“So now, you can go back up onto your stairs with all of your purple penguins and argue among yourselves for the next twenty years—or you can read what we wrote on your damned wall, and maybe you should make those same promises yourselves. And you can see for yourself what makes the bigger difference. Because if you dare to ask how you can trust us, then we have to ask the same question of you—how do we know we can trust you?”
That caught his attention.
“Trust has to come from both sides, Senior.” Da whispered in my ear. “We gave you our promises. What promises will you give us?” Quickly, I echoed his words.
“What promises do you want, child?”
I took a breath. My earpiece was silent. I could imagine Byrne and da arguing ferociously. Without waiting, I said, “We have one of your novices. His magistrate has died. We saved him from the sea of grass tonight. Will you take him back into the service of the Mother? Freely and without suspicion?” Without waiting for an answer, I turned and faced the chopper. “Sefan, come out!”
For the longest moment nothing happened, then Sefan appeared in the doorway. He came quickly down the steps and hurried across the lawn to me. “Do you want to go back to your people?”
Sefan bowed to The Senior then turned to me. “I would like to see Oerth . . . someday,” he admitted. “But I made a promise to serve the Mother here.” He turned back to The Senior. “May I return?”
The Senior hesitated. He looked from Sefan to me and back again. “I will not turn you away, novice. You may rejoin the others.”
“Wait.” I took off the collar I wore around my neck. “Take this. Wear it always.”
“Thank you, Kaer.” He fastened it on. “I’ll never forget you.” And then we both laughed at the understatement of that. And then he was gone, dashing across the grass to join the other novices on the stairs. The robe we’d given him flapped behind him.
I turned back to The Senior. “Now, will you promise no more harm to Oerth people?”
After a moment, he nodded, “I will promise that.”
“Thank you.” I pointed after Sefan. “How you treat him will show us how well we can trust you. We’ll know if anyone mistreats him.” I didn’t want to end on a sour note. I began pulling off my bracelets. “Here. I give you these as a gift. Take them as a sign of our good will. I don’t know what else to say or do. You have our promises. We have yours. I guess all we can do now is wait to see if either of us meant what we promised.”
The Senior took the bracelets. He held them in his hands uncertainly. Then, finally, reluctantly, he slipped them over his bony wrists. In return, he took off his own medallion of office. “Here, child. Take this as a sign of my good will.” He hung it over my head. “As you have said to me, I say the same to you. All we can do now is wait to see if either of us meant what we promised.”
“Thank you, Senior.” I bowed.
“Thank you, Kaer.” He returned my bow. Then he turned and walked back to the steps of his temple. Byrne and Beck came out of the chopper to get the tea things, the table, and the chairs. I ignored them, and they pretended to ignore me. I kept my gaze focused on The Senior and wondered if we hadn’t given him a greater burden than any man could carry.
Finally, as he began climbing the steps, I turned and headed slowly back to my golden chariot. I didn’t look forward to the discussion within.
Going Home
As soon as the door closed behind me, Da wrapped me in his arms and held me for a long time, while I cried into his chest. I could have stayed there forever, but as soon as the rotors started turning, he guided me to a seat and strapped me in.
Nobody said anything at all until we were off the ground and heading back toward the Hole. Da just put his arm around me and held me close and waved away Byrne when she tried to approach.
“I screwed it up, didn’t I?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I lost my temper. I didn’t follow the script. I threatened them. I forgot to be humble. I scared them. I—I screwed up.”
“I guess it feels that way to you.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better, da. You wanted me to be an Angel, and I started acting like a little tyrant—”
“Yep. You did.” And then he added, “But you also did what was wanted and needed. You didn’t break character, kiddo. And you didn’t say or do anything wrong. Everything you said and did was totally consistent. And even though you may not like the way you did it, the way you did it worked.”
“I know that! That’s why I’m so upset.” I turned in my seat to face him. “I turned into one of you.” I waved my hand to indicate everybody else in the chopper. “I was pretending that I wasn’t like that—that I was somehow better, because I was an Angel.”
“Sweetheart, every actor has that problem—believing in your part so much that you forget who you really are.”
“But I liked being an angel, da. I liked having people treat me like I was someone special, like I had magical powers. And I liked having the power to use—” I began wailing again.
