—Where is your allotted place?—
He thought about this, knowing that the obvious answer was likely to be the incorrect one, but still one that needed to be tested. He answered.
—My place is here—
The mind contact was broken, as he suspected it would be. He knew that he was being trained, though the purpose of the training was masked from his mind. Now he could ponder the last question in light of his previous answers and perhaps ascertain the correct response.
That night he dreamed.
A strange man in a brown robe, tied with a whipcord belt, walked along the roadway. The man in brown turned and said, “Hurry up. We don’t have much time, and you can’t fall behind.”
He tried to move faster but found his feet were lead and his arms tied to his sides. The man in brown halted his brisk walk and said, “Very well, then. One thing at a time.”
He tried to speak and found his mouth refused to move. The man in brown stroked his beard thoughtfully, then said, “Consider this: you are the architect of your own imprisonment.”
He looked down and saw that his bare feet were upon a dusty road. He looked up, and the man in brown was again walking briskly away. He tried to follow and again couldn’t move. He awoke in a cold sweat.
Again he had been asked where his place was, and again his answer,— Where I am needed—was unsatisfactory. He toiled over another pointless task, driving nails into a thick sheet of wool, which let them fall through to the floor, where he picked them up and drove them through again.
His reconsideration of the last question he had been asked was interrupted when the door behind him opened, and his guide motioned for him to follow. They moved through long passages, winding their way up to the level where they would eat the scant morning meal.
When they entered the hall, the guide took a place by the door, while others in black robes similarly escorted the white-clad ones into the hall. This was the day that the young man’s guide would stand and watch the boys in white, who, along with the young man, were bound to eat in silence. Each day a different wearer of the black robe filled this function.
The young man ate and considered the last question of the morning. He weighed each possible answer, seeking out possible flaws, and as they were discovered, discarding them. Abruptly one answer came unbidden to his mind, an intuitive leap, as his subconscious provided him with a solution to the question. I am the architect of my own imprisonment. Several times in the past, when particularly knotty problems had stopped his progress, this had occurred, which accounted for his rapid advancement in his lessons. He weighed the possible flaws in this answer, and when he was certain he was correct, he stood. Other eyes regarded him furtively, for this was a violation of the rules.
He went over to stand before his guide, who regarded his approach with a controlled expression, his only sign of curiosity being a slight arching of his brows.
Without preamble the young man in white said, “This is no longer my place.”
The man in black showed no emotion, but placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder and nodded slightly. He reached inside his robe and removed a small bell, which he rang once. Another black-robed individual appeared moments later. Without word the newcomer took the place at the door, as the guide motioned for the young man to follow him.
They walked in silence as they had done many times before, until they came to a room. The man in black turned to the young man and said, “Open the door.”
The young man started to reach for the door, then with a flash of insight pulled his hand away. Knitting his brow in concentration, he opened the door by the power of his mind. Slowly it swung inward. The man in black turned and smiled. “Good,” he said, in a soft, pleasant voice.
They entered a room with many white, grey, and black robes hanging upon hooks. The man in black said, “Change to a grey robe.”
The young man did so quickly and faced the other man. The man in black studied the new wearer of the grey. “You are no longer bound to silence. Any question you may have will be answered, as well as is possible, though there are still things that will be waited upon, until you don the black. Then you will fully understand. Come.”
The young man in grey followed his guide to another room, where cushions surrounded a low table, upon which rested a pot of hot chocha, a pungent, bittersweet drink. The man in black poured two cups and handed one to the young man, indicating he should sit. They both sat, and the young man said, “Who am I?”
The man in black shrugged. “You will have to decide that, for only you can glean your true name. It is a name that must never be spoken to others, lest they gain power over you. Henceforward you will be called Milamber.”
The newly named Milamber thought for a moment, then said, “It will serve What are you called?”
“I am called Shimone.”
“Who are you?”
“Your guide, your teacher. Now you will have others, but it was given to me to be responsible for the first part of your training, the longest part.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Nearly four years.”
Milamber was surprised by this, for his memory stretched back only a little, several months at best. “When will my memories be returned to me?”
Shimone smiled, for he was pleased that Milamber had not asked if they would be returned, and said as much. “Your mind will call up your past life as you progress in the balance of your training, slowly at first, with more rapidity later. There is a reason for this. You must be able to withstand the lure of former ties, of family and nations, of friends and home. In your case that is particularly vital.”
“Why is that?”
“When your past returns to you, you will understand,” was all Shimone said, a smile on his face His hawkish features and dark eyes were set in an expression that communicated the feeling this was the end of that topic.
Milamber thought of several questions, quickly discarding them as of less immediate consequence. Finally he asked, “What would have happened if I had opened the door by hand?”
“You would have died.” Shimone said this flatly, without emotion.
Milamber was not surprised or shocked, he simply accepted it. “To what end?”
