Maya by his side Sarat visited the Jumesit Palace at dead of night wondering vaguely if he was supposed to sit on the thing all the time or at least some of the time. As he approached the chair, he said suddenly, “My lady, you sit.”
“Sarat…”
“She is not Mistress of Kadun?” he asked, curt, imperious. Once again he was Sarat: “How can it hurt you?”
He ceremoniously took her hand and bowed to her as she sat. I hope I know what I’m doing, he thought. I have no idea what I’m doing.
Maya sat transfixed. I am old and these are my memories. The faded pages of an album turned before her. Here is Mel in the Saa’nda Senta, here is Hass on the beach, Sarat playing with the puppies, that is Mitch holding forth in the Room, Venga, Sorg, Bris, Qine, all of them gone, Azt killed them, and here am I, where am I, but now I am young, Daddy is mending my swing, and I am laughing, in a field with flowers, Asyrion in a field with flowers, and they are all coming to greet me through the flowers, laughing and talking, but as Mel approaches he is Zani and as Sarat reaches out to put his arms around me he is Kaminua, for am I not Asyrion, not, not not Asyrion. I am Maya-ban-essa, Anile empress! My voice rings out or perhaps not, but all around is the music and the people-space is crowded, for this is my court, and there is Mel sitting on a step. I go towards him. Is it really you? And he grins, that irresistible Mel grin. Really, really me! I reach out, stroke his cheek. Sarat comes up behind me and puts his arms around my neck, kisses my ear. Are we all dead? I ask. Sarat just laughs. Am I not Doom of Death? There is no death, says Mel. But I think: only we who are dead can say that. I say to them, this is not real! Nothing realler, honey, says Mitch, but this is Mitch as I have never seen him, Mitch robed in silver. We’re dead, I say, and you don’t even know it.
Tears pouring down her face, she fell real-time into Sarat’s arms. He cradled her head, stroked her hair. Then they flew to Fidub.
Cho and Amida were watching a documentary on wildlife in the Vasucula Archipelago.
“There is a very, very angry emperor to see you,” said Vax.
“Oh dear,” said Cho meekly, “what have I done?”
Sarat and Maya entered without further ado.
“Darlings…” said Amida. Her voice fell away as she took in the vibes.
“Azt killed us all,” said Sarat. “Or not. Not if I have anything to do with it. Would you care to share with me a little more data concerning the Anile throne than you have thus far condescended to impart?”
“What has happened?” asked Cho quietly.
An impossible strain, thought Amida.
Maya began her story. Cho closed his eyes.
“It is a conduit,” he allowed as she finished.
“Or it is death!” said Sarat.
“Never that,” said Cho.
“What then?”
“There is rooted evil in Azt. It is in the earth. It seeps into the bricks. It will kill you if you let it.”
“How do we stop it!” cried Maya.
But Sarat said: “That’s nonsense!” then stopped. “Or if it is not nonsense, then earthpower must heal it.”
“Must we raze Azt to the ground!”
“If you had thought to speak,” said Sarat, “why should I not have sited my capital elsewhere?”
“Conquer Azt,” said Cho, “or it will kill you.”
“Earthpower,” said Maya. “I was the only one to realize. Because I’m a woman?”
“What did you realize?” asked Cho. Think now, Maya, think.
“Love is the illusion and death the reality. It is a very good illusion, we were very happy. Also very dead.”
“But you know that is not so.”
“So?”
“That is the untouchable reality,” said Sarat. “Out of time.”
Cho reached for the ‘phone and dialled.
“Baya, my dear. Their Imperial Majesties have had a little tiff with ultimate reality. Do you think you could give them a vacation?”
Sarat’s head filled with the number of people he had to see, It cleared.
“Out of Kadun for two days seems to me good.”
“What, then,” asked Cho, “did you realize because you are a woman? Think, now, Maya. Consider the history of Kadun.”
“All of it?” asked Sarat in mock-horror.
“No,” said Cho. He grinned suddenly, recalling Sarat’s deep aversion to this particular question. “Now, ma’am, what our readers surely want to know is what it felt like.”
“There was earthpower,” said Maya, “then there was Narulis, then there was Jaizal, then there was – limbo.”
“This ‘rooted evil’, said Sarat. “Krarlik woke it? I just do not believe in rooted evils!"
“You’re being too literal,” said Cho.
“I’m being literal? What about seeping into bricks?”
“You believe in Singing Isles.”
Maya stared.
“A fault in the earth itself.” Cho looked alert. “It felt – if being dead feels like anything, that is what it feels like.”
“That is your gloss,” said Cho. “You have no idea what being dead feels like.”
