Necessity

by Jo Walton

  At that moment, the two gods reappeared, Pytheas restored to his usual size.

  “Let’s put it together right now,” Pytheas said. “Where—ah, thank you, Pico.” He took the papers from Ikaros and pulled two more out the fold of his kiton.

  “But what—” Ikaros asked.

  “We have decided to work on getting Athene back first, before addressing the issue of Jathery’s imposture,” Pytheas said, with a glare at Jathery. He walked over to the table. Arete and Ikaros followed close behind. Pytheas set the papers down on top of the pile of books Ikaros had laid down there earlier. The four of them bent over the papers. Arete at once switched them into a different order.

  Sokrates looked at me, and I jumped. “You’ve been very quiet. What’s your connection with all this?”

  “I’m here because I’m Hilfa’s friend,” I said. Hilfa stopped rocking and nodded.

  “An admirable reason,” he said. “Your name is Jason, Pytheas said. I see you’re a Silver?”

  “Yes,” I said, emboldened by his approval. “We work on a fishing boat with Marsilia.”

  “Yes, I can read it,” Arete said, from across the room. “It’s a technical description of how to get out into the primal Chaos and back. It sounds preposterously dangerous. There’s no justification or explanation here of why she did it or why anyone would want to, or why she left it scattered in pieces.”

  “But you can read it?” Pytheas asked. “Translate it!”

  “I could,” Arete said. “But, Father, I’d need a good reason as to why I should. This is extremely dangerous information, and Athene didn’t come back. I see no reason why it would be any less dangerous for you. If gods can get lost out there, it’s bad enough to lose one, and much worse to lose two.”

  “If you won’t translate it, you’ll force us to take it to Father,” Pytheas said. Now that they were standing nose to nose glaring at each other, I could see that they were exactly the same height.

  “Explain to me why that is a bad thing?” Arete asked. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable hearing them arguing about such things. But Hilfa was still shivering in my arms, so I stayed where I was and tried to be reassuring. Thetis smiled at me over Marsilia’s head, and that in itself was reason enough to stay. “You should take it to Zeus,” Arete went on. “You said you wanted to see her explanation first—well, there isn’t any, in the sense of justification for why she did it.”

  “I told you why she did it.” Pytheas stalked back to his chair and flung himself down. “And I explained why I don’t want to go to Father.”

  “Do we have to take any action?” Arete asked.

  Pytheas glowered at her. “You can read us the instructions and then we can attempt to rescue her. Or if you refuse, we can go to Father, though I fear the consequences. Those are our choices. We can’t leave her stranded out there and do nothing, no. That’s not an acceptable option.”

  “I agree with that,” Jathery said. I looked over to where gla was still standing by the table, gla big hand splayed on Athene’s notes. Gla looked like a big Sael with exceptionally clear skin patterns, except that gla had an arrogant confidence that was like no Sael I had ever seen. Gla voice sounded smooth and persuasive. And gla skin patterns changed as I watched. Hilfa’s were more or less pronounced, but always the same pattern in the same place. Jathery’s writhed and rewrote themselves constantly.

  “We absolutely need to get her back. The world can’t survive without wisdom,” Ikaros said, passionately.

  “You of all people must understand that Athene is not the only source of wisdom in the universe,” Arete snapped.

  “But she’s our source of wisdom, our culture’s source,” Ikaros said. “We wouldn’t be the same with foreign wisdom.”

  “We might be better,” Sokrates said, thoughtfully.

  “I love her, and you know you do too,” Ikaros said.

  “True. And I am her votary, hers and Apollo’s.” He nodded to Pytheas where he sat. Pytheas, or maybe I should say Apollo, nodded back warily. “But loving her doesn’t excuse us from seeing her very real faults. And considering those, who is to say we might not be better with Apollo taking charge of our wisdom, or perhaps Thoth or Anahita.”

  Pytheas shuddered. “We wouldn’t, not with any of those choices, believe me.” I knew nothing about Thoth except that he was an ibis-headed Egyptian god. I had never even heard of Anahita.

