Worlds Without End

16

The international flight was cramped and exhaust- ing. I jerked awake from another dream about Ysrth- grathe. He was in my mind again. Invading my thoughts and dreams just like he had all those years ago. It made me feel unclean. Like something slimy had crawled across my skin.

Caimbeui was asleep next to me. He snored a lit- tle and I gave him a bit of a push to make him stop. I wanted to wake him and tell him about my dream, but I didn't. I had learned long ago that it was better not to involve anyone else in matters concerning Ysrthgrathe. -

Outside it was dark. I found flying to be strange, as though I were suspended in time and space. An- other manifestation of my distrust of technology. Perhaps all this metal and cold, analytical thought reminded me too much of the Therans. The result of their devotion to purity had ruined so many. Like the Huns, they thought nothing of conquering and laying waste to any and all who opposed them. And like the Romans, they swallowed whole civilizations and di- gested them into unrecognizable pieces. They so be- lieved in their own purity that they sacrificed the world.

But all of that time was gone. I had to stop letting it pull me into the past. What was important now was the future. I had to save it.

We landed in the Atlanta airport and made our connecting flight to Austin without any real delays. Oh, there's always some sort of drek that pops up when you enter the Confederated American States, but I still had a few connections of my own. A few hours later, we were catching a cab from Robert Mueller Airport to my sometime-residence in the western hills of Austin.

"I don't remember this place," said Caimbeul. He walked about the room pulling dust covers off the furniture and sneezing as dust flew up his nose.

The house smelled stale and I was opening win- dows. The clean, sweet scent of fall floated into the room. It was warm here, even in late October. I like that about Austin.

"I didn't come by it until nineteen thirty-four," I said. "As I recall, you were out of the picture by, oh, about fifty years."

"We did fall out of touch," he said. "I'm sorry about that."

"I'm not," I said. "We had said so many things by then. Things neither of us could take back. No, it was better that we got away from one another."

He opened the French doors leading to the bal- cony that wrapped around the front of the house overlooking the beginning of the Hill Country. Ce- dar and mesquite trees grew low and crippled by the fierce summers. It was as close to an alien landscape as I could imagine. Even now, when technology tried to cover every centimeter of earth, I believed that this land would reclaim itself if given half a chance.

"I like it here," he said. "It reminds me of another place-before…"

"Before the Enemy came," I finished. "Yes, it doesn't look the same, but it feels the same. Wild and untamed. There used to be more development here, but since the Awakening, it has gone back somewhat.

"After the Great Ghost Dance, the water spirits inhabiting the Barton Creek Watershed rose up and drowned a number of developers. They were having some kind of big ground-breaking on yet another big project. Apparently, the water spirits didn't like the idea, because they carried off the great-great- grandson of Jim Bob Moffett and several of his banker friends.

"There hasn't been much development since then, and the people who were living in property that was polluting the creek found themselves being tormented by water spirits. Most of them have left."

"Why are you still here?" Caimbeui asked. "Professional courtesy."

We'd stopped for groceries on the way in, and af- ter a quick meal of eggs and soylinks, we retired back to the balcony. Luckily, my freezer was still working and I had a supply of unground coffee beans laid in. We watched the brilliant red sun go down while sipping Kona blue and cognac.

"Why are we here?" Caimbeui asked. I had been waiting for him to get around to it, but I was sur- prised it took him so long. Perhaps he had gained some patience over the years.

"I wanted to get in touch with Thais," I said. "When last we spoke, he was in this area."

"Thais?"

"My child."

After I left Europe and Caimbeul's warm em- brace, I came to America. I was achingly lonely for him, a fact that, in retrospect, seems rather foolish and trivial. But there it was. The rumors of the Great Ghost Dance had brought me here, or so I told my- self. What I was really about was trying to forget Caimbeui and make something new out of my life.

I took a westbound train from New York to Saint Louis. Then I caught a stage to Sioux Falls. I knew Wovoka (he also used the Anglo name Jack Wilson, I recall) had convinced the Sioux that they had to use the great ritual magics to rid themselves of the whites and bring down retribution on their heads. He was right, of course, but wrong about the time.

