Now, Alcestis glides in, her face cold and n.o.ble, and settles inside the centre of the circle. Polyxena is lost now, swept up in the rhythm. They are all Alcestis"s to command, their minds laid open to the t.i.tans. And she"s beginning to speak the words that will redirect the energy that is being raised here, use it to shatter the prison gates.
The bull doesn"t attack. Of course it doesn"t. Even when she danced with it, that was only for show, a distraction, to a.s.sure the priestesses she was on their side. The whole rampage of the bulls, a means to drive away and distract those who could stop her.Oh, my child, you have learned.
And the G.o.ds start rattling inside the Doctor"s head.
Alcestis stands, like a statue in the centre as he reels. As the tremors build up, to a climax around her, every stone and bone in the sanctuary dancing. At last, she is unmoved.
The Doctor has dragged himself past the bull, arms stretched blindly at angles, ploughing into the circle of dancers. Crying out, stop, please stop, for the love of the world, please. But no matter how he tries to make the dancers stumble, the current of the dance pulls them onwards around him, the rhythm unbroken.She descends upon him. Gently she lifts him, feels him flailing unseeing against her, as she sweeps him away. Behind her, the dance continues to build. He stiffens when the wall of heat hits them from below, as she sails over the vast sea of fire. He clutches onto her, bare skin slick with sweat against hers, half-formed words tumbling endlessly from his mouth. Furious and helpless inside his own head. A hand fumbles at her throat for the pressure point, but the G.o.ds" gaze is robbing him of any hope of finesse. He must know by now put her to sleep and when she wakes she will be undaunted; any cage he puts her in, she can escape. She will not be stopped.
On the slope of the mountain, she eases him down, stands him on the path as he recovers his senses. Floats just above him and watches as he realises she hasn"t dropped him.
She points down the path. -Go. Get far enough away, whistle for your ship. (He just looks at her, gla.s.sily, then immovably. Frustration now.) -Would you really rather die than live with what you"ve done?
Like a polished shield, his face reflects the question right back at her. She forces herself to be calm; if she"s going to act for the G.o.ds, she needs their same sense of distance. -You might still make it to safety, she tells him.He shakes his head, slowly. -Don"t lie to me now.For an instant, she"s shamed. -There"s still a chance, she says, her voice quiet amidst the din. -I gave you every chance.His eyes are, meeting hers, dead-on. -As did I.The screams from above are fewer now. He"s breathing hard, looking around for an alternative, his eyes desperate with a thousand arguments, but there"s no more time, no more.
She turns, and soars back up toward the sanctuary. As she banks, she catches just a glimpse of him running up the path, towards the bull waiting at the peak, one hand to his head to try to hold it in place. Straining to make his way back as well.So be it.
She returns to the circle of priestesses to the furious speed of their dance, their strained honey voices helplessly singing up the end of the world. Their chant merging with the sound of a thousand pairs of wings, fluttering, gaining strength, turning into the boom of thunder, the sound of a great door creaking open.The bulls, flaring their last.The temple shaking, the priestesses stumbling but not stopping, and Alcestis untouched by the building tremors, floating half a foot off the ground, the words catapulting out of her, arms flung up, fists clenched, as though the whole of the G.o.ds" power must be driven up and through her body to its escape.The Doctor clutching onto her from behind.His arms crush her just below the ribs. She gasps with the shock, then recovers her place and starts forcing the last words out.The breath won"t come.She wheezes, struggles to speak, feels the built-up moment evaporating. Even the earthquakes are frozen. Around her the dancers are stumbling, staring at the two of them in horror.
He loosens his grip, but the pain doesn"t ease. She can"t hold herself up, she falls back against him, his arms cradling her now as he sinks to his knees. In his free hand he"s holding a blade, made of a strange grey metal stained with red, pointing straight towards the continuing pain just under her heart. The spreading red stain soaking through her white silk.His agonised whisper in her ear. -Why didn"t you stop?
Tableau: Alcestis, sprawled on the Doctor, one hand trying to hold in her lifeblood. The Doctor fallen backward on his knees, carrying her weight, the knife still in his hand. Both slick with sweat, gasping to breathe, amid the smoke and rubble and the h.e.l.lish light. Around them the dance, collapsed into chaos: priestesses descending on the Doctor in hysteria, but pulled away by surviving soldiers. Accusations flying this way and that he should die for killing her, she should die for killing the King, the King should die for his crimes against the G.o.ds and men, any or all of them guilty and justified.Amidst the spreading chaos, the two figures at the centre are perfectly still.
