The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Here, Pellandrey stopped and again turned to them. He said, “There is not time for proper instruction in the form of the motions, so perform as best you are able according to your lights. Watch the motions I make and perform them exactly the same. Otherwise there is danger. Do you understand? Let Mevlannen go first; she knows. There is an interface at this point between two universes, and great energies are involved. Do this seriously. On your own. No one can do it for you.”

  He turned back to the cleft in the rock, and stood quietly, facing the darkness. Taking a deep breath, and holding it, he then raised his arms to the side, as if for balance, then bringing them around to the front, as if he were intending to dive into a pool of water. Then he stepped off, a half-stride, half-dance, two steps, and made a short, easy jump, as if leaping gracefully over some unseen obstacle. He moved straight ahead, but as his figure merged with the darkness of the shadowed cleft, it seemed as if he had somehow turned a corner, for they could no longer see him, or even sense his presence. It was as if Pellandrey had never been. No sound accompanied this act, and no sense whatsoever of anything having happened at all. But Pellandrey was gone.

  Mevlannen stepped forward, moved to the place where Pellandrey had stood. She looked back once, nodding, adding in a voice that was now very small, “Yes, this is the way of it.” She made the motions, took the two steps, and, just as Pellandrey had before her, vanished as soon as her shape merged with the cleft in the rock face.

  Morlenden, Fellirian, and Krisshantem looked at one another tentatively, unbelieving. Krisshantem shrugged. “One must believe,” he said, and without further words, went to the place, faced the rock, made the motions. And was not there.

  Fellirian looked closely at the place, as if not believing her eyes. She slid closer to the cleft, tried to peer inside. She saw nothing. A darkness, an emptiness within a shadow. She listened, cocking her head; there was no sound. In its place there was a stuffy deadness, as if something were absorbing sound. No. No one was there. It was absurd. She shook her head, once, and then went to the place from which the others had already started. From there, she too took the deep breath, made the motions, took the two steps and the little leaping glide, and went straight into the corner that one could not see. There was silence. Fellirian was not there anymore.

  Morlenden listened. There was nothing but the silences of the rocks, the out-of-doors. There was no wind in the bare trees over his head. Now he, too, walked to the cleft, peered inside. He thought he could make out the end of it. It was shallow, after all, not a cave. But when he tried to focus on the end he thought was there, his eyes refused to form an image. Too dark, he thought. Although it didn’t feel quite like darkness, absence of light, something below a threshold. There was something else. Something he could not see. He shrugged, straightened, looked all around himself, as if for the last time: at the streambed, the mountain, the sky, the trees. Then he, too, went to the place, made the motions—the indrawn breath, the arms, the steps, the leap; he expected to land in a dark cave and stub his toe, but as he left the ground and the darkness met him, he felt an instant of weightless vertigo, a picoinstant of formless churning chaos and blinding energy, a roaring in his ears of disorganized, torn sound, a brightness and a body-wrenching that made his stomach churn. And he was standing.

  Morlenden had shut his eyes at the lights, as if from reflex. Now he opened them. He was in a plain, dim chamber, apparently brown in color. The light came from every place, no place. There was no opening anywhere: it was a perfect cube. Sealed. The others were waiting for him. The chamber gave back no sound whatsoever; the silence was the deepest he had ever heard. Yet there was, under the stillness, some subliminal perception of energy, tremendous energies, carefully balanced and held in check. He said, “Where are we?”

  Pellandrey said, reluctantly, as if he did not wish to, “No place. Keep as still as you can and make no attempt to touch the walls. Watch me and do as I do again. This is the difficult part; yet, if you make the transition successfully, you will be in the Ship. Feel the resistance and pass through it into reality again. Now attend!”

  Pellandrey moved to the exact center of the chamber, stood quietly. With a minimum of preparatory actions, he suddenly jumped straight up; about at the exact spatial center of the cube, he vanished. Silently. Morlenden had tried to see exactly what had happened to him, but it eluded him conceptually; it seemed that the figure receded, too fast to follow, yet stayed where it was.

