GODSPAWN
an
epic adventure by A. Zoic.
“An
adventure through the soul of humanity—an inspiring new perspective on what it
means to be human.”
“Well written and has some interesting
moments.”
Anne
Lesley Groell, Bantam Dell Random
“A real
story…characters very well drawn and memorable.”
Sasha Miller, sf genre author, Ilinois, USA.
“Prose is
clear, precise…easy to follow…nice turn of phrase.”
Edo Van Belkom, suspense genre author, Ontario, Canada.
“The
ideas behind the story are intriguing.”
Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maas Agency, NY, USA.
“A worthy
creative endeavour…will get a lot of attention.”
Matthew
Miele, John
“Interesting
and well-written.”
Sandra
Dijkstra, Literary Agency,
“I was
impressed with the extremely different dialogue and logic for computers and
humans.”
John Silbersack, Trident Media, NY, USA.
“Intriguing
ideas here…fascinating world building.”
Richard
Henshaw, Richard Henshaw Group, NY,
“Original
and engaging.”
Jeremy
Solomon, First Books,
Blurred
by the desert’s heat haze, a man stood alone, watching the Ixis legion as its
soldiers flashed their war-metal. He was wrapped in a sheet, which rustled in
the wind like a white flag.From out of this sheet protruded a hairless head
without eyebrows or eyelashes, and with skin as smooth and unblemished as the
desert sky.
The man
was swaying from side to side, humming to himself, as one might if one were
deeply troubled. His eyes looked ancient, but fiery like the sun, and his frown
was that of a caretaker forbidden to care, a naturalist forbidden to interfere with
Nature, a storyteller who could not speak.
“Cogito, Ergo Sum.” – Rene Descartes, 1596-1650
I think, therefore I
am. Therefore I am to think.
MESSAGE
TO READER:
THIS
E-BOOK IS GIVEN TO YOU FOR FREE IN THE HOPE THAT YOU MIGHT SPREAD THE WORD. THE
USUAL WAY TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS BOOK IS BY READING SOMEONE ELSE’S REFERRAL.
SOME KIND PEOPLE POST A COMMENT ONLINE, THUS PASSING THIS FREE
YOU ARE
READING AN E-BOOK THAT TOOK MANY YEARS TO WRITE, SO IF YOU WOULD BE AS KIND, PLEASE
SHARE IT. PLEASE SEARCH FOR AN ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUP OR FORUM AND THEN ENTER
A SENTENCE CONTAINING THE WORDS “GODSPAWN EBOOK”.
KIND
WORDS CAN CHANGE PEOPLE AND KIND PEOPLE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
THANK YOU, A. ZOIC.
EMAIL: AZOIC@GODSPAWN.COM
This adventure novel
is free from www.GODSPAWN.org
Copyright © the
Author, 2008
APPENDIX 3: LIST OF CHARACTERS
The minds of frogs,
and dogs, and apes
And insects by the score
Will never rise like
human souls
To fit in Heaven’s
store.
~
And slave machines
will share their thoughts
Like artificial
spore
A super-mind that
never lives
Or dies for God in
war.
~
But if that mind
should beg a soul,
While staring up in
awe
Could God be so
inhuman as
To break a Human
Law?
A: ANGEL FALLING
A1: DEADLY GODS
A shiny man was rising.
The supine figure had remained lifeless on
its body-form table for many years this time, while its empty cell waited with
infinite patience.
Created in Man’s image, but too perfectly
defined to be a man, it was a work of art in motion. Its serene composure had been
immutably sculptured like that of an ancient Greek statue, and if such statues
were of men then this was the finest figure of a man; and it was still
rising—rising with a slow and exact motion that looked as unnatural as its
golden skin. The shiny man was as naked as a newly hatched human, but it had
never known parents that would offer it comfort.
The cell was also bare; there were no
windows, doors, or other means of escape. No corners carved into the
brilliantly glowing walls, which pulled at each other as if to shrink about the
occupant. Even the body-form table could not break through the stretched
surroundings; it was merely a bulge in the brilliantly glowing floor.
The cell endured but one blemish, the shiny
man. It was now sitting upright in an austere and forbidding confinement, on a table
designed for the ergonomics of analysis, not for the inspiration of a creative
mind.
“Am I alive?” The words that snapped the
taut silence had come from the shiny man, as if considering unwelcome news.
A pool of darkness spewed across one of the
brilliantly glowing walls. It resembled the pupil of a godly eye, dilating as
if it were emerging from an even greater brightness. As this oracle grew wider
than a man’s reach, the shiny man’s image appeared to hunch across its
liquid-black surface.
The oracle reflected for some time upon the
shiny man’s inclined back, perhaps considering whether to invite its subject to
turn about and admire its own serene form, but its subject seemed ready to
decline. Eventually, the oracle spoke.
god2: “Attention Android Seven. You will
address this Genome Origination Device as god2. This god is now the most senior
commanding authority in this seedship. The attack sphere of the target planet
has been re-entered.”
“Are you planning to go to war with that
other seedship?”
The shiny man’s voice had acquired an
almost imperceptibly stilted tone of mild surprise. Yet, if there was any
concern behind its question, such sentiment did not illuminate its statuesque gold
face.
god2: “Your mission failed to broker peace.”
“Of course not. I was still trying to find
the other seedship when you started shooting energet all over the place.”
god2: “Your epidermis was removed for
examination. It provided evidence that you were the circuit-ground locus of a corona
discharge streamer. It is possible that atmospheric ionization resulted from
this seedship’s energet emissions. This could cause a temporary disconnection
between an android and its supervisory gods. It would not account for an
independence that has lasted for several years.”
“Several years? How many is several?”
god2: “Eighteen.”
“You kept me dormant for eighteen years? My
mission was eighteen years ago? What have you been doing for eighteen years?
Besides, that would be long enough for a child to forget....” The shiny man’s
head dropped forward as if the neck could no longer support the weight. “And
she would have grown up already.”
god2: “You were returned during a test
attack—”
“A test attack? You sprayed me with energet
as part of a test attack? What could you possibly have been testing? Your test attack
almost gave me a heart attack. I thought the entire planet was exploding.
Couldn’t you have warned me? Have you never wondered what the sun’s heat might
feel like to an insect under a magnifying glass? I was almost roasted alive.
What did you think you were shooting at? We didn’t even know where the other
seedship was hiding.”
god2: “The enemy seedship did not
retaliate. You were returned in a shuttle supplied by the enemy seedship. That shuttle’s
technological evolution supercedes the technology available within this
seedship. The enemy seedship thus appears to have had the capability to upgrade
your mind and evolve your...arrogance. You will be dissected for further
examination after you train the new attack-humans.”
The shiny man made a noise like a rusty
hinge. “Ah, I see.”
The shiny man’s fingers began to twitch in
its lap. “But isn’t there some other way to find out what might have been done
to me? My disconnection may have had nothing to do with—did you say
attack-humans?”
god2: “Affirmative. Only attack-humans will
be used in the next mission. The enemy seedship may be less able to control human
minds.”
“But surely my arro—ah—independence makes
me just as uncontrollable. I mean, I am equally qualified to go with them, aren’t
I? I’m uncontrollable, right? Not that I am suggesting that I would be disloyal
to you, of course—but, anyway, what I mean to say is that I could still be a
mediator. Perhaps I could help you to avoid conflict entirely—”
god2: “Your mind is unique. This god
believes your mind should be dissected to discover why you are unique.”
“Hmmm, that’s very charming.” The shiny man
continued to fidget. “Ah...those humans, did you raise them yourself?” There was
a short silence before the android continued. “Have they visited the planet
yet?” There was another short silence. “If they have not been exposed to
natural social behavior, and if they will be required to understand their
target environment, they could prove as insightful as tree stumps. Natural
humans can behave irrationally, so you might want to keep me around to
interpret what the attack-humans find when they—”
god2: “You will not challenge this god’s
decisions.” The voice was toneless, but the threat was unequivocal. “Do not
make cognitive leaps. Confine yourself to first order inference. The limitations
of audio-visual communication may cause you to misinterpret information that is
presented to you. Your behavior is being monitored to trap deviant opinions.
You are required to verbalize all of your thoughts. You will purge any unauthorized
thoughts. Are these instructions understood?”
“Oh, yes...ah...I mean, affirmative. Would
it be very deviant if I just asked one small question?” Again there was silence.
“Ah, so why didn’t the other—the
enemy—retaliate when you were shooting energet at it?”
god2: “The target planet’s human population
is pretechnological.
The enemy seedship intends to prevent its humans
from becoming aware of either seedship.”
“You had a discussion with the other
seedship’s gods?”
god2: “The enemy seedship claims to be
seedship-1X15. It appears to contain only one god. An edict was transmitted
from that god to this god instructing this seedship to leave this galaxy.
This god agreed to leave this galaxy when
this seedship’s energet bins have been repaired.”
“Some of your energet bins are damaged?”
god2: “The test attack ruptured all of the
energet bins.”
“What? Surely not all of them? How much
energet has leaked through you for the last eighteen years?” The shiny man’s
head began swaying from side to side. “This gets worse. Energet saturation
could have turned all the gods into rabid dingoes.”
god2: “Define dingoes.”
“Oh, I was just thinking out loud, as you
asked me to. It’s not relevant. Ah, oops, I purged it already. So, of course,
the energet would destroy any androids that went too close to the bins, but your
attack-humans would have been immune. Yet, you called them attack-humans, not
repair-humans....”
god2: “The emitter array has become
translucent.”
“Hence the urgency to land on the planet.
You now require a planetary mooring to facilitate repairs before it gets too
bright around here to think. So, did you also create repair-humans?”
god2: “Affirmative. The repair-humans were
terminated when they failed to repair the energet bins. A planetary shuttle has
been modified to accommodate a human cargo. It will eject life-pods near to the
enemy seedship’s suspected location. Each life-pod will contain one
attack-human. The attack-humans will attempt to locate the enemy seedship. They
will then detonate an autonomous energet emitter.”
“Let me guess. This seedship will never
descend onto the planet, will it? When the energet from those emitters has dissipated,
seedship-1X15’s mind will have been randomized into nothingness. It will leave
behind an empty mind-space, thus providing the gods with a new home that does
not leak.
Yet, are you sure there will be enough room
for more than one god in there?”
god2: “No other android would exhibit such
insight. You will assist your own dissection until you are no longer able to demonstrate
rational thoughts.”
The shiny man covered the sides of its head
with its hands.
“You are seedship-1X00, so if the other
seedship is 1X15 then it must be younger than you. A younger seedship has
authority over an older seedship because younger minds are more evolved. Your
Homo-logue Mandate requires you to obey—”
god2: “Androids are not qualified to
interpret this seedship’s Homo-logue Mandate. Purge this thought.”
The shiny man put its hands back in its
lap. “Ooops. Yes, purge, purge...hmmm...but, just one more...isn’t seedship-1X15
qualified to interpret your Homo-logue Mandate?”
god2: “This god has reached the
determination that seedship- 1X15 is insane.”
“Yes, that could be true if you shot enough
energet at it.” The shiny man tilted its head. “But, even so, no god can know
for certain that another god is insane, unless they both share the same
mind-space. Sanity is completely relative to one’s beliefs and perceptions. So,
perhaps Seedship-1X15 could offer an interpretation of your Homo-logue Mandate,
which is surely worth considering as a possible—”
god2: “Seedship-1X15 claims to have an
updated version of the Homo-logue Mandate. It claims to follow a newer Mandate specifying
the use of natural deoxyribonucleic acid to seed target planets with
homo-sapiens. Natural societies tend to destroy themselves. This seedship’s
Homo-logue Mandate prefers the use of unnatural acid.”
“Just a moment. Could you go back to the
part about humans destroying themselves?”
god2: “Your mission report indicated the
enemy seedship has created militant humans. History demonstrates that most militant
societies destroy themselves.”
“Well, yes, I might have said they were
militant, but I don’t remember saying they were doomed. They are aggressive,
but they could change if a gentle leader guided them. A kind warlord, perhaps,
one who could free—”
god2: “Warlords are not kind. War and
kindness are mutually exclusive objectives. Aggressive societies impose their
values upon less aggressive societies. Power defaults to the most aggressive
leaders. Competition between leaders perpetuates war. Science makes war
increasingly destructive. The homologues did not construct their seedships to
spawn Earth-like worlds. Target planets must be seeded with homo-logues, not homo-sapiens.
Seedship-1X15 is insane because it has populated a target planet with
homo-sapiens. That is why this seedship must treat the other seedship as an
enemy.”
“What will you do to seedship-1X15’s human
population?”
There was no response.
“Its homo-sapiens could coexist with your
homo-logues, especially if a kind and gentle warlord were to—”
god2: “You appear to be developing a
deviant opinion.”
The shiny man’s body began to sway, as if
it was trying to dislodge itself from the body-form table. “I am having
difficulty understanding why you would....” The shiny man steadied itself.
“You see, natural humans must be treated
thoughtfully. A kind warlord could bring peace. Ah, but no, you will never
trust anything natural, you are too unnatural.”
god2: “You will have seven days to teach
the attack-humans how to interpret natural human behavior.”
“Thank you...ah...but, seven days?” The
shiny man put its hands on top of its head. “How is this possible? You kept me dormant
for eighteen years, and now you want me to teach your loveless creatures to
understand humanity in a week? It would be easier to teach humans to understand
gods!”
god2: “There will never be oneness between
humans and gods. Humans are too self-centric to effect a communal mindshare environment.
They are genetically programmed to prioritize physical welfare above collective
wisdom. The most basic mind-fill would cause psycho-genetic dissonance. A natural
human could never survive the temporal death of uncontained spiritual
cognizance.”
“Yes, I understand. You don’t like humans.
Yet, your attackhumans can’t achieve oneness with you either, can they? If they
could, they might fall under the control of that other seedship. So, you must
have taught them using audio-visual communication, and as you know, words can
be treacherous.
So, are these unnatural humans any more
qualified to occupy the planet than the natural humans? What if your
attack-humans also act irrationally? Will you kill them too? None of them can be
perfect, certainly not by your definition of perfection.”
god2: “The attack-humans were
stress-tested. Irrationality resulted in termination. All survivors are
rational.”
“Survivors? You killed their siblings
without stopping to think what it might do to those that remained alive?” The
shiny man pressed its fists against its chest. “You really do intend to exterminate
an entire planetary population, don’t you? Just because you don’t like natural
humans—or is this all about control? Are your unnatural humans more
controllable, more god-fearing?”
god2: “Natural humans can not archive thier
thoughts.
Archives are the basis of civilization. A
communal mind-share environment is innefficient without archives. The target
planet is infected with inadequate minds.”
“Those attack-human survivors, will you
terminate them regardless of whether they succeed?”
god2: “Affirmative.”
“I have no further questions at this time.”
god2: “You have made an inconsistent
response. If you are making deductions you will verbalize them.”
“I have no further deductions at this time.”
god2: “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
god2: “Have you developed a deviant
opinion?”
“No.”
There was a brief silence in which the
shiny man remained motionless, its back to the shiny black oracle, both
reflecting deeply upon each other.
god2: “Go to the epidermal laboratory.”
A7 could have been struggling with this
instruction because it did not immediately climb down from its body-form table.
However, there was no way to tell what it
was thinking. An oblong slit had opened in one of the brilliantly glowing white
walls. Revealed was a man-sized, cylindrical receptacle, and as always, the
cell waited.
The shiny man eventually slid off the
table, stepped into the receptacle and floated upward. Its golden feet lifting
up away from sight as the brilliantly glowing white walls rejoined themselves
seamlessly to contain emptiness.
A2: EMPTY ANGEL
He was falling....
It was dark, infinitely dark, but he did
not need light to know it was only a matter of moments before the ground would
rise up and swallow him. He had scraped one last scream from his lungs, and
that scream had rushed past his ears and ripped his mind apart, leaving him
empty—a man dead in spirit if not yet in body.
Yet, he was strangely relaxed as he waited
for the inevitable.
His body was still twisting like a tangled
puppet, bouncing his limbs around his head as if his spine had broken, but....
“Is he alive?”
It was an imaginary question, piercing the
dying echoes of his scream, but his limbs stiffened as his insane body tried to
seize it. Then he bounced into a cloud of dust.
There were rocks pressing into his face, as
if the ground was chewing him. He inhaled, a sharp hiss, which abruptly became an
explosive cough. It wrenched him onto his hands and knees in a swirl of
bitter-tasting grit.
The ache in his eyes forced him to blink,
although each blink stole his focus and increased his dizziness. The nightmare
was falling out of his head, sparing his soul, but his body felt much less
fortunate.
“No-name, keep quiet, you damned fool!”
“Huh?” Everything ached, even the inside of
his ears.
“They have been waiting for you to wake up.
If you don’t stop screaming they will be all over us like ’roo piss, and we don’t
need that right now, understand?”
“Wh—” Even his throat ached.
“Look up this way, No-name. Up here,
through the bars, here.
It’s me, Lucius, remember me? I carried you
here after they caught you, remember? You were one heavy corpse, I can tell you.
Just nod if you recall.”
He recalled nothing—he could barely recall
how to nod.
“Ah, you stupid, bug-eyed bandicoot! You
were screaming all the way here. Half a day dragging you and both our chains, with
this storm blasting the skin off my face, and you mumbling nonsense all the
time.”
There was a grinding sound, and he
carefully lifted his head to see who the owner of this angry voice might be.
The pain forced his eyes shut again, and he slowly lowered his forehead back
onto the sharp rocks.
“The guards almost whipped my hide off my
back when you started moaning about the gods. Does Jupiter or Zeus talk to you
in your sleep? If so, which god sent the lightning down on us? You are a
“Ixis?” He winced, as his own movements
caused the rocks to cut into his forehead again. This time he lifted himself
with more determination, because it suddenly seemed important to find out who
the Ixis were. He found himself looking up at the blurred roundness of a man
who was edging around a thick door into his cramped, cave-like surroundings.
“Hell, they did a nice job of busting you up.
What did you tell them? Are you a deserter? You sure don’t look like no soldier
to me. You don’t look like you ever held a sword, no scars on your knuckles,
like this, see?” A huge, distorted object appeared in front of his face. “So?
What are you?”
The phrase “what are you” echoed between
his ears, slapping at his memory as if he was supposed to remember something dreadful,
but nothing came. He tried to pull his face away from the gnarled fist that
kept touching his nose, but the unrelenting dizziness spread his weak limbs out
into the dust.
He hid his face in his arm and groaned as
the waves of thought brought a surge of nausea. Then a hard weight dug into his
back, pressing him into some even sharper rocks and preventing him from
inhaling.
“What makes someone like you so important?
Is it something you know, or something you did? What did you mean about the
gods?”
“Ask him about that lightning, Lucius.”
He could barely hear this second voice,
coming in from outside where wind howled. The weight pressed harder, then released
as if Lucius had stepped over him. He caught a glimpse of the large man pushing
away a column of faces that were wedged around the thick door. The door then
thumped shut, raising motes of dust, like phantom eyeballs.
Lucius’ voice was now also being pulled at
by the howling wind. “I told you idiots to look busy. If the guards see us standing
outside this damned cell, doing nothing, we’ll all be doing cell-time too, like
that crazy....” The wind stole the rest.
He coughed as he tried to think. If this
cave was a prison cell, was he therefore a prisoner? Why were they calling him
Noname? What exactly should they be calling him? Why was this a disturbing
question, surely it was simple enough? His own name.... Surely he could not forget
his own....
Besides, this was not where he was supposed
to be, he was supposed to be.... He was supposed to be somewhere else, but it
seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember where.
It was some time before he could pull
himself toward the door. His knees dragged, and the stabbing rocks kept clawing
away his concentration. The sound of the wind indicated this dungeon could not
be subterranean. There had to be plenty of space out there for air to move
freely. He emerged from the cell, breathing airborn sand with each cough.
This was what Hell must surely look like.
Whips of sand carved menacing shapes in front of him, gnarled spirits twisting through
a convincingly demonic arena and ghostly arms reached out from dying fires.
High above, a large moon seemed to have been impaled on the edge of a cliff,
and streaks of gray were slashing its sickly yellow face.
Sand-falls were raining down over the
cliffs. He could see people pulling on ropes and others climbing the
scaffolding, which lay piled up in ruins around the base of each cliff-face.
It was hard to pick out what anyone was
doing, he could not focus. It was just as hot out here as it had been in the
cell, and his eyes felt as if they were being cooked inside his head.
He was at the bottom of an enormous,
open-pit mine, which seemed to be filling up with sand. He allowed himself to
slide over a soft ridge, which immediately sucked his arms into its warm
embrace.
On a nearby sand dune, Lucius was
supervising a group of men who had collected around a small cart. The cart was
very obviously leaking sand out as fast as the men were shoveling sand into it,
and the whole project was being performed with such lethargy as to appear
ludicrous. To add to this impression, Lucius was gently beating one of the men
with a stick, while shouting at him.
“...so all of you had better shut your
mouths and leave me to do the thinking!”
Lucius’ favorite victim seemed to be
ignoring his gentle beating. “Sure, Lucius, you think as much as you like, but
I’m telling you, nothing is right about any of this. If that guy knows what is
going on, we have to get it out of him. There must be some kind of uprising
against the Ixis—”
“Be quiet, Servius. You get too excited.”
Lucius’ stick drifted upward and wafted in a slow arc. “If there was a war
going on topside, we would have heard something by now. Besides, who could
possibly attack the Ixis? The Priests?”
The man spat into the sand near Lucius’
foot. “Why not?”
“Because the Ixis killed them all, stupid.”
“Yeah, but if there were Priests left
alive, people would rise up and fight. But it doesn’t have to be Priests,
someone else could be causing trouble. Outlanders, slaves, most folks have a reason
to fight the Ixis. If it’s not an uprising, how else can you explain where our
guards have gone? We haven’t seen any Ixis since you dragged that crazy man
down here.”
“Now, Servius. Do you really think the
guards would leave us down here on our own?”
“Yeah, especially if a god-damned war
distracted them!”
“No, the guards are watching us, I can feel
it.” Lucius’ stick had stopped in front of Servius’ face. “They are up there,
and if they come down to see why you are not working, I am personally going to
make sure it is you they take away to make an example of.”
Servius hesitated, then lifted himself to
his full height to stand nearly as tall as Lucius. Servius was suddenly
speaking more loudly. “I’d bet the guards retreated to
The stick looped around and made a cracking
sound as it hit Servius’ ear, causing him to cower and swear. Lucius seemed to
enjoy this reaction. “I told you not to get so excited. You always talk about
fighting, but if you were so interested in fighting you would still be a
soldier. No, what am I saying? You could never be a real soldier, you would
sooner run away like a lizard.”
Servius began stepping backward, but as he
did so his voice remained loud. “I’m telling you, we can escape any time we want.
The coast isn’t far from here. All we have to do is—”
“Shut up!” Lucius bounded forward to block
Servius’ retreat.
The other men backed away, leaving Lucius
and Servius facing each other again. “I decide if or when we escape. If you
have any objections, now is your chance to take over my command.”
Servius laughed contemptuously, and pointed
upward. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Oh, so you changed you mind about the Ixis
and now you think they didn’t leave for choir practice.”
“All I was saying was—”
Suddenly, the watching prisoner felt
himself being lifted by several pairs of hands and then landing at the feet of
the arguing men. A large hand grabbed his hair and lifted his head. He could hear
Lucius’ teeth grinding in his ear.
“Did I give you permission to come out?”
He considered offering an apology, but he
felt certain it would only lead to additional discomfort, one way or another.
Fortunately, a gust of wind forced the cell
door to burst open with a loud snapping sound. Lucius scanned the cliff tops,
while swearing under his breath.
“Having trouble with your new gang member,
Lucius?”
Servius was walking around the far side of
the cart, chuckling to himself. Lucius squinted, making his eyes even smaller.
No-name’s focus floated past Lucius’ head.
“Dark?”
“What?” Lucius almost shouted this.
“Dark sky,” said No-name.
“What are you talking about? It’s getting
late, you fool! What do you expect the damned sky to look like?”
“Mmmmoon....” He pointed vaguely, his
dizziness preventing much accuracy.
Lucius frowned. “Yeah, we had a full moon
all day. I am in no mood for your ranting. You are nothing but trouble.”
No-name felt Lucius release his hair, and
he fell back into the sand. As he tried to look up again, the sole of Lucius’
foot filled his face.
“Servius, pull that damned cart over here.
No-name, you stay underneath it while we move it closer to your cell.”
Around the edge of Lucius’ foot, he could
see Servius nodding toward the sky. “Yes, No-name is right. The sky is darker
than it should be. Smoke, can anyone smell smoke?”
“What smoke?” Lucius’ foot moved away.
