The Weird Fiction MEGAPACK ®. Darrell Schweitzer
plaster, and bricks. There was a splintered staircase that coiled out and ended in midair. An image of Surat-Kemad had been fixed to the floor and remained fixed, but now it stuck out horizontally into space. A lantern dangled sideways from the grey-green snout.
My host pushed me gently back onto the bed and I was staring into the face of a grey-bearded man. He squinted in the half-light, his face wrinkling. For a moment the look on his face was one of ineffable joy, but it faded into doubt, then bitter disappointment.
“No,” he said. “It is not so. Not yet…”
I reached up to touch him, to be sure he was real and alive, but he took my hand in his and pressed it down on my chest. Then he gave me my father’s sword, closing my fingers around the grip, and I lay there, the cold blade against my bare skin.
Then he said something completely astonishing.
“I thought you were my son.”
I sat up and this time sat steadily. I saw that I was indeed almost naked, my clothing completely shredded, and I was smeared with blood. Suddenly I felt weak again, but I caught hold of a bedpost with my free hand and remained upright.
I blurted, “But you are not my father—”
“Then we are agreed,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
Wind roared outside. The room swayed and creaked, the walls visibly shifting. More plaster, wood, and a sudden avalanche of human bones clattered around us, filling the air with dust. Tiles rained over my shoulders and back. The window overhead clacked back and forth.
I thought of the Sybil’s house. I looked to my companion with growing dread, but he merely shrugged.
“It’ll pass. Don’t worry.”
When all was once again still, I said, “I am Sekenre, son of Vashtem the sorcerer.”
He hissed and drew back.
“Then I fear you!”
“No,” I said. “I’m not a sorcerer myself.” I started to explain, but he waved his hand, bidding me to cease.
“You are a powerful sorcerer indeed. I can tell! I can tell!”
I concluded that the man was mad. What could be more natural, after all I had been through, than to meet someone who was mad? If he thought I was a sorcerer, there was no sense dissuading him.
I placed my father’s sword across my legs, then folded my arms across my chest, and directed toward him what I hoped was a stern gaze.
“Very well. I, a sorcerer, command you to explain yourself.”
He spread his hands and looked helpless. “Sorcerer, I don’t know where to begin—”
“Why did you think I was your son?”
He moved over to the broken statue of a bird and sat on the flat space where the head had once been. He did not answer my question, but sat still for several minutes. I thought he had forgotten me and had fallen into some sort of reverie. I stared up at the dangling window, then toyed with the sword in my lap.
At last he sighed and said, “What do you know of where you are, sorcerer and son of sorcerer?”
I told him something of my history, and he only sighed again and said that I was a mighty sorcerer for all I was yet an ignorant one.
“Then teach me,” I said.
“When your mother left you,” he said, “that was because she could not pass beyond Leshé, the realm of dreams. Because she had never been prepared for burial, she could not truly enter the land of the dead. There are four realms; you must understand this. Earth is the realm of Eshé, the world of living men. But our dreams arise from the mists of the river, from Leshé, where the country of sleep borders the country of death. We see unquiet ghosts in our dreams because they linger in Leshé, as your mother does. Beyond is Tashé, the true domain of the dead, where all dwell in the places the god has appointed for them.”
“And the fourth realm?”
“That is Akimshé—holiness. At the heart of the god, in the mind of the god, among the fiery fountains where even gods and worlds and the stars are born—that is Akimshé, holiness, which may not be described. Not even the greatest of the prophets, not even the sorcerers, not even the very gods may look on the final mystery of Akimshé.”
“But it’s still inside Surat-Kemad,” I said. “I don’t see how—”
“It is well that you do not understand. Not even Surat-Kemad understands. Not even he may look on it.”
I said very quickly, “I have to continue on my way. I have to find my father.”
And my companion said one more surprising thing.
“Yes, of course. I know him. He is a mighty lord here.”
“You—you—know him—?” I couldn’t say anything more. My thoughts were all a jumble.
“He dwells here in peculiar honor because he is a sorcerer,” the old man said, “but he must remain here, unique among the servants of Surat-Kemad, but a servant nonetheless.”
I got to my feet unsteadily. The remains of my trousers dangled. I wrapped them around my belt, trying to make myself at least decent, but there wasn’t much to work with. I slid the sword under the belt.
I stood there, breathing hard from the exertion, wincing as the effort stretched my lacerated sides.
“You must take me to my father,” I said.
“I can only show you the way.” He shook his head sadly.
“Where?”
He pointed up, to the open window.
“There?”
“Yes,” he said. “That way.”
“But—” I walked across the room to a door now sideways in the wall, and opened it, lowering the door against the wall. I stared through at a dense sideways forest, the forest floor rising vertically to one side, the trees horizontal. There was a glowing mist among the trees, like fog at sunrise before it melts away. Brilliantly-plumed birds cawed and fluttered in the branches. Warm, damp air blew against my face and chest.
The gray-bearded man put his hand on my shoulder and led me away.
“No,” he said. “You will never find your father through that door.” He pointed to the ceiling again. “That way.”
I started to climb, clumsly, my muscles aching. My right palm was numb where the guardian-serpent’s lips had touched me.
I caught hold of the image of the god, hooking an arm over it. Then pulled myself up and sat there astride Surat-Kemad, my feet dangling.
“You never answered my question. Why did you think I was your son?”
“It is a very old sorrow.”
I didn’t command him. “Can you…tell me?”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and gazed up at me. “I was called Aukin, son of Nevat. I dwelt far beyond any land you ever knew, beyond the mouth of the Great River and across the sea among the people you would call barbarians. I had a wife. I loved her very much. Is that a surprising thing, even for a barbarian? No, it is not. When she died bearing my first son, and my son too was dead in her womb, my grief was without bounds. The gods of my homeland could not comfort me, for they are harsh spirits of the forest and of the hills, and they do not deal in comfort. Therefore I came into your country, first to the City of the Delta, where I prayed long before the image of Bel-Hemad and gave the priests much gold. But he did not answer me, and when I ran out of money, the priests sent me away. So I wandered all along the Great River, in the forests, on the plains, among the marshes. I tarried with holy men in the high mountains. From them I learned to dream. They thought they