Shimone was a little surprised by the question and showed it. “We cannot rule each other, all we can do is ensure that each new magician is able to discharge the responsibility attendant upon his actions. You made the judgment that your place was no longer with those who wore the white, the novices. If that was not your place, then you would have to demonstrate your ability to deal with the responsibilities of this change. The bright but foolish ones often die at this stage.”
Milamber considered this and acknowledged the propriety of such a test. “How long will my training continue?”
Shimone made a noncommittal gesture. “As long as it takes. You rise rapidly, however, so I think it will not be too much longer in your case. You have certain natural gifts, and—you will understand this when your memory returns—a certain advantage over the other, younger, students who started with you.”
Milamber studied the contents of his cup. In the thin, dark fluid he seemed to glimpse a single word, as if seen from the corner of the eye, that vanished when he tried to focus upon it. He couldn’t hang on to it, but it had been a short name, a simple name.
That night he dreamed again.
The man in brown walked along the road, and this time Milamber could follow. “You see, there are few objective limits. What they teach you is useful, but never accept the proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it must be the only solution.”
The man in brown stopped. “Look at this,” he said, pointing to a flower beside the road Milamber leaned down to see what the man was pointing at. A small spider spun a web between two leaves. “That creature,” said the man in brown, “toils oblivious to our passing. Either of us could crush out its existence at whim. Consider this, then, if that cre
ature could somehow apprehend our existence, our threat to its life, would the spider worship us?”
“I don’t know,” Milamber answered “I don’t know how a spider thinks.”
The man in brown leaned upon his staff. “Considering how little humans think alike, it might be that this spider would react with fear, defiance, indifference, fatalism, or incredulity. Anything’s possible.” He reached out with his staff and gently caught a piece of spider silk on the wooden pole. Lifting the tiny arachnid, he transported it over to the opposite side of the road. “Do you think the creature knows that this is a different flower?”
“I don’t know.”
The man in brown smiled. “That is perhaps the wisest of all answers.”
Returning to his walk, he said, “You will be seeing many things soon, some of which will make little sense to you. When you do, remember one thing.”
“What is that?” asked Milamber.
“Things are not always what they seem. Remember the spider, who at this very moment may be offering prayers to me in thanks for its sudden bounty.” Pointing back with the staff at the plant, he said, “There are a great many more bugs on that one than the other.” Scratching at his beard he added, “I wonder: is the flower also offering prayers of thanks?”
He spent weeks in the company of Shimone and a few others. He knew more of his life, though only a fragment of what was missing. He had been a slave, and he had been discovered to have the power. He remembered a woman, and felt a faint tugging at the thought of her vaguely remembered image.
He was quick to learn. Each lesson was accomplished in a single day, or at most two. He would quickly dissect each problem given, and when it was time to discuss it with his teachers, his questions were to the point, well thought out, and proper.
One day he arose, in a newer but still simple cell, and emerged to find Shimone waiting for him. The black-robed magician said, “From this point on, you may not speak until you have finished the task set for you.”
Milamber nodded his understanding and followed his guide down the hall. The older magician led him through a series of long tunnels to a place in the building he had never been before. They mounted a long staircase, rising many stories above where they had started. Upward they climbed, until Shimone opened a door for him. Milamber preceded Shimone through the door and found himself upon an open flat roof, atop a high tower. From the center of the roof a single spire of stone rose. Skyward it shot, a needle of fashioned rock. Winding upward around it was a narrow stairway, carved into the side of the needle. Milamber’s eyes followed it until the top was lost in the clouds. He found the sight fascinating, for it seemed to violate several canons of physical law that he had studied. Still, it stood before him, and what was more, his guide was indicating that he should mount the steps.
He started upward. As he completed his first circumnavigation, he noted that Shimone had disappeared through the wooden door. Relieved of his presence, Milamber turned his gaze outward from the roof, drinking in the vista around him.
He was atop the highest tower of an immense city of towers. Everywhere he looked, hundreds of stone fingers pointed upward, strong structures with windows turning blind eyes outward. Some were open to the sky, as this one was; others were roofed in stone, or in shimmering lights. But of them all, this one alone was topped by a thin spire. Below the hundreds of towers, bridges arched through the sky, connecting them, and farther down could be seen the bulk of the single, incredible building that supported all he saw. It was a monster of construction. Sprawling below him, it stretched away for miles in every direction. He had known it would be a large place, from his travels within, but this knowledge did nothing to lessen his awe at the sight.
Still farther down, in the dim extreme of his vision, he could see the faint green of grass, a thin border edging the dark bulk of the building. On all sides he saw water, the once-glimpsed lake. In the distance he could make out the hazy suggestion of mountains, but unless he strained to see them, it was as if the entire world were arrayed below.