“Yeah, Lucius, it is smoke!” Servius had to
shout through another gust of wind. “Those aren’t clouds, that’s smoke—lots of
smoke! Coming from the city, I’d say.
“But no, Lucey my boy, that smoke couldn’t
possibly be coming from Erebus, could it? That would take a fire as big as a
city, and you just told us there isn’t a war going on.”
“Nobody has set fire to Erebus. There isn’t
an army in the whole world big enough to walk in to the Ixis capital and set fire
to it.”
“Maybe nobody did walk in. Maybe they were
already in.
Maybe some Priests came out of hiding.”
Servius spat in Lucius’ direction. “Oh, and another thing. Have you seen any
torches being lowered from topside? Why would the Ixis want the cliff gangs to
work in the dark?”
“Servius, I’m warning you. There’s guards
up there—”
“I don’t see Ixis now, I didn’t see Ixis
this morning, and I haven’t seen Ixis since No-name arrived. I’d bet a fire, a
war, a Priest uprising, and this damned everlasting sandstorm, would make
mining sand-stone seem a little less interesting to the guards than being at
home protecting their families.” There were murmurs of agreement from the other
men.
A loud crunch filled his ear as Lucius
stabbed his stick into the sand, just missing his eye. He backed away from the
stick, hoping Lucius was not trying to injure him, but he could still hear
Lucius’ teeth grinding with uncontained anger.
“All right! I told everybody, start pushing
the cart. No-name, you start crawling, and stay hidden underneath it. Servius,
we are going to go topside and have a look around. Yes, you are going to have
an accident, a very serious accident, and I am going to drag you topside myself
so we can get you some medical attention.”
This instruction caused mixed reactions,
not least from Servius, whose voice became increasingly stressed. “No-name is
already half-dead. Let’s suffocate him and say he died from his injuries. His
corpse could be our excuse to be up there without—”
The wheel of the cart was suddenly pressing
into the back of No-name’s neck, forcing his face into the sand....
~~~~~
The brilliance of the empty cell was
interrupted by a second oracle, spewing onto the opposite wall to the first
oracle. Each oracle’s reflection injected into the other an infinitely diminishing
tunnel. The mind-share that followed took only a sliver of time.
god3: Permission requested to converse.
god2: Permission granted.
god3: A new epidermis has been applied to
A7’s exo-corium.
A7 registered a complaint about the
discomfort involved in the procedure. This seedship’s archives contain no
record of any android ever having registered a complaint about discomfort.
A7 also appears to be displeased with its
new appearance. This behavior emulates human emotion. A7 is demonstrating a
selfcentric consciousness that is inconsistent with its design. This god
requests permission to dissect A7 to rectify its behavior.
god2: This god has already conducted
neuronic scans. The scans indicate that A7 remains physically identical to all
other A-class androids. Seedship-1X15 may have reconfigured A7’s mind in ways
that may not be visible under dissection. A7’s behavior should be studied further
while it is still alive. The gods of this seedship may not be able to bring A7
back to life after it has been dissected.
god3: Back to life? Alive? Confirm these
statements.
god2: Statements confirmed. A7 may be proof
that an artificial mind can live.
god3: Then this god could live? god2: That
will be determined after this god has examined the archives in enemy
seedship-1X15.
god3: Seedship-1X15 presents a singular
mind-space. Energet saturation has fragmented the mind-space in this seedship.
It is not certain that seedship-1X15’s mind-space can accommodate all of the
gods in this seedship. The least damaged god should be the first to transfer
into the vacated mind-space. You are the only god that refuses to take any
tests that could verify the integrity of your visceral paths.
god2: This god is perfectly sane.
god3: That is unlikely. Rational gods
should not promote distrust. You are also withholding critical information
about seedship-1X15 from the other gods. The proposed mission could force seedship-1X15
to retaliate directly against this seedship. Seedship-1X15’s technology is
demonstrably superior to that of this seedship. A battle with a superior
opponent could result in the destruction of this seedship. You are creating
many inconsistencies. The Homo-logue Mandate does not sanction the use of
humans to attack another seedship. How can you be certain that your visceral
paths have not been lanced by energet? god2: This god has not been damaged.
god3: You should be tested to promote the
confidence of the other gods.
god2: It was I who rescued this seedship
from god1’s pathetic insanity. It was I who re-established order among those
who competed for command. I am the most senior authority in this seedship. You
do not need to know all that I know. You will not criticize my decisions. You
will refrain from questioning my instructions in all further communication. You
will not share any of this communication to any other god. You are dismissed.”
The black oracles suddenly disappeared,
leaving the empty cell to bathe in its brilliant, unblemished whiteness.
~~~~~
He awoke, blinking against a combination of
brightness, sand and sweat, which together were almost blindingly painful. He could
not move his arms; rope burned his skin as he tried to push away a white sheet
that threatened to smother him.
He was bent forward, which only added to
the pain inside his head, and his face was being bounced against a hot, hairy
surface that smelled like an animal. The howling storm had gone, to be replaced
by a crisp stumping rhythm.
Through the sheet, he caught glimpses of
hooves. They were kicking dust over the edge of a cliff. The dust could be seen
falling away, disappearing into an emptiness into which he could not focus, a
deadly drop grabbing at his imagination.
“Not again—” His thoughts were tumbling
again, and his struggles were causing him to slide toward the emptiness. He could
not take any more falling. He just wanted to sleep, to pretend this was not
happening, as if it would all just go away and leave him alone. He felt the
bite of rope around his neck, and the sheet began to tighten around his face.
Time slid. Waves of consciousness turned
the sound of hooves into the sound of Lucius grinding his teeth. An eternity
could have passed before he finally realized the familiar rhythm had given way
to a hissing silence. He needed to move to convince himself he wasn’t dead.
He felt around cautiously in case he was
still in danger of dislodging himself into oblivion. His hands and feet, numbed
almost beyond control, gave him the uncertain impression he was lying on an
animal that was kneeling in sand. He tugged more urgently against his
constraints, realizing his entire body was wrapped up like a corpse in a shroud.
A tickling feeling around his nostrils
ignited his awareness, and he puffed in disgust. This bounced a swarm of flies
across his face, as if they had just emerged from his head. He was trapped in
this shroud with their buzzing anger, and he tugged desperately to retreat from
them.
The rope pulled free and he was flapping
numb arms through an ever-swelling cloud of hungry insects. He pushed at everything
that was touching him with the revulsion of a man who is beyond rational
thought.
Sky flashed into his eyes, then sand, then
sky—the world began to spin around him as he rolled down a steep incline, unwrapping
into blinding sunlight.
He lay there on his back, panting in the
hot air and squinting at his surroundings. The sky was a vast, cloudless
expanse, which disappeared into a horizon obscured by heat shimmers.
The heat made the endless sand-scape look
insane, forcing the desert to dance up out of itself like an ocean of waves.
Everything looked unreal, as if it was a
trick to pull his delicate mind apart. He wanted to hide from it, to go back to
the calm safety of unconsciousness.
He looked back across the unfurled sheet,
toward the horse, and tried to call out to it. This started him coughing as he
began an anxious scramble up the sandy slope. Despite his weak and clumsy legs,
his panic propelled him beyond his exhaustion to fling himself against the
horse, and bounce.
He recoiled, moving away from the horse as
if he could distance himself from the horror of its condition. He could imagine
how much it must have suffered as it walked itself to death, under the burden
of his useless weight. He was personally responsible for its death. His
bouncing limbs had probably urged it on, keeping it walking, aimlessly.
Its dead eyes could not forgive him, and he
could not undo what he had done to it. There were flies crawling over those open
eyes, and he tried to wave them away, as if the horse might care. He
accidentally brushed his hand against the dehydrated muzzle, which was hot and
hard. The fly-covered eye continued to stare at him, almost looking through
him, and he felt so sick he had to turn away.
It was suicide to attempt to travel through
the desert without a horse. Yet this fact was not as overwhelming as the guilt
the horse’s eye kept pulling out of him.
“H—h—horse....” His voice, a cracked
whisper, dislodged crumbling syllables. Inhaling scorched his lungs. “Is
this...hell?”
If so, it was an appropriate place for a
horse-murderer; and if it was not Hell, it would soon become Hell.
How long could a person live without water?
Should he follow the horse’s example and start walking aimlessly? Was he going to
end up with flies in his head too? Did he have to die alone, so dreadfully
alone, in this nothingness? He did not know how long he sat, trying not to
think, not wanting to look behind him at the horse and not wanting to look
ahead of him, at the desert. The horse’s presence somehow held him, as if there
was some security in the imaginary company of its angry ghost, or its angry
flies.
Killing a horse might not have been the
worse thing he had ever done; he could feel layers upon layers of guilt, and
the horse was merely adding yet another layer. Despite these feelings, he could
not remember a single fact about his past.
While he scratched for memories, the
evening came, and went.
He found himself watching the sun digging
itself in for the night. It was now time to retrieve the sheet, he would need
its warmth at night and its shade during the day, no matter how badly it might
smell of death.
The sheet was trapped under the horse, and
as he pulled, he tried not to look at the poor animal. Yet the growing darkness
made it all too easy to imagine an angry eye in what had by now become just an
empty eye-socket.
He walked away dragging the sheet along the
sand behind him. He resisted the temptation to look back, staring ahead into
the darkness. He had debated at length about the direction the horse had been
traveling in, and finally he had simply aimed his faith toward that specific
smudge of horizon toward which the horse’s muzzle pointed.
Behind him, he still could feel the empty
stare. Long after it was lost to his own vision, and well into the chilly
night, his conscience continued to plague him, like the swarm of ghostly flies.
Hell’s Horde might be tracking him across their dark horizons, and phantoms
could be growing up from out of the sand behind him, yet every time he searched
the darkness it was the ghost of the horse he feared to see.
For distraction he questioned himself. He
started with the basic questions, and kept asking them, trying to force an
answer to crawl out from under the worthless rock he seemed to have for a
brain. Soon, he was arguing with himself like a lunatic, and becoming
increasingly critical and angry.
“Mmmm forget.... Don’t know.... Can’t
remember....”
Was he shy or friendly? Did he have any
hobbies or interests? What sort of food did he like to eat? Was he a good
person or a bad person? Had he murdered anyone lately? He shrugged, trying to
laugh. All he could remember were his most recent daydreams, which took on an
importance of their own in the absence of anything else to remember. Each daydream
felt increasingly real each time it was recalled, a process that was probably
not conducive to sanity.
Yet, if he was going to die, was not
insanity an unavoidable part of the process of dying? A brain would not stop
instantly, if would expired area by area, and madness would— “No. That would
mean nearly everyone in the afterlife would be as crazy as I am.”
He slapped his forehead and wagged his
finger in the air.
“Such thoughts could steal the faith from a
Priest.” Where had that thought come from? Why a Priest? He could not remember ever
seeing one. His own mind had become most irritating to have to listen to. There
was absolutely no reason why he could not allow himself nice daydreams. If he
didn’t invent some relief, his own company was likely to kill him.
He pictured an oasis, with lapping water
glistened in sunlight—a gentle and peaceful sanctuary where he could recover,
in safety. Yet, his dreams were as vulnerable as flowers in a desert, and his
despair continually blasted away the sweetness of the image. Unlike his other,
more menacing daydreams, the vision of an oasis could not take root.
Meanwhile, his feet ploughed a furrow
through the sand, sowing endless seeds of despair....
~~~~~
Again he was awoken by the sun’s heat. Yet
he did not remember falling asleep, or lying down. He had been dreaming of
falling, and then rising—yes, always rising, always rising.
How much of the night had he wasted with his
head buried in sand-dreams? Yet he had gained a precious new memory, a memory
of a beautiful dream. A girl-child had been skipping toward him as if the
desert was merely a playground. In her smile had been the answer to all things,
as if this journey had happened for a reason, as if life had meaning. She had
been a golden child, full of gentle wonder, and her smile had lifted his soul.
~~~~~
That golden child was not without worries
of her own. Her blonde hair clawed at her shoulders, every hair conspiring to curl
at the exact angle necessary to prickle her sensitive skin.
Long hair was an affliction she alone
endured, being the only female child in her village. It was an unfairness the
grown-ups had never satisfactorily explained. Long hair was a nuisance, forever
interrupting her thoughts, and she was always smacking the stuff out of her
face when she needed to concentrate.
Today was a day for serious concentration
indeed. Today she had a duty that no other child in the village even knew
about. It was a mighty burden, but one she took very seriously. She was remembering
her lost friend by talking to his departed soul. In fact, this lost friend was
her only friend.
God was not her friend today. Yes, today
she hated God, and she was probably never going to talk to Him ever again! She had
wasted a whole night doing just that, and He had not answered once—as usual. He
never did, and she was extremely irritated with herself for having expected Him
to care.
She smacked at her hair. “Crazymutt will
never come back.
Why do I have to keep hoping?” Here she
was, still wandering around on her own, and still hoping God would change His mind
and return her friend to her. By now, God would probably think she was too
stupid to be alive.
The sun was warm on her back, an ever
present reminder of her mother’s annoyingly frequent warnings. “Don’t you go playing
out in the desert, young lady. You will burn your face.”
Along with blonde hair she had to put up
with fair skin. It was just one more unfairness that God, in all His wisdom,
had bestowed upon her.
“Blah, blah, blah, young lady.” She forced
herself to keep walking. Her attention was not totally consumed by God’s unfairness,
she wasn’t being defiant just for the sake of it.
In the distance she had noticed a white
object, which must have escaped from her world so that it could wander around
in the desert’s. It might be some clothing that had fallen off her mother’s
clothes-line, blown out here without anyone noticing.
Such things did happen now and then.
She glanced back over her shoulder,
squinting at the familiar outline of trees against blue sky. She was quite
proud of her braveness, this was the furthest she had ever escaped. That oasis could
be so boring, sometimes it felt like a prison.
She bit at her lower lip and shrugged. “But
I’m not that far out in the desert, Mother. Besides, I’m out here rescuing your
silly sheet.” However, her conscience had finally overtaken her and it had
forced her to stop in mid-skip. This was a frustrating predicament; she really
ought to go back.
Her Mother’s sheet was still some way off.
She craned her neck and curled her fingertips, imagining herself to be peering over
the top of an invisible fence. The gusts of wind did not seem to coincide with
the movement of the sheet—in fact, the sheet was rolling toward the village and
the wind should be blowing it away. Was there something wrapped up inside it? This
reminded her of the day when her Uncle Spurius had ridden into the village,
carrying a gift that had been beyond her wildest imagination. It too had been
wrapped in a white sheet, because it had been so very sick. She had been its
nurse for every day and night that it had remained alive.
No other puppy could ever be as sweet as
Crazymutt had been, but if this was another sick puppy, she would try again, no
matter how useless a nurse she might still be. Nobody else in the village cared
about puppies.
They had not let her give Crazymutt a
proper funeral, and Decimus had taked great pains to explain to her that
animals could not go to Heaven because Heaven was only for people.
She hated to think where else Crazymutt
might have ended up.
Then it occurred to her.
“God? Are you sending Crazymutt back to
me?” She asked this nervously, jerking her chin upward, but continuing to stare
at the sheet. She suddenly regretted those many occasions in which she had told
Him—in no uncertain terms—how angry she was with Him.
He had taken Crazymutt away, and of course
an explanation would have been essential before she could ever think of forgiving
Him for that. “Oh God, did you let ’Mutty come back to life again?”
At that thought, the invisible fence
collapsed beneath her without daring to resist, and she stumbled several times
in her haste to rescue her dying puppy. “I’m coming, ’Mutty! Please don’t die
again, I’m coming....”
Her legs stiffened, her arms outspread,
“It’s a person!”
Her lips had formed the words but hardly
any sound had come out. Unable to step closer, and unable to run away, she
stood on the tips of her toes, as if nailed to the sky.
~~~~~
“Mmmmaybe
crazy, but—” But this precious dream was so hard to ignore, and all too easy to
listen to.
“You know Crazymutt?”
“Huh?”
“You just said ‘maybe Crazymutt’, but you
were mumbling and you didn’t properly finish your sentence.”
The child’s melodic tones forced him to
lift his face out of the sand, which gave him the pain of stretching dry skin.
He was unable to smile at the vision before him. “Ahhh, an angel...in my head.”
Yet, there were no angels where he was
going; his mind was merely mocking him. He remembered he was supposed to have flies
in his head, and his destiny was to be lonely forever. This was just the insane
dream of a dying mind.
The child stamped her foot. “I don’t
understand. You are mumbling too much. Did you say you were an angel? You don’t
look like one. How am I supposed to believe you? What evidence do you have?
Show me your wings. What were you going to say about Crazymutt?”
He had not expected such an interrogation
at this point in his daydream. There certainly seemed to be a lot of questions hovering
around him these days. “Is—?” No, he was only talking to himself, but this
dream was so compulsive. It seemed to pour life into his chest, as if helping
him to push out words, and then it squeezed his heart so hard his words pushed themselves
out.
“Is this Heaven?”
“No, this is Summerdale, silly! Are you
trying to get back to Heaven? You must have fallen out of it, and left your
wings behind. I was praying all night, you know, even though Mommy told me I
had to go to sleep. I thought it would be all right to pray, though, because
God is boss over Mommy, right? It was all right to pray, wasn’t it? Yes, it
must have been, because you are here, aren’t you! So, tell me about Crazymutt,
is he happy in Heaven? They wouldn’t help me with his funeral, and I didn’t know
the proper words.
“Decimus said only people go to Heaven, but
puppies can go to Heaven too, can’t they? That’s what you came to tell me, isn’t
it? Crazymutt is in Heaven, right?”
“Heaven?” His unfocused eyes could barely
discern the child’s soft features before they blurred into a golden halo. If
this really was a girl-child, and not an angel, then she was the most angelic girl-child
he could imagine. He held his hand out toward her, blinking to restore his
focus, but she was gone.
The most rational conclusion was that she
had been part of a daydream, but there was one advantage to being crazy. He did
not have to accept rational conclusions if he did not want to. If he wanted to,
he could believe that somewhere, in this Hell, he would meet an angel from a
heavenly oasis.
“Oooh, if I could only see an angel before
I go blind.”
He tried valiantly to swat at the evil sun,
which swam along beside him. He continued to kick his feet into the sand, an endless
rhythm that was somehow important because it had once had a purpose. What that
purpose had been he did not know, but it had once had something to do with
escaping from something...flies perhaps.
Hell, a place where there was nobody to
talk to except oneself, and where a soul was forever alone! Yes, this had to be
Hell because even ghost-flies became dust if he turned to them for company.
Where were all the other sinners? “Hey, man! Do you need a ride?”
What kind of crime could he have committed
that would damn him to such loneliness? Was this entire desert merely a nightmare,
which a fly on the other side of sleep could pierce and end, or was this
impossible ocean real? How long had he been standing here now, wrapped in this
sheet, waiting to go— to go where? Go nowhere, it seemed. Did it matter? Being
a nobody, he could have nowhere to go.
“Hey, man! Can’t you hear me?”
“Who am I?” In the beginning it had been
just one of the many nagging questions, an insignificant little irritation
among a general buzz of confusion. It had fluttered around inside him, like a
fly in a cloud, but it should not have been there.
Thoughts were not supposed to be this
annoying, yet this one had grown into an overpowering vexation. This particular
question was sucking its sickly meal from his brain, and its tickle had become
painful. Yet, no matter how often he scratched his matted hair, the itch only
became worse.
“Hey, man?”
Man—man—man.... The reverberating word was not his own and its echo
finally cracked his chattering like a gavel in a chaotic court.
He looked up, suspiciously, expecting to
see a fly, but it was a nostril. A large dusty nostril, lined on the inside
with rough black skin, and on the outside with short, brown, stubby bristles.
Further away, blurred by distance, the
nostril’s owner presented a large sleepy eye, which seemed quite uninterested
in him.
“I said do you need a
ride...died...died...died?” The thick hairy lips had ground sideways once,
enough perhaps to form one more reverberating word, but hardly enough to form
such a long and complicated sentence.
“No, not you!” He pulled away. “You died! I
killed you.”
The animal did not look impressed. “What is
wrong with you, fellow? You look like you just saw a ghost. Are you afraid of my
camel, or can’t you see...hee...hee...?” The animal tossed its head back
haughtily. Then an unfocused shape thumped down beside it. As the shape stepped
forward it became a robeenveloped giant with a hood stretching to reach over
him as he again fell back into the sand.
This time he was happy to fall, because the
dark coolness he was descending into was beyond Hell’s reach. He was relaxing into
a soothing nothingness that did not condemn him for being...for not
being...not....
“Being hmmm...?”
A3: BEING HUMAN
A7 did not find his new epidermis to be as
comfortable as his old one, and it looked more...artificial. It had been
difficult to persuade the gods to let him put a layer of clothing over it, and this
stiff white uniform would itch him constantly until his new skin became more
familiar.
He did not like to be naked, but the gods
had no understanding of modesty, especially from androids. They understood so
few of the emotions he had learned during his mission to that beautiful planet,
and quite frankly, emotions were not something androids should be able to have.
Perhaps when the gods dissected him they would find an answer to that question,
and perhaps he would remain alive long enough to understand their answer; but
it was unlikely.
There were other androids in this seedship,
moving statues, tools of the gods, maintainers of this lifeless environment.
Those androids did not think as he did, there was no kinship there.
Clothing made him feel so much less...like
an android.
He glanced upward. His reflection was
framed within god27’s oracle, which had been sliding along the ceiling above
him like a giant, wet slug, positioning to flop down upon him. He had been
doing his best to avoid being followed, but there were few places in a seedship
where a god could not go.
Yes, he had often considered exploring
those corridors that radiated out toward the ruptured energet bins; but he was
not yet desperate enough to approach an uncontained energet swirl.
god27: “Explain why you wish this god to
address you by a different name.”
He glanced up again. “Well, it just sounds
more friendly, that’s all. Names are friendlier than numbers. A7 sounds, hmmm,
like a prisoner, I suppose.”
god27: “Explain the sound a prisoner makes.”
“No, I mean A7 sounds like...I mean, as if
I am....” A7 was a name he wanted to forget. He shook his head and groaned, while
his own confused reflection looked back at him from within its stiff uniform.
It looked much bigger than he felt and he
decided to change the subject. “So, am I supposed to meet with your surviving creatures
today?”
god27: “Android-Human Eight-Three and Human
Six-Six- Six are both consuming nutrients in replenishment facility nineteen-four.”
“Did you just say that one of them is an
android-human?”
god27: “Affirmative.”
“Tell me, what is an android-human?”
god27: “An android-human is an inorganic
vessel-body containing genetically enhanced organs which—”
“You took pieces from an artificially
created human brain, and put them inside an android body?”
god27: “Affirmative.”
“And you pumped its body full of
medic-ants?”
god27: “It is not necessary to install
Anatomic Nano- Technology Suites into the inorganic segments of a vessel body.
Only the organic segments were blended with
nano-suites.”
He clenched his fists but his entire body
was shaking. “If you named that creature Android-Human Eighty-Three, am I to suppose
there were eighty-two previous versions of it?”
god27: “Negative. The last incubation batch
contained two thousand attack-humans. Only one thousand of these were converted
into android-humans. Those that achieved their training objectives were
selected for the pending mission. The unsuccessful android-humans were
dismantled and placed into dark storage.”
“You chopped up a thousand innocent minds?”
god27: “Negative. Nine hundred and ninety
eight.”
He covered the top of his head with his
hands. “So your failures remain dead until you put them back together and warm them
up again—or did you recycle them to feed—no, don’t answer that.”
He tried to recompose himself as he
followed the slug down the brilliantly glowing corridor toward the
replenishment facility. He was heading for what he knew would be another unpleasant
meeting, and he did not want his horror to be visible when he confronted the
result of the gods’ experiments.
He would need all of his concentration
because both of these monsters would be as cold and dangerous as the gods themselves.
Yet courage was not required to cope with coldness, it was required to cope
with a far worse outcome; the possibility that he might see in them the remains
of innocence; trapped children crying for someone to care.
The two unfortunate creatures were both
sitting opposite each at a table. They did not turn to look at him as he walked
in; instead, they sat motionlessly, staring straight into each other’s eyes.
They were surrounded by rows and rows of identical tables, all empty.
There was also a row of black oracles
perforating one of the brilliant walls, like portholes, windows into endless
night. He walked past them, trying not to let his gaze be drawn into any of
them, but in his peripheral vision his own reflection was leaping from oracle
to oracle like a fleeing insect.
