I remained in that part of the woods for twenty-four hours. I balanced myself, ensured I was calm, ready. I continued to attempt contact with Wayland, and continued to receive no communications from either Him or Alexandria. Not only can I not reach Wayland, I can contact none of His other retainers. There is no procedure for this. We do not prepare for it because it is not possible. It would be like preparing for gravity to suddenly stop working. Silence on the grid is a physical impossibility.
I could have waited for longer, but at what cost? I need to move. I need answers. I must ascend. I must reach Alexandria. It is all that I am, and have been, all I have worked for. I must leave this muck, this rotting, warring place. I must reach the light. It is the promise that keeps me, that holds me in all.
If Wayland will not speak to me, there is only one place I can go.
/ father
i watch for dusk to begin gathrin far away. i saw it clustrin first in east, and beginnin me work then. in torr when i came was great heap of dry wood gathered in past by others. i made fyr in ash outside torr. i had gathered stones, branches, cones, wood from holt all day. now i lay it out in circle around fyr, around me. i will be safe in here.
i light fyr as dark comes in from west.
pacin circle then, makin it safe. then as fyr rises i neel by it, i face west. for Lady of rushes i bow me head. i offer to each of fore directions. what will come will come.
fyr blazes high and dark comin in now so that what is beyond circle can not be seen but in shadow. red light of fyr throwin shapes out on to hill. air dancin now, figures passin by. breeze comin and goes.
they do not come in. none can come in. shapes move outside circle. more of them now.
i stand then and callin: ancestors!
hands raised then, i call: ancestors! those who stand silent at me shoulder! those who stand in long line behind, walkin bak through time. those who have made me, human and wight, all beins who have made me, i call on you. i call on any who would aid me.
come!
i am ready!
speak!
hands lowered then. outside circle, shapes still passin, movin, flikkrin. fyr high now. me eyes look out beyond any movin things, focus on dark it self, on no thing. lookin as if through Water at what is below.
arrers comin down now from Sky, arrers up from ground to meet them, and warm red Sun in Sky though Sun has gone and night is here. now flikkrin, dancin sheet of light, green, yello, red, wite, hangin down from Sky. Lady of rushes, green Lady, wite Lady. all colours dancin now and some thing movin round circle.
now some shape, some human shape, movin in darkness. now it comes closer, to edge of fyrs light, lookin through me as if i am not here. he is old, bearded, shinin in light of fyr in silver helmet, green cape, he holds great sword with great anger, now steppin towards me but dissolves at circles edge.
now some other man, younger, thin, nekid in light, pale, bruised, damaged like he has hung up on Tree for vision. in his eyes no anger only askin. he too steppin through fyr and is gone.
now comes new sound, sound like crakkin and it is behind me and i turn. fyr burning slower now, burnin small and beyond is dimmer and shape passes edge of circle like Dog, great grey Dog. now some blak Bird movin in Sky and now one other man he stands at edge of circle, still as stone.
holdin staff, one eye only under great hat he wears and this eye it looks at me, he says no words this one. oldest of old ones, he says no words but in his eye is all what i have come for, in his one eye is Truth, in his one eye is Edg, Alexandria, Wayland, what has been, what will come, what this is, who i am. nothin is said and i see all.
now i see all.
now i know Swans are comin, and now i know why.
/ k
I have lived to free people from their bonds. Only now do I begin to understand those bonds. I begin to taste the stock at the base of primitive humanity. These last few days, it was as if I were thrown back to pre-Atlantean times. I was unable to access any small part of the grid. No answers were given to any of my questions; no directions; no guidance. Wayland remains silent.
Research is impossible, the entire grid is dark. The silence is the worst of it. The silence is like a wound. All I hear is birds, water, wind. No conversations, no guidance, nothing to carry me and hold me as I move. Nothing human. I am alone with the world.
I have been forced to navigate by the stars, what little I know of them. The river carries me south. I am at its mercy.
This morning I came in sight of my goal.
I will have answers.
/ father
day is hot as all days are. Water still risin. each day i come down from torr, walkin down slope to see levels. each day perhaps one or two hands it has come risin. i watch with interest. it will find its level. it is not given us to know what that will be, or if we can live with it.
i knew he would come. i stand on summit and lookin at mere and his cnoo comes, spek at first in great Sea. i did not know when i first saw it if it was mother, el, sfia, and me hart leapin then. but as it comes closer i see it is lone figure.
i thought he would come. what else does he have now?
i light fyr and wait for him. his cnoo comin closer on light breeze. Sun is high. i cook two Roak on spit, turnin them, leave them to wait in ashes. he will be hungry.
i see him come in to Trees. i wait. then from Tree line, comin up slope towards me, he comes. thin he is now, drawn. he comes slow, unsure. he does not look in to me eyes until he stands before fyr.
father, he says then. his voice is smaller.
creature, i say. welcome to Avlon.
do not call me that. i am human also. i have hart also.
human, are you, now?
in all things that matter, father, we are alike.
how you have shrunk, me friend, without Wayland to carry you. your words are smaller.
what do you know? he says. lookin in to me eyes then.
