Nightwings Read online

  “I am young again,” I said.

  “Your renewal has only begun,” he said.

  I could no longer move. Attendants seized me and swathed me in porous wrappings, and placed me on a rolling car, and took me to a second tank, much larger, in which dozens of people floated, each in a dreamy seclusion from the others. Their naked skulls were festooned with electrodes; their eyes were covered with pink tape; their hands were peacefully joined on their chests. Into this tank I went, and there were no illusions here, only a long slumber unbroken by dreams. This time I awakened to the sounds of a rushing tide, and found myself passing feet first through a constricted conduit into a sealed tank, where I breathed only fluid, and where I remained something more than a minute and something less than a century, while layers of sin were peeled from my soul. It was slow, taxing work. The Surgeons worked at a distance, their hands thrust into gloves that controlled the tiny flaying-knives, and they flensed me of evil with flick after flick after flick of the little blades, cutting out guilt and sorrow, jealousy and rage, greed, lust, and impatience.

  When they were done with me they opened the lid of the tank and lifted me out. I was unable to stand unaided. They attached instruments to my limbs that kneaded and massaged my muscles, restoring the tone. I walked again. I looked down at my bare body, strong and taut-fleshed and vigorous. Talmit came to me and threw a handful of mirror-dust into the air so that I could see myself; and as the tiny particles cohered, I peered at my gleaming reflection.

  “No,” I said. “You have the face wrong. I didn’t look like that. The nose was sharper—the lips weren’t so full—the hair not such a deep black—”

  “We have worked from the records of the guild of Watchers, Tomis. You are more exactly a replica of your early self than your own memory realizes.”

  “Can that be?”

  “If you prefer, we can shape you to fit your self-conceptions and not reality. But it would be a frivolous thing to do, and it would take much time.”

  “No,” I said. “It hardly matters.”

  He agreed. He informed me then that I would have to remain in the house of renewal a while longer, until I was fully adapted to my new self. I was given the neutral clothes of a guildless one to wear, for I was without affiliation now; my status as Pilgrim had ended with my renewal, and I might now opt for any guild that would admit me once I left the house. “How long did my renewal last?” I asked Talmit as I dressed. He replied, “You came here in summer. Now it is winter. We do not work swiftly.”

  “And how fares my companion Olmayne?”

  “We failed with her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Would you like to see her?” Talmit asked.

  “Yes,” I said, thinking that he would bring me to Olmayne’s room. Instead he conveyed me to Olmayne’s tank. I stood on a ramp looking down into a sealed container; Talmit indicated a fiber telescope, and I peered into its staring eye and beheld Olmayne. Or rather, what I was asked to believe was Olmayne. A naked girl-child of about eleven, smooth-skinned and breastless, lay curled up in the tank, knees drawn close to the flat chest, thumb thrust in mouth. At first I did not understand. Then the child stirred, and I recognized the embryonic features of the regal Olmayne I had known: the wide mouth, the strong chin, the sharp, strong cheekbones. A dull shock of horror rippled through me, and I said to Talmit, “What is this?”

  “When the soul is too badly stained, Tomis, we must dig deep to cleanse it. Your Olmayne was a difficult case. We should not have attempted her; but she was insistent, and there were some indications that we might succeed with her. Those indications were in error, as you can see.”

  “But what happened to her?”

  “The renewal entered the irreversible stage before we could achieve a purging of her poisons,” Talmit said.

  “You went too far? You made her too young?”

  “As you can see. Yes.”

  “What will you do? Why don’t you get her out of there and let her grow up again?”

  “You should listen more carefully, Tomis. I said the renewal is irreversible.”

  “Irreversible?”

  “She is lost in childhood’s dreams. Each day she grows years younger. The inner clock whirls uncontrollably. Her body shrinks; her brain grows smooth. She enters babyhood shortly. She will never awaken.”

  “And at the end—” I looked away. “What then? A sperm and an egg, separating in the tank?”

  “The retrogression will not go that far. She will die in infancy. Many are lost this way.”

  “She spoke of the risks of renewal,” I said.

  “Yet she insisted on our taking her. Her soul was dark, Tomis. She lived only for herself. She came to Jorslem to be cleansed, and now she has been cleansed, and she is at peace with the Will. Did you love her?”

  “Never. Not for an instant.”

  “Then what have you lost?”

  “A segment of my past, perhaps.” I put my eye to the telescope again and beheld Olmayne, innocent now, restored to virginity, sexless, cleansed. At peace with the Will. I searched her oddly altered yet familiar face for insight into her dreams. Had she known what was befalling her, as she tumbled helplessly into youthfulness? Had she cried out in anguish and frustration when she felt her life slipping away? Had there been a final flare of the old imperious Olmayne, before she sank into this unwanted purity? The child in the tank was smiling. The supple little body uncoiled, then drew more tightly into a huddled ball. Olmayne was at peace with the Will. Suddenly, as though Talmit had spread another mirror in the air, I looked into my own new self, and saw what had been done for me, and knew that I had been granted another life with the proviso that I make something more of it than I had of my first one, and I felt humbled, and pledged myself to serve the Will, and I was engulfed in joy that came in mighty waves, like the surging tides of Earth Ocean, and I said farewell to Olmayne, and asked Talmit to take me to another place.

