Dai San Eric van Lustbader

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future. There had been terror then and, as the
chord at the center of his being was plucked again
by chill fingers, he felt anew that
140 Eric V. Lustbader
strange unknown emotion. You are not afraid to
die, Bonneduce the Last had said. What then?
It was coming now or he to it.
The trees parted.
Then faded away to nothing.
He faced Setsoru.
Once again those terrible human eyes in the
black-furred stag's head stared into his own. The
great treed antlers quivered.
"Where am I?" cried the Hart. Then: "I sent the
ships for you. Ah, no!" He screamed. "Stop this!"
His head shook. His eyes darted, rolling in their
sockets. "You can stop this. You must!"
Silence.
And if there was anyone else in their black and
white world, he gave no tangible sign of his
presence.
Foam flecked Setsoru's black animal lips and he
gave a high whinnying whine. His horned hands
reached for his black onyx sword but he was
naked.
"Where are you?" called the Hart. His horned
fingers went to his head, beating at it as if it were
a mask he wished to smash.
"Enough!" His voice edged in hysteria, rising. "I
have had enough of this jest!" Backing away from
the being in front of him. "I have served you
faithfully. I have destroyed so much life in your
name. What have you done to me now?" His
horned fingers grasped his antlers. His black lips
trembled and he began a terrible laughter.
"Power. Oh, power, where is it now? Deliver me
from this hell !"
There are no gods here, Setsoru, came his
voice, filled with a peculiar vibration. The Hart
jerked as if stung.
For the first time, Setsoru peered at the shape
in front of him.
"Who are you, that you should fill me with such
fear?"
I cannot answer that, for I do not know yet. I
know only what I once was, a long time ago. Yet
your fear is my fear.
"Truly?" The Hart held his ground, his great
head craning forward. "The light is dim. I cannot
see you clearly."
He moved closer.
"Ah!" Setsoru exclaimed. "I know now, I can
feel it. From the forest. You stalked me like an
animal "
Not you. Another.
"He told me you were dead."
I am here.
DAI-SAN 141
"I said you searched for me in the forest. That
while you lived, I would have no peace. You would
hound me "
He also said that I was dead.
"He would not lie to me."
He already has.
"What do you want of me?"
They were closer together now, though neither
appeared to have moved on his own.
What do we want of each other?
The head jerked and the wide nostrils dilated,
snorting. "I want nothing more than to be returned
to the forest at Kamado."
In time, perhaps.
"He was right. You wish me dead!" The eyes were
beserk.
I will not harm you. And thinks, Why not?
Setsoru laughed.
"You cannot!"
They came together and the battle was joined,
an endless, deathless struggle. He realized this
instantly, knew it was a puzzle he had to solve else
they would be locked in combat, beyond the reach
of Time itself.
He was terrified and as the panic rose within
him, he blocked it, forcing it down, away from him.
Tried to think. Mind a blank. The enormous furred
face flailing back and forth before him.
"I fear nothing. I destroy!" The hysteria
returning to the Hart, seizing him, squeezing.
Never letting go. Never.
A kind of night was falling, deep and dense.
Starless and endless. A blanket. To sleep. A
shroud
Into the shrouds. Upward. Sea birds calling.
Toward the warm sun. Gone, now. Gone.
Think!
No sky. No horizon. No land.
Engulfed in the blackness.
Tumbling over and over, they fought. The panic
deleted his strength. He had to overcome it.
Concentrate. Existence narrowing until
He felt another touch of fear. A different kind
now and he knew that something was coming. And
he knew what it was.
Something beyond death.
The end.
No!
Unbound, the panic welled up, a vast, tidal wave
of emotion and he relaxed now, feeling its
thunderous, deafening
142 Eric V. I'us1;bader
approach. In the shallows now, holding his ground.
Into the deep.
And suddenly he knew and the knowledge,
flowing through him like a dancing bolt of light,
dazzled him with its energy.
You cannot harm me, he said. Watching Setsoru's
eyes.
Coming.
Airless.
You understand, he said. Tell me who you are.
"What do you mean?"
You know.
A constriction of the blackness. "You are mad!"
A rushing of foul wings.
It will all be over unless you tell me. Setsoru felt
it too, now.
I know therefore you must know. "I am afraid "
That is all he has left. It was there.
Tell me.
"I am," said Setsoru, "you."
The hiss of wind and it was gone from them.
Beneath them, as they spun, slithered the being
at the center of the world, perhaps acephalous,
indeed an endless landscape, turning and
glistening and undulating, never the same,
eternally constant.
Borne upward to them, a salt tide on the air.
Color seeping. The Hart's body was wracked with
sobs as they held each other, drenched in salt
sweat, and then they were together inside each
other, bound, and he felt at last for Setsoru
another emotion which he could not identify.
They merged.
Energy raced through them and he/they/he saw
the infinite fanfare of living thunder, heard the
colored sky glowing from pink to white to blue to
periwinkle to grey and brown to gold and orange
and flame and rust, felt the push and pull of mus-
cle as the working wings of vast flocks of geese
and plovers hurtled eastward, living streamers, the
parade's own celebrative bunting.
One.
An instant's flash of cold, pure gray.
DAI-SAN 143
Green semiconsciousness.
Warmth.
As something swam through the caverns of the
sea, at the foundations of the world. And it seemed
familiar, as if at some great time past, this
something had been here. Or dreamed of it being
here.
Amongst the towering basalt and granite at the
base of the world he swam. And grew, developing
a head and torso; arms and legs; hands and feet.
And the features began to define themselves as he
reached out and touched the immense, sloping side
of the Aegir, rolling, undulating, endless.
Architecture built itself around him and he grew
as he spun slowly on his axis, stroking the rough
hide of the immeasurable being. He was sliced
open, slit lengthwise down his arms, the blood
pouring forth in black billowing clouds, the dust of
another life. Swiftly the skin drew itself together in
different configurations, colored and wealed,
tattooed, a living hieroglyph upon which perhaps
was written the history of all mankind.
Bones broke, as the skin pulled apart once
again, shattering their calcium and phosphorous
into drifting powder. But the shifting sea was rich
in these minerals and others and it poured them
back into the broken body. New bones constructed
themselves in seeming odd lengths, joined and
knitted with supreme cunning and skill.
Thus he passed from consciousness knowing only
that he was changing, forming, shifting like the sea
itself which held him in its dark and pressured
embrace. And while he slept greater changes
occurred. Merciful unconsciousness.
His face broke into ten thousand fragments,
shards dissolving on the tides, re-forming, soft as
putty, molded in unseen hands, shaped most
delicately and carefully into a singular visage in all
the world.
The body broadened and elongated and now the
muscles hardened, stretching themselves upon the
framework of the new limbs and torso, growing,
layer upon layer, defining themselves in ridged
plateaus.
And all the while he dreamed. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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