Zelazny, Roger - Novel 07 Read online

  BRIDGE OF ASHES

  Roger Zelazny

  For Sally Turner

  and

  Sally Albaugh

  Contents

  Part I

  Part II

  Part III

  Part IV

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Part I

  Day was the—

  It—

  ... Saw the man, is—

  ... Man is moving through the woods. With him a band of others, hunters all. They are clad in the skins of animals. They bear sharpened sticks, fire-hardened. Mine is tipped with stone and decorated with a tracery of lines, inscribed with the point of the flint knife which hangs from the strip of leather about my—his waist. He wears leaves in his hair, and a shining object hangs from a thong about his throat. It is a thing of power which he had brought with him from the land of spirits beneath the sea. He leads the men in the hunt, raven-haired father's father of them all. His dark eyes describe the circuit of the beast. Silent, nostrils flaring, the others walk in his track. The air bears a sometime hint of the salt and the wrack, of the not-too-distant shores of that great water, mother of us all. He raises his hand and the men come to a halt.

  He gestures again and they draw up on either side of him, crouching, spreading into a forward-curving arc. Then, once again, they halt.

  He moves. He adjusts his grip on the haft of his weapon. Then, suddenly, his hands are empty. There comes a roar of pain from the glade before him. At this, the others rush forward, their spears held ready. The man draws his knife and follows.

  He reaches the wounded beast—fallen and panting now, three of their shafts protruding from its side—in time to cut its throat. A cry goes up about him as the quick slashing movement is executed. The weapons are withdrawn from the carcass. The stealth of the hunt is gone, replaced by words and laughter. The man moves to dress their prize, dividing most of the flesh for transport, retaining some for the victory meal which is now at hand.

  The firemaker gathers tinder. Another fetches him dead limbs for fuel. Someone begins a nonmelodic song, a recitation with a lilt. The sun pushes its way toward the treetops. Small flowers unfold among the roots, the rocks, the fallen timber. There comes another whiff of the sea.

  As the man skewers chunks of the flesh and passes these to the firemaker, he pauses for a moment in mid-gesture and rests his fingertips upon the shining object he wears. It seems a trifle warm to his touch. The moment passes. He shrugs. He hands the meat to the other. He moves to cut more.

  There comes a sound—a deep, drawn-out hooting, breaking into a long, rising note which grows into a whistle, passes then beyond the audible, cuts a wake of vibration, showing that somewhere, strongly, it persists.

  After a time, this subsides and the hooting begins once more—louder, nearer. It is accompanied by a distant crashing and crackling, as of the passage of a heavy body amid the shrubs, the trees.

  The man places his hands on the ground and feels the vibrations within it. He rises to his feet.

  "Go!" he says to the others, and he takes up his spear. "Now! Leave the food! Hurry!"

  They obey him, fleeing the kill, the fire, leaving the man there alone.

  When they have departed, the man begins his retreat from the wood. The notes of the challenge have run through yet another cycle and the forest still echoes with the sound of their passage.

  When the hooting comes again, it is with such force and volume that it is felt as much as heard. The man hurries toward the meadow his party had crossed earlier. There had been a rocky knoll in its midst. ...

  He breaks into the open, running toward the hillock.

  From the thunder at his back, he is already aware that he will be unable to attain a sufficient vantage in time to roll rocks down upon his pursuer.

  He races toward a stony cleft, slips within it and turns, crouching.

  The reflected sunlight dazzles his eyes, bouncing and dancing on the countless scales of its long, lithe body, flat tail, crooked limbs, homed head. It plows deep furrows in the meadow as, belly low, legs splaying, it propels itself with an awful power directly toward him. Neither sapling nor boulder causes it to swerve from its course. The tree is splintered, goes down, vanishes beneath it. Its head turns from side to side as its horns encounter the stone. The boulder begins to move, almost imperceptibly at first; the stone is rocking, more and more of its damp underside exposed at each teetering shift; it is cast, rolling off to the left, with a final toss of that sea-wet thick neck, sun-rich and throbbing with a great new hooting shriek, blasting dust and gravel before it, continuing the sidewise swimming strokes which bury each limb in the earth as they drive it on.