  Now Mevlannen followed, now Krisshantem, now Fellirian; all moved, one by one, to the center, leaped upward, vanished. Morlenden stood alone. He looked carefully about the small, bare chamber. There was little enough to see. There was air, but it seemed stale, like cave air. The sound was dead. He had to listen carefully to hear himself breathe. He looked more closely at the walls, which were no more than a body-length away. He could easily step forward and touch them. He approached the nearer wall, looked closely, tried to find a point on it, focus on it. He could not. What he thought was surface was only an illusion of a surface; when he tried to see it directly, he felt disoriented instead. He was unable to define the depth of what he saw. There was no reference point upon which to focus. Morlenden strained, again trying to force an order onto it. And at the furthest extreme of his efforts, he sensed, rather than saw, motion, perhaps the suggestion of motion; a slow boiling or churning, immensely powerful, a Brownian motion that concealed a subtle sense of underlying order beneath the random movements. He looked down at the floor; there, he now saw, at the extremes of vision, the same effect as in the walls, which were all alike of a dull, rich brown that remained a surface only as long as one did not look at it too closely.

  Again, he shrugged. They had had faith and made the absurd motions; he would also. From the center, Morlenden also jumped up, straight up, flexing his knees as little as possible.

  His first thought was that there was something wrong with the force of gravity, because instead of slowing down as he rose, somehow he was accelerating, and the chamber faded, and in its place there was nothing, no sensation of anything. Where he was, was an imaginary number, a software program with nothing to manipulate, pure abstract process. He hung sensationless, divorced even from feedback from his own body. He did not know if he was breathing or not. He tried to move, but felt nothing. He tried imagining that he moved. He felt a resistance. It gave him an eerie feeling in the pit of his mind. The more he imagined, the more concrete feeling became. Gradually, he felt an opening, but it seemed too small. He embraced it, pulled. He was moving rapidly above a plain, conveyed by forces but not in any vehicle. It was lighted from an unknown source, an absolutely flat surface, littered with shapeless lumps that were the same brownish color as the plain, the same color as the walls of the chamber. He was passing by the lumps, but there were more . . . there was a suggestion of shape to them, but he couldn’t quite see it. He was moving to an abstract perspective horizon, a child’s drawing, the imagination of a madman. He made an effort, the lunge of panic, trying to free himself, and the plain vanished.

  Spatial orientation and normal sensation returned. He was alone in a small, bare room, but at least a room made of things he could understand, touch: it was basically metal, but was overlaid mostly with beautiful dark wooden paneling, dark wood and handwoven cloth, familiar as the product of his own people. This air had odor, temperature. It was cool, almost cold. Yes, it was chilly. He shivered. There were odors of machinery, material, distant people. The floor was reassuringly solid and in the right place. He moved from the center, to touch the walls, make sure . . . as he did, in quick succession, the rest materialized into the room, displacing air with little puffs as they materialized. Pellandrey came last. When he saw Morlenden to the side, his face took on an expression of amused consternation. Fellirian had come with her eyes tightly closed, standing in a semicrouch, a wrestling posture. She bore on her face an expression of strain, grimacing with effort.

  Morlenden reached for Fellirian, touched her s
houlder. She opened her eyes, looking quickly around her, straightening. There was a sense of Machine all around them, a presence of controlled, bound energy, of vital, surging power. Faint noises came now to their ears from other parts of the Ship: metallic sounds; muffled voices; something that sounded like very ordinary hammering.

  Fellirian asked, “Where are we?”

  Pellandrey answered, “On the Ship, of course. You will note that Morlenden arrived before us, although he was last to depart the staging chamber. That is an effect we get sometimes when we go through the gate more than one at a time. Sequence reversal. We do not understand the continuum through which we just passed very well at all. The entry was not a product of design. We would prefer the door-flap of a yos, to be frank. But in part, it . . . ah, happened. After we found it, we were able to modify it somewhat. Now we can control it a little, and come and go.”

