“I would not have let them sacrifice you.”
Cley smiled at this. “No, you would have fought for me. Your love is strong. You must have loved my father very much.”
Love was not a word used much by the People. Sopharndi wondered at Cley’s use of it. On the other hand, she had always struggled to name the feelings that kept her so attached to a child many would have given up. Love might be as good a word as any, she supposed.
“Your father was a good man, Cley.”
Cley’s father was Sharcif. He had been the tribe’s bard when Sopharndi met him. Underneath his easy charm, which had made him a popular bedfellow, called to a different dwelling every night, she had found a deep, thoughtful man. He had wooed her relentlessly but told her he would only come to her bed when she was ready for a child. He fathered a child with no one else, and, after fifteen years had passed since he first asked, Sopharndi had called him to her dwelling one night while she was in season. She had spent the previous three nights lying awake, unable to think about anything other than Sharcif, only her pride over his popularity preventing her calling him to her. When she finally gave in, they were together every night for nearly six weeks. She had just begun to show the first signs of pregnancy when she learned he had been killed by a pack of shuks while on a pilgrimage to Hell’s Teeth.
Cley nodded. Sopharndi looked in his eyes for the son she had never really had. She could see little of Sharcif in the frank, open expression on Cley’s face, but she could see nothing malicious or even slightly duplicitous either. The first songs didn’t just speak of the goodness, mercy, and grace of the Singer, or the coming of the Last Song; they also contained verses warning of charming demons who might try to lead the People astray, away from the path of righteousness. Unfortunately, the warnings were vague, and the fact that they had to scan a certain way—and rhyme—made even important messages open to interpretation.
Sometimes, Sopharndi wished the Singer had dealt with some matters by providing a list of instructions rather than songs full of metaphors and confusing allusions. She knew such thoughts were blasphemous, although she suspected others among the People felt the same way.
A few "demons" had been expelled through the traditional method of isolating the "possessed" person, tying them to a post in a dwelling set aside on the limits of the settlement, throwing in food and water once a day and leaving them there for a week. Sopharndi noted a pattern in these exorcisms. Demons seemed most likely to take over children who had recently entered adolescence but not yet taken their Journeys. Children at this point in their development were most likely to challenge authority - either that of their parents or their leaders. Sometimes, even certain songs. Sopharndi suspected a natural period of rebellion was at work, rather than a supernatural intervention. Considering those still possessed knew the next step in their cure would mean their heads being removed by the First, the week of isolation proved to be a completely effective cure in every case since Sopharndi had become First.
Sopharndi was direct. It was her way.
“Are you a demon?”
“No.” Again, that openness and calm. Although a demon would hardly have said yes.
“Are you my son?”
“I am.” Cley closed his eyes for a moment as if considering something, then opened them again. “And I am more.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but no words would come.
Then the Elders emerged from the dwelling and took up their positions at the edge of the circle. As always, it was Laak, the Leader, who spoke first.
She beckoned Cley. He stepped forward and stood opposite her, looking up into her age-lined face.
“What happened in the Parched Land, Cley?”
Cley spoke quietly and confidently. Sopharndi may not have been able to see her dead lover in their child’s face, but she could hear Sharcif’s musical tones in the cadence of Cley’s voice.
“I was attacked by a skimtail and badly wounded. I must have hit my head when I fell because I slept. When I slept, I dreamed. The Singer came to me in my dream. When I awoke, the skimtail ran from me. I was healed, I could understand, and I could speak.”
Gron stepped forward. “What did the Singer look like?”
Cley spread his hands in a gesture of confusion.
“I do not know. I dreamed of music. Then I started hearing it differently. The music was the same, but I heard the sounds as if they were words. It was the first time I had ever understood anything. She was Singing to me, and I understood. She told me the People had been chosen, of all the tribes, to hear the Last Song. She told me the Last Song was for all the tribes, but the People would learn to listen first, before singing to others.”
At this, Laak, Gron, and Host conferred again. Then Hesta spoke up.
“The tribes have been divided since the first songs. The last trading party which approached the Children never returned. The last time we tried to parlay with the Chosen, they impaled the heads of our messengers on spears and placed them on the other side of the river, facing the settlement. They are savages. They will not listen, and I will not put the people in danger by trying to make them.”
“In time, they will listen,” said Cley, simply. “But it begins with the People, it begins with every individual. It begins with you, Hesta, and you, Gron. It begins with you, Laak, and you, Sopharndi, my mother. We must all learn to listen to the Singer.”
Laak and the other Elders eyed each other uneasily. They had seen Cley’s demonstration of power, and his words were spoken with conviction, accompanied by the weight of prophecy. Although it had been countless generations since anyone had directly encountered the Singer, they were now confronted with an authority they could never have anticipated, and they did not dare challenge it.
“I must protect my tribe,” said Laak.
Seb nodded. “I offer no threat, Laak. You will continue to lead. But it is time for the People to truly become part of the song. Will you allow me to teach them, and you, how?”
