by Nicholas Lim
“Her car is parked at the south jetty,” Skyler said, his voice brittle with authority. “Her friend’s still there... Cherry? Please bring her down here.”
Rayan nodded and set off towards the beach. Garrett wondered at the command in Skyler’s voice. It reminded her of his father.
“While we’re waiting, let me show you some more of our home.”
They walked together down into the valley. The footpath they were on joined with another that led down from the cliff top facing the sea. On the forested slopes Garrett could see yellow tracks connecting separate clusters of buildings. Skyler pointed out buildings, crops, the irrigation system. He stopped by a clearing planted with saplings.
“Our newest orchard. I helped the planting two years ago. It’s a good spot. These trees are naturally deep rooting and suit this light, sandy soil. We used Arshu’s system of Invisible Sympathies.”
Garrett remembered Boorman’s description of an argument among the vegetables, over delivering food – for a man who had tried to leave. A prisoner, with his family. What was his name? Sikanda? Yes.
Who’s Sikanda? Garrett stopped herself from speaking. What had Prenderville said? Wait. Be patient.
“And here’s where we process waste.” He pointed to a series of stepped water tanks. “The water comes from our stream, the river Nadis. We use sand filters and reed beds. The reeds we find particularly effective. They oxygenate micro-organisms in the gravel: basically they help the system breathe.”
“To support denitrification.”
“Exactly. It’s a purification process.” Skyler began to wave his hands. “Outside this valley, the way our species pollutes its home is a kind of madness. Arshu believes our Earth Mother is sick, that she has been poisoned by primitive tribes competing to satisfy endless cravings. He accepts that we are the disease – we are responsible.”
As they walked he continued to move his hands.
“Here we set an example. We understand the land mirrors us, so we begin with ourselves, making the cure within by purifying our minds.” He made the strange cupping gesture again. “First we subdue desire. Then by cleansing and transcending ego, we resolve all principles and difference into one truth.”
“What truth is that?”
“We are Asari first and last. Can you see the power in that Christine?”
Garrett felt a faint breeze rummage around her ears and ankles. She frowned. “I – I’m not sure I do. I am a woman, daughter, sister, mother, English, European–”
“See? See the Maya? The fog of ego and illusion in your labels?”
He turned away. She wondered if she had offended him. As she caught up with him, she noticed his posture was better than she remembered. He held himself up straight, taller.
“We have dissolved those ancient problems. We have but one identity.”
The words of her incomplete thought continued to burst inside her, silent, protesting. In my time I’ve been Christian, non-believer, progressive, conservative. At the moment I have good health, the right to vote, opportunities as a medical researcher, responsibilities as a doctor…
Whitman’s line came back to her then, an adamant echo, as she followed Skyler down into the valley. I contain multitudes. She remembered how his ending words had comforted her these past years. Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. She was with him at last, close enough to reach out and touch. Why did he seem a world away?
In all your travels, haven’t you seen it Jason? We are all different, and not just different as tribes – we are each different differently. If it’s cosmic glory you’re after it’s all around you.
“We have learned that truly to live, one must first die to oneself and be reborn.”
He pointed down the track where it climbed towards the end of the Valley. He stared as if looking straight through his hand. “We believe this world is but a shadow cast by the Ideal, this life but a path-house on the eternal Journey of a Soul.”
On the other side of the valley Garrett could see a segmented domed roof poking out of the earth like a half-buried egg. Behind it a thickened pole rose up into the air, silvered and topped by a small cowl.
What had he called it? The Path House of Health. Her eyes strayed back to the needling silver chimney. What was that? Her patterning mind reached for connection and shied.
They approached the head of the valley. The wide slope of a hill rose above them. Its tilted face of rock and scrub vegetation was dominated by three oval features: two large elliptical pools – small lakes – side-by-side, halfway up the hillside; and set above them, centred high on the grey-browed summit, what looked at first glance like the ruins of a small amphitheatre.
“What is that?” Garrett pointed upward.
“You have arrived at the place of faith. Where all paths start and end. Come. I’ll show you.”
They crossed a wooden bridge above a weir curved like a smile. As she walked Garrett studied the formations above her. She traced the silver course of the stream down from the wooded summit. It foamed in short falls and trickled through stands of dark pine trees to reach the two mirror-still pools. Fringed with reeds, their calm surfaces reflected the blue of the sky. A memory of Jimmy the Suit staring at the sea came to her, together with old lines he would have recognised. If I were called in to construct a religion I would make use of water... where any-angled light would congregate endlessly.
Skyler reached the pools and continued on up along a narrow ridge of broken shales separating the waters. He reached the third and highest oval feature and stopped beside an entrance ramp.
The structure was larger and flatter than Garrett had guessed. It reminded her of an excavated Greek theatre. A wide oval depression formed a shallow basin perhaps a few hundred yards across, paved with white stone unblemished as the corneas of a child. In the centre was a pattern of sunken channels – like a giant labyrinth – dug into the ground, perfectly circular in outline, enclosing a central hole. Like an iris around a pupil, Garrett thought.
