She heard a dry voice, tiny, calling as if from a great distance. “Hashupit, cool, pale Hashupit,” it said.
She paused and looked out across the gulf of Hell, for the voice seemed to come, however impossibly, from the void. But she saw nothing, only the thick steams of Hell. After a time she felt a touch of fear, the first time she’d felt that emotion during the long eons of her existence. She heard nothing more, so she shrugged her perfect shoulders and returned to her father’s palace.
The next day she didn’t walk, nor the next.
When finally she resumed her walks, she stayed away from the edge of the world. Yet when she heard the voice again it was stronger, and beneath its arid rasp she felt the unmistakable resonance of power. “Hashupit — sweet, cool, cloud-haired Hashupit,” it said, then the voice drew a breath, a bellows firing a forge. “I can show you a clever trick.”
She waited a safe distance from the brink until almost dark — then she fled home feeling a mixture of panic and curiosity. A million long years had worn away since Hashupit had had a new admirer.
Ruiz was amazed at the texture of the performance. With delicate, controlled gestures, the phoenix acted the part of the goddess, soft and foolish, so effectively that Ruiz was not distracted by the primitive mechanisms of the play. The illusion was remarkable.
The three magicians clustered together on the lower level of the stage. From the huddle a thin orange paper snake occasionally shot skyward, symbolizing a poisonous thought directed at the favored gods above. The snakes sailed up into the night and then fell among the spectators, who ripped them open for the cheap beads and candy within.
Ruiz’s staff shuddered in his hand, signaling the movement of a large metallic mass nearby, and Ruiz jerked his attention from the play to the staff’s readout, disguised as a nacre inlay. It nickered unsteadily. But a moment later the indicator faded to normal. Ruiz frowned. Either the staff was reacting to a chance orientation in the metal-bedizened crowd — or they had very good dampers on the vessel he hoped to board.
In any case there was nothing he could do yet, and he sank back into the performance.
Now Hashupit came to the edge of the world every day, but the voice was silent.
But a week later, when she’d almost lost interest, it returned, with a power like avalanching dust.
“Hashupit — smooth-skinned dewy Hashupit, have you forgotten me?”
“Who are you?” she asked, as bravely as she could.
Below the edge of the world Bhas paused at the top of his climb, mightily pleased. The fair gods above had truly forgotten him. “I am the spirit of this place,” he replied. “I can be pleasing.”
“Just show yourself,” she said.
Ruiz saw the player pull a black silk hood down over the horrible features of Bhas. He mounted the upper stage with a clever slither. He stood before Hashupit, and from his fist sprouted a bouquet of poisonous pink thistles, arranged with black razorgrass.
He presented an interesting appearance to the goddess. He was tall, elegantly thin, and though his black garments were unfashionable, she saw that he dressed with a dandy’s attention to detail.
“We meet,” he said, bowing low. He handed her the bouquet. “From the foothills of Hell, for you.”
She took the bouquet, but the blossoms stung her, and when she dropped it the razorgrass sliced her fingers.
She was angered, and a red shimmer filled the air. “This is my father’s world,” she said. “Be off with you, before I call him to devour you.”
“As you wish,” Bhas said. “But first, allow me to make amends, please.” He raised his hand high, and the red glow of her anger was pulled from the air into the cup of his hand. In an instant a silver bowl lay there and Bhas proffered it to her.
“Here, lovely Hashupit, lave your pretty fingers here,” Bhas said, in courtly tones.
Her anger had been pulled away from her so quickly that she was disoriented and pliable, and without thinking she put her hand in the clear fluid. The blood from her fingers swirled in the bowl and the fluid began to darken, from claret to thick purple to black. Hashupit felt an intolerable pain in her hand. She jerked it out. “What have you done?” she gasped.
Bhas laughed, a cruel dry croak of amusement. “Poor Hashupit,” he said cheerfully, “you mustn’t depend upon your father in this. If you seek his aid, your fingers will never be pretty again. Look now, Hashupit.”
She looked and it was almost worse than the pain. The skin was dark and mottled, the fingers swollen into five ugly sausages.
“You’ll pay…” she said, but Bhas gripped her arm in a hot dry hand.
“I have paid, no, never doubt that,” he crooned, low and malevolent. “But that time is over. Remember, if you go to your father, it will be much worse. Think of the wrinkles, the sagging flesh of age, the ugly bones beneath.” Then he released her and she stumbled away as fast as she could go.
At the palace, she went up to her apartments, hiding her hand in a fold of her dress, going by little-used ways. She met none of the other gods and godlings, for which she was grateful. The pain in her hand had subsided to a dull ache, centered in the joints of fingers and wrist. She looked fearfully at it, then held it up before her eyes.
In those days, the gods were above decay — immortal, for all they knew. Hashupit stared at her hand, withered, knob-knuckled, blue-veined, spotted with the discolorations of age. She made a small, unbelieving sound and fainted to the gold-leafed floor of her bedroom.
Chapter 14
Sweat ran down Ruiz Aw’s face, though the air was now quite cool. He found himself unprepared for the play to end so soon. The phoenix lay still on the gilded stage, a cast away blossom. The audience seemed to hold its collective breath. A black curtain swirled up from the stage apron, concealing the scene.
Moments later it dropped to reveal Hashupit, both hands wrapped carefully in rainbow gauze, waiting at the vast table of her father, the god of gods, Canesh.
She stood well back from her father’s huge devouring mouth. He would never consume her purposely, but his mouth was so vast and his hunger so great that accidents were possible. Her father’s arms, long and knotty as thorn trees, swept the sacrifices into his maw. As fast as he cleared the table, new heaps magically appeared, bullocks, bushels of sweet fruit, countless fowl, piles of ripe grain, pigs large and small — all sent to him by his priesthood, who saw value in keeping the most powerful and capricious of the gods fully occupied. Everything disappeared down her father’s throat, but though his jaws worked ferociously, he never quite caught up with the flow. Some of the food spilled and was carried away by mortal servitors, tiny as insects under the table of the god.
“Father,” she greeted him, intending to confess her foolish actions and rely on his power to set things right.
“Daughter, it’s pleasant to see you,” replied Canesh, in rumbling tones.
Hashupit felt an unpleasant tingle in her wounded hand. “Father,” she began, “a very strange thing has happened to me.” She stifled a shriek as her hand spasmed in agony. She held it below the table edge, where her father couldn’t see, and looked. Creeping up her wrist was a hideous line. Above was the polished skin of the goddess; below was the liverish withered flesh of age.
She remembered the demon’s warning.
“I… I might have an ache — a stomachache, the mortals call it. Is this possible, Father?” The line of corruption halted just above her wrist, but gave none of its ground back. Hashupit felt close to fainting again.