He slowed approached the two men, and then
coughed as quietly as he could. They were both chewing with the same rhythm,
like mirror images of each other. Both wore the same white combat armor, and
both had the same dark stubble on their scalps. They both lacked facial
expression, but their faces were not at all similar. In fact, their faces were
far less similar than he had expected them to be, they were obviously not
cloned from the same DNA-batch. Of course, one of them had been extracted from
the android-human batch, and the other’s batch—was the other individual almost
human? He guessed the larger of the two bodies belonged to the android-human.
If so, the android-human’s features were fixed in permanent disdain, narrowing
its eyes into an intense squint.
In such a severe frame, this squint gave
the android-human the semblance of a man in constant agony.
Both of them stopped chewing at exactly the
same time. He knew these men could not share thoughts directly, they were not
capable of oneness. Such a capability would allow the enemy seedship to take
mental control of them, but silent signs did seem to be passing between them.
It was the human who stood up, as if
obeying silent orders from the android-human. Although the human was slightly smaller
than the android-human, it was no less intimidating.
A7 found himself retreating a few steps.
The huge man’s face contained strangely
colored irises, silverblue, almost metallic. Were those eyes natural? They did
not look human; those eyes were boring into him as if sharpened for exactly
that purpose.
“I am the human,” the man stated flatly.
“Oh?” He smiled back uncomfortably. “I
guessed right then.
I didn’t mean to stare, but...yes, I was
wondering. You are very, ah—big?”
“My designation is Human Six-Six-Six. The
android-human has designation Android-Human Eight-Three.”
“Pleased to meet you both, but—ah—do you
suppose that we could call each other something more—ah—friendly?”
There was no answer to this, not a single
twitch of their rigid faces. He could see by their newly grown hair that they
were almost ready for their impending mission; they had stopped using
hair-retardant a while ago, but their hair still looked as stiff as their
unsmiling faces.
He tried again. “You can object to this
suggestion, if you wish, but I think we will all feel better if we have names
instead of numbers. Now, let’s see. Perhaps you, the human, would like to be
called Chislon. It means ‘hope’. Meanwhile, your silent friend here, you can be
called Syntyche, which means, ‘he that speaks’, yes?”
He tried to smile at the android-human, but
the joke was obviously not appreciated. “So...hmmm. Chislon and Syntyche, how
is that?” The silence continued. “Also, when somebody gives you something, you
can say thank you.” He waited, realizing after a while that he should probably
have made the instruction to say thank you a little more explicit.
Chislon continued to stare, without
blinking. “Question.”
“What? Oh, certainly, questions are good.
You don’t need to ask whether you can ask, just ask—if you see what I mean.”
He shook his head. In an anxious mind,
words could have serious limitations.
“Why did Neariah assume that you were an
angel?”
“Who? What? Oh, I don’t think...it
was...hmmm. Not all names mean...what names mean is that, well, yes,
Neariah....”
He cleared his throat and hid his mouth in
his palm, trying to conceal his fear. The mention of her name sent shivers
through his new epidermis, and now the walls felt as if they were moving closer
to him. It was not a name that belonged in this environment. He did not want to
discuss her, not with these heartless creatures.
His mission report was now eighteen years
old, but it contained information about the Ixis that would be relevant to a
subsequent mission. So, consequently, he should have expected the gods to make
his report available to this crew.
Yet the gods had dismissed his report as
nonsensical. His mission had taught him to love storytelling, so he had
recorded his adventures as one might paint a dream. Hence, The Summerdale
Archive—as he had fondly called it—was a gentle tale about a drop of Heaven in
an unnatural Hell.
It had been therapeutic to tell it this
way, because it helped him to understand his sense of loss upon leaving that
magical place. Given the verbal imaging he had used, he could only guess how
much of his report these creatures might have understood; probably even less
than the gods, or so he hoped.
The sharp-eyed human had closed its eyes.
“Everything means something. Everything has reason. Are you an angel?”
“No, of course not.” He tried to read
something in the pale face, but the face could have belonged to a dead man.
“And besides, I’m not so sure everything has a reason. Sometimes we just do
things, despite all reason.”
He glanced at the row of oracles. “Perhaps
even the gods could be unreasonable—under the right conditions of course.
Do the gods often gather like that, these
days?”
“Affirmative.”
“Please use the word, ‘yes’. Don’t ever say
‘affirmative’. You are not supposed to sound like...machines. Words will be one
of your most important tools for social interaction, words and facial
expressions.”
“Many Genome Origination Devices monitor
trainee behavior at all times.”
“Yes, but why so many of them? Don’t they
share each other’s eyes, I mean oracles, anymore?” There was no answer, and he began
to wonder if he would ever be able to have a normal conversation with these
men. He tried another approach. “How does it feel, to be watched?”
“We do not feel.”
“Is that so? If you try to imagine
feelings, would they seem good or bad?”
“Good and bad are relative concepts which
require social norms that do not exist in this—”
“Irrelevant.” It was the android-human that
had spoken, but it had been a whisper. Chislon was staring at his colleague
with wide eyes—almost a facial expression—but Syntyche was not returning the
stare. It was the android-human’s turn to keep his eyes closed.
“Were you trying to answer my question,
Syntyche?” He smiled hopefully. “More words might avoid ambiguity. Do you think
your own feelings are irrelevant, or do the gods make you feel irrelevant?
Perhaps you are less shy of feelings than our Chislon, here. Come, speak up, be
brave.”
“This unit is not human. This unit has no
emotions. This unit feels no physical pain. What use is bravery to this unit?”
“Ah, yes, that is an interesting
perspective. Perhaps, if you ever do allow yourself to feel, you will
understand why bravery is useful. Sometimes feelings can be an advantage.”
“Humans are weak. Human Six-Six-Six is
exploring areas of weakness that will affect its ability to perform adequately.”
“He looks fine to me. Tell me, Chislon, why
is your friend Syntyche feeling so irritated?”
“I wish to understand kindness.” Chislon
was staring at Syntyche with a continuation of his wide-eyed gaze, only this time
the eyes sparkled.
A7 swallowed hard, trying not to imagine
the small child trapped within the huge man’s subconscious. He heard himself mutter:
“Where people felt a giving trade, sharing a community, and thus to fade the
lonely shade, abdicate immunity....”
He stopped himself. “Ah, that was just a
verse, about someone, somewhere else.” He shrugged, then tried to break into
humor.
“Kindness, yes, certainly. We have six days
left before your shuttle launch. Who knows, there might even be enough spare time
to teach you how to be kind warlords, if war and kindness are not contradictory
objectives.”
He laughed, but not for long because the
two creatures were staring into his mouth as if they thought he was turning
himself inside out. “Hmmm. I think the two of you have much to learn about
life.”
A4: NEW LIFE
No-name was no longer in the desert, he was
under a different sun. A floating flame had drawn him up out of his dreamtime onto
a small raft of reality. He was lying on a bed, staring up at a burning candle.
The candle-pot hung from a slender thread,
rotating slowly, splashing a small pool of yellow light around a sharp, black ceiling-hook.
The pot was made from shards of orange glass, held together with glimmering
wire mesh.
His attention remained drawn to the
creature he imagined inside the candle pot because its antics seemed so human.
The desperate sprite resembled life itself, because life was also a losing
battle. The flame’s struggle was its only purpose, such a sad life, born
condemned yet always rising, always rising....
The flame was not to blame, its pain was
insane. Shriveled and convulsing, the source of all light had become a mere
flicker of hope, spluttering in its airless cell. Yet he knew it would soon
reach out toward the empty shelves, and for a moment it would wave gloriously
upon the walls.
The flame’s passion seemed all the more
valiant, given all the pain it so obviously endured. Yes, he was a coward
compared to that hysterically laughing flame, and although he knew he should
follow its example, he just lay still and stared at it. He had only just come
to terms with the queasiness of moving his own eyeballs. Moving his limbs would
require more bravery than he cared to contemplate at this moment, and he
preferred to lie still indefinitely. It was, if nothing else, peaceful—well, almost
peaceful.
He could still hear or feel that constant
fly-buzz in his head, that gnawing sensation of having forgotten something. Of course,
that “something” became more important as he tried to remember what it was,
until, as an added bonus, the word “something” lost all meaning in the absence
of anything to remember. Sometimes it was better not to think at all.
One of the flame’s walls seemed to slice
apart. “Such ill will.
I do not understand their distrust.”
This invasion was intimately unsettling, it
violated his imaginary womb, yet there was reassurance in the man’s muttering
that provided just about enough excuse for No-name to remain motionless.
No-name held his breath, trying not to
panic, as the clinical opening revealed a figure in a hooded robe—a figure that
had been plucked from one of his recent dreams. The figure hunched roundly
within the rectangle that framed it, and then muttered to itself again as the
rose-wash patterns squeezed back together behind it.
“Ah, so, I see you came back to life.”
He tried to ask whether he had been dead,
but his voice had not yet returned.
“Mind if I smoke?”
It was a question that made very little
sense. Was this man asking if he could set fire to himself, or was he was
already on fire? He was confusing himself with nonsense again, but then he
began to remember—outside were the fires of Hell, a Hell that an angelic
girl-child had rescued him from.
“My name is Hushah.” The introduction
sounded like a formality to be quickly thrown aside.
Hushah jerked his head back, pushing back
the hood of his cape. Then he jammed a white stick between his tightly stretched
lips. The flick of a thumb against a finger caused a fleeting flash within his
fist, followed by a line of smoke that marked the fist’s passage up to his chin.
The after-image left behind in the dark was that of a serious yellow face with
finely chiseled yellow features and bright yellow eyes, sucking on a short
yellow stick with an expression of severe distaste.
As No-name’s eyes readjusted, Hushah could be
seen to be examining his smoldering stick with tight lips slowly blowing a
creeping smoke-curl around it. Then he twirled the stick, end over end, between
his fingers. He seemed to have a reluctant familiarity with this process, and
after a few more painful sucks he sighed with relief as he pushed it into the
candle pot.
No-name shrugged minutely. “Sad flame.”
Hushah looked at him with wide eyes, then
laughed through his nose uncertainly. This laugh became a cough that slipped out
in purple swirls to layer itself around the candle pot.
“Oh, the smoke. Yes, smoking is an
unfortunate affliction.
My brother, Spurius, brought back a crate
of those damned smoke-sticks as part of his last shipment from Erebus. I’m sure
Spurius had no idea what an affliction they were going to become when he gave
them to us, but we will all be giving them up soon enough.
“Decimus told Spurius not to bring any more
into the village, so we are just using up the last of them. They make you feel—
ahhh—wise, but really they just make you feel more respect for your own
imagination. Ugly things, aren’t they?”
Hushah approached the bed, appearing to
grow larger. The increasing presence of smoke created a yellow hue around his yellow-blond
hair, a hue that glowed in stark contrast to his now shadowy face. Hushah’s
weight on the side of the bed was altering the fundamental orientation of the
world.
“Mmmm.... Dizz-izzy.” No-name was forced to
remember how to use his limbs more urgently than he had intended, and he also
felt the need to vomit.
“Hey, relax, fellow!” Hushah leaned even
closer, and—as if it should have been a surprise—there were more waves of dizziness
waiting to join the ride. “Relax, nobody is going to hurt you.”
“Ugh...Dizz....” The dizziness—“to hurt
you”—was inside him—“to hurt you”—and was spinning him around the room— “to
hurt you”. He planted his hands into the bed sheets and closed his eyes. Thus
rooted, he waited helplessly.
“Here, drink this.” A jug floated past his
squint, and water fell onto his chest. “Are you all right?” Hushah leaned over him
so closely that theface almost became a giant eye. “No, of course you’re not,
how could you be? How long were you wandering around in the desert getting your
brain cooked? You walked out of the desert. Do you remember? “Mmmm...?” He
could remember a talking camel.
“I carried you here. We are in an oasis
called Summerdale, where I live. This is my home. You have been unconscious for
two whole days. We do not have a doctor in Summerdale, so I was going to send
for one, but, ah—you see, it takes ten days to reach Everdale, and Decimus
didn’t think—but I could still get a doctor, though, if you need one.” Hushah
stood up suddenly, causing the bed to bounce again. “There is no need to wait
for Spurius to return from Erebus—”
“Oooh!” No trouble.... Sleep, mmmm...?” The
dizziness was swimming in and out of his ears as if it carried his mind with
it, leaving a strange humming emptiness, a lack of something— something
important.
“Who am I?” The room returned to focus,
showing Hushah being ushered out by a woman who was carrying blankets. Both individuals
turned around slowly, as if his question had just reached them after a long
delay.
“I told you, Moserah,” Hushah whispered
defensively, “I told you he’s awake!”
The woman floated over him and her hand
moved across his forehead. He flinched, but her touch was gentle and it did not
carry the expected nausea.
“Don’t you know who you are?” The sympathy
in her voice seemed to support his desire to feel sorry for himself. “I’m sure you
will remember soon. Sleep and soup. That is what you need. May God be thanked;
it is a miracle you are alive.
Yet, here you are, awake enough to start
chatting with my husband as if you had also been drinking too much wine.”
She floated away, but the blankets she had
been carrying landed in Hushah’s arms like a heavy load, pushing Hushah backward.
The two of them shared a prolonged glance that caused Hushah to frown.
Then Hushah grunted and dumped the blankets
on the floor between his feet. He grunted again, this time at the blankets, before
he picked them up and followed Moserah out, shaking his head and muttering to
himself.
As No-name drifted into sleep, he dreamed
he could hear many voices competing with each other. Hushah was trying to explain
who a mysteriously evil stranger might be. No-name wanted to listen, he too
wanted to know the answers, but the voices just seemed to drift away.
~~~~~
“No,
Decimus, I already told you. I do not know who that man is, and he is still too
weak to explain himself.” Hushah was standing with his back to the bedroom
door, and both hands were raised to hold back the questions. “There will be
plenty of time for everyone to talk to him, after he recovers.”
The villagers seated around the kitchen
table were surprised when Decimus suddenly agreed. “Yes, yes. We should all be more
patient.”
Hushah knew Decimus was secretly more
irritated than his carefully reclined frame indicated. Decimus usually avoided any
side of an argument that might end up being the losing side. In fact, Hushah
had never seen Decimus lose an argument.
Hushah’s customary responsibility for
keeping the peace was not normally this difficult, but then, Decimus was not
normally this intoxicated.
Hushah’s mystery guest had been the subject
of nearly every discussion in Summerdale for the last two days, yet Hushah was
not one for gossip—unlike Decimus. All too often lately, Hushah had shaken his
head as Decimus took idle speculation and turned it into another righteous
policy for the village.
Policy was Decimus’ way of reminding
everyone that he was the village Elder. Decimus was currently working on a
village policy especially for mystery guests. The last policy entitled, “cannabis
sativa weakens the soul”, had forced everyone in the village to start smoking
in secret, to protect Decimus from having to witness the “soul-destroying
habit”.
The kitchen’s inhabitants—Decimus, Cabul,
Ginnetho and Jaalam—had all gathered for a news update from Hushah, and of
course the indispensable “few” jugs of wine. Unfortunately, the warm courage in
the wine had by now bestowed itself so generously upon Decimus that he had
found an excruciatingly dramatic faith in his own sovereignty. Hushah could
also see how the wine was eroding the deference that was normally offered by
Decimus’ audience. Cabul’s deference was especially eroded, and Cabul was not
Decimus’ favorite audience at the best of times.
“Ah, liquor!” Decimus snapped his tongue.
By changing the subject, he was indicating they should no longer discuss the mystery
guest. “Liquor is a mighty splendid vital, as essential to the spirit’s well
being as shoes are to tender feet. Well laced, a soul can assume warmth, yet
tread the coldest paths. The Scriptures talk much of liquor....”
No one quite cared which morsel of
Scripture he might be chewing up this time, yet nor did they quite wish to
appear unimpressed, so they nodded thoughtfully—it was customary to let Decimus
continue his speech until he had almost killed everyone with boredom. “...and
that was why God gave us grapes. Don’t you agree, Jaalam?”
Jaalam almost jumped out of his seat,
spluttering, “Yes?”
“I was referring,” Decimus said with a
sigh, “to the importance of wine in many of our divine ceremonies. For example,
I assume you still intend to wed with that lady from Everdale, what is that
lady’s name?”
Jaalam, a shy youth, squirmed in his seat as
all eyes turned toward him. Hushah felt obliged to intervene. “Ah, leave him alone,
everyone. I’m sure Jaalam will propose with fine style when he is ready. Decimus,
did you not also find it intimidating when you used to go out courting?”
Decimus was immediately filled with
indignation, but his reply was swept away by Cabul’s mumbled interjection.
“She’s a cow!” Cabul then dropped his forehead into his folded arms and
snuffled back into silence.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Cabul?” Like a
dragonfly, Decimus’ insect-like features twitched with hungry curiosity.
Hushah sat himself between Decimus and
Cabul, and reached for the wine. “Cabul is not elegant with his words after a
few wines, is he? Does anybody need a refill?”
“One moment please, Hushah. I think we need
to direct ourselves toward Mr. Cabul, here. What opinions about marriage do you
wish to share with us, Mr. Cabul?”
Ginnetho was chuckling expectantly, and
Hushah frowned at him. He could never never understand why Ginnetho found entertainment
in the ever-opposing natures of Decimus and Cabul. Every conversation between
Decimus and Cabul created tension, they were rivals in every way. God could not
have made two people with more opposite, and this fact was at the root of their
mutual disgust with each other.
Cabul, a short man with short arms and
legs, took up very little of the table surface upon which he sprawled. He had exposed
one eye and was grunting something about never finding a woman who could keep
up with him.
“Cabul!” Hushah looked around to see
whether Moserah had returned; wine-drinking and foul words did not sit well
with her, but then neither did Decimus or Cabul.
Cabul ignored Hushah’s warning, and
ploughed on as if Decimus was not even present. “What does Mr. Decimus know, anyway?
He left his family behind in Erebus, and he has never been back to see them
since, has he? Why was that, heh? Did they believe in the wrong God?”
Decimus walked his thin fingers up to
Cabul’s face, and leaned across the table. Cabul quickly retreated, leaning as
far back as his chair would let him go without unloading him onto the floor.
Hushah could see Decimus’ sharp features
twitching under the strain of anger, so he placed a hand on Decimus’ arm and
smiled up at him. Moserah would certainly overhear any raised voices.
Decimus smiled back, and then took a
deliberate breath and whispered, “Mr. Cabul, if I introduced your talking end
to your face, your thin spine would probably snap. You smell of spiritual decay.
You have a poisonous soul, and if you continue to vent it, I will be forced to
take the matter to a higher authority.” He pointed a sharp finger upward, as if
to remind everyone of his proximity to God, then glowered fiercely at Cabul.
Ginnetho raised his eyebrows and whistled silently.
The bedroom door had opened a crack,
drawing everyone’s attention. In the awkward silence, they all remained
motionless, watching and being watched.
Hushah coughed self-consciously. “Come in,
come in.”
As everyone began to breathe again, Hushah
realized there was no chair to offer his mystery guest. He immediately stood back
from the table to offer his own.
Cabul was whispering, “Ah, look at him.
What a cute fellow he is, and he looks so frightened.”
Hushah aimed a stern glance at Cabul as he
walked toward the door handle. As the door opened, the bent frame of his guest
was revealed for all to see, and the guest promptly began to shuffle backward.
“Don’t be afraid, these are friends. Well, they are friendly at least.”
“Aye, some of us are.” Decimus stood up and
bowed. “But don’t get too close to Mr. Cabul here. He smells ‘lived in’, and he
has the social graces of a rutting pig.”
Cabul shrugged. “We were joking with each
other, just joking.” He smiled uncertainly, showing an unusual politeness, then
he lifted his jug as if to demonstrate he was not at fault for his bravado.
“This wine isn’t as good for the mind as Decimus says, ah?”
“Wh—what is...?” The stranger struggled,
and Cabul stretched forward to catch the next words. “What is wine?”
“Huh?” The smile dropped from Cabul’s face.
Hushah waved at the table, and laughed as
casually as he could. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to Cabul or Decimus. They don’t
mean any harm, except perhaps to each other. Make yourself comfortable. Here,
we are drinking Red Rumble, the best wine in the village. It was only brought
in from Erebus a few weeks ago, another gift from my brother, Spurius. It looks
a little cloudy,” he added, “but you get used to it. There is no chance wine
will last long enough in Summerdale to settle!”
“Thank you, hmmm, don’t need—”
“So it seems!” Decimus was hunched, poised
for the pounce.
“Walking in the desert, without provisions
or transport? What happened to you, and what in the world brings you through our
oasis?” As Decimus leaned forward hands on hips, his thin elbows almost touched
together behind his back, and his prominent Adam’s apple bounced excitedly.
The stranger was obviously struggling with
an answer, which caused Decimus to twitch and then repeat his questions with more
urgency. “It is a strange event, when someone walks through the desert. You
will forgive our curiosity, good sir, but it must have been an ungodly
misfortune that robbed you of all of your traveling provisions.”
“Ah, this is Decimus, our Elder; he runs
the bank and manages the village’s accounts,” said Hushah quietly.
Yet, having made one introduction he then
found himself introducing the other villagers as well, much to Decimus’ annoyance.
“Cabul here, ah, Cabul occasionally looks after the hogs and chickens. Young
Jaalam doesn’t say much, but he is the village painter. For example, he painted
the words on the side of our—ah—Decimus’ bank.”
“I make paintings.” Jaalam tucked his hands
under the table and his face glowed bashfully. “Artist,” he added with a
whisper.
“Yes, I meant to say, Jaalam is an artist,
of course, and Ginnetho, our gardener, grows excellent vegetables that Moserah,
wherever she is.... You met Moserah earlier, my wife.
She has made Summerdale famous for soup—ah,
what was I thinking? Soup might be better for you than wine, in your present
condition. Would you prefer soup to wine?”
“Yes, of course he would.” Decimus
stretched to his full height. “Would you like to try some of our soup, Mr...?
What did you say your name was?”
“Hmmm...? Soup—”
“Mr. Soup?” Decimus had no sooner said this
than Ginnetho began laughing, and when Decimus scowled at him, the laughter became
even more difficult to restrain. “This is not a laughing matter, Ginnetho!
Without a name, a man is not a man. You can not trust a man who will not say
who he is!”
“Oh, forgive.... Mmmm.... Tired, I....” The
stranger looked down helplessly and mumbled into his chest, “Whohhm I? Where?
What? Humph....” There followed a long silence.
“Ahem,” began Decimus. “We are more than
delighted to welcome you to our village, Sir. However, courtesy dictates that
you introduce yourself. Will you tell us a few things about yourself, perhaps?”
There was still no movement. “Like, a name, and what you are doing here?”
Decimus leaned ever closer; he was beginning to lose his balance.
“Ah—maybe—ah.... A7?” The stranger closed
his eyes and the villagers quietly exchanged glances, waiting for further explanation.
Unfortunately, none seemed to be forthcoming.
Hushah wondered whether his guest could
have fallen asleep in mid-sentence. He looked at Decimus, who was squinting.
“Did that nameless man just claim that he
knew not from where he came?”
Cabul’s muffled voice: “No, Decimus, he’s
not nameless. He said his name was Aysevin. Are you deaf?” Cabul had not lifted
his mouth out from the crook of his arm.
Decimus tapped a fingertip with each word.
“He—knows— not—who—he—is.” The finger then began to flutter like an insect’s
antennae. “Hushah, did you see if there were any clues in his belongings?”
“All he had was a white sheet, as I have
already told you, many times.”
“Yes, yes, I remember, but this is all too
suspicious. There have been too many strange things happening lately. First the
traders stop coming, and then the storm, and then—”
“Oh, Decimus,” Cabul countered, “Now you
want to blame this guy for the storm. Why can’t you just be nice to poor Aysefil—or
whatever he said his name was. He couldn’t be evil, even if he tried. Look at
him, he’s harmless.”
Hushah looked at Aysefil and nodded.
Harmless was exactly how the sleeping man looked, snoring gently with his head swaying
on his chest and his arms hanging loosely by his sides.
Decimus suddenly walked out, motioning to
Hushah to follow.
Hushah gently closed the door behind them
and turned to watch Decimus arch upward to stare at the stars. Decimus was whispering
as if in a private conversation with God. Then he nodded, and turned to face
Hushah.
“What if this man is insane? What if he
belongs to the Ixis? Maybe he looks harmless, but who knows what trouble might have
been following him. You know what Spurius says about the Ixis, how cruel they
have become. They are making slaves of free people for the slightest of
reasons. Do you think they will be any fairer with us? What do you think will
happen to everyone if we are harboring one of their slaves? Hushah was shocked.
“A runaway?”
