The trees ended an’ the wind got musclier’n’angrier, bringin’ not a sniff o’ smoke, no farmin’, no dung, no nothin’ ’cept fine, fine dust. Birds was rarer too in them sheer’n’scrubby slopes, jus’ buzzards surfin’ high. By evenin’ we got to a cluster of Old-Un buildings what Meronym said’d been a village for ’stron’mers what was priests o’ the Smart what read the stars. This village’d not been lived in since the Fall an’ no more des’late place I’d ever seen. No water nor soil an’ the night fell, oh, fangy’n’cold, so we dressed thick an’ lit a fire in an empty dwellin’. Flamelights danced with shadows round them unloved walls. I was anxin’ ’bout the summit next day, so in part to blind my mind, I asked Meronym if Abbess spoke true when she said the Hole World flies round the sun, or if the Men o’ Hilo was true sayin’ the sun flies round the Hole World.
Abbess is quite correct, answered Meronym.
Then the true true is diff’rent to the seemin’ true? said I.
Yay, an’ it usually is, I mem’ry Meronym sayin’, an’ that’s why true true is presher’n’rarer’n diamonds. By’n’by sleep hooded her, but my thinkin’s kept me awake till a silent woman came an’ sat by the fire, sneez-in’n’shiv’rin’ hushly. Her neckless o’ cowrie shells said she was a Honomu fisher, an’ if she’d o’ been living she’d o’ been joocesome no frettin’. Into the fire the woman uncurled her fingers, into the prettiest bronze’n’ruby petals, but she jus’ sighed lornsomer’n a bird in a box in a well, see, them flames cudn’t heat her up none. She’d got pebbles ’stead o’ eyeballs an’ I wondered if she was climbin’ Mauna Kea to let Old Georgie fin’ly put her soul to stony sleep. Dead folk hear livin’s thinkin’s, an’ that drowned fisher gazed at me with them pebbles, noddin’ yay, an’ she took out a pipe for comfort but I din’t ask for no skank. Long beats later I waked, the fire was dyin’ an’ the stoned Honomu’d taked her leave. No tracks that un left in the dust, but I smelt the smoke from her pipe for a beat or two. See, I thinked, Meronym knows a lot ’bout Smart an’ life but Valleysmen know more ’bout death.
Fourth dawn was a wind not o’ this world, nay, it warped that brutal’n’ringin’ light an’ hooped the horizon an’ ripped words out o’ your mouth an’ your body’s warmness thru your tarp’n’furs. Summit trail from the ’stron’mers’ village was busted’n’roded diresome, yay, great mouthfuls landslipped away an’ no leafs nor roots nor mosses even jus’ dry’n’freezed dust’n’grit what scratched our eyes like a crazed woman. Our Valleys boots was shredded by now, so Meronym gived us both a pair o’ Smart Prescient boots made o’ I din’t know what but whoah warm’n’soft’n’tuff they was so we could go on. Four–five miles later the ground flatted out so you din’t feel you was on a mountain no more, nay, more like an ant on a table, jus’ a flatness hangin’ in nothin’ b’tween worlds. Fin’ly near noon we rounded a bend an’ I gasped shocksome ’cos here was the ’closure, jus’ like Truman’d said it, tho’ its walls wasn’t as tall as a redwood, nay, more a spruce high. The track leaded straight to the steely gate, yay, but its unbusted walls weren’t so endless long, nay, you could o’ walked round it in a quarter of a mornin’. Now inside the ’closure on rising ground was the bowls o’ temples, yay, the eeriest Old-Un buildings in Ha-Why or Hole World, who knows? How could we get to ’em tho’? Meronym stroked that awesome gate an’ muttered, We’d need a dammit diresome flashbang to get these off their hinges, yay. Out o’ her gearbag tho’ she got not a flashbang, nay, but a Smart rope, like the Prescients bartered sumtimes, fine’n’light. Two stumps stuck up ’bove the steely gate, an’ she tried to lassoop one. The wind was craftier’n her aim, but I tried next an’ lassooped it first time, an’ up Old Georgie’s ’closure we scaled hand by hand by hand.
Inside that dreadsome place at the world’s top, yay, the wind hushed like a hurrycane’s clear eye. The sun was deaf’nin’ so high up, yay, it roared an’ time streamed from it. No paths there wasn’t inside the ’closure just a mil’yun boulders like in Truman Napes’s yarn, the bodies o’ the stoned’n’unsouled they was, an’ I wondered if Meronym or me or both’d be boulders by nightfall. Ten–twelve temples waited here’n’there, white’n’silv’ry an’ gold’n’bronze with squat bodies’n’round crowns an’ mostly windowless. The nearest un was jus’ a hun’erd paces away, an’ we set off for it first. I asked if this was where Old Uns worshiped their Smart.
