“I was attacked by a skimtail and badly wounded. I must have hit my head when I fell because I slept. When I slept, I dreamed. The Singer came to me in my dream. When I awoke, the skimtail ran from me. I was healed, I could understand, and I could speak.”
Gron stepped forward. “What did the Singer look like?”
Cley spread his hands in a gesture of confusion.
“I do not know. I dreamed of music. Then I started hearing it differently. The music was the same, but I heard the sounds as if they were words. It was the first time I had ever understood anything. She was Singing to me, and I understood. She told me the People had been chosen, of all the tribes, to hear the Last Song. She told me the Last Song was for all the tribes, but the People would learn to listen first, before singing to others.”
At this, Laak, Gron, and Host conferred again. Then Hesta spoke up.
“The tribes have been divided since the first songs. The last trading party which approached the Children never returned. The last time we tried to parlay with the Chosen, they impaled the heads of our messengers on spears and placed them on the other side of the river, facing the settlement. They are savages. They will not listen, and I will not put the people in danger by trying to make them.”
“In time, they will listen,” said Cley, simply. “But it begins with the People, it begins with every individual. It begins with you, Hesta, and you, Gron. It begins with you, Laak, and you, Sopharndi, my mother. We must all learn to listen to the Singer.”
Laak and the other Elders eyed each other uneasily. They had seen Cley’s demonstration of power, and his words were spoken with conviction, accompanied by the weight of prophecy. Although it had been countless generations since anyone had directly encountered the Singer, they were now confronted with an authority they could never have anticipated, and they did not dare challenge it.
“I must protect my tribe,” said Laak.
Seb nodded. “I offer no threat, Laak. You will continue to lead. But it is time for the People to truly become part of the song. Will you allow me to teach them, and you, how?”
Laak did not need to look at her fellow Elders. The return of Cley, and his transformation, was a miracle which would live on in the songs and stories of the People long after they were all dead and gone. Most of the tribe had witnessed the miraculous change in Sopharndi’s witless son. Perhaps their god was taking a personal interest in them again, as was sung in the earliest songs. Or, perhaps, other forces were at work here. It was too early to say, but, as Leader, she certainly couldn’t be seen to be hostile to such a historic possibility.
“We will allow it,” she said.
27
Seb woke the next morning in a state of disassociation. It was the first time he’d slept in years, and the experience reminded him of how strange unconsciousness was, once you were used to permanent wakefulness. He had "slept" during many of the nights he had spent on Innisfarne with Mee, but it wasn’t natural, necessary human sleep. He had simply trained himself to slow down his mental processes to a crawl while Mee slept beside him. He’d used the time to listen to music - the longer, classical pieces he’d heard in his youth, but never appreciated. He could replay anything he had ever heard at will. Beethoven’s late string quartets had become particular favorites. He had once spent an evening at Carnegie Hall half-listening to them, badly hungover. Now, he could recall the concert in its entirety, and had discovered complexities, hints, and numinous moments that never lost their luster.
This was different. Cley’s body—and mind—needed sleep. After finally surrendering to it, he awoke confused and scared. It was as if, in entering the Gyeuk Egg, he had opened himself up to two new worlds: the one his every sense told him was real, and that of Cley’s unconscious, which lent an extra, subtle credence to this artificially designed existence.
He opened his eyes in darkness, feeling off-kilter, finely poised, balanced between realities. His dreams had been full of Cley’s memories interspersed with his own - the most bizarre moment involving a gig he remembered in a New York club. He’d been taking a synth solo when Scrappy—the band’s drummer—had suddenly introduced a half-time shuffle feel to the groove, which transformed the feel of the whole song in such an inspired, brilliant way that Seb had burst out laughing. He’d turned around to acknowledge Scrappy, only to find a small, bald, hard-skinned creature attacking the kit with claws, somehow managing to keep the groove going.
He woke dry-skinned, expecting to be drenched in sweat. He jumped out of bed, only to find he was lying on a hard floor, covered in animal skins. Outside, it was still mostly dark, the first hints of light only able to lend a kind of nightmarish substance to his unfamiliar surroundings.