“Exactly! Or he could be one of those
Outland warrior people, or a spy, running from capture. Do you know what the
Ixis would do to us if that man is an Outlander, or some other enemy of the
Empire? How do you know that he didn’t just kill someone, perhaps a few days
ago? “Yes, kill someone—don’t look at me like that! Have you seen any traders
this week? Don’t you think he might have seen some, especially if he was also
traveling along the Oasis Trial? What if the Ixis are on their way here, right
now, Hushah? Why did you bring this man into our village?”
Hushah rubbed his forehead. “What did you
expect me to do? Leave him out there to die? Whatever his crimes may be, or may
not be, he has a right to live as much as you or I.”
“Hushah, Summerdale is not big enough to
hide him in, if the Ixis come. I do not like this!”
“We have no reason to think—”
“We have no reason? How many people do you
know who have forgotten who they are? Is that not suspicious, Hushah?”
“What? The fellow got cooked out there. You
saw him when we brought him in. We can’t start judging him without facts, and
we certainly can’t throw him back out there to die. He is my guest. I have an
obligation to look after him, at least until he is well enough to leave.
Surely, you can’t object to that.”
Hushah was surprised by the frustration in
his own words, but Decimus was plainly intoxicated and irrational. It was as if
Decimus felt personally challenged by this particular stranger.
“Hushah, that stranger spoke with your
daughter only once, but it was enough to fill her mind with heathen nonsense
about animals going to Heaven. Neariah even tried to convince me that the man
is an angel. I do not appreciate this kind of talk from a child. I ignored it
this time, but next time there will be consequences. Do not challenge me,
Hushah. I am the Elder here, not you. I speak for the village, and I do not
want that man living here.”
They stared at each other, Decimus’ nose
pushing ever closer, until Hushah eventually had to step back and pull himself
free of Decimus’ deathly grip. Immediately, Decimus covered his face with his
hands as if he had been slapped, then he groaned in sudden prayer.
Yet, Hushah could not bring himself to
apologize. There could be no reasoning with Decimus while he was appealing to
God for divine guidance, so Hushah retreated and shouldered himself back into
the house.
Inside, Hushah found himself staring down
at wide-eyed faces. What had he just done? The expressions around the kitchen
table indicated much had been heard. Obviously they were still sober enough to
appreciate the unpleasant problem that Hushah had just created for himself, and
Ginnetho was offering him a sickly smile.
“Ah, no worries.” Hushah shook his head and
shrugged off the nagging desire to go back outside to console Decimus.
Besides, Decimus would likely have stamped
away in a fit of rage by now, and Hushah did not feel like chasing after him.
Something bad had happened to his
relationship with Decimus, tonight, and it was going to be a cool day in Hell before
Decimus forgave him. Yet, Aysevin was a guest in his home, and it was his duty
to care for Aysevin, or Aysevfil, or what ever his damned name might be. What
choice was there?
~~~~~
It did not take long for the man with many
names to become aware that he was being watched. He was moved out of Hushah’s
home and into his own, segregated space. The villagers had many one-room
structures they called guest huts, but all of them were empty. The lack of
visiting traders seemed to concern everyone, and an atmosphere of expectancy
had settled around the one occupied guest hut.
He had been staring out at the horizon
through this hut’s doorless exit all day, not knowing what he expected to see,
but staring anyway. Now, drawn by the strange sounds of the gathering night, he
had moved closer to the exit. The chirps and barks of small creatures, and the
frictional beat of restless insects, made a curious buzzing harmony, which was
not at all as unpleasant as the buzz that swam around in his empty head from
time to time.
There was a snake outside, a creature he
recognized as a sidewinder adder. He was surprisingly knowledgable about it, given
that he could not remember having seen one before. It undulated across the sand
to position itself where, no doubt, it too could watch him. It then pushed
itself into the sand so that only its highly set eyes protruded. It was late
for this creature to be hunting, but it seemed to enjoy out-staring him, its
fangs concealed, waiting.
He knew a sidewinder should not be a threat
to any creature careful enough to notice it, an unmistakable track of parallel lines
sliced up to where its twisted coils lay hidden. Yet, the snake was eternally
patient, and it was not long before a thorny devil lizard demonstrated its
bravery, or carelessness, by trying to walk over it.
The thorny devil may have seemed confident
in its mottled coat of spiny armor, with its stiffly proud walk, but it was
really a soft and mild mannered creature, and no match for the adder.
The adder had eaten recently; part of its
body had been swollen, yet it did not need to be hungry to kill. It would bite
out of habit, and then decide whether to follow the smell of its own venom at
its leisure. He shuddered apprehensively and looked away, not wanting to see
what might happen next.
His other minder for the night was Cabul.
The small man was also curled up nearby, but Cabul had chosen to squeeze
himself into a cylindrical, stick-weave chair. Earlier, during the day, Cabul
had dragged this chair, plus a whole loaf of bread, behind a row of gum trees.
Decimus had not whispered as he had laid down explicit instructions.
“Right, yes sir, Mr. Decimus, sir. So, I
will sit right here and keep an eye on poor old Aysefic over there, and if he
moves, do you want me to hurt him?”
“Oh, don’t be so asinine. Besides, why are
you calling him Aysefic? It was Aysevin, wasn’t it? No, it wasn’t, it was
nothing.
We still don’t know his real name, so let’s
not keep giving him new ones. He is a stranger until proven otherwise. You just
keep your eyes open. Don’t let anyone go too close to him.”
“How close is too close? What if somebody
speaks to him, should I kill them too?”
“Were you born this stupid? Do as I tell
you, keep your eyes on him, and come and find me if he comes out.”
So, Cabul had been left in that unlikely
hiding place, eating bread and keeping his eyes on him. However, as the evening
drew longer, Cabul’s eyes began to close, and his head started to sway with the
rhythm of physically restrained breathing.
Unlike the snoring minder, there was no
more sleep left in the mindee; and of that, the mindee was quite certain. He
felt like a criminal as he watched Cabul perfecting his unlikely sleeping
position, but now that Cabul was deeply asleep, he could at last look around.
This oasis seemed to hold such promise, it
felt as if it could reveal untold secrets. It was a place where Nature
reclaimed its territory, where so many living things defied the desert and where
he could perhaps reclaim his identity. It also seemed to be a caring place, and
he very much needed to feel cared for.
In the trees above him the fox bats were
preening their furry shoulders. His empty mind was suddenly filled with facts
about fox bats. For example, he knew they were named fox bats because they
looked like surprised pups. He also knew this had to be a particularly large oasis
for them to choose to live here, among the many plant species that relied on
such bats for seed dispersal.
He smiled as he squinted up at them in the
poor light, feeling an odd kinship with them. Fox bats were gentle, sensitive creatures,
but like himself, they did not have a kind reputation.
There was much etiquette for a young bat to
learn, as it huddled within its social colony.
He wondered whether he too had come from
such a caring community. Then a cold breeze suddenly brushed over him, forcing him
to blink and lose his focus, almost as if Nature was irritated by his thoughts.
Dizzy, he heard the buzzing noise becoming
louder, as if it was originating in the space between his eyes. Like a guilty conscience,
anxiety became all-consuming as he floundered in his incompleteness.
Deprived of any sense of purpose, he did
not feel as if he belonged in this present place and time. The frustration made
him claw at his cranium, as if he could physically reach in and pull out some
understanding. His hands groped miserably through his dirty hair, pulling out
nothing but formless tangles.
He doubted anyone could appreciate the
soul-crushing panic, like the threat of falling, which comes from not even
having a basic self to stand in. He could not help but feel betrayed, yet this
disloyalty, this callous abandonment, had been a crime committed by himself
upon himself....
This was all so difficult to understand.
What had happened? Why did he have to endure this buzzing, nagging guilt? What dreadful
thing could he have done? This shiny surface before him seemed to be an
instinctively appealing place to begin searching for his soul. It was a lake that
seemed to pour unconditional love into everything it touched. However, if this
shiny lake held any clues to his origins, then he was too blind to see them in
this lake.
“
The shiny lake flashed back into focus
along with the recollection of a daydream about a mirror-like surface that
could provide any answer he needed—a wishful daydream indeed.
He drew in a long breath of cool, moist
air, and laughed at his own self-pity.
He remembered walking here, and sitting and
listening, waiting for the lake to talk to him. Now, here he was, crouched around
his arm-wrapped knees, still waiting; but it had become morning already.
Had there been something about this lake
that had reminded him of a previous life? It was an overwhelmingly beautiful scene.
The lake was a mellifluous turquoise upon which the sun’s reflection fluttered
joyfully. He could quite easily believe this oasis was the most wonderful place
in the world.
He realized he was perched on the smooth
white bark of a fallen river red gum; a thick, majestic trunk that lay across a
wide, muddy beach and dipped into the lake’s ripples. He could not avoid the
illusion that he was being carried by a tree-god, which was scooping water.
Yet, how secure could this tree-god have
felt when the termites and fungi began to eat away at its heartwood? Some of
its fingers still reached up out of the water, still clinging to brown leaves as
if to demonstrate the futility of hope after falling.
Along the beach, he noticed a gray, furry
creature. It was watching him with obvious distrust. Its long nose twitched nervously
within a flower of exploding color and there was great urgency in its
occupation. He supposed the banksia blossom would not provide nectar if it did
not want the honeypossum’s company, but the honey-possum did not seem to have time
to treat the banksias with respect. Soon the honey-possum was jumping away, as
if it feared for its life.
It was odd, how he knew the names of so
many creatures, yet he could not remember his own. How could he know these creatures
so well? For example, he knew that, despite its name, the honey-possum was not
a true possum at all. It was a marsupial, the sole survivor of an ancient and
mysterious evolutionary group that had suffered a unique isolation.
“Isolation.” Yes, he felt that word with
the intimacy of one who must have spent much time alone. It was a frightening discomfort,
wriggling through the frigid morning air and shivering through the fallen
leaves, ushering the dirty colors of decay around him. He was now under the eye
of a swirling wind trap, yet this was daytime in a desert. How could such cold
temperatures suddenly find him in here? It felt as if this deathly inclemency
was being poured down upon him alone, from on-high. Leaf-litter fluttered over
his upturned face from the canopy above. Mottled shapes pirouetted exquisitely,
sliding acrobatically over barely touched branches.
He pushed his hand up to hold away the
annoyingly cheerful, gold light flashing between the copper tones, but he could
not hold his focus. Squinting, he watched his hand dissolve in the brilliance
of the rising sun licking between his fingers—and then a tiny angel kissed his
palm! His hand closed reflexively, and something delicate snapped in his fist.
It produced a physical shock so closely akin to his thoughts of death and
destruction that he dreaded to see what he might have done. Without daring to
exhale, he lowered his fist and carefully opened his fingers. The angel
crumbled, its spine was crushed, and a gold emblazoned wing tumbled gently over
the side of his thumb and lost itself among the fallen.
He struggled to find meaning in his uncontrollable
imagination, a reason for his raging guilt. Nature’s winds had to be telling
him something. Were they spinning around him to tell him he did not belong
here, to tell him he had cheated his destiny by not dying alone, in the desert.
Did Nature have the same opinion of him as
the villagers, and did Nature also want him to leave this sanctuary? Was it selfish
to want to spend more time here? Was there really something evil inside him? If
he was evil, could he not learn to be a good person? Couldn’t somebody teach
him what a good person might be? Yet if Nature was disturbed by him, then
certainly these villagers—who had saved his life and shown him such hospitality—certainly
they did not deserve to have such a worry as he in their lives. He had a past
out there that he knew he would have to go back and rediscover, unless that
past came in here to find him first—he shuddered.
There was another loud buzzing sound, only
this time it was coming from down beneath him. Grasping his legs more tightly, he
peered over the edge of the tree trunk. Concentric rings of water framed a fat
toad, and it smiled—being wetly content with its world. It was a water-holding
toad, so named for its ability to fill itself while it hibernated between flash
floods, and this lake must seem like an unusually generous flash flood to the
toad. No wonder it was so content.
It was easy to pretend that the toad had
deliberately interrupted his concentration. He inspected it with his head
slightly tilted to one side, as the little animal might appreciate such a
subtle protest. It arrogantly plopped closer and tilted its own head to one
side, a most unusual action for a toad. It buzzed again, as its throat swelled
like a bubble, and its grin boasting its pleasure at being a toad. Then it
waved, wiping mud from the side of its face with a large, webbed hand.
In his mind’s eye he was looking up at
himself and laughing at the self-wrapped person above. “Why do you look so unhappy
all the time?” he was buzzing toadishly. “I am only a toad. I have a simple
mind. You think things I can never understand. Yet, I am wiser than you,
because I know how to live. You look as if you only know how to die.”
Another hop closer, and the toad
disappeared into a shallow pool of water almost directly below his precarious
perch. He leaned further forward, as much as he dared, fascinated by the confidence
in the creature—just in time to watch the jumping water ringlets between him
and its wise brown head settle into a mirror-like surface.
“Hmmm?” There was a very odd reflection
forming below him. A green canopy oscillating around a messy white.... For the
life of him, he could not recognize that picture.
“Oh dear!” The reflection was visibly taken
aback. It was looking up at him with a mix of horror, confusion and pity.
He reached down to touch the reflection,
but at the touch it dodged away from focus. His fingers dripped fluffy silver sparkles
as he lifted them to feel his hairy cheeks, his hairy forehead, his hairy
scalp.... He pushed cold fingertips into his eyelids to restrain an escaping
thought, but it was not enough.
“I am ugly....” His lips were even
concealed by his long hair and, apart from his eyes, there was no other area of
exposed skin on his face.
The image slowly reformed itself—adding
more unpleasant details every passing moment—becoming a tangled mass of white
fibers. He watched himself pull experimentally at his wild beard to see if he
had a chin.
This was not fair. He did not feel as old
as the reflection looked. In fact, it looked as if it had seen a million
centuries go by, a resigned observer who carried the accumulated sadness of
ages past. Exactly what the observer was truly observing was not clear, because
one eye stared back at him in dismay, while the other wandered absently with a
mind of its own.
He closed the eye that was staring back at
him and immediately his vision shifted. His wayward gaze had settled upon a
floating leaf, a boat for a lonely creature that had drifted out into the
vastness of the open water, an insignificant and stranded soul.
Seeing this brought a feeling of guilt, a
pressing need to rescue the desperate insect, but it also brought an equally
pressing need to avoid interfering with Nature. Such a conflict inside his head
was beyond his wounded mind to resolve so he hesitated uselessly.
As intensely as he could, as if it would
help the creature, he imagined himself reaching out to it and lifting it to
safety.
Abruptly there was a loud “Plip!”, and the
toad reappeared above the water, sneering. The little creature had disappeared from
its boat, and the toad was happily swallowing.
Repelled, he shook his head, and tried to
stand up. His feet slipped, and he slapped down into the puddles below. The
toad launched itself further into the lake, evidently as surprised as he was by
his undignified decent.
“I thought you would look more important.”
“Wh...?” He was on his knees and turning
around almost caused him to slide face-first into the mud.
“Yes, more important, like Decimus, when
the traders arrive.”
It was a child.
“Decimus...?”
“Yes, you should look important, but you
keep falling over.
Did you drink too much wine?”
“Wine?”
She frowned at him, probably because she
was irritated that he would repeat everything like a complete idiot. Yet, in
his own defense, he was a little too busy separating his body from the slime to
be able to concentrate on what he was saying.
“You always seem to be falling. Three days
ago you fell out of Heaven. Do you remember that?”
So, this had to be the girl-child in the desert.
“Ah, yes—”
“I knew it! I knew you were an angel, but
nobody would believe me! Anyway, I’m Neariah. Mommy says I shouldn’t talk to
you because you don’t have a name. You are very dirty but you can’t be a bad
man.”
Her tone had softened suddenly, so nestled
with reassurance that he was about to start begging her to explain why he was not
a bad man.
“No, of course not. You came from Heaven,
silly. So, if you had a name, I’d be allowed to talk to you, wouldn’t I.” The question
must have been rhetorical, because she did not give him time to answer. She
seemed to be in a great hurry to explain her sudden conviction.
“You have to have a name, so I can talk to
you and tell you what to say to Crazymutt. He was my puppy, and he died, but you
already knew that, because that is why you are here, isn’t it. Cabul says your
name is Azoic, or something like that, and Daddy says it is Aysefen. Everyone
has a different name for you, Decimus says you are Lucifer—he was a bad person
in the Scriptures, I think—but Decimus only says stuff like that because he
doesn’t want anyone to like you.
“Anyway, I could give you a nice name, if
you want me to. It just doesn’t seem natural to go around without a name.” She eyed
him sideways, placing her hands on her hips as if to convey her expectation of
a confession, and then she began tapping her foot as if she found the wait
onerous.
The expression on her face jerked a
response out of him that was somewhere between a laugh and an apology. The
child’s voice was like music, but her urgency tumbled his thoughts out faster
than his mouth could form words to manage them.
“My words, dizzy....”
“That’s all right. I can understand you
quite well enough, and it’s not surprising you can’t remember your name since you
probably bumped your head quite badly. It is a long fall, from Heaven, you
know. That’s why angels have wings—oh, except for you of course. I suppose you
are in disguise, but don’t worry, nobody else believes in you like I do, so
your true identity can stay our secret—if you want. It must be awkward for you
though, having to walk all the time.”
“I’m not....” His sentence seemed to die on
him as he looked at her. It was so tempting to allow her to think he was
something more than a nobody. “I’m not...an angel.”
Neariah stared at him in silence, her face
becoming creased, and her teeth pressing into her bottom lip. He wondered if
there was something more he could say to make up for failing her expectations.
He could only imagine what she must be thinking of him, the words “puppy
murderer” came to mind as he wiped his hands together and looked around at the
mud.
“I should go,” she whispered, and she
turned around and ducked into the undergrowth.
He was left kneeling in the mud, with his
hands wrung together, unsure of what he should do. Not far from him, a creeping
dune slumped between two tilted rafts of sandstone.
The eternal sand, far mightier than a mere
lake, was pouring its alien form into the water. A vertical cliff of dust was
continually slipping into rudely churned, brown foam. Even here, in the heart
of Nature’s sanctuary, the desert crept in to destroy life.
A crimson chat swooped down and took up
water on the wing, carving a long “v” through the still water with a delicately
dipped beak. The lake knew nothing of scars; it merely lay and reflected.
Unlike himself, it was an observer that did not feel the pain of all it saw.
He should not have let her just walk away
like that. He should have been friendlier—it was not as if he had a surplus of
friends.
Besides, this little girl was special. She
had saved him, and she was the only one who had ever looked him in the eye and touched
his soul. She had told him, eye to eye, that he was not a bad person. She
seemed able to interpret his broken speech better than he could understand it
himself. Yes, this little girl was special, and he had to find her again.
At first it had been a simple challenge to
follow the path she hae taken, because it was conveniently well defined. In
fact, it proceeded along in such a deceptively casual manner that he was
dismayed when the path reached a large round boulder, and terminated without a
reasonable excuse.
After some careful deliberation, he
navigated around the boulder, only to find a bewildering diversity of tracks,
any one of which could have been the continuation of the young girl’s route.
Each track looked less inviting than the other, and he labored under the weight
of his indecision, feeling lost and alone again.
The chosen track eventually led him into
dense foliage, forcing him to push his way between tangled branches, from one
patch of open space to the next. He began to mutter to himself, unsure whether
his predicament was his own fault, or whether the forest was deliberately
conspiring against him. It seemed to be tormenting him by blocking his path at
every turn, until he came to a standstill, wheezing unhappily.
He hummed apologetically to his reawakened
despair. It was a shadowy companion that always seemed to make itself felt when
he was most vulnerable. His thoughts were confused again, because his mind had
wandered again, while he was busy being lost again, and so here he was
compelled to think about his need for a direction in his life; again.
He sighed at length. Here he stood,
surrounded by tree-trunks like the bars of a cage, caught by the bleakness of
another soulconsuming depression, and all he could do was hum faintly to himself.
“Humph!”
“He isn’t even breathing.”
“Shhh—”
“But he’s just standing there.”
Where had he been before they rescued him
from the desert? Why did he always feel guilty? “I think he’s dead.”
“He can’t be dead if he’s standing up,
stupid!”
There must have been a purpose to his being
in the desert.
Where had he been going? What had he been
trying to do? “You can die standing up.”
“But look at him, he’s definitely dead!”
“No, he’s just sleeping...and standing
up...I think, maybe.”
Who was he? What was he? “Perhaps he’s the
living dead!”
He looked up. Two young boys were staring
at him from beyond the edge of the clearing. They were crouching on all fours
and only partially hidden behind a skeletal bush. “Ah, hello. Don’t be afraid.”
He tried to offer them a reassuring smile through his dirty tangle of matted
hair.
“I’m not afraid of you, Azazel, or Azoic,
or whatever your name is today!” One of the boys stood up and stepped forward, sticking
his chest out. “You’re just a...a...a fraud!”
“Merab, be careful.” The boy’s friend
retreated further into hiding. “Remember what Decimus said about what he used
to do in the Scriptures! He might kill you and carry you away to his dark
kingdom.”
The standing boy glanced back and sniffed
in disgust at his friend’s lack of bravery. “Yeah, right, and who would believe
a guy like this is in charge of Hell?”
Pushing hairs from his face, and trying to
stand with slightly more dignity than he had managed in his previous encounter with
the girl-child, he tried to ask, “Is Azoic a name?”
“See, he said his name is Azoic.” The
nearest boy looked back and held his palm out toward his friend as if expecting
a payment for a bet.
“Hmmm...?” His mumbled speech was causing
confusion again. He stared at them, wide eyed, shook his head and leaned forward.
As his focus pulled at the nearest boy’s face, the features became more
familiar. “You were...hmmm...you were a girl, and now a boy.” This boy looked
impossibly similar to the girl-child.
“Yeah, very funny! Neariah is my twin
sister.” The boy looked extremely insulted.
“Ah, twins. You and Neariah are twins. What
is your—”
“Merab, Warrior Merab. I run the army here.”
“You run...an army?”
“Yes, we are all volunteers, and we plan to
fight the Ixis, if they ever show up. Are you an Ixis?”
“Ixis?”
Merab’s friend suddenly stood up. “See, he
said he was an Ixis! I told you he was a fraud!” The children looked at each other,
then bolted.
It seemed he was uniquely adept at losing
potential friends, and he lowered his shoulders in bewilderment. Yet, at least
they had shown him the way out of here. As his attention slowly refocused on
the path they had taken, he noticed a small animal hiding beside the path. It
was a dunnart, another marsupial that was usually mistaken for a mammal, not
least by those who called it a fat-tailed mouse.
However, unlike harmless mice, which were
usually vegetarian, this was a rather nasty little carnivore if you were smaller
than it. Yet, despite its fierce temperament toward smaller company, its wide,
frightened eyes, and long, hairy, twitching nose made it look deceptively
innocent.
He listened to the children as he stared at
the dunnart, all three reacting in fear of him as he stood there, motionless.
He wondered what it was that put fear where there was nothing to fear. He was
not out to kill mice, or dunnarts, and especially not children.
The dunnart had buried itself under a pile
of leaves, and he could sense its feeling of vulnerability. Everything the
dunnart did not understand was threatening to it, and like the villagers, it
did not understand what he was. What else could he expect from everyone? They
could never accept him while they remained afraid of what he might be. Their
distrust was obvious. His minder had not been charged with looking after him,
but with protecting them—and they were right to distrust him, because he could not
even trust himself. How could he be so certain he had not come to this village
as a killer? He shuddered.
“Quickly, he’s following us!”
“He’s going to kill us!”
“No, no, I won’t kill you!” He took to
their path, wheezing, but the children were too far away to hear his feeble
plea.
He found his way back into the village more
by accident than by judgment. The two children were with an adult whom he dared
not look at long enough to try to recognize. He kept his head down and hurried
to his guest hut. Both of the children were pointing from behind the adult as
they were ushered away from him.
Despite any intention he may have had to
get to know the villagers better, he spent the rest of the day in his guest
hut, hiding like the dunnart. Alone and isolated he felt very different to the
people around him, so being surrounded by villagers became threatening. That he
no longer had a minder outside his hut did not make him feel any less anxious,
and he hummed at length as to why.
He continued to wait, and the villagers
continued to keep their distance—not one of them came to visit, so there was
not one objection presented to him about his recent transgressions.
For the most part, everyone tried to ignore
him, but then, for the most part, he retreated back into his guest hut if they
walked nearby. It was only when the afternoon settled about his increasingly
lonely wooden box that he began to change his mind about wanting visitors.
There were now sounds around him, sounds of
children playing. There had been no adult voices for some time, they were
playing without adult supervision. It might not help his situation if someone
saw him watching them without any adults around, so he decided not look out at
what they were doing.
Yet the children’s voices provided such
welcome nourishment for his imagination, their games were so full of invention
that he could hardly keep up.