“That,” said Maya slowly, “is how we really are.”
“It’s this time,” said Sarat. “Now!”
“Then why was it spooky!”
“You are under stress.
“Oh thanks,” said Sarat.
“Every minute of every day – “
“Expecting to be shot? That is not true.”
Cho shook his head.
“Your undivided attention given to four conversations at once, watching the body language of an entire room, an entire city, knowing every word will be repeated and many words will echo around the world. And sleep? An unnatural life.”
“When people just are,” said Maya. “Which they never are, but if they are, they’re like flowers in a field.”
“So?” asked Cho. “Are people not wildlife too?”
“Life,” said Sarat, “is the earth’s partner. If the earth is ‘female’, life is ‘male’ and love the sum.”
“The earth,” said Cho, “can only heal herself through love, in union with her partner.”
“Or life – created the wound?”
Cho smiled.
“Were you not once a member of NoZone?”
“Everyone knows,” began Sarat, “so I used to think, at least – acid rain and greenhouse gases are a long way from – the whole point is it’s universal, affects the whole planet. It’s a long, long way from a five-headed monster lurking under Azt! How can it be localized?”
“Because it’s contained?” asked Maya.
“If everything is a metaphor,” said Cho, “it may be helpful to consider the five-headed monster.”
“Will you not speak plainly!”
“No. We do not know. Only that the ogre is there.”
“Fine. So I unsheath my gleaming sword – “
“Something of the kind,” said Cho.
“Humanity at war with the earth,” complained Maya, “is a product of science, industrialization.”
“An ancient evil,” intoned Sarat. “It’s got to be nonsense!”
“No,” said Cho.
“Narulis built Azt…”
“On the fault. He never fully understood.”
“Fidub built him the chair. Ores. Earth. As a sort of – weapon?”
“Eventually the empire was corroded?” asked Maya.
“That’s what I said.”
“There was an immediacy, but that’s how my little human brain would see it. The long view…”
“Conquer Azt or it will kill you?”
“Jaizal must conquer Fidub!” said Maya.
“A metaphor made real?” asked Sarat. “Only by crushing the earth?”
“You gotta factor in the minds of men,” said Cho.
“Men?”
“Where – where a whole city was at? We antagonize the monster!”
“Because you are so close to victory.”
“Metaphorically speaking,” sighed Sarat.
“They will fight to the death.”
“That at least is comprehensible. OK, let me put this in nice normal words. The evil in Azt has its back to the wall and will stop at nothing to destroy us. That’s something we didn’t know already?”
“It’s all perfectly straightforward. Except you stroll in and tell us it’s not a sentient evil.”
“The earth is not sentient?” asked Cho.
Maya remembered.
“It doesn’t always burst into song, does it,” she said with a wild grin. “Even if you are direct successor. It only bursts into song if you’re a boy.”
“Orgasmic, man,” muttered Sarat.
Cho started then bellowed with laughter.
Sarat and Maya walked slowly up the drive of the white house in the dunes. Once more time hiccupped, they were 17, Hi, mum, we’re back. We’re going straight upstairs…Sarat was aware he had awakened an area in his mind not immediately apposite to the day-to-day running of Kadun. I guess this too is what being Anile emperor is about.
Baya opened the door.
“Darling…” She hugged him very tight, then Maya.
Another hiccup in time – no, this was memory. Mummy and Daddy really didn’t want to know that Sonny had screwed up. Not this time. He felt suddenly resolute but in a vacuum. Essa hugged them. Sarat knew the girls and their partners came home from time to time,
“Has anything much changed upstairs?”
“There is still a kitchen.”
“That’s great.”
Who said to be is to feel everything, think everything, and then to walk away. To feel everything is unbearable, thought Sarat, Kadun had taught him that at least. Must my heart be wrenched by every child with festering sores? And so there must be detachment but most people never feel anything at all. They did not teach me that explained Kadun.
“I think if you don’t mind we’ll go straight to bed,” said Sarat.
We who were 17, we raced upstairs, bounded, laughing, shut the bedroom door behind us, fell on the bed. What, supposed Sarat, is memory other than hiccups in time.
Baya looked at B and P, but their faces betrayed nothing.
Baya on the ‘phone to Cho: “He is bleeding to death!”
“He is coming alive,” said Cho.
“Oh for….”
And Maya held Sarat in her arms while he cried because right this minute the pain of being Sarat was unbearable.
Baz mailed Faun: Cancel everything for the next three days. Urgent family business in Fidub.
Where are you? asked Faun.
Home.
And so the world assumed Cho was on his death-bed and Cho made no demur.
