring it into my hands, and set its prisoners free.”

Zalazar had been about to ask some question, but now a distracting realization made him forget what it was. He had suddenly become aware that there was some guardian presence, sprite or demon he thought, melded with the cloud, driving and controlling it on Je's commands. It drew for energy on some vast internal store ofmana, a treasure trove thatZalazar could only dimly sense.

Now, in obedience to Je's unspoken orders, the light inside the room or temple where they stood was taking on a reddish tinge. And now the cloud-carvings were disappearing from whatZalazar took to be the forward wall. As Je faced in that direction, pictures began to appear there magically. These were of a cloudscape first, then of an earthy plain seen from a height greater than any mountain's. Both were pa.s.sing at fantastic speed.

Je nodded as if satisfied. ”Come,” she said, ”and we will try your usefulness in a new way.” With a quick gesture she opened the whiteness to one side, and overhead. A stair took form even as she began to climb it. ”We will see if your value lies in reconnoitering the enemy.”

Clinging to Borma.n.u.s' shoulder for support,Zalazar found that the stairs were not as hard to negotiate as he had feared, even when they s.h.i.+fted form from one step to the next. Then there was a sudden gaping purple openness above their heads. ”Fear not,” said Je. ”My protection is upon you both, to let you breathe and live.”

Zalazarand Borma.n.u.s mounted higher. Wind shrieked thinly now, not in their faces but round them at some little distance, as if warded by some invisible s.h.i.+eld. Then abruptly the climbing stair had no more steps.Zalazar thought that they stood on an open deck of cloud, under a bright sun in a dark sky, in some strange realm of neither day nor night. The prow of the clouds.h.i.+p that he rode upon was just before him; he stood as if on the bridge of some proud ocean vessel, looking out over deck and rounded bow, and a wild vastness of the elements beyond.

Not that the s.h.i.+p was borne by anything as small and simple as an earthy sea. The whole globe of Earth was already so far below that Zalazar could now begin to see its roundness, and still the clouds.h.i.+p climbed. All natural clouds were far below, clinging near the great curve of Earth, though rising here and there in strong relief. At first Zalazar thought that the star-pierced black-ness through which they flew was empty of every-thing but pa.s.sing light. But presently-with, as he sensed, Je's unspoken aid-he began to be able to perceive structure in the thinness of s.p.a.ce about him.

”What do you see now, my sage old man? And you, my clever youth?” Je's voice pleaded even as it mocked and commanded. Her fear and puzzle-ment frightened Zalazar again. For the first time now he knew true regret that he had followed his first impulse and climbed a chopped-off mountain. Where now was the good result that prescience had seemed to promise?

”I see only the night ahead of us,” responded Borma.n.u.s. His voice sounded remote, as if he were half asleep.

”I...see,” saidZalazar, and paused with that. Much was coming clear to him, but it was going to be hard to describe. The cloud structures far below, so heavy with their contained water and their own mundane laws, blended almost imperceptibly into the base of something much vaster, finer, and more subtle.

Something that filled the s.p.a.ce around the Earth, from the level of those low clouds up to the vastly greater alt.i.tude at whichZalazar now stood. And higher still...his eyes, as if ensnared now by those faery lines and arches, followed them upward and outward and ever higher still. The lines girdled the whole round Earth, and rose...

And rose...

Zalazar clutched out for support. Obligingly, a stanchion of cloudstuff grew up and hardened into place to meet his grasp. He did not even look at it. His eyes were fixed up and ahead, looking at Cloudholm.

Imagine the greatest castle of legend. And then go beyond that, and beyond, till imagination knows itself inadequate. Two aspects dominate: first, an almost invisible delicacy, with the appearance of a fragility to match. Secondly, almost omnipotent power-or, again, its seeming. Size was certainly a component of that power. Zalazar had never tried to, or been able to, imagine anything as high as this. So high that it grew near only slowly, though the clouds.h.i.+p was racing toward it at a speed that Zalazar would have described as almost as fast as thought.