He stumbled toward the nearest wall and put his hand on it. The wall, at least, was reassuringly solid, although when he scratched it, the hard-packed dirt easily flaked away. He looked down at his nails and saw the same three-fingered claw he’d seen on the creature that had replaced Scrappy in his dream. For a moment, he felt a shock as immediate as if he had been suddenly doused with ice-cold water, then his brain seemed to flip, and now it was the rest of the dream that was all wrong. Where had he been while he slept? Who were those tall creatures, their heads covered in fur? What about that terrible sound that had come from everywhere all at once? Why was the light constantly changing as if multiple suns were shining? It was unbearable.
He looked around him, his pupils dilating automatically, straining to see some reassuringly familiar details. He looked back at his sleeping place, saw his waterskin beside it. The earth walls were cool to his touch. He frowned at the chunk he’d gouged out of it. He looked again at his hands and saw his claws were still unsheathed. He relaxed, and they eased back into place.
He was Cley. Cley.
I am Seb.
Cley felt another part of him come to full wakefulness, and he swayed in confusion at the sensation.
“Pause.” The room darkened almost imperceptibly, and a tiny flying insect, just visible in a shaft of weak sunlight, slowed dramatically, its wings beginning to beat as slowly as if it had been suspended in treacle.
“Show Home.”
The doorway slid upward from the floor and Cley, without hesitation or a conscious decision to do so, stepped through it.
Seb looked at the familiar path leading to the ponds, heard the British birdsong that, along with the honking of horns and the unfamiliar European sirens of emergency vehicles, had formed the soundscape for the months he had spent in the city. Alongside the songs of the blackbird, thrush, starling, and robin, he heard the exotic screams of the parrots which had made the park their home, starting life as pets, then breeding in London’s royal parks for generations.
For a moment, he felt as incongruous as the exotic birds, part of his consciousness still insisting he was a small, strong, agile alien with three fingers ending in lethal claws.
He shook himself and looked away from the path toward the Royal Oak, the massive tree still fenced off as he remembered it from years ago. It was rumored to be nearly eight hundred years old, possibly the oldest oak tree in Britain. He walked closer, needing the solidity it represented, the link to his own planet and his own kind.
In the distance, he saw joggers and dog walkers, families picnicking, children throwing a frisbee. A game of five-a-side soccer had broken out about three hundred yards north, with a signpost providing one goalpost, a child’s stroller the other. Distant shouts were carried across the park by the light breeze.
Seb stood under the canopy of the huge oak and breathed deeply, letting the smells of an early British summer ground him still further.
Bok hadn’t been exaggerating. Seb had woken up feeling as much—if not more—Cley than Seb. He wondered if the designers of virtual reality games and entertainment on Earth were aware of the dangers inherent in making the virtual feel a little too real. His identity as Seb Varden had still been present but relegated to a small corner of his consciousness. Every single message b
eing picked up by his senses, however tiny, told him the life he was living inside the Gyeuk Egg was real. He was going to have to be careful. Very careful.
He waited a few minutes, allowing the weight of association, memory, and history further ground him as he looked at the ancient oak. Then he headed down the path and watched Mee pass the gin bottle to the earlier version of himself. A sliver of memory brought back something she had said about the ducks in Richmond Park.
“Don’t throw bread,” she had warned, “they won’t touch it if it’s not artisan. And they’ll want to know its provenance. Posh twats, these ducks.”
He grinned at the memory.
“Resume,” he said.
Back in the dwelling, the insect continued its flight at normal speed. On the other side of the room, a shape stirred and sat up.
“Cley?” Sopharndi peered toward him in the gloom. He felt suddenly oppressed by the close confines of the small hut.
“I’m going for a walk.”
Before his mother could answer, he drew aside the animal skin at the doorway and walked out.