“What we teach cannot be learned through a lecture. It must be experienced, sitting alone, listening alone, thinking of nothing, in right meditation, beginning always with the breath. In entering this Valley, you have taken the first step on that journey. And this is the second.”
Skyler stretched out his arms.
“Welcome to the Eye of Faith.”
He led the way down the ramp. When Garrett reached the bottom her left arm bumped the side wall near her elbow. The pain brightened and faded.
Skyler did not notice her stop. He walked clockwise around the oval perimeter across open ground paved in cut blocks of unpolished marble, sandy underfoot. Set at regular intervals in the outer ashlar walls were stone shelves filled with old, melted wax, and doorways, opening onto bare cells.
“Prayer bays.”
Skyler’s words echoed off the dressed masonry surfaces, reinforcing their cloistered seclusion. He glanced up at the sun. “I observe the Prime Hours. I will need to pray again soon.”
Garrett stopped at a large mosaic design laid into the marble pavement. Hundreds of small gold tiles formed the shape of an eight-spoked wheel. It was large as a man spread-eagled.
“The eightfold noble path,” Skyler’s raised voice was patient. He waited for her at the next mosaic, a Chi Rho, Roman in style, depicted in red, orange and yellow sandstone.
Dark radial lines ran from each mosaic towards the central circle. A many-rayed eye. Surrounded by faith signs. Garrett blinked. The Asari logo.
“This place is sacred to us.”
“It feels like a monastery.”
Skyler smiled with approval.
“It is the hub of our community. Some of our greatest achievements occur here. Now you must make a decision: where you wish to walk in from – where your faith starts.” When Garrett looked puzzled he pointed down at the Chi Rho and added, “Perhaps here?”
“I haven't been to Mass since your father died.”
S
kyler looked annoyed, as if she had gone off-script. He considered her for a long while.
“Science. That’s your only religion now isn’t it?”
“Science can’t fairly be described as a religion.”
“No?”
“No,” Garrett said, almost offended. She wondered how he was able to irritate her so quickly. “It rejects knowledge without evidence.”
Skyler walked around the Chi Rho mosaic. He swung his hands in sharp cutting strokes as he spoke. “Your science offers nothing permanent, nothing eternal. No being, no person, no central absolute truth. It is forever explaining God’s jokes, and then feeling resentful at being less popular.”
Garrett tried to ignore the sneer in his voice. “To require facts–”
“Take reality too seriously,” Skyler interrupted, “and you don’t see the illusion. To be enlightened is to understand the true nature of this material world: Maya.”
Garrett made an effort to summon her patience, as she had endlessly when he had been a child, “Science simply asks, if you wish to claim something is true, to show why.”
“Ah Christine, you have all the answers don’t you? You think you have lost your faith and found your reason. Don’t you understand reason requires an act of faith too? In logic and relevance?” He was sneering again. “You have a long way to go.” He shook his head. “Though I will say, it is on a road many still have a distance to travel with you. No matter.” He recovered himself. “Just follow me.”
He began walking along the radial line away from the Chi Rho. He spoke over his shoulder. “We have outgrown him too but Christ is as good a starting point as any. He was a true teacher of his time. The important thing is to recognise the truth – you know what that is, don’t you?”
The bracing motto of the Royal Society, borrowed from Horace's retiring gladiator, ran through Garrett’s mind. Nullius in verba. “Take nobody's word for it.”
“Verified fact,” she suggested.
Skyler laughed. “No. There are three sources of truth: scripture, personal witness and true teachings. The last is the strongest, but there are believed to be only three true teachers alive, and only one of those is known to us.”
“Arshu.”
“Yes. We are blessed. We receive at least one true teaching every year from him.”
“How do you know the other two teachers exist?”
“Arshu has told us. One, his own teacher, he will not speak of. The other is the Laughing Master, an adept with a rare gift. He has been in seclusion on a hidden Pacific Island for the last eighty years, with twenty chosen disciples. No-one else will meet him now before his passing on.”
“Why is he called the Laughing Master?”
Skyler smiled. “Have you ever looked between your thoughts, into the place you find yourself and your not-self?” Garrett waited. “There you can also find where a laugh starts.”
Garrett stared, puzzled.
“It’s the opposite place from where a thought ends. Both are difficult mental journeys. The Laughing Master has made them and chosen to dwell where all laughter starts.”
“It sounds a bit premeditated. I thought surprise–”
“Or maybe postmeditated!” Skyler said, delighted. He stopped.
They had reached the edge of the central maze. At opposite points along the circular perimeter, sets of stone steps were cut in the earth. They led down into the dense network of sunken corridors. Garrett could see candles stacked on stone ledges at the foot of the nearest steps. She looked across the narrow passages as they converged in spirals towards the centre. She remembered the prayer labyrinth beneath the picture of the Harrowing in St Andrew’s Church. This one was far more complex.
“There are only two entrances that will lead to the centre. We believe the ways to reach Enlightenment are varied – the paths of the Warrior, Farmer, Scientist, Scholar – but the first and most significant fork in the path is the choice between the lives of Action and Contemplation. The two correct entrances represent that choice.”