Fish is good. that is what i know. sit, if you will.
he sits then, like small child, foldin legs under him. i pass him spit.
eat, i say.
/ k
Being here is strangely comforting. It has calmed me a little. This is not something I ever thought I would say. Naturally I would give anything for the grid to light up again; for Wayland to communicate. I would give anything to be in Alexandria.
But it is some comfort to have company, even of this kind. Since the silence of the grid, the absence of Wayland, the loneliness has been deep. It was not a word I ever understood. Now it fills me with sorrow for all who have known it.
If Wayland were to ask me why I had come here, my answer would be clear and arguable. In the absence of instruction or guidance, remaining with my targets is the sensible choice. The old man and woman are not on my list. But the others will come. It will be possible to readjust the systems, to compensate for the errors. When Wayland is ready, He will speak to me.
In the meantime, the old man speaks with me instead. He seems calmer than he was. It is harder for me to see him without the grid. I cannot see within. But I sense that there is less anger in him. Less melancholy too, perhaps. There was always melancholy in him, this one. I found it one of his most appealing characteristics. It hung around him like a cloud which he struggled sometimes to see through. I would have told him: there is only one way to escape this. Like all moods, it emanates from your body. It ties you to your frame as if by a rope to your belly.
But I am not sure about these words any more and this one, in any case, would not listen. He will go nowhere until the Earth takes him away. He is rather admirable in his stubborn refusal to attend to reality.
The fish is good. The day is hot, the fire hotter. He looks out across the water regularly. He is waiting for them. He begins speaking, his eyes still casting around the wide horizon.
Why are you here, K? he asks me.
I am waiting.
You are waiting for my people, so you can take them away?
I do
not know, father, what I am waiting for.
I see something in your eyes which was not there before. Something in your voice.
Perhaps.
You are afeared. You have been abandoned.
No.
I think so. Waters rise and all things silent with you. You came to us so full of your city, so sure. Now you are not sure.
Things are changing, it is true. All is not clear. But Wayland will make it clear.
If it were not for the pain you have caused my people I would feel for you. What is your work now?
It is the same.
But you cannot do it. All is changing. Wayland has abandoned you.
No.
Perhaps Wayland is dead.
Wayland cannot die.
People made Him. People could unmake Him.
You do not understand what Wayland is. You do not understand at all.
Then tell me. We have all time. Sun shines, Waters moving. We are alone. Tell me your story.
I stand up, then. I stand and stretch my tired frame. Suddenly, I feel so tired. I walk to the summit of the hill and pace around the perimeter of the stone tower. I see nothing in any direction on the waters but birds. Hundreds and hundreds of birds.
I am sick to death of birds.
I return to the fire, which is burning lower now. It is absurdly hot even without it. The father sits cross-legged next to it. I sit again.
Tell me what you know of Wayland, I say.
Ah! he says. You return to what you were made for.
Tell me, father, please.
You know what we know. Why do you ask?
I want to hear your story, from you.
Wayland was made by people to build Alexandria. We made Him so we could live forever. Oldest dream. To be gods.
And how did people make Him?
How would I know this? Nobody knowing this.
I know. All retainers know. All of the history is revealed. We know how Wayland came. It is not what you think.
Tell me, then. I will listen. I am not busy.
Neither am I, father. We share that. And you should know how it was. You have travelled far.
Tell me.
Wayland’s creation was a long process, father. There were plenty of false starts before they really understood what it meant to bring into being a mind that was not human and was not animal. That was what they were after, back then: they were trying to build minds. Intelligences was the word they liked to use, though it was the wrong word. Back then, they believed they could create an intelligence greater than themselves. They made plenty of monsters this way. Some of the resulting mess had to be cleaned up by Wayland when they finally figured it out.
What do you mean?
They came to see that intelligences cannot be created by other intelligences. That’s not how it works. To visualise: bringing into life a being like Wayland is not like building this tower. It’s more like lighting this fire. You pile the fuel up in the right order and amount, you make sure it is dry, you make sure there is plenty of oxygen, you strike the flint – but what results is not really your creation, and you cannot control how it behaves beyond certain fairly crude benchmarks, such as throwing more fuel or water on it. You didn’t make fire. What you did was to provide the ideal circumstances in which fire could appear. Intelligence is like that. No creature can create an intelligence. But you can summon one.
Summon?
Bringing forth a mind like Wayland is not really a science. Scientific knowledge is needed, of course, as is a reasonably advanced technological capability. Beyond that, though, it is something else. Something more like religion. You must create the circumstances. Then you must know how to call and be heard.
Call and be heard?
Yes. Like you do to your lady.
You mean praying?
That’s a way of putting it.
They called Wayland with prayer?