  “Some other god of wisdom might better consider the will of thinking beings,” Sokrates said. “Athene has always been careless of it.”

  “You’re only saying that because you think it would be interesting to find out,” Ikaros said.

  “Well, don’t you?” asked Sokrates mildly.

  “Yes, theoretically interesting, but in practice it would be terrible,” Ikaros said. “You’re still angry with her because she turned you into a gadfly.”

  Sokrates laughed. I stared at him, hardly able to believe he could find it funny. “It was interesting being a gadfly. The way they see is amazing. And I could fly! I’m not angry about that. It was a fascinating experience—a little frightening at first, yes, but I have endured far worse things, and there was a lot about it to enjoy. If I can’t forgive her it’s for not finishing the argument.”

  “She behaved badly in the Last Debate,” Ikaros conceded. “But we should still rescue her!”

  “I’m not saying Athene’s not valuable or that we should abandon her,” Arete said. “I’m saying that Apollo is equally valuable, or more valuable right now because he hasn’t gone haring out into Chaos. And I suppose the same applies to Jathery; the Saeli must need him for something.”

  Jathery laughed, the patterns on his skin still changing every moment. Hearing it I realized what was wrong with Hilfa’s laugh—it was always the same. Human laughter bubbles or barks and each laugh is different. Jathery’s was different. When he’d been pretending to be Hermes it had sounded like normal laughter. Now it didn’t sound at all human, and it sent shivers through me. Meanwhile, beside me, Hilfa shook his head. I looked at him. “No?” I whispered. “You don’t need him?”

  “I suppose we do,” he whispered back.

  “But isn’t gla your culture’s source of wisdom?” I asked.

  Hilfa didn’t reply.

  “I wonder what Athene has learned out there?” Ikaros mused.

  “What did she hope to learn?” Arete asked. “How could it seem like a good idea to do such a thing?”

  “She wanted to know the answers to the most fundamental questions,” Ikaros said. “How the universe came into being, and how Zeus made time. We were working on the nature of time and Necessity.”

  “Is the knowledge that she might have learned in Chaos why you want to risk yourselves to rescue her?” Arete asked Pytheas.

  “It’s why I’m afraid of what Father might do,” Pytheas said.

  “It’s not worth the risk!” Arete said.

  “It is worth a little risk to learn so many answers,” Jathery said, quietly but compellingly.

  “A little risk!” Arete said, not at all persuaded. “You know how great a risk it is to place everything on one throw.”

  “But sometimes it can be rewarding,” Jathery murmured persuasively.

  Arete shuddered.

  “What do you mean by time?” Sokrates asked abruptly.

  Ikaros jumped. He had been staring at Jathery as if he could read the patterns on gla skin. He turned to Sokrates. “Oh, what the gods mean when they say time is human history, or what we might call material reality or the fourth hypostasis. The place where things change and actions have consequences and one day follows the next. But it’s not that simple. The gods live in the realm of soul and are eternal, and can step in and out of what they call time, but they also experience consequences and growth and change. They have personal time.” He moved his arms demonstratively. “Plotinus said time was a quality, a negative quality, an imperfection, and that the higher hypostases didn’t suffer it. But he was wrong.
It’s such a pity he didn’t live to learn how time is more complicated. In fact, time extends at least into the realm of mind, above the realm of soul, because the ideals, the Forms, are dynamic.”

  “So is Chaos part of time?” Sokrates asked.

  “No. Chaos is before and after and below time. It’s the lowest hypostasis. It’s matter with no form,” Ikaros said. I vaguely remembered hypostases being mentioned when I was an ephebe. I’d never gone in for this kind of exalted metaphysics. I work on a fishing boat. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is good enough for me. “Or at least, that’s what we think it is.”

  Sokrates turned to Pytheas. “I won’t ask if that’s correct, but is this what you also believe?”

  “Ikaros has been studying these matters with Athene and probably understands more about them than I do,” Pytheas said. “I was born long after Father created time.”

  “And you?” Sokrates asked Jathery.