  The man braces the butt of his spear against the stone. He searches that blazing body for some flaw, some imperfection, some weakness. He makes his decision and aligns the point of his weapon. He squints against the blown dust. His ears ache from that high-pitched cry. He waits.

  Moments later, his spear is shattered and the rocks about him are shaken by the impact. He flattens himself against the rear of the crevice as a horn drives toward him. The horn stops inches short of his belly.

  Now, it begins to throw its weight from side to side, spatulate legs continuing their paddlelike movement, body ringing like a great bell each time that it strikes against the stone. The man smells the dried brine upon its armored hide. He is nearly deafened by the new cry it emits. He stabs at its tossing head, but his flint blade is broken in his hand. He feels the rocks shudder again. He clutches at his amulet, now burning hot upon his breast.

  The next thrust penetrates his side, and we scream as we are impaled and lifted—thrown....

  Pain and breaking. Blackness and pain. Blackness. Light. Has the sun moved higher? We are wet with our own bright blood. The beast is gone. We are going. Here, alone, among the grasses ... Insects circle us, walk upon us, drink of us. A jagged mount of bone has risen from the continent of my body, snow-capped.... I—

  Blackness.

  The man awakens to the sound of their wailing. They have returned to him, his children. They have brought her with them, and she cradles his head in her lap, weeping. She has strewn him with herbs and flowers and wrapped him in a bright garment. He smiles to her and she touches his brow. His amulet has grown cold. His awareness begins to fade once more. He closes his eyes, and above him she begins to sing the long lament. At this, the others turn and move away, leaving them there alone. There is love. We—

  I—

  There is a flash of blue, a circle of white. ..

  The beast has returned to its place.

  And of self the—

  —to old be. Was the—

  ... Man by the seaside. See—

  ... Drawing is the man in the damp sand. Power. His eye the binder of angles. His I— Opposite and adjacent, of course. Where the line cuts them. At hand, the sea forms green steps and trellises, gentle, beneath the warm blue sky; gentle and unnoticed, as he scribes the circle. For seventy-some years has he known the sea near Syracuse, here in Sicily. He had never been far from this sea, even in the days of his studies in Alexandria. It is not surprising then that he can ignore its wash, splash, spray, its plays of light and color. Clean sea, living sea, a touch of deafness and a totality of concentration, and the sea is as distant and abstract as all the grains of sand he reckoned to fill the universe, displaced about all bodies within it in accordance with the law he had determined in the matter of the purity of the King's crown, that day he ran naked from his bath shouting he had found it.... The sea and the sigh of the sea at the side of the sea ... Now, now very few things matter but the relationships between forms. The pulleys, the pumps, the levers, all of them clever and useful in their time. But S
yracuse has fallen. Too many Romans this time even for the mirror-trick. And does it really matter? The ideas outlive their embodiments. The ingenious devices were only toys, really, flitting shadows of the principles he had cast for with nets of thought. Now, now ... This one ... If a relationship between things, between events, could be expressed in a great number of small steps . . . How many? Many . . . ? Few . . . ? Any. Any number desired. And if there were a boundary of some sort... Yes. A ... A limit. Yes. Then up to that point, any number of steps ... As we had done with it and the polygons. Only now let us take it a step further. . . .

  He does not see the shadow of the man on the sand to his left. The thoughts, the deafness, the promise of the Roman commander Marcellus that he would not be harmed ... He does not see, he does not hear the question. Again. Look up, old man! We must answer! The blade comes out of the scabbard, and again there are words. Respond! Respond! He traces another circle, idly, thinking the steps of change within limits, groping for the new vocabulary its expression will require—

  The stroke!

  We are pierced. We fall forward.... Why? Let me—

  My eyes fall upon that final circle. There is a soft blue all about it. Not of the sea, the sky... There is—

  Now, now, now . . . The pain, the waste of it all . . .