-How could you? she gasps.
-You wanted me to take responsibility. Accept the consequences. I"m responsible for you ...
But no matter how calm he keeps his tone, his voice sounds shakier than hers.
He shifts beneath her, trying to make her comfortable. Her shoulders have fallen back against his, his mouth reaching forward close to her ear, cruel in its intimacy. -There"s still a chance, he whispers, and her guts spasm. He actually wants to give her, comfort right after doing what he did. Right after proving that he could do to her what she hadn"t been able to do to him.
The pain is vast and sprawling, it smothers almost all other feeling. But she"s used to that. Since she learned the truth, she has lived like this, she has learned to let her rage overwhelm even that which threatens to overwhelm her.And if pain is what he wants to give, then pain it is.With a final effort she reaches for the currents. Instead of skimming across them, she dives headlong into them, as she did on that first day.
And when she vanishes, the Doctor is left kneeling among the ashes on the sanctuary floor, surrounded by people in search of answers. A sagging marionette, trying to hold on to something that"s no longer there.
She cannot see here, because there is nothing to see. The currents she drowned herself in have pulled her to a place of stillness: her whole body somehow immersed, but feeling no need to breathe, for while she hangs in this moment, she will never reach the moment, where she has run out of breath. This place is like jumping up and not falling back down again.
Here the G.o.ds whisper around her. She can feel their comforting fluttering, the rich, cool darkness of their presence. They are reaching out to her, their long spiny fingers reaching inside her wound, ageing it to wholeness. A hundred hands running over her, reshaping her body, soothing her mind, filling her with certainty as they mould her into their perfect instrument.
Throughout, she nurses the tiny diamond of fire within her, letting her fury give her purpose. This will not go unpunished, she vows. It will not end.
Five: Fall
Only a corner of the workshop is left intact a single wooden box,carefully sealed with a lock of his own design.
Inside the box is a collection of long, precise metal shapes, and a neat pile of patches of coloured cloth, carefully snipped from what was left of the parachute. The sc.r.a.ps cushion the wire cage: painstakingly precise curls of extruded metal combining into a shape that can be picked out only after a long time looking. At its centre, a single fire crystal, never touching the metal of the cage, suspended perfectly by its own matrix of energies.
Could anyone here make another of the cages? Not without the G.o.ds" help. They might intuitively grasp what"s needed, they might be able to puzzle out the materials, but they would never have the mathematics.
The rest of the workshop is a shattered wreck. The miniature furnace has been disa.s.sembled, the individual bricks smashed into chunks and dust, the fuel flung into the sea. Here and there are melted splashes of metal: tools and ingots alike, diluted with copper until there"s nothing left of steel in them. In the corner, the spygla.s.s, its lenses shattered and the pieces ground to powder. Even the wooden workbench has been attacked, lest it give away some secret of the alchemical goings-on it has seen. Nothing"s left of it but a dull glow, the last of the embers used to destroy the hut.
The Doctor scuffs a wave of dirt over the embers with his sandal, then another, until the last of the glow has turned to ash. He stands over the wreckage of his workplace, still holding a good bronze axe, a little nicked now, after this last bout of effort.
He tucks the axe under his arm, lifts the box, steps out of the ashy ruin into the daylight.Deucalion steps along the path towards the low smudge of woody smoke.
His coronation has just been handled by half a dozen dishevelled priestesses. Fumbling their way through the invocations, glossing over various G.o.ds in light of the morning"s events, dedicating themselves today to Poseidon in a temple built for Ocea.n.u.s. (Or approximately half a temple, overlooking a new creva.s.se.) They gave him his new kingly name, and took away his old one, but he still feels like a Deucalion.
Still, at least Deucalion had learned from the council sessions. When he stepped off the temple dais, he immediately asked the surviving courtiers and ministers to send a ship across to Akrotiri, to see what damage the earthquakes had done. He made it sound kingly and decisive, not just the instinctive reaction of an overgrown boy (is everyone all right?). everyone all right?). If nothing else, sending his courtiers bustling bought him the time he needed to slip away. If nothing else, sending his courtiers bustling bought him the time he needed to slip away.
After everything that"s happened, the destruction of the workshop doesn"t seem surprising: what"s more smoke in a sky full of smoke? Nonetheless, he calls out in alarm: -Perdix?
-Your majesty.
