Seven Sorcerers

1


Those Who Listen


Beneath an arbor of fig trees they lay at sundown, discreet as any other pair of lovers. Above their tender exertions starlight kissed leaf and blossom. The interplay of lean arms and legs mimicked the woven branches of the trees. An age-old dance of heat and flame, stoked by the friction of supple bodies.

How many eons had passed since they learned the glorious secret of joining without subsiding, giving without loss, sharing without weakening? Nations had risen and fallen and risen again since the gaining of that mortal skill. A savage continent had grown into a bright empire since that primeval day when they took on fleshly bodies and learned to share them.

Only the stars themselves were more ancient, blinking above the gnarled branches, casting no judgments on the lovers. During such rare moments they recalled for a time the ancient truth of those stars and the freedom of the dark gulfs between them.

Sungui had taken her female aspect this evening, knowing that Mahaavar scorned its opposite. From lips to breasts to hips, even to the tips of her toes, he praised her womanhood with kisses and soft caresses. As a male she could only have been his comrade, a fellow philosopher, and perhaps a drinking companion. There were many who felt a keen desire for Sungui’s male aspect; yet the masculine form did not lend itself to intimacy in the same way.

So many of the Seraphim did not understand this: To assume any form was to endure its intrinsic vitality, to the point where form and purpose might be blended beyond all hope of separation.

So had the Old Breed been Diminished.

The lure of the world was strong. The temptation to join the realm of flesh and stone and soil was what had brought them here so long ago. It drew them downward, welcoming them into its deep folds and valleys, the churning depths of its seas, the rolling emerald of its forests, the pristine wastes of its desert lands. The beauty and power of the world itself had Diminished them all.

Zyung the Almighty had not been mastered by the earth. Instead, he had mastered it. Or so most of her kind believed, and his Living Empire proved it. The greatest among them had avoided the snare of the earth and its wonders. Zyung did not assimilate, he conquered.

Yet the empire that he built–that all of them helped him to build–even now drew him into itself, calcifying his existence, his very identity, like nothing else ever could.

Zyung was his empire; the Living Empire was Zyung. On the altar of his supremacy she had found the black shard of hope that was her deadliest weapon. She kept it hidden for generations, like a dagger tucked into the robe of a patient yet ambitious slave. No one else had seen the dark glimmer of its blade.

Soon she would show it to them.

The Garden of Twenty-Seven Delights lay in an obscure corner of the temple-palace complex, a labyrinth of trellised walls, sculpted avenues, and fountained walks. Orchards, arboretums, vineyards, and cloistered parks surrounded the garden. A white tower of five sides rose above the sparkling domes to block the view of the temple-palace proper.

The Holy Mountain, the faithful called it. Yet the citadel was not carved from any existing mountain; it was built by the hands of Men to stand as high and magnificent as any natural peak. The work of a million slaves, their tiny, broken lives scattered across the centuries. The stones of the soaring walls were mortared with their blood and bones.

Sungui recalled them swarming like ants across the unfinished ramparts of the flat-topped pyramid, swinging like a clutch of spiders from ropes as they sculpted the gargantuan face of Zyung on its southernmost façade. The last stone had been set, the last chisel laid down, more than five hundred years ago, yet the vision lived as clearly in her mind as if seen only yesterday. She avoided looking at that titanic face, both in the light of day and in the silver gloom of night.

In the same way that she avoided the carven face, she had learned to avoid the true face of the Almighty when it suited her purposes. The trick was to focus his attention elsewhere, as it had been for centuries now. The Almighty dreamed of the ripe, untamed lands beyond the Outer Sea. His growing obsession with the expansion of the Living Empire gave her the opportunity she had awaited since the City of Celestial Truth had been a mud-walled village alongside a stinking river.

Sungui arose from a carpet of grass and petals, donning a robe of iridescent silver. Mahaavar did the same, brushing purple blossoms from his shoulders. His shimmering vestment was identical in every way to her own. There were no distinctions among the High Seraphim. Another way in which Zyung reinforced their Diminishing: Making them equal.

All save himself.

None were equal to the Almighty.

She smirked at the moon, which the earth’s shadow had divided precisely in half. Could there be an omen in that particular astronomic event? She had not consulted the moon charts when planning tonight’s gathering.