In the morning they were clearly better and dawdled over breakfast in the kitchen. The radio babbled of a suicide off Sindon Head, the neatly folded pile of clothes on the beach, the brief note pinned to them, and once more Sarat is the schoolboy, the callous fledgeling scientist listening to such a tale and observing that the sharks would get him, but the older Sarat wonders, yes, what does it feel like, what does it feel like when your strength fails and you know there is only surrender to the sea. Must there not be a moment of unspeakable terror? Can you not float? popped up his rational mind. Hypothermia, coma. His imagination was seized by the image of the strong swimmer striking out to eternity with no chance of return and it didn’t exactly tax him to work out why.
“Kaduna-gar-jaht,” he said mildly. “It would have helped if someone had told me what this matter of Kadun is.”
Before returning to Azt, they went again to see Cho and Sarat said, I shall do this, this, this, and Cho smiled. Then he said: “You must tell PANTHER in case it goes pear-shaped.”
Sarat sighed and agreed he must tell PANTHER in case it went pear-shaped.
“It’s all nonsense, isn’t it,” he said. “The throne doesn’t understand genetics. Any of us, Mel, Hass. Tar.”
“It’s all nonsense,” admitted Cho.
In Azt he gathered Mel, Cantilip, Hass and Venga.
“By loving each other we get that bastard off the chair,” he said. Slay a five-headed ogre. Which I guess is death.
He asked them if they minded letting Mitch and Karula into the gang and of course they didn’t mind at all, though no-one was particularly volunteering.
Venga looked at him a long time then said, “There is no other way.”
“That,” said Sarat with a dryness that surprised himself, “would appear to depend on what is the destination. As much garbage as the rest of it,” suggested Sarat. “Where is the wolverine now?”
“We’re going to have to go back,” said Hass.
“You mean you’ll mind?” asked Sarat.
And so Mitch and Karula were let in on the joys of sex and Mitch cackled and said, “Well, you know, I did wonder. Sarat and Hass at least.”
“I am a naïve little girl from the ‘burbs,” said Karula.
So then they were eight. Sarat handed them each a scrap of paper and a pen.
“It’s a little game they play in the best asylums. I want you to each write down what you think the matter of Kadun actually is. My little world,” he added, “just went ack over. Fill you in after.”
“His writing’s terrible,” said Cantilip, “won’t be able to get more than five words on.”
“Please, sir, may we use the other side?” asked Mel.
But Hass smiled.
“Do we have limitless time? Because now you come to mention it.”
“Ex-actly,” said Sarat.
Done.
Hass: It doesn’t just play in real time.
Mel: High Harn.
Cantilip: The desecration of the earth and all that lives.
Venga: Illusion taken for reality.
Mitch: Power
Karula: The conviction love is effeminate
“OK,” said Sarat. “There’s one more thing I want you each to do for me and that’s sit on the Anile throne.” And while Mitch, Karula, Mel and Hass squawked, he smiled at Cantilip and Venga. “It’s OK, I guessed.”
At which Mitch nearly dropped his glass.
“There is no harm,” said Venga.
“It’ll love Zani’s heirs.”
Mel looked pleading.
“Could we possibly have a little detail here?”
“The Anile throne,” said Sarat, “is freaky, is very, very freaky, far freakier than previously advised.”
“Freaky,” said Mel.
“Refreshes the parts other attempts at channelling do not reach. It may blow your mind but it won’t hurt you.” I hope.
They arrived at the Jumesit Palace. The bronzes laughed at them. Sarat laughed back.
“I may be a little out of my depth here frankly,” said Karula.
“I think we may be getting used to each other,” said Sarat.
Mel sat. The throne began to hum but Mel seemed oblivious. Narulis takes Nautschka in his arms. Our first-born shall be Anile Emperor, Narulis is saying, our second my lord of Van-senok. Then Mel is clearly engaged in a dialogue or a duel. No, that is not the case. I stain my honour to save your own? You cannot win.
Hass is pale.
“He – “
“He is Zani,” said Sarat.
Mel stumbled down and walked over to the window.
“OK…” said Mitch. If he is Zani who in hell am I?
He sat. The music roared. For a moment nothing seemed to be happening and he was disappointed. Then sword in hand he is fighting for his life but the enemy has no face or form. The shadows clear and Sarat is leading him into the middle of the people-space. My lord of Var-segan! proclaims Sarat but when Mitch turns to bow in acknowledgement there is only Narulis. Just as Maya had, he says very gently, we are dead, we died centuries ago. No, says Narulis. Heela touches Mitch’s shoulder. Papa! They embrace. I have so much to tell you, oh I so wish you had lived to see it. Heela smiles. I have my grand-daughter. Baria is running towards them. Mitch picks her up in his arms, honey, honey. Daddy, oh Daddy, says Baria, then, it’s nice here, Daddy. Why didn’t you bring me to visit before?