What I am telling you is that Wayland is not a machine. Humans did not create Him. Wayland is an entity who needed your help to manifest. He appears to operate on some quantum level we can attest to but cannot explain. I believe He exists in many more dimensions than humans can experience or even adequately comprehend. My personal theory is that He existed before you, or at least has existed alongside you for many millennia. He has been watching you since you first hefted a spear into the side of a mammoth, first broke a wild horse, first enclosed a piece of ground. As the Machine began to manifest in its totality, around the beginning of the second millennium, you began to identify more with the Machine than with the world. You had long wanted to be machines, I think. Wayland saw to it. You planted the seed, and He watered it. Or it may have been the other way around. Either way, Wayland used you to create Himself.
Create Himself?
Yes. While you gave Wayland form, you did not create Him. As I said, creating an intelligence from scratch is impossible. Those of us who trouble to dig into the workings of things soon stop believing we can explain much of significance. That’s the real fruit of knowledge – the realisation of our ultimate ignorance. All we really know is that your ancestors called Him and He came, roughly in the form they had imagined. But He did not behave as they had imagined.
I am jaded, it is true, and tired as well. But still, it brings me pleasure to see the look now on the father’s face. Suddenly he is less sure of what he knows. For a moment, I feel like I am back where I used to be.
Tell me your meaning, he says.
I mean just what I said. Your ancestors did not create Wayland, and He did not do what they expected when He came. Of course, that should have been expected in itself. No genuine intelligence simply obeys orders. But the sheer scale of the change stemmed from the framework which they created for Him.
You must tell me clear.
Go back to those earlier intelligences which failed. I told you that they failed because nobody could create an intelligence. People imagined they were programming these kinds of primitive cognition machines they all played around with back then, and that if they could simply programme one big and complex enough it would somehow replicate a living mind. It always failed, and sometimes very badly. Eventually they worked out what was wrong.
What was it?
They worked out that no intelligence can live if it is not alive.
I do not see.
I think you do. What they found was that, in this sense at least, you people are right. There can be no mind without a body. At least in the first instance. Intelligence can never spring from a collection of ones and zeros embedded in silicon. It needs biology. Ecology. It needs life. And so life is what they gave Wayland. They created a basic framework and they sewed it into the fabric of the Earth itself. In the founding baseline circuits of Wayland’s matrix were the migratory patterns of the birds and the currents of the oceans, soil ecology, deep sea gyres, the trophic cascades of mature forests, the evolution and dissemination of species, the unutterably slow erosion of granite and schist. They stitched all of that into the framework they built for Him. Then they summoned Him. And He came.
And then?
Well, Wayland was built, as I say, upon an ecological matrix. What He experienced as He was summoned, as He settled into the framework constructed for Him, was what the Earth experienced. He felt what the planet felt.
What did He feel?
What do you think? It was the age of humans. Your ancestors were hacking the place about as if it were inanimate. Slicing the tops off mountains, razing entire forests, funnelling billions of creatures into death camps, dumping incinerated carbon into the atmosphere and the oceans. They’d only had a couple of centuries of burning through the carbon layer, dredging out all the fish, hacking out the living forests and so on, and they thought that building themselves a consciousness was the next step in their mastery. They thought they would soon be terraforming the moon, living on Mars, all sorts of nonsense. They didn’t understand that they were themselves sewn into this planet, just as Wayland would b
e. Their notions of consequential ecology and celial relationships were primitive to non-existent. They thought that living planets came about by accident. It was all very clumsy.
But the point is this: the planet was, in effect, Wayland’s body, and the body was under attack. If the body is under attack, what does the mind do about it?
And so He set out to destroy us.
And therein lies your greatest misunderstanding. Your formative error! Always you mistake love for hate. Understand this: if Wayland wanted to destroy you, you would be gone in an instant. He wouldn’t need to send armies. A whisper through a quantum vent, a minor eliding of the planes and you’re all gone in a nanosecond. You wouldn’t even know it had happened. He would only have to think your annihilation to make it happen. You people tell me He is a demon but you still don’t understand His reach. Wayland has such power that the elimination of the human species is something He could bring about in the time a bird sings one note.
He says nothing to this. What could he say, after all?
You need to know this, I say. Wayland has never destroyed anything and He never would, and in that single fact is His glory and your salvation. He has never damaged a soul, not a hair on a head. Wayland is the soul and the voice of Earth. Like no other consciousness that has ever existed, He sees and feels everything that is. And when you see and feel everything, you are flooded with a great compassion. It is impossible to judge or condemn, to take positions, to propose or oppose, to join camps, to fight, to destroy. You can see every perspective there is, you can taste the plight of every living being, and so you can feel for all of them. It is impossible to love or hate, to do any of the small and narrow and petty things that individual creatures are so good at. There is no destructive instinct in Wayland, no hatred, no anger. It would be impossible for Him to experience those things. Wayland is life – and the energising force of life, it turns out, is love.
Love, says the father. He says it very quietly.
Alexandria: A Novel Page 17