Creatures of Light and Darkness

PLACE OF THE HEARTS DESIRE

The Prince Who Was A Thousand walks beside the sea and under the sea. The only other intelligent inhabitant of the world within which he walks cannot be sure whether the Prince created it or discovered it. This is because one can never be sure whether wisdom produces or merely locates, and the Prince is wise.

He walks along the beach. His footsteps begin seven paces behind him. High above his head hangs the sea.

The sea hangs above his head because it has no choice in the matter. The world within which he walks is so constructed that if one were to approach it from any direction, it would appear to be a world completely lacking in land masses. If one were to descend far enough beneath that sea which surrounds it, however, one would emerge from the underside of the waters and enter into the planet's atmosphere. Descending still farther, one would reach dry land. Traversing this land, one might come upon other bodies of water, waters bounded by land, beneath the sea that hangs in the sky.

The big sea flows perhaps a thousand feet overhead. Bright fish fill its bottom, like mobile constellations. And down here on the land, everything glows.

It has been said that a world such as this unnamed place with a sea for a sky could not possibly exist. Those who said it are obviously wrong. Positing infinity, the rest is easy.

The Prince Who Was A Thousand is in an unique position. He is a teleportationist, among other things, and this is even rarer than a master of temporal fugue. In fact, he is the only one of his kind. He can transport himself, in no time at all, to any place that he can visualize.

And he has a very vivid imagination. Granting that any place you can think of exists somewhere in infinity, if the Prince can think of it too, he is able to visit it. Now, a few theorists claim that the Prince’s visualizing a place and willing himself into it is actually an act of creation. No one knew about the place before, and if the Prince can find it, then perhaps what he really did was make it happen. However-positing infinity, the rest is easy.

The Prince has not the least idea, not a snowball in hell’s worth, as to where the nameless world is located, anyway, in relation to the rest of the universe. Nor does he care. He can come and go as he chooses, taking with him whomsoever he would.

He has come alone, however, because he wishes to visit his wife.

He stands beside the sea, beneath the sea, and he calls out her name, which is the name “Nephytha,” and he waits till a breeze comes to him from across the waters, touching him and saying the name that is his own.

He bows then his head and feels her presence about him.

“How goes the world with thee, loved one?” he inquires.

There comes a sob upon the air, breaking the surfs monotone turning.

“Well,” comes the reply. “And thyself, my lord?”

“I will be truthful rather than polite, and say ‘poorly.’”

“It cries yet in the night?”

“Yes.”

“I thought of thee as I drifted and as I flowed. I have made birds to be within the air to keep me company, but their cries are either harsh or sad. What may I tell thee, to be polite rather than truthful? That I am not sickened by this life that is not life? That I do not long to be a woman once again, rather than a breath, a color, a movement? That I do not ache to touch thee once again, and to feel once again thy touch upon my body? Thou knowest all that I might say, but no one god possesses all powers. I should not complain, but I fear, my lord, I fear the madness that sometimes comes upon me: Never to sleep, never to eat, never to touch a solid thing. How long has it been…?”

“Many centuries.”

“… And I know that all wives be bitches unto their lords, and I ask of thee thy forgiveness. But to whom else may I address my bitching, but to thee?”

“Well taken, my Nephytha. Would that I could embody thee once more, for I, too, am lonely. Thou knowest I have tried.”

“Yes.”

“When thou hast broken the Thing That Cries, then wilt thou discipline Osiris and Anubis?”

“Of course.”

“Please do not destroy them immediately, if they can help me. Grant them some measure of mercy if they will give me back to you.”

“Perhaps.”

“… For I am so lonely. I wish that I could go away from here.”

“You require a place surrounded by water, to keep you alive. You require an entire world, to keep you occupied.”

“I know. I know…”

“If Osiris had not been so deadly set upon vengeance, things might have been different. Now, thou knowest, I am bound to slay him when I have resolved the matter of the Nameless.”

“Yes, I know, and I agree. But what of Anubis?”

“Periodically, he attempts to slay me, which is of no great import. Mayhap, I shall forgive him. But not my bird-headed Angel, never.”

The Prince Who Had Been A King (among other things) seats himself upon a rock and stares out across the waters and then upward into the bottom of the sea. The lights stir lazily above him. High mountaintops poke with their peaks into the bottommost depths. The light is pale and diffuse, seeming to come from all directions. The Prince tosses a flat stone so that it skips out upon the waves that are before him, away.

“Tell me again of the days of the battle, a millennium ago,” she says, “of the days when he fell, who was your son and your father, the mightiest warrior ever raised up to fight for the six races of man.”

The Prince is silent, staring out across the waters.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because each time that you tell it, you are moved to undertake some new action.”

“… And to meet with some new failure,” finishes the Prince.

“Tell me,” she says.

The Prince sighs, and the heavens roar above him, where swim the bright fish with transparent bellies. He holds forth his hand, and a stone skips back into it from out the sea. The wind passes and returns, caressing him.

He begins to speak.