"No, no!" protests Pod. "Sustain it. Please! It contains. . . ."
"Contains what?"
"It contains an alien Lordevil, in that river there."
"Does it indeed? Whatever makes you think so?"
"I, er. . .
"Tell me, wife-to-be!"
"I'm, er, I'm carrying a passenger within me."
"You're pregnant? Already? This wretched Airshoe only met you a moment ago!" Aldino's eyes widen. Again Verrino ripples. "Was it your escort? That grasping talent-trader whom I paid so handsomely? Did he enjoy you on shipboard?"
"No, no, Dino, you misunderstand. I'm an honest virgin. My passenger is in my mind, not in my womb. She's from that city there below."
I'm from Pecawar, Pod. But let's not split hairs.
"Podwy! Do you mean to tell me—now, five minutes into our nuptials—that you've been farseeing these alien worlds of yours not by virtue of your own talent, but courtesy of some infestatious visitor? One who might fly away again? Leaving you bereft of your farsi? Ach, I've been cheated!"
Pod is on the verge of weeping; you buoy her up. Pride flares; honour bums bright. "Master Aldino, sir, I am the Infanta Farsi- podwy-fey, of Bark Isle! See within me what I am, and who is within me! See how great her mission is!"
"Farsi . . . courtesy of another! That's what I see. Oh what a blind old fool I've been. I'm gulled and flummoxed. What price your feyness? Is that a cheat too? Go on: fey something! I'll tell you what to fey. Fey yourself falling from these battlements, right soon!"
"That, I shan't permit," declares Airshoe. "I should hold her up."
Lotja sniggers. Other guests studiously scrutinize the sky.
"Podwy! You shall fey Airshoe colliding with cliffs—when my illusions warp his knowing where he is!" Oh, Aldino is working himself up into a right old petulant lather. Verrino looks sadly tatty and wispy.
"Fey! Fey away! I'll bet you can't fey the death of a fly."
Furious, Pod cries, "I shall fey in truth! I feel the talent rising. I shall fey your own fate, sir, contemptuous husband."
No, Pod. Were diving into deep manure. This is awful. I absolutely must contact Lordevil—while Verrino's still here, with my Worm. Cool it, will you?
However, Pod rises on tiptoe. "I fey—!"
She screams.
Horror twists her face.
"I fey death! Death everywhere! The death of everyone! All the vicars of whitewater and all their Godmind flock, across the world—burnt up! Lordevil destroyed and changed a moment later! Every soul I've known on Bark. Everyone who's harboured in Lordevil’s Dark. All the Wizzes and all the commons of Omphalos— brainburnt! And me, me too. A faggot to fuel a blaze."
She sinks down, devastated. "Oh I fey, I fey indeed. Never did I fey like this. I farsee-fey: death everywhere in all the stars. The finish of life. Lordevil’s end. The stop of the whole world, and all worlds. All at once."
How soon, Pod? How soon?
"As soon as Blindspot leaves Redfog. When Blindspot bums bright, we bum!"
"What's this?" a shocked Aldino asks.
Beg him to raise Lordevil, Pod. Quickly, do it quickly.
"Dino—husband—if you don't summon Lordevil, we're doomed. Even if you do, we're doomed—since I fey it so. 1'm so scared. But do it, do it!"
Already the orange hue is lessening. Day is whitening again.
"What do you make of this. Airshoe?"
"I think, old friend, mayhap we should err on the side of credulity."
"Believe her?"
"Exactly."
Hurry, hurry!
Aldino and Airshoe link hands. They begin to leap up and down, jumping as they do so from one flagstone emblem to the next, panting rapidly, deliberately.
Day whitens.
An inner light dawns, such as no other light that ever was. The light blazes up in Pod's mind. The whole universe bums with it. The light is a vortex of brilliance, tearing her loose from herself, sucking her up towards. . . .
... a pattern, a bright web which spans the shadows of the stars, the ghosts of all the worlds.
