Dill is a free autonomous individual. Dill has ideas of her own. Dill took herself off to Azt.
“Mel says you two were always the esoteric ones.”
“That is our fate!”
“So you love it here, but Sarat’s not so sure. If he loves it here.”
“Short talks with Narulis. Perhaps they pall.”
“With its history.”
“Maya is a part of its history,” acknowledged Hass.
“I have noticed,” said Dill, “or think I have. Naturally he comes often to Azt.”
“But doesn’t hang around?” suggested Venga softly.
“That’s Sarat’s business,” said Dill firmly.
Hass touched her hand.
“Not yours?”
“I think I do not have a problem talking to a – a hologram of Maya. It would not wrench my heart.”
“Hologram.”
“I combine my father’s rationalism with a profound esotericsm. That makes me – “
“Adorable!” said Venga.
“Anile empress,” said Hass.
“All these things,” agreed Dill. “Sarat does not want me to sit on the chair without him.”
“Ah,” said Hass.
“Do women obey their partners in the modern age?” asked Venga gazing intently at the ceiling.
“Surely the root question is my safety. I’d be a real fool if I did it with no-one knowing.”
“Hard to argue with that,” said Hass.
“I think Sarat might try!” said Venga.
“How I feel,” said Dill. “As you know, I have had an experience I should wish to have avoided. I should not be able to say categorically my mind is clear of that experience. It seems to me that the chair might not be a wholly comfortable trip. Some women want their partners with them when they give birth. I don't think I particularly want him around when I’m covered in goo. Does that make any kind of sense?”
“Unfortunately,” said Venga, “yes.”
“No.” said Hass.
“Imperial Majesty,” suggested Venga. “I do not frankly see how we can stop you..”
“That was not my meaning,” said Hass.
“The grapevine is good or you guessed?”
“I understand Sarat.”
“Not physically present,” amended Dill.
Venga looked sharply from one to the other.
“Let’s say I test a hypothesis,” said Dill.
“He’ll go ape!”
“We shall see.”
“What,” asked Hass, “does your father’s rationalism make of the Anile throne?”
“That too is what I want to find out,” said Dill.
Formless bodies. How can bodies be formless? Bodies of shadowy shifting form. Disembodied fingers. Pawing, mauling, No. She screamed: Sarat! There was a shaft of light and a silver stallion appeared. They want me to leave the throne. Try harder. Then she was the silver stallion, repeat stallion. Hey! But the stallion dissolved into starburst. I am Dill, said a star. Who are you? The stars danced around her. I am Sheehela, I am Jaizal, I Santian, I Asyrion, I Galia, I, I, I…Which of you is Narulis? asked Dill. One star shone brighter than the rest. I am Maya, who am Dill, who am Sheheela, who am Asyrion. Formless bodies, said Dill. Why are you not also Heela, also Baria, also Sorg, also Qine, also Mom? Did we not say! laughed Asyrion. That may be the problem, said Dill. Then she was under an alien sky and Jaizal was running to meet her. Oh no, said Dill. I am not Sheheela. I am Dill. (Just don’t say, your pardon, I mistook you!) My lady Var-sega’! laughed Jaizal. You join the dance! Is that supposed to scare me? said Dill. One day we all die. You mistake me, said Jaizal. He took her in his arms. All times are now! This is your time, said Dill. He laughed again. Is it not also yours? My time is now, said Dill. Then where is Sarat? Here, sweetheart, said Sarat, no longer Jaizal. What is all this crap? Dill asked him. It’s a piece of metal! From another world, said Sarat. Meteorite! said Dill Radiation! said Sarat. My lord, said Asyrion, there is that Fidub cannot heal. Anyhow, objected Dill, why didn’t it spread south? Magnetism? suggested Sarat, sounding sleepy. Attracted to the north? Am I not? He buried his face in Dill’s hair. Who said it didn’t? said Zani, dead Zani, that is. Then she tottered on the floor of The Room, but no, she was watching the tot take a brick from our grandson, said Dill. The future! A future. Oh no! said Sarat. I am Master of Kadun, said Mel. Dabida, said Sarat, doesn’t know that. We can explain everything! said Cantilip. No you can’t, said Dill, you just damn’ think you can! Mitch laughed. If the meteorite, Mitch was saying, was radio-active they’d hardly have forged the damn’ chair – Half-life? said Sarat. Exactly how many aeons ago?
