Orbelon's World (Book 3) (12 page)

   'The Orbsword has magical properties, I don’t deny that,' said Leth. 'But I have none.'

   Lakewander made no comment. They walked on, Leth in a daze, hardly aware of where he went. The passed along further passages then into a round tower, up a long winding stairway until they arrived at length before a door which Lakewander opened to admit them into a high circular chamber with a domed ceiling made almost entirely of glass.

   'The observatory,' announced Lakewander.

   Leth was gazing upwards, through the glass, which was almost flawless and clearer than any that could have been manufactured in his own land. He gazed in wonder at the night sky.

   Lakewander stood close beside him. 'From here we observe and note the movements of the Godworld.'

   Leth's eyes had been drawn to the single celestial body visible. It hung low above the - as he judged it - western horizon, a brilliantly radiant object, oval in form, which resembled a colossal and fabulously lustred blue-white gem. He was transfixed for some moments, for it was a beautiful and mysterious sight.

   'Our world is Orb,' Lakewander said, 'and we are guided by the great Orb of the Godworld. It sustains us, it gives us its light, and from time to time, if our need is so great, it sends one of its own to walk among us.'

   Leth glanced aside at her. She was observing him closely. He turned back to the great star. Something else caught his eye. There was another starlike thing, he now saw, far smaller, emitting a bright golden light, lying below and somewhat south of the Orb of the Godworld. 'What is that?'

   'That is the World's Agony,' said Lakewander. 'It appears only occasionally, and without herald. But when it comes we know something momentous will occur.' She was silent for some moments, but when no question came she said, 'This time it brought us you.'

   Leth swallowed. He looked at the twin stars, if stars they were, and he felt anguish, though he was not quite sure where it came from.

   'Gaze as long as you wish, Swordbearer,' Lakewander said. 'I’ll await you outside and escort you back to your chambers when you have done. And tomorrow I will show you the End of the World.'

ii

   The night was well-advanced. Leth lay on his back in the bed provided for him within his apartment. Sleep eluded him; his mind threw itself from one set of memories, one concern, one experience, to another. He had lingered long in the observatory high above, staring at the unworldly night sky and the two strange and entrancing bodies it held. He had asked no further questions of Lakewander, though his brain teemed with enquiry. It seemed that anything he asked, of Lakewander or her two companions, was answered only in terms of conundrums, ellipses or evasions, vexing him further and setting more distance between him and the answers he sought. So he had come from the observatory in a state of deep reverie and abstraction. When Lakewander left him at his door, bidding him goodnight, he hardly noticed her departure.

   He lay alone in darkness, darkness so complete in this soundless, windowless place that he could well imagine himself to be adrift in some unearthly void, deprived of all sensation save that of thought. And again the notion came to him that he was no longer among the living. This was night without end. His thoughts were those of the disembodied, the recently dead. They filtered from him as his soul, accustomed to flesh, gradually grew to accept its new - or former - state, and when all conscious thought had gone he would be absorbed
into. . . what? Non-existence - the mystery of what lay beyond life.

  
No!
Again he rejected these notions.
I am a living man! I am Leth, King of Enchantment's Reach! I have not died! I am in another world, and I will return!

   There was a sound, and Leth was instantly alert. The handle of the door to his apartment grated lightly as it was turned from outside. Leth reached for the Orbsword which lay in its scabbard beside the bed.

   He could see, through the open portal that let into the main chamber, that the door had now opened. The deep yellow glow of a lamp illumined a tall figure which entered silently, closing the door behind it. It approached the bedchamber, clad in a robe of some dark material which fell almost to the floor. Long fair hair framed the face, falling past the shoulders. Leth recognized Lakewander.

   'Lord Swordbearer, are you awake?' She came to his bedside and looked down at him, smiling. 'Don't be alarmed. You do not need the Orbsword.'

   Lakewander placed the lamp upon a table beside the bed, then straightened, unfastened the cord that bound her robe at the waist and shrugged the garment from her shoulders. She stood naked before him. Leth gazed up at her. Her body, pale and shadowed, was magnificent, lit by the warm lampglow in tones ranging from deepest umber to saffron. Tiny downy hairs upon her flat belly glimmered in the light, her belly and breasts rose and fell in rhythm with her breathing. Her limbs were long, supple and well-toned. The breasts, though not large, were full and perfectly round, the aureolae dark circles, the nipples proudly erect. She bent to draw back the bedclothes and climbed in beside him. Leth smelt her fragrance, a blend of musk, the soft tang of orange blossom and woodland grass.

   'Lakewander--' Leth began, but her lips were on his, warm and searching, her long body pressed against his, deeply stimulating. Leth almost succumbed, so great was his need, so profound his anguish, his desire almost overriding all else. But he twisted his head away.

   'What’s the matter, Lord?'

   'I do not want this.'

   'Do I displease you?'

   'No.'

   Her hand slid between his legs and she took him in her fingers. 'And you desire me, that much is evident.'

   'You don’t understand.'

   'Will you not love me?'

   He thought:
through the act of love we affirm that we are alive.
And how desperately he needed such affirmation just now. He looked into her face, wanting her, drawn towards her lips, pulsing, yearning in her tender grasp. Her face was close again, her breast brushing his arm, her lips parted.

  
But this is not love! Issul! Issul!

   He turned away.

   'Lord?'

   'Lakewander, I don’t want to offend you, but this cannot be. Please understand.'

   'But why? If you desire me, as I desire you?'

  
'Isn’t it not obvious? There is another. My wife, my greatest friend, the mother of my children. The woman I love.'

  
Issul, Issul, I don’t even know if you are alive!

   'Lord, I think it’s you who does not understand.'

   'Please. This cannot be.'

