Jez stood silently. Then she sighed. "I had to come today," she said. "I had to try, even though I doubted that I could reach you. Then, we met. Here on this rooftop. And I saw how you've changed. Your children, your Swallower, the sea animals. And for the first time I felt hope."
She leaned on the heavy chairback toward Zude. "What I don't understand is how you could experience such changes and still close yourself off from what you are so clearly being called to do."
"Jez, hear me." Zude's voice pleaded. "Understand me, if you can: I don't believe it. I just don't believe this is what I'm being called to do!"
And suddenly, as she uttered the last words, the I-Bear's words rolled into her head, turning themselves toward a different sun, taking on a new color, a firmer design.
"What you are proudest of you must destroy."
With a bitter bark of a laugh, Zude whirled toward the parapet. The more fool you, Adverb! she told herself in bewilderment. You thought you were proudest of the bailiwicks!
"Zude!" Jez's voice was anxious. "What is it?"
Zude pressed her palms hard against the ledge. "A little irony, Jezebel," she answered, "just a little irony."
She stood stock-still, a silhouette against a starry sky.
Jez approached the silhouette. She spoke gently, matter-of-factly. "Zude, in the past week you've visited four bailiwicks in four different regions."
Zude snapped her head toward the words, her eyes searching Jez's face.
"You've been trying to decide," Jez went on, "if the dying out of the whole human race warrants some change in peacekeeping practices. You've been thinking of closing down the bailiwicks, of setting free every habitante."
Zude's lips barely moved. "How do you know that?"
"Just tell me. It's true, isn't it?"
Starlight covered them both. Zude nodded slowly.
"Then," Jez whispered, "it's just one more step to . . ."
"I know, I know!" Zude spun away from the wall. "Jez, I don't know how you know what you know, but yes! Yes, I'm ready to free the habitantes, for lots of reasons, all of them good. But you're asking for far more than that!" She faced Jez, speaking faster. "Look. The whole species is about to ride out into oblivion. That's the only thing that most people understand. And when they realize that, they panic. They cling to familiar possessions, to the things that have always given them stability and security. They cling to their Kanshou!"
"No!"
Zude stared at her.
"You're selling us all short, Zude. You might have been right a century ago, even two decades ago! But we are a better race of beings now. Look what's happened to us! Look what we've had to learn! First the animals, then the men, and now our children! Look how it's all unfolded, like a magnificent illuminated manuscript! Like a proclamation, Zude, from the Universe Itself, telling us in no uncertain terms what we must now do!"
Jez held up both hands. "The Protocols! Zude, do you remember the Protocols?" She leaned on the chairback, reaching for Zude's eyes. "The Protocols distilled and intensified the issue of violence. They brought to a head the very thing we came here ultimately to understand! And what happened with the Protocols, Zude? There was no way out of that dilemma. It was clear that, in order to quell violence, we'd have to abrogate a basic human right. How could such a decision be made?"
She raised one hand. "The answer? Don't make it! Instead, turn your attention to something far more devastating that just coincidentally happens to be happening. Instead, turn your attention to the most important lesson we'll ever have the opportunity to learn. Instead, deal with the big possibility that there may be no more humans, violent or not, to be a part of whatever decision is made!"
She stood again in front of Zude at the parapet, her face flushed and animated.
"Zudie, people aren't looking for security anymore. We've learned too much about love and hate, about right and wrong, and about how fear has always fueled those dualities. We know that, whatever comes, it will have to be big and different, something equal to the big and different things facing us. I've seen it in people all over the world, Zude, that excitement about what could come. I've heard it in their voices, seen it in their eyes. In every satrapy, in every kitchen, by every dock, around every village fire, under every veil."
"Jez, Jez!" Zude shook her head helplessly. "You're not talking to the people I'm talking to."
"Of course not!" Jez exclaimed. "Of course not, Zude. You're the Magister, and I'm the Witch! We have different constituencies." She found Zude's eyes. "But I promise you, people are ready. Hundreds of millions of them."