Sarat had one of those spooky dreams that are so real you can’t believe they haven’t happened. Since he was in Var-segan, he knew it hadn’t happened.
“OK, sis,” said Sarat. He was talking to his throne. “There are some things we need to clear up here. Ground zero.”
He sat.
She sang.
“Is that a positive note? I am Anile Emperor. My time is now.” He realized the music wasn’t coming just from the chair. “Interesting. What do you expect me to do?”
Sheheela stood in front of him laughing.
“Marry her, my lord, marry her!”
That was not an expected answer, thought Sarat, to a possibly rhetorical question.
“Of course,” he said.
Sheheela faded.
For a time nothing happened.
“I am Anile Emperor,” he repeated. “Master of Kadun. Doom of Death. That has meaning?”
“You know it,” said Maya.
“Love,” said Sarat. He wrapped her in his arms.
“Sweetheart,” she said. “Be happy.”
She turned into Dill.
“I love you,” said Sarat. “Sit!” .
“And stay!”
There was mocking laughter.
“Is Time your pet dog, my lord!”
“Perhaps,” said Sarat.
Dill vanished.
Then all times were now. It was confusing. One scene faded into another. Sarat turned to the chair. It was occupied, by Narulis, by Kaminua, by Santian, by Sheheela, by Maya, by him, by Jaizal, by people even he couldn’t identify, by someone he knew to be his grandson, and still the slide-show, panorama went on and he began slowly to understand though he could not have said exactly what he understood.
“Move over,” he said to the current occupant, who was Asyrion. “My time is also now?”
She laughed and kissed his cheek.
History abruptly disappeared and the outlines of the room with it.
“That would be awkward,” said Sarat. The sun sparkled on the window and he knew that wherever he was it was not his time. He woke up in a rush of realization. Dill! Seemingly immeasurably distant, she answered. I love you!
They didn’t have windows in pre-history.
Dill got off the chair as Hass’s mobile burst into life. Wordlessly he handed it to her.
“I’m fine,” said Dill.
She takes my breath away, thought Venga.
She actually momentarily took Sarat’s breath away.
“You sat.”
“Sure.”
Oh, er, well, it’s happened, thought Sarat.
“And you’re OK,”
“I’m cool with it. I just insisted on being Dill.”
“I’ll come.”
There is absolutely no point in being Anile emperor if one cannot instantly summon air transport.
Hass looked at her.
“Do it again any time?”
“It’s what you guys said about shaping the trip. My time is now.”
`”And what, pray, dear chair, do I tell myself about now!”
“Interesting, wasn’t it,” said Dill. “What’s it like to watch?”
“Like a movie a long long way away.”
“Until he went beyond reach,” said Dill. “That is what I did not want to do!”
Venga heard Maya: That is what I do not do.
Hass laughed to himself. The right man for the job! Or the right woman.
Venga thought: What did I realize because I’m a woman?. The arbitrary association of attributes to ‘male’ and ‘female’. Only a woman can heal Kadun, a woman with Narulis’ values, or of course a man who is earthpower.
He rang Fal. Had she an addy for Kyse? Good grief, yes! said Fal. We’re an item. Um, it doesn’t – you can talk! We really talked, said Fal. It seems to me, this government is like a new-born baby! First few years, it needs all your time. He’s in Azt? Still in Zur. I haven’t got time, said Sarat, to go down comparison road. You’ve answered my main question. You’re cool to work with him! Any excuse will do! What work! Let me state for the record it in no way encroaches either on your position in government or on Kyse’s integrity as a subject of the crown of Dabida! I like it! What work? she asked again. Looking at maps, said Sarat. Silence at the end of the line. I knew that’d get the adrenalin pumping! Maps of Kadun? You got it! Because, said Fal at length, we’re Zuri and we have no preconceptions? I look forward, said Sarat, to duly addressing you as Madam Prime Minister. And how is Her Imperial Majesty? asked Fal. Sometime, said Sarat, we’ll have the talk we didn’t have. If you still want to, of course. I’d like that, said Fal. D’you want his mobile?