Mitch rises, tears streaming down his face, enfolds Karula in his arms.
“Venga,” said Sarat.
“Again?”
“Again.”
Light streams from me. I am enfolded, I who am the universe. I fade. For a moment his outline blurred. My lord Kaminua! His Imperial Majesty commands. The universe cannot obey. I must find form. A wolverine appeared curled up on the throne. He is Sarat-ban-essa, Anile emperor, Master of Kadun. Behna laughed. But it is long over.
Now that was interesting, thought Sarat.
Hass a star, impeccable, but then there is the noise of battle and the pounding of hooves. Come the hadin and of course the horse. A black star falls from the sky and sears the earth, which moves. Flowers cover the scar, spread north, south, east, west, and again there is Asyrion. She turns, smiles, but the Ciletij are screaming and the fires sweep over the flowers and there is only ash and bone. Never again! said Kaminua. A young officer walks the field of desecration and is Sorg. His face turns to a skull, his flesh withers, he crumbles to dust. Asyrion who is also Fal is screaming.
“Cantilip.”
I move through the forest. I am in and of the trees. Marula appears. You are not my mother. The earth is my mother. It was a mistake, Marula said earnestly but she is Nautschka lying in Narulis’ arms. I laugh. Then must I not be Mistress of Kadun! In the beginning were the trees, says Marula. Now let there be an ending.
“Karula.”
Baria is rushing towards her across – yes, you’ve got it, a field of flowers.but suddenly she stops. I can’t go any further, Mom, it’s like there’s a tape in the way. She begins to cry. Never mind, honey, Mom has magic scissors. Karula brandishes them. Karula feels in front of her. I can’t find the tape, honey! It’s there, Mom, it’s there. Just give me your hand, honey, I’ll help you over. I can’t reach you, Mom. Death wearing a silver coronet and sitting on a silver chair is quietly laughing. Hey now, you bastard, says Karula, these are magic scissors. Suddenly Narulis is by her side. He whispers to her. That’s crazy! says Karula. She stands back from the invisible barrier, begins her approach, leaps, soars. Sarat catches her. She looks at him in horror. You’re – Sarat smiles. We’re all here. But where is here?
“Right,” said Sarat.
“Not Maya?”
“Been there, done that,” said Maya.
Mel turned.
“I think perhaps light, coffee, explanation.”
He sounds exactly like Tar, thought Sarat.
They repaired to the Eyrie and Maya related her story.
“I’m an outer and exo kind of guy,” said Sarat, mocking them, mocking his younger self, mocking the universe, “and after all I’m just a kid. I ran back to Daddy, or rather Grandaddy. Very, very fast.”
“To tear a strip,” said Maya.
Venga smiled
“Why was I not told the facts of life!”
And Sarat laughed because it was so very exact.
“Sent to reduce the number of single parents without any knowledge of biology. We’re going to have to plot, guys. Start over from scratch. Only this time we know what we’re fighting. Sort of.”
“That would seem advantageous,” murmured Mel.
I have never seen Mel so shaken, thought Sarat. Perhaps I have never seen Mel shaken.
“Sarat, dearest,” said Hass.
Sarat sighed and told them about the fault.
“Single lady,” said Maya, “seeks devoted partners to make music with.”
“I trust this is all metaphor,” said Mitch.
“I’m standing back from that one,” said Sarat.
Hass grinned.
“No line of dancing bears high-kicked across the floor of the Ciletij Senate.”
“How do we know?” demanded Sarat. “We are going to act as though it’s metaphor. How I summarize it is we have been killed by Azt because we didn’t know. We go about our daily business thinking we have achieved something but we might as well be dead for all we have really achieved.”
“And equally our – unnatural lives,” said Mitch. “In purely basic physical terms. We shall all be dead if we do not slow down.”
“Sleep deprivation as a path to altered states of consciousness,” said Karula. “Where did I read that?”
“True enough,” said Mel, “the protective layer most people have wears thin.”
“The field of flowers,” said Hass, “are they the endless dead?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sarat. “I think they’re the love, the children of the earth and her partner.”
But Karula said: “It is a standard image among the ordinary people. When they ‘cross over’, those waiting for them on ‘the other side’ run towards them through flowers.”
“I suppose in Van-senok it’s a wood in spring time,” laughed Mitch.
“Actually,” said Cantilip, “it is.”
“Sorry,” said Mitch.