Zude turned away from her.
Jez followed and stood behind her. Her voice was low, intense. "They're scared, yes. But ready. They know we're all about to step into a brand new episode in our evolution, and they need some guidance."
She leaned over the shoulder of the Kanshou uniform, looking outward with its wearer, her words brushing a unicorn earring.
"You can show us the way, Zude, you can give us a model for dealing with our fear." She felt Zude's head moving left and right. "You've got the power. Take the leadership now in this crucial moment of history, and we'll rally behind you in the blink of an eye, rejoicing as we go!"
"Jez. . ."
"We need a metaphor, Zudie, a symbolic action that states our desire to let go of fear."
Gently, she stepped in front of Zude's rigid figure. She captured the brown eyes, holding them with her own. "Zude, dissolving the Kanshoubu is that metaphor!"
Zude stood very still. She closed her eyes.
Heartbeats ticked by.
Zude spoke quietly. "I'll think about all this, but I'd be lying if I told you there's much hope." She closed her eyes again and shook her head.
No sounds came from the desert now. The silence was the stillness of the stars, in which all had been spoken.
Both women sighed -- Zude because she saw them floating rapidly apart on a widening sea of disparate perceptions, and Jez because she saw the two of them standing together facing a stone wall. If, at that moment, Zude had not been scrutinizing her big hands in an agony of distress, she might have sensed that her companion was trimming the sails of discourse to catch a different wind.
"I want us to relax a little," Jez was saying. She moved as if to slide her hand through Zude's arm and then caught herself abruptly and drew back.
"Here," Zude said quickly, holding out her hand.
Jez took it with a rueful smile. They fell into a leisurely walk, rhyming their steps as of old.
"You're not finished, are you?" Zude observed.
"Almost."
"I figured."
They strolled on, swinging their hands between them.
"You won't persuade me, Jezebel."
"I know that. The only person who can persuade you is you."
There was a long quiet in their strolling. Jez urged them toward the dome at the center of the roof. "Let me add one last thing, and then I'll say no more."
She stopped their progress and held Zude's eyes. "If you decide not to take this risk, then we'll all be the losers. I don't know if we'll ever have another chance to understand violence. Or who we are. Or what our proper function is as a part of this particular biosphere. We'll pack our tents and pass out of existence with our little whimper, like other species that were invited to do the job and ultimately also failed."
"You make it sound so cosmic."
"It is cosmic."
"But then Little Blue will be Paradise again," Zude mused. "Maybe better than before. The animals will return and take up where they left off, without the awful hazard of Homo sapiens breathing down their necks. And clouds and trees and oceans, Jez, they'll all rejoice with relief and gratitude, Hallelujah! they'll sing. Hallelujah, they're gone!"
Jez sank on the low wall that surrounded the dome, inviting Zude to sit beside her. "Maybe," she said. "Then a few million more years of evolution, and another species will emerge to be charged with the task of understanding ne
gativity and violence."
"Whoever they are," Zude said quietly, "I wish them well. They may not make it, either."
Jez nodded. "And so it will go, until the sun grows cold, and other galaxies are invited to host such experiments."
They sat without speaking for a long minute, Jez staring into the quiet desert, Zude worrying the gravel with the toe of one boot. Behind them, dim versions of casino noises bounced against the depaqued dome.
"Jez."
The name floated on the cooling air.
Jez looked up.
"You were right."
Jez cocked her head in query.
Zude searched for words. "What you used to say, that we are all just forms of energy, eternal and infinite." She paused. "Do you remember?"
"I remember, Zudie."
"Well, I know it now. And I know it's changed my understanding of death. I no longer fear it."
"Zude, that's it!"
"That's what?"
"That's what we both have to think about. Don't you see? The critical factor in having real presence is lack of fear. If all of us lost our fear of death, then violence would have no hold on us. And. . ."