  I, Flavius Claudius Julianus, he thinks, pacifier of Gaul, Emperor of Rome, last defender of the old gods, pass now as they have passed. Pity, Lord of the lightnings, and thou, shaker of the earth and tamer of horses, and thou, lady of the grain fields, and thou, thou ... all ye other lords and ladies of high Olympus .. . pity, pity, pity that I could not have served you better, oh lovers and holders of the world and its trees and grasses and wet holy places, and all things fleet and crawling, flying and burrowing, all that move, breathe, touch, sing and cry I could have served you better had I stayed at Ctesiphon, laying siege to that great city, than cross the Tigris to seek King Sapor in this waste. For here I die. This wounding's mortal, and all the Persian army rings us round. Hot, dry, desolate land . . . Fitting. A place like this perhaps, where the Galilean went to be tempted ... Is this irony necessary, new Lord? You have wrested the earth from its keepers to throw it away.... It is another world you claim to lead them to.. .. You care no more for the green, the brown, the gold, the glades, the glens, than this dry, hot place of rock and sand ... and of death. What is death to you? A gateway ... To me it is more than my end, for I have failed. . . . You slay me as the children of Constantine took my kin.... For yours this may be a gateway, for me it is the end.... I see where my blood pools.... I give it to the Earth— Gaea, old mother. ... I have fought and I have finished Old ones, I am thine—

  The blood's red ring is bleached. About it, for an instant, a blueness. A roaring seems to begin. He. He. He ... I—

  Tell me if anything is ever done This then, I—

  He stares from the window, sorting the motions of the birds. Spring has come to Rome. But the sun is falling and the shadows lengthen. He sorts the colors, the shades, the textures. Had I this city to build, I would have done differently. ... He regards the clouds.

  But then it might never have been done He leans his head back against the wall, runs his fingers through his beard, tugs at his lower lip. There were so many things. ... To fly, to go beneath the seas, to build palaces and marvelous devices, to channel rivers, to plumb all the laws of nature, to merge the scientific and the esthetic, striving perpetually within me, getting in each other's ways ... Yet there were many things done for Ludovico, only all of them trifles. The Great Horse

  ... He would have liked to have seen that carried to completion. Sad, how the opportunities invariably arose at the wrong times. Or if things did seem to be going right, that something always came to cancel them. So many things that might be of use. It is as if the world resists And now ... The Magnificent Giuliano de Medici dead this March past... There is little to hold me here now, and this new French king has spoken of the manor of Cloux, near Amboise, a pleasant place— and no duties. . . . Perhaps the rest would be good, to think, to pursue my studies. I may even paint a little

  He turns from the window, retreats. There is a white circle on that field of blue, though the moon is not yet risen. He might— I—

  Tell me if anything is ever done....

  . . . And she sings the lament as he lies bleeding.

  The beast is returned to the sea. She brushes away insects. She cradles his head in her lap. There is no movement. He does not seem to breathe.

  Yet some warmth is in him still....

  She finds more words.... Trees and mountains, streams and plains, how can this thing be? He whose sons and sons' sons have hunted among you since before the hills were made ... He who has spoken with the powers beneath the sea ... How can he pass as men have passed into the land of dreams? Rend yourselves, hide yourselves, spill yourselves over, weep . . . if the son of the land can walk it no more.

  Her voice carries across the meadow, is lost among the trees.... Pain, pain, pain... I—