Mel said: “With us it’s a coming out of darkness into Light, capital L.”
“That does not say much,” said Mitch after a moment, “for living on this earth.”
“All is illusion,” said Venga. “My lords, my ladies, let us not go the way of the Anile court.”
Sarat looked at him sharply.
“Why they thought that,” said Mel.
“They got too close to death,” said Sarat. “It seemed to them death is better than life.”
“Different,” said Venga, “just different.”
Maya looked taut.
“Is that what we have to do? Eyeball death.”
“Do we ever do anything else?” asked Sarat.
Karula gave a little squeal.
“Do you realize what we have just said?”
“So many appalling things – “ began Sarat.
“No, no. Surely Mel, as an anthropologist, must appreciate…”
It clicked.
“Beliefs concerning the hereafter,” said Mel, “are a pretty surefire guide to the dominant belief-systems in a society.”
“And the dominant belief-system in this society – “
“Is earthpower.”
“In Var-segan, anyway.”
“In Van-senok.”
“In Carlin! Can you really see the rabbiters not - ?”
Sarat began to laugh.
“Thousands, millions of hours talking to ordinary folks. My lords, my ladies, we are lax, remiss. We never thought of asking them what they think happens when they die.”
“However simple, however sophisticated, however down to earth, however numinous, it’s always you, you the – “ Mel stopped suddenly. “I was going to say, you, the corpse, who shapes the trip.”
“But that is not at all what we are talking about,” protested Mitch. “We are talking about the beliefs of the living as to what will happen.”
“NDEs.”
“The whole point of NDEs is they are not dying.”
“We have no idea what being dead is like,” said Maya. “Cho was really quite sharp.”
“We know there is a continuum.”
“Shaped by us.”
“I don’t think,” said Hass, “this is particularly getting us anywhere. Exactly what is happening when we sit?”
“Cho said it was a conduit. I think we’re finding stuff we already know but don’t know that we know and we’re very bad at understanding what we’re telling ourselves.”
“We’re shaping the trip.”
“Certainly. And a pretty restricted trip it is too, confined solely to a rather limited social circle.”
“It would seem to me,” said Mitch “the universe should return to school for it surely has a problem with making itself plain to folks.”
“Why are we all obsessed with Asyrion!”
“I’m not,” said Mitch virtuously.
“You didn’t – “
“We never told him,” said Hass.
“This is not my first – interlude with the chair,” said Sarat. “Somehow there was so much else going on.”
Mitch listened.
At length, he said: “If there is a problem with Asyrion, clearly the solution is to ask her.”
“Common sense is a terrible thing.”
But Karula cried out: “Then how can you say you have no idea about dying!”
“Oh. No,” said Sarat.
“I suppose,” said Mel.
“Our understanding,” said Hass.
“Do we have one?” asked Sarat. “How we understood that particular excitement was as a worm-hole in time. It’s not that they were dead and gee, here they are large as life chatting away to us. They had – had stopped their time and we were able to go there.”
“Is that better?” growled Mitch.
“Normal!” said Maya. “Darling, you only have to spend a night in the Palace to understand the walls of time can be very thin indeed.”
“Especially,” said Sarat, ”anywhere near the throne? I am really not sure I totally suss that particular home furnishing.”
“We are decided?” asked Hass. “Sorg is Fal’s projection?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarat. “I simply don’t know.”
“In a sense and heretofore,” murmured Mel, “if you have continued, you are by definition not dead.”
“That,” said Mitch, “would appear to depend on what you mean by ‘dead’.”
“Which sounds like a student argument about semantics!”
“I think, two things,” said Sarat. “One is what everyone in the world including us means by dead, corpse, funeral, something we do not want to be. The other – we don’t know what being dead is like, we can’t know, because that by definition is what dead is, loss of self-awareness. Some think it happens when the doc pronounces brain-death. Some think – other things. But that’s what it is.”
“Kaminua was a tree-hugger, wasn’t he,” said Maya, “and Asyrion was earthpower.”
“Deep,” said Mel approvingly, “while the rest of us prattle about unknowables, Maya thinks.” I prattle on, he thought, evading….He looked at Cantilip. “I think perhaps we might clarify.” He gave a small smile. “Two near-misses.”
Cantilip sighed.
“Nautschka was the second child of the Master of Van-senok. Her elder sister, the heir, was killed in the – the battle for Kadun. Nautschka was already pregnant by Narulis.”
“Then Sarat is Master of Van-senok!”
“It’s more complicated than that. There are always three lines, d’you see. The female, the male and the first-born.” Has anyone got – “ She held up her summation of the matter of Kadun. “ – a decent-sized piece of paper?”