"And we'd have no reason to keep the Kanshoubu," Zude finished, her eyes laughing. Then she sobered. "Jezebel, best beloved." She sought true words. "I don't know what my decision will be. We're left — the Magisters, the Webs, the Kitchen Tables, the Cabinets — we're all left trying to hold it together. . ."
Jez stopped her with the touch of her hand. "Hush, Zudie. We've said enough."
She rose, and drew Zude to her feet. They faced each other in the starlight. "We'll meet again. Either to observe the new human animal, or to watch us all fade away."
"I would like that, Jezebel."
"So would I."
Jez took the unicorn earring from her pocket and deliberately set it back in her own ear. Zude watched her.
Then Jez spoke in a limber voice, almost light and chatty. "Will you come and meet Dicken?"
"Of course."
"She's only a little bit in awe of you."
"As I am of her."
They nodded, and walked hand in hand to the drop shaft.
* * * * * * *
Much deeper into the Aztlán night, it was Magister Adverb who stood alone by the dome above the casino. She waved to the departing spoon with a dignity becoming her station. Then, walking slowly and carefully over the roof-garden, she retraced each movement of the evening's encounter and reheard each of the evening's words. When the Mat Rangers arrived near dawn, they thought they saw a tiny spot of light accompanying their Magister, alternately sitting on her shoulder and sweeping before her in what appeared to be an animated conversation.
9 - BURIAL BARQUE – [12088 C.E.]
By the mind the world is led.
Wisdom Of The Ancients
It was midafternoon of a calm sunny day on the brightly decorated deck of a large barque. The barque rocked gently on the swells of the ocean just off the Los Angeles coast, beyond the channel where the semi-deeps begin.
The barque was a recreational and ceremonial vessel of the Vigilancia's Sea-Shrieves, the N.T.S. Steinem. Over 35 meters long, she resembled an ancient trireme. She had been propelled by her fusion cells from Huerta Beach to the Channel Islands and from there by three tiers of long oars on each side of her hull. One hundred Vigilantes and more had labored at the oars on the final leg of the barque's journey to her appointed destination: theburial site of yet another burden of small bodies.
The satrapy's children preferred burial at sea above any other disposal of their bodies, for they said that in the depths of the Pacific where no one can see, the fish had returned, lovingly to consume their human shells. The Sea-Shrieves had rowed many such ceremonial voyages over the past six months and knew they would row many more.
On that day, seventeen small bodies would be consigned to the deeps. Regina's was one of them. The huge, high-railed forward deck was crowded with families and friends.
Magister Zella Terremoto Adverb was clad shoulder to ankle in the cobalt blue and silver cloak of the Vigilancia. To her right, Magister Flossie Yotoma Lutu was similarly cloaked, but in Femmedarme green and black. To Adverb's left, Bosca stood draped in her woodswarmth cape. Clustered in front of them were Kayita, Eva, Ria and Enrique. Surrounding them were aunts, uncles, cousins. Behind them, covering the after deck, a group of Vigilancia Oarswomen stood at parade rest.
Friends, parents, family members, learn-togethers, playmates, priestesses, shamans, ministers — all had just offered stories, images and expressions of love and loss. The barque drifted in a silence of memories, recent and short. Softly, an adult chorus hummed the minor intervals of the most haunting of the children's melodies, now famous the world over: the Song Of The Lumari.
With other parents and family members, Ria and Enrique stepped forward to balance the flower-laden wooden pallet that held Regina's body over the edge of the barque's railing. As the wordless song gathered power, the braces that secured the fulcrums of the seventeen rectangular frames were released, allowing those who guarded them to lift or lower their ends of the litters. The melody was crowned by a flood of sustained harmonies, and each survivor, in her or his own time, raised high the pallet’s end and felt its precious burden slip into the sea.
Ria waited until the music rode its way downward toward completion before she nodded to Enrique. She steadied the wooden frame while he stood on tiptoe and pushed up with his arms, giving over Regina's body to the waters below. When the last litter had been tipped, silence fell again upon the crowd, broken once by a cry, once by a loud enduring wail.