Deucalion turns, sharply. Perdix is standing behind him, body and hair smeared with soot, wearing a heavy cloak even in the mountain"s heat. He looks like a wild man, but his voice is soft. -Congratulations. How does it feel to be an unrivalled superpower?
Deucalion can"t answer that. -I need to know what to do, he says. But he catches himself before continuing, starts thinking it out the way Perdix has taught him. -We know who are responsible, who are threatening us, we need to know how to act against them.
-And then what?
Deucalion blinks. -What do you mean?
-If someone offers a way to fight the G.o.ds, how will you find a way tofight them?
Deucalion doesn"t know what Perdix is asking. He hopes it looks like he"s considering it thoughtfully. But Perdix isn"t looking at him, he"s scanning the sky as though for fresh disaster. -Careful who you"re strengthening. If you build up one wild force to tear down another ... Well, you saw how well that worked.It"s clear now. -So you think I might be setting myself up for a coup.Perdix presses his hands to his forehead in despair. -No, no, no. It"s not just about you.
-The people ... My people ...
-It"s all connected. You have to think beyond this moment.
-They"ll have to get used to living without the G.o.ds" blessings.
Perdix says: -The future will remember these days as a golden age, not a bronze one. But you know ...
-I know it can"t be sustained. So I have to ask the people to expect less?
Perdix nods. -They won"t love you for that. They"ll fight tooth and nail to sustain it anyway. You"ll have to teach them that they can"t take plenty as their birthright.
-So we lose our "golden age", says Deucalion hotly, -and then, at some future time, we lose everything. And what am I supposed to do? do?
-Learn from my mistake, your majesty. Have your hindsight first. Do the best you can, not just the best at the moment. Unless you learn to think outside the usual reactions, it does not end. does not end.
Deucalion swallows, and makes his first real decision as King. -I know what to do. Will you help me?
Perdix is whistling a foreign tune that Deucalion doesn"t recognise.
The teacher walks behind Deucalion. Everyone walks behind him two score of the royal men-at-arms, the very best and bravest. They wear no armour; they"d cook like crabs in the holy mountain"s hissing heat. Besides, no bronze protects from the G.o.ds, any more than it protects from old age. But Perdix insisted they bring their shields anyway. Nearnaked men march behind demon faces and swirling patterns.Perdix is singing to himself. -He marched them up, to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again.
Deucalion slows down, which means Perdix and everyone else, slows down. After a moment"s confusion, he commands: -Walk beside me.
Perdix catches up, with a couple of quick strides. Deucalion says: -I don"t care for your song.-I apologise, your majesty.The new King, lowers his voice. -We won"t be marching down again. Everyone here understands that.
Perdix says: -They"re not following you in despair, your majesty. They"re following you in hope. If you succeed today, you"ll have the reputation of a ruler who knows what to do.
For a moment, the long future flickers in Deucalion"s sight. -What shall I do then, Perdix? With my hundreds of stolen years?
-Learn.
-Of course, teacher.
-No, no, you don"t get it. Learn everything. Learn people, learn the past, learn possibilities. Learn what you don"t know. Learn what n.o.body knows. Learn that even the answers you"ve learned probably don"t fit the newest questions. Hundreds of years isn"t enough for you to learn everything about everything, but it"s a start. Crisis points pa.s.s, pa.s.sions burn away, wealth and power shrivel like flowers in a drought. But you"ll never find yourself, without a purpose so long as you go back to your wellspring of questions about what surrounds you. You"ll outlive any remnant of the days that made you, but you"re not likely to outlive your world. people, learn the past, learn possibilities. Learn what you don"t know. Learn what n.o.body knows. Learn that even the answers you"ve learned probably don"t fit the newest questions. Hundreds of years isn"t enough for you to learn everything about everything, but it"s a start. Crisis points pa.s.s, pa.s.sions burn away, wealth and power shrivel like flowers in a drought. But you"ll never find yourself, without a purpose so long as you go back to your wellspring of questions about what surrounds you. You"ll outlive any remnant of the days that made you, but you"re not likely to outlive your world.
He stops, suddenly, his teeth catching his bottom lip, as though he"s said something he wishes he hasn"t. Then Perdix looks up, looks around, trying to lose himself in the world that surrounds him, one last time.
At that moment, Deucalion realises that, for all Perdix"s words of the future, he"s still saying these things because he doesn"t expect to be here to say them later on.
The first catapult missile falls short of the sanctuary by only a few feet. As if in response almost certainly in response there"s a trembling and a rumbling, and a gout of lava bursts from the holy mountain like a jet of hot blood.