   Lakewander removed her hand. He let out a breath, not wanting her to stop.

   'Your words tell me one thing, your body something quite different,' Lakewander said.

   Leth stayed silent. He was so close to reaching for her. Moments passed, filled with uncertainty,
then he felt her climb from the bed. He turned towards her as she slipped back into her robe. 'I’m sorry, Lakewander.'

   'I too, Lord,' she said, but her tone was not cold or terse. Rather, she seemed wistful, a little preoccupied. 'I don’t know what will happen now.'

   'What do you mean?'

   'This is not what was expected.'

   'Expected?'

   Her words suggested she had come here with the knowledge of others, even at their bidding. Leth was both curious and indignant. Was he the subject of an experiment or test of some kind?

   'Now we may have to reconsider,' she said. 'Goodnight, Lord. We’ll meet in the morning.'

   She took her lamp and left.

III

   In the morning Leth discovered a large pitcher and bowl of warm, scented water and soap in his chamber. Again he did not know who had left it. He washed and dressed, then left his chambers and made his way back to the room where he had spoken with old Master Protector the previous day.

   Master Protector sat alone at the table, a spread of various foods before him: oatflakes and warm milk, hot white bread rolls, butter, preserves of quince and blueberry, pancakes steeped in honey. 'Lord Swordbearer, greetings. I trust you slept well and find yourself refreshed.'

   'My sleep was broken by uneasy dreams, many questions and more,' said Leth. 'Still, in the end, I did sleep, and feel better for it.'

   'Well then I am both sorry and gladdened - sorry that beneath my humble roof you should find
sleep hard to come by, but glad that you found it in the end. Will you take breakfast with me?'

    Leth nodded his thanks and seated himself at the table.

   'You saw, last night, and you learned, did you not?' enquired Master Protector.

   'I saw a sky that was furrowed and valleyed like an unworldly landscape. I saw a massive jewel in the sky, the Orb of the Godworld, and the World's Agony at its side. I learned that this place is known by you as Orbia, and that it was so named long ago by the one you believe me to be. I learned also that this place is haunted by beings
who dwell within the very stone that forms it.' Leth glanced about the chamber walls, wondering how many ghostly entities listened in to this conversation. 'In short I saw wonders and mysteries, but learned little to enlighten me. It all seems much like a dream, and perhaps that’s all it is.'

   'All?' Master Protector smiled to himself, dabbing his thin bloodless lips with a napkin. 'If so, it is a dream from which there is no escape, except death, and who can say whether death is truly an escape?'

   His words chilled Leth, who glanced again at the walls. 'Death in your domain appears to be an experience unlike death in my own world. Do all of you become part of this when you pass on?'

   'All who are
Protectors.'

   'Then you are immortal.'

   'Orbia is immortal, Swordbearer. You more than anyone should understand that. But it is immortal only as long as no one knows how it may be destroyed. Ascaria, the Kancanitrix, is seeking to do that, and we know that she may be close upon her goal.'

   'Hence you would have me slay her first.'

   Master Protector sipped from a mug of steaming spiced posset. 'I see that the Orbsword remains buckled at your waist. I am thankful.'

   'You are premature. I have made no compact.'

   'Quite so. Yet you have not returned the Sword to us. Swordbearer, this is the only weapon that can slay Ascaria, and you are the only one who can bear it.'

   'No. Perhaps no other may draw the Sword, but as I said last
night, that need not preclude another's wielding it.'

   Master Protector shook his head. 'The energy of the Orbsword is harmful to any ordinary man. It would slowly weaken any other who bore it.
But not you. No, indeed, I see by your very bearing and the light that shines in your eyes that the Sword empowers you. Do you not feel it?'

   'I feel only anger and mistrust, and the desire to be away from here with my children, to our own home,' declared Leth with vehemence. 'You brought us here against our will; you allowed us to be separated; and now you blackmail me with their lives. I want nothing of this!'

   'No, Swordbearer, we didn’t bring you,' said Master Protector. 'You were dying and we offered you life. We showed you a way but you came of your own free will. Is that not so?'

   Leth hesitated. Strictly speaking, Master Protector was right. Yet there was more to it than that. 'You have said yourself that you summoned me!'

   'We call it the Summoning, but you yourself know it was not. It was more an opening of the way, and an offering of life. We knew from the conjunction of the World's Agony with the Orb of the Godworld that a being from the Godworld was trapped beyond the Sign. We opened the way to you, praying that it would be you, the Swordbearer, who came this time, and not some other, lesser being, as before. But it was not we who put you in the limbo in which you wandered. We do not possess that power.'

   'Then how--' Leth began.

   Master Protector was seized by a fit of coughing. For some moments he was unable to speak. Leth waited, and eventually the old man sat back, wheezing as he struggled to draw air. His thin, frail hands gripped the armrests of his chair. He shook his head, watering eyes turned upwards, and spoke in a thin voice. 'Surely you know more than we of the how and why you came to be there? If you did not choose to come, then you were sent in response to our need. Your children too. Nothing is by chance or hazard.'

  
Sent!
Leth thought of Enchantment's Reach, of Lord Fectur, Orbelon, Grey Venger.
Sent!
No, it had been pure coincidence that had cast him into Orbelon's world. Nothing was premeditated. But why was Orbelon not present? Why had he abandoned him?

   'You seem troubled, Swordbearer. I am sorry if my words bring you disquiet.'

   There are no answers, Leth thought. Every question just extends the mystery and the paradox. He thought of the furrowed night sky, deepest indigo, like an enclosing shell high above, enveloping this strange world. And he recalled the blue casket and reminded himself that somehow he and all of this world were contained within it, and he shook his head. In circumstances such as these how might he expect logic or rationality?