Quibble, 12. Control
The lord Lesath tests his adept Asuja as they plot against Quibble and Vega.
12. Control
Unnumbered light-years from Earth, two men floated in a glassy cocoon. Stars, nebulae, galaxies wheeled around them like a vast slow clockwork. Zeros’ cloaks – one black, one maroon – billowed about their forms. Face to face, they shared a communion of fierce, utter control. The hand of the black-cloaked Zero, outstretched, held a fire. The other man, his eyes locked on the fire, suffocated.
At last the lava-red glass dimmed. Feeling Lesath ease his control, Asuja drew a slow, steady breath. His eyes left the waning glass, found his lord’s eyes, and blinked.
“Very good,” Lesath said, pocketing the glass. “You’re ready even for Aladfar.”
For solace in the trial’s aftermath, Asuja lovingly stroked the amber glass buried in his cloak. Lesath missed nothing. His eyes bore into Asuja’s, seeking out the flaw.
“Yet you’re still afraid?” he asked.
There must be control: no evasions between lord and adept. Only candor would do. “Not of the silence, lord,” Asuja replied. “Nor of Vega. But of this defiler, yes.”
“I see. Should we kill her?”
“I believe that would be best.”
Scorn for the cowardice crossed Lesath’s countenance. Wary, Asuja kept his right hand on his amber, his left ready to spring whichever glass may be needed. But Lesath unveiled no glass of his own. The scorn vanished, replaced by a slight smile.
“You do well to admit your fear, adept,” Lesath said. “Only by admitting fear, by facing it, do we attain control. But keeping control means not letting your fear rule you. Rather, know your fear, adept, know it and then invert it. Make it your weapon.”
Lesath’s hand sprang from his cloak, bearing not a control but a kindness. Just as Asuja withdrew and lit a red glass, a wall of blue light shimmered into being before him and hid Lesath. It was a mirror. Reflected in it, Asuja saw himself as a statue bathed in blood – the light of his control. Though control coursed in him, perfect and perfecting, he wanted at once to scream and to embrace the form of his fear fixed in the mirror. He fought his panic, struggled for sense. Control didn’t work. What would?
Know your fear. To know your fear is to know yourself. Know yourself.
Asuja extinguished the red glass and rekindled his amber. The mirror intensified: radiant sky. Gripping the amber fiercely, Asuja poured all his thought into it and gazed into his own reflected eyes. The pupils contracted, dilated, contracted again. Now, invert your fear. With a cry, he brandished the amber before the mirror. As its light rebounded on itself, the amber flared in a crescendo of searing pain, and just as its power peaked, Asuja let it die completely. The mirror began to dissipate from the middle, revealing the blue glass in Lesath’s hand, and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“See?” Lesath said with a lift of his brows. “Mirroring is the excelsior’s strongest defense, but you can defeat it. And how? In the last moment, you must surrender even the self-awareness you find in your amber. That, adept, is excellence: breaking through to a power beyond dream, beyond all glasses. Giving up the control you find in them.”
“Then I’ve excelled?” Asuja asked, unbelievingly, as he put away his glasses. “If that’s so, lord, now perhaps I can defeat even you.”
“You can, perhaps,” Lesath admitted. Then he cried out: “Utopia!”
A white orb as large as Asuja’s head passed by his shoulder and came to rest in the air between the Zeros. A voice came from all around them: “How may I serve you?”
“Take us to the airlock,” Lesath said, pulling the orb into an embrace. As it flew back whence it had come, Asuja grabbed Lesath’s ankle to hitch a ride. He was grateful for the reprieve from his lord’s gaze. Now, presumably, all his lessons in control were at an end. Soon, he would show Lesath what he knew of another ally – deceit.
The orb slowed as they neared the airlock hatch. Lesath released it, drifted the last few feet, and pressed his hand to the sensor. The hatch parted. Clinging to its edge with one hand, Lesath pulled himself through and pushed, changing his trajectory. Asuja followed suit. The hatch shut, and they floated through total darkness. Probing his amber, Asuja saw the night-door just ahead, a black circle in the whiteness of the glass’s negative flash. Lesath put his hand on the night-door; Asuja overlaid his lord’s hand with his own. They traveled. A stone floor rushed up, and they landed with a thud. Asuja got to his feet. As Lesath rose, he lit his amber and turned to his adept.
“If the signs you’ve seen are correct, fearing Quibble is well-founded,” Lesath said in barely more than a whisper. “But the answer to such a power as excellence is not snuffing it out. The more it’s challenged, the more direly it’s threatened, the greater the power grows. Vega knows this. We must know it, too, and use it to our advantage.”
Saying no more, Lesath strode away to the arc on the chamber’s other side. Asuja lit his amber and followed. As they passed into the next chamber, a chorus of wakeful Ones went up: “Zero! Zero!” The Ones retreated on all sides, their eyes shut against the light. Their noise faded away as the two Zeros neared the spiral’s inner chambers, now abandoned during Fear. A faint bounty of Without poured through narrow shafts in the center of each chamber’s roof, vaguely illuminating the floor. Passing the last arc, Asuja extinguished his amber. In the Axle, which had the largest tarry-not, light fell in a bright radius reaching almost to the chamber’s wall. Lesath strode to the Axle’s center, directly beneath the tarry-not where Without was brightest, Fear strongest.
“Tell me,” Lesath inquired, “what news from Alnasl?”
“None,” Asuja said. “Aladfar schooled him well. He’s too careful. I would steal his amber, but it won’t do to rouse suspicion.”
“You lack what he has: vision. There’s a better prize yet than that amber.”
“I know, lord. I’m only biding my time to get close to Vega, to get the chance.”
Lesath frowned. “You’ve told me Aladfar visits Indication, and they play chess. You’d do well to study that game. First, you must see all the pieces on the board. Then, you must learn to let your enemy believe in your weakness. Entice Vega with it. At last she will extend her hand too far. Then you may cut it off.”
The lord took his hands from his cloak and spread them to either side. Neither hand held a glass. Lesath was now entirely vulnerable: Asuja could control him, could do anything to him – kill him, even. But the adept only stared into his lord’s eyes. What moved in the mind behind them? Cunning, malevolence, knowledge? Simple madness?
Lesath’s right hand went into his cloak, and then he was gone, swallowed up by light, the sound of his pop echoing off the chamber’s wall. Asuja was alone. He began to pace beneath the tarry-not, contemplating designs, not least Lesath’s terrible design for him. Indeed the lord had vision – too much of it. In the light spilling all around him, the excelsior of utter control saw his future and his fate, as plain and as opaque as selenery.