Recognize the pattern? How could you not? You've been well trained in the appreciation of it! It is a pattern of a hundred petals, unfolding across the galaxy, blooming fiercely. It is a cosmic rose. Each world is a petal. Each cell in each petal is a Ka. And all of those petals focus /T«-light through the heart of the rose.
Yaleen has blasted the garden in the Moon. The Godmind has struck out. This is Mindbumer.
But you're already dead.
Cognizers The world's as flat as a pancake.
Brood Shabby yellow. Colour of clay. Some
Where you times energies discharge across the
Intrude streaky sapphire sky. That's about it,
by way of action. Otherwise night fol
lows day follows night.
In fact it's hardly a world at all. It's just a flat surface, with length in one direction and breadth in the other. Life's hardly turbulent. Your hostess Hovarzu has stood in this same spot for the last five years. No doubt she could stand here for the next five.
Yet within her there is such richness and such depth. Abstract tapestries—models of the cosmos—beckon and glisten inside her. Many of these are strange and fanciful; others are rigorous and austere. It's these models that she strolls around in. She's good practice for if you ever break your back and have to spend the next ten years in bed.
Hovarzu used to be a friend of Ambroz, whom you met in Eeden. When he was alive they often talked by "radio". From her point of view he hasn't been dead and withered long at all. Ambroz was a disciple of old Harvaz the Cognizer; so too is plantlady Hovarzu. During your stay in her mind (which seems interminable) you've enriched her quite a lot. She has made new cosmic models and beamed these to other kindred cognoscenti amongst Cognizers.
Not all plant-people are Cognizers. Some make music in their minds. Some chant epic poems full of Earthmyth and anticipations of an afterlife when they will all stride freely forth, alien Aeneas and Achilles in the Champs Elysees. Others ponder the varieties of infinity from the aspect of beauty. They classify the orders of magnitude aesthetically: the infinitesimal, the purely infinite, the set of sets, the alephs and omegas, the satori series. Still other plant-people tell the beads of the genes.
Not all Cognizers concern themselves with the methods and motives of the Godmind. But Ambroz did; and so does Hovarzu. That's why you vectored in on her; on account of the echoes you both share. So she tells you.
Hovarzu doesn't find it a weird experience to host you. She's used to radio-voices in her brain; to whole tapestries of thought being transmitted into her from a distance.
Lodger-within, let us consider Kas!
Yes, let's.
And dimensions; and electons.
Right!
After all this time you have a pretty good idea what Hovarzu looks like to an outsider; though it wasn't too easy to find out.
True, she keeps her three eyes open during the day. But that isn't so that she can admire the view—or keep tabs on her personal appearance. Her eyes, in common with her leaf-plates, are designed to drink fight and turn it into energy. (If they weren't so designed, maybe she would shut her eyes and never bother to open them again, given the monotonous poverty of the view. Might this be the real reason why her eyes sup fight? To keep her at least somewhat connected with the world around?)
A few other huge native vegetables break the uniformity of the plain. Some look like leeks carved of wood. Others resemble artichoke heads. But no other plant-person is in sight. That's why it took a while to work out Hovarzu's own design—a topic of little interest to her.
She resembles a very tough pear. Below her waist she's skirted by leaf-plates which she can open and close. She's rooted by a trifork of toothed spade-roots, and a retractable tap-pipe runs down to the water table. (How you had to nag to gamer this item!) It's upon those spades that she can waddle away, if she ever wishes to. A stalk rising from her head is her radio antenna
. Her inner workings are a mystery.
So the universe is composed of electons, which are infinitesimal circles of Ka- space rolled up very compactly. That's so, Yaleen?
That's how it seemed.
And electons usually choose to be what they have always been. So reality recreates itself from moment to moment, from amidst a flux of options. This process is the breath of Being. But the world doesn V wink in and out of existence all together, on-off like a signal lamp. No! All of reality is forever winking in and out simultaneously. Thus reality sustains itself. There's always a familiar neighbourhood
Makes sense!
Yet I believe that there are minor cycles within the breath of Being. By breathing in tune with these, the wizards of old Earth must have worked their temporary alterations of reality—if legend can be trusted. In addition there is also a Grand Rhythm, a Climacteric Rhythm—whereby large zones of reality eclipse in and out, restoring themselves exactly as before, unconsciously.