Sarat rang Kyse. Then he rang Dill again. Then his pilot veered south-south-east for Zur.
Kyse listened.
“Let the dog see the rabbit.”
Sarat opened a Gridpage. Kyse burst out laughing.
“Has the imperium no experts!”
“One tends to think,” said Sarat, “we have seen – it is the integrity of the human sciences that suffered, medicine, psychology, biology. One tends to think the physical sciences can have no bearing on the bases of corrupt government and so went their merry way. I do not doubt the geologists and geographers of the Collegium – “
“And of course those from Fidub or Dabida would have their own preconceptions!”
“I do not want to share,” said Sarat.
“Top secret, for your eyes only. I take it Mel is in on it.”
“He will be. All it needs is a brain.”
“My brain,” said Kyse, “points out to me that the integrity of the maps themselves.”
“Exactly,” said Sarat.
“So let me be clear about this, you want me and Fal, who are neither professional geographers nor possessors of intimate knowledge of the surface – what’s the word – topography, that’s it – nor possessors of intimate knowledge of the topography of Kadun, to direct our searing gazes to telling which bits are forged, which bits are made up to conceal the reality of what I suppose I must call the earthscape.”
“To tell me where to look,” said Sarat without batting an eyelid.
“But you know where to look! Even I have heard of the field of flowers!”
“That’s good,” said Sarat, “you know where to look too. Look, let me show you.” He opened another page. The continent loomed before them. He touched a finger to the screen then held it up for inspection. “fraction of that dot in the middle is our field of flowers. If you zoom in normally, go too far, you lose the resolution – ” He zoomed in to blur. “ – which is why I found a program that doesn’t. Much, much, much magnified, a pinprick on the earth’s surface, who’s going to notice? If there’s one thing geology has, it’s scale, aeons of time, whole continents.” He clicked and zoomed again. “Who is going to notice?” he asked again. “What is remarkable about it?”
Kyse sighed.
“It doesn’t have any geology! It doesn’t have any geographical features! It’s as though someone’s taken an eraser to it.”
“And we know the stream is there,” said Sarat.
“OK, I’m hooked. It’ll probably take the rest of my life. What you actually want is us to cover the whole of Kadun at this scale to look for areas of blankness.”
“Then we join the dots,” said Sarat, “if there are any. You can start with Van-senok, Casin-ruhn, which is in Ciletij, and the site of the Jumesit. Myth tells us there’s a five-headed monster under Azt. Did you know that? Truth may be stranger than fiction.”
“You want us to obtain the evidence,” said Kyse.
“Of compromise? Oh yes.”
“I doubt it will come to court!”
“No comment at this stage,” said Sarat.
“Truly no learned monographs, the geology of western Carlin?”
“How dare you suggest the Great Divide is anything other than a perfectly normal valley, millions like it?”
“It’s an estuary,” said Kyse.
“How true, how true,” said Sarat with seeming delight. “Two things, therefore. The sea comes in. The river goes out. Such as it is.” More rapid clicking. “Behold the Velun-sa at its source! It forces itself out of the ground, the whole thing is the most enormous effort. As rivers go, it’s a loser. It’d probably be still-born, if it didn’t have help from a distributary of the Fanil. Wonderful how one can model things.” Sarat’s kind of click, click, click. “Based on flow-rate, rainfall, gradient the Davin itself – the tributary – wouldn’t make it to the sea. It’s had a long journey. It’s tired. Help is at hand. A valley, into which it gratefully comes to rest, has been made for it, and so we think it flows to the sea, as any decent river should.”
“In another world,” said Kyse, “I attended a meeting of NoZone.”
“Nature,” said Sarat. ”Nothing quite like it.”
“So?”
“I have some – not theories. Notions that might be theories when they grow up. The mouth of the GD is a tectonic estuary, meaning movements of the earth created the rift that created a single valley. Now, all that is possibly nonsense on the grounds that we cannot possibly know the status of the Velun or the Davin millions of years ago; they might have been mighty torrents. I don’t think so. If they’d had any get up and go they’d have meandered.”
“The Fanil, of course,” said Kyse, “flows through Van-senok”
“Isn’t that interesting?” said Sarat.
