Free Delusion's Master (Tales From the Flat Earth) by Tanith Lee Page A

the pristine cauldron of the city. When they
reached their hundred paces of proximity, the hymn dissipated in the sky.
    They stood in
wonder, the visitors, a wonder which was never decreased, listening to the
quiet which followed the song, beneath the unmelting hill of desert snow, birds
flashing over the hibiscus minarets.
    “It is like a
city of the gods,” men declared, unaware the gods possessed no cities, nor
wished to possess them.
    And those who
reached Bhelsheved by night also heard the song unfold from the city into the
sky, like a pillar of invisible, audible steam. And by night, the domes were
lit, great ghostly pearls, and the night flowers bloomed in the groves, and the
air surged with perfumes, which came and went like spirits.
    Thus, the
exterior of Bhelsheved.
    Within, it was
this way:
    Entering at
one of the four tall gates, the worshipper found himself on a wide straight concourse,
paved on this occasion in mosaics of the most pastel marbles, none of which
depicted either scene or pattern, but nebulous swirlings, like those of vapors
or clouds. Such an ethereal road led from each of the four gates, toward the
heart of the city. And on all sides of the four roads stood temples pressed
close to each other, as in a mortal city houses would have pressed close. Some
of the buildings were massive, pouring up their flowerlike snow domes into the
sky, shot with windows internally lit and of a heavenly blue glass, each window
itself set in the form of a flower or a leaf or some abstract shape that hinted
at supernal reveries. Some of the buildings were delicate and small, alabaster
figurines, crystal pinnacles. Pleated stairways went up and down like the keys
of strange instruments. Colonnades led in and out, their pillars carved like
women or like trees. Trees which were real blossomed inside the city as out. If
a wind blew, a snowstorm of petals fell.
    At the core of
the sacred city, the four roads ended on the rim of the miraculous lake, that
turquoise of water which had seemed the seal of the gods’ approval. And up over
the turquoise arched four white bows of bridges, making ovals with their white
reflections below. The four white bridges met in a diadem of light, the central
fane of Belsheved, which was not of white stone, but plated over, like a
fabulous lizard, with scales of palest gold. The rich kernel of the sweet fruit
of faith.
    Men declared:
“See, it is like the mansion of a god.”
    But it was
not, for the mansions of the gods were shafts of psychic material which
probably no man could have seen, even had he been able to enter the Upperearth
and gaze thereon.
    Standing on
the bridges, which were ornately carved, the golden architecture before them,
the shining orb of water beneath, those who came to worship presently beheld
white robed figures moving, like sprites, through the misty interior of the
fane.
    While the
people lived elsewhere, returning to this, the fount of their religion, once
only in a year, some few dwelled always in Bhelsheved, to tend it, and to keep
alive the flames which burned there, and to nurture the flowers which bloomed
there, to the glory of the gods, and to see to all the other esthetic tasks of
the city.
    They were
chosen, these few, from a certain type. Somehow, some idea of the physical
appearance of the gods was already current, and had been tailored to mortal
standards. All who served the city were good to look upon, very slender of
build, and of a pale translucence of skin which was perpetuated by the rigorous
fasts, diets and medications of their order. Their hair, both male and female,
was of a general hue, a gold blanched almost to platinum.
    Their
characteristics were select, their glances obscure, their gestures flowing.
They seemed sublimely unaware, removed from the roughness, the sheer red meat
of humanity.
    Yet, it was
from among the people that they were chosen, those elevated ones. Although the
people deliberately forgot the origin of their priests and