Unbound

by Shawn Speakman

  “Why would you do that?” I didn’t bother to hide my skepticism.

  “Because if the College of Philosophy publishes this new thinking, it’ll show the League that we’re aligned with their credo.” He nodded. “They won’t feel any need to exercise oversight, to influence our opinions on topics that matter to them.”

  “If you win, huh?” I chuffed a laugh, spattering blood on his face. “You mean if I deliberately lose.”

  Darius said nothing, staring.

  “You really are afraid of the albino philosopher with bad bones, aren’t you,” I mocked.

  “You know what I think?” Darius spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I think you should leave the Grove.”

  “I make you that uncomfortable, do I?” I smiled. “Is it my skill at debate or my white skin that does it?”

  He finally took his lamp in hand, and stood. “You’re in an interesting position, aren’t you, Lour? A philosophical position. You get to decide how to act based what you feel is the greater good. I’ll be honest, I envy you.”

  He laughed and walked away. Other boots scuffed across the stone floors, retreating in the dark.

  I shook my head and immediately regretted it. My body screamed with every movement.

  When did philosophy get so dangerous? Damn me.

  * * * * *

  I could have taken the pulley lift to the cosmology tower observation dome. I was the only Grove resident I knew that had been granted the privilege. Savant Scalinou—sixty-year-old leader of the College of Cosmology—didn’t even take the lift. But I climbed the 998 steps anyway. Made my way with the cane I was now using. Took me an hour. Seemed right, especially since Scalinou had asked to see me. Though I always took the stairs, on account of our friendship. On account of respect.

  Still, every step was a moment of hell. My whole body seemed a bruise. And I’d wrapped several parts of my arms and legs where Darius and his mob had put some hurt into my bones. I had at least two more breaks, sure enough.

  I paused at the top of the stairs, winded. “We couldn’t have met in your chambers? It had to be in the middle of the night in the middle of the sky?”

  Scalinou stood beside his great skyglass, peering through the eyepiece. He laughed, his voice resonating through the long brass tube. Truth was, I loved this place. The slow, patient, thoughtful way of it. Anna and I had come here often to visit with Scalinou. Up here among the stars.

  When I had my wind back, I limped with my cane over to the desk he kept beside his sky tools. “You heard, then?”

  “You think you can win?” Scalinou said, still staring into his skyglass.

  It was the wrong question. And that’s why I’d been eager to keep this appointment. “Tell me what you know about the League?”

  Scalinou finally sat back from his perch, wearing a pinched brow. “You look like the last hell. What happened to you?”

  “I was born albino. And smart.” I hunched my shoulders, which hurt not a little. “Bad combination.”

  Scalinou made a noise of agreement in this throat. Then, he motioned me closer, and nodded toward the eyepiece of his great skyglass. An invitation. I leaned in and looked through the lens. I might hail from the College of Philosophy, but like any member of any Grove college, I had fundamental astronomy training. I was looking at an open stretch of sky where Pliny Soray—one of our planets—made her orbit.

  And it looked a bit odd.

  As I stood back, Scalinou was making a notation in his ledger. When he’d finished, he didn’t comment on Soray, instead he answered my question.

  “The League wants change. They want us to be more self-reliant. They want us spending less time looking to others for answers.” He arched his back, stretching from his endless hunch over his instruments.

  “When you say ‘others,’ you mean the gods, don’t you?” This little argument was getting big fast.

  “Maybe,” he said. “It’s a practical credo. Not bad for that. But the League does more than preach its unique philosophy. It’s organized into what they call jurshahs, comprised of four factions: history, commerce, politics, and justice and defense.”

  “Sounds like government,” I observed, already hating the League more.

  Scalinou had a faraway look in his eyes. “When they formed political and militant branches . . . that’s when things really changed. They’ve established garrisons in many cities. They sit on ruling councils. In many places they enforce the law—oftentimes, the very laws they’ve lobbied to establish.”