“What about the Horze?” The Horze is the river on which Azt stands.
“The Horze rises in the wilds of the northern forests. It’s a grown-up river. It has distributaries. One of them flows into the Fanil.”
“I take it a distributary?”
“Tributaries feed. Distributaries branch out on their own. Start reading up on meteorites.”
“What!”
“Standard form is that the GD is a rift valley, about which no big deal. I think it’s a crater. I think that whatever it was that came from wherever it came from somehow causes disturbance in the ether. I think this was millions of years ago. I note the effect of the field is startling but hardly negative or evil. I think when people appeared and – became aware of the situation they buried whatever under what is now Azt. I have absolutely no idea why! I mean, whether they thought they were removing it from circulation or whether they thought of it as some kind of guardian. I think whatever leaches into the water. I have been told whatever may be harnessed by the Cult for evil. I have been – somewhat melodramatically – been presented with a – parallel, a teaching-story. I think at some point it was discovered by the Cult and used for evil, hence the five-headed monster. I think all this is broadly science, though not necessarily our science. It has been - mused that the Matter of Kadun is the intrusion into our dull humdrum lives of a different set of physical laws. I think it - possible that whatever follows the same rules but the effect is – distorted by its being in terms of both time and space a long, long way from home.”
“Astroshit!” said Kyse.
“I knew you’d love it,” said Sarat.
“You think the areas of blankness are going to map out against waterways?”
“Give you a definite maybe – there may be reasons to do with the nature of the rock and soil why the effect is stronger in some places than others.”
I think the Anile throne contains whatever, explaining or at any rate excusing her more interesting qualities. Intelligent metal? Intelligent life that looks like metal to us? What does she want to do? She wants to go home. She dissolves into space-time. The rest is us. Maybe. Truly I am not responsible for the welfare of the universe! Whatever cosmic cataclysm wrenched whatever from its home, I can never know. But I just might be able to resolve this Matter of Kadun.
Flying across the GD, he leered at it through the window. Memory stirred. I believe in possibilities. Are metaphysics immutable? Then ‘will’ survives, I said. It’s lousy metaphysics! All these dead people keep talking to us, he complained to himself. What then is my problem with Hass? My problem is he appears to take the Jumesit at face value. He doesn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t, would he, not if he has periodic chats with Maya. Sarat grinned to himself. Anyway, they’re in it over their heads now! It’s good to talk. Take at face value. Enter the dream. Oh, what did happen at Casin-ruhn?
Scene: Her Imperial Majesty sits sipping tea, not a hair out of place, while two elegant young men gaze at her in rapt adoration. If they weren’t gay, I might be jealous! He’s not bloody gay! Somewhere there is a person in a female body. I got there first! Suppose everything is a metaphor. Did something just fall into place?
“Move over!” he said to Asyrion, as time lurched. Or something. Oh pooch! he nearly said. Pooch, pooch, pooch! He pulled Dill close. “Grrrr! The warmth of our bodies,” he said.
Dill snuggled closer.
“Darling, is this quite the place!”
“On the chair. She responds – why does she – why can she not – stories about the Jumesit abound! But that’s because of the five-headed monster! Bring her here – she was ‘responsible’ for Casin-ruhn. But it’s all still there, so someone replaced her – “ His mind was working very fast now. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“Is it something they put in the water?” wondered Venga.
“How are we?” asked Hass.
“Cold,” said Sarat. “It’s cold in Casin-ruhn.”
“Zur,” said Dill, “can be uncomfortably warm in summer.”
“Suppose what screws it is magnetism,” said Sarat.
“Is this a private conversation?”
“How much have you told them?”asked Sarat.
“Would I dream of doing anything without you!”
He told them everything as he had always known that he would. Finally, he took a deep breath, held Dill so tightly that she muttered, “Oof, you’re squashing me!” and asked steadily, “Have you seen Maya recently?”
“No,” said Hass.
Another theory bites the dust.
“I didn’t – when I was here after. I wondered if I was – preventing myself.”
“Our social circle,” said Venga, “remains limited.”
“Perhaps,” said Sarat, “people who knew something.”
“Perhaps,” said Venga, “people who were something.”