  Morlenden said, “I saw a plain, with odd lumps scattered over it. I was moving, flying; there was no end to it.”

  “The plain? You saw it?”

  “Indeed I did, and I did not like what I saw.”

  Pellandrey shook his head. “We do not know where that place is . . . attempts to explore it, examine it, more closely, have failed, mostly. Most do not experience it at all, and most who do, do not live to tell tales of it. The lumps are, we believe, the remains of those who have failed, over the years. I have been there once, and I will not speak of what I did there, nor what I learned.” Here he stopped, as if recalling something distasteful. “I will not return, willingly. There is one among us who does, though.”

  Morlenden asked, “Who?” But he thought he would know the answer. Pellandrey said, “Sanjirmil.” He would say no more, not of her. He added, “You are lucky to have seen it and lived.”

  He turned now, and brushed aside an ordinary doorway curtain, as if doing no more than escorting visitors into a yos somewhere, motioning them to follow him along a dim hallway that was revealed. “Come along,” he said. “We’ll go now into the Prime Sensorium; there we may speak of what you will.”

  He set off along the corridor, making no further remarks. The four followed, equally silently, struck dumb by the contrast between the unreality of the entry and the plain homeliness of the interior furnishings. They moved steadily through a maze; all save Mevlannen. She knew where she was.

  They came to an intersecting corridor, turned into it, and immediately began walking down a steep incline. Other corridors ran into it from both sides, leading off into other sections of the Ship. From one they heard the hammering noises they had heard earlier. There was also the odor of sawdust, of iron.

  They switched corridors many times, sometimes walking on the level, sometimes down inclines. Some passages were narrow, connecting hallways; others were broad thoroughfares. No section was straight for long, but would jog off, and then back again. Fellirian followed politely, but after a long time of this she could not contain her curiosity any longer, and asked, “And where are the engines, the fuel, the bunkers?”

  “None,” answered Pellandrey. “This is not a powered ship, a fueled ship, but the analog of a sailing ship; we only take enough power to run life-support, operate the synthesizer. That power comes from batteries which are energized by the flux around the Ship.” He added, as an afterthought, “The problem is not that we don’t have enough, but that we have too much.”

  “Then what do you do with it?”

  “It must be used within the system from which it was derived; we have been using the excess to regularize the orbit of Pluto, the outermost. It is small in mass as planetary bodies go, but it is sufficient. Understand we do not do anything radical to it. And what we do is not very obvious. Mevlannen can tell you that, I believe.”

  Mevlannen agreed. “For a year I watched, compared, made calculations; the change we have put into it will not be sensible enough to read for thirty years.”

  Morlenden started to speak, but the moment passed, and Pellandrey turned again to lead them through the maze of corridors. They went through another series of junctions, nodes, at last a dim nexus of five passages. Pellandrey stopped before a large, metal hatch set into the bulkhead, secured with threaded T-handles about the perimeter. There was no legend on the hatch, but in a place of curtains and easily sliding panels, such a doorway could only have one meaning: Keep out. Pellandrey bent and began to unfasten the handles, methodically, one at a time. When he finished, he turned back to them, hand on the hatch, poised to push it inward.

  Mevlannen said, “I cannot pass within, if Sanjirmil is now there.”

  Pellandrey asked, “And why so?”

  “We are enemies; long ago we made a pact. I thought that it would not come to a meeting again, so I agreed. Outside, in the forest, alone, one on one, I would take my chances, but here, in the seat of her power, I would fear. I cannot enter; I will be attacked on sight.”

  “Just so. She is there. But you came for a judgment, so you must enter, else we hear and decide in the place where we stand. To judge is most serious; would you have us settle the matter like conspirators behind the warehouse, skulkers in the alley?”

  Morlenden said, “I ask that it be here, if Mevlannen so wishes. I am her sponsor in any event—it is my argument.”

  Pellandrey shrugged. “Very well. Speak.”