  “Sounds lovely.” I sat in an open chair across from Scalinou—my legs were aching.

  Scalinou gave a sour smile in the starlight. “It’s hard to argue against ideas of self-reliance, of education, of ending slums and porridge lines. Trouble is,” he took a deep breath, “once they gain a foothold somewhere on the basis of these ideas, they go further.”

  Recent news ran through my head. “They’ve passed laws in Recityv legalizing the killing of Sheason who employ their use of the Will . . . even when it’s to help others.”

  He nodded. “I was the only Savant that voted against a League chapter in Aubade Grove. I don’t blame the others. As I say, the League’s core ideas are good ones. But,” he looked down at his star ledger, “if we move past the trial period. If we install them as a part of what we do, as a means for keeping law . . . they’ll go further.”

  “Like beating up albino philosophers?”

  “I mean you and me,” Scalinou replied, eyeing my several bruises. “Think about the Grove’s five sciences. Astronomy, physics, and mathematics—those have practical value. But philosophy? Cosmology? We’ll be seen as impractical.”

  I listened to the silence that fell between us for several moments before answering. “Because we don’t add demonstrable value.”

  “Because we’re predicated on opinion, judgment, ideology, belief,” he added. “Funny that.”

  I laughed, seeing the immediate connection. “We’re too much like the League itself, needing others to take stock in our ideas.”

  Scalinou looked up toward an open pane of glass in the observation dome. “It’s not even about us, though. Think what will happen if they succeed in publishing this new philosophical position. If it comes from Aubade Grove of all places.”

  I sat, considering for the first time the repercussions. Our stories. The ones that had given us strength each time the Quiet had come into the east. They’d be challenged. Abandoned maybe. Our stories. The ones that led to ethics like giving kindness for kindness, mercy to balance justice. They’d be replaced with the League’s brand of ethics.

  “Damn me,” I said, shaking my head at the futility.

  “What?” Scalinou asked, as he poured us each a short glass of pomace brandy.

  “You’ve given me another good reason to try and win my little argument . . .”

  “But?” my old friend prompted, knowing me well enough to know there was more.

  “But Darius told me that he’d abandon the League chapter in Aubade Grove if he won.” I took my drink and quaffed the whole thing.

  “Was this before or after he beat the last hell out of you?” Scalinou showed his wry grin.

  “Oh I know. Little jackbird has no intention of keeping that promise.” I poured myself another glass and took a short pull. “Why did you want to see me, anyway?”

  Scalinou pointed up toward the open pane—the same one his skyglass was pointed at. “Pliny Soray might be teaching us something.”

  I followed my old friend’s gaze. “Can you dispense with the cosmologer’s analogies? My head hurts.”

  He chuckled warm and low. “Some change is beyond us. Like a planet that may be out of true. We can observe, record, speculate as to possible outcomes. But some change,” he looked down at me, “some change is directed. And the one thing I know you’re good at, Lour, is getting at why someone wants what they want. Why does the League want this change? Maybe if you find the answer to that, you’ll know how to win your litt
le argument.”

  And that was the right question: Why did the league want this change?

  “My argument’s feeling not so little anymore,” I said, finishing my brandy.

  “No,” Scalinou agreed, “quite possibly the most important philosophical debate in Grove history. And I can tell you this, even this argument pales in comparison to having the League here permanently directing philosophical thought.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him about the Velle or Anna.

  Scalinou rolled his shoulders, stretching. “How will you begin?”

  “It’s an argument about stories,” I said, thinking out loud. “About what can be learned or believed because of them. So I guess I’m headed to the annals.”

  * * * * *

  Each Grove college had its own annals—extensive records and libraries. After talking to Scalinou, I wasn’t sure winning my argument was the right thing for the greater good. Perhaps stories about the Bourne and the Quiet and the Veil could change. Should change. Perhaps losing them would cause no real harm. But something tugged at me every time I considered it. Maybe it was the idea that the League wanted to take some of our stories away. Reduce them to impotent fact.