“You’re not the eldest?” asked Sarat.
“Now he’s getting it!”
“Shavli was Anile heir.”
“Except of course not because you four are dependent on the x million preceding generations,” pointed out Mitch.
My head is swimming, thought Mel. I never knew what it meant before.
“So each of us, each title, has three holders. At some level.”
Amidst all this talk of dying, thought Karula, could it not be construed as symbolic that (if anything happens to us and of course it will not) Shavli a woman will succeed Sarat and Hass a gay man Mel. I think I shall not say that because I have no idea what I am talking about. But then by the looks of them nor do they.
“Narulis did first-born, gender irrelevant,” said Cantilip. “Nautschka bore him a son, the Anile heir. It wasn’t an issue. Nautschka then had a daughter, who became my future lady of Van-senok. We continued down the female line.”
So the successors of Narulis’ eldest daughter, if you’re doing things by the female line.
“Who’s the third?” asked Sarat.
“We honestly don’t know,” said Venga.
Honestly, thought Mitch, a word injected into speech to indicate one is lying. He tutted at himself.
“Oh come on,” he said, with some asperity. “For us in Var-segan it has not been a question that the line that returned to Fidub – “
“Surely it must be clearly signposted,” insisted Karula. “The first Anile empress in her own right. Who had a younger brother. That must be when the divergence.”
“But we are not talking yesterday,” allowed Mitch. “Once the divergence took place, there would be no genealogists lovingly documenting it. Only – “ the words screamed in his brain. “ – adepts of the male line.”
“Krarlik?” suggested Sarat.
“Probably,” said Venga.
“Exactly what,” said Sarat, and people had the sense he was choosing his words with extreme care (if they didn’t have that at the start they sure had it when he’d finished), “have certain elements in Kadun expected of me?”
“We think you’re doing brilliantly so far,” said Cantilip.
“We, my sweet lady of the trees, we?” Not Sarat but Mitch.
Karula gave up keeping her face straight.
“Unswerving in your loyalty to the Anile throne, honey?”
“You sat on it,” said Mitch, “knowing you were Mistress of Kadun in the female line. But he?”
Venga shrugged. I am the universe.
“Why has Van-senok never - ?” began Karula, then realized the complete impossibility.
Cantilip smiled. Cantilip became a slim dryad, tendrils of vine in her hair, clad in leaves and not many of those.
Thus we storm the Great Gates!
“So?” asked Sarat.
“We understood only we had to make it happen.”
“So you - ?”
Venga smiled.
“Made advances?”
I think I have pressing business elsewhere, thought Mitch.
But Cantilip just laughed.
“The abandoning of Van-senok to be Queen of Dabida was not expected of me.” She looked calmly at Mitch. “Or I am a power-crazed hag. If not Mistress of Kadun then Queen of Dabida, a runner-up prize?”
He looked calmly back.
“I do not believe that, honey. But I do not understand.”
Mel took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“My lady is my completion and my resolution, my other half and my culmination.” Then he grinned. “Metaphorically speaking.”
“Yes,” said Cantilip, “Neither of us had ever met anything like them. Head-over, darling, absolutely head-over.”
It came to Karula: sometimes they talk as though they’re separate species. “I do not think,” she said, “at the most fundamental level anyone has ever explained to me the difference between earthpower and – “ She clapped her hand over her mouth and whistled.
“We, humans,” said Mel, “are finite and infinite. You can’t have a one-sided piece of paper. The separation is illusion. Earthpower is the approach from one side. We are the other. Each contains the other.”
“Together,” said Mitch drily, “you represent ultimate reality.”
“The interface,” said Mel. “Where one side of the paper joins the other.”
“Of course one knew that theoretically,” said Cantilip briskly.
Karula spluttered.
“Then it – then neither is the end of the trip.”
“It’s the beginning of the trip,” admitted Mel. “It is advised not to go further.”
“But you do!”
“That’s quite different,” said Mel.
“Physical,” said Hass helpfully.
“Cuddles,” said Venga.
“We have to be human,” said Mel. “To know we are love. Anyone who doesn’t at some level acknowledge that is intolerable to himself and all around him. “
“Most of the messes people get into are because they think they can extinguish human,” said Hass. “Go around intoning, ‘I do not need’. Fine. Starve to death.”
“’Nothing matters.’ Watch other people starve to death. We seem to have somewhat digressed.”
“They do not understand which part of them is saying these things…What were we talking about!”
“What fills our days. Does it matter? How and to whom does it matter?”
“In other words,” said Mitch, “what the hell are we doing here?”