Meronym spoke, marv’lin’ as much as me, they wasn’t temples, nay, but observ’trees what Old Uns used to study the planets’n’ moon’n’stars, an’ the space b’tween, to und’stand where ev’rythin’ begins an’ where ev’rythin’ ends. We stepped caref’ly b’tween them twisted rocks. Round one I seen crushed cowrie shells from Honomu way, an’ I knowed it was my visitor the night b’fore. The wind bringed my gran’pa’s voice whispin’ from the far-far … Judas. Eerie, yay, but shockin’, nay, ’cos ev’rythin’ in that place was eerie … Judas. I din’t tell Meronym.
———
How she got that observ’tree door open, I ain’t knowin’ so don’t mozzie me. A sort of umb’licky cord b’tween the door’s dusted ’n’rusty niche an’ her orison-egg worked in a beat or two. Now I was busy guardin’ us from the dwellers o’ that ’closure. My gran’pa’s whispin’s was now cussin’ half faces what dis’peared when you stared straight. A sharp hiss as the observ’tree door cracked open. Air guffed out stale’n’sour like it was breathed b’fore the Fall an’, yay, so it prob’ly was. In we stepped an’ what did we find?
Describin’ such Smart ain’t easy. Gear there was what we ain’t mem’ried on Ha-Why, so its names ain’t mem’ried neither, yay, almost nothin’ in there could I cogg. Shimm’rin’ floors, white walls ’n’roofs, one great chamber, round’n’sunk, filled by a mighty tube wider’n a man an’ longer’n five what Meronym named a radyo tel’scope what was, she said, the furthest-seein’ eye Old Uns ever made. Ev’rythin’ white’n’pure as Sonmi’s robes, yay, not one flea o’ dirt ’cept what we tromped in. Tables’n’chairs sat round waitin’ for sitters on balconies made o’ steel so our foots gonged. Even the Shipwoman was smacked wondersome by all this perfect Smart. She showed her orison ev’rythin’ we seed. The orison glowed’n’purred an’ windows came’n’went. It’s mem’ryin’ the place, ’splained Meronym, tho’ I din’t und’stand so good an’ I asked what that Smart egg was true-be-telled.
Meronym rested a beat an’ drank a mouth o’ brew from her flask. An orison is a brain an’ a window an’ it’s a mem’ry. Its brain lets you do things like unlock observ’tree doors what you jus’ seen. Its window lets you speak to other orisons in the far-far. Its mem’ry lets you see what orisons in the past seen’n’ heard, an’ keep what my orison sees’n’hears safe from f’gettin’.
Shamed to mem’ry Meronym o’ my sivvyin’ I was, yay, but if I din’t ask then I may not o’ got the chance ever, so I asked it, The shimm’rin’n’beautsome girl what I seen in this … orison b’fore … was she a mem’ry or a window?
Meronym hes’tated. Mem’ry.
I asked if the girl was livin’ still.
Nay, answered Meronym.
I asked, was she a Prescient?
She hes’tated, an’ said she wanted to tell me a hole true now, but that other Valleysmen’d not be ready for its hearin’. I vowed on Pa’s icon to say nothin’, nay, to no un. Very well. She was Sonmi, Zachry. Sonmi the freakbirthed human what your ancestors b’liefed was your god.
Sonmi was a human like you’n’me? I’d never thinked so nor’d Abbess ever speaked such loonsomeness, nay. Sonmi’d been birthed by a god o’ Smart named Darwin, that’s what we b’liefed. Did Meronym b’lief this Sonmi’d lived on Prescience I or on Big I?
She was borned’n’died hun’erds o’ years ago ’cross the ocean west-nor’westly, so Meronym speaked, on a pen’sula all deadlanded now but its old-time name was Nea So Copros an’ its ancient one Korea. A short’n’judased life Sonmi had, an’ only after she’d died did she find say-so over pureblood
s’nfreakbirths’ thinkin’s.
All this shockin’ newness buzzed’n’busted my brain an’ I din’t know what to b’lief. I asked what Sonmi’s mem’ry was doin’ in Meronym’s orison hun’erds o’ years after.
Now I seen Meronym was sorryin’ she’d beginned, yay. Sonmi was killed by Old-Un chiefs what feared her, but b’fore she died she spoke to an orison ’bout her acts’n’deedin’s. I’d got her mem’ry in my orison ’cos I was studyin’ her brief life, to und’stand you Valleysmen better.
That’s why that girl’d haunted me so. I seen a sort o’ Smart ghost?
Meronym yayed. Zachry, we got many buildin’s to visit b’fore nighfall.