  And then there was Anna.

  I could give her back her life. She deserved that. I did, too, by damn.

  Regardless, I meant to do a little reading. An ideological stance in this debate would lose. I needed practical story-proof. For that, I decided to search first the annals in the College of Physics. And it had been Scalinou’s planet, Pliny Soray, that had given me the idea. So it was only fair I drag the old cosmologer along. We probably looked a pair, two hunched old Grove-men puttering around the less frequented corners of the physics annals. We’d been at it for six days.

  “Don’t you think you’d have better luck with source documents on the old stories in your own college annals?” Scalinou asked. It was a protest against the many books we’d had to browse—physics researchers were copious publishers, and their annals were legion.

  I paused, standing up to take a break from the endless reading that we did right there in the aisles. “You familiar with the hypothesis of Continuity?”

  Scalinou looked up from the book in his hands. “You mean the existence of erymol, the omnipresent element? In and around everything, binding them all? The one that has failed twice in the Succession of Arguments? That Continuity?”

  I ignored the sarcasm. We were both tired and irritable. “Your planet seems to be moving off her course. While down here, fundamental changes—like those proposed by the College of Philosophy—are cropping up.”

  “You think they’re related?” Scalinou said with heavy skepticism.

  “I don’t know. But the concept of very different things bound together by something common got me thinking.” I tested my legs, which had gone numb from sitting, and carefully started to limp-pace with the help of my cane.

  “Ah, hells, you’re looking for the ‘science of belief,’” Scalinou tossed his book aside, a sure sign of his anger—he never tossed books.

  “More like the science of stories,” I corrected, and continued to pace, my legs tingling as they came fully awake. “I need to find anything we have that attempts to quantify or explain how a story affects mechanical systems—real things and how they behave. Gravity. Acoustics. If I can show that a story has a measurable relationship to the thing it describes, it would change our thinking on whether or not to rewrite the old stories, wouldn’t it. The Bourne. The Veil.”

  Scalinou stood, shook his own legs, then pushed past me.

  “Where you heading?” I asked.

  “Physicists don’t catalog anything not canonized.” He waved me to follow. “We’re in the wrong damn place.”

  He led us through two more floors of books, mumbling all the way. We paused at the top of another set of stairs, holding up lamps in the darkness—these levels weren’t kept lit. The smell of dust was thick, and we’d stirred a veritable storm of motes as we started into a clutter of randomly stacked volumes.

  After several moments, a sheering sound came muted through the blackness. We shared a look, and started toward it. Slowly, another light in the dark appeared, growing brighter as we approached.

  The sheering sound stopped.

  I gave Scalinou another look. He hunched his shoulders. On we went. After navigating two more aisles of piled books, we saw it. There on the floor, a lamp. Beside it, a book. And next to the book, pages cleanly shorn from the binding.

  I pushed past my friend and got down close, putting aside my cane. I read the preceding page to what had been torn out. “They’re removing anything that refers to the Bourne or the Quiet or the Veil.”

  I picked up a shorn page. It was from a book entitled, The Science of Absences: A Physicist’s Model for Pain and Loss. I read a bit:

  We should acknowledge that the pain resulting from a loved one’s death is quite possibly more than internal anguish. Mechanical systems may well be affected.

  “Look at this.” I held the page up to Scalinou, feeling close to understanding why the College of Philosophy—and the League—was pushing this new philosophical position.

  Hurried footfalls. A dark shape emerged from the shadows, a cudgel in hand. The figure struck Scalinou. My friend crumpled in a heap.

  The figure lunged at me, cudgel raised. I threw my lamp at my attacker and scrambled up the aisle, clawing my way to my feet. I grabbed a book lying atop another pile and turned, holding it up like a shield.