The world wouldn't have enough magical energy in it for another hundred and thirty years.

But what concerned me was the news of his "vi- sions." He claimed that God was sending him mes- sages. I suspected there was another explanation, one I hated to consider: Thais.

I thought I'd stopped this passion of Thais's for popping up and causing mystical visions in magical- thinking cultures, but he was at it again. As I rode on the stage, my spine feeling as though it were be- ing pounded through the ill-sprung seat and dust and dirt settling into everything I owned, I hoped I was early enough to put a stop to things before they blew out of hand.

By the time I reached Batesland, news was al- ready making its way east about the massacre at Wounded Knee. I was too late.

It didn't stop me from looking for Thais. I knew I needed to rein him in again. How I hated the thought of another confrontation with him.

"I was wondering when you would come."

Thais.

He was hidden in the shadows of a low-hanging outcropping of rock. I wanted to see him, but, as if he knew that was my wish, he remained back in the darkness.

The wasted scenery of the Badlands spread out around me. It reminded me too much of how the world was after the Scourge. And to see Thais here, in this ruined place made me sad and angry at the same time. I'd told Thais that the world was not the one he had grown accustomed to. That he must learn to change-but he refused.

My child.

Even after all these many centuries, I still worried about him. Wanted to know that he was safe. Would he ever forgive me for bringing him into a world that would never understand him?

"Hello, Thais," I said. "I see you've been busy."

Thais shrugged and looked a bit bewildered. "I don't understand," he said. "The magic should have worked." A frown crossed his face and I wanted to hold him and comfort him, but I knew that would not be allowed. It frightened me sometimes, how much he grew like his father.

"Magic isn't as powerful now," I said. "You know that. Why did you lead them to this destruction?"

"They loved me," Thais said. "It was just like in the old days. They looked at me and they didn't see a monster-they saw me. I was trying to help them. All they wanted was to have their land back. I could give that to them." He looked mournful. It made my heart ache. "I should have been able to give them that."

"Once," I said, "you might have. But no more. Those days are gone. Thais, you must stop this. I know what you've been doing. Those stone heads they dug up in the bed of the Trinity River. From the Pleistocene. I heard them described as obviously not human. My god, Thais, it was you. How could you have let them see you revealed?

"And what about Indochina? At least you tried to disguise your shape, but a seven-headed snake god?

I've told you that we aren't to interfere. There's too much at risk. What if they'd discovered what you re- ally are? They might have killed you."

"I'm as hard to kill as my parents," he said, bit- terly. "I am what you've made me. There is no place in this or any other world where I may live peace- fully. Why did you make me?"

I looked away. Thais was right, of course. He never should have been born. But I was mad at the time. Out of my mind with remorse and grief. Self- ish Aina.

"You must not do this again," I said. "It will only end in ruin. If not for you, then for your followers. Even now, when the magic is at a low ebb, you still, by your nature, have some power. Why don't you use it responsibly?"

"Oh, that's rich," he said, laughing harshly. Even so, it made me want to hold him and gaze into his eyes. Such power in my child. "You-talking about responsibility. You don't have the right."

"Mark my words, Thais. These tragedies will con- tinue if you don't do something about it."

"What would you have me do. Mother? Exile my- self to some mountaintop the way you did? Hide myself and live in isolation until the world is some- thing else again? I need them and they need me. You cannot imagine how I feel when they look at me and love me. When they fall to their knees and beg for my blessing and I give it to them. I was born to be a god. To be adored and worshipped. You can't take that away from me."

"I'm not trying to take anything away from you…"

"You took my father away."

"Don't be a fool, Thais," I said. "That was an ac- cident of birth."

He shrugged and looked away. I knew there was no use discussing this further. Thais had shut off from me, and nothing I could do or say would make any difference. How I wished that things could be different between us, but I knew I could as much wish for the moon for all the good it would do me.

And so we stood there, in that bare and barren place, divided by worlds and walls and the past that could never be undone.

She floats in a warm embrace. Hands touch her. Stroke her. Caress her until she trembles. Opening her eyes, she sees a faceless man. This doesn't frighten her-it's what she wants. To fall into the comfort of anonymity.

Safe and nameless.