ThenZalazar saw how, beyond Cloudholm, a thin crescent of Moon rose wonderfully higher still; and again, beyond that, burned the blaze of Sun, a jewel in black. These sights threw him into a sudden terror of the depths of s.p.a.ce. No longer did he marvel so greatly that Je and her allied powers could have been defeated.

”Great lady,” he asked humbly, ”what realm, whose dominion is this?”

”What I need from you, mortal, are answers, not questions of a kind that I can pose myself.” Je's broad white hand swung out gently to touch him on the eyes. Her touch felt surprisingly warm. Her voice commanded: ”Say what you see.”

The touch at once allowed him to see more clearly. But he stuttered, groping for words. What he was suddenly able to perceive was that the Sun lived at the core of a magnificent, perpetual explosion, the expanding waves of which were as faint as Cloudholm itself, but none the less glorious for that. These waves moved in some medium far finer than the air, more tenuous than even the thinning air that had almost ceased to whistle with the clouds.h.i.+p's pa.s.sage. And the waves of the continual slow sun-explosion bore with them a myriad of almost infinitesimal particles, particles that were heavy withmana, though they were almost too small to be called solid.

And there were the lines, as of pure force, in s.p.a.ce. In obedience to some elegant system of laws they bore the gossamer outer robes of the Sun itself, to wrap the Earth with delicate energy...and themana that flowed outward from the Sun, great Zeus but there was such a flood of it!

The Earth was bathed in warmth and energy-but not inmana, Zalazar suddenly perceived. That flow had been cut off by Cloudholm and its spreading wings. (Yes,Zalazar could see the pinions of enchantment now, raptor-wings extending curved on two sides from the castle itself, as if to embrace the whole Earth-or smother it.) Through them the common sunlight flowed on unimpeded, to make the surface of the world flash blue and ermine white. But all the inner energies of magic were cut off...

Zalazar realized with a start that he was, or just had been, entranced and muttering, that someone with a mighty grip had just shaken his arm, that a voice of divine power was urging him to speak up, to make sense in what he reported of his vision.

”Tell clearly what you see, old man. The wings, you say, spread out from Cloudholm to enfold the Earth.

That much I knew already. Now say what their weakness is. How are they to be torn aside?”

”I...I...the wings are very strong. They draw sustaining power from the very flow ofmana that they deny the Earth. Some of the particles that hail on them eo through-but those are withoutmana. Many of the particles and waves remain, are trapped by the great wings and drained ofmana and of other energies.

Then eventually they are let go.”

”Old fool, what use are you? You tell me nothing I do not already know. Say, where is the weakness of the wings? How can our Earth be fed?”

”Just at the poles...there is a weakness, some-times, a drooping of the wings, and there a little more mana than elsewhere can reach the Earth.”

Suddenly faint, Zalazar felt himself begin to topple. He was grabbed, and upheld, and shaken again. ”Tell more, mortal. What power has created Cloudholm?”

”What do I know? How can I see? What can I say?”

He was shaken more violently than before, until in his desperate fear of Je he cried: ”Great Apollo himself could not learn more!”

He was released abruptly, and there was a precipitous silence, as if even Je had been shocked by Zalazar's free use of that name, the presence of whose owner only his mother Leto and his father Zeus could readily endure. Then Zalazar's eyes were brushed again by Je's warm hand, and he came fully to himself.

Cloudholm was bearing down on them. ”And Helios is trapped up there?” Zalazar wondered aloud. ”But why, and how?”

”Why?” The bitterness and soft rage in Je's voice were worthy of a G.o.ddess. ”Why, I myself helped first to bind him. Was I made to do that, after opposing him and bringing on a bitter quarrel? I do not know.

Are even we deities the playthings of some overriding fate? What was Helios' sin, for such a punishment?

And what was mine?”

Again Zalazar had to avert his gaze, for Je's beauty glowed even more terribly than before. And at the same time he had to strive to master himself, hold firm his will against the hubris that rose up in him and urged him to reach for the role of G.o.d himself. Such an opportunity existed, would exist, foreknowledge told him, and it was somewhere near at hand. If he only...

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