T: Who is the me that is driven by this body? There is no me, no body. All is one. What could I take from what I am and still be Sfia?
K: Would you like to know? I can show you.
T: I would like to know what disease you carry, seeing splits where there is none.
K: A human is all division. A human is a thousand people fighting inside a bag of blood and flesh. You do not know what drives you, moves you, sparks your lust or anger. You do not understand a thing about what you are.
T: And you will tell me?
K: In Alexandria, all is clear. Take the mind from the body, walk out of the clumsy, messy shell and the spark is released. The minds there are like particles, always attracted to each other, feeding from each other, merging, endlessly evolving. Nothing is unknown, nothing is opaque, everything is clear, transparent like glass. Everyone is the equal of everyone else, kinks in individual minds are evened out by exposure to the whole, and the whole, together, is more productive than you could possibly imagine. Ah, what will be achieved there, Sfia! It is pure human potential, sheer as a red cliff at sunset. It is what God intended. Perhaps it is what God made.
T: You are like child. Strange, lonely child.
K: What are you doing?
T: I am coming to see what you are. See, here I am. Does it make you sweat, me standing this close?
K: I do not sweat.
T: How do you feel when my body comes this close to yours?
K: I feel nothing. It is of no interest to me.
T: Woman’s body does not move you?
K: Woman, man, these are words. All is one.
T: Then why do you shrink back? Are you afraid to be touched?
K: You are wasting time with this sort of game. These nights are short. There is much I could tell you.
T: You poor sad being, you have never been touched! Here, placing my hand on your chest. Does it afear you?
K: Why would it?
T: Then why do you twitch? See, here is another, on your hip. Now, is my hand not warm on your body? Do you feel it, feeling me enclose you? Why do you stiffen?
K: Stop touching me.
T: I see you now! All your words, your fine speech, where does it go now? You want to leave your body because you do not know it. Poor child, they have bred you like some piece of meat. You are all ideas and words, you have never been held, never being loved, never fucked. You take my poor Lorenso to your dead city, and you did not even know what keeps him here.
K: Oh, I know, I know. I know the tuggings and the pullings, I know what they lead to. I know what you will do once you are on fire. I have seen it.
T: No, you do not know. You do not know because you have never felt it, never living it, only speaking and thinking. You are half in your city already, poor being. Once you are fully there, you will never feel hand upon you again, and you know, don’t you, what you have lost? I feel it shivering through you.
[At this point it seemed prudent to retreat, given the target’s unpredictable behaviour.]
T: Yes! You are afeared by your body! You are afeared by bounds, walls, limits. By your very skin, outline of yourself. You are afeared of all things you cannot be. You think that what limits you denies you. You do not see that bounds are what make you. We push against them, and they make us sing! Ah, and you are shaken. Poor creature. You took my young man, you try to take my girl away. I should be angry with you, but I am only sad for all you do not know, all you cannot be.
[Now she places her hand on my face. I simply stand, allowing her to move as she will. It will pass. It is nothing to me.]
T: Do not be afeared. I am here.
/ sfia
we sleep in open place by some great old ruin, vined stone tooth growin in holt. strange thing it is. wakin early with summer light, movin on after small pieces of food. littel is left now. Water we have, as there is fresh spring here. but soon we will have to hunt. nzil and i have bows, nife. perhaps tonight we will set snares.
mother always wantin now to move. she has lost Edg, lost who she is. leavin it was like losin some part of her body, i think. world now is strange to her. and there is some thing else. she feels some danger is near. K is still with us, i am sure. he will visit me again.
but mother will have us walkin on, all day, as much as el can stand, like we could walk away from it all. she would have us out of this holt, again on Water. she feels safer on Water, i think. does she think father will save us, or Birds, or Lady, or is it only that she does not know what to do but move?
we will walk perhaps three more days, mother says, but it is not known. Water still risin, Land shrinks, heat sokin in to us. walkin west.
he will come again tonight i think, he will not give up. he must take us all there. all day i will think of lorenso, away in dead city. he has gone there and yet. and yet Dream tells us Swans will come bak, Alexandria will fall. then what will happen to me boy? i would like to ask mother, but what can she do?
i think i will have to do this with only me self.
/ k
Persistence, it is clear, will be the key with this target. It is not unusual for them to imagine, in the initial stages, that they can outwit or confound us. This resistance wears off after some time, usually defeated by simple curiosity. It is ultimately a primitive ego-defence, which cannot last.
I will visit her nightly until there is a resolution. I will not fail. I have no intention of spending any more time in this foetid swamp than is necessary.
I am also concerned by the environmental changes I am seeing. The rising of the waters is of a piece with an unusual vibration on the ether which became apparent during the ascension of #18. Wayland has not responded to my queries about this. I take His lack of response to indicate that a response is not necessary. He is taciturn at best. But still, it adds to my desire to be done here.
I have waited too long to see Alexandria.
*
K: You are awake.
T: You came back. I have been waiting for you.