The second missile hits. It caves in half the wall of the temple"s front and flies on into the caldera. Deucalion has a good view of it from the wide ridge below. He raises his arm and gives a war cry to match his men"s cheers.
Their real target is not the masonry, but the crystals inside, set into their niches on the walls. Perdix said the crystals were the eyes with which the G.o.ds looked into the world, the doors and windows through which they reached into the world. Smash them, bury them, scatter them across the islands to isolate them, lob missiles into the magma itself to break as many of the crystals floating there as possible. Refuse the G.o.ds" gifts and their curses forever.
Another hit, onto the roof this time not much damage. Immediately the men are, loading another missile into the catapult, but now there"s a buzzing in the air, as if they are surrounded by bees. He looks round, and his soldiers can hear it too, some of them slapping at their ears, one or two covering them to block out the swelling sound.
A great gout of flame bursts upwards from the caldera, raining handfuls of hot magma down on them. The men raise their shields, acting instinctively, and are saved from the worst of it. The mountainside is shaking like a man in a fit.
That"s not the worst of it. Rising out of the flame are a pair of the demon bulls, bronze hooves pounding the air. Deucalion has never actually seen one; his nerve almost fails at the sight, as they come roaring down over the ruins of the sanctuary.
But Perdix gives a shout of laughter. -What! Only two! They must be more exhausted than I thought!He throws off his cloak. Underneath, he is bewinged.Deucalion stares. Out from Perdix"s shoulders, tethered to his elbows and his wrists, spring bird"s wings made of a fine, shining silver metal. In place of feathers, there are coloured shapes of cloth, filling up, the framework. On his back, between his shoulder blades, there is a single speck of caged light: a crystal in the centre of a metal cat"s-cradle.
Perdix dips his head, and flexes the wings. A moment later, he rises from the ground, lighter than the feather he dropped that day from theroof of the palace.
Without a word, he rises up towards the bulls, which have actually stopped their headlong rush, astonished by this new apparition. He pa.s.ses through clouds of sulphurous steam, free of the convulsing earth.
The men are shouting as they fight to keep their balance, a mixture of cries of fear, and surprise, and bewilderment, and pain as drops of magma slip between the shields.
-Steady! cries the King. -We"ve started the task, now let"s see it through!
Deucalion runs up to his men, helps them get the next missile into the catapult as chunks of lava rain down around them. A soldier holds a shield above his King, as the battle goes on.
Alcestis laughs and laughs. It is a laugh she can"t hear. There"s no sound here in the G.o.ds" realm, and yet there"s nothing but sound, roaring and swooping harmonies that blot out everything else.
The Doctor dances like an elephant would dance. He lurches, flapping his new wings, losing height in bursts, turning in sudden jabbing movements. She can see that they give him no lift that"s the crystal"s work. She can also see he"s had no time to practise with them. His gleeful look has twisted into a grimace, like that of a child who has just discovered the lyre and now discovers that he can manage barely more than lurching discords. He knows he"s an intruder, in a world where he"s not welcome.
But he can move fast, and his clumsiness is a virtue, as the bulls grown smart with the adventures of their predecessors try to secondguess his moves. He is as likely to drop out of their path accidentally as to dodge them deliberately. They are already losing form and strength, turning back into the smoke from which they were born.
She"s ready to finish the lesson now. But not yet, not just yet.
First the King.
Deucalion flinches back, hiding his face behind his shield. It"s a G.o.ddess, tall, grim-eyed, dazzlingly beautiful, too brilliant to look at directly. Out of squinting, watering eyes he makes out parts of her, shape, part woman, part sacred dove. Which G.o.ddess is this? Or is it a t.i.tan? Harpy? Siren? Gorgon? Fury?His men fall back from her, not running, bless them, but stumbling back from the apparition. The King, holds his ground. He knows he has to hold his ground, he has to show them they mustn"t give up, even though he can"t see a thing.She comes forward and gathers him up, in light.Her touch is as firm and gentle as that of a woman holding a baby. Even as she lifts him over the volcano, over the red and hungry steaming mouth of h.e.l.l, he feels safe. All he can think of is his own mother.She tells him, very gently, that he has to die, and asks if he knows why.-It"s not fair! The words erupt from him like a child"s cry. -It wasn"t my fault, I was going to do right! That"s what I"m trying to do now!