The tune rose once more, the whole assemblage chanting the strange Lumari syllables and calling out goodbyes. The melody repeated, again and again, as if the crowd could not let it go, as if it still held within it the voices of those who had first brought it to their ears. A zither player stood forward to solo and then to lead the singing. She was followed by other musicians of all levels of accomplishment on flutes, guitars, a horn, a harp, an accordion. A group of drummers kept the rhythms until they became aware that another musician waited her turn to play.
Zella Terremoto Adverb had thrown off her cloak and stood among the crowd, anticipating the song's next point of entry. When it approached, she shouldered a violin and began translating the melody into yet another language. The Magister played imperfectly but with scrupulous care, gaining a measure of aptitude and sureness as she moved into a repetition of the song.
Faintly, then more assertively, the ambience altered. The tune awakened and the tempo quickened. For a split second the musician faltered, her eyes wide with consternation and resistance. Then she rallied, raising the instrument high, playing to the heavens and to the sparkling ocean. Crowd voices united with their violinist; the notes became fuller; other instruments joined in.
As if buoyed by the wishes of the group, Magister Adverb modulated into a companion key and raised the tension and the complexity of her rendition. Her eyes were closed. Her body swayed with mingled rhythms. Voices and instruments followed her lead, blending with and supporting her escalating recital.
In the crowd, Magister Lutu was suddenly charged with an uneasy sense of the irregular. She stared at the performer. Without moving her eyes, she whispered to the woman beside her. "Bosca! In the name of All That's Given And Blessed, what is she doing?"
Bosca's eyes were alternately fixed on Zude's tour de force and upon a bank of thunderheads far beyond the barque. "I'm not sure, Magister," she breathed, "I'm not sure!"
Magister Adverb's hand hastened as never before over the fingerboard of her violin. She played with perfection and exhilaration, texturing the melody with mixed cadences and crafty embellishments. Another modulation. Another acceleration. The music drove inexorably to a fulfillment and its final measures, a paean to freedom and hope.
The barque exploded with jubilation and release, every voice enlivened, every heart aloft. The last full note of the Lumari tune
lingered, dying only when clouds, sky and sea carried it to realms beyond the ears of those who had launched its elegant flight.
The chaos of cheers and embraces hid the fact that the violinist staggered slightly before she was supported by two friends and guided to a resting place. "Bosca," she kept muttering to one of them as they wended their way through a grateful and astonished crowd, "Bosca, I didn't. . .something else, somebody else. . ."
"I know, I know," Bosca whispered back, still nodding to well-wishers. "I saw him. He was playing."
* * * * * * *
"Captain Maggie? Good." Flossie Yotoma Lutu spoke to her aide in Tripoli. A very British voice spoke back to her through the flatfield. "Yes," responded Yotoma, "yes, it was. . .it was fine. Maggie, I'm going to be delayed. Maybe by as much as six hours." She looked at her tacto-time. "Magister Adverb and I are arranging a three-way conference with Amah Magister Win. By secure channel holo hook-up from here at the Shrievalty Building. As soon as we can reach her. You shouldn't look for me before ten tomorrow morning, your time."
On the other side of her office, Zude could hear Yotoma as she and her aide continued to readjust schedules. She was back in her long cloak, standing motionless by the empty recessed wall panel that customarily housed her violin. Finally she lifted a case from beneath her cloak, opened it and removed the violin and its bow. She put them in their proper place on the display rack under the alcove's tiny spotlight, arranging their positions with slow delicate touches.
She studied the instrument. It seemed to rest happily and proudly from its recent exertion. It was old and even valuable. Certainly it carried precious memories. Nevertheless, it was a normal violin. It did not glow with enchanted light. There was no hint of sorcery or sortilege on its dark brown body. Its bow smelled only of resin, not of sulfur or of angel dust.
The Magister (Earthkeep) Page 17