Could be. So where do Kas come into this?
Ka5, Yaleen, must be dimension-fields of electons where the field itself is conscious. What happens, then, when true death arrives? Supposing that a Ka is not bound by a worm? Supposing that it is not drawn back into flesh by the Godmind?
This is the great mystery. Perhaps the Kas of all those who are truly dead diffuse into the infinitude ofKd-space—where each contributes one more iota of will and awareness. Then one day in the distant future Kd-space will become fully conscious. It will be able consciously to project forth the universe that it chooses; not just the universe which happens to exist already.
Unless the Godmind gets there first.
The Godmind is a creation. It is not the Creating. Nevertheless its schemes are clever. If it succeeds in marshalling this cosmic lens of electons, it may discover how to control reality; how to become the guiding overseer. It may achieve this feat long before Kd-space evolves the capacity on its own account—from out of the stored will and awareness of all the dead. Then the Godmind will be a God indeed. Perhaps only the God of a single galaxy out of many million; but a God, even so.
But it'll have killed off everyone. What's the point in ruling a graveyard?
It may gain the power to recreate people! To restore their Kas to the flesh! As well as the power to twist the black currents back through time as destroyers of potential rivals! Consider the proposed act of mass murder further, Yaleen. The transfer of so many dimension-fields will send a shock through Ka -space and through the universe which it projects. Locally, at least, in this galaxy of ours. The breath of Being will break rhythm. Minor cycles will culminate. A Grand Climacteric will quake forth. This will—
Hovarzu?
The dazzling inner light! The deadly radiance!
Shift out! Shift out!
When you all shift at once, you all collide.
You, overlooking Omphalos, belly-button of Lordevil’s Dark.
You, planted on a plain that's flat as a platter.
You, who've probed the secrets of the heartwood porter.
You, on another worm-world: one of volcanoes, rivers of fire, pools of liquid tin.
You, you, and you.
You, probably at Verrino.
You, potentially aboard the Worm's gob out in the wild ocean.
You, possibly engaged in the synchronous rite during timestop in the palace of enchantment.
You, you.
Cabins tumble into one another. Tapestries interweave. You
U-nite!
I. . . .
I span the ghosts of stars. I grasp the rose. . . .
... as the souls of the colonies, and of Earth and Luna too, are all sucked into Ka-space, shaking the ever-never fabric of the void. . . .
... as the Godmind turns its lens of death upon Deeptime, upon distances so great that they aren't to be measured in millions of millions of leagues but only in aeons of aeons. . . .
... all at once.
Ineffably swift, the lightflood pulses. Oh let me timestop it. Let me catch it on the hop. Oh yes.
The heart and lungs of Being beat and bellow. Let me lay my finger on that heart, let me collapse those lungs then kiss life into them again. Yes, oh!
I am here, I am everywhere, I am never-ever. I am the raven and the writing desk. I am she who was bom and bom again. I am she who twisted time. The radiance shines through me. I've captured the rose dynamic. I am the lens; I am the rose.
The Grand Climacteric is here, my darlings. The college of electons is in session, all of one accord at once.
Down there in the worlds of death, reality crackles like ice. It melts, it flows. So many streams, so many branches! So infinite a pool of possibles. So many actuals, woven in my memories. Taught in timestop (thanks, Peepy!), taught in farsee (thanks, Pod!), taught in the mastery of illusions (thanks, Dino!), taught in the record of memory and in the shapes of power (thanks, Worm!), taught in the guile of shifting cabins (thanks, Credence!), taught in cognizing (thanks, Hovarzu!), taught many other precious things (thanks, whoever you are!); even so I cannot choose by thought and will. I can only let myself be chosen. I can only let my heartself, my wish- self, be the new pattern. Melting, flowing; and in the moment of / am, refreezing. . . .
... I am drawn down, descending with the rose.
