Dreams of the Compass Rose (18 page)

“
I saw death last night, chasing the thief,” said a solid woman guard, dropping in after sundown.

“
What else is new?” Belta lifted one dark eloquent brow as she arranged rows of newly washed mugs behind the counter.

“
What I don’t get is, why would any man want to tangle with death itself?” said someone.

“
Possibly because he is a half-wit?” put in Belta.

“
But even more curiously, why doesn’t death catch up with him once and for all?”

“
Aha!” spoke up Belta again. “But the thief has the scythe. It gives him a measure of death’s own powers, and allows him to keep just enough ahead to remain out of reach. Or so I’ve heard.”

“
You’ve heard? Who told you, Mistress Digh?” they all clamored.

“
Why, death itself, of course. Believe it or not, upon occasion it also visits this tavern.”

S
eert ran. The darkness of the night flew by, stars spinning out of their celestial sockets, edges of clouds torn asunder by the accompanying winds that arose on both sides of him.

Always, that hiss of air, all around, and the universe spinning.

And always, that relentless shadow only fifty feet behind him.

Death.

He had learned its smell, could recognize it now, like a hound. And yet Seert continued running, clutching in his hands a fine slim crescent of silver metal—unknown metal, to tell the truth. He had never had time to slow down, to look closely at the impossible perfect thing in his hands, at its razor edges, fine like rice paper, and its surface, like rose petals. . . . Deceptive.

He had not slowed down for one moment, ever since that day—or was it night?—that moment when crouching by
her
deathbed he had waited for the soft breath of the shadow, waited until death grew prominent. And then, as it leaned over
her
pale sweet dying brow, then he pounced forward with a cry of madness and took hold of the crescent blade that had drawn just near
her
soft slender throat. . . .

He tore the scythe blade off its handle, and in that moment his fingers bled, for he had cut himself.

Why did he not die then? Maybe because he fathomed the mystery, the truth of it.

This scythe had not been meant for him. Thus, it would not harm him.

But yes, like all sharp things cutting skin, it made him bleed, and what came softly from his vein was pale and colorless, and unlike what he’d expected—for by touching the scythe he had been changed. Thus for an instant he looked down upon his barely stained fingers, and wondered madly if indeed vapor had always run in him, not blood. . . .

But no, he remembered. It was merely apathy, death trying to paralyze him in that moment of insolence. And the thought of blood made him remember
her
name, the name of the woman who had lain dying, and now would not.

The ancient meaning of the woman’s name was “blood,” Ahiroon.

And he was on the run now, and always would be, because of her.

“
O
ne cool evening,” Belta Digh said, “a tall stranger came into my tavern.”

“
Who was he?”

“
Not he. A woman. She was as tall as me but thin. And I never got a chance to see her eyes, only the silver sheen of her skin. Well, death has no eyes, they say. But death does appear to drink a mug or two.”

The listeners made avid noises of appreciation, and Belta continued with her tale.

The strange woman, it appeared, had come in for but a moment, planning to drink her mug and leave. But something cozy about Belta’s establishment, not to mention the pungency of her brew and the lateness of the hour, made the stranger linger, and finally spill her own unbelievable confession.

The woman was death. And death, cursed ages ago by the goddess Risei-Ailsan, had been robbed of a certain scythe. The potent curse of Ris caught up with her at last, and this scythe was taken by a young man, crazed by tragedy and an overabundance of love for a young dying woman. And because of the nature of it, now the young woman would never die, and death could never catch up with the young man, were she to chase him until the end of the world.

There were oohs and aahs of awed wonder, as the listeners settled in closer to hear Belta Digh’s mesmerizing voice.

“
Poor death . . .” someone said.

But then someone else boxed the first speaker on the ear.

“
Poor nothing!” said Belta. “Poor us! Woe to us all! For while death has many scythes, one for each and every one of us, only our own scythe can bring our blessed end. We will all continue dying in our own time—that has not been changed. However, by withholding that one young woman’s scythe, the whole world will be delayed in the final accounting hour. Or so said death to me.”

“
S
eert! Stop running. Seert . . . Let me speak to you!”

He heard death’s cries continuously in his head now, memorized the very timbre of her haunting voice.

And he ignored it firmly, while his legs continued pumping, endlessly, tirelessly, as he skimmed lightly over the earth.

How much time had gone by, he did not know. And in truth it no longer mattered. He had ceased feeling anything, lost track of his very pulse, the feeling of breath being drawn.

There was only that wan razor-sharp crescent of unknown metal, held firmly between his fingers. . . .

That, and the knowledge that Ahiroon would live now, forever.

“
Seert!”

The eternal shadow was just behind him. He could see the billowing edges of its cloak, rolling in the wind like storm clouds racing upon the sky.

He turned his head, and deliberately laughed, his mouth open into the wind, laughed at it. There.

“
Seert. . . . You, whose name in the ancient tongue means an intense loyal heart. . . .”

Death’s voice continued, pleading with him softly, always pleading.

“
Don’t you know that you also will never die now? And yet neither will you live. Only continue running from me. . . .”

He ignored her, his arms pumping back and forth in a rhythm of magic, while the world around blurred with motion.

“
And neither will
she
live, truly, the woman you love . . .” whispered death. “It was her time, and her body had been wrecked with illness. Give her peace, Seert! Both of you are only deluding yourselves and postponing the inevitable!”

“
Shut up, dark Hag!” he exclaimed. “Nothing you’ll ever say will change my mind. I will run thus until the universe falls around me! If that is what it takes to buy life for my Ahiroon!”