  Drunk again. Who cares? Perhaps I am as worthless as they say, a dirty Swiss madman. ... I saw and I spoke. It is they who are mad, who do not listen. . . . Yet... Nothing I have said has been taken right. Suppose it is always to be so? Suppose . . . Damn Voltaire! He knew what I meant. He knew I never intended that we all go live in the woods! Out to show his wit at the price of an idea ... Natural, within society, is what I said—over and again Only in society can man have knowledge of good and evil. In nature he is merely innocent. He knew! I'll swear he knew, damned mocker! And damn all popularizers of a man's work! The perversity of costumed dandies playing at the simple ... Th6rese! I miss you tonight.... Where is that bottle? There ... Seek goodness and God and order in nature and in the heart... and in the bottle, I should have added. The room swims well tonight. There are times—damn these moments—when it all seems worthless, all, all that I have done and all else in this mad world. Who cares? At times, I seem to see so clearly. . . . But . . . The faith of a Savoyard Vicar is not mine tonight.... There have been times when I feared that I was truly mad, times else when I doubted some thought or other Now I fear that it does not matter whether I am mad or sane, right or wrong. Does not matter in the least. My words are cast into the Fohn, strewn, effectless, gone. . . . The wind blows on, the world goes as it will, coursing the same route it would have taken had I never been at all. . . . Bacche, benevenies gratus et optatus, per quern noster animus fit letificatus. ... It does not matter that I saw and spoke. It does not matter that those who scorned me may be right. It does not matter....

  Head resting on outflung arm, he regards the bottom of the bottle. We see it go white in the flickering light, and all around it blue. . . . We spin. We—

  Aiee! she cries, shaking, the lament done, the blood drying, the body still and pale. And again, as she throws herself upon him and clings to the once-warm form. Air rushes from my lungs with a noise like a sob. The pain!

  The pain ...

  . . . But there is nothing left. My hopes—the dreams of a fool ... I welcomed this thing when it came.

  The old order, into which I, Marie Jean Antoine Nicholas Caritat, was born Marquis de Condorcet, had had its day and darkened it Long ago had I seen that, and I welcomed the Revolution. But three years past was I seated in the Legislative Assembly. And the terror .. . But one year past, because I favored Gironde, did I fall from grace and flee the Jacobins. . . Laughable. Here I sit, their prisoner. I know what must come next, and they shall not have it of me. Laughable—for still do I believe Everything I said in the Sketch

  ... That man may one day be free from want and war, that the increase and the spread of knowledge, the discovery of the laws of social behavior, may bring man toward perfection ... Laughable—to believe this and plot to cheat the guillotine this way ... Yet, moderation is not the way of revolution, a thing we humanists who get involved often learn too late I still believe, yet these things seem farther off than once they did. . . . Let us hope that that i
s all there is to it. ... I am weary. The entire business tedious ... I find that I am of no further use here. ... It is time to write an ending and close the book. . ..

  We make the final preparations. At the moment of pain, I—he ... We see through a blue haze dimly a pale circle upon the wall....

  Now, now again, ever and always ... The pain and the broken body she clutches, breathing into the mouth, beating upon my breast, rubbing his hands and neck ... As if by this to call back, as if by this to share her spirit in her breath ...

  The ground is sharp beneath our shoulders, and there is pain as the breath rattles forth The blood will flow if I move again. He must stay very still.... The sun drops spears upon our eyelids....

  . . . Gilbert Van Duyn cast a final glance over his speech. A crutch, he thought. I already know what I am going to say, know exactly where I might depart from the text, and how. . . . Not really that important. The thing is already distributed. All I have to do is get up and say the words. Still. . . Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations is hardly the same as talking to a classroom full of students. I was less nervous in Stockholm, that day, eight years ago. . . . Strange, that the Prize means so much. . . . Without it, someone else would be reading this—or something very like it. . . . And it probably would not have made that much difference. ... The main thing is to get it said. ... He ran his hand through what remained of his hair. How will the voting go, I wonder? They all say it should be close. ... I just hope the ones we are concerned about can take a longer view, be willing to see beyond the surface inequities. . . . God! I really hope so....

  The speaker was nearing the end of his introduction. A soft undercurrent of murmurs the texture of half a hundred tongues still flowed across the hall, fading as the moments ticked by. Soon, soon now ... He glanced at the speaker, the clock on the wall, his own hands....

  The speaker concluded, turned his head, gestured. Gilbert Van Duyn rose and moved to the microphone. He smiled as he placed the papers before him. A momentary pause ... He began to speak....