‘It’s symbolic, don’t you see?’ insisted his tormentor. The pilgrim’s robe was too large for the prisoner; the priest could see her bony chest through the neckline when she leaned forward. ‘The literal interpretation, that the Mouth will suddenly come to life and speak, makes no sense. So what can it mean? Either there will be a mass hallucination, a Seeming, or something unexpected will emerge from the cleft above Argos city. Or perhaps the Tree in question is not the physical one and “the Mouth” another portal entirely. Who knows? Maybe all three interpretations are correct.’
The priest tapped the nib of his pen a little harder on the paper. The foreign queen had been harping on about an obscure piece of prophecy all through the interview, filling his ears with pointless heresy. When it came to religion Father Ferny’s feet remained firmly planted on the bark. His faith was based more on a deep respect for tradition and an ambition to climb the seminary ranks than any flights of metaphysics. He had seen many brands of belief and unbelief on his travels, and flattered himself on his sophistication. But this woman had managed to offend even him. She had the gall to think she could convert him.
‘That’s enough,’ he interrupted, slamming his pen down on the table so that the candle jumped in its holder. ‘I allowed myself to hope you might cooperate if shown a little kindness. It would indeed have been a miracle for you to recant. But this … this love of error, this persistent use of reason in matters of faith … I cannot in all conscience listen to more.’
She tried to answer but he had already risen, scraping back his chair in an angry motion.
‘This is a waste of time,’ he huffed, gathering up the unused papers on the table and slapping them together. ‘I see in you no desire to repent and no potential for re-education. You have refused to put your mark on any confession, and I warn you, the Council’s methods are far less merciful than mine. I’m sorry to say it, but I think you are irredeemable.’
‘Wait.’ The prisoner stared hungrily at the departing sheaves, as if they were food. ‘If it’s a legal confession you want, then leave the paper. I’ll write my own.’
‘Your own?’ he repeated, frowning at her in disbelief. The woman could write?
‘A complete account of my activities, in Argosian,’ she said. ‘I’d feel easier doing it myself.’
God’s green grace, thought Father Ferny, handing her the pen and paper in a kind of daze. No wonder there were so many heretics in the Eastern Canopy. They taught women their letters. Was there anything more troublesome, more prone to error than an educated woman?
‘And ye shall flee his mercy even as ye flee his wrath,’ whispered the prisoner as the priest climbed hastily up the stairs and slammed the hatch on his heels.
Wonder.
‘Why did you do it?’ Tymon asked, standing dejectedly by Samiha’s elbow as she hunched over her paper, the guttering candle on the table throwing long shadows across the ship’s hold. ‘Why go to Marak?’
She did not answer him, of course. She did not even hear him. He was speaking to the equivalent of a moving painting, to one scene among the many that had flown before his eyes since he took hold of her in the Tree of Being. He was Reading her past and future, dragging through each dismal episode that reared itself before his eyes — including incidents in the Marak jail he would preferred never to have known about, images that etched themselves into his memory and caused him to burn with impotent rage. The events portrayed in the Reading were unalterable but the point of view shifted with disturbing fluidity. Sometimes it was his own, the seemingly detached, uninvolved observer. But he had also witnessed the Kion through the eyes of the brutish soldiers, the self-centred priest and the ogling sailors on the tithe-ship. He found himself eavesdropping on their thoughts, much to his own disgust.
One mind, however, was firmly closed to him. Samiha remained elusive, her motivations a mystery. Whether it was because of his lack of practice as a Grafter or some more fundamental barrier, he was shut out from her, unable to understand why she chose to act as she did. Worse still, the Samiha he thought he knew was gone. She had changed fundamentally since they had bid farewell to each other on the Freehold. He witnessed no further moments of doubt or indecision, as there had been in Marak. There were no heated diatribes or emotional appeals. The laughing girl he had met in the darkness below the sleeping platform had become a calm, driven stranger. It was as if her experience in Marak had simply stamped the humanity out of her. All he could do was watch, helpless, as she marched on toward her goal. Despite what the Oracle had suggested, he did not have the sense that what he Saw was subject to change. Samiha’s neck was a concentrated curve as she wrote, her hair hacked off at the nape. Her eyes burned with a fierce determination that terrified him.
‘You knew them better than I did,’ he whispered. ‘You’ve dealt with the Grafters before. The Oracle was always in touch with Oren. They didn’t need your warning. Why didn’t you listen to Gardan and the others? Why did you leave Sheb?’
The quill pen shrieked over the surface of the paper; the brown ink trailed its story across the white page.
‘Couldn’t you have waited?’ he demanded, the bile rising in his throat. ‘Couldn’t you have talked it over with me when I came home? I’d have gone with you, if you wanted to return to Marak so badly.’ He moved around to her other side, exasperated at being cut off from her, unimportant to her. ‘Or maybe you just didn’t love me enough,’ he spat out. ‘Maybe you preferred your self-fulfilling prophecies to a life with me. Maybe you just ran away.’
The pen scratched on, imperturbable. He felt ashamed of his outburst. He knew that what he feared most was not her lack of love. It was her merciless sense of purpose. It was the message inscribed on her by the Leaf-Letters, the meaning interwoven with her in the Tree of Being. He peered over her shoulder to read the lines flowing from her pen.
First of all, if I call it a ‘confession’ it is not because I seek absolution from the Priests’ Council, or from any man. I write this last testament in order to set the record straight. If I had my wish it would be given to my dearest friend, Tymon of Argos. I trust him to do with it as he sees fit. As I sit here in this prison, Tymon, I find myself conjuring you up, talking to you and seeking comfort in our old debates. You would not have agreed with my decisions: of that I am sure. But it is precisely your scepticism which is so comforting to me. I rely on you to question me. You are here beside me in this dark place, this ship of fools. Were it not for you I could not bear it.
Tymon took a hasty step backwards. A shiver passed through him. Somehow, even without the Sight, she was aware of him. Somehow she Read him more thoroughly than he could Read her. The lookout’s faint call echoed in the rigging high above.
‘Ha-ven!’
Perfection.
‘Why does it have to be like this, Samiha?’ Tymon pleaded.
He watched the Kion pacing the length of the hold, hands knotted behind her back. She had stopped writing since the arrival of the ship in Argos city, possessed of a nervous, restless energy. Her hair was combed and she had been given a white cloak and gown made of shillee’s wool to replace the hideous pilgrim’s shift. The visible signs of her ordeal in Marak were almost erased: the better to appear in public, thought Tymon cynically. He could hear the faraway commotion of the air-harbour distorted by the walls of the hull.
‘Is there no other way?’ he cried out to the oblivious vision. ‘Don’t we have any choice at all?’
Samiha paused in her march as the hatch above was thrown open, revealing a patch of blue sky. Her face turned toward it expectantly. The figure of a soldier appeared in the open square, dark against the bright backdrop.
‘Time to go,’ he snapped and dipped out of sight.
Samiha paused an instant, as if weighing his words against some internal memory. Then she slowly climbed the ladder. At the top she drew the folds of her thin cloak about her and stepped onto the deck. Tymon was left alone in the empty hold. On impulse he moved to the table and b
egan to read the close-written leaves heaped upon it.
Justice.
I think that I have always been a prisoner on this vessel, on my way to stand trial in Argos city. My life has been nothing more than a ship bringing me to that destination. Although outwardly I seemed free, I carried my cage within. Even in the old days when Father was alive we were fugitives, forever fleeing some persecution or hurtling toward some doom. It was as if we were both alive and dead. But I would have lived a haunted life, a half-life, even without the priests. It comes of being brought up with the impossible idea that you will start the End Times. Everything else — joy, comfort, human achievement of any kind — becomes unimportant. For much of my childhood I felt like a character in a stage-play. I delivered my speeches with conviction of course, because I believed in them. But ultimately my role held no surprises. The lines for the twelfth Kion were stock. This was how it was, and that was how it ended. Everything between was mere filler, transporting me from one point of prophecy to the next.
People had gathered to watch the object of their hatred climb the steps to the temple Hall. A thousand pairs of eyes followed the rebel priestess of Nur. A thousand mouths hurled insults. The harridan had been brought all the way from the colonies to stand trial before the Council. Her head was bowed, but her expression as she mounted the stairs was calm and ready.
And then — well, then I met you, Tymon. You hated prophecies. Even when you came to believe in the Grafting, you refused to rely on anything but your own judgment. I found that frustrating at times but also admirable. You wanted to find the truth for yourself. I hope you will always do so. There are far too many of us who have given up on that sacred duty.
The proceedings in the trial chamber were chaotic. Voices rose up, clamorous, from the audience packed into the Hall. People surged about the lonely figure of the woman in the raised dock, shouting excitedly. The members of the priests’ jury with their nodding green hats sat helpless in their stalls and gaped at the unprecedented disorder on the floor.
‘When one man takes another’s life, the Tree cries out in agony.’ So writes Saint Loa. You knew that truth instinctively, Tymon. You knew it when I did not — when I was still drunk on blood, even if it was my own. When I first met you in Argos city I was as hypocritical as the priests, as violent as Caro and his followers. I see that now. I no longer desire martyrdom. Of course, my death will usher in the End Times and the demise of the Council, just as the Grafters predicted. And that is exactly what should happen. The Council is rotten to the core. There! That will be enough for these busy clerks to indict me a thousand times over. But I cannot help wishing it were otherwise. I wish there were no need for me to be here at all.
The chanting of the spectators mounted in pitch. They no longer stood by the temple stairs or in the Hall, but packed on the air-harbour quays. The Council had issued its verdict. The townsfolk awaited the execution of the heretic. Soon, the prisoner would emerge from the ship for the last time. Soon the pariah would walk the death-plank as she deserved. Her demise would not be dignified by taking place in the Mouth. She would be thrown from the docks like the garbage she was.
We are all subjects of the Sap. It is only now, in this last, well-rehearsed chapter of my life, that I begin to understand what such a phrase might mean. If I am killed it will be because of the greed of a few and the ignorance of many. We ignore the truth in our midst and learn through nagging hindsight. In our muddled desire to do what we think is right, we first persecute the tellers of truth, then venerate them. These people will cut me down, kill me and then, when it is too late, they will rehabilitate me as they have each one of their benighted saints. It is a dreadful symmetry, a life lived ‘in the beauty'. If only the Argosians knew what their liturgy meant! It means an existence clipped clean, trained and pruned to achieve a certain goal. Happiness, fulfilment, friendship, love: all these are trimmed away, leaving only the essentials. A symbolic life. The life of a Sign.
Mercy.
Tymon’s courage had all but given out. In the last stages of the Reading he had been driven from scene to scene of the Kion’s life, without reprieve. The chapters of Samiha’s imprisonment and trial succeeded one another, rapid and summarily sketched, as if the artist painting this future had suddenly lost patience and included only the bold strokes of a familiar picture. By the time the Kion’s slender form dressed in white stood on the execution dock over the West Chasm, he was gripped by despair. For however he observed the vision — from the point of view of the crowd on the quays, from a rooftop in the town or from high above, swooping over the air-harbour — the result was the same. Samiha stood poised, slight and white as a bird at the edge of the jetty. Two figures robed in black and carrying blunt staves stepped up behind her. A hush fell on the crowd. Samiha held herself utterly still.
The executioners thrust their staves out as one, ramming them into her back so that she stumbled forward.
Did you really think, my love, that you were going to return to the Freehold after your studies to find both it and me intact? Did you think that you yourself would remain unchanged?
The words of the unfinished confession jarred in Tymon’s memory. Samiha lost her balance and toppled slowly over the edge of the dock. The white bird plummeted through air.
Did you not suspect, my love, even for one instant, that you would never have those things you wanted — a happy home, a loyal, lawful concubine? Did you not suspect that you were holding on to an illusion, an idea which had no permanence, no reality, and was already cracking at the seams?