Part Four
The Rose Baloon
BLOOD streamed through the sky over Manhome South. Scarlet gore flowed above Brotherhood Donjon and Kirque and prayerhouse, where proclaimers would rant every Firstday.
Peli examined the sunset critically. The fussy second storey window, with its many tiny panes of thick glass, was wide open; this window at least had hinges!
"Must be a ton of dust up there," she said.
"Dust?" Yaleen looked up from her packing, which was almost done.
"Why, to make such sunsets as we've seen! It isn't at all cloudy. So the reason must be dust."
Yaleen joined her friend at the window. True enough, only the faintest muslin brushstrokes of cloud hung aloft. Yet most of the sky-dome was dyed garishly.
Peli waved a hand westward. "I'll warrant there's been a huge sandstorm in the desert. What price this madcap scheme of yours if the balloon runs into a sandstorm? That's if it ever gets off the ground!"
"Balloons generally get off the ground, Peli dear."
"Ah, but will the scheme? What will the river temple say? You need their blessing."
"Hmm," said Yaleen. "We'll see."
"So what do you do, supposing there's a sandstorm?"
"We'll be floating high, Peli. That's where the winds are that'll take us eastward."
"Eastward forever, never to return."
"You old doom-monger!" Yaleen ran a fingertip along the windowsill, held it up stained grey. "It's just ordinary dirt, not desert dust." By way of cleaning her finger she printed the tip on the cracked tawdry plaster of the wall.
"How I hate this dump," growled Peli. "Just look at that street down there. Hounds nuzzling turds—human, I'll be bound. And this is the posh part of town. Can't wait to get back to civilization!"
"Bit grimy in Guineamoy, too."
"That's for a reason—industry!—not from sheer sluttishness. At least in Guineamoy men never look daggers at a girl for going about her own business."
Yaleen chuckled. "Should we give the Sons a lesson in spit 'n' polish? Scrub the building from stem to stem? Spend all night at it, leaving it gleaming in the morn? You'll be a boatswain yet, Peli."
"Not likely. When a permanent mission gets here, they can set to with their scrubbing brushes." She still stared at the sky. "Superstitious dogs, these Sons! I wonder if they're taking all that blood up there as an omen? Started when we arrived here, fortnight ago; been the same ever since. Let's hope our team have been able to scare them with the slyblaze. Or the Sons might just think it's a sign to take knives to our throats on the way home."
"Hey, you're kidding."
"I dunno. We aren't in on the negotiations."
"Oh co
me on: Tamath and Marti have told us a fair bit."
"Yes, to wise us up to the local taboos. I do hope our bosses aren't contemplating us as future embassy cooks and bottlewashers."
"They'd better not be. I have my own plans."
"Of sailing upon a sandstorm; don't I know it. Let's hope the local shitheads see all that red stuff as the blood of birth." And Peli mimicked Tamath's stance and style. "The birth of a new and productive relationship between our two great riverbanks, blah blah. Rather than the blood of death. Been enough of that."
"Birthblood? Looks more like a massive haemorrhage to me."
"So it's a big birth. Of a new way of life: west and east seeing eye to eye, sort of. Them treating their women a bit more decent. Less of them imposing their riverphobia on the ladies. Their women might even take up boating."
"I don't believe," said Yaleen suddenly, "that these sunsets have anything to do with the desert. I think something else shook up all that dust." She shivered as she spoke. "I think it was the Pause, Peli."
Peli was silent for a while. Then she snorted.
"Of course, don't blame the desert for anything!"
"It was the Pause," Yaleen repeated.
"Just you shut up about that. There was no Pause, or whatever you call it. That's all in your imagination. I don't know what gives you such ideas."
"You felt it, too—when the whole world paused for a moment. Why not admit it?"
"Okay, maybe there was an earthquake. A little one."
"Was there? Everyone skipped a heartbeat, all at once? That wasn't any earthquake."
"Was. It stirred up stacks of dust out in the desert; because that's where it happened. What do you know about earthquakes? They don't happen once in a blue sun. Stands to reason, everyone's heart would skip a beat."
"The sun is blue, Peli."
Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 Page 14