“I take it, then, that it is his Aspect for which you care?”
She smiled, within the shadows and the wind.
“Of course.”
“Lady, Lady, Lady, forget me! Go live with Yama and be his love. Our days are past, and I do not wish to recall them. They were good, but they are past. As there is a time for everything, there is a time also for the end of anything. This is an age for the consolidation of man’s gains upon this world. This is a time for the sharing of knowledge, not the crossing of blades.”
“Would you fight Heaven for this knowledge? Would you attempt to break the Celestial City, to open its vaults to the world?”
“You know that I would.”
“Then we may yet have a common cause.”
“No, Lady, do not deceive yourself. Your allegiance lies with Heaven, not with the world. You know that. If I won my freedom and you joined with me and we fought, perhaps you would be happy for a time. But win or lose, in the end I fear you would be unhappier than before.”
“Hear me, soft-hearted saint of the purple grove. It is quite kind of you to anticipate my feelings, but Kali casts her allegiances where she will, owing nothing to anyone, but as she chooses. She is the mercenary goddess, remember that! Perhaps all that you have said is true, and she lies when she tells you she loves you still. Being ruthless and full of the battle lust, however, she follows the smell of blood. I feel that she may yet become an Accelerationist.”
“Take care what you say, goddess. Who knows what may be listening?”
“None listens,” said she, “for seldom are words spoken within this place.”
“All the more reason for someone to be curious when they are.”
She sat for a time in silence, then, “None listens,” she said.
“Your powers have grown.”
“Yes. What of yours?”
“About the same, I think.”
“Then will you accept my sword, my wheel, my bow, in the name of Accelerationism?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You give your promises too easily. You break them as readily as you make them, and because of this I can never trust you. If we fight and we win in the name of Accelerationism, it may also be the last great battle of this world. This is a thing you could not desire, nor permit to occur.”
“You are a fool to speak of last great battles, Sam, for the last great battle is always the next one. Shall I come to you in a more comely shape to convince you that I speak the truth? Shall I embrace you in a body with the seal of virginity set upon it? Will this make you to trust my word?”
“Doubt, Lady, is the chastity of the mind, and I bear its seal upon my own.”
“Then know that I did but bring you here to this place to torment you, and that you are correct—I spit upon your Accelerationism, and I have already numbered your days. I sought to give you false hopes, that you may be cast down from a greater height. It is only your stupidity and your weakness that have saved you from this.”
“I am sorry. Kali—”
“I do not want your apology! I would have liked your love, though, so that I might have used it against you at the end of your days, to make them pass the harder. But, as you say, we have changed too much—and you are no longer worth the trouble. Do not think that I could not have made you love me again, either, with smiles and with caresses as of old. For I feel the heat within you, and it is an easy thing for me to fan it in a man. You are not worth a mighty death, however, falling from the heights of passion to the depths of despair. I do not have the time to give you more than my contempt.”
The stars wheeled about them, frictionless and fiery, and her hand was gone from beneath his own, as she poured two more cups of soma to warm them against the night.