LITMIR.BIZ

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the city seemed a natural outgrowth of the mountain, and the sum of all seemed an enormous beast with glittering scales and a thousand eyes, crouching beneath the moon.

      Tharanodeth set Ginna down, and bade him look for a long time. They stood there until the moon set.

      “Now that you have seen the city of Ai Hanlo from the outside, as it sits upon Ai Hanlo Mountain, you will understand what I mean when I tell you that our ancestors did not build the city when they came here from far away. They carved its foundations out of the flesh of the stone.”

      He pointed to the golden dome of the summit “Behold. That dome and the towers surrounding it comprise only that part of the palace which is visible from this side. And yet there is enough there for you to spend your whole lifetime exploring and even then you could not know it all in its fullness. And around the palace is the city, through which you could wander all your days, and still some of its ancient secrets would remain hidden. Yet consider how small they are seen from this distance. Just one mountain surrounded by hills, beyond which are wide plains and other lands. Now come. I want to show you something.”

      He took the boy on his back again with difficulty. “You are supposed to be underweight. Have you gotten heavier without my permission?”

      “No,” said Ginna meekly, too overwhelmed to be aware of the levity.

      They traveled for hours over the sloping, rocky ground. Constantly Ginna looked back at the wonder of die city, and slowly, as he watched, the curvature of the terrain hid it from him. To be out of sight of Ai Hanlo was wholly incomprehensible, like being adrift between life and death. And yet there he was.

      The eastern sky was reddening in front of them. In all directions nothing was visible except stones and scrubby underbrush.

      Tharanodeth stopped and set Ginna down.

      “Stand here and look,” he said. “Look, and you’ll see the Earth as it always was, even before the death of The Goddess. I come here sometimes to reflect, when the toils of my station are more than I can bear. I come out here to where it seems that mankind and all his works have made no more impression on the Earth than the passing shadow of a cloud. I tell myself not to worry, to face what I must face with courage and dignity, for nothing matters ultimately. I come out here to watch the sun rise.”

      And they stood still as the glow in the sky increased and all the secret colors of the desert were revealed. Formerly dun brown hillsides suddenly flashed orange and crimson. There were furtive yellows and even a wink of blue. The colors and the long shadows cast by the stones shifted and flowed like a long, soft cloth being dragged across the land.

      Ginna was sure he had never seen anything so beautiful.

      “There is much more,” said The Guardian, and he took him on his back again.

      It was well into the morning when they came to that ridge which had been a mere line on the horizon. As Tharanodeth made his way up the incline, one hand on his staff, the other behind the boy’s knee as he carried him, he turned his face from left to right and back.

      There were mounds of crumbled stone all around them.

      “You are in a city of ancient mankind,” he said.

      “Where?”

      “Here. In every direction. This is why we waited till dawn. At night the ghosts of the inhabitants would howl in our ears.”

      Ginna did not know if he was joking or not.

      When they topped the rise, Tharanodeth said between labored breaths, “And here is another city.”

      Ginna got down, stared, and gasped.

      All the way to the horizon, towers taller than any he had ever seen filled the land. They were hollow and broken off at the tops. Each had hundreds of empty windows. Sometimes slender bridges stretched between them. Sometimes these were broken halfway, and sometimes the towers themselves were little more than suggestions of shapes in heaps of rubble. And at the feet of them were shells of countless lesser buildings, all nearly buried beneath the talus of fallen masonry and sand. A few stranger shapes, taller than anything else, flickered over the city like shadows cast by a candle in a drafty tunnel, not substantial at all.

      “It is one of the dead places,” the old man said. “I have heard that there are even larger ones elsewhere. This was a city as we cannot imagine a city, built by men we can scarcely think of as men. Surely The Goddess admired them. One legend has it that they created her, or some other one who came before her, to watch over the world after they were gone. No one can ever know what magic they possessed, or even what spells linger in a place like this. If you think our little mountain is vast, consider this. An immortal could spend all his days here and never examine it all.”

      “But the people who built this? Where did they go?”

      “I have taught you to read, Ginna, and I have a book I must show you sometime. It is by the philosopher Telechronos, who said that the ages of existence are like the times of the day. The cultures of the Dawn rose and built their cities, and those people imagined themselves to be all of history, and indeed they were in a way. But when their cities were as the mounds you have seen among the hills, when they moved no longer and their eyes were closed, then came the Morning, when works were mightier yet. In the brightness of Noon mankind climbed yet higher, attaining other realms and other worlds even. What you see before you is a city of the Afternoon, when the heights had been scaled and the spirit of man rested in the warmth of the sun.”

      The boy was silent. He thought for a minute, puzzled. “But if this is so, where do we fit in?”

      “Our place in the procession, the book says, is toward the end. We are creatures of the twilight. No more impression than the shadow of a cloud shall we leave behind, when both Ai Hanlo and this you see before you are dust. But while it stands, we can at least admire the corpse of something greater than ourselves. The spirit has passed from man, said Telechronos.”

      “But what comes after us?”

      “If there is another age, I think it will begin a whole new cycle. Perhaps there will be a place for mankind in it, perhaps not. I think even the laws and shapes of things, and the passing of time will be entirely different. In fact there is a curious prophecy—Telechronos himself made it when he lay dying. With his last breath he told of seeing a shining face looking down into his, saying that when at last one understands himself, the end will be the beginning and the beginning the end and the new age will open.”

      Neither of them said a word as they returned to the city. Tharanodeth was too exhausted to carry him, so Ginna walked. He cut his feet on sharp stones but never complained. After a while the old man leaned on his shoulder. They rested often. After a long time, when both were faint from thirst and hunger, the towers of Ai Hanlo rose above the dry hills. It was nearly evening when they found their way into the tunnel, and the sun had set before they returned to The Guardian’s chamber. When they got there people were knocking on the outer door and ringing bells, calling out, “Dread Lord, Noble sovereign, urgent news. Pressing business.”

      “It’s always urgent and pressing business,” sighed Tharanodeth. “Whenever I go away it piles up like water behind a dam.”

      He let the boy out through a secret way, then went to face his courtiers. But just as he opened the door he fell down unconscious and they carried him to his bed, letting the affairs of state pile up even more.

      * * * *

      When he was twelve, Ginna saw Tharanodeth for the last time. The Guardian had not sent for him for several weeks, and he was disturbed by the silence. There was no message. But then The Guardian’s man came to him and nodded, and he knew how to go and where. He found the old man lying in his bed, and for the first time Tharanodeth seemed truly old to him. His long white beard seemed scraggly, no longer smooth and fine; his face was shrunken and pale; his bones were like a stark wooden frame over which a thin blanket of flesh had been draped.

      Charms made from the skulls of men and animals hung from the bedposts. An intricately carven staff of polished ebony leaned against the

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