Songs of the Dying Earth

Rhialto added, “I suspect a sophisticated twist on the theme of the moths. The one to the left seems vaguely familiar.”

The Preceptor said, “She is showing you what the secret Rhialto wants to see. This trap consists of choice. You have to chose to touch. But if you do, you’ll have no time for regrets.”

“Te Ratje’s way. Destroy you by pandering to your weaknesses.”

Similar ghosts floated ahead. They formed an aerial guide to other magicians. Not all those ghosts were female or young.

A scream, yonder. A brilliant flash. Then a half minute of utter silence during which the ghosts hung motionless. Then a grinding began, as of hundred ton granite blocks sliding across one another.

Ildefonse stepped out vigorously. Alfaro, perforce, kept up. Rhialto remained close behind, muttering as he wrestled temptation.

11

Perdustin had screamed. Gilgad reported, “He touched a girl. Haze saw it coming. He interceded.”

Perdustin was down and singed but alive at the center of an acre of clear floor under the appearance of an open sky.

“And the girl?” Ildefonse asked.

“Shattered.” A red-gloved hand indicated a scatter that appeared to be bits of torn paper. “Sadly, none of the young ladies are any more real.”

“It’s all illusion,” Haze said, before retailing his version of events.

Ranks of gargantuan, dusty machines surrounded the acre. “Where did that come from?” Alfaro asked. “We saw none of it till we got here.”

Gilgad shrugged. “Things work differently inside Amuldar.” He was frightened. And, in that, he was not unique.

“What is that?” Morag indicated the sky, where alien constellations roamed. Where fine lines, plainly visible despite being black, waved like the tentacles of a kraken eager to feast on stars.

Someone said, “Ask Te Ratje when he turns up.”

A dozen pairs of eyes contemplated the wispy curve of pale green trailed by a sun that had set.

Ildefonse knelt beside Perdustin. Rhialto hovered. The other magicians grumbled because not one worthy souvenir had surfaced.

Alfaro glanced back. What about those books? Then he resumed studying the sky.

Saffron words, written on air, floated over his shoulder. YOU WITNESS THE EVOLUTION OF THE STARS. A MILLION GALACTIC YEARS PASS FOR EACH THREE MINUTES YOU WATCH.

Stricken, Alfaro watched black tentacles for a moment before he turned to face the oldest little old man he had ever seen. Liver spotted, nearly hairless, with a left eyelid that drooped precipitously. The left end of his mouth sagged, too. His wrinkles had wrinkles. He had an arresting nymphet under either arm. His toes dragged when they moved. They were no ghosts. Alfaro felt the heat coming off them. They would bleed, not scatter like bits of torn paper.

Alfaro watched the improbable: self-proclaimed fearless magicians of Almery and Ascolais began to mewl, to wet themselves, and, in the case of Nahourezzin, to faint. Though, to be exactly reasonable, his faint had exhaustion and prolonged stress behind it. Morag noted, too, some who were not obviously intimidated, the Preceptor and Rhialto the Marvellous among them.

12

“Te Ratje?” Rhialto asked.

The old man inclined his head. After a pause. He did not seem quite sure. More girls gathered to support him. Their touch did not inconvenience him.

“Their concern is intriguing,” Ildefonse murmured. “They exist at his will. And he isn’t healthy.”

Rhialto opined, “Even my formidable resources would be taxed were I tasked to entertain so many gems.”

Alfaro asked, “Who are they? They’re exquisite. Does he create them himself?” His own such efforts always turned ugly.

“No. Long ago he traversed time, harvesting the essences of the finest beauties and most accomplished courtesans, each at her perfect moment of ripeness: firm, unblemished, and a trifle green. He decants their simulacra at will.”

Ildefonse added, “Youth’s fancy.”

Rhialto said, “The girls are not precisely aware of their status, but do understand that they have been fished from time’s deep and are dependent on his affection for their immortality.”

Alfaro wondered, “Why is he so old?” By which he meant: Why had Te Ratje let himself suffer time’s indignities?

According to Rhialto, “His mind never worked like any other. Belike, though, this is just a seeming, like Ildefonse, or Haze, or Zahoulik-Khuntze with his illustrated iron fingernails.”

Alfaro examined the Preceptor. As ever, Ildefonse seemed a warm, plump, golden whiskered grandfather type. Had he a truer aspect?

The Good Magician became someone dramatically less feeble. He stood tall, strong, hard, saturnine, and entirely without humor. But his eyes did not change. They remained ancient and half blind. Nor did he speak.

Te Ratje stabbed the air with his left forefinger. His fingernail glowed. He wrote: WELCOME, ALL. ALFARO MORAG. SCION OF DESTINY. YOU HAVE BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. His lines were thirty characters long, floated upward to fade in tendrils and puffs of yellow-lime vapor.

“Always a showoff!” Herark the Harbinger sneered.