K: Follow me.
T: I may follow you into woods, but no further.
K: Then come. We have not spoken seriously. Speak to me as we walk.
T: What do you feel as you walk?
K: What?
T: What do you feel? How does your body feel? When your feet stepping on woodland floor, feel of needles and leaf rot between your toes. Air in your chest.
K: We will move some distance away. We do not want to be overheard. There is much to tell you.
T: What is around you is also in you. You are not in holt, you are holt.
K: Do you know how many people I have sent up to Alexandria?
T: Tell me.
K: Four hundred and seventy nine. For years I have tramped around your little settlements, listening to your drivel about birds and dreams and the lady and the rest of it. Anything you can say to me now, I have heard before. I, however, can tell you things you do not know; show you things you have never imagined. You have no idea how limited your portrait of the world is.
T: What is wrong with what I am? What is wrong with this body, this woman?
K: You are proud of that body, aren’t you? You enjoy using it. You inhabit it well. But that is the trap. You identify yourself with your container. But you are more than that. The deeper you sink into identification with your limbs, your facial features, your embodiment, the less you will see.
T: I do not even understand your words. It is like you speak from some other world. Like you do not know where you are.
K: I know it better than you. Your body is a temporary container for something which becomes great only when released. Do you not have any desire to know what this means? Are you not curious to explore what you might become?
T: Poor creature, your body making you shiver.
K: Your lover knew. His body bonded him. It bonded him to you, and his lust for you was impossible to shake off. The poor boy, that lust defined him, dragged him down. It was like a shade he carried on his back. You di
d that to him, Sfia. With your beloved body.
T: Let me speak to him.
K: It is impossible. Alexandria is bounded. None may approach but through the gateless gate. There is no return.
T: Then he is lost.
K: He thrives. You could join him. I could show you how.
T: And then this body you speak of, all that I am, would be shed like some snakeskin in summer.
K: It would no longer bind you. This is what I am trying to tell you, Sfia. Raise your gaze from yourself for just one moment. Look at the big picture. I will tell you what I told Lorenso: the human body is a machine which damaged Earth so badly that it had to be controlled. Reined in. Wayland offers you a way to be yourself for longer than you ever could in this limiting frame, and then to rise beyond it. Alexandria is the saviour of both humans and the wider web.
T: Mother has spoken to me of your story. But you know ours also, so you know then that no war has ever happened in our order. No murder, no battling, no anger. We have lived on Edge for aeons, and seeing only peace. To follow Way is to live in world deeply. This we do, and you know it, for you watch us, we know that also. You come to me with tales that are lies.
K: It is true that your systems, on the surface, have been reasonably effective. This is partly because your numbers are small and your level of technological development is deliberately stunted. But it cannot last, you see. It never does. Eventually, something will break, from within or without. Your order has been living like this for centuries, and still there is anger, violence, lust in the hearts of your people, bursting to escape. It escaped from Lorenso.
T: He was young, poor boy.
K: He was human! This is what you are. Transcendence of your whims, prejudices, appetites, loves, hates, ideological confections, tribal allegiances – all of this is virtually impossible for you. Reason cannot conquer millennia of animality. Your history shows this: just at the moment when reason seems to triumph, you crash back again into barbarism. You suffer so much from simply being embodied. It is why we offer you the chance to leave it all behind. To come to a place where all is mind. Or spirit, if you prefer. But not meat. It is the meat of you which causes all of the bloodshed throughout your red history. Red meat: beneath your skin, this is what you all are. Red meat running.
T: Poor creature. Birds seeing you for what you are. Do you see rook circling over holt as we walk? He knows you for what you are. Little lost boy, wanders in wood talking, talking. All your words, and what is under them? Empty cauldron. Metal and air.
K: You people and your birds! I can take you to places no bird could go. I offer each individual the chance to transcend what limits them. I can free you from your bonds.
T: But I am not bonded, poor creature. See?
K: Are you going to touch me again?
T: Do you want me to?
K: It is a waste of your time and mine.
T: Then why ask?
K: I—
T: Wayland made your poor body, making it cold and still. But still He makes it of flesh. Still I put my hand on you and you glow. See?
[K: No response.]
T: You like this?
K: It is unusual.
T: Poor boy, your body is saying what your words do not. Now, another hand. How do you feel? Do you like it?
K: Enough of this. I have a job to do, and I am here to do it. You may ask me anything you like. About Wayland, about Alexandria, about—
T: Tomorrow. Come and find me. Maybe I will ask. Maybe I won’t.
K: You are leaving?
[Target departs.]
*
I will not pretend that this is not frustrating. It has occurred to me that it may be more sensible at this point to turn my attention to the lone male within the group. He is less impetuous, and seems less attached to the material plane. A cloud hangs over him. He would be easier to detach.
But I do not like failure. I will break through her carapace. And her hands are warm. It is a good demonstration of what keeps them here, in this wet, hot place. A good education. The warmth. Flesh is a strange and burning thing, a thorn. It sets confusion in the brain, it fogs the mind with the pulsing of blood. Flesh is the ink in the water of reason. There is no logic to it, no pattern that can be laid down.
