The Marriage of the Living Dark

CHAPTER-12

waking

Waking, he found her in his arms, her naked breasts against his chest, her body folded along the length of his body. Bodies surrounded them; soft, warm bodies, their sleeping forms filling the shadows of the well. Sighing deeply, he stretched like an animal, the feeling of relaxation, of utter satiation, so strong that for a moment his mind was dark and without thought Nameless he was. A leaf drifting on the great swell of the ocean’s tides. All will, all struggle had been washed from him. For the moment he was complete, enclosed.

Adrift He was adrift upon the dark tide. Sleep took him once again and he turned, folding himself back into the contours of her body, her limbs and his interlocked, their breath a single sound, a single motion. Adrift And then a noise, like the lapping of a wave against a rock. Consciousness.

Slowly, memory returned.

Li Yuan opened his eyes and yawned. The light was above him. A bright curve of light that was slowly travelling down the side of the well. Morning.

He looked about him, remembering the long nighfs pleasures, a tiny shiver of astonishment rippling through him.

1 never guessed.

Need. Sex had always been a matter of need, and the more intense his need, the more intense the experience Until last nightLast night had been surrender. Last night he had found at last what he had been seeking all his life. Obliteration.

The smile he now smiled was like a child’s, wholly innocent; a waking smile that came from the great well of contentment deep within him. Contentment ... and love.

Yes. He was loved. Even as he lay there, he felt that love all about him, there in the bodies that lay against his own, flesh to his flesh, enveloping him. He had lived his whole life in ignorance, unaware of the depths within himself, lacking even the vaguest notion that this other self - this vast oceanic being - existed within the narrow compass of his human frame. He had spent his time staring at sunlit surfaces, his inner eye blinded by the winking light. But now he saw.

Halfway, a voice said, or rather, did not say, except in his head. You have come but halfway.

Li Yuan narrowed his eyes, looking up into the brightness above him. “Tuan Ti Fo? Is that you?”

A rope fell softly from above, brushing his upper arm.

Qimb up, the voiceless voice said. Oimb up and meet your other self.

“Must P”

There was laughter. A gentle, healing laughter.

You wish to stay there, Li Yuan?

He reached out and took the rope, grasping it with both hands as it tightened, letting himself be pulled up out of that soft mound of naked bodies. Dangling on the rope, he looked back, a sigh of happiness escaping him.

They will always be there for you.

“I know.”

There was no jealousy, no discord, none of that awful, hateful nonsense that normally accompanied the sexual act This once it had been pure, unselfish. He had given and taken without thought As it always should have been.

The old man slowly hauled him up, then put out a hand, pulling him up onto the flattened earth beside the well.

Li Yuan looked at the sage, seeing him properly for the first time. He was both there and not-there. Light passed through him, and yet he was solid. “What now?” he asked.

“You must climb up.”

Li Yuan looked past Tuan Ti Fo to the spire. In the morning’s light it seemed to spear the heavens. He stepped forward, meaning to go across to it and climb, but Tuan Ti Fo put out a hand, gently touching his chest “Not yet, Li Yuan. First you must rest and bathe.”

Egan stepped from the bathroom and stopped. Li Kuei Jen stood in the doorway, his face clouded.

“Whaf s up?”

Li Kuei Jen shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Then again ...” He finished towelling himself then threw the towel aside and walked across to where his clothes were laid out.

“Rumours?” he asked, stepping into his pants.

“No.”

Kuei Jen came across and sat on the edge of the dressing table, watching him dress. “Something’s happening, Mark, but I’m not sure just what it is. I heard it from one of my servants first It seemed incredible, but, now that I’ve checked on it, it looks like ifs true.”

“True?”

“The clubs. Last night they were empty. Not a soul in them.”

“dubs? What clubs?”

“You name them. Ectogenesis. The Kitchen. Blake’s. Yes, and the rest Not a soul in any of them.”

Egan had begun to turn away, now he turned back, facing her. “Impossible! The world could be ending and those places would still be packed out!”