Garrett gazed down into the maze. How had he come to his extraordinary beliefs? The Eye of Faith. Yes of course. It came back to faith.
She remembered first hearing the news of David's death. It had been a sunny day. They had been sitting in the garden having a late tea. Jason had blinked once, a single slow styptic blink. He had not looked straight at her since that moment, until today.
She stared desperately into the Eye, into the central iris. She couldn't hide from her intuition – that faith was a response to fear, of random fate, of loneliness, of unrecoverable loss and death. She felt a surge of sympathy followed by something harder. To be prepared to believe in answers to the most important questions of life – about human nature, right and wrong, the nature of nature – without reasons or facts: it seemed a terrible resignation.
She noticed Skyler studying her with a critical eye, intent as a clockmaker studying the jewelled workings of a timepiece. She found it disconcerting.
“As usual, you present a problem. Your nature seems to me divided. You are a doctor and a research scientist: action and contemplation combined.”
“What is this labyrinth for?”
“The Eye of Faith is not a place for the uninitiated.” He watched her calm study of the maze with some amusement. “You won’t figure it out.”
“It does look complex.”
“I’ll give you a hint if you like.”
Garrett looked at Skyler, mildly amused by his air of mystery. He met her gaze.
“Growth.”
“Growth?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it?”
A call echoed out again over the valley from the distant white tower. “I must sit again. Will you join me?”
“Sit?”
“Meditate.”
“I – to tell you the truth, I’m still worried about my friend Cherry. She–”
“Ray is getting her!”
“What if she’s woken up and can’t find me?”
“Look,” Skyler let out an angry breath, “It is time for me to perform Dues. If you want to go check on your friend, go!”
“I’m worried she won’t know where I am. She’s not very well at the moment.”
Skyler shrugged. He turned and walked back to the outer perimeter. Garrett followed. He entered one of the prayer bays, took off his sandals and settled into a full lotus facing the centre of the Eye. He placed his sandals side-by-side in front of him.
Garrett stopped at the entrance to the stone cell. She put out a hand then withdrew it. His eyes were already closed. Dust stirred on the marble pavement. Somewhere a bird cawed.
“Skyler, why is there no-one else here?”
He did not reply.
“Skyler?”
The silence remained unbroken.
“Skyler, please–”
Skyler sighed and opened his eyes.
“I told you, most of us have gone. They have joined the Exodus. I will explain when you are ready.”
“Why did you ask me to come here?”
Skyler shifted in his place on the ground. He tilted his head back to look at her. “I have been invited to take Sanyas–”
“–what’s that?”
“A privilege. It is also a vow, of chastity and separation, a saying goodbye to familiar things, to the world of Maya and illusion, to childhood and family. I’m going away.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you. But I will be gone a long time. In fact, I may not be coming back.”
“Is that why you asked me to come? To say goodbye?”
“My teacher Arshu suggested it, to see if you would be interested in joining us.” Skyler saw that Garrett was taken aback. “We recruit most of our new devotees through friends and birth families. It is common for us to make this offer, before Sanyas. Afterwards that is not possible.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sanyasins have connection to only one family. Asari.”
&n
bsp; “When did… Arshu… suggest this?”
“Yesterday, just before I called.”
Garrett looked around. She frowned. “I need to talk to you about someone who stayed here. Do you know a man called Christmas?”
Skyler laughed. “I know several. Five in fact.”
Garrett stared. “Five?”
“Yes. They all took that name last year, when they chose to be part of Rebirth.”
“Rebirth? One of them is dead.”
Skyler shrugged. “I didn’t know any of them. I work in the House of Education.” Skyler looked suddenly awkward. “I – I shouldn’t have shown impatience with you earlier.” He rolled his shoulders. “I must perform my Dues now. I cannot be late. Why don’t you look around? I won’t be long. Ray should be here soon with your friend.”
Garrett stared at Skyler. His eyes were closed again. His breathing was regular and unhurried. She waited but he remained silent. It was as if for him the world had suddenly disappeared.
Behind him the prayer cell was empty. Dust and a few dry leaves had gathered in corners. Garrett noticed a plaque bearing an inscription mounted low on the wall beside the entrance. She bent down to read it.
“Please leave your shoes and mind at the door.”
Chapter 34
The Cobra meeting room was radio-secure. Its basement walls were lead and copper-lined. Any outside eavesdropper would hear only silence.
At that moment, there was near-silence inside the room too. General Allcock was staring at the ceiling, his head back. Roger Thorpe had his eyes closed. At the other end of the table Connell tapped at his electronic organizer, visibly bored. Only Sir John Hammond appeared interested, leaning forward on screen, his face creased into a still frown as if facing a wind.
White had decided to give the facts in chronological order. Detailing early case histories he had lost most of his audience. And he was having trouble with his voice. His teeth clenched between each sentence. He clicked on his remote to display a new slide.
“The lab team focused on pathological anomalies but this question of transmission remained unresolved.”