As Cley walked through the still sleeping settlement, nodding at the sentries, all of whom were too awed to do anything other than watch him pass, Seb established a mental routine to which he knew he would have to adhere rigidly if he were to retain his sanity. He knew now the danger of losing his identity was real, frighteningly so, and he was determined to avoid it. Bok’s dire warnings about others failing gave him fresh determination. He had to survive this, for Baiyaan’s sake. And, he reminded himself, for Mee.
At dawn, and at dusk, every day, he would pause this simulation and go back to Richmond Park. He would spend enough time there to feel completely himself again. He would not be lost.
He had the powers of the T’hn’uuth to keep him safe in the Gyeuk Egg, and he had Richmond Park to keep him sane. He tried to convince himself that he felt confident, and almost succeeded.
To the west of the settlement, past the fire pit and the meeting circle, the ground rose, at first in a shallow incline, then more steeply into an undulating forest which grew densely for many miles before thinning, then finally giving way to the westernmost border of the Parched Lands, where nothing but the blacktree grew.
Cley walked up the nearest hill, then shinnied quickly up the tallest tree he could find. Halfway up, he disturbed a family of yoiks, who shot squeaking from the hollows in the trunk where they nested at night. They looked like squirrels other than their oversized, nocturnal purple eyes and the prehensile tails they used to facilitate their speedy traversing of their habitats. Cley let them go, then shuffled out along one of the highest branches to look back at the settlement.
From his vantage point, it looked tiny. He guessed the People only numbered a few hundred at most, although, to Cley’s way of thinking, it contained his whole world. The dwellings were clustered closely together in the center. The Elders, the bards, and those with young families occupied the centermost dwellings. The next ring housed the bards, teachers, farmers, and fisherfolk. Hunters occupied the next ring of huts. There was a gap between the cluster of huts in the center and the ring of dwellings at the perimeter of the settlement. These were occupied by the warriors, the defenders of the People. Sentries made up of a mix of warriors and hunters watched from the perimeter day and night, each within sight of the next, all equipped with a hollowed craint horn, which would be blown in the event of an attack, or a sighting of a particularly bold pack of shuks.
To the north of his perch, the range of mountains known as Hell’s Teeth was clearly visible as the sun from the east rose, illuminating the jagged peaks which gave the range its name. Cley knew from the bards’ songs that another tribe—the Children— lived at the base of the mountains. He knew of only two other tribes within a few days’ walk; the Silent and the Chosen. Both lived to the north. The land of the Silent tribe bordered that of the Children, lying just to its west and—legend had it—the border was a constant source of disagreement and bloody conflict between them. Still further west, and south of the Children, a walk of more than ten days would bring you to the border of the Chosen. Attempts had been made to trade with the Chosen, but, as no trader ever returned, it had been a long time since anyone had volunteered to make the trip.
It’s been carefully set up according to Fypp’s instructions, Seb reminded himself, wrenching himself away from Cley’s memories. Didn’t Mohammed unite warring factions when he brought them the message of Islam? Am I supposed to do the same here? Even as he thought it, he answered his own question. Taking a new religious message to disparate tribes would be the work of years. There was no way he could stay inside the Egg that long. Even if time outside the Egg was moving at a different rate, as Bok had promised. Even if only seconds had passed since he first entered the simulation. None of that mattered. If he risked staying in this simulation too long, it would be Cley, of the People, who would lead the religious movement. Seb Varden would be a bad dream he’d once had, no more. Until he died, of course, at which time Seb didn’t know if he would wake up back with his fellow T’hn’uuth, or Cley would wake up there in his stead. Two other possibilities presented themselves: insanity, or not waking up at all. Neither struck him as particularly desirable.
Whatever Seb was going to achieve in the Egg would have to be finished in months, not years.
Decision made, knowing his time here would be reasonably short, Cley/Seb felt a burst of optimism course through him.
If it turns out I can’t do this, it won’t be for lack of trying.
Embracing this new body, and this new world, and with an unguarded whoop of pleasure at being alive, fit, and able to think, Cley jumped from the top of the tree, the ground far below yielding like water on impact, then becoming solid as he stood up.