“Who found out something, who – changed themselves. Wouldn’t they say so!”
“Something in the water?” suggested Venga. “Perhaps they didn’t know.”
“You talk as though these guys are real,” said Dill.
“It’s difficult, isn’t it,” said Sarat.
But Venga said, “You talk to Jaizal. You decide if he’s real.”
“I suppose we’d better live here,” sighed Sarat.
Hass smiled.
“There Has Been No Announcement.”
“That was yesterday,” said Sarat.
Later Hass caught him alone.
“What will you say?”
Sarat grinned.
“Sort of the truth.”
Sarat Comes Clean! We’re An Item Says Sarat. Sarat Names The Day.
The last time I stood here, I said things I now confirm. With all my heart, with all my mind, with all my being, I love Dill. Also I love Maya. Maya is dead. If we continue, we are in some place immeasurably distant. If we do not, there is an ending. We cannot, we should not live our lives in a place, a time of our imagining, in a world bounded by death. Our place is here and now, our meaning to be alive and to live to the fullest extent of our being. We should live our lives in reality.
Some will say, that is the opposite of what I said. I say…..He laughed. Tough. I do not have today to be solemn. I do not feel the need to be formal. I do not have to explain my innermost feelings to the world.
I am here because I love Dill. Dill is my grace and my truth. Dill is my resolution and my culmination. To Dill I say, nothing can destroy our love. This I know.
Dill entered the House of Silence and walked down the aisle towards him in the little black dress. He wrapped his arms around her then kissed her cheek and left her to it.
Some people, they know who they are, will try to pour scorn on Sarat’s feelings. They will say, either he truly loved Maya or he truly loves me. I say, they are idiots, who understand nothing of the human heart.
Zulagan bit his lip so hard it nearly bled and stole a glance at Mitch. Mitch was sitting forward, his head in hands, thinking why do I feel the eyes of the world are upon me! My lady, thought Challin, why not call them morons and be done. Cho looked at Kile, poker-faced, save for her dancing eyes.
Of course he loves Maya. Of course he loves me, as much and as deeply as he loved Maya when she lived. If you cannot see the difference, then truly you are a lost cause. And I love Sarat, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my being. I am here because I love Sarat. Sarat is my grace and my truth. Sarat is my resolution and my culmination. To Sarat I say, nothing can destroy our love. This I know.
He did not, observed Seani, get where he is today without a certain amount of raw nerve.
Nor by the sound of it did she!
Dill hadn’t finished, not by a long chalk.
Love has no bounds. This I know. Love does not distinguish between life and death. It is we who do that, we who must do that. I do not live my life as though my sister were still with me, though she never leaves me. My father, my grandmother, do not live as though Heela were still present. Would it not be nonsense to say I am not Mistress of Var-segan because my grandfather is dead. Life is a process of change. Have we not said it? They cannot destroy our laughter, our joy, our delight in life, in each other. This we know.
They are bound in understanding, thought Cho, and that also is the message – and if you don’t get it,
you’re a moron. I shall enjoy my grand-daughter-in-law.
You have to look at the father, sir.
Oh no, said small, tubby and balding, mother-panther in defence of her cubs. You have to look at the mother!
Of course the pain brought them together…Sweet, thought Challin. Perhaps even true.
And you never lose owt by being honest with folks. Appreciated. Some as thought it’d be like it never ‘appened. Not them as knows you, mind, but what could you say. Flat truth of it is, them as ‘as lost loved ones understand in their gut, their ‘earts. If them as ‘asn’t don’t – tough!
Of course the view from Var-segan is bound to be biased.
For some this day of rejoicing is overshadowed by personal tragedy….26-year-old Savla is today burying her beautiful young daughter, whose life was cut short by one of the now mercifully few cases of meningitis…Savla’s mother was kind enough to spare us a few words…It really helps to know those at the top have been through it….Challin only squirmed a little bit.
Sarat mailed me.
The rivers are poisoned, poisoned, I tell you! I need your help.
Some sort of code? asked Cioulis.
You sound just like my mother! Is that both of us? No, not Estanzia!
Sorry, yes, def, Come to think of it, your mother!
!!!
I thought it was a joke.
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006.
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.
