* * * * *
Without knowing it, Ciaran touched the harpstrings and made them
shudder. "The legends were right, then. The Stone of Destiny kept the
world alive."
"Alive. It gave light and warmth, and before that it powered the
ship that brought me here across space, from the third planet of our
sun to the tenth. It sealed the gaps in the planet's crust and drove
the machinery that filled the hollow core inside with air. It was my
strength. It built my world; _my_ world, where I would be loved and
respected--all right, and worshipped!"
He laughed, a small bitter sob.
"A child I was. After all those centuries, still a child playing with a
toy."
His voice rang out louder across the flickering dimness. A boy's voice,
clear and sweet. He wasn't talking to Ciaran. He wasn't even talking to
himself. He was talking to Fate, and cursing it.
"I took a walk one morning. That was all I did. I was just a
fisherman's son walking on the green hills of Atlantis above the
sea. That was all I wanted to be--a fisherman's son, someday to be a
fisherman myself, with sons of my own. And then from nowhere, out of
the sky, the meteorite fell. There was thunder, and a great light, and
then darkness. And when I woke again I was a god.
"I took the Stone of Destiny out of its broken shell. The light from it
burned in me, and I was a god. And I was happy. _I didn't know._
"I was too young to be a god. A boy who never grew older. A boy who
wanted to play with other boys, and couldn't. A boy who wanted to age,
to grow a beard and a man's voice, and find a woman to love. It was
hell, after the thrill wore off. It was worse, when my mind and heart
grew up, and my body didn't.
"And they said I was no god, but a blasphemy, a freak.
"The priests of Dagon, of all the temples of Atlantis, spoke against
me. I had to run away. I roamed the whole earth before the Flood,
carrying the Stone. Sometimes I ruled for centuries, a god-king, but
always the people tired of me and rose against me. They hated me,
because I lived forever and never grew old.
"A man they might have accepted. But a boy! A brain with all the wisdom
it could borrow from time, grown so far from theirs that it was hard to
talk to them--and a body too young even for the games of manhood!"
Ciaran stood frozen, shrinking from the hell in the boy-God's agonized
voice.
"So I grew to hate them, and when they drove me out I turned on them,
and used the power of the Stone to destroy. I know what happened to
the cities of the Gobi, to Angkor, and the temples of Mayapan! So the
people hated me more because they feared me more, and I was alone. No
one has ever been alone as I was.
"So I built my own world, here in the heart of a dead planet. And in
the end it was the same, because the people were human and I was not.
I created the androids, freaks like myself, to stand between me and
my people--my own creatures, that I could trust. And I built a third
world, in my dreams.
"And now the Stone of Destiny has come to the end of its strength. Its
atoms are eaten away by its own fire. The world it powered will die.
And what will happen to me? I will go on living, even after my body is
frozen in the cold dark?"
Silence, then. The pulsing beat of light in the crystal rods. The heart
of a world on its deathbed.
Ciaran's harp crashed out. It made the crystal sing. His voice came
with it:
"Bas! The monster in the pit, that the androids are building--I know
now what it is! They knew the Stone was dying. They're going to have
power of their own, and take the world. You can't let them, Bas! You
brought us here. We're your people. You can't let the androids have us!"
The boy laughed, a low, bitter sound. "What do I care for your world or
your people? I only want to sleep." He caught his breath in and turned
around, as though he was going back to the place of the stone cross.