Now as we were crossin’ the ’closure to the second observ’tree, the boulders began speakin’. Oh, you was right ’bout the dammit Prescients first time, Bro Zachry! She’s fuggin’ your b’liefs’n’all up’ndown’n’in’n’out! I clamped my ears, but yay, them voices went thru these hands. This woman only saved Catkin’s life to cloudy your thinkin’ with debt’n’honor! Crampsome was them stones’ shapes’n’words. I clamped my jaw shut to stop me answerin’. She’s scavvin’n’sivvyin’ Big Isle Smart what truesome b’longs to Valleysmen! Grit devils got under my eyelids. Your pa’d not let no lyin’ offlander worm into his trust, bro, nor use him as a pack mule! Them words was so true I cudn’t argue back none, an’ I stumbled painsome.
Meronym steadied me. I din’t ’fess the boulders was yibber-stinkin’ her, but she seen sumthin’ weren’t right. The air up here is thin’n’watery, she speaked, an’ your brain’ll get diresome hungry an’ make this wyrd place wyrdsomer.
We got to the second buildin’ an’ I slumped droozy while the Prescient worked the door open. Oh, that hollerin’ sun hollowed my head. She’s a sly un, no frettin’, Zachry! Truman Napes Third was perched on his boulder. Meronym’d not even heard him. You b’lief her or your own kin? he called me, mournsome. Are your truths jus’ “thin’n’watery air”? Am I? Oh, I was reliefed the next beat when the observ’tree door open. Them ghosts’n’their spikery truths cudn’t follow us inside, see, I s’pose the Smart kept ’em out.
So it went all aft’noon long, yay. Most o’ the observ’trees was much like the first. The Prescient opened up, ’splored the place with her orison, an’ mostly forgot I was there. Me, I just sat an’ breathed that Smart air till she was done. But stompin’ b’tween buildin’s, twisted boulders chorused me, Judas! an’ Pack mule! an’ Ship slave! Ghosts o’ Valleysmen pleaded me thru unpartin’ frostbited lips, yay, She ain’t your tribe! Ain’t even your color! an’ then’n’there, oh, frightsome sense they made, I ’fess it here’n’now.
S’picion rotted me.
No Prescient’d ever been straight with no Valleysman, an’ that day I knowed Meronym was no diff’rent. The boulders’d changed the blue sky to anxin’n’flinty gray by the last buildin’. Meronym teached me it weren’t no observ’tree but a gen’rator what made a Smart magic named ’lectric what worked the hole place like a heart works the body. She was whoahin’ at the machines’n’all, but I was jus’ feelin’ stoopit’n’judased for bein’ blinded by the Shipwoman since she’d come elbowin’ into my dwellin’. I din’t know what to do nor how to stop her plans, but Georgie’d got his plans, cuss him.
This gen’rator’s innards was diff’rent from other buildin’s. The Prescient woman glowed with fass’nation as we stepped into the echoey chambers, but I din’t. See, I knowed we wasn’t alone in there. Shipwoman din’t b’lief me, o’ course, but in the biggest space where a mighty iron heart stood silent was a sort o’ throne s’rounded by tables o’ littl’ windows an’ numbers’n’all, an’ on this throne was a died Old-Un priest slumpin’ under an arched window. The Prescient swallowed hard an’ peered close. A chief stron’mer, I reck’n, she spoke hushly, he must o’ soosided here when the Fall came, an’ the sealed air’s saved his body from rottin’. A priest-king not a chief, I reck’ned, in such a wondersome palace. She got to work mem’ryin’ ev’ry inch o’ that doomin’ place on her orison while I ’proached nearer that priest-king from the world o’ perfect Civ’lize. His hair straggled an’ his nails was hooky an’ the years’d shrunk’n’sagged his face some sure, but his Smart sky clothes was spiff’n’fine, sapphires pierced his ear, an’ he mem’ried me of Unc’ Bees, same hoggy nose, yay.
List’n to me, Valleysman, the soosided priest-king spoke, yay, list’n. We Old Uns was sick with Smart an’ the Fall was our cure. The Prescient don’t know she’s sick, but, oh, real sick she is. Thru that arch o’ glass waves o’ snow was tossin’n’turnin’ an’ drownin’ the sun. Put her to sleep, Zachry, or she’n’her kind’ll bring all their offland sick to your beautsome Valleys. I’ll minder her soul well in this place, never fear. The Shipwoman was movin’ ’bout with her orison, hummin’ a Prescient babbybie what she’d teached Catkin’n’Sussy Tick-tockin’ was my thinkin’. Wasn’t killin’ her barb’ric’n’savage?
Ain’t no right or wrong, the ’stron’mer king teached me, jus’ protectin’ your tribe or judasin’ your tribe, yay, jus’ a strong will or a weak un. Kill her, bro. She ain’t no god, she’s only blood’n’tubes.
I said I cudn’t, the yibber’d tag me murderer an’ Abbess’d call a gath’rin’ what’d exile me from the Valleys.
