A hand lifted the amulet from Turjan’s neck. After a moment of silence Pandelume’s voice sounded again from a distance.
“You may open your eyes.”
Turjan did so. He was in Pandelume’s workroom; amidst much else, he saw vats like his own.
“I will not thank you,” said Pandelume. “But in order that a fitting symmetry be maintained, I perform a service for a service. I will not only guide your hands as you work among the vats, but also will I teach you other matters of value.”
In this fashion did Turjan enter his apprenticeship to Pandelume. Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night he worked under Pandelume’s unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed “Mathematics”.
“Within this instrument,” said Pandelume, “resides the Universe. Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells which bear his name. I have endeavored through the ages to break the clouded glass, but so far my research has failed. He who discovers the pattern will know all of sorcery and be a man powerful beyond comprehension.”
So Turjan applied himself to the study and learned many of the simpler routines.
“I find herein a wonderful beauty,” he told Pandelume. “This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity.”
In spite of these other studies, Turjan spent most of his time at the vats, and under Pandelume’s guidance achieved the mastery he sought. As a recreation he formed a girl of exotic design, whom he named Floriel. The hair of the girl he had found with Kandive on the night of the festival had fixed in his mind, and he gave his creature pale green hair. She had skin of creamy tan and wide emerald eyes. Turjan was intoxicated with delight when he brought her wet and perfect from the vat. She learned quickly and soon knew how to speak with Turjan. She was one of dreamy and wistful habit, caring for little but wandering among the flowers of the meadow, or sitting silently by the river; yet she was a pleasant creature and her gentle manners amused Turjan.
But one day the black-haired T’sais came riding past on her horse, steely-eyed, slashing at flowers with her sword. The innocent Floriel wandered by and T’sais, exclaiming “Green-eyed woman — your aspect horrifies me, it is death for you!” cut her down as she had the flowers in her path.
Turjan, hearing the hooves, came from the workroom in time to witness the sword-play. He paled in rage and a spell of twisting torment rose to his lips. Then T’sais looked at him and cursed him, and in the pale face and dark eyes he saw her misery and the spirit that caused her to defy her fate and hold to her life. Many emotions fought in him, but at last he permitted T’sais to ride on. He buried Floriel by the river-bank and tried to forget her in intense study.
A few days later he raised his head from his work.
“Pandelume! Are you near?”
“What do you wish, Turjan?”
“You mentioned that when you made T’sais, a flaw warped her brain. Now I would create one like her, of the same intensity, yet sound of mind and spirit.”
“As you will,” replied Pandelume indifferently, and gave Turjan the pattern.
So Turjan built a sister to T’sais, and day by day watched the same slender body, and the same proud features take form.
When her time came, and she sat up in her vat, eyes glowing with joyful life, Turjan was breathless in haste to help her forth.
She stood before him wet and naked, a twin to T’sais, but where the face of T’sais was racked by hate, here dwelt peace and merriment; where the eyes of T’sais glowed with fury, here shone the stars of imagination.
Turjan stood wondering at the perfection of his own creation. “Your name shall be T’sain,” said he, “and already I know that you will be part of my life.”
He abandoned all else to teach T’sain, and she learned with marvellous speed.
“Presently we return to Earth,” he told her, “to my home beside a great river in the green land of Ascolais.”
“Is the sky of Earth filled with colors?” she inquired.
“No,” he replied. “The sky of Earth is a fathomless dark blue, and an ancient red sun rides across the sky. When night falls the stars appear in patterns that I will teach you. Embelyon is beautiful, but Earth is wide, and the horizons extend far off into mystery. As soon as Pandelume wills, we return to Earth.”
T’sain loved to swim in the river, and sometimes Turjan came down to splash her and toss rocks in the water while he dreamed. Against T’sais he had warned her, and she had promised to be wary.
But one day, as Turjan made preparations for departure, she wandered far afield through the meadows, mindful only of the colors at play in the sky, the majesty of the tall blurred trees, the changing flowers at her feet; she looked on the world with a wonder that is only for those new from the vats. Across several low hills she wandered, and through a dark forest where she found a cold brook. She drank and sauntered along the bank, and presently came upon a small dwelling.
The door being open, T’sain looked to see who might live here. But the house was vacant, and the only furnishings were a neat pallet of grass, a table with a basket of nuts, a shelf with a few articles of wood and pewter.
T’sain turned to go on her way, but at this moment she heard the ominous thud of hooves, sweeping close like fate. The black horse slid to a stop before her. T’sain shrank back in the doorway, all Turjan’s warnings returning to her mind. But T’sais had dismounted and came forward with her sword ready. As she raised to strike, their eyes met, and T’sais halted in wonder.
It was a sight to excite the brain: the beautiful twins, wearing the same white waist-high breeches, with the same intense eyes and careless hair, the same slim pale bodies, the one wearing on her face hate for every atom of the universe, the other a gay exuberance.
T’sais found her voice.
“How is this, witch? You bear my semblance, yet you are not me. Or has the boon of madness come at last to dim my sight of the world?”
T’sain shook her head. “I am T’sain. You are my twin, T’sais, my sister. For this I must love you and you must love me.”
“Love? I love nothing! I will kill you and so make the world better by one less evil.” She raised her sword again.
“No!” cried T’sain in anguish. “Why do you wish to harm me? I have done no wrong!”
“You do wrong by existing, and you offend me by coming to mock my own hideous mold.”
T’sain laughed. “Hideous? No. I am beautiful, for Turjan says so. Therefore you are beautiful, too.”
T’sais’ face was like marble.
“You make sport of me.”
“Never. You are indeed very beautiful.”
T’sais dropped the point of her sword to the ground. Her face relaxed into thought.