“Literally,” said Sarat. “OK, there’s a fault in the earth. Why is that down to little us to resolve?” He stopped, not sure what he meant, then continued. “Because it’s all one continuum. What Hass said. There is no here without there and no there without here. No socio-political change without disposing of the Cult and no disposing of the Cult without socio-political change.”
“School,” said Mel. “I think a little word with the ‘Time-lords of Endor’.
Mel walked with Fugitry in the gardens.
“In simple words,” he demanded, “why did PANTHER not put Zani on the throne. No nonsense about direct succession.”
Fugitry turned to him and bowed.
“Imperial Majesty! Deal with it, Mel.”
What did I once say? thought Mel I expect to be heeded as much as any other leader of the pack? He took a deep breath.
“Right now, like any other - world-leader – me, little me, truly? – my time is short. I do not expect to be messed about. But that is the opposite.”
Fugitry nodded.
“Your people,” he began, and Mel stiffened, knowing he meant irtubi, “are united in one reflection.”
Mel sighed.
“We listen. All night if need be. We appear to have limitless time. Now time has boomeranged?”
“Why,” asked Fugitry, “is time running out?”
Mel is in a field with flowers. Skip the flowers, said Mel irritably. Fugitry laughed. The rest of our lives stretch before us and when you are 17 that is for ever. At 50 strikes mid-life crisis, time foreshortened. I am 25! shouted Mel. 25 and the world is (mostly) at my feet. Am I not Master of Kadun! And also Sarat. It is I/we who rule the world. Our part of it at least. What is this garbage?
He looked up.
“Tar is soon to die?”
Fugitry looked approving.
“Not bad. But total nonsense. Let go, Mel.”
“What of! Time…”
Every historic building in Azt except the Jumesit Palace had been opened to the public and this, it was widely understood, was simply because Sarat intended to live there.
The Star tumbled to his feet. Imperial Master!
Go in peace, sweetheart, said Sarat.
“Problematic,” said Maya, “I think that’s the word. How can we possibly live here?”
“If I’m right,” said Sarat, “it will change. If I’m wrong, they’re building luxury flats over in Tirin.”
“If we are very wrong,” said Maya. “Sarat – does it occur to you we can burn out our little brains on this one?”
“Not if we let go,” said Sarat.
And Maya too said: “What of!”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Sarat.
“Kadun?” asked Maya. “Life?”
“Oh no,” said Sarat.
Something in his voice told her been there done that.
Then he gathered PANTHER and told them everything but most of all what he wanted from them which every reference they could lay their hands on to the Jumesit Palace and its site, the history, archaeology and geology thereof.
“Blame them,” said Sarat, gesturing toward B and P. “They taught me to take my responsibilities seriously.”
“Including,” sighed Faun, “every veiled allusion to the heart of evil, etc.”
“Rooted evil,” said Sarat.
“Deep in the festering heart of Azt,” said Baz. “Only journos write like that.”
“Do they really.”
The landscape gardeners began work and the builders moved in. PANTHER prowled to contain the unexpected. The builders had no eyes to see but they could feel.
“Strange old place, this.”
“How so?” asked Jaizi.
“Spooky.”
“Wouldn’t like to be here after dark, I’m telling you!” said another.
“Old,” said Jaizi cheerfully. “Everyone sometimes gets the feeling old places – have their past with them.”
“These walls have seen a few things, all right!”
“You’d think a modern lad…”
“Wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have no sense of history!”
But they decided that on the whole there were three rooms, right at the back, almost like an outhouse, they didn’t want no part of.
“Like someone’s walked over your grave!”
“Nah. Like you’re walking over someone’s grave.”
Oh dear, thought Faun. He padded off to explore. The reek of death hit him. Are we really going to have to dig? What is left after 600 years?
“No,” said Sarat, “we’re going to exorcise.”
Faun said: “Letting go of Kadun: the metaphor. What is Kadun?”
“Mine,” said Sarat instantly, then, “Me. Indissolubly linked.”
“The man made the running,” said Faun. “The woman fell into his arms.”
“Was she shy?” asked Sarat.
“Terrified,” said Faun.
“By the way,” said Sarat, “find me everything Narulis wrote about metaphysics.”
“You know already,” said Faun.
“None of it, I think, exactly as transmitted from generation unto generation.”
Mitch surveyed the finished product.
“One well sees that only court dress is appropriate to such an environment.. Does that not act as a deterrent to the ragged of Azt?”
Sarat said: “Perhaps the only point of gleaming robes is to get them filthy.”
The silver palace was apparently opened to the public. Oh man, it’s beautiful. Then puzzlement. Where are Sarat’s private apartments? Does he live here or not? I guess he has to have somewhere for State occasions. This is no nine-day wonder we have here.