  Morlenden did not waste time with formalities, saying, “You know the history of the Perklarens, so we need not recite it; you also know whence came Krisshantem, here, and what his course had been, and your own part in it. Thus, and thus. These two are of suitable age, and both possess valuable knowledge that must not perish. I ask that they be declared shartoorh here and designated to weave upon maturity in their own Braid.”

  Pellandrey turned a cold, steady gaze on Morlenden. “You already know too much, Morlenden Deren. And what will be their role? What will they do?”

  Morlenden pressed on, not turning at all from what he came for. “I confess that my original intent had been to resurrect the thrust of the course Maellenkleth had been on, but I see now that such would be folly. Therefore I ask that they be called Skazen, lore-masters, those who know and those who remember. Too long have we left that function to elders who will answer to none.”

  Pellandrey turned a little, avoiding them all with his expressionless eyes. He seemed to look into a distance, weighing imponderables. After a time, he said, “There is much consequence to this. I see, I know; ripples in time across the centuries; there will be the usual objections.”

  “It is against just such that I strive here, Pellandrey Reven. These two have earned what I ask.”

  “I know, I know; just as had Maellenkleth. Even as I steered her for my own reasons, I recited arguments to myself upon why I could not do what she asked in the end. And had it come to a Dirklaren Braid . . . I do not know. We cannot spend much time on would-have-been’s.”

  “Very well. This petition, then, on its own weight.”

  The Reven looked now intently at both, Mevlannen and Krisshantem. He asked, “You two are known to one another? And do you agree to this?” They both nodded agreement, moving closer together instinctively.

  “Whose idea was this? Let it speak now.”

  Morlenden said, “Mine, but only of late.”

  “There will be a price. Will you two agree to pay it?”

  Again they nodded. Pellandrey said, “The ritual is inappropriate for the circumstances. Therefore I do exercise that right which is mine by inheritance. So be the request of Morlenden Deren, let none here forget it until the end of time.”

  Mevlannen and Krisshantem looked at each other with shining faces. Pellandrey added, grimly, “Do not forget the price among the rejoicing of new-lovers, as I see you have become.” They turned back to him. “And my price is thus. Mevlannen, I lay a prohibition upon you for the peace of the people: you and all your descendants hereafter will be forbidden the Game, Outer and Inner. Krisshantem, you and all your descendants hereafter will make your dwelling place in the heart of th
e most dense habitation among us. When we build cities, there you shall go. And last I invoke a tradition, which may not be contravened, upon both of you. It has been the practice of the past that shartoorh do not know one another, or at the least, as little as possible. Thus henceforth you shall live separately until your fertility commences. This means one of you must leave the yos of the Derens. Now you know the weight of it. Decide.”

  Mevlannen spoke before any of them. “It will be me.”

  “Very well. . . . You were to give the matrix to Maellenkleth. Who has it?”

  “Morlenden Deren carries the matrix to Sanjirmil.”

  “So, then. You two will depart from this place to the common room. Never stand before this door again.”

  They lingered for a moment, as if trying to think of something to say, but nothing came; and at last they turned together, and, Mevlannen leading the way, made their way into one of the ascending corridors, fading into the dimness.

  Again the sound of the Ship returned to them. An odd silence, broken at intervals by distant, faint sounds of continuing construction; faint, unintelligible voices, hammering. Pellandrey waited, until he was sure that Mevlannen and Krisshantem had passed from hearing. Then he turned back to the massive hatch, saying to those remaining, “This is Prime. You might wish to say control room, or bridge, or perhaps quarterdeck, recalling the sailing ships of old. Within here is the Inner Game. Follow me.”

  He ducked and stepped over the high sill into it; Morlenden and Fellirian followed. Pellandrey closed and dogged down the hatch behind them.

  Morlenden and Fellirian stood quite still for a time, trying to relate what they saw to something they knew. They could see immediately that they were in a circular room, roofed by a low, broadly domed ceiling about two hundred feet across. The floor was an inverted, shallow truncated cone, descending to a central pit. They were on a wide ledge that circled the chamber.