Laak did not need to look at her fellow Elders. The return of Cley, and his transformation, was a miracle which would live on in the songs and stories of the People long after they were all dead and gone. Most the tribe had witnessed the miraculous change in Sopharndi’s witless son. Perhaps their god was taking a personal interest in them again, as was sung in the earliest songs. Or, perhaps, other forces were at work here. It was too early to say, but, as Leader, she certainly couldn’t be seen to be hostile to such a historic possibility.
“We will allow it,” she said.
Chapter 26
Seb woke the next morning in a state of disassociation. It was the first time he’d slept in years, and the experience reminded him of how strange unconsciousness was, once you were used to permanent wakefulness. He had "slept" during many of the nights he had spent on Innisfarne with Mee, but it wasn’t natural, necessary human sleep. He had simply trained himself to slow down his mental processes to a crawl while Mee slept beside him. He’d used the time to listen to music - the longer, classical pieces he’d heard in his youth, but never appreciated. He could replay anything he had ever heard at will. Beethoven’s late string quartets had become particular favorites. He had once spent an evening at Carnegie Hall half-listening to them, badly hungover. Now, he could recall the entire concert in its entirety, and had discovered complexities, hints, and numinous moments that never lost their luster.
This was different. Cley’s body—and mind—needed sleep. After finally surrendering to it, he awoke confused and scared. It was as if, in entering the Gyeuk Egg, he had opened himself up to two new worlds: the one his every sense told him was real, and that of Cley’s unconscious, which lent an extra, subtle credence to this artificially designed existence.
He opened his eyes in darkness, feeling off-kilter, finely poised, balanced between realities. His dreams had been full of Cley’s memories interspersed with his own - the most bizarre moment involving a gig he remembered in a New York club. He’d been taki
ng a synth solo when Scrappy—the band’s drummer—had suddenly introduced a half-time shuffle feel to the groove, which transformed the feel of the whole song in such an inspired, brilliant way that Seb had burst out laughing. He’d turned around to acknowledge Scrappy, only to find a small, bald, hard-skinned creature attacking the kit with claws, somehow managing to keep the groove going.
He woke dry-skinned, expecting to be drenched in sweat. He jumped out of bed, only to find he was lying on a hard floor, covered in animal skins. Outside, it was still mostly dark, the first hints of light only able to lend a kind of nightmarish substance to his unfamiliar surroundings.
He stumbled toward the nearest wall and put his hand on it. The wall, at least, was reassuringly solid, although when he scratched it, the hard-packed dirt easily flaked away. He looked down at his nails and saw the same three-fingered claw he’d seen on the creature that had replaced Scrappy in his dream. For a moment, he felt a shock as immediate as if he had been suddenly doused with ice-cold water, then his brain seemed to flip, and now it was the rest of the dream that was all wrong. Where had he been while he slept? Who were those tall creatures, their heads covered in fur? What about that terrible sound that had come from everywhere all at once? Why was the light constantly changing as if multiple suns were shining? It was unbearable.
He looked around him, his pupils dilating automatically, straining to see some reassuringly familiar details. He looked back at his sleeping place, saw his waterskin beside it. The earth walls were cool to his touch. He frowned at the chunk he’d gouged out of it. He looked again at his hands and saw his claws were still unsheathed. He relaxed, and they eased back into place.
He was Cley. Cley.
I am Seb.
Cley felt another part of him come to full wakefulness, and he swayed in confusion at the sensation.
“Pause.” The room darkened almost imperceptibly, and a tiny flying insect, just visible in a shaft of weak sunlight, slowed dramatically, its wings beginning to beat as slowly as if it had been suspended in treacle.
“Show Home.”
The doorway slid upward from the floor and Cley, without hesitation or a conscious decision to do so, stepped through it.
Seb looked at the familiar path leading to the ponds, heard the British birdsong that, along with the honking of horns and the unfamiliar European sirens of emergency vehicles, had formed the soundscape for the months he had spent in the city. Alongside the songs of the blackbird, thrush, starling, and robin, he heard the exotic screams of the parrots which had made the park their home, starting life as pets, then breeding in London’s royal parks for generations.
For a moment, he felt as incongruous as the exotic birds, part of his consciousness still insisting he was a small, strong, agile alien with three fingers ending in lethal claws.
He shook himself and looked away from the path toward the Royal Oak, the massive tree still fenced off as he remembered it from years ago. It was rumored to be nearly eight hundred years old, possibly the oldest oak tree in Britain. He walked closer, needing the solidity it represented, the link to his own planet and his own kind.
In the distance, he saw joggers and dog walkers, families picnicking, children throwing a frisbee. A game of five-a-side soccer had broken out about three hundred yards north, with a signpost providing one goalpost, a child’s stroller the other. Distant shouts were carried across the park by the light breeze.
Seb stood under the canopy of the huge oak and breathed deeply, letting the smells of an early British summer ground him still further.