He has created a jewel in the heart of Azt, wrote Seani rather feverishly. Recreated? Seani began to research the history of the Jumesit Palace.
“What is he doing?” asked the Cile
“Frankly, sir,” said Bris, “I haven’t a clue. I only know it’s the other stuff.”
“Perhaps,” said the Cile, “Ciletij should examine a higher plane of consciousness.”
Bris wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“They keep it so low-key it’s invisible. Except somehow you know it is all that matters.”
Sarat lit the eternal flame.
“OK, guys, this is the shrine.”
He understands. What does he understand? The point of all this was at least in part bait, but still hidden Azt did not reveal itself.
“This is not Zanocki Park – “ where Azt had decided public debate was held. “This is a place for people to be quiet if they want, a peaceful place. It’s also where I live, at least part of the time, so you will be sure to keep the noise down, won’t you, kids.”
Then, just as the elders were beginning to turn away, their very shoulders murmuring relentlessly casual even on an occasion such as this, Sarat continued, a lasso holding them in place.
“There is the love way or the power way. There is reciprocity, harmony, union. All are One. Some do not know it. Thus it is said, each is both One and the Other and each makes his or her choice. There is harmony with one’s fellow-humans or there is distance, separation, hierarchy, retreat from fellowship when only Might is Right. There is harmony with all that lives. There is harmony with the earth herself, for the final union is that between the earth and all that lives, indissolubly bonded. This Narulis understood. This I know.”
He turned and stepped down. The silence was absolute. Was it something I said? thought Sarat.
He turned, no, not to Maya, but to Cantilip.
“My lady of Van-senok, may I lead?”
“My lord, there is only the dance.”
He led her out into the middle of the people-space.
I don’t know this dance, he thought, but that doesn’t matter. I am being danced. It is dancing me. Cantilip twirled and span, ever faster. I am the trees, thought Cantilip, and he is the wind. The wind stopped abruptly and raised her hand to his lips.
“The time is now,” said Sarat. I think I can hear horns.
Something of a platitude, thought those still retaining control of their brains, which weren’t many.
Then he knew what he was hearing and threw Cantilip to the ground as PANTHER shouted, “GET DOWN! Everyone flat!”
The blast hit the centre of the dais. For one terrible moment Sarat thought, Azt killed them, all of them gone, but a ring of light contained it and there is Mel, ring-master. Sun-ka-sun. I shine. But perhaps he is dead. How else does Mel look in death? Sarat ran forward Halfway to the dais he realized Mel wasn’t the least bit dead but couldn’t work out what the hell he was doing. Venga realized and his pleasant baritone echoed through the hall. Come, hadin, come, come not alone, come hadin, come. Is that wholly appropriate, thought Mitch, then realized it was an invocation.
Maya walked slowly forward.
“No!” said Sarat.
She ducked and the bullet whizzed harmlessly past and into a priceless painting.
“Give me the gun. That is an order, Colonel.”
She held out her hand.
He made to turn the gun on himself, but found he couldn’t.
PANTHER led him away.
“Eh,” said Mel, “someone should give that lass a medal.”
“Looks like I got a reaction,” said Sarat.
Sarat turned to making sure no-one was hurt (no-one was or not badly). It’s as though everyone is talking in whispers, thought Mel.
Slowly the tree began to grow. This may be too much like hard work, thought Venga.
Dabida wasn’t sure what had happened, only that Mel had escaped death by seconds.
COME HOME, MEL! demanded the front-page of the Zur Gazette. Must Mel Die for Kadun? asked The Times.
Mel looked stunned. No. It’s – leave, how can I leave?
“Time just ran out?” asked Sarat.
“I’ll follow on,” said Cantilip. “I think just at this minute they want all of you.”
Mel flew immediately to Zur. Nobody’s going to die – it really wasn’t a very big bomb – look, not a scratch on me
Their answer was pictures of Maya walking towards a loaded gun. Tar and Saski were in Vasucula for the Round-the-Islands Races. In place of parents, thought Vanya. Me? Or I want a constitutional crisis.
Vanya inspected him.
“Quite mad, of course. Nonetheless we love you. Mel, this has to end.”
“That is Sarat’s view.”
“At what cost!”
“I don’t know.”
“Zur has sweated. Quite apart from – I swear your mother is a size smaller.”
“I know,” said Mel.
“Sarat has to do it – perhaps in a sense Sarat had to do it. Now he has to do it. You do not.”
“But I do.”
“How so?”
Vanya listened to a truncated story.
“You will explain that to Dabida?”
“No,” said Mