To Believe in Mathematics

by C Z Edwards

  Kya must have had most of the same lessons, and she was quicker at it all. She ducked into the flow coming from the steep falls and just lingered there for a long moment. It rolled off of her, like seeing her through a frost-glazed window, rippled and somehow making her less clothed than more. Like the glass images of Corsaria, the goddess of the springs and water.

  And then she was out, and up the shallow steps. She almost glowed in the fading twilight, the brightest object in a world turning to the violet of nightfall, before the moon rose.

  You should hurry, she said in my head.

  So I did. I rinsed off, stood up and combed my hair into its braid, then climbed the steps. The top pool stayed warmest. It’s closest to the source, and the source was about halfway between body temperature and too hot to drink. That pool also got the most sunlight, and the deep reddish sandstone soaked up warmth, too. It seemed to be the thickest slab, so it held heat. It, too, was shallow, and Kya had made herself comfortable in the best place, stretched out in the warmest, deepest center, resting her head against a long, low rock we put there for just that. She looked up into the rising stars. She seemed at peace, content. And fully exposed. The upper pool was not deep enough to submerge anyone larger than a very young child.

  “You’ve brought me to one of the most beautiful spots on earth. We’re alone, and I don’t bite. Have half a rock, please.”

  I took my half, the downstream half, and didn’t quite touch her. I wasn’t quite ready yet. “If the marriage rite takes three tendays, which will be our anniversary?”

  “My parents celebrate both,” she said. “And their first one. They didn’t actually wed until after Nan was born. And they didn’t take the binding until I was... ten? We choose which day has most significance for us.”

  “After Midwinter,” I said. “That way it never gets lost in the festival. But we should finish before Lunaga’s festival. First three tendays of the year.”

  “Same reason?” she asked.

  I nodded. Trinia was a Midwinter baby, and she hated both her birthing and naming days, and Midwinter, because she always felt something got left out and overlooked. I suspected if it wasn’t good for children, it wouldn’t be good for a marriage, either. “What if... I do need to go away? Sort out my head or... ” I didn’t say it, but what if we did make each other deeply unhappy? I didn’t want to become someone who would try to strangle his wife, like my father, but I also knew that if you couldn’t escape, violence came easier.

  “We can separate, physically, anyway,” she said. “Anything is permitted, as long as we agree to it, and we’re supposed to agree if the other person says they need time. But... I have no idea about our minds. I think I shouldn’t be able to talk to you by Evocata, because you don’t feel like an Evocator, but I can. I have no idea of distance, either. We may be stuck with my limits, or perhaps there’s no distance long enough. I just don’t know.”

  “Are you afraid to sleep, too?” I asked.

  I just barely saw her nod. “It’ll be different now, even if you’re still there. You’ve been a constant of my life for six years.”

  I took her hand, and we were just quiet for a while. “Have you read The Incandula?” I asked.

  “No?” she said. “What’s that?”

  “Very old set of Porsirian myths. From long before the Empire fell, from at least the era that came before the era that birthed Galantier’s Founders. Seven, eight thousand years old. The original language is lost, the translation into Imperial Porsirian isn’t very good. And there’s only fragments of that left. Dastorian has one of three copies, I think.”

  “Now you’ve got my interest,” she said. “Ancient rare manuscripts and you speak Imperial Porsirian.”

  “I read it. I don’t think anyone speaks it,” I said. “A lost god created the first mortals, and placed them in a vast walled garden so they would never grow old, or get hurt. He told them they could do anything they wanted, but to stay out of one tree. It was the only one tall enough to look over the wall. At first they were happy. Content. Well fed, warm in winter, cool in summer. Tumbled each other with no consequence. It was perfection.

  “Except that one tree. It just... it stuck in their minds. If the god hadn’t mentioned it, they probably would have ignored it for all time. They started getting close to it, and they discovered it dropped cockle burrs that hurt their bare feet. So they figured out how to make shoes. The tree’s lower branches drooped to keep them out, so they figured out how to make string, and so on, through itch ivy and soap, clothing and thorns and leather, and fire, and metal for blades. Until finally they could climb the tree. They saw that beyond the garden, there was nothing. Just darkness. That all of creation was in their hands, and they were the ones who had made it.” I sighed.

  “They only climbed the tree once, but they didn’t forget. They planted and trained other trees to get closer to the walls, and learned to build ladders and platforms. She watched the worms make soil from dead leaves, which they threw over the wall. Then seeds. He set up reeds to channel rainwater. Then glass to reflect the light of their sun. All of the technology, eventually. And they lived in fear every day that their creator would come and find that they’d been disobedient. But they couldn’t make themselves stop making new things. It was just too interesting. They were in love with each other, and everything they did together.

  “Eventually, the creator returned, and that’s where The Incandula ends. No idea how the god reacted.” I waited.

  She laughed. “That’s bloody typical. Are you feeling like you’ve seen over the wall?”

  “No,” I said. “Not yet. I’m circling that tree, and trying very hard not to look at it. Anticipating, afraid.”

  “I’ve been to the far side of the wall,” she said. “There’s no change, and yet it’s different. But Cedri, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love you. I don’t understand exactly how or why we came to be. That is a mystery, a question for mystics far beyond me. Do we even have souls, and if we do, why do they feel the need to bind themselves together? Perhaps because we’re the sparks against the darkness. Wisdom is the only light, and when we’re alone, we see only the circle of ourselves, but the more of us together, the farther we can see. If you need to stay in your circle of light for a while longer, that’s all right. I can see you over there. When you’re ready, Cedri. Not before.”

  I turned my head so I was looking into the blurry curl of darkness that is an ear, until she turned, too, and we were nearly nose to nose. Which made her into a blurred blob for me. “Truly, Kya, we don’t have time to give me time. We’re going to war. There aren’t many of us. I left work undone today. Tomorrow, I’m still excused, but day after? Rien will fit you into the schedule, if I tell her you’re safe to keep. And I’ll get back to my work. This is all the time we can spare.”

  “If you tell her I’m safe to keep?” she said slowly.

  “Ayuh,” I said. “We’re not out here because of a bond neither of us understand. The point was to separate you from Laarens to ensure you weren’t coming to kill Rien.”

  “You know I wouldn’t do that,” she said, sounding hurt.

  “I know the woman I’ve shared dreams with wouldn’t kill an innocent, but she has killed two people in cold blood. Quin and Rien are both appropriately suspicious, now, finally. I do trust The Lady of the Dream’s decisions and her conscience, but she’s only part of you. I don’t really know the priest or the Wisdomian.”

  “I doubt you could kill me,” she said.

  “Who said I’d be alone?” I said. “I don’t think you’re much of an Observer, at least I’ve never seen it.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “Not really. A hundred yards.”

  I pulled back enough to almost get her eyes in focus, so I could be sure she understood what I said next. “We’ve spent nine years together, Quin and Bran and me. Almost seven with Fanik and five with Dav
al. We know everything about each other. You don’t know how we communicate, or where we are. They do. If we had to kill you, you would have never seen it coming until you died in my arms.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, tried again, and then just blinked at me for a long while. “Oi. Right. We’re actually a good match. Because that’s exactly what I would do, and I’d play bloody innocent until I was sure, and tell you as soon as I was.”

  I nodded. “Ayuh. I’m not lying to you, or pretending my ignorance. But it distracted you pretty good.”

  “You’re insufferable,” she said, and I almost heard delight.

  “Ayuh.”

  “And bloody-minded.”

  I nodded.

  “And cheerful about it.”

  “Also true,” I said.

  “And you’re an amazing liar.”

  “Cicera champion,” I said. “Rien thinks I’ll be a better lawyer than her.”

  That took Kya aback. “And she’s terrifying.”

  “Actually, she’s a terrifying Advocate. She admits she’s merely a good lawyer, not stellar. The skills are a bit different, and she’s only good at one set of lies.”

  “Which are?” she asked.

  “You need to figure it out for yourself as her friend,” I said. “Trust me, it works much better if you do. You do know how Advocates actually work, right?”

  “That they mostly just read expressions and some surface thoughts, rather than easily reading a mind in depth? Yes.”

  “But most people don’t know that. They truly believe an Advocate can read their mind any time. Rien’s best skill is her ability to sit quietly and make people think she’s reading their mind. All of the really good Advocates do it.”

  “Well,” she said thoughtfully, “most Advocates would prefer we stop using our stupid mouths to tell lies, and just lie down so they can rummage our mental pockets for what they want to know.”

  “There is that,” I agreed. Some of them aren’t even very good at hiding it.

  “Truth and lie, all wrapped together,” she said. “You will be a good lawyer.”

  I nodded, and put her hand on my chest. “These aren’t because I disagreed. They’re also a reminder of how I survived. By keeping everything to myself. By cheerfully lying, and lying cheerfully. It’s not my best habit.”

  She let her fingers explore the whole complex of scrollwork and glyphs, all the work and time and pain they represented, both getting and erasing. If she’d observed even a quarter year at the Lethian temple, she’d seen at least one dedication. It would take her time to fully grasp those eight years of my life, and it would take me more to tell her the darkest horrors. But she wasn’t avoiding them now.

  “Iron-willed,” she murmured. “Tolerant. Amiable. Diplomatic. Subtle.”

  “I try,” I said. “But I was telling you something more important. This is the time we get. There’s a lot of work coming, and we’ll have to steal every hour after these are over. So we can’t waste time on me being... me.”

  “And you really are nervous,” she said.

  “Terrified,” I admitted. “I think I’m going to disappoint you, and then I think you’ll want to leave, because it was better before. Except it won’t be better after. We’re going to ruin this. Already have —”

  She kissed me, long and slow and deep. And while she did it, she spoke in my head. That is the advantage of Evocata. I’m expecting that, actually. Not disappointment, just awkwardness. It’ll be over too fast and it’ll be overwhelming and not very satisfying. But we’ll try again, and it’ll be better the next time, and every time after. The advantage of having crossed the wall is I know some shortcuts. I’m scared, too. I keep wanting to cover up all my saggy bits.