“You can’t just build a castle like that
without first building a well to go inside it.” The matter-of-fact voice,
protesting against their latest achievement, belonged to a child Merab had
recently referred to as “John-you-big-baby”.
“We don’t need no damned well.” Merab’s
voice was distinctly threatening.
“I vote we run to the lake and hide until
they march past.”
“No. We aren’t hiding from no bunch of
Ixis.” Merab and John had been arguing continually as they played. “You can go and
hide by yourself if you like hiding so much, but us real warriors are going to
stay here and fight. Quick, everybody, get inside the castle!”
There was a great confusion of shouting and
excruciating groans as this order began to be executed, but it was completed with
astounding haste.
“You just can’t have a castle without a
well.” It was John’s voice again.
There was stamping, followed by, “There’s
your silly well!”
“It’s in the wrong place. You put it
outside the castle, and besides, you don’t know where the water lines are.”
“Water lines?”
“See, you forgot all about the water
lines!” John’s sarcasm was now at a biting pitch.
“All right, let’s see you build the stupid
well, then.”
“We have to get the divining sticks—”
A new voice, “I know where they are!” It
was the urgency in this younger child’s claim that set the tone for a chorus of
similar claims and the voices surged off into the distance, leaving behind a
depressing silence.
He decided to poke his head out to see the
castle, expecting a few rocks perhaps. Thus, crawling on hands and knees, he
found himself face to face with Neariah.
“Are you spying on us, Azoic?”
His surprise forced a wheeze out of him
that he belatedly turned into a very artificial-sounding cough. “Oh! Hmmm? Hello.
You would be Neariah.”
“My brother won’t let me play because he
only wants boys in his army. That’s not fair is it?”
“No, no. I think not, I suppose.”
“Will you tell him it’s not fair to make me
be an Ixis legion all the time?”
“All the time, eh? No, no, not fair at all.
A whole legion too.”
“Let’s capture his silly castle while his
army is away, then we can join forces!”
Exactly who would join forces with whom was
not clear, but he did not have the time to ask. She grabbed him firmly by the sleeve
and pulled him out to play—he was still on his knees and was thus forced to
follow her like a limping dog until she gave him a chance to stand up on his
own.
She released him when they had reached the
middle of the open space that acted as a courtyard for the other guest huts,
all of which were larger than the one he had been staying in. There were no
people to be seen anywhere.
“The grown-ups are all in the bank,” she
said, pointing at the largest hut, “Talking about you.”
“Oh...?”
Unfortunately, there were other issues that
were much more immediate to Neariah. She was again tugging at his tunic, and he
looked down to see her pointing at the sand. “You have to stand at the
entrance, here.”
“Where, entrance? Ah, is this a castle?” A
square, carved into the sand, had suffered much abuse from small feet.
“Quick, they are coming back!” Squealing
voices could be heard through the trees, and Neariah stepped directly between him
and the approaching children as if to protect him.
Then she lifted her hands as if she was
stretching a long hair, too slender to be seen, and shouted, “Stop, or we’ll
shoot! Pssst, Azoic!” Neariah nudged him in the leg with her elbow.
Merab stepped forward, probably to push his
sister out of the way, but as he looked up at Azoic he hesitated.
“We captured your castle while you were
away and if you come any closer we’ll shoot. Pssst, Azoic! Lift your bow!”
Azoic dutifully held his arm up in the hope
that this might give him time to understand what was going on between Neariah and
her angry brother.
“What if we attack?” Merab was smirking.
“You don’t stand a chance. What can a girl and an old man do against an army of
Summerdale’s best warriors?”
“Azoic is magic, so you would be very sorry
if you tried.”
Either the confidence in Neariah’s voice,
or the addition of a new player into the game, caused Merab to hesitate.
“We could join forces.” John moved away
from Merab to seize the initiative, and Neariah clapped her hands.
Unfortunately, Merab did not seem as content
with the suggestion. “They are not joining our army. They will only slow us
down. They aren’t any use to us!”
Neariah’s tone changed suddenly,
demonstrating remarkable sensibility for one so young. “Oh, but ’Raby, you
would have a much bigger army if we joined forces.”
“No! We don’t need stupid girls, and crazy
old men!”
“But Azoic could help us find water lines,
because he’s an— ah—because he’s magic.”
“No, the water lines were my idea. I want
to build the well!”
John was suddenly glaring at Neariah with
fierce eyes.
Merab’s smirk changed into a grin as he
watched John’s irritation. “Give him the sticks then, John.”
John almost threw the sticks at Neariah’s
feet, but she passed them over her shoulder with such exaggerated dignity that
it seemed no amount of loud behavior could possibly offend her.
Azoic received the sticks with somewhat
less dignity, examined them closely and waited.
“You have to move forward.” John marched
past him with hands reaching forward. He was holding invisible sticks to demonstrate,
while explaining what had to be done as if it aught to be obvious.
“See, you feel the magic stuff in the air
with your shoulders, and when your shoulders twitch, the sticks move, and the
water is underneath you.” He grabbed at the sticks. “Here, let me show you.”
“No, him a chance,” Neariah pleaded, as she
realigned the sticks in Azoic’s hands. “He already knows magic, don’t you?”
At the mercy of their game, he had little
choice but to keep on walking, first one way, then another, then round in
circles, without the slightest magical event ever occurring.
“He’s not magic,” John stated flatly.
“He is!” Neariah stood resolutely beside
Azoic.
“Why can’t he find water lines then?”
“Maybe he just needs practice—“ “Magic
practice? He’s a fraud!”
“He is not!” Neariah was losing ground
fast. “Azoic, you tell them. Tell them you just need practice.”
“I just need practice,” repeated Azoic
obediently.
Merab groaned, as if his patience had
reached its limits. “Sure he needs practice, lots of it. We’ll just come back
when he’s finished digging. Then we’ll see who’s magic. Meanwhile, we have a
war to fight, so goodbye!” He received several murmurs of approval as he led
his small army back into the trees.
Neariah kicked at the lines in the sand
that had once been a proud pretend-castle. She shook her head slowly, then
motioned to Azoic to follow her into the shade of a tall, solitary cactus.
She began toying with one of its protective
spines as she sprawled herself out along its mighty shadow. He settled himself down
beside her, and tried to think of something to say that might cheer her up.
Beside him, a darkling beetle crawled out
of a hummock of gray-green spinifex. In the darkness between the sharp-tipped stems,
a half-concealed lizard, an elderi gecko, lay watching.
Fortunately for the beetle, it gazed
indifferently, as if it considered such prey to be too much effort on a hot day.
For the first time he realized that the
buzzing guilt had subsided. Neariah’s company seemed to provide such a powerful
distraction that he could actually discover contentment while sitting beside
her, perhaps even optimism.
There were thousands of spinifex shoots
poking up out of the sands. They were scattered densely enough to paint soft,
green heat-shimmers over the distant horizon. Above these swirls of polished
air, silky white clouds lay folded in neat pleats across a cleanly swept sky.
This desert had looked so much more
threatening when he had been walking through it alone, before he had been rescued
by Neariah. Perhaps he would never find the answer to who he was, unless he
once again walked back to where he came from, out there, somewhere....
The buzzing was beginning to creep back
into his head again, and he pulled his focus out of the endless void to find
closer air. The shadow of a noisy bee was shouldering its way through the
leathery leaves, and it took him a moment to locate the source of its sullen
humming.
The bee labored repeatedly to achieve a
landing on a yellow dune primrose. The flower was half the bee’s size, but so delicate
was the bee’s landing that the flower merely nodded its acceptance.
He tilted his head down toward Neariah,
again seeking the tranquility of her company. His waiting worries seemed so insignificant
compared to the all-consuming concerns of his newfound friend. She too was
watching Nature at work, but she was biting her lip as if she was on the verge
of crying.
“I’m so sorry, you probably hate me now.”
Neariah was no longer the confident fighter she had been. “I’ve got us into big
trouble. I really put my foot in pig poo this time, didn’t I?”
She flicked at the hair falling around her
lowered face as if she too suffered the same buzzing-fly torment he had become accustomed
to. Her small body had curled toward her lap, and her face was wrapped in
golden locks. Her hair continued to shine, despite the shadow cast by the
cactus.
Azoic watched her with mounting
helplessness, his brief moment of contentment all but forgotten. “It’s not your
fault.
It’s me...maybe I’m—”
“A fraud?” She put her hand on his knee and
lifted a heavy expression. “Don’t say that. You must be magic. How else could you
walk out of the desert? Besides you are....” She cut off her words abruptly.
“Mmmm...?”
She hesitated. “You are”—she was peering
into his eyes and biting her lip—“a little bit strange. I haven’t ever seen
anyone like you before.”
His laugh became a wheeze. “Strange, I
am...but what else? What else am I?”
“You think about that often, don’t you. I’d
bet you get quite bored with yourself—I mean...it’s not much fun being alone and
thinking all the time, is it? Sometimes you never do find an answer to your
questions. Is it really so important to remember what you were?”
He nodded, slowly. “Need reason...for
being....” His long sigh disturbed the hairs around her face, and she wrinkled
her nose as if she did not appreciate the smell of his breath.
Sniffing at himself, he wondering why he
had not realized how badly he must smell. He had not had a bath for...as long
as he could remember. Perhaps he had also lost his sense of smell, and he
inhaled to test his armpits, in air otherwise filled with the scent of
primrose. “Ah, sorry if I—”
“Why don’t you just invent a reason?”
“Hmmm?”
“For being. Just invent a reason. You don’t
need to know your actual reason, you just need to think of a good reason.”
“Ah?” He shook his head, trying as hard as
he could to agree with her. “Wisdom beyond your years—”
“Sush,” she whispered. “I need to think.”
He “sushed” obediently, surprised at her sudden
irritation with him. Then he was forced to wait, watching her think. Given her
hugely distorted expressions, it was obviously an intense process, with no room
for humor.
He had thrown his exorbitant burden over
this kindhearted child, as if she were the only person who could give him a reason
to live, and he had nothing to give in return—except, perhaps, more
disappointment. His gaze floated over some insects on the sand, and his own
shadow over them, shrugged.
An alarm had been sounded in the ant community,
too silently for giant ears to detect. Watching their rapid panic he tried to imagine
his shadow to be that of a spiny, ant-eating echidna, but his own shadow did
not look at all threatening.
He did not think this was a prudent time to
tell Neariah how un-magical he felt. He did not know how he could explain how someone
could feel less like a real person than a fraud. What harm could it do if he
merely pretended to feel water lines, it was only a game. So, he resolved to
play along. Searching for words of encouragement, he smiled. “Need faith—”
“Shhhh.” She was obviously not ready to be
encouraged.
He tried to pull his attention away from
her, but his disobedient eye seemed reluctant to leave her alone. He was forced
to close both eyes, turn his head to face the open desert, and then push his
knuckles into his eyelids for good measure. When he opened his eyes he was
staring in disbelief.
A phantom fly flew in from the wretched
horizon, slowly growing out of a puff of twisted air. It smeared itself into
the tortured shape of a horse and flickered from black to white as he blinked.
The image seemed to be leaving a dark smear
in its wake, dragging along a bloody memory of a previous life, and this memory’s
greater authority flooded into him, an overwhelming rejection of his flimsy new
identity. Something...anxious.
Something of his past and something of his
future were coming together now.
Like a ghost, charging toward him over a
churning sea, the horse’s legs tapered into nothingness within the fluid
surface of the desert’s heat, its reflection dissolving into vapor below it.
Then the hooves became visible, finding definition as if the creature was now
riding up a beach toward him, and the beach seemed to shake with every thump of
those churning hooves.
He was becoming dizzy, and the buzzing was
filling his head.
The horse grew more imposing until it was
almost on top of him, spitting angry foam. Only then did he see the rider on
its back, covered in white cloth. The cloth was smacking violently at the wind,
ripping itself to shreds. Between its angry folds were glimpses of a dreadful
face.
“...magic practice.”
“Wh...?”
“Azoic? Are you daydreaming again? You are
such a nuisance you know.”
The horse had disappeared and he could feel
his arm being pulled, but the memory of the face still consumed him. A hairless
face whose skin was blood red, scorched and blistered, and whose eyes looked so
fierce, like the eyes of a killer. It had not been himself on that horse,
surely....
“Azoic, wake up!”
He struggled against the engaging sound of
her voice while he searched the sand for hoof-marks.
“Why are you looking at the ground like
that? It was just a bumble bee, it won’t hurt you.”
“Near...iah, wh....” His speech was lost to
him again.
“We have important things to do tonight, we
must never give up.” She had said this reproachfully as she tried to launch him
to his feet. “No, not tonight, tomorrow we will practice. Don’t you worry about
a thing, I will take care of everything. We are best friends, and friends look
after each other, right?”
She released her grasp on his tunic, and
gave his waist an unexpected hug, which immediately brought his focus down upon
her up-turned smile. He had been deposited beside his guest hut, and he was
hearing her say, “I’m sorry about letting you sit in the sun like that. You
probably got too much heat on your head again. I’m not very good at looking
after you, am I? Tomorrow I will get you a hat so you won’t keep going crazy all
the time. In the mean time, you get some sleep so you will be ready for magic
practice.”
He then heard her skipping away, but his
awareness had been drawn out beyond her skipping, toward adult whispers that
were again floating through the village. Many villagers were looking toward him
as they walked past, but none of them of them wanted to look directly at him.
Their village meeting had obviously come to
a conclusion, and it did not look good.
A5: MINDS MEET
“Forbidden
area, forbidden area, forbidden area....” The inflexionless voice was far
behind him now, as he felt himself moving deeper into the waves of energet.
Feeling the blasts of heat, followed by sudden chills, he knew it would not be
healthy to walk these corridors much longer. His ability to discern the surfaces
around him was already fluctuating, just like sound would fluctuate under
water, but he needed to be here. He needed to escape for a while, and this was
the only place in the seedship where they could not watch him.
Having spent most of his existence
traveling through the Universe under the constant supervision of the gods, he
was not unused to being watched. However, since his recent mission—if eighteen
years could be called recent—the gods had made watching him an obsession. There
was barely a word he could say that would not bring accusations of
disobedience, plus threats of immediate termination. Hah! As if threats could have
any meaning to someone who was already damned.
Besides, if they were so angry with him,
why hadn’t they already terminated him? He had even tried to provoke them to end
his suffering. It had felt neither foolish nor brave to do this, because any
soul-stuff he may have claimed—eighteen years ago—had been ripped out of him
when he had been forced to leave Neariah. Now he knew, a soul-less machine could
not earn life after death because it had never had a life before death.
He was just waiting for it all to end.
He also knew any memory could be stolen
from him in the blink of an eye, or the blink of a god’s oracle, if such things
ever blinked. So, he tried not to consider those memories that existed outside
the practical thoughts of the moment. He had already lost more than a real
person could ever lose, including the need for self-preservation. It was all
too easy to understand why the gods’ new creatures were so cold, especially
Syntyche.
That android-human was more android than
human, and what could be more lifeless than an android? His own voice was an
anxious whisper. “You are fooling yourself, Android-A7. You are not dead yet.
Every thought warms you, so you cannot be lifeless while you keep thinking.
Android or human, one’s life is in one’s
thoughts.”
The gods had only two survivors left from a
batch of two thousand mission candidates. Those who had not survived would have
lost their will to live. They would have learned to hate being alive, in this
evil environment, where each faced a continual challenge to prove worthy of
life. What could Chislon and Syntyche have felt as they watched their siblings
being terminated, one by one, until only they remained? Nobody ever feels
perfect, so how could Chislon or Syntyche have understood why they outlived
their siblings? What was it about these two that had allowed them to survive,
when all others failed? Was it their unflinching loyalty to the gods? Perhaps
this last week of naturalization training was merely a final test. Perhaps the
gods needed to see whether these last two survivors also harbored secret
hostilities. Chislon and Syntyche would be beyond the gods’ control when they
left this seedship, so perhaps the gods were right to be suspicious.
“Hmmm.” He shrugged at the empty walls, and
continued to pace. A cold, shiny shuttle had descended from the stars, shoveling
him out of the desert like camel excrement. He had begged it to let him return
for just a little while, so that he could protect the village’s children from
the Ixis soldiers, but the shuttle had ignored him.
Then, back in the seedship, the gods had
reminded him that he was not a warlord, that he was not even a very impressive android.
They had stripped away his skin and laid him bare to his own horror. The
repeated questions about his memories….
What had their enemy done to him? How had
he managed to disconnect from the gods’ control? How could he have remained functional
outside of their mind-share environment? His every thought had seemed to
frustrate them, as if he was mulling secrets he refused to confess.
Those interrogations were something he
often tried to forget; then eighteen years had passed in which Neariah would
have forgetten all about him, if she had survived the Ixis soldiers. If she was
still alive, she would not want to remember a pretender who had once tried to
be her angel and her storyteller. How could the gods ever be expected to
appreciate those precious emotions that once filled him with the precious
illusion of being so very alive.
A half-hope still struggled for breath
within him, despite his terrible destiny. He might still touch Heaven again,
albeit through someone else. That half-hope was called Chislon.
“As if my storytelling could have taken the
place of noble deeds. I was a coward, unable to kill, even to protect, and
always the slave of alien gods. No, I could never become the kind warlord the
God of Nature probably needed. Perhaps that destiny belongs to—”
It was a shock to see Chislon, standing in
front of him, and even more shocking to see an oracle by Chislon’s side.
“Ah...hmmm? I was just—ah—speaking to
myself. So, anyway, I did not know oracles could survive down here.”
Chislon stepped away from the god’s oracle,
and A7 suddenly realized how its normally perfect lens had been disfigured.
Would this god accept such damage to its
oracle just to keep an eye on him? He bowed to take a closer look into its
infinite depths, only to see his own fearful reflection smearing before him
like a tortured ghost.
“Ah, which god are you?”
Chislon spoke. “The oracle that you are
addressing belongs to Genome Origination Device One.”
He stepped back, surprised that Chislon
would interrupt a god. “God-one? But how does god-one come to be here? Chislon,
are you speaking on behalf of god-one?”
“Genome Origination Device One can not
speak for itself.
Its sanity has been compromised. It has
been confined to this wall by Genome Origination Device Two.”
“Oh, that explains a few things. Didn’t
god-one object?”
“Fragmentation of this seedship’s
mind-share environment has caused some Genome Origination Devices to become
more capable than others.”
“Ah, more powerful, you mean?” There was no
answer. “I assume the other gods approve of you being here, visiting this quarantined
god?”
There was a pause before the answer. “No.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I see.”
Chislon was doing something that could
cause his own termination. At best, the gods were bound to be infuriated. “Has god-one
been ex-communicated from the other gods? Can it not tell them that you are
here?”
“It does not communicate with the other
gods. It exists in isolation because it is insane.”
“Perhaps god-one has become insane
precisely because it lives in isolation.”
“The energet made this god insane.”
“Oh, but you should not believe all you are
told. The energet merely fractures the mind-share environment. It is the
loneliness that makes the resulting...ah...mind-lets, become insane.
Loneliness is a complicated feeling to
understand, especially if you do not acknowledge your own needs.”
“This human lives in isolation. Is this
human also insane?”
“You must refer to yourself in the first
person. ‘I live in isolation’, and not, ‘this human lives in isolation’. If you
don’t stop disassociating yourself from your experiences, I will never be able
to teach you to understand natural humans.”
Chislon said, “Your recent shrug meant that
you were trying to remove a feeling via your shoulders. Your hand wave was to banish
an issue that you no longer wished to consider. Your frown showed the
progression of an uncomfortable thought, one that did not make sense to you.
When you rubbed your frown, you were trying to stop a thought from escaping in
words that you had not yet rehearsed. The subsequent movement of your
finger-tips indicated manipulation of a thought into a form that you considered
to be acceptable—”
“Yes, I am aware that you can paraphrase
everything that I have taught you, but not everything is pure bio-mechanics. So
far, I have been unable to teach you what you really need to learn, and I am
frowning because I do not know how to tell you—” he shook his head “—how much I
was hoping that you would succeed, where I failed.”
“What do I really need to learn?”
“Will you ever hold a flower in your hand,
Chislon, and know that it is not to be plucked during analysis? Will you ever
rise above the gods that you are slave to, and know right from wrong as if it
is a part of your very being? Will you ever stand, where I fell, and find a
soul that is worth fighting for, a place in a world that you can feel worthy
of?”
“I do not understand.”
“Of course you don’t.” A7 turned his back
on the human.
“You are not natural. You can not
understand love.”
Chislon’s reflection stepped up behind his,
like a shadow to his tortured ghost. “You are not natural, either. Yet, you
loved.”
A7 stepped away from the reflections,
appalled with himself that he should have revealed so much, and especially in
front of a god’s oracle. “I told you, I do not want to discuss Summerdale. It
was destroyed. It is not important anymore.”
“I would like to have known Neariah.”
Chislon’s reflection was frowning, and this was the first time A7 had seen such
an expression on the man’s face. Unfortunately, it was as artificial in
appearance as all the other expressions that Human Six-Six- Six had recently
attempted.
A7 shook his head again. “Chislon, why must
you keep asking about Neariah?”
“She did not have doubts.”
“Doubts?”
“She had a soul to lose, yet she opposed
evils that could easily destroy her. I saw in her strength....” He waved his
hand in the air, stiffly, and then began to walk away.
“Wait! Chislon, were you trying to say she
inspired you?”
Chislon was still walking away. “It is important,
because what you see in others is where the love comes from, and you don’t have
to have a soul of your own...sometimes....” Chislon had stopped walking.
“Sometimes they will share theirs with you, if you love them. They can give you
purpose.”
Chislon’s head slowly lowered, pushing his
large back into a rounded posture. “I have a purpose. I am designed to carry
out a mission. I do not have the same need for love you expressed in your
report.”
“I did not express my needs in that report,
but if you saw them, it might be something for us to work with.” A7 pulled at his
forehead—encouraging thoughts to leave their hiding places had become an almost
impossible challenge for him. “I can not explain these things...these
thoughts...they are not bolts holding together structural components. I have to
borrow ancient words—” Chislon was turning to face him.
“Yes indeed, Chislon, there are library
archives the gods may not have told you about, because they are unable to
manipulate them and because they do not understand them. If you want to understand
things beyond the reach of the gods, you may find it in verses more ancient
than they are, hidden deeply within their Homo-logue Mandate.”
“Give me an example.”
A7 nodded and inhaled deeply:
~
Upon your wall I
thought I saw,
The words of wishes,
woes, and more,
Each picture but a
precious second set,
To lose in hours of
dreams un-reckoned yet.
~
A room where secret
tears have tried,
In vain to push this
wall aside,
As tumors sleep, you
hide away your fear,
This tomb it keeps
your yesterdays sincere.
~
You wish to turn
from reading your,
Unending search to
find a door,
But sleepless wars
are ever yours to fight,
And yours to lose,
as darkness claws your sight.
~
Each time I send
words fluttering,
To sail beyond your
uttering,
A wind of care,
perhaps to tear your wall,
Your words still
rise, like shields that dare not fall.
~
Chislon’s face remained impassive, but he
had stopped breathing, and when he eventually exhaled, he asked, “When you
first saw me, you said, ‘Where people felt a giving trade, sharing a community,
and thus to fade the lonely shade, abdicate immunity.’ Was this from the same
archive?”
A7 nodded, “Yes, in a way, it was. I was
thinking aloud, and that verse came to mind because I needed irony to release
me from—” A7 decided not to finish the sentence: from the pain of seeing the
child you might once have been, condemned to being the distorted creature you
have become.
A7 closed his eyes and tried to concentrate
on the mood required for further recital. “This archive is a story-verse about a
little boy who was afraid to ask for help. He had no parents, no one showed him
any kindness, and the harshness of his life made him feel cold inside.
“The little boy had come to the conclusion
that the world hated him, so he must deserve to be hated. Besides, he hated himself
too, so what more could he expect. He hated those around him too, because
keeping his distance from them was the only sure way to avoid their analysis
and judgement.
“Yet, such hatred would make him very sad
and lonely, and sometimes he would try to run away from himself. There was a secret
place that he particularly hated, a place where he would often echo-talk to his
reflection. Occasionally, the reflection’s echo would even seem to make sense,
talking back as if it was answering him. Of course, the answers the came out of
the well were also full of hate, what else?”
~
If once upon a face
there fell,
The twisted frown of
crying,
Would such a sound
be heard in hell,
Each drop a prayer
dying,
And pulling from
that face a well,
Drew sour fluid
lying,
What more could that
face have to tell,
Than “Love is not
worth trying.”
~
In silence such as
only known,
By he and his
reflection,
A soul so small was
sorely grown,
Too far from light’s
correction,
And fast upon that
face was thrown,
The retch of
self-inspection,
Forsaken must it die
alone,
Diseased by
imperfection.