  “I am even younger than Apollo. But my studies agree with Ikaros.” Gla nodded at Ikaros, who blushed and looked away.

  “So Zeus created time?” Sokrates asked Pytheas. “But what about Kronos, Ouranos, the Titans?”

  “He used the Darkness of the Oak,” Pytheas said. “Kronos and Ouranos were names of Father’s, in earlier iterations. And the Titans were earlier circles of gods, not quite forgotten. And while it might be possible to argue that he’s getting better at it and each iteration of time is more excellent and closer to perfection, I can’t feel calm about the risk of losing myself and all of history. I have learned a lot. And there’s so much that mortals have made that is wonderful. You may say the good is the enemy of the best and starting fresh would be better, but I want to protect this good we have.”

  “Athene thought the gain was worth the risk,” Jathery said, and for a moment listening to him I agreed. It would be wonderful to know these things for sure.

  “You and Athene had no right to decide that on your own, when what is risked is everything for everyone,” Pytheas said. And though his voice was harsh in comparison, of course he was right.

  “She took precautions as best she could,” Jathery said, smoothly. “We intended to go together, but she went without telling me.”

  “We are all part of her precautions, you included,” Pytheas acknowledged. “Athene really didn’t want us to go to Father and risk what he would do.”

  “But doesn’t he already know everything?” Thetis asked, looking up from Marsilia. “We can’t keep it from Zeus. He already knows.”

  “Only when he becomes conscious of it, and then it is as if he has always known,” Ikaros said. “He told me that himself. So even though he knows everything, he only lives partially in any kind of time at all. If he becomes conscious of this after Athene is safely back, that is different from if he becomes conscious of it now, while she is stranded out there.”

  “But what does now mean, to him?” Sokrates asked.

  “It has to do with awareness,” Ikaros said.

  “It all does,” Pytheas said. “What we can do. Time.”

  “And what about Necessity?” Sokrates asked Ikaros.

  “Necessity is a great force that binds all thinking beings,” Ikaros said. “We think it compels even Zeus.”

  “And this is what Athene went out into Chaos to study?”

  “Necessity, and what Chaos is, and how time began,” Ikaros confirmed.

  Sokrates turned to Pytheas. “You said once that Fate is the line drawn around what we can do, and Necessity prevents us overstepping that line, but within the lines we are free to do what we want.” Pytheas nodded. “And do you think Athene has overstepped that line?”

  “I think that depends whether we can get her back,” Pytheas said. “At this moment, when she is there, she has, yes. Once we have her back, then no, she has not.”

  “I don’t understand how it can be both,” Sokrates said. “She has transgressed or she has not.”

  “We have freedom to act, and she is acting, the action is not complete,” Jathery elucidated, and set out like that it did all seem clear.

  “Is that the kind of freedom that is your responsibility, and which Athene referenced in her riddle?” Sokrates asked.

  “Yes,” Jathery said. “She is poised between. When she comes back and her action is complete, we will know.”

  “Or if we go to Father,” Pytheas said. “So it would be better if we go after her and bring her back.”

  I was listening to this when something occurred to me. “Wait,” I said.

  Everyone turned to stare at me. Sokrates and Thetis looked hopeful, Ikaros looked curious, Pytheas and Arete looked impatient, Marsilia looked surprised, Jathery looked sinisterly unreadable, and Hilfa a little bemused. It was hard to speak in the focus of so much combined attention. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Probably this is only me not understanding, I’m only a Silver, not a god or a philosopher. But why can’t you go outside time and come back in say five years from now and come to me and Hilfa and Marsilia one day while we’re out fishing? And we’d know by then the results of all this, and we could tell you, and then you’d know whether this worked or not and what to do before you do it.”

  “What would happen if you did that and Jason told you it hadn’t worked, that you’d been lost forever in the formless Chaos?” Sokrates inquired at once.

  “Nothing,” Pytheas said. “We’d still have to go. Necessity. And that’s why we won’t.”