Plodding upward, he turned around the spire as he climbed. Each circle brought him a new detail of the vista. A single bird wheeled high above all else, ignorant of the affairs of men, its scarlet wings spread to catch the air as it watched with keen eye the lake below. Seeing a telltale flicker on the water, it folded back its wings and stooped, hitting the surface for the briefest moment before it climbed aloft once more, a flopping prize clutched in its talons. With a cry of victory it circled once, then sped westward.
A turn. A play of winds. Each carried suggestions of far and alien lands From the south a gust with a hint of hot jungles where slaves toiled to reclaim farmlands from deadly, water-shrouded marshes. From the east a breeze carried the victory chant of a dozen warriors of the Thuril Confederation, after defeating an equal number of Empire soldiers in a border clash. In counterpoint there was a faint echo of a dying Tsurani soldier, crying for his family. From the north came the smell of ice and the sound of the hooves of thousands of Thün pounding over the frozen tundra, heading south for warmer lands. From the west, the laughter of the young wife of a powerful noble teasing a half-terrified, half-aroused household guard into betraying her husband, away conducting business with a merchant in Tusan to the south. From the east, the smell of spices as merchants haggled in the market square in far Yankora. Again south, and the smell of salt from the Sea of Blood. North, and windswept ice fields that had never known the tread of human feet, but over which beings old and wise in ways unknown to men walked, seeking a sign in the heavens—one that never came. Each breeze brought a note and tone, a color and hue, a taste and fragrance. The texture of the world blew by, and he breathed deeply, savoring it.
A turn. From the steps below came a pulsing as the world beat with a life of its own. Upward through the island, through the building, through the tower, the spire, and his very body came the urgent yet eternal beating of the planet’s heart. He cast his eyes downward and saw deep caverns, the upper ones worked by slaves who harvested the few rare metals to be found, along with coal for heat and stone for building. Below these were other caverns, some natural, others the remnants of a lost city, overblown by dust that became soil as the ages passed. Here once dwelled creatures beyond his ability to imagine. Deeper still his vision plunged him, to a region of heat and light, where primeval forces contested Liquid rock, inflamed and glowing, pushed against its solid cousin, seeking a passage upward, mindlessly driven by nature. Deeper still, to a world of pure force, where lines of energy ran through the heart of the world.
A turn, and he stepped upon a small platform atop the spire. It was less than his own height in size on each side, an impossibly precarious perch. He stepped to the middle, overcoming a vertigo that tried to send him screaming over the edge. He employed every part of his ability and training to stand there, for he understood without being told that to fail here was to die.
He cleared his mind of fear and looked around at the scene before him, awed by the expanse of emptiness. Never before had he felt so truly isolated, so truly alone. Here he stood with nothing between him and whatever fate was allotted to him.
Below him stretched the world and above him an empty sky. The wind held a hint of moisture, and he saw dark clouds racing up from the south. The tower, or the needle upon it, swayed slightly, and he unconsciously shifted his weight to compensate.
Lightning flashed as the storm clouds rushed toward him, and thunder broke around his head. The very sound was enough to dislodge him from the small platform, and he was forced to delve deeper into his inner well of power, into that silent place known only as wal, and there he found the strength to resist the onslaught of the storm.
Winds buffeted him, slamming him toward the platform’s edge. He reeled and recovered, the darkling abyss below beckoning to him, inviting his fall. With a surge of will, he brushed aside the vertigo once again and set his mind to the task ahead.
In his mind a voice cried, —Now is the tim
e of testing. Upon this tower you must stand, and should your will falter, from it you will fall—
There was a momentary pause, then the voice cried once more, —Behold! Witness and understand how it was—
Blackness swept upward, and he was consumed.
For a time he floats, nameless and lost. A pinpoint of flickering consciousness, an unknown swimmer through a black and empty sea. Then a single note invades the void. It reverberates, a soundless sound, a sense-lacking intruder on the senses. —Without senses, how is there perception?— his mind asks. His mind! —I am!— he cries, and a million philosophies cry out in wonder. —If I am, then what is not me? —he wonders.
An echo replies, —You are that which you are, and not that which you are not—
—An unsatisfactory answer— he muses.
—Good— replies the echo.
—What is that note?— he asks.
—It is the touch of an old man’s sleep the moment before death—
—What is that note?—
—It is the color of winter—
—What is that note?—
—It is the sound of hope—
—What is that note?—
—It is the taste of love—
—What is that note?—
—It is an alarm to wake you—
He floats. Around him swim a billion billion stars. Great clusters drift by, ablaze with energy. In riots of color they spin, giant reds and blues, the smaller oranges and yellows, and the tiny reds and whites. The colorless and angry black ones drink in the storm of light around them, while others pulse out energies in an unknown spectrum, and a few twist the fabric of space and time, sending his vision swimming as he tries to fathom their passing. From each to each a line of force stretches, binding them all in a net of power. Back and forth along the strands of this web energy flows, pulsing with a life that is not life. The stars know as they fly by. They are aware of his presence, but acknowledge it not. He is too small for them to be concerned with. Around him stretches away the whole of the universe.
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