“Right,” he said aloud, to no one other than a confused-looking yoik who regarded him from a neighboring tree with a longfruit poised midway to its mouth. “Time to fulfill the old messiah complex.”
28
Powerful, society-shifting religions had never—as far as Seb knew—been founded by someone deliberately setting out to do just that. Buddha had freed himself and wanted to show others how, so they could do the same. Jesus had looked at his world through eyes that saw reality very differently to his contemporaries and telling them what he saw had led to his death. Mohammed had encountered the angel Gabriel and transcribed Allah’s message into Arabic verses so beautiful that they still often induced tears in those reciting it. All three founders were, undeniably, mystics, at least they were according to Seb’s understanding of the world. All three encountered reality directly, without an intermediary. As a musician, there had been extended periods in Seb’s life when he barely encountered reality at all, let alone directly.
Tough gig.
He didn’t need to ask if he was a tad under-qualified for the job of starting a spiritual revolution. He knew he was. But it was down to him. The template was there - the People had a religion ripe for reinterpretation. The Gyeuk had set it up that way. Psychologically, their makeup was designed to be close to that of humans, so that a human might speak to them in terms they would understand, challenge them in ways to which they might respond.
Seb had a nagging memory of a poem he had studied as a teenager. It had made an impact on him because it spoke of constructing a religion, which seemed dangerously close to blasphemy in a Catholic orphanage. All he could remember of it was the poet suggesting the use of water - in rituals and as a metaphor. Water already featured in Christianity, of course, and translations of Taoist texts often used the idea of a river’s flow, and how a wise man (it was always a man, natch) would succumb to that flow, rather than try to impose his will upon it. Cley had briefly considered using the expression going with the flow but rejected it as too Californian. Seb was still a New Yorker, after all. He had certain standards.
As Cley stood among the trees at dawn, hearing a crowd gathering to hear his words, Seb finally decided to let go of all of hi
s preconceptions and speak from the heart.
If Baiyaan is right, if there really is something unique underlying the religions of my planet, I’m only going to stand a chance of communicating effectively if I let go. Of everything. Including my self.
He knew this also meant avoiding conspicuous displays of his T’hn’uuth powers, which were beyond the experience of the People, and could only make him appear as more of an outsider. After creating, then quelling the earthquake, he had almost immediately regretted it. He could not appear to be totally other. With luck—and time—his apparent control of the earthquake would be put down to coincidence. The production of water would convince some that the Singer was with him. Others might claim demonic possession. Healing was harder to discredit, though. There was a long tradition of healing in Earth’s wisdom traditions, just as there was in the earliest songs of the People.
Mentally, Seb tore up his notes. He allowed himself to become Cley, to let the history and traditions of the People inform his every thought and word.
He walked out of the forest.
No one who was there that morning—and that was everyone other than the dying, the very sick, or infants and the males looking after them—ever forgot what was said, and the impact it had on them. Even much later, when everything had gone wrong, and the message of the miraculous Blank had been discredited, it was impossible to entirely dismiss the force of his words that first day.
For better or for worse, the People would be changed by the Last Song.
Cley appeared between the trees, walking toward the meeting circle. With a calmness and the same undeniable aura of authority he had projected the previous night, he approached the crowd which had gathered to listen to Sopharndi’s son. When he reached them, he sat quietly for a few minutes. The atmosphere was charged with more fear than hope. Most of the People considered themselves observant of the Singer’s edicts; faithful servants, careful to follow the laws laid out in the songs of the bards. They had never expected to be confronted with new information. Their god had spoken eons ago and, since then, had had the decency to remain distant and let them live their lives. The evening’s events had been followed by sleepless nights for many. The appearance of Cley, a Blank no longer, and his claim to—somehow—be the Last Song, had led to a very rapid examination of the gap between outward observance and inward commitment. Some had found themselves deficient and regarded the prophet with fear. Others hoped to see his claims exposed as false, so that life could return to normal.
The World Walker Series Box Set Page 110