He could not bear to See more. With a strangled cry, he tore himself loose from the Reading and fought his way out of the arms of the Samiha-Tree. But instead of waking up or finding himself in the world of loam and grass once more, he was falling, plummeting through the thrashing branches, abruptly heavy. The Tree disappeared and he tumbled onto a hard surface plunged in darkness.
He picked himself up, rubbing his sore and unexpectedly tangible limbs. As his eyes adjusted to the low light he saw that he stood on a level expanse like ice. He was assailed by the same sense of vertigo he had experienced on the undulating grass. He tottered forward, squinting uneasily into the gloom. The icy flatness was without end. It had the opposite effect on him from the grass-world: he felt dizzy and vaguely sick. The edge of things was too far away. He felt as if the cold flat floor would rise up and slap him in the face.
Something moved on the ice, at the dim point where it met sky.
His heart constricted as he glimpsed a silhouette, a darker blot on the horizon. It was far away but it grew larger, advancing at a tremendous speed. Occasionally it strode like a man on two legs, only to fall low again, charging on all fours. It had no head. Tymon knew that abominable shape. He recognised it all too well. Panic took hold of him and the Beast fled. The hard flat surface of the world jolted under his pounding feet and his lungs burned for air. But no matter how fast he ran, the thing behind him ran faster. It drew closer, gained on him until he could feel each thud of its clawed feet on the floor. He knew this was no ordinary nightmare, no illusion to be banished by the morning breeze. He had stumbled directly into the world of the Beast. He was in the Veil itself and mortally vulnerable. In vain did he gasp the watchword for Severance; he could not end the trance.
‘Tymon!’
The Oracle’s familiar voice rang out, imperative. There was light in the darkness ahead: he saw his teacher standing there, an old woman again, holding her hand out to him. What appeared to be a shining rod grew up out of her palm. She set it on the floor. An instant later he understood that she had created a doorway. It was very much like the one he had opened by accident in the twig-thickets, but seen from the opposite side — a sliver of light about the height of a man. Beyond it he glimpsed the drapes and trappings of the house-cart. She stepped aside to allow him through. He sprinted the last stretch to the door, almost safe. But on the threshold, he stumbled to a halt and turned around. He was unable to bring himself to simply
abandon the Oracle.
The Beast bounded up before his shrinking gaze, slithering to a stop with a scrape of claws. It crouched down in front of the Oracle, hunched between its jointed legs like a monstrous spider. It seemed larger and heavier than it had on the Envoy’s ship, possessed of a brute strength in its own reality. Tymon trembled under its eyeless malevolence.
‘Eblas,’ said the Oracle calmly, standing between them.
A mouth appeared in the headless thing where the neck ought to have been, a misshapen slit lined with teeth.
‘Matrya. The human creature is mine,’ it sussurated.
‘No, Eblas. He left you a long time ago,’ she said.
‘Mine!’ repeated the Beast. It raised itself up on two legs, half cringing and half belligerent. ‘Why do you meddle?’ it whined. ‘You have no right!’
‘I have every right. He’s my student.’
‘You’re dead!’ countered the Beast. Another mouth appeared in its chest, beneath the first one, chiming in with a sneer. ‘You left him. You have no authority.’
The Oracle drew herself up straight. Her expression was terrible. Tymon had never seen her so angry before.
‘Do you think you have such power over me, Eblas?’ she said coldly. ‘Are you so far gone as to imagine my dominion ends with this paltry life? My dominion exists forever. Kill me as often as you like, it makes no difference.’
At this the Beast emitted a furious, gurgling shriek. Mouths appeared like gaping wounds all over it and it lost its human shape, dropping on all fours. Then it leapt upon the Oracle — rent and tore her with its claws and sank its multiple teeth into her. She made no move to resist. Tymon fell backwards in shock, tumbling through the lighted gap. For a brief instant, he Saw the thing-that-was-Lace trampling the Oracle’s black dress on the other side of the doorway. The shimmering cloth was empty. He heard the Beast’s many-mouthed howl of frustration. Then the gap between the worlds snapped shut, and found himself seated, abruptly awake and trembling, on Adana’s bed.
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