  11

  AND Avluela came to me in my room in the house of renewal, and we both were frightened when we met. The jacket she wore left her bunched-up wings bare; they seemed hardly under her control at all, but fluttered nervously, starting to open a short way, their gossamer tips expanding in little quivering flickers. Her eyes were large and solemn; her face looked more lean and pointed than ever. We stared in silence at one another a long while; my skin grew warm, my vision hazy; I felt the churning of inner forces that had not pulled at me in decades, and I feared them even as I welcomed them.

  “Tomis?” she said finally, and I nodded.

  She touched my shoulders, my arms, my lips. And I put my fingers to her wrists, her flanks, and then, hesitantly, to the shallow bowls of her breasts. Like two who had lost their sight we learned each other by touch. We were strangers. That withered old Watcher she had known and perhaps loved was gone, banished for the next fifty years or more, and in his place stood someone mysteriously transformed, unknown, unmet. The old Watcher had been a sort of father to her; what was this guildless young Tomis supposed to be? And what was she to me, a daughter no longer? I did not know myself of myself. I was alien to my sleek, taut skin. I was perplexed and delighted by the juices that now flowed, by the throbbings and swellings that I had nearly forgotten.

  “Your eyes are the same,” she said. “I would always know you by your eyes.”

  “What have you done these many months, Avluela?”

  “I have been flying every night. I flew to Agupt and deep into Afreek. Then I returned and flew to Stanbool. When it gets dark, I go aloft. Do you know, Tomis, I feel truly alive only when I’m up there?”

  “You are of the Fliers. It is in the nature of your guild to feel that way.”

  “One day we’ll fly side by side, Tomis.”

  I laughed at that. “The old Surgeries are closed, Avluela. They work wonders here, but they can’t transform me into a Flier. One must be born with wings.”

  “One doesn’t need wings to fly.”

&n
bsp; “I know. The invaders lift themselves without the help of wings. I saw you, one day soon after Roum fell—you and Gormon in the sky together—” I shook my head. “But I am no invader either.”

  “You will fly with me, Tomis. We’ll go aloft, and not only by night, even though my wings are merely nightwings. In bright sunlight we’ll soar together.”

  Her fantasy pleased me. I gathered her into my arms, and she was cool and fragile against me, and my own body pulsed with new heat. For a while we talked no more of flying, though I drew back from taking what she offered at that moment, and was content merely to caress her. One does not awaken in a single lunge.

  Later we walked through the corridors, passing others who were newly renewed, and we went into the great central room whose ceiling admitted the winter sunlight, and studied each other by that changing pale light, and walked, and talked again. I leaned a bit on her arm, for I did not have all my strength yet, and so in a sense it was as it had been for us in the past, the girl helping the old dodderer along. When she saw me back to my room, I said, “Before I was renewed, you told me of a new guild of Redeemers. I—”

  “There is time for that later,” she said, displeased.

  In my room we embraced, and abruptly I felt the full fire of the renewed leap up within me, so that I feared I might consume her cool, slim body. But it is a fire that does not consume—it only kindles its counterpart in others. In her ecstasy her wings unfolded until I was wrapped in their silken softness. And as I gave myself to the violence of joy, I knew I would not need again to lean on her arm.

  We ceased to be strangers; we ceased to feel fear with one another. She came to me each day at my exercise time, and I walked with her, matching her stride for stride. And the fire burned even higher and more brightly for us.

  Talmit was with me frequently too. He showed me the arts of using my renewed body, and helped me successfully grow youthful. I declined his invitation to view Olmayne once more. One day he told me that her retrogression had come to its end. I felt no sorrow over that, just a curious brief emptiness that soon passed.

  “You will leave here soon,” the Renewer said. “Are you ready?”

  “I think so.”

  “Have you given much thought to your destination after this house?”

  “I must seek a new guild, I know.”

  “Many guilds would have you, Tomis. But which do you want?”

  “The guild in which I would be most useful to mankind,” I said. “I owe the Will a life.”

  Talmit said, “Has the Flier girl spoken to you of the possibilities before you?”

  “She mentioned a newly founded guild.”

  “Did she give it a name?”

  “The guild of Redeemers.”

  “What do you know of it?”

  “Very little,” I said.

  “Do you wish to know more?”

  “If there is more to know.”

  “I am of the guild of Redeemers,” Talmit said. “So is the Flier Avluela.”

  “You both are already guilded! How can you belong to more than one guild? Only the Dominators were permitted such freedom; and they—”

  “Tomis, the guild of Redeemers accepts members from all other guilds. It is the supreme guild, as the guild of Dominators once was. In its ranks are Rememberers and Scribes, Indexers, Servitors, Fliers, Landholders, Somnambulists, Surgeons, Clowns, Merchants, Vendors. There are Changelings as well, and—”

  “Changelings?” I gasped. “They are outside all guilds, by law! How can a guild embrace Changelings?”

  “This is the guild of Redeemers. Even Changelings may win redemption, Tomis.”