  “I thought you said being compelled by Necessity merely made you uncomfortable?” Sokrates said.

  “It can get highly uncomfortable,” Jathery said. “Even knowing there’s a really good reason not to go back and sort things out, I’ve been getting more and more uncomfortable about not doing it. It’s like pain. It’s harder and harder not to act to relieve it. It takes a great deal of will to resist. I couldn’t last this way much longer. Resisting inevitability is difficult, and much better avoided.” The markings on his skin writhed unsettlingly and re-formed themselves.

  “Like on Delos,” Arete said, looking at Pytheas.

  “And again, freedom?” Sokrates asked.

  Pytheas was frowning. “We’re free within Fate and Necessity. The more we tangle ourselves up with them—and that would be nothing but a deliberate tangle—the less we are free to act. Our past actions bind our future selves, and all we gods do is remembered in art. The more we want to be able to change and grow and pursue excellence, the more we need to leave ourselves open to that.”

  “And the same for humanity too?” Sokrates asked, cheerily.

  “Mortals never know, so they are always free to act,” Pytheas said.

  I noticed he said mortals, where Sokrates had said humanity. Sokrates hadn’t really had time yet to take in what the Saeli presence meant.

  “And when you make predictions to them, through your oracles?” Sokrates asked.

  “My oracles give useful guidelines and let people know how to get the attention of the gods,” Pytheas said.

  “But if you went into the future now, could you see Jason’s fate, and come back and tell him today exactly what will happen in his life and how much fish he will catch every day until he dies?” Sokrates asked.

  “Please don’t!” I said at once.

  Pytheas smiled at me. “Don’t worry. All gods learn early that it doesn’t do any good to warn people about their future. Necessity makes the steps they take to avoid it turn out to be exactly what will make it happen. Look at Oedipus. Advice can be useful, sometimes; actual prophecy mostly becomes self-defeating. It’s much better for oracles to be ambiguous. Necessity is a very powerful force.”

  “But you do know people’s fate?” Sokrates asked.

  “Sometimes. It depends whether we’ve been paying attention.”

  Sokrates screwed up his face. “So doing what Jason suggested wouldn’t help because you’d have to go anyway, whether it succeeds or fails?”

  “Yes. And it’s so unpleasant to be caught up by Necessity we don’t want to
any more than we have to. It feels like being pinned. So it’s better to stay free and take actions without knowing.”

  “Why do you have to go?” Marsilia asked.

  “We already went through all this!” Pytheas said impatiently.

  “I mean can’t Jathery go after her alone? Gla’s the one who has the shield of Necessity, not you,” Marsilia said, though she was still not looking at Jathery.

  “I would be willing to go alone,” Jathery said, gla inner eyelids shining over gla eyes.

  Pytheas shook his head. “No. If Athene trusted gla, she’d have left the message for gla, not for me. I have to go, Marsilia. Jathery can come, we’ve agreed that, but I don’t trust gla, and I’m not letting gla go alone.”

  “Besides these instructions are for two gods working together,” Arete said. “But I don’t see how you’re any less likely to get stranded there than she was, if you go there using the method she left you. You’d simply be repeating what she did, which worked to take her out but not to bring her home. So all you’d achieve by going after her would be to make things worse.”

  Pytheas stared at her grimly. “We have a shield she did not. Jathery is bound by Necessity, that great force. Alkippe is his child, but he hasn’t yet been back to conceive her. Does that affect your estimate of our safety?”

  “What? You can’t risk Alkippe like that!” Tears sprang to Thetis’s eyes at once. She leapt to her feet. “Grandfather! That’s the worst thing I ever heard. You can’t! And you, Jathery or whoever you are, you have to go there right now and set things straight!” I’d forgotten she hadn’t been there when we’d found out about this, back in Thessaly.

  “Calm down, it’s all right,” Marsilia said.

  I stood up and put a tentative hand on Thetis’s arm. “Let’s hear more about it,” I said. “Marsilia—”

  “It isn’t all right! It can’t be!” Thetis shook me off. “It’s unbearable.”