Green Eyes

  A dark man-shaped thing floated in the marble pool, and the shadowy forms of Valcours’ other anthropomorphic toys were visible among the stripped branches of the shrubbery, leaning, arms outflung, like soldiers fallen in barbed wire while advancing across a no man’s land. Towering above them, some twelve or fifteen feet high, was a metal devil’s head, lean-skulled and long-eared. Its faceted, moonstruck eyes appeared to be tracking them, and its jaw had fallen open, giving it a dumfounded look. The rivets stitching the plates together resembled tribal tattoos.

  As he climbed up the last conical hill, a drop of sweat slid along his ribs and his mouth went dry. There was a terrifying aura of suppressed energy about the clearing. The floodlights were off, but the copper paths of the veve rippled with moonlight: a crazy river flowing in every direction at once. He forced himself down the hill and climbed up on it, feeling as though he had just strapped himself into an electric chair. Clea climbed on behind him. He was through warning her; she was her own agent, and he had no time to waste.

  He became lost in walking his pattern, in building his fiery tower, so lost that he did not notice Valcours had joined him on the veve until the fields began to evolve beyond his control, rising at an incredible rate into the sky. Valcours was walking alone on the opposite end of the veve, and from the movements of the bacteria, the height and complexity of the structure above them, from his understanding of the necessities of their patterns, Donnell judged they would reach their terminal junctions simultaneously. The knowledge that they were bound together wrapped him in an exultant rage. No one was going to usurp his place, his authority! He would write his victory poem in the bastard’s blood, cage a serpent in his skull. He had a glimpse of Clea trudging toward the man, her mouth opening and closing, and though the whine of the fields drowned out her voice, he knew she must be singing.

  Then the white burst of transition, the perfunctory holiness of a spark leaping the gap, and he was once again standing in the purple night and dusty streets of Rumelya.

  Somewhere a woman screamed, a guttering, bubbling screech, and as he cast about for the direction of the scream, he realized the town was not Rumelya. The streets were of the same pale sand; the Mothemelle loomed above the hunched rooftops; the buildings were constructed and carved the same, but many were of three and four stories. Looking to the east, he saw a black column. The splinter of Moselantja. This, then, was the high town of the river. Badagris. Where he was Aspect. Normally the streets would be bustling, filled with laughter-loving fools. Fishermen and farmers from upriver; rich men and their women stopping their journey for an evening’s festival; the cultus playing guitars and singing and writhing as they were possessed by the Invisible Ones. But not tonight. Not until the Election had been won. Then even he might relax his customary reserve, let the dull throng mill around and touch him, squealing at the tingle of his black spark.

  He wondered who had been incautious enough to accept candidacy this year. It was no matter. His fires were strong, he was ready and confident.

  Too confident.

  If his suit had not reacted, urging him to spring into a back somersault, he might have died. As it was, a beam of fire seared his forehead. He came up running from the somersault, never having seen his assailant, half-blind with pain and cursing himself for his carelessness. He cut between buildings, remembering the layout of the town as he ran, its streets designed in accordance with the Aspect’s seal. His strength confounded him. Even such a slight wound should have weakened him briefly, overloaded his suit, but he felt more fit than ever, more powerful. At last he slowed to a walk and went padding along, the sand hissing away from his feet. He was at one in stealth and caution with the crouched wooden demons on the roof slants, their fanned wings lifted against the starlight, and it seemed they were peering around the corners for him, scrying dangers. One day, when he finally lost an Election, his image would join theirs in some high place of the town. But he would not lose this Election.

  Turning onto the Street of Beds, he saw a body lying in front of the East Wind Brothel, an evil place offering artificially bred exotics and children. The body was that of a girl. Probably some kitchen drudge who had wanted a glimpse of combat. It happened every year. Beneath the coarse dress, her bones poked in contrary directions.