Compleat Traveller in Black Read Online Free Page A

sky beyond the window; three successive claps of thunder made the room re-echo and startled the sleepy owl into giving three little hops across the great book on which he squatted. The traveller ignored these events, taking a further sip from his mug, but on his face a frown was suddenly engraved.
    “Ask a third time,” he invited.
    “Why, this can’t be altogether necessary,” said Manuus in high delight. “But so I will!” He darted his gaze from place to place within the room as though in quest of inspiration, and finally lit on the proper line of inquiry.
    “What was there, before things became as they are now?”
    “I will show you,” said the traveller, and dipped one fingertip into his mug. He drew forth a drop of liquid in which was trapped a sparkling bubble.
    “Regard this bubble,” he instructed. “You will see …”
     
    In those days the forces were none of them chained. They raged unchecked through every corner and quarter of the cosmos. Here, for instance, ruled Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes, capricious, whimsical; when he stared worlds melted in frightful agony. There a bright being shed radiance, but the radiance was all-consuming, and that which was solid and durable – but dull – flashed into fire. At another place, creatures numbering a million strove for possession of a grain of dust; the fury of their contest laid waste solar systems.
    Once – twice – a third time something burgeoned which had about it a comforting aura of rationality, predictability, stability; about this nucleus, time was generated from eternity. Time entails memory, memory entails conscience, conscience entails thought for the future, which is itself implied by the existence of time. Twice the forces of chaos raged around this focal point and swallowed it back into oblivion; then the will of Tuprid and Caschalanva, of Quorril and Lry, and of all the other elemental beings, reigned once more. But none of them was supreme, because in chaos nothing can endure, nothing can be absolute, nothing sure or certain or reliable.
    In that age stars flared up like fires of straw, bright one moment, ash the next. On planets circling uncounted suns creatures who could think struggled to reduce chaos to order, and when they had most nearly achieved it, chance ordained that all their work should go for nothing, absorbed again into the faceless dark.
    “But that was before me,” said the traveller, and squeezed the bubble, so it burst.
     
    “I have seen,” said Manuus with inexpressible weariness. “But I have not understood.”
    “Man does not comprehend chaos. That is why man is man, and not of another nature.” The traveller smiled. “I wish now to propound my final question; do you grant that I have well and sufficiently answered yours?”
    “You have only given me another million questions to ask,” sighed Manuus, shaking his grey head. “But that also, I suppose, stems from the nature of mankind. Ask away.”
    “Your supposition is correct. Now my last question: enchanter, what is your opinion of a god?”
    “I do not know what a god is,” said Manuus. “And I doubt that anybody knows, though many think they do.”
    “Fair enough,” said the black-clad traveller, and rose.
    “Have you not even one more question to put to me?” suggested the enchanter with a wan smile.
    “Not even one.”
    Manuus gave a shrug and rose also. He said formally, “Then I can only thank you for having graced my dwelling. Few of my colleagues can have enjoyed the honor of receiving you in person.”
    The traveller bestowed on him a hard, forthright look.
    “I have many names, but one nature,” he said, “Being human, you have one name, and many more natures than two. But the essential two are these: that you shall strive to impose order on chaos, and that you shall strive to take advantage of chaos. Such folk as you are allies of the powers who preceded me.”
    “I resent that, sir,” said Manuus frostily. “Let it not be