Bok hadn’t been exaggerating. Seb had woken up feeling as much—if not more—Cley than Seb. He wondered if the designers of virtual reality games and entertainment on Earth were aware of the dangers inherent in making the virtual feel a little too real. His identity as Seb Varden had still been present but relegated to a small corner of his consciousness. Every single message being picked up by his senses, however tiny, told him the life he was living inside the Gyeuk Egg was real. He was going to have to be careful. Very careful.
He waited a few minutes, allowing the weight of association, memory, and history further ground him as he looked at the ancient oak. Then he headed down the path and watched Mee pass the gin bottle to the earlier version of himself. A sliver of memory brought back something she had said about the ducks in Richmond Park.
“Don’t throw bread,” she had warned, “they won’t touch it if it’s not artisan. And they’ll want to know its provenance. Posh twats, these ducks.”
He grinned at the memory.
“Resume,” he said.
Back in the dwelling, the insect continued its flight at normal speed. On the other side of the room, a shape stirred and sat up.
“Cley?” Sopharndi peered toward him in the gloom. He felt suddenly oppressed by the close confines of the small hut.
“I’m going for a walk.”
Before his mother could answer, he drew aside the animal skin at the doorway and walked out.
As Cley walked through the still sleeping settlement, nodding at the sentries, all of whom were too awed to do anything other than watch him pass, Seb established a mental routine to which he knew he would have to adhere rigidly if he were to retain his sanity. He knew now the danger of losing his identity was real, frighteningly so, and he was determined to avoid it. Bok’s dire warnings about others failing gave him fresh determination. He had to survive this, for Baiyaan’s sake. And, he reminded himself, for Mee.
At dawn, and at dusk, every day, he would pause this simulation and go back to Richmond Park. He would spend enough time there to feel completely himself again. He would not be lost.
He had the powers of the T’hn’uuth to keep him safe in the Gyeuk Egg, and he had Richmond Park to keep him sane. He tried to convince himself that he felt confident, and almost succeeded.
To the west of the settlement, past the fire pit and the meeting circle, the ground rose, at first in a shallow incline, then more steeply into an undulating forest which grew densely for many miles before thinning, then finally giving way to the westernmost border of the Parched Lands, where nothing but the blacktree grew.
Cley walked up the nearest hill, then shinnied quickly up the tallest tree he could find. Halfway up, he disturbed a family of yoiks, who shot squeaking from the hollows in the trunk where they nested at night. They looked like squirrels other than their oversized, nocturnal purple eyes and the prehensile tails they used to facilitate their speedy traversing of their habitats. Cley let them go, then shuffled out along one of the highest branches to look back at the settlement.
From his vantage point, it looked tiny. He guessed the People only numbered a few hundred at most, although, to Cley’s way of thinking, it contained his whole world. The dwellings were clustered closely together in the center. The Elders, the bards, and those with young families occupied the centermost dwellings. The next ring housed the bards, teachers, farmers, and fisherfolk. Hunters occupied the next ring of huts. There was a gap between the cluster of huts in the center and the ring of dwellings at the perimeter of the settlement. These were occupied by the warriors, the defenders of the People. Sentries made up of a mix of warriors and hunters watched from the perimeter day and night, each within sight of the next, all equipped with a hollowed craint horn, which would be blown in the event of an attack, or a sighting of a particularly bold pack of shuks.
To the north of his perch, the range of mountains known as Hell’s Teeth was clearly visible as the sun from the east rose, illuminating the jagged peaks which gave the range its name. Cley knew from the bards’ songs that another tribe—the Children— lived at the base of the mountains. He knew of only two other tribes within a few days’ walk; the Silent and the Chosen. Both lived to the north. The land of the Silent tribe bordered that of the Children, lying just to its west and—legend had it—the border was a constant source of disagreement and bloody conflict between them. Still further west, and south of the Children, a walk of more than
ten days would bring you to the border of the Chosen. Attempts had been made to trade with the Chosen, but, as no trader ever returned, it had been a long time since anyone had volunteered to make the trip.
It’s been carefully set up according to Fypp’s instructions, Seb reminded himself, wrenching himself away from Cley’s memories. Didn’t Mohammed unite warring factions when he brought them the message of Islam? Am I supposed to do the same here? Even as he thought it, he answered his own question. Taking a new religious message to disparate tribes would be the work of years. There was no way he could stay inside the Egg that long. Even if time outside the Egg was moving at a different rate, as Bok had promised. Even if only seconds had passed since he first entered the simulation. None of that mattered. If he risked staying in this simulation too long, it would be Cley, of the People, who would lead the religious movement. Seb Varden would be a bad dream he’d once had, no more. Until he died, of course, at which time Seb didn’t know if he would wake up back with his fellow T’hn’uuth, or Cley would wake up there in his stead. Two other possibilities presented themselves: insanity, or not waking up at all. Neither struck him as particularly desirable.
Whatever Seb was going to achieve in the Egg would have to be finished in months, not years.
Decision made, knowing his time here would be reasonably short, Cley/Seb felt a burst of optimism course through him.
The Unnamed Way (The World Walker Series Book 4) Page 15