  The cudgel struck my finger. Hurt like every last hell. Broke, no doubt. Damn!

  I threw the book at the man. He batted it away as I grabbed another.

  I couldn’t tell who he was. His face below the eyes had been wrapped with a black scarf.

  “You can’t just rewrite history by removing a few pages,” I yelled, trying to buy some time. “Or change physical law.”

  “You really don’t understand, do you?” the man said.

  I’d had enough of this, by all my dead gods. “And I don’t think you have any idea who’d like to see your new philosophical position fail, or you might take a different view.” I pictured the Velle and shook my head.

  “There’s nothing you can do to win,” he said. “We’re just cleansing the annals of deviant thought.”

  “I see,” I replied, still backing away. “And do you realize you’ve just assaulted the Savant of Cosmology? I dare say you’ve put your whole supposition at risk on that alone.”

  The man chuckled, and rushed. I got a good hit on him with a voluminous book entitled, Governing Dynamics. But then he was on me. The cudgel came down again and again. I lost count before he got me good in the head, and I started to slide to oblivion.

  Damn me but philosophy is getting dangerous.

  * * * * *

  I spent the next few days with Anna, sleeping on the floor in her room. Seemed a safe place to be while I tried to heal up a bit. And after all the shenanigans lately, the slow way of things with someone who does little more than stare . . . well, it suited me fine. Beyond all that, I believed I’d found the only way I could win my argument with Darius. So, I was waiting. Waiting for the Velle to come ’round.

  On the evening of the third day, he stepped into the little room. I felt him before I saw him. Not frost or cold. Not heat. Not darkness. Not even anger. It was a subtle thing, because I was in Anna’s room. But I felt like I might never be happy again.

  The Velle had closed the door, and stood looking at me for many long moments. “You’re running out of time.”

  “I can’t win with rhetoric,” I said. “You must have known that before you asked me to do this thing. And it seems the League has removed any documented Grove thinking on the topics of the Bourne. So, I don’t have any precedents to cite.”

  The Velle said nothing. Waiting.

  “But I think I know how I can win.” I looked over at Anna.

  The Velle followed my gaze. “You want me to waken her. So you can have her sp
eak in the discourse theater.”

  I nodded. “Those that remember who she was before this,” I looked at her vacant eyes, “they know she doesn’t lie.”

  “They’ll claim her illness is playing her false.” The Velle looked back at me. “And I told you, waking her from her condition . . . there are risks.”

  I asked myself if Anna would want to live forever with her thousand-league stare. If she’d find some pain acceptable if she could be awake again.

  I hoped I was right.

  “Let me worry about Anna and the discourse theater,” I said.

  “Tomorrow,” the Velle replied. “Just before the argument begins. Near the northwest door to the theater.”

  Then he left, his face as indifferent as it had ever been.

  I turned and knelt before Anna, taking her hands in my own. Her eyes shifted in my direction. That was something, anyway. But she still held her distant gaze, as though she saw something far away, or a long time ago.

  “What did they do to you up there, my love? What happened?”

  Eight years.

  Silent gods, I missed her.

  * * * * *

  The philosophy discourse theater hummed with expectation. Hundreds had already taken their seats, waiting. In the twilight shadows of an inner courtyard, Anna and I sat on a granite bench beneath a stand of aspen trees. I held her hands—always a comfort to me.

  The hour had nearly arrived. Much longer and I’d be late to make my argument.

  Then that feeling came again. Long unhappiness. The heavy-flesh feeling when you lose empathy.

  The Velle came to stand in front of us. He gave me a steady look, as if weighing me. Then he turned to Anna. After watching her for a while, he reached up and took hold of an aspen limb. His chin dropped, his gaze focused. He raised a hand just a little.

  And Anna began to stir.

  Then shudder.

  Then she bent forward, sobbing, as the Velle lowered his hand. The aspen limb had darkened, dried and split, as if it had lain beneath a scorching sun a dozen years.