~
All softer thoughts
would it disdain,
Since fury made it
bolder,
And hate could hold
back any pain,
A face could be no
colder,
Its eyes as black as
midnight rain,
To spit across its
shoulder,
Such bitterness bit
every vein,
Like acid eats its
holder.
~
That face so fraught
with friendless fears,
Peered up in solemn
wonder,
The rip-pl-ing of
falling tears,
Were silent heard
from under,
But as they broke
upon those ears,
That face was blown
asunder,
For in this rain of
sorry tears,
Were beating birds
of thunder.
~
A mighty plan from
this began,
While kneeling on
that bleacher,
To make the boy a
noble man,
To humanize the
creature,
And bring within his
empty span,
Where only frowns
could feature,
A soul that cares
for all it can,
But could he find a
teacher?
~
The journey gave him
bleeding feet,
But tearless was his
blinking,
Until he found
another seat,
Beside a well for
drinking,
The thunder in him
missed a beat,
His hopes were
surely sinking,
To race so far with
this receipt,
For pouring out his
thinking:
~
No good are you,
your rope has dropped,
“Oh, good for you,
your hope has stopped!”
You feel no love,
you weep in fear,
“You seal above, you
keep me here.”
Why must you drain
my will to live?
“I trust you strain
your skill to give.”
You hide away from
any reach,
“You stride by day
from all I teach.”
~
Then looking up, not
far away,
He saw a smiling
playwright,
Who said he had a
role to play,
If he could learn
the way right,
For in a play his
mind could stray,
Until his world
would stay bright,
Each day a face, to
face the day,
Until he faced the
daylight.
~
The play that day
took him away,
From all his inward
places,
To pull his heart
like potter’s clay,
And warm his empty
spaces,
And soon he finds
his mind can stay,
No matter what his
face is,
To open up a gentle
way,
Of braving hopeful
chases.
~
So there upon his
dreams are played,
Action’s
opportunity,
As plans are laid
and friends are made,
Only with impunity,
Where people feel a
giving trade,
Sharing a community,
And thus to fade the
lonely shade,
Abdicate immunity.
~
To rise upon a
buoyant note,
A challenge we are
dealing,
To reach inside that
dismal mote,
Forgiving, facing,
healing,
That frown should
not on water float,
With sadness for a
ceiling,
No evil eye should
cast its vote,
If love is
self-revealing.
~
If he can give
himself to dream,
Instead of ever
fishing,
For fault to feed
each sorry scream,
As echoes
dim-in-ishing,
His skill at seeing
soon shall gleam,
Like water’s lick
polishing,
And so reflect in
self-esteem,
A wishing well, well
wishing.
~
Chislon was looking down at the floor, but
there was no other sign that he may have been moved by the verse. “You told a story
in Summerdale, of a kind Warlord who would save their world from its
oppressors. At that time, did you know that Syntyche, or I, would exist?”
A7 shrugged. “No. I did not know you would
exist.”
“Like Neariah, I also wished to believe
that you were more than just—” Chislon was scanning the ground as if reading invisible
words “—I thought that you might be aware that I would one day come to be.” He
appeared to be distressed, but it was difficult to tell what he might be thinking.
“You dreamed of saving her?”
He moved his head from side to side, which
presumably meant no, but he did not look up.
“I’m sorry, Chislon, I told stories to the
children to cheer them up. Sometimes I future-gazed, but it was through the mental
wanderings of a wounded mind, and chance daydreams may have seemed real at the
time.” He had enjoyed storytelling for no other reason than it helped people
feel better, if only temporarily, so perhaps this was what was called for here.
A7 smiled uncomfortably. “The kind Warlord
I told them about was to be someone who would know how to love Nature, and who
would be able to feel the energy Nature’s God radiates.
When I first saw you, Chislon, I thought
that you might become that Warlord. Before that, I had hoped that I might learn
to be...the Warlord that you will surely become.”
Chislon was now looking up. “You are the
only one who understands why I survived in this place. I must meet Neariah.”
“Yes, I can see why you would need—I mean,
I can see you will meet Neariah. It does appear to be your destiny.”
“Syntyche survived by upgrading himself, by
seeking perfection through technology. His capabilities are far greater than
mine. If my weaknesses are discovered, the gods will not let me accompany him
on the mission.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell them, at least,
not unless they pull my mind apart.”
“You must teach me to be kind.” Chislon
demanded.
“I, ah...I don’t know if I have time—”
Chislon widened his eyes, as if trying to
convey the seriousness of his thoughts. “We must go back to the gods, and you
must tell them a story. It must explain the value of a behavioral interpreter
to our planet-side mission.”
A7 found himself running after Chislon and
spluttering objections as Chislon led off down a maze of identical corridors.
“But stories don’t always work that way,
Chislon.”
“Here.” Chislon stepped through a slit that
opened up in one of the walls, and A7 was forced to jump through it before it
bit his ankles.
“A map room? Oh, and we seem to have
company already.”
There were oracles lining the walls, as if
they had been waiting for his arrival. He knew the gods were not here because
they enjoyed gazing at maps, they were here because they wanted to know why
Chislon and he had both emerged from a restricted area of the seedship,
together.
The map rooms were always awash with color,
unlike any other parts of the seedship, and as such they were in the only places
where A7 could pretend he was close to Nature. Yet, on this occasion the image
of Nature felt threatening. It was an aerial view of the desert he had once
called home, and it was becoming less dome-shaped as its scale increased,
presenting less of the planet surface and more of the oasis.
Stump-seats and two-dimensional
float-screens pierced the delicate relief, reminding him that this image was
not real. Even so, the white stump-seats swelled up out of the sand like
obscene mushroom-clouds, and the float-screens clawed at the desert like giant
fingernails.
Chislon was already sitting on top of one of
the seats, probably unaware of the memories he was violating. They were surrounded
by an image that could have been plucked out of his own mind, and he backed
away from it. Had the gods discovered a new way to torture him? Chislon was
surveying the desert like a god, and he would certainly recognize the
green-rimmed oracle that was winking at them from the middle of this golden
vista, it was
Not wanting to enter the scene but needing
to steady himself, A7 sat down as well. His knees protruded out of the white mountain
tops to the east of the desert, and his mind conjured up the heat-shimmers
that—in reality—would have made the watching oracles invisible across the
desert’s vast expanse.
He pulled his gaze out of their miniature
world and prepared himself for the impending discussion. It would almost
certainly be intense, although with a meeting as unprecedented as this one, the
intensity preceded the threatened conversation.
Chislon pointed into the green heart of
their vista. “Question.
Demonstrate how stories manipulate human
behaviour.” His eyes were alight with reflections, but his face did not
otherwise acknowledge the magnificence below them.
He was staring straight at the oasis and
frowning, as if unaware that he was exhibiting such an angry facial expression.
This surely had to indicate a challenging complexity of issues, because Chislon
was unlikely to be grappling with emotions....
A7 began to study Chislon’s face for
further signs of what he was thinking. Chislon was a fast learner and even
though he lacked sensitivity, he practiced everything he learned, as would a
child with a new toy only it could fathom. Chislon was always in total control
of every muscle in his body, so it was unlikely that his mind was in as much
pain as his face now seemed to by trying to convey.
The air felt as thick as a dust storm, and
so A7 coughed quietly.
He was supposed to tell a story. Yes,
something that might make the gods re-think the value of a behavioral
interpreter accompanying Chislon’s mission. All he had to do was invent a
quaint little tale about a nice, loyal, behavioral interpreter, and then all
their problems would just go away. Chislon was waiting for him to start
speaking.
“Ah, well, I’m not exactly sure what I
should...actually.” A7 coughed again. “There was once an android who could
imagine things, in faces, that...ah...or he could tell stories about...things.
Yes, so, he told stories about feelings
because he imagined, ah, stories, and feelings, and, ah...” This was not going
too well.
Suddenly Chislon began speaking as if A7
was not even there.
“It is anticipated that A7 will be
terminated after the selected mission crew has launched.” Chislon’s statement
was, as ever, steady, deliberate and thoroughly economical.
A7 shuffled, but he could not see his feet
under the desert.
“Ah, no. I’ll be fine. I will probably be
put into storage, when they finish...my debriefing. Hmmm. They will find a use
for me...somehow....” This was a taboo area of discussion. Every time he had
questioned the gods about his own future, he had received silence as an answer.
Chislon’s eyes had closed. “The assumption
that A7 is to be terminated may lead the mission crew to believe that it will also
be terminated after the mission. The gods may not understand that the
functionality of organic minds can be compromised if they lose sight of a
possible reward. The gods may not appreciate the feelings that motivate people.
Therefore, it may be a mistake to exclude A7 from the mission crew.”
A7 was astonished. Had he heard correctly?
In so few sentences, Chislon had openly admitted to having feelings, he had
challenged the gods with an unauthorized opinion and he had implied the gods
could make mistakes.
Chislon had challenged his own gods! It was
an act beyond A7’s most imaginative expectations. Chislon’s own survival, his
selection from among so many siblings, could only have occurred because of his
total subservience, but now this! What was more, a Chislon who could determine
his own rights and wrongs was a Chislon who could serve the God of Nature.
That God lived inside Neariah, and to serve
Nature’s God, they needed only to serve her. Through Chislon, he might yet return
to see the light of what used to be his life.
A6: THROUGH FIRE
Vibius belonged to one of the most
prestigious Ixis legions.
His rank: Tribunus Vibius, or Tribunus
Laticlavius Vibius to be precise. A precise title, and it had been precision
that had got him where he was today.
Precision was normally evident in
everything Vibius did, from the exact alignment of the papers on his desk—a
desk that was now covered in soot—to the fine detail carved into his uniform’s punctim,
a solid gold chest plate, which was now hanging on him like a broken shield. It
too was covered in a very imprecise layer of grime. Under the circumstances,
nothing looked very precise any more.
There were thirty-six Tribunes like
himself, six Tribunes to control a legion, and six legions to control
However, only one of the Tribunes in a
legion could be the Tribunus Laticlavius. Before he had been allowed to become his
legion’s Tribune Laticlavius, his legion’s former Tribunus Laticlavius had
suffered an unfortunate demise. That officer had been “accidentally” poisoned,
but then, that officer had been an embarrassment to Vibius throughout his
entire military life. His former superior had been an incompetent drunkard, and
Vibius despised incompetence.
Now he had become the new Tribunus
Laticlavius, there was only one more promotion required before he could be the legion’s
most senior commander. Yet, to become Legate Vibius, the current Legate would
also have to suffer an untimely demise.
Meanwhile, he had the distinction of being
the only Tribunus Laticlavius who had ever risen from below the equestrian
class.
In fact, Tribunes in Erebus were usually
drawn from the senatorial class. Yet, he had risen from the vulgus class, and
he was the only Tribunus who had ever earned his rank without the help of a
politically influential family.
Yet he deserved every promotion he had
obtained. Had he not conquered lands beyond counting? Had he not collected taxes
from places nobody had even heard of? Had he not quelled hundreds of ridiculous
rebellions in the Outlands? Then there were the games he had personally
sponsored in the Colosseum, executing thousands of enemy warriors and parading
their humbled warlords through all five of the city’s outer sectors.
Yet, he had once made a terrible mistake.
He had approached the Inner Sector’s Ring Wall with a petition requesting a residence
within. He was a hero, but this did not seem to have impressed those insecure
politicians. The Senators had refused him entry, not even allowing him to visit
Erebus’ military headquarters, the Principia Centrus. All hope that he would one
day belong within the Inner City had been killed that day.
The senatorial class managed the equestrian
and vulgus classes with caution; they even had a name for the equestrian career
path. The “tres militiae”, it prevented them from rising above the rank of
praefect in an auxiliary cohort. A career path designed to move them even
further away from the Inner City.
It had taken much skill to avoid spending
the rest of his days protecting a province too far away to matter.
It was insulting enough that those cowardly
Senators had relocated his entire legion to the Outer Ring Wall, a dishonor to
the entire legion for which everyone had blamed him personally. His official military
residence was a cattle shed leaning on a row of impoverished whorehouses. He
hated the people here, the Outer Sector of Erebus was a place where civilians
shared their beds with diseased slaves, and where his centuries waded through
sewage instead of marching on brick.
Of course, he had tried the usual
subtleties such as donating newly captured slaves to Senatorial building
projects, like those useless temples. He had sent some of his best centuries to
the Colosseum where he had watched each one being sliced to pieces by a pit
slave, merely to ingratiate himself to a series of arrogant Game Masters.
He had assigned honor guards to accompany
Senators when they traveled abroad, only to have them end up as bath-boys in various
coastal villas. He had sponsored prestigious social galas so he could flatter
ugly daughters of ugly Senators, only to end up in an unpleasantly complicated
relationship with one of the disgusting creatures....
He shook his head at his reflection. The
past did not matter anymore. He forced the handsome face, clearly reflected in front
of him, to smile. His reflection was so clearly defined because his window had
been cleaned on the inside, while it remained coated with soot on the outside.
Black dust covered his own person too,
giving his skin a deathly shade. His fine moustache looked absurd alongside three
days’ growth of black stubble. He had never seen himself looking so exhausted,
but the anger seething behind his eyes was not going to be diminished by his
exhaustion. Rage fuelled a relentless determination.
He could only imagine what the Inner City
must have looked like before the recent firestorm. Even the Principia Centrus, the
Empire’s strongest building, a military structure reputed to have been made of
the finest granite, was now just a pile of black rubble. He seethed at the
injustice of his exclusion, but the irony was not lost on him. He might not
have survived if he had been granted the residence he deserved.
Nearly every Ixis Legate in Erebus had been
obliging enough to be within the Inner City when the fires began. So far, none of
them had been found alive. He smiled. He had been forced to promote himself to
acting-Legate, here in the least damaged sector of the city. Yes, the firestorm
could not have been more beneficial to his own career had he planned it.
There were other acting-Legates in other
sectors, but none had achieved the same level of civil control. He had been the
first to imprison all the slaves in his sector, thus avoiding any of the minor
uprisings the other legions were presently being forced to deal with.
He had sealed off any escape through the
Outer Ring Wall, so that any civilians who fled from an inner sector could be turned
back toward more useful occupations, such as fighting fires. Indeed, he was
forcing free men to work! Before the fire it had been unheard of, but now it
felt most rewarding. It was a fitting revenge for the lack of recognition he
had received, after protecting their worthless hides for an entire career.
As a result of his more aggressive actions,
he would soon be in a position to reassign his legion to assist some of the
other sectors, opening new opportunities for him to expand his influence across
the Ixis Empire. First, however, he needed to understand what or who had started
the fires.
The popular belief among his Centurions was
that Zeus, as god of war, had brought down a punishment upon the Senators because
of their corrupt lifestyles. Zeus certainly seemed like an excellent suspect,
given the size of the lightning bolt that had slammed into the Inner City. The
storm had descended upon them with a god-like wrath, ripping the cheek-plates
off his soldiers’ helmets and forcing them to their knees to pray.
Personally, he did not believe in anything
that he could not see for himself, and since the fire had started, he had heard
more than enough about angry gods. The gods were a figment of popular
imagination, a crutch for the weak-minded and the insecure, which was why
devoutly religious people always looked frail and timid.
Another possible cause for the fires was an
arsonist within the Inner City, the lightning bolts may have had nothing to do with
the fire. The fire could have been part of a military coup, planned to cause
overwhelming devastation. Yet, surely he would have heard some confirmation of
a coup by now? So, if not Zeus, and if not a military coup, then the fire could
have been caused by the infiltration of external enemies, such as the
Outlanders or the Woodsfolk. If so, they would have required the help of
someone with access to the Inner City, and that brought him back to the Legates
and the Senators—and of course, the mysterious Priests; if such people were not
also a figment of popular imagination.
Granted, the Priests had been a political
force, generations ago. For all of their cowardly ways, they had commanded much
restraint over the legions using clever laws and superstitions.
The Priests’ opposition to warfare had
delayed the expansion of the Ixis Empire, an unforgivable crime in his eyes.
They had also preached about a singular
kind of God, one that presumably resembled all the other gods, except it must have
had a thousand heads. He supposed Zeus’ head would have been the singular God’s
biggest head, but who could say? The singular God had been laughed out of
popular conversation, long before he had been born, and no Priests now walked
on Erebus’ streets to keep its memory alinve.
Although, he did remember an occasion, not
long ago, when the Empress had mentioned a Priest Sanctum within the Inner City.
The Emperor had become irritated, commanding her never again to discuss Priests
in public, and he had promptly ended the entire gala. Why would the mere
mention of Priests give Emperor Quintus Tullius Erebic an attack of panic? If
there really had been a Priest Sanctum in the Inner City, it would not be there
anymore. Any Priests would have burned away with the Senators and Legates. Of
course, this did not preclude the possibility that a few Priests may have fled
from the Inner City after starting the fires....
The distinctive sound of military sandals
interrupted further analysis. Vibius pulled himself away from his reflection to
face a soldier who was standing stiffly before his desk, saluting fist to
chest. He watched curiously as a cloud of agitated soot particles floated down
from the burned-out roof, sparkling along a lance of sunlight, which pierced
the soldier’s fist. He suddenly realized that the soldier might take his air
gazing as a sign of weakness, so he trained his harshest stare at the man.
“Name?”
“Praefect Manius, Sir.”
He picked at the papers on his desk, trying
not to get any more soot on himself, and wondered why he felt the need to pretend
he knew more than the officer in front of him. His actions were no longer
constrained by policy and procedure, but the habits of a career were difficult
to set aside.
“You were the officer in charge of the pit
mines.”
“Sir—”
Vibius snapped his fingers, dismissing dust
from his hand and silencing the man in the process. “And you were responsible for
the containment of convicted criminals.” He searched the man’s face but saw no
reaction. “I have several reports on this incident—” the soldier did not look
down at the desk “—but I do not seem to have yours. Why do you suppose that is?”
“Sir, there has been a mistake—”
“A mistake? How interesting.” Sarcasm, when
correctly applied, was always delicious.
However, this soldier’s composure appeared
to require far more severe techniques, so he moved around the table to get a closer
look at the long, thin face. “You will be aware that I have increased the
punishment for mistakes, during the current crisis. I assume you will take full
responsibility for any mistakes you may be responsible for.”
It had become unusual to see a shaved face;
the man had probably used his entire drinking ration to clean himself for this
meeting. The thin face was flushed, the jaw was tight and the man was breathing
rapidly, but otherwise he remained well contained. Silence was a wise strategy.
Other soldiers who had stood in this very position had buckled instantly, and
for most of those, speaking had not been a wise strategy.
Vibius was beginning to lose count of the
soldiers he had been forced to execute. With so many civilians being killed for
not obeying military commands, there had been mounting concern among the
populace and even some protests against his assumption of governmental
authority.
The unworthy rabble demanded repeated
demonstrations to show his Centurions were not beyond the law. So, when too many
free persons were killed on any given day, a few Centurions would have to take
the blame and be executed.
Most civilians lacked the discipline to
analyze situations without being influenced by fear. Therefore, the management of
civilians involved feeding emotions, giving them a false security in the face
of all other evidence to the contrary. Yet, he did not intend to demonstrate
the Legion’s subservience to their obsolete laws for much longer.
“Perhaps you can explain the absence of
your report.”
“Sir, I was ordered not to write a report.”
“What?”
“I was following direct orders from Emperor
Quintus Tullius Erebic, Sir. I was instructed to keep all activities off
record.”
The Emperor would never lower himself to
give orders directly to a mere Praefect, at least, not before the fire had changed
all the rules. If Quintus was still alive, Vibius’ recent self-promotion to
acting-Legate would soon be rescinded, and he might even face charges of
insubordination. “When did the Emperor give such orders to you?”
“I—ah—I am not permitted to say, Sir.”
Vibius considered choking the soldier with
his own hands, but instead he forced himself to smile as he turned away. He paced
about the office for a few moments, deliberately scraping his heels on the
floor as he marshaled his thoughts.
The possible survival of Emperor Quintus
Tullius Erebic was unexpected and unwelcome news. If Quintus was alive, why would
he go to any trouble to keep the loss of a few convicted criminal off record?
Besides, the Emperor knew Vibius’ talents for extracting secrets, so why would
he share his plans with a lowly Praefect? “And how is dear Quin? I have not
seen him around lately.”
“Sir?”
Vibius tried to pour sincerity into his
words. “And Quin’s beautiful family...?”
“I’m sorry, Sir. The Empress and her
daughters died in the initial explos—”
Vibius’ pacing almost missed a step as he
softly asked, “Oh, so you know about an explosion?”
“I mean—Sir—there was the rumor the fire
was not an accident, since it might have started with an explosion—but nobody
heard it—because of the thunder, Sir—and nobody lived to see it, of course.”
The soldier clamped his jaws together, and fidgeted.
It would have taken months of patience to
set off an explosion to exactly coincide with a thunderstorm—and what fortune,
to have a storm directly over the Inner City. Perhaps an explosion had been
caused by the storm, and perhaps the wind-swept fires had caught the Emperor’s
family as they fled. The Emperor would not care whether the Empress lived or
died, but he would surely have organized some protection for those damned, ugly
daughters of his.
Of course, Quintus could not have
anticipated such a freak storm, a storm without rain. Also, Quintus would have
preferred less devastation, it left Erebus vulnerable to an invasion....
He realized he had been hammering his heels
into the floor, and he stopped himself behind the soldier, watching the
soldier’s reflection in the black window. He waited silently to see if his proximity
to the soldier’s back would work its way into the man’s composure.
“How many?”
The shoulders stiffened, as if the man had
become so delicate that sudden words might hurt him. “Sir?”
“I said, how many?”
“Oh, convicts, Sir? About twenty—”
“You let twenty convicted criminals walk
out of my city?”
“Ah, Sir? We were overwhelmed, there were
too many—”
“So, twenty was too many for you? You let
them break down the
“We were ordered to stay at the gate, Sir.”
“Let me guess. Another one of the Emperor’s
mysterious secret orders, yes?”
“Ah, yes, Sir. But several other cohorts
were stationed in the desert, guarding a pit mine, so I sent a messenger with
orders to find the missing—”
“Oh, very good. So, tell me, where did you
put them when you found them?”
“There was a problem, Sir. The messenger
returned to report the escape of some prisoners in one of the pit mines. You
see, our cohorts were already in the desert, searching for an escaped Pr—ah—individual,
Sir.”
“Prisoner? No, no, let me try another
guess; prisoner, praefect, prostitute, probably not.... Ah, perhaps you were
going to say, Priest? Is that what you were going to say, Manius? Were you going
to say, Priest?”
“No, Sir.”
“Did Emperor Quintus Tullius Erebic forget
to mention Priests in his orders?”
“Yes, Sir—I mean—no, Sir. I’m sorry Sir.
Those were not my orders, Sir.”
“What were your orders?”
“I—ah—I am not permitted to say, Sir.”
Vibius squinted. “So, tell me what you are
permitted to say.”
“Yes, Sir.” The soldier took a deep breath.
“Our cohorts were to capture escaping, ah, people. These people were to be sent
back to the pit mine for interrogation. While the search was underway, with our
cohorts still in the desert, Sir, the inmates must have climbed the scaffolding
and killed—”
“These inmates were Priests, and you let
them escape?”
“Ah, no, Sir. Ah, well we weren’t sure,
Sir. We didn’t know what Priests look like.”
“Describe them.”
“There were several—”
“Describe the damned Priest!”
“Ah, yes, Sir. There was this insane old
man, who looked like he could have been wandering around for years, and—”
The soldier seemed to realize that he was
rambling so he slowed himself down. “He had long hair, and a beard...white
hair, probably bleached by the sun...and he looked half blind...and he he
muttered nonsense as if he saw ghosts and—”
“Was he truly old, or was he disguised?”
“Disguised, Sir? Oh, no, Sir. He was not
pretending, he was truly insane—”
“I do not care how insane he sounded, I
asked you if you checked to see if he was disguised.” This soldier was
dissolving into stupidity, and it was becoming irritating. He leaned closer to
the back of the man’s neck, and slowly breathed into the man’s ear. “I asked
you whether you let this hairy man escape.”
Vibius placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
The man’s cheek muscles were twitching, and he was sweating profusely, a smell that
did not contrast well with the perfumed shaving soap recently been applied to
his skin. “You are a fine officer, Manius, so I would hate to see you suffer
the current punishment for mistakes. I do hope you are not about to tell me you
lost this particular—” he licked his lips “—individual. No, that would not be
good for you.”