Oh, think, Zachry, the king micked me. Think! How’ll the yibber know? Yibber’ll say, “That knowed-all offlander ignored our yarns’n’ways an’ went trespyin’ up Mauna Kea an’ brave Zachry went ’long to try’n’minder her, but it turned out she weren’t so Smart what she thinked.”
Beats passed. All right, I answered fin’ly’n’grim, I’ll spiker her when we step outside. The priest-king smiled, pleased, an’ din’t speak no more. Fin’ly my victim howzitted me. Fine, said I, tho’ I were nervy, see, the biggest thing I ever killed was goats an’ now I’d vowed to kill a Prescient human. She said we should set off ’cos she din’t want to get stranded in no blizzard up here an’ leaded us back out the gen’rator.
Outside, the boulders’d falled silent in the ankle-snow. One snowstorm’d gone but another, bigger un was comin’ so I reck’ned.
We walked t’ward the steely gate, her in front, me grippin’ Jonas’s spiker an’ testin’ its sharp on my thumb.
Do it now! say-soed ev’ry murd’rous stone on Mauna Kea.
Nothin’ to be gained by dillyin’, nay. Hushly I aimed at the top o’ the Prescient’s neck, an’ Sonmi have mercy on my soul, I thrust that sharky point home as hard as I could.
Nay, I din’t murder her, see in a split-beat b’tween aimin’ an’ thrustin’, Sonmi had mercy on my soul, yay, she changed my aim an’ that spiker went flyin’ high over that steely gate. Meronym din’t even cogg she’d nearly had her skull skewered, but I cogged sure ’nuff I’d been magicked by the devil o’ Mauna Kea, yay, we all know his name, cuss him.
You see sumthin’ up there? asked Meronym, after my spiker.
Yay, I lied, but it weren’t no un, nay, it was jus’ the tricks o’ this place.
We’re leavin’, she said, we’re leavin’ now.
Old Georgie was outwitted, see, there weren’t no means I could kill her quicksharp without my spiker, but he’d not jus’ lay down an’ watch my vic’try, nay, I knowed that slywise buggah of old.
As I climbed up the rope with the gearbag, Mauna Kea took a lungsome breath an’ howled giddyin’ snow so I cudn’t see the ground clearly an’ ten winds tore our faces an’ my fingers was stiff with cold an’ halfway up I slid halfway down an’ that rope burned my hands but fin’ly I hauled myself up top an’ bringed up the gearbag with my painful stingin’n’raw palms. Meronym weren’t so fast, but she weren’t far from the top o’ the wall when suddenwise time stopped.
Time stopped, yay, you heard right. For Hole World ’cept me an’ a certain cunnin’ devil, yay, you know which un came swagg’rin’ along the wall, time was jus’ … stopped.
Snowflakes hanged specklin’ the air. Old Georgie swished ’em aside. I tried
reas’nin’ with you, Zachry, you stubbornsome boy, now I got to use warnin’s an’ augurin’s an’ say-so. Get out your blade an’ cut this rope thru. His foot touched the rope what was holdin’ time-freezed Meronym. Worn face screwed ’gainst the blizzard it was, an’ her muscles strainin’ to climb that rope. Twenty feet o’ nothin’ below. Her fall may not kill her when I let time flow again, Old Georgie seen my thinkin’, but them rocks b’low’ll bust her spine’n’legs an’ she’ll not s’vive the night. I’ll let her consider her follyin’s.
I asked him why he din’t jus’ kill Meronym himself.
Why-why-why? Old Georgie micked. I want you to do it, an’ here’s why-why-why. See, if you don’t cut that rope, inside o’ three moons your dearsome fam’ly be dead, I vow it! I vow it. So you got a choosin’. On one side you got Brave Ma, Strong Sussy, Bright Jonas, Sweet Catkin, all dead. Cowardy Zachry’ll live on an’ regret’ll flay him till his dyin’ day. On th’ other side you got jus’ one dead offlander no un’ll miss. Four you love ’gainst one you don’t. I may even magick Adam back from Kona.
No bolt-hole out o’ this. Meronym had to die.
Yay, no bolt-hole, boy. I’m countin’ to five …
I got my blade. A seed sprouted thru the crust o’ my mem’ry, an’ that seed was a word Georgie’d speaked jus’ then, augurin’.
Quicksharp I chucked my blade down after my spiker an’ looked that devil in his terrorsome eyes. He’d got the s’prised curio, an’ his dyin’ smile’d got a bucket o’ dark meanin’s. I spat at him, but my spit boom’ranged back on me. Why? Was I crazed’n’loonin’?
Old Georgie’d made a diresome mistake, see, he’d mem’ried me o’ my augurin’s from my Dreamin’ Night. Hands are burnin’, let that rope be not cut. My decidin’ was settled, see, my hands was burnin’, so this was that rope Sonmi’d say-soed me not to cut.
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