There is ink in my water. Those warm hands.
I must be rid of this.
/ nzil
three days botin, three days walkin, now food runnin low. we have Water, springs are to be found now, but salt Fish will last perhaps two more days, and all Yam, Tayto and Notweed is gone. me girl will not hunger. what ever else this journey brings she will not hunger, not while i live.
tonight, when we stop, i will set snares. i do not like snares, do not like takin wights, but we must eat. what will come to them? Cony? Hair? i will not harm Hair. Hair is painted with Ladys colours.
strange feel to these old woods, not like holt near Edg. sounds i hear, they are not what i have heard before. we do not know what is here, what danger it brings. i have heard tales of beasts made by Man, put together from parts of others, let free to grow and hungrin.
they are only stories. still, i will keep me girl close. i have me bow, have me snares. we will eat, keep walkin.
/ sfia
mother says we may reach Water soon. we walk across great high spine of old Albion, headin to Afan Sea in west reach. when we come to Afan Sea we hope to find cnoos at moorin place that is called Lemtun. then we head south to find father. when we reach Sea it will be better for us. we know cnoos. all this walkin, this hakkin through, it is hard. el tires and food runs low. we sweat, wearyin.
we walked one more day today and this night comin to hill where Trees grow thin. Birk is here on tops, Alter near low, damp parts. hills are long, shouldred, makin me sik sudden for Edg, which rose also from wide Sea in this way. is Water still risin, is any thing left of our old place? what will our Order be without its ground?
creature moved with us all this day. i felt him in wood, shadowin. i was sad for him. he is like broken child. what is this world he builds? where will he go now?
he will go some where, for after this night he can not come again.
it was not long since i slept. Moon is waxin, her light fallin silent on leafs and trunks as we lay under Trees. always holt is writhin, day and night, always trekkin of wights through under growth, things in Trees, sounds.
things live here that humans do not see, do not know. holt is great writhin creature, we pass through small and with heads low.
i sat up when i heard sound for it was close and was not like any wight. noise was high and tight, like wight weepin. i stood and walkin in light of Moon and was led by sound in to Trees, not so far, and there it is, poor creature, it is caught in one of nzils snares. it sits on ground, sees me come, looks up at me. it looks like it weeps but it does not have tears.
i am caught, it says. how am i caught? why did i not see? i could see all things, all was available to me, but now it is darker. Waters rise, Wayland is silent. some thing is wrong.
i neel down by him and lookin at what had happened here. his foot is tight in snare set by nzil, wound around him and diggin in to his flesh. some blood comin out. it is like he has never seen blood before.
why did i not see? he says again. where has me seein gone?
i take his leg in me hand, i am tender but still he flinches.
i will be gentle, i say, but we must take it off. i begin unwindin snare from where it is caught, followin twine to unbind its knots. he makes small noises as i free him, but he says nothin until i have unbound his foot. he takes it in his hand, lookin at it like it does not belong to him.
meat, he says. meat! he passes one hand over his foot and i see nothin change but when i look his foot is clean, there is no wound.
thank you, sfia, he says. it is new voice for him.
i say: body makes great pain, great joy. one sits within other. it is what life is.
there are other lives, he said.
n
o, i say. life and deth. this is all. it is why i will not have what you would offer me. what can human be without this blood, this pain? we are wights like any other. there is nothin to rise above.
now it looks at me almost as if its eyes were human. almost as if some softness comin in to them, when before all it has been is some thing of air and metal with words that come from some height down to us.
i see you, he says. we both sit, still, on floor of holt. it is like he is human. i see you, sfia. what you have is what i like about humans. there are things to admire, despite it all. you know, i regard you as my ancestors, you people here. i was once like you, i suppose, many generations bak. some times i think i can feel your pain. some times i wish i was as simple as you. i wish i could be so – uncomplicated. but humans have not been as uncomplicated as you for so long. you people do not know how unusual you were, even at your height.
i say: we know there are not many like us.
there never were, my dear. all you resisters, even at your height, you were a tiny minority. i watched it happen. most humans chose the Machine, for it completed them. in an important way, it was the conclusion of all they had striven for for so long. as soon as it began to manifest, they grasped it hungrily. the Machine allowed them to take what was in their mind and paint pictures with it, real pictures. everything they could imagine, they could create. the great majority of humanity ran full pelt away from the messy, dirty, dangerous reality of the physical world and into what the Machine offered: the chance to make their dreams manifest.
yrvidian told me about Dreamin, i say. he spoke of it once, though none could travel in Dreamin like he. he said, Dream lines shine like spider strands in dew, and it is as hard to walk on them for they dissolve in comin of day. but Dreams are made, like webs, they are not born from within. Dreamin does not come from people, it is given by Lady. it is life of work to see this. that is what he tells me.
Alexandria: A Novel Page 14