  “What saggy bits?” I asked against her lips. “I’ve pulled bowstrings less taut than you.”

  She chuckled. “For that? You can touch whatever you want, for as long as you want. That’s not merely an invitation. It’s also a suggestion. But my fingers are getting wrinkled and I suspect we’ll be cold if we don’t get out and get dry.”

  “Ayuh. Quin and I learned that lesson the hard way.”

  We had just enough light to find our boots and packs and walk back up to the embers. They were dying exactly as I wanted them to go, but I needed to decide if I wanted to bank them overnight. “First, how are you without sleep?”

  “I’ll get cranky about sundown tomorrow night. Don’t expect me to keep someone alive, and remind me to warn the Observers I’ll get more than a little invisible to them, the more tired I get. But I’m good for a night if you don’t need me running about.”

  “Good,” I said. “Second, do you prefer porridge, or do you remember our sticky bars?”

  “I don’t like porridge at all,” she said. “You’ve cleaned it out of baby hair.”

  “Oi, ayuh,” I said.

  “I’m not picky. If it’s what’s available, I’ll eat it. But I think your sticky bars are the ones made out of berry jam and toasted grain and nuts?”

  “Right in one.”

  “I prefer the bars to porridge. I prefer almost anything else to both of those.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Third, can you tolerate cold fondal in the morning, or must yours be hot?”

  “I don’t mind it cold. When I’m writing, it’s usually cold no matter what.”

  “Then I’ll let the fire die.” I filled those last three, corkless bottles with water and fondal powder, and set them in the ashes. They wouldn’t boil, but we’d have fondal in the morning, and what I’d started earlier for overnight.

  The coals didn’t give off much light at all, and the moon wasn’t yet above the horizon, though I could see the light starting to rise. I liked being in the dark anyway, even if I was having to feel my way around everything.

  Because I’d come back up. Male anatomy is ridiculous. It’s inconvenient and rarely helpful and it always looks like a bad joke.

  That whole first day was like attending one’s first adult banquet, instead of being upstairs at the nursery party. Everything was new. The food may be exquisite, but it was too much to taste. I kept getting moments of being overwhelmed. I’d get a little queasy from anticipation and then entirely relieved that I wasn’t mad — the figment in my imagination was entirely real. I kept trying to be my Monarch’s legal apprentice, and her confidant, and use my brain for something other than the sheer terror of falling in love with the person I’ve been in love with for years. And yes, we were going to tumble. Soon.

  The advantage of being in the dark? Your ears take over. I could hear my breath getting caught in my lungs, and Kya could, too. Maybe she used her Prospicas the way Rien can, to see in the dark and around corners, because she just reached out and pulled me to her. Again, we were breast to chest, belly to belly, my staff nestled up to her pelt. Even through desire, I felt comfortable there in her arms, with her in mine.

  “Let’s go handle this part,” she said gently. “Get past the first awkward virginity.”

  “Again, I am not,” I said, but that gave me something to argue about. A way to get outside of the anxiety. It was absolutely the right discussion to have. I looped one arm around her waist, handed her a warm bottle of fondal, and caught up the other, and started walking towards the bedding. “When I stood my first oral exam, it was not the first time I’d made that speech. I’d practiced with Mam and Trin and Fiene. When I ran away, it wasn’t the first time I’d escaped in my mind. I practice everything in my mind first. And the mind is where all virginity is stored, but especially mine, since there’s not even a potential blooding. The construct is true for everyone, bent and unbent, male to female. That’s what the law and the precedent both say —”

  “And that doesn’t change the fact that you have absolutely no embodied experience,” she said.

  “Yes, I agree,” I said. “And I ha
d none of running for my life when I climbed out of the Chapterhouse, either. And the first time I cut my own skin. But I still posit that our shared experience is experience, as entirely as Evocative speech is speech, or an Advocate’s memory of a client’s event is memory.”

  “Delicate rhetorical ice,” she said, warming to the subject. Oi, yes, we’d be good at the arguments. “By that logic, a musician may concentrate entirely upon maths, learn no instrument at all, and still produce music.”

  “According to Bran, yes,” I said. “You should listen to Bran curse sometime when he realizes he should have calculated a piece instead of trying to improvise.”

  “And that a recipe can be imagined first —”

  “Also true, at least for baking. And bridges should be drawn and calculated before being built. You are positing that the material is all that exists, which is a terrible argument for an Archilian devotee of wisdom to be making. You’re making the Lethian argument, that the immaterial becomes worthless unless bound specifically to the material. I posit that the knowledge needed to create and define anything of matter has inherent value.”

  “No, we are not having the monism versus pluralism argument. We’re arguing whether desire and belief are necessary for action. The practice of an act is a requirement for its function. You cannot acquire sensation through either study or another person’s reflected experience.”