He tries to clutch at her, but she"s as insubstantial as smoke. How can smoke hold him up?A scream tears out from deep in Deucalion"s belly.Everything is suddenly blackness and tumbling motion. But not downwards into the volcano"s maw along, sideways, so fast that the breath is knocked from him. Or perhaps it"s the priestess tumbling onto him with a curse. Their bodies connect in the m.u.f.fled lightlessness in a way that"s most untoward.
Alcestis lets out another imprecation, and abruptly she"s gone, like a mote blinked out of the eye. Now, she"s gone, he can see a little light penetrating the s.p.a.ce that he"s inhabiting. With a jolt, Deucalion knows where he is: inside Perdix"s cloak, being carried along by the flying inventor like a hare in a sack.
The King, fights down the urge to struggle, clasping his hands together to prevent his arms from flailing in panic and gritting his teeth as he feels the ground"s nearness. Perdix barely slows as he puts his burden down on the ridge.
Deucalion rolls out of the woollen cloak, panting, bruising his elbows on the hard stone. Perdix stands over him awkwardly, trying to straighten out the metal wings. They are detached from the inventor"s wrists now, sticking out at odd angles.He opens his mouth to ask, but Perdix says: -Your people need you.With a harsh shrug, he lifts into the air. Deucalion"s head tips back to follow him, and he looks straight up into Alcestis, diving down towards him like a hawk on a mouse.
In the next instant, there"s a rainbow tangled with her. Perdix tries to pull her down, one wing loose from his wrist, metal and cloth battling the air. Deucalion can"t believe they"re not falling, hard, to the rocks. But they"re rising, gradually. Perdix is shouting, his voice lost in the wind and the thump of the catapult and the choking sounds as the mountainside vomits lava.
-Ah, Alcestis, says the Doctor, with a wide, wild grin. -Shall we dance?
Alcestis smacks him in the mouth, once, and then again. She doesn"t want to hear his words, magic words that change the world around him, change people, the words that changed her. He says her name as they battle for height, and she rams her elbow into his face before he can say anything more.
They slap and push at one another. She grabs a handful of his hair and wrenches his head to one side, while he grabs her, shoulders in a painful grip. This is no contest: she can control her flight and he can"t. Already his toy wings are battered and bent. But she can"t seem to shake him loose.
Alcestis grimaces. It"s the crystal he wears on his back, sending violent ripples across the current she"s riding, like a wake tossing a tiny boat. She"s spending all her strength steadying herself against them.
Beneath them, the little King is winning his battle to slam the door on the G.o.ds, but it doesn"t seem to matter, she can"t think about that now. She tries to s.n.a.t.c.h at the wire cage from the Doctor"s back, but it seems to twist away from her grip each time her fingers close on it.
Heat below. In their struggle, they"ve cleared the caldera wall. Alcestis focuses on climbing, getting up and away from that lethal heat. She speeds up, hoping the wind rushing downwards will knock him, loose, but he"s got one hand tangled in her dress and has managed to lock his other arm beneath one of hers.
She remembers what happened with the bull over the ocean. If she can gain the same height, will he faint and fall? She drives upwards for the clouds. He"s got his fingers tangled in her hair. There"s blood coming from his mouth where she"s split his lip.-Let go of me!It"s a breathless scream. She can"t catch her, breath here. The bright glare of the clouds is darkening. She knows it will happen again, she"ll fall. Just please, please, let him fall first.
He looks grim, but he"s not bothered at all. He"s speaking, but she can"t hear the words. He doesn"t even look as though he"s breathing hard, while her whole body is wracked with every breath.
Alcestis dives until she can fill her lungs again. She draws in the air and bellows in his face: -Let me go!
The Doctor grabs her hair and draws her face close to his, and shouts back: -I"ll never let you go!
They"re still falling, down into the centre of the volcano. The walls rise up around them. It"s like falling into a blazing summer day. And she realises: they"re not falling. They"re being pulled down.
The Doctor seems to know, at the same moment. The fire crystal on his back flares as he tries to claw back some height, unsuccessfully. Nor can Alcestis rise.
They"re in the grip of the t.i.tans, being dragged down into Tartarus.
And still he won"t let her, go!
The flames rise up around them. There"s an impact like being thrown through a stone wall, knocking the breath and the sense and the life out of her And there"s no time, no place, nothing but the jagged peak she"s streaking towards, and the Doctor chained there, helpless against the wind.
Her wing-beats shaking the air. He looks around urgently for some escape, his head rolling against the rock, as she screams towards him, raising her talons. Oh, she relishes the way the G.o.ds have reshaped her into the perfect single-minded creature for their task. She wants nothing more than she wants this.