In answer, death once again moaned sadly, and continued calling out his name.

S
omewhere in the part of the city where gold was not uncommon, a bedroom window was opened to the sweet air of night, and orange candlelight streamed out like a fan of brightness.

Death came into this bedroom softly, and leaned over the shoulder of a pale emaciated young woman, propped up by a mountain of pillows and reading a thick old book.

“
Ahiroon . . .” whispered death.

“
Why hello again, pathetic Hag,” said the young pale woman in a strong living voice, raising but one brow archly, and continuing to read.

“
At least look at me, Ahiroon!” said death sadly.

The young woman put down her book, and then looked up with exasperation. “What now?”

Death sighed, then took in the appearance of the young woman. “You look very thin and pale, Ahiroon. Skin and bones. Have you been eating, at least?”

“
And what is it to you?” the young woman snapped at her. She then lifted an extremely bony wrist and with surprising strength yanked death painfully by the vaporous hair.

“
There,” said Ahiroon. “How do you like that, ugly Hag? Do you realize I can do anything to you now, and you could never do anything to me? How does it feel to have the tables turned, for once? Oh, and would you like a cup of tea?”

“
Tea will be fine, thank you,” said death, settling down at the woman’s bedside while Ahiroon rang for a servant. “Yet this is all an illusion, Ahiroon, you must realize. Your strength is not real. Your poor ill flesh has been frozen in a moment of time, that is all, and you will never again get better.”

“
Hrumph!” said Ahiroon.

“
Would you like to spend eternity in this bed, reading books?” continued death. “Seeing endless sunsets and dawns and afternoons displace each other until boredom eats you alive? Your cheeks will never be pink again, and your eyes, lovely though they are, will be forever glassy. The hands that lie on the coverlet will always shake slightly as you turn the pages. You will always rely on others to help you walk even a few steps. Is it worth it, to exist like that?”

“
There’ll be time to read a million wonderful books,” said Ahiroon with a shadow of a smile. “More books than any single person in history has ever read or will read. I will read them all!”

“
And what then? After the last book is written, then read, and the world comes to an end, what will you do with your existence?”

The servant came in bearing an aromatic pot, and Ahiroon personally poured a cup for her unwelcome visitor.

Death swallowed a bit, then moved a shadow lock from her pale grand forehead. “Ahiroon. . . . Don’t you feel sorry for poor Seert? He loves you so much that he has in all effect given up the rest of his own existence. Even now, he is running from another manifestation of me, holding tight your scythe. He stole it to give you life, and yet you can never be together, you and he. . . .”

For the first time, Ahiroon put down her own cup and stared at death, a kind of intensity beginning to brim in her glassy eyes.

“
Once again, I ask you to reconsider . . .” said death softly.

“
Never!” exclaimed Ahiroon, with more angry passion than death thought her capable of.

“
At least have pity on him, the one you love! For love of you, he cannot and would not stop running!”

And then Ahiroon began to laugh. A terrible wheezing sound, as from an animated corpse. “I,
love
him? I? I never said I wanted to be with him, not for a moment!” exclaimed the young woman, laughing wildly. “I simply want to live, and he—the fool who can’t take no for an answer—he wants to love me! A great arrangement, I say! Let him love me and run for all eternity! Don’t you understand, Hag, that I just want to be free? Free of him, free of you! Not to be loved, but to be
free,
and to be my own!”

Death stared in sudden quiet understanding at the young woman. Stared at her blazing glassy eyes, her trembling hollow cheeks, her mass of cobweb hair. . . .

“
Very well . . .” said death then, and was gone.

And Ahiroon, whose name meant blood, was left laughing hysterically, book forgotten, pale and bloodless as the sheets beneath her.

“
W
hat a terrible young woman, this Ahiroon!” several exclaimed, while Belta poured another round and collected their coins.

“
And what a noble loyal youth, this Seert! No wonder his name stands for ‘heart.’”

“
Yes, well . . .” mumbled Belta Digh. “I’d hold back judgment, if I were you.”

“
What happened then, Mistress Digh?”

And Belta told them the rest of her tale.

“
What happened? Why, death was so unsettled by this turn of events that she again came to my tavern. And I, of course, gave her advice. Very simple, I told the silver-skinned one. Once and for all, you need to stop chasing the thief.”

S
eert ran through the blazing golden desert. Straight ahead, the disk of the sun floated like a great apricot in the liquid honey that was sky. And beneath the soles of his feet air warped, as heat rose from the white sands.

Was it only a mirage, or had the ever-present shadow trailing him disappeared somewhere behind, in the swirling waves of dunes?

And what of the voice? There was now a silence in his mind. And the whispers had quieted into the hum of the wind. . . .

Seert skimmed lightly over the sands, leaving no trace, lighter than the scampering legs of a scorpion. He continued to move into the disk of the sun, and looked behind him once only.

Strangely, he saw nothing.

A trick,
he thought.
The devious Hag is playing hide-and-seek with me. What if I oblige her?

And for the first time, Seert allowed the rhythm of his pumping heart, his flailing limbs, to differ. He slowed down after some time, and suddenly, like a shock, was back in the living cradle of the world.

Desert heat swept over him. The soles of his feet finally made impressions and sank into the sand. Seert walked for some time, stumbling, and then stopped altogether, while sweat ran down his clammy flesh.

He sat down then in the partial shadow of a roving dune, and stared at the bundle clutched in his arms.

In his grasp, the metal claw that was the scythe flashed like a razor in the sun. And as he blinked; once, twice, it shimmered, winking back at him, beckoning like mother-of-pearl.