  Chastened, I said, “Even Changelings, yes. But how strange it is to think of such a guild!”

  “Would you despise a guild that embraces Changelings?”

  “I find this guild difficult to comprehend.”

  “Understanding will come at the proper time.”

  “When is the proper time?”

  “The day you leave this place,” said Talmit.

  That day arrived shortly. Avluela came to fetch me. I stepped forth uncertainly into Jorslem’s springtime to complete the ritual of renewal. Talmit had instructed her on how to guide me. She took me through the city to the holy places, so that I could worship at each of the shrines. I knelt at the wall of the Hebers and at the gilded dome of the Mislams; then I went down into the lower part of the city, through the marketplace, to the gray, dark, ill-fashioned building covering the place where the god of the Christers is said to have died; then I went to the spring of knowledge and the fountain of the Will, and from there to the guild-house of the guild of Pilgrims to surrender my mask and robes and starstone, and thence to the wall of the Old City. At each of these places I offered myself to the Will with words I had waited long to speak. Pilgrims and ordinary citizens of Jorslem gathered at a respectful distance; they knew that I had been lately renewed and hoped that some emanation from my new youthful body would bring them good fortune. At last my obligations were fulfilled. I was a free man in full health, able now to choose the quality of the life I wished to lead.

  Avluela said, “Will you come with me to the Redeemers now?”

  “Where will we find them? In Jorslem?”

  “In Jorslem, yes. A meeting will convene in an hour’s time for the purpose of welcoming you into membership.”

  From her tunic she drew something small and gleaming, which I recognized in bewilderment as a starstone. “What are you doing with that?” I asked. “Only Pilgrims—”

  “Put your hand over mine,” she said, extending a fist in which the starstone was clenched.

  I obeyed. Her small pinched face grew rigid with concentration for a moment. Then she relaxed. She put the starstone away.

  “Avluela, what—?”

  “A signal to the guild,” she said gently. “A notice to them to gather now that you are on your way.”

  “How did you get that stone?”

  “Come with me,” she said. “Oh, Tomis, if only we could fly there! But it is not far. We meet almost in the shadow of the house of renewal. Come, Tomis. Come!”

  12

  THERE was no light in the room. Avluela led me into the subterranean blackness, and told me that I had reached the guildhall of the Redeemers, and left me standing by myself. “Don’t move,” she cautioned.

  I sensed the presence of others in the room about me. But I heard nothing and saw nothing.

  Something was thrust toward me.

  Avluela said, “Put out your hands. What do you feel?”

  I touched a small square cabinet resting, perhaps, on a metal framework. Along its face were familiar dials and levers. My groping hands found handles rising from the cabinet’s upper surface. At once it was as though all my renewal had been undone, and the conquest of Earth canceled as well: I was a Watcher again, for surely this was a Watcher’s equipment!

  I said, “It is not the same cabinet I once had. But it is not greatly different.”

  “Have you forgotten your skills, Tomis?”

  “I think they remain with me even now.”

  “Use the machine, then,” said Avluela. “Do your Watching once more, and tell me what you see.”

  Easily and happily I slipped into the old attitudes. I performed the preliminary rituals quickly, clearing my mind of doubts and frictions. It was surprisingly simple to bring myself into a spirit of Watchfulness; I had not attempted it since the night Earth fell, and yet it seemed to me that I was able to enter the state more rapidly than in the old days.

  Now I grasped the handles. How strange they were! They did not terminate in the grips to which I was accustomed: rather, something cool and hard was mounted at the tip of each handle. A gem of some kind, perhaps. Possibly even a starstone, I realized. My hands closed over the twin coolnesses. I felt a moment of apprehension, even of raw fear. Then I regained the necessary tranquillity, and my soul flooded into the device before me, and I began to Watch.

 
In my Watchfulness I did not soar to the stars, as I had in the old days. Although I perceived, my perception was limited to the immediate surroundings of my room. Eyes closed, body hunched in trance, I reached out and came first to Avluela; she was near me, almost upon me. I saw her plainly. She smiled; she nodded; her eyes were aglow.

  —I love you.

  —Yes, Tomis. And we will be together always.

  —I have never felt so close to another person.

  —In this guild we are all close, all the time. We are the Redeemers, Tomis. We are new. Nothing like this has been on Earth before.

  —How am I speaking to you, Avluela?

  —Your mind speaks to mine through the machine. And some day the machine will not be needed.

  —And then we will fly together?

  —Long before then, Tomis.

  The starstones grew warm in my hands. I clearly perceived the instrument, now: a Watcher’s cabinet, but with certain modifications, among them the starstones mounted on the handles. And I looked beyond Avluela and saw other faces, ones that I knew. The austere figure of the Renewer Talmit was to my left. Beside him stood the Surgeon with whom I had journeyed to Jorslem, with the Changeling Bernalt at his elbow, and now at last I knew what business it was that had brought these men of Nayrub to the holy city. The others I did not recognize; but there were two Fliers, and a Rememberer grasping his shawl, and a woman Servitor, and others. And I saw them all by an inner light, for the room was as dark as it had been when I entered it. Not only did I see them, but I touched them, mind to mind.