Stargate by Pauline Gedge Page B

under my hands, damp, limp, cold. As he stood there a picture came into his mind. He saw Sholia walking along the wide paved road that ran down through her city’s tall buildings to the harbor, her escort fell in behind and before her, carrying flags embroidered with Shol’s two suns, the gold thread and blue background shining as the wind pulled them taut. Her people came running, and they bowed before her, worshiping. She waved, pacing lightly and slowly down to where her ocean sparkled, sapphire and white. Sapphire and white, Ixelion thought, coming to himself. Her people honor her, pile gifts before her, fete her in great ceremonies, yet she is no more powerful than I, her brother. The water swirling about his ankles suddenly filled him with distaste, and he strode forward shouting, “Light! Give me light and warmth!” Immediately the sun responded. He ran quickly through the hall, along his passages, up his stairs, until he found himself beside the deep pool high above Ixel. Out beyond the rim of the huge window his world lay clasped in an embrace of rain and dimness. Is it still there? he asked himself breathlessly. Is it still safe? Walking softly, as though not to disturb something dreadful and unnamed, he went to his chest and, dropping on one knee, raised the lid. It was still there, resting innocently in shadow, a small gray metal box with a hinged, rimless lid. For a long time he gazed at it, many thoughts flitting through his mind, behind them all a growing desire to hold it, cradle it, that same desire that had flared new and hot when Falia spoke of it. A treasure of death. Did the secret of death, then, lie under his gaze?
    Finally he lifted a hand, and the lid of the chest banged shut. Sighing, he rose and stepped into his pool. The water closed over his head like a waiting caress. He sank to the bottom and lay on his back, his breath stilled, his eyes open, his hands moving with the minute swells caused by the river that fell down the wall and splashed into the pool. He did not direct his mind, did not know what thoughts to command. He saw Sillix, and the dying fish. He saw Danarion’s face, watching him at the council table. He saw himself, walking up the steps of Falia’s palace, whole and free, unfettered by despair, greed, or anger, and he saw himself walking down again, Falia behind him, his mind already sown with the Unmaker’s will. Then, all at once, he was on Shol, standing at the foot of the mountains, green fields stretching away before him, rippling in wind and sunlight. His hair was warm and flowing free, his feet were sunk in warm earth. He smelled the dryness, the heat, the strong twin suns pouring over him undiluted. “Oh,” he breathed, lifting face and arms to the burning blue sky. “Oh, what delight, what unutterable pleasure.” Blue and white, not gray, not gray … Ixel was a wet, cold dream, dissolving in his mind like its own mists. Sholia should share this world with me. She has two suns, after all. I do not belong on Ixel, a poor world where my sun and I can never meet face to face.
    Light as a bubble, he drew his feet out of the soil’s grip and glided forward, scented wind filling him with intoxication, sun glittering in his pale eyes. He floated over the fields toward the lip of the cliff he somehow knew was there, and suddenly the ocean was below him, a rich carpet of blue and green, whitecaps dazzling to his unaccustomed gaze. A ship was passing the headland, whitewash gleaming as its prow split the water, its golden sails billowing. Singing rose to him faintly, calling up a vast longing within him, an unformed sadness. Just as he was poised to drift down closer to the ship, he found himself looking up through cool greenness, surrounded by the quiet words of the water in his pool.
    He rose in one clumsy, anguished movement, jealousy curdling inside him, his nostrils still quivering with Shol’s sweet, hot air. I did not