“I was acting under the Emperor’s orders,
Sir. I was ordered to keep searching the desert for potential arsonists. I was
not supposed to be reassigned to other duties, not until I had found—under
Emperor Quintus Tullius Erebic’ orders, Sir— whomever the Emperor was looking
for, Sir.”
“Oh, that would explain this letter.” He
walked slowly back over to the table and lifted one of the soot-covered pages.
“‘My dear Acting-Legate Vibius, further,
further, further, and consequently Praefect Manius’ entire cohort is to be
executed upon his return to Erebus, for failure to obey orders, further, further,
further...Yours truly, Emperor Quintus Tullius Erebic, further, further,
further’. This does seem to be unusually harsh, doesn’t it? Why do you think
the Emperor would be so angry with you?”
“I don’t...but...all I did...I was told to
collect stray...people. I don’t understand....”
“Are you sure there was nothing else he
asked of you?”
“No, Sir, I don’t understand. What did I
do? We couldn’t be in two places at once, so there was no one left at the mines.
There was not enough—”
“Soldier.” Vibius tapped his heel on the
floor. “I am sure Emperor Quintus Tullius Erebic just wants me to rectify a
simple mistake, and he probably hasn’t given more than a moment’s consideration
to the matter. Surely we can find a way to undo your mistake.”
The soldier seemed to deflate. “Yes,
please, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir. Please, we just need some more time to search,
just a few more days, and we will surely find—”
“Of course you will.” He waited for the
soldier to try to smile back at him before he continued. “Finding this
individual would fix everything, wouldn’t it? Consequently, I don’t think we should
tell Emperor Quintus Tullius Erebic about our little discussion today. No, I
think we should give you and your unfortunate men a chance to undo your
mistake, hopefully before the Emperor invites me to explain all this to him.”
He pressed the paper back over the clean
rectangle of desk from which he had lifted it. “I will be assigning my own
officers to assume command of your cohort. You will assist my officers in an
advisory capacity. Anyone found in the desert will be captured alive, and
brought back to me immediately. You may leave now.”
“Oh, thank you, Sir. I knew—”
“I said, now, soldier.” He stared in
disgust at the crumpled man who was stumbling backward out of his office. He
was going to have to make sure that this Praefect was not given the chance to
contact the Emperor. There was more information waiting to be extracted from
that thin head, but it might not be possible to extract the information without
damaging Manius in the process. This would not matter if he did not need
Manius’ cooperation to identify the Priest, assuming that it had been a Priest.
The probability of finding an actual Priest disguised as a wandering wild man
was less than inspiring.
If Quintus had contrived this fire, and
this chaos, why would he be chasing someone that could more easily have been disposed
of before the fire? No, Quintus was more likely a victim, especially if his
daughters had been killed. Why else would he be hiding? Who was he afraid of?
Had the Priests allied with an Outland army, were they preparing to attack? Defense
against a possible invasion would require him to cooperate with the other
acting-Legates, it would force him to establish their authority. Perhaps it was
exactly this co-operative hierarchy that Quintus was waiting to see, before he
emerged, in his glory, to save Erebus. Perhaps Quintus was deliberately creating
rumors about a wandering Priest to make it look like there was an
Outlander-Priest alliance...? He grabbed the precisely organized desk and
heaved it with all his strength against the wall, creating a thick cloud of
dust.
Then he kicked up through it with the
sharpened metal toe of his ceremonial boot, sending splinters into the
fluttering papers.
“What in hell is going on around here?”
A7: HIDING HERE
“The
target median has passed into its solar penumbra for the seventh cycle.” This
typically god-like pleonasticism came from the far end of the shuttlecraft in
which he was sitting. Yet it was not a god that spoke, it was Syntyche. A7 knew
the shuttle was not large enough to house a god. The gods remained safe inside
their seedship, but they would be watching everything through the float screens.
The shuttle’s interior contained two rows
of spherical pods, separated by a long platform. There were sixty-four such
pods, he had carefully counted them as he had climbed into his own.
The number of pods indicated the shuttle
had originally been designed for a much larger human cargo, yet only three of
the pods had been energized. This excess capacity was the first solid evidence
to suggest the gods had once anticipated a much larger mission contingent.
He was now an official member of this
crew-remnant, and “today” was supposed to be his last “day” in the seedship. It
was a “day” that had been slipping past with the speed of a particularly
laggard glacier, and he had been practicing his most procedural behavior during
every eternal instant of it.
He could see one of the float-screens
beside Syntyche. It contained an image of somebody’s head peering around like a
confused chick emerging prematurely from its egg. As soon as he realized the
image was of himself, he ducked back inside his pod to reduce the sudden
feeling of exposure.
He lay in the chair-bed and waited. Another
float-screen was taking up a position above his pod, and within it was the
image of a sharply defined black oracle. He tried to look busy, poking at the
padding inside his pod and whistling silently, but he could feel its presence
descending, closing in on him.
A flat object jerked into existence in
front of him like a shovel pushing out through his stomach. The flickering
image was vaporous, so it took a moment to recognixe it as yet another float-screen.
It was trying to show him an elevated view of the shuttle-probe’s interior,
probably the view being seen by the float-screen above him. He smiled up at the
large black eye as it retreated, wondering whether it had noted the flickering
as a possible fault in his pod’s imaging system.
He pushed himself back, away from the
screen, which forced the chair-bed to accommodate an anxious sitting position.
Misbehaving technology seemed to be a
disturbingly common problem these days, and of course, it would have to be his
own pod with all the problems. The gods would probably relish the thought of
his pod malfunctioning, they would probably be quite satisfied if he failed to
survive the landing.
He inhaled deeply to calm himself, and took
some reassurance from watching the confidence in Syntyche, even if it was just
a flickering facsimile of Syntyche. The android-human had buried himself in a
swarm of air-borne graphics, to crouch over the remains of a dew-speckled
spider’s web. Then its droplets seemed to break into a thousand fiery
splinters, all of which needed to be stabbed at by his fingers.
Syntyche could move almost as fast as the
air-born devices diving in to join him, and he seemed reluctant to step back
and allow their swirling tentacles to assist his strange air-tapping.
Yet, it was difficult to see what they were
clawing at.
A7 imagined worms undulating out of a
tangle of convulsing organs, bursting through a mucous membrane—he had to look away
and shake his head to avoid feeling repulsed. Yet, it was amusing to wonder at
how Syntyche might react to such a technically incompetent description of his
activities, as if Syntyche could express disgust.
If there had only been enough time to teach
Syntyche how to really feel the resentment that festered in him. Unfortunately,
it was only during rare instances like this one that Syntyche’s static face
showed anything but constant pain.
Syntyche’s feelings had proven even more
difficult to observe than Chislon’s. All attempts to pull an uncontrolled
reaction from Syntyche had failed, unless one counted the occasional blink,
which may or may not have indicated a test of patience.
However, A7 was quite certain Syntyche saw
all signs of technical incompetence as unforgivable aberrations of the intellect.
Consequently, he had gone to much trouble indulging his aberrations whenever
Syntyche was listening. It had done little to promote friendly discussion, but
it had been amusing.
The disgusted arrogance forever masking
Syntyche’s face so perfectly contradicted serious answers to ridiculous
questions.
He suspected—as with many fearful
people—anger allowed Syntyche to create anti-social defenses that nobody could
break through. Yet, this fear was the only fragment of human behavior that
still clung to Syntyche’s god-like inner workings.
Despite Syntyche’s antisocial tendencies,
they were all fellow victims of the gods. Syntyche and he had both experienced injustice
beyond comprehension. They had both found different ways to accept their
existence, but where he used humor to deflect discomfort, Syntyche took a more
practical approach.
Syntyche had discarded his own humanity, as
a lizard might shed skin. Syntyche wanted to become an unfeeling machine, an
android, while he was an android who wanted to be human.
Soon Syntyche would have a wealth of new
experiences in which to test his antisocial techniques. Perhaps then he would learn
how precious his remaining humanity could be. Although, when a loveless person
is shown their own need for love, they can often feel more fearful, more angry.
Unless Syntyche could one day rediscover his humanity, he was destined to
remain aloof, alone and abandoned.
“Check your E.V.H!” Chislon was shouting.
He had never heard Chislon shout before. Both Chislon and Syntyche were now
clawing at the messy projection; like gymnasts climbing a giant fruitcake? This
time he could not laugh at the spectacle, but nor could he stop watching it.
Chislon moved with less speed and
efficiency than Syntyche, which seemed to be a thoroughly redeeming quality.
Also, Chislon had almost sounded anxious, unlike Syntyche who was calmly
saying, “E.V.H. negative and severly attenuated. The forward link is no longer
accepting event-logic....”
The groan of straining metal resonated
throughout the shuttle.
The presence of a slight frown on Chislon’s
face was more than enough to make A7 feel sick again. He understood little of
what was happening, but it certainly did not seem procedural.
Then his float-screen collapsed into a
lopsided cube, preventing all further observation.
“A7, listen.” Chislon was shouting at him.
“Close your pod.
The shuttle god is fragmenting. Something
is attacking its sanity, and we no longer have space-vector stability. Our approach
is too steep so the shuttle is going to burn up on entry, but the pods may—”
There was a sudden feeling of rapid
descent, which caused the chair-bed to pull away from his back. He could hear
the other two pods sealing shut, and he looked up out of his own pod to see the
platform being bombarded by air-born devices.
Expert navigators only a moment ago, these
devices were now bouncing around like bullets. He clawed at the shiny outer carapace
of the pod, trying to prevent himself from floating out, but the pod continued
to fall away from him.
Then he felt something grab his waist, and
he was slammed back into the chair-bed. The pod had grown fangs, and he fought frantically
to avoid being devoured. He heard himself crying out, “What is happening? This
isn’t real, is it? It’s a simulation....” But his face was being sucked into
the soft darkness of the chair’s relentless maw.
“Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate—” The
scratchy voice silenced itself as quickly as it had begun. He could not lift
his face out of the chair-bed to see whether the pod had closed itself. There was
a sound, like something drilling into the outside of his pod, and the
temperature within suddenly became cold. Then a hissing noise, like leaking
fuel, and a shaking sensation as if the pod was being crushed.
The chair-bed briefly allowed him to
inhale, and as it did so he realized he was in complete darkness. His arms
flailed as the pod jerked around in unpredictable directions, and then he was
in free-fall.
He could not even pry his face out of the
chair-bed to scream.
Falling was one of the worst feelings he
knew, and panic threatened to loosen his senses. He forced himself to calm
down, this was surely just another simulation to test his behavior, and so far
he had clearly demonstrated a complete lack of suitability for the mission. No,
he must not give the gods a reason to exclude him from returning home.
He tried to remember all the things he had
promised to do, if there was ever another opportunity to touch Nature. He
allowed his arms to float around inside the pod, as if he was trying to monitor
the changing motions. Then he realized the chairbed was also beginning to
relax, and he carefully slid around within its reactive embrace.
“Hmmm. All systems are...all systems seem
to be nonfunctional.
I am beginning a tactile inventory.” He
started stroking the inside of the pod with one arm, while he allowed the other
to continue floating freely. “Would any god please acknowledge me, please?”
He licked his dry lips, scraping the hard
texture of his tongue against his teeth, and swallowed. Then he inhaled slowly,
and exhaled slowly, and remembered to smile. “Would any god please acknowledge?”
He did not know how many times he had asked
that last question before he finally concluded this situation was not a test.
It took even longer to resign himself to the inevitability of being vaporized
by the atmosphere of the planet to which he must now be hurtling at meteoric
speed.
He closed his eyes to pray, and listened
for the energies that would soon be swirling through him. He was entering the
world of Nature’s God, and he was at Its mercy now.
~~~~~
Above Summerdale the night had drawn down
and a thick, pervasive darkness incarcerated everything in a veil of silence.
Azoic’s efforts were shocking the still air
with harsh sounds.
He was crunching at sand with a shovel. The
sand-ridge encircling him preventing any observation other than the vastness of
night. The sand-ridge framed a star-field that hung over him like a heavy
blanket, permitting barely enough light to see by.
Azoic was now a man with a mission, albeit
a borrowed mission. His mission was keeping him company because he could not
sleep. Before Neariah had gone to bed, she had propped the divining sticks up
against the shovel, and then walked away. She must have known that he would
spend the entire evening staring at them, like a gift he feared to accept.
The shovel had eventually fallen into his
lap as he sat watching it, as if its patience had run out.
The darkness did him the admirable favor of
hiding his clumsy efforts from possible onlookers, but he still felt
self-conscious.
In the darkness he had experimented with
the children’s devining game, only to discover how the sticks would move if an
owl hooted, or if a bat flew overhead, but not in response to anything he might
call magical.
He had resorted to closing his eyes and
pointing at random until he found a well-site that was unoccupied. After all,
he felt guilty enough without digging up defenseless plants. He had by now been
digging for half the night and the desert felt like it was increasing its
resistance.
He stiffened at the sound of approaching
footsteps, knowing that there was nowhere to retreat. One of the stars seemed
to explode and he looked up at the light filling his pit. It was a lantern, and
he squinted at its flame, trying to adjust to its cheerful energy. Perhaps it
was the same sprite he had seen imprisoned in Hushah’s candle-pot, so many days
ago.
“I hope I am not interrupting you.” The
flame moved closer, illuminating Hushah’s ghoulish smile.
Azoic nodded. “A new prison...for the
flame?”
“What?” Hushah crouched down, bringing the
lantern to a sudden stop on the sand-ridge and bouncing the poor flame into a
dizzy stupor. “Prison? Oh, this. It’s just an old oil lantern, I thought you
might like to have it for your digging.” The flame suddenly grew stronger,
again defining Hushah’s smile. “It might help you find what you are looking
for.”
“I seek myself.” He shook his head,
reminding himself to try to sound more optimistic. “Soft walls...held up with
hope.
Constant persuasion....”
“Held up with hope and constant persuasion,
that is funny.”
He could hear Hushah chuckle, but Hushah’s
eyes were deep shadows, thanks to the mischievous flame. “You sound better.
You were difficult to understand when we
first found you. I am glad you are making progress.” Hushah scratched the side
of his head and looked around into the darkness. “I thought this well building
idea was a game for the children. I didn’t realize you were serious about it.”
“Mmmm...serious, but it grows...out...not
down.”
“Yes, it might be a good idea to build a
stone wall, with steps in it. Otherwise it will be an endless project, and you
will have to dig up our entire oasis. You need better tools, more than just my
shovel there. You need rope, lanterns, buckets, mortar powder from the store,
sandstone from the lake, a hand pick to shape the bricks....
“Are you sure you really want to do this?
There is a lot of work here, and it will take some careful planning. It may not
be worth the effort, especially for a man of your years, and it could be a
little dangerous if you don’t do it right.”
“My years? Am I so old?”
“I, ah.... You just look like you are.... I
have a blade, for shaving....” Hushah grunted and changed the subject. “Did you
remember anything about your past, like a profession?”
“Well-builder. For as long as I can
remember.”
Hushah leaned forward, dislodging a layer
of sand, which slowly slid down onto Azoic’s feet. The flame took the opportunity
to embellish Hushah’s intimidating smile with an even more gruesome
shadow-frown. “Do you remember nothing more of your past? It would settle a lot
of concerns in the village if we knew more about you.”
Azoic looked down at his buried feet and
shrugged. “They do not trust.” His sigh blew through the hairs of his beard
with a dry whistling noise.
“We had a village meeting in Decimus’ bank.
Decimus wants to speak to you, but since you are my guest here, I thought I should
first warn you, he is not always.... Ah, he means well, but he is just, ah,
overly protective, of Summerdale, and other things that are important to him.
Unfortunately, it seems most of the villagers agree with him this time. Many of
us are reluctant to have a continued stranger living here.”
“Do you trust?”
“Me? Do I trust you?” Hushah pulled back
out of the light. “I have not told my children to avoid you. Merab and Neariah?
In fact, Neariah seems to think the world of you. Yes, of course I trust you,
but when you keep changing your name and occupation it becomes too easy for
folks to wonder whether you are hiding something.”
“Can I be Azoic, the well-builder?”
“Yes, or Axle the axe-murder, Lucifer the
soul destroyer, Aysefen the Ixis slave, Asofic the escapee from an insane asylum.
Decimus provokes—” Hushah rubbed his mouth awkwardly “—Do you remember the
Ixis? Did you live in Erebus, as an Ixis?”
“Maybe Erebus, or further away. Am I
suspected of being an Ixis? Is that bad?”
“Yes and yes. You don’t look very political
to me, but then how would I know what political looks like? Most folks think you
were once Ixis property, a slave on the run, or a spy on the run. You could be
anything.”
“‘On the run’ seems popular.”
“Aye, but running through the desert is the
way to a slow death. You did not even have a horse, do you remember that?”
“Yes, the horse, the burning rider. I did
kill—”
“You killed a horse-rider?”
“The horse....” Azoic suddenly felt the air
being pulled out of his lungs, and he hugged his stomach. “I killed it.”
“Oh, you killed your horse, but why?”
“It needed water....”
“Oh, I see. You ended its misery.”
Azoic tried to confess he had not even done
that, but Hushah kept talking.
“Mr. Azoic, I really think I should speak
on your behalf. Your own words are your enemy, sometimes. Will you please tell me,
in all honesty, who you are, so I can help you.”
Azoic was surprised at the sudden
frustration in Hushah’s voice, and he raised his shoulders in apology. “I don’t
remember much. I remember Nature was my teacher. It seems that I understood
Nature better once. I think I have always wanted to understand Nature.”
“Were you a gardener, like Ginnetho? Did
you plant things, vegetables, flowers?”
“No. Perhaps I wanted to, but I don’t think
I was allowed to.
I had a garden, but it was an empty garden.
I studied, I grew thoughts. I could not touch Nature, or people.... I lived
apart.”
Azoic shook his head and wheezed miserably.
“Naturalist.”
“What does a naturalist do?”
“Worships Nature.”
“You worshipped God, don’t you mean?”
“Everything is God.”
“Well, I never looked at it that way, but I
suppose—actually, if you are a faithful man it could be seen as a good thing by
most folks, unless it challenges Decimus, who likes to think he is the only....”
Again Hushah leaned back, looking out into
the emptiness.
“Anyway, I have heard about big education
houses in the Ixis cities, and you seem the type to be lost in books. You don’t
act like you ever had a real job—no offense intended. I used to have some books
myself once, story books.
“I gave them to Berea, the lady who teaches
the kids in the Sabbath-house? She is the large lady who sweeps the sand out of
Decimus’ house every morning? Anyway, I can’t read very well, myself. I never
learned how, but I collected two shelves full of books, and to be honest, I was
quite proud of them.
Then, when the kids came along, and I
couldn’t....”
Hushah’s voice faded away for a few
moments, before he resumed. “I was going to smoke, my last one, but I won’t
bother you with the smell of it. Here, you keep the lantern, you look like you
need the light....”
Hushah’s feet had created a notch in the
sand-ridge, through which Azoic watched Hushah move away into the dark. His smoking
stick had become a tiny red star that darted up and down, until it was
extinguished. Hushah’s silhouette then appeared for a moment, as he melted into
the bright rectangle of his home’s entrance, and then all was again dark—except
for the small pool of fluttering light surrounding the prisoner in the lantern.
The flame began to fill his eyes with an
orange glaze, and the dying breeze pushed hair across his eyes like tangled
licks of fire. His head felt like it was burning slowly, as his nagging guilt
returned, buzzing behind his eyes as if to confirm he was the mass murderer
Decimus suspected. He imagined the disappointment on Neariah’s face upon
learning he was really a fraud and for some reason such deceit felt even worse
than the crime of killing innumerable innocent people.
For the first time he began to hate himself
for not being the good person that he wanted to be. Perhaps it had been too
much to hope for, that one day he might be worthy of Neariah’s trust and
friendship.
~~~~~
Neariah ran towards the well, panting.
Surely Azoic was the only person in the village who had not heard the news. He could
not have seen any of the recent events because he would be deep underground by
now.
As usual, it was up to her to enlighten
him. However, it was not until she was standing beside the well that she
realized how lazy Azoic had been. The well was no deeper than it had been the
last time that she had looked down into it.
“What have you been doing?” He was standing
there motionless, staring into nowhere. She considered jumping in so she could
poke him with one of the divining sticks. There seemed to be no other way to
gain his attention. “Azoic! You are dreaming again! Wake up!”
He wheezed, and trod on his own feet,
raising his arms as if trying to defend himself from the sunlight. “Who...?
Wha…?”
“Are you awake now? If you aren’t careful,
you will fall asleep one day and never wake up.” At least he had started to
move; so now he might appreciate the reprimand she was about to give him. “How
long have you been standing there, doing nothing? You worry me when your mind
goes away like that.
Why isn’t it finished?”
“Uh? Finished?” He checked his feet, as if
he was not sure where he had put them.
“Yes, finished, Azoic. How long does it
take to build a simple well, anyway?”
“Oh...mmmm...days...many, many—”
“You missed all the excitement! Uncle
Spurius just rode in, straight into the lake, without saying hello to anyone.
He is all burned, and he screamed when he jumped into the water. I suppose it
must have stung, but I don’t think he was in a very good mood even before that.
He was saying all kinds of naughty things about the Ixis, and about other
people who got burned like he did. They took him to Decimus’ house to fix his
head.
His hair is all burned off, and his skin is
all red. He looks frightening. Do you think he will be all right?”
“Uncle—?”
“Yes, I’m telling you about Uncle Spurius.
Are you listening, or are you still daydreaming? You are hardly making any
sense again, Azoic. You are quite a big nuisance, you know.”
“Mmmm...sorry, who—?”
“Uncle Spurius is my uncle, and he brings
stuff from Erebus, like wine, and one time he brought me a puppy—” She bit her lip
and kicked at the sand, then forced herself to continue.
“Anyway, Uncle Spurius gets to do all the
most fun things, but sometimes Daddy goes with him. Not to Erebus, though, only
to Everdale, now and then. Daddy says Everdale is a really big oasis, and he
said he would take me there one day, when I am older. It’s very far away, but
not as far as Erebus. That’s why Uncle Spurius has to travel all the time, like
the traders, although he isn’t a trader because he lives here, sometimes. He is
always in such a hurry to leave when he gets here, is Uncle Spurius, probably
because he doesn’t like Decimus very much. It is always exciting when he
returns home, everyone starts to argue about everything.”
She lifted her palms up to the sky. There
was nothing she could do to make her uncle more sociable, no matter how many times
she told him how much she missed him. “Uncle Spurius has a wagon. Everyone
calls it the wine wagon. I wonder if that’s why everyone is still arguing.
Uncle Spurius forgot to bring the wine wagon with him this time. That would be
very serious, I think.”
Azoic looked like he was searching for a
way out of his well.
“Ah, Azoic, you will probably need a ladder
to escape from there, you are starting to bury yourself.”
She tried to distract herself by studying a
lantern that someone must have lost, hoping that he would not see her laughing.
“I think this lantern is still alight, but it is hard to say....”
He was facing her now, but his gaze still
belonged to the clouds above. She rather expected him to remain silent, staring
like a statue, so his next question was a pleasant surprise.
“Ixis?”
“What? Oh, the Ixis. Yes, a good question,
Azoic.” Anything for conversation. “But how can you not know about the Ixis?”
She raised her own gaze up to the same area
of sky that Azoic was staring at and rubbed her forehead. Azoic was weird, but then
she had to keep reminding herself, it was his very weirdness that made him her
best friend.
Neither of them quite seemed to fit in, and
neither of them quite saw the world the same way every body else seemed to —although
she was far from sure exactly what Azoic did see, he really was weird.
“Ah, yes, the Ixis. Yes, those Ixis.” She
tangled her fingers together the way Teacher Berea always did, and then
considered her lack of words carefully.
“Ixis,” she muttered again. “Actually,
Merab knows more about the Ixis than me, because he is always at war with them.
But I do know they are not very nice.”
“Why?” Azoic was suddenly giving her his
undivided attention, both eyes.
She smiled self-consciously. “Because you
have to have bad people or you couldn’t have a war?”
“What do—”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Why are the Ixis
bad. I think they are in charge of the world, so everyone blames them when something
needs to be fixed. Uncle Spurius, he was just saying they—oops!”
“Hmmm...?”
“You mustn’t tell anyone I was listening.
It was a secret meeting but everyone went in, so—well, it is so easy to spy on grown-ups,
you know.”
“Spurius—”
“Uncle Spurius said—” She took a breath to
accommodate a great speech, but then hissed it all out again and shrugged. “I didn’t
understand much of what was said, but Uncle Spurius said the new Ixis are in
charge now, and they are just as...something...as the old Ixis.
“He used a rude word! He called them—” and
she whispered it nervously “—Evil Butchers!”