Da patted me on my shoulder, waiting for my sobs to subside. He waited patiently. “You’ve just learned a very important and very ugly lesson, Kaer. Despite our better-than-human promises to ourselves, we’re still human. All of us. We lose our tempers. We make mistakes. We screw up. Things don’t work out the way we plan. We have all these noble goals and ideals and intentions—and when we get down onto the ground, we forget what we promised ourselves and we turn everything back into shit. But—”
I wiped my nose on my sleeve and looked up at him. “What?”
“You did say something very good down there.”
“What?”
“You gave him ‘bullshit’ speech. You know the one. Bullshit is lies, manipulations, rationalizations, explanations, all the stuff that we do to avoid responsibility. You gave him something to think about. Now, you think about it.”
“Huh?”
“Well, you told him that bullshit is everything we make up. Didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, didn’t you make up a lot of stuff? About being an Angel? That’s just as much bullshit as the stuff about Maizlish. Isn’t it?”
I let out all my air at once. I sagged, deflated. “Yes, it is. I’m such a jerk.”
“No, you’re not a jerk. You’re only human, Kaer. Just like all the rest of us. If it’s stupid to make up stories about people being demons, then it’s just as stupid to make up stories about people being Angels. In both cases, you’re just making up more bullshit. And bullshit always denies who we really are. We’re just human. And that should be good enough for anyone . . . if we’ll let it. Are you ready to be human again?”
“Yes, da.” And this time, I meant it.
“Good.” He hugged me close. “Want some tea? Salty as tears?”
I shook my head. “Can I have some chocolate instead?”
“Of course you can. And I’ll have some too.” He waved for Byrne—
Care
Not so very long ago, in the time after the time before time, an old woman lived in the sea of grass in a house of grass that she built with her own two hands. And she sang of the sun and the rain and the good dark earth. And the grass grew tall and strong around her.
In the days that she lived in the sea, the wind came to torment her many times. The wind threatened her with fire, stampeded her boffili, and even blew away her children.
One day, the wind blew off to the west, over the mountains to a faraway place called Oerth, and when it came back, it carried with it some of the children of Oerth. It dropped these lost children into the sea and danced off into the night.
But the Mother of the World recognized these lost children as her own—so she sat down to think. She thought for three days, and then she thought for three days more. And then she thought for three more days. And when she had finished thinking, she went out into the grass and gathered the youngest and the fairest stalks, she gathered stalks t
hat she knew would grow strong and stalks that she knew would grow sharp. And she wove herself a golden child. She blew into the nostrils of the golden child, and it inhaled deeply of her breath and came alive with a happy laugh.
She called this golden child Care. And she sent it out into the world. Care flew for many days and many nights. Care flew over the sea and looked down. Care saw the boffili and the emmos and the kacks. Care saw the birds and the animals and the people of the sea. And Care fell in love with the beauty of it all.
Care found the lost children of Oerth. Care found them living inside a mountain and on the top of a rock and at the bottom of a deep hole.
Then Care came back to the Mother of the World and said, “But as much beauty as I have seen, I’ve also seen sadness. You must tell your children to live happy.”
The Mother laughed and said, “You cannot tell children anything. Children never listen. But you can ask them to make a promise. If children truly love you, they will keep their promises. So, my little Care, you will fly over the world, and you will ask my children to make a promise to me. Ask them to promise to love each other. Ask them to promise to love their parents. Ask them to promise to love their children. Ask them to promise to love the land and the sea all the beasts and the birds that live therein. Ask them to promise to love their Mother. And those who strive to keep the promise, I will bless forever.”
And so Care flew out and spread the Mother’s news. And when all had heard the Mother’s word, Care flew away with the wind and no one ever saw the golden child again.
But some people had listened.
And some of those people believed.
And some of them made their promises.
And some of the people kept their promises.
And those that failed remade their promises and this time they kept them.
And all who had heard and all who had promised and all who had striven to keep their promises, lived forever in the Mother’s blessings.
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HARLIE is the first self-aware intelligence engine. But instead of answers, he has questions—too many questions, and most of his questions have no answers at all.
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Child of Grass: Sea of Grass, Book Two Page 33