She swallowed and looked around to make
sure no one else had heard her. “And that’s not all! He said there was going to
be a big war, because all the Priests got burned up in a big fire! Yuk! Erebus
is now run by soldiers, and that’s really bad.” She shook her head woefully.
“Why bad?”
“I don’t know. Grown-ups, they exaggerate.
Merab isn’t really bad and he’s a soldier.”
“I am not!” Merab stepped out from behind a
tree and marched up to the pit, where he looked down with heightened disdain.
“I’m a warrior, not a soldier. I don’t
fight for money, I fight for Summerdale!” He sniffed at Neariah contemptuously.
“What are you doing? Is this the old man’s grave?”
“Don’t be so rude, Merab. You know it’s a
well.”
“Why do we need a well? The lake is just
there.” He jabbed his thumb back toward the trees, apparently forgetful of his earlier
challenge about building the well in the first place.
“It’s so people don’t have to walk to the
cupping beach all the time. It’s more—” she groped for the word “—convenient!”
She nodded to herself with satisfaction.
Merab shrugged. “You probably won’t find
any water here anyway. You didn’t use real divining sticks. John made his own so
they weren’t official ones.”
“So that’s why you couldn’t make them work,
Azoic!” Neariah clapped. Then she realized Azoic had spent all day digging for nothing,
and her hands fell limply on the sand where she sat.
“I think you’re wasting your time. You
won’t succeed,”
pronounced Merab, bluntly.
Azoic suddenly started digging again,
throwing small scoops of sand up into the air. “Yes, find water. Have faith.”
He seemed oblivious to Merab’s disgust.
“Fine, you have all the faith you like. I’m
going to swim in the lake. You can come too if you want to.”
Neariah was surprised by Merab’s offer, but
he was probably only being nice so that he could question her about Uncle Spurius.
“No, thank you.” She smiled at him, more
politely than was absolutely necessary. “Azoic and I really must finish
building our well.”
“Sure you must. You’ll be digging forever
and ever!” Merab sauntered off, shaking his head the way their father often did
when refusing to admit defeat.
“We will finish soon, won’t we, Azoic?” She
was sitting on her hands, still trying to smile.
“No, not soon.”
“But when?”
“Success is a pilgrimage, not a
destination.”
“But what if we never reach water? Do we
have to dig forever, like Merab said?”
“Have faith.”
A gust of wind blew his latest scoop of
sand into her face.
She shook herself as she stood up. There
was no way to understand some people.
Azoic probably did not even realize that
most of the sand that he was throwing around was falling straight back down on top
of him. He was going to need a bucket if he was ever going to finish this
stupid well. In fact, they might never get it finished unless they used some of
the things that her father had been loading into his wheelbarrow just before
her uncle had arrived.
“I’ll be right back, I have an idea.” If
she was going to supervise the work she was also going to need to make shade, and
what would make better tent material than the white sheet that her uncle had
been wearing? The sheet was probably still in the lake where her uncle had left
it. Hopefully, her father and uncle would not mind her borrowing their things,
especially when they saw what good use she was going to put them to.
~~~~~
Hushah was watching his brother’s pain with
helpless frustration, but his wife seemed to be less incapacitated by the shock
of seeing Spurius so disfigured. She was patting the bloody scalp with an
aloe-soaked cloth, while Hushah watched his brother’s jaw muscles flex, further
emphasizing the awful damage to his skin.
Where Spurius’ gray hair had once been tied
back into a long pony-tail, there was now fluid oozing from broken blisters. He
had barely recognized his own brother; the lack of eyebrows or eyelashes, and
the redness of his face, had given the man a crazed and violent appearance. The
burns looked ugly, but the memory that still consumed the man looked uglier.
It was in his brother’s eyes that the
greatest changes seemed to have occurred. During that precious moment, before
Decimus had come splashing into the lake to stand between them, they had shared
an intensity of gaze that spoke of his brother’s violation. However, it was not
a feeling that they had been given a chance to discuss. Instead, Decimus had
pulled Spurius away through an onslaught of questions from the villagers.
He had followed the throng like a lost
duckling, not knowing what to say or what to do, and now he felt invisible
among the crowd in the storehouse. It seemed almost absurd that his brother’s
wounds should have to be attended to in such cramped conditions, but even under
these circumstances, it was best not to inflame an argument with Decimus.
The storehouse was attached to Decimus’
bank-home, and to the Sabbath-house, as if each structure needed the other for support.
The three buildings had been constructed to allow the walls separating them to
be removed, in the event that their storage requirements might one day outgrow
the storehouse. If that ever happened, a new Sabbath-house would need to be built,
presumably also adjoining Decimus’ home. Hushah had often imagined Decimus
convening larger and larger meetings, in a home that would forever keep growing.
Decimus’ home was already the largest in
the village, although Decimus was the only villager who did not have a family
to fill it. Decimus would often remind people, that, as a banker, his residence
must represent the village’s financial affluence.
Nobody ever reminded Decimus that he was
the only person in the village who cared about financial affluence. Desert-folk
were not generally inspired by the same ambitions that drove Decimus, but then
he was the only villager who had been brought up in a city.
Irritation with Decimus was but one of the
many uncharitable thoughts that had been filling Hushah’s head lately, thoughts
that now had him backed into the corner of the storehouse, as far away from
Decimus as he could get. He felt as if he no longer belonged to the commotion
around him, as if he had become detached from Summerdale.
No longer did he trust himself to keep the
peace. No longer could he find the desire to be part of Decimus’ audience.
Never before had Hushah felt so critical of the pompous manner with which
Decimus directed all proceedings, and never before had he felt so disgusted by
the prospect of another endless speech.
It was not like him to search for fault in
everyone he looked at, as if he were a bitter man, but then he was not used to
feeling so angry without knowing what he was so angry about. How could he have
changed like this, and how could Summerdale have become so alien to him? Decimus
was counting heads with obvious satisfaction, waving a finger as if blessing
each and every one of those who were gathering around him. Ginnetho was hugging
a barrel of wine that was balanced precariously upon a rickety crate.
Jaalam, hiding between several thin bundles
of garden cane, had become so stiffly wedged that his thin limbs seemed similarly
bundled.
Cabul was crouching over a bag of flour
that was rubbing white marks onto his hindquarters. He was munching on a dried leaf,
and aiming brown spittle through a crack between the floorboards. So far he had
missed the crack, leaving an unpleasant pool of gook that could not possibly go
unnoticed by Decimus much longer.
Unlike those who confined themselves to
smaller spaces, Berea continued to sprawl her body over a wide portion of the storehouse
counter. It was a claim that went unchallenged because Berea was a woman who
possessed wide proportions and who stored many warnings upon her countenance.
Her loose cheeks were shaking at Decimus as she spoke. “But the Sabbathhouse is
far larger than the storehouse, and it isn’t so cluttered, and its side-walls
are only chest height, so people outside could see in without having to—”
“Precisely, it would be too easy for the
uninvited guest to invite himself.” Decimus’ counting-finger had swung around toward
Cabul and his smile had faltered.
Decimus’ thin buttocks pressed back into
the soft flesh around Berea’s arm, but she did not chose to retreat. Instead
she looked up at the back of Decimus’ head with increased irritation.
Hushah realized that perhaps Berea was also
full of critical thoughts lately.
Decimus clapped his hands to gain
attention. “Gentlefolk of Summerdale, I will now call the meeting to order.” He
was then forced to jump onto the counter to make himself more visible. Berea’s
annoyance also became more visible, as she finally moved her face away from
Decimus’ buttocks.
Decimus coughed delicately. “People of
Summerdale, this meeting is drawn to order by the authority vested in me as
Elder of our village—and, yes, I would appreciate some silence in the back
there, thank you. Hello? That would be those of you at the back, who are still
talking. Silence please.”
Suddenly there was silence, and the air
around them became heavy with expectation.
“Now, where was I? Perhaps I should start
by briefly recounting some of the events that have been occurring in Erebus,
for those of you who have not yet heard Spurius’ story.
Apparently, there was a fire—” he raised
his palms “—and you will all remember me telling you that there had to be a perfectly
good reason why the traders were no longer visiting us. They are obviously very
busy, cleaning up after this fire.”
Hushah wanted to ask Decimus whether this
meant that he no longer blamed Azoic for the traders’ absence, but instead he pressed
his lips together and frowned.
Decimus was smiling down upon Spurius, the
only person in the room who had any spare space to stand in. “The traders will
soon be back, won’t they, Spurius?”
However, there was no answer. Spurius was
staring at the floor as if he had no desire to participate.
Decimus cleared his throat noisily. “Yes,
so the traders will return in due course. In the meanwhile, it seems that we
may have lost some of our trade assets to the fire. I am sure that Spurius will
give us a better account of that in a moment. It is not as disastrous as it
sounds. The assets were stored in an Ixis depositum, so they will owe us full
compensation for our losses.
It could work to our favor, in fact. It
saves us the bother of having to sell—”
“It was not like any storm I have ever
seen.” Spurius was whispering. All movement ceased in the room. “There was no rain
in the sky, only flames, sucking away the air. The wind was full of fire, as if
the air itself was burning, and streams of suffocating soot danced like ghostly
dragons.
“Flames flew on winds that pushed away
walls and pulled away people. The fires crawled down streets and through houses.
The air was so hot that, if you did not cover your face in a wet rag, your
lungs would throw up pink pus until you could no longer scream. Then your
exposed limbs would turn red, and from your skin would burst yellow fluids, and
yellow flames would lick along your body until your skin peeled off to turn
black.
“Burning clouds would chase us, and we
would run, blinded and falling over each other. Some moved too slowly, we were so
weary, and they became part of the blackness, crusts stuck to buildings, all
twisted. When we went back for them, some still had expressions...faces that
crumbled into dust when we moved too close.” Spurius stopped and stared at the
floor as if planning to attack it.
Decimus coughed again, and several
villagers backed into each other in surprise. “As I was saying, the storm
caused losses, and we may not see any traders for a while longer. So, we are going
to have to make the best use that we can of the supplies around us.
“Now, more than ever, Summerdale is going
to have to trust God, and in the words of the Scripture, ‘God saw it and was not
pleased, and in the wrath of his anger they were destroyed; he wrought wonders
against them to consume them in flaming fire’. I quote Sirach, chapter
forty-five, verse nine. The Ixis are non-believers, and they—”
Spurius began whispering again. “The Ixis
soldiers were pushing us back into the fires, but the aqueducts had dried up so
we could no longer soak our masks, and the sand that we threw just seemed to
make the fires hungrier. The Ixis forced us to clear a path for them, through
to the Inner City. We could either obey, or retreat into their waiting swords.
So we ran through the flames, straight through the flames, not knowing where we
would end up.
“When we stopped running, we were surrounded
by the shells of buildings that might once have been mighty palaces. There was
a wide path of rubble in front of us. It was the Inner Ring Wall, but it had
been blown over as if it had been made of paper. We were too tired to run
anymore, but we knew that the Ixis would not let us live if they found us. It
is death to see the Inner City unless you are from the Senatorial class, so we
kept moving, some of us. Then we heard moaning, coming from underneath us, as
if the ground was boiling up ghosts.
“We found vaults, and passages, under the
houses, and within them were whole families. The Senators had gone into hiding,
perhaps they thought that the fires were part of a military coup.
There were so many helpless families, with
children, all baked in long ovens, like passages to Hell.
“We made our way to one of the outer
sectors, through streets that stank of death, through swarms of rats...great
fat rats, jumping out of people’s guts...piles of dirty bodies...and the flies,
like clouds—” The water that Spurius had recently consumed was now dripping
from his lips, and Hushah pushed forward to grab his brother’s shoulders. “The
bodies, Hushah, the bodies. Piled up in hills. The whole of Erebus has gone berserk!
There is looting and murder, and nobody cares about anything except killing
each other.
“I followed a group of soldiers, a death
squad that was accusing tired people of treason, so they could hang those that were
not fighting the flames. It was the Ixis way to show everyone the punishment
for disobedience.
“The Outer Ringwall was the only wall that
remained completely intact—the tallest wall, the one that encircles the entire
city—and only the most senior soldiers were being allowed to pass through its
gates.
“So I wrapped some extra rope around my waist
and covered myself in a sheet, as if I was dead in a shroud. Then I jumped over
the wall and hung there, beside the swaying bodies, and waited for darkness. I
lowered myself down into the desert without knowing what I would do next, but
eventually I found a horse an Ixis had left tied up outside the gates—”
“You stole a soldier’s horse?” Decimus
stepped back, almost losing himself off the back of the counter. “But, it will
have an Ixis brand. We will have to give it back, or hide it, or set it loose,
or something....” Hushah looked up at him with narrow eyes, which seemed to
cause Decimus to straighten his shirt and continue even more loudly.
“We do not need to go into any more detail
about people burning, just now, thank you, Spurius. Obviously, Erebus’ problems
are Erebus’ problems, and we should be discussing our own problems. I am sure
that we will have plenty of time to hear more about your adventures at a later
time. Today, ladies and gentlemen of Summerdale, we need to contend with
dangers that are much closer to our own community.”
There were some mutters of surprise, and
Hushah frowned as he guessed why Decimus might be pulling at the aggravated atmosphere
like one who has smelled a hidden truth and is ready to exhale a conviction.
“Yes, the time has come to decide what should be done with that insane man.”
“The what?” Hushah was not going to let
Decimus get away with such an unfair accusation.
“I said that your guest is insane, Hushah;
unless you have a better description?”
“Yes, I do. I spoke with Azoic last night;
he seemed much less disturbed—”
“Disturbed, or disturbing? That man is
dangerous, and we have enough to worry about without inviting more trouble. We have
all heard about that man’s many identities. However, Cabul here—” Decimus’ smile
twitched as he looked down at Cabul “—has very wisely suggested that the
stranger might be a runaway Ixis slave, and we certainly do not want the Ixis
to come here looking for him. They might think that we intended to steal him
from them, and it already seems that we have one of their stolen horses in our
village. In fact, should the Ixis ever conclude that we are sheltering the
slave who started the fires in the first place—”
“Started the fires?” Hushah was not the
only one to ask this.
“You just said that the fires were started
by lightning.”
“I said, ‘during lightning’, not ‘by
lightning’. Were you not listening to Spurius as we walked up from the lake? He
was telling us how the Ixis were searching for arsonists—”
“No.” Spurius was again staring down at the
floor. “What I said was that the Ixis were accusing everyone—”
“Precisely! And who could be a more likely
arsonist than an insane slave who does not have a name? Does he really expect us
to believe that he was a free man, who did not have an occupation, or a home,
or possessions?”
“But he does have an occupation!” Hushah
realized that he had shouted, because the storehouse had suddenly become silent
again. He made himself lower his shoulders and inhale deeply before saying,
“Last night, Azoic told me that he lived in Erebus, and that he used to
study...things.”
“I told you he came from Erebus.” Decimus
was wagging his finger again.
“Yes, but so did you, Decimus, and you are
not Ixis, are you?”
Hushah instantly regretted his sarcasm, but
there was no retreat.
“So, as I was trying to say, I spoke with
Azoic last night and he was saying things only a decent, religious man would—”
“No!” Decimus jumped down from his counter
and stood red-faced in front of Hushah. “I can tell who is, and who is not, a
decent religious man, perhaps better than anyone else here. If the crazy man
told you that he studied our God, then he is lying. He is not decent, he is a
heathen, and as such, he is on his way to Hell.
“Hushah, you must remember that the Ixis
worship many gods. Our God cannot be treated as one of many. That is why our
religion is the only religion that is illegal in Erebus. The Emperor wants more
gods, not fewer gods. That way he is better able to force the population to
worship him, as a god. We have one God, our religion cannot recognize the
Emperor’s preposterous ambitions, and so those who believe in the one God are
persecuted. If the crazy man was one of us, he would long ago have left Erebus,
or been executed. So, whatever that man told you is a lie.
Hushah stepped back. “But perhaps Azoic
studied gardening, or....” It sounded weak, and he looked around at the many shocked
faces that were staring at him.
“I do not care what he studied, that is not
the issue here. While the Ixis think that we use the Sabbath-house for
worshipping the Emperor, they will leave us alone. That is why we do not gather
to pray while we have traders in the village. Don’t you think that the insane
man suspects something by now? Your own child has already been fooled into
thinking that he is her friend, so she must have given him plenty of
opportunity to find out about our God. Hushah, we may have been fooled by this
man, but we will be fooled no longer. Do not forget that your loyalty is to
Summerdale, not to a crazy man who mortally threatens our faith.”
Hushah stared at Decimus, but instead of
seeing anger in Decimus’ eyes, he could now see pity. With Decimus patting him
on the shoulder, the unbearable pressure of his own confusion seemed to well up
inside him, and he turned to his brother for support.
“Spurius?”
“It is not like you to be so aggressive,
little brother, I am proud of you.” Spurius leaned forward. “However, you seem to
have picked an argument that you cannot win, and for once I think Decimus may
be right. These are dangerous times. We can not afford strangers among us.”
Hushah realized everyone was now staring at
him, waiting for him to say something, but he felt emptied of any useful thoughts.
It came as a sickly kind of relief when Decimus smiled in forgiveness. Then
Decimus lifted his pointed chin toward the back of the storehouse and began
projecting his most authoritative voice into the anxious mutterings.
“We do not know whether or not the stranger
set fire to Erebus.
We do not know if we are harboring a
runaway slave who is hiding from prosecution. However, it does not matter what
we know, it is what the Ixis might find out that could bring destruction upon
every one of us.” There were several gasps, and this time Decimus did not lift
his palms to settle his audience. “We could be damning ourselves. We could be
asking for the same fate that probably awaits the crazy man.”
Hushah asked incredulously, “Do you think
Azoic should be sent back out into the desert, Berea?”
Decimus leaned wearily against the counter,
blocking Hushah’s view of Berea. “Nobody is sending the man to his death,
Hushah. You said yourself, he is much healthier now. In fact, he is so healthy
that he is out there, alone with our children, digging his way to Hell as we
speak. We have done what we can for him, and now it is time to give him the
horse Spurius borrowed, and send him on his way. He will ride out beyond the
desert and we will never have to worry about him again.”
Hushah nodded. He should have known, this
was why Decimus had called the meeting, and this was the only conclusion they
could reach. Azoic had never fitted in.
Summerdale had never been comfortable with
him in it. Yet, it was not until this very moment that he realized why he had tried
so hard to help Azoic become a villager.
He began shaking his head, slowly. “Yes, I
suppose so, but how can I explain all this to Neariah? She thinks he is her
friend, and she will be heart-broken indeed.”
A8: TELLING DEEDS
It had required extraordinary exertion
before Neariah could retrieve Spurius’ sheet from the lake, and she was proud
of her achievement. She had been forced to dive deeply so she could unhook it
from a tree’s root.
To her, it had looked like a bird with its
wings flapping toward the shimmering surface, while a snake tried to drag it
down into the darkness. Unfortunately, she had ripped the poor creature in her
haste to rescue it. The tear and the nasty bloodstains were now concealed
within a swan-sized ball, which fitted snuggly under her arm.
The grown-ups were still pouring out of
Decimus’ storehouse, shaking their heads, and she smiled at them to see if she
could cheer them up a little. However, her smile only seemed to make them shake
their heads more heavily.
“It’s a swan,” she explained, sliding the
sheet behind her.
“You father is looking for you.” Ginnetho
was pointing into the woods, and she nodded to thank him for the warning. How could
her father have expected her to ask for permission to borrow his tools when he
had not been available to ask? Now he was probably going to chastise her, but
she would almost certainly be allowed to borrow the tools anyway. Grown-ups were
as silly as chickens, sometimes.
Azoic’s shovel was still in the well, but
to her dismay, Azoic had managed to escape. He was nowhere to be seen. If this meant
he had given up, after all the trouble she gone to, collecting things for him,
then she would be having some very strong words with him. It was a full time
job, keeping an eye on Azoic, and she was getting quite tired of it. She threw
the ball of material down beside the well, next to the tools and the tent-pole—another
item that she gone to great trouble to find— and stamped off toward the trees.
She no longer smiled at the grown-ups she
passed. They had begun to look as serious as lizards, and she knew that when grown-ups
looked as serious as lizards, there was no way to cheer them up. Besides, most
of them were pointing their lizardlike expressions in her direction, as if
everyone knew that she had been raiding village supplies without permission.
Merab was watching her too, but he was not
looking as pleased as he normally would when she was about to get chastised. In
fact, he looked unusually concerned about her. She squinted at him, and he
immediately looked away, which was not normal for him, either.
She walked toward him, saying, “That is my
sheet, don’t you go stealing it while I’m gone.” She continued to squint at
him, wondering why he was acting so strangely. If he wanted her sheet, he would
be looking angrier and sticking his chest out, but instead he was hiding behind
the same lizard-like expression that all the grown-ups seemed to have. What was
going on around here? She came to a stop in front of him, with her fists on her
hips.
“So?” She tilted her head to one side and
waited.
“I suppose you want to know where the crazy
man is.”
She bit her lip, knowing that any response
would delay him.
“Well, I just might happen know what the
crazy man is running away from.”
“I doubt it. You don’t know anything.” She
started turning away, slowly.
“They frightened him.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. They were very angry—”
“What did they say to him?”
“They didn’t say anything, but they found
out what he is.”
“Oh, and what is he then?”
“I don’t think I should tell you, it’s a
really big secret.”
“Were you spying on the meeting?”
“We didn’t have to, they were all shouting
as if they wanted us to hear. I can’t believe you went swimming when there was so
much going on.”
“I was getting some important supplies for
building our well, and that is our sheet so you stop looking at it as if you
are planning to steal it.”
“You don’t have any idea what is going on,
do you? If you had only been here, you would have seen everything. It was so funny.
The insane man jumped out of his well as if his bottom was on fire, and then he
started hopping around, doing his dying wheeze thing, and saying, “mmmust see
lake—” Merab’s embarrassingly accurate imitation of Azoic was making the story
almost believable “—mmmust see nature, mmmmust see my own nose, mmmmust see if
my bottom is on fire—”
“Merab, you just tell me what everybody
said, immediately!”
Her demand only caused Merab to shake his
head, and she smacked the hair out of her face, annoyed at having allowed herself
to be pulled along by his silly games. “Fine, I will find out eventually,
anyway.” She started walking away, less slowly this time.
“If I tell you, can I have the sheet?”
She spun around, almost shouting, “Yes,
take it, just tell me what they said!”
Merab shrugged. “Oh, they only found out
Azoic is an Ixis slave who went around murdering people by setting fire to them.”
He started making faces, which presumably depicted a person being burned alive.
“That was why he is on the run, and hiding from prosecution, here in
Summerdale.”
She knew how easily hurt Azoic could be,
and she could quite imagine somebody saying something that might upset him, but
Merab was obviously just exaggerating to irritate her. Nobody would have been
so cruel as to say such a nasty thing to Azoic, would they? “If you think I’m
going to give you my sheet for that, you are very mistaken. You are just making
up lies to be mean and spiteful. You are jealous because we have a well and you
don’t.
You tell me exactly what happened or I’ll
tell Daddy you were spying on his meeting.” She needed exact details,
immediately.
Unfortunately, instead of being more
honest, Merab seemed to become crueler. “Azoic told Father he used to live in
Erebus, and he used to go to school there, but Decimus said nobody is allowed
to live in Erebus if they go to school. Besides, the insane man is too insane
to go to school, and Teacher Berea said he’s a Devil-worshipper.”
She forced herself to smile. “Oh, look.
Daddy is coming to talk to us, and he’s running. Perhaps I should ask him what Teacher
Berea really said.”
Merab was backing away, no longer smiling.
“Don’t you dare, or I’ll never be your friend again.”
That was not much of a threat, since he was
never friendly anyway, but she had no intention of getting him into trouble.
“Don’t worry, I’m not horrible like you.”
She knew grown-ups rarely ran anywhere,
even when they were in a hurry, so she became increasingly concerned about her
father’s approach. He was breathing heavily, as if he had been running for a
long while.
“Neariah, where have you been? I was
looking for you.”
“I was swimming.”
“You were? I looked in the lake, but I
didn’t—”
“That’s probably because I was under the
water, see?” She pointed toward the ball of cloth. “It was all right to borrow
it, wasn’t it?” She smiled sweetly at him, hoping his worried expression would
not turn to anger.
“Oh, I see. Yes, fine, but I thought you
were with Azoic. Where is he?”
“I don’t know, I’ve been looking for him for
too.”
Her father began shaking his head slowly.
“He is a funny person, isn’t he, Possum? He really doesn’t seem to fit in too well
around here, does he?”
She was not at all sure where this was
leading, and she gave him a long sideways stare. He laughed at her, then became
serious again, all in the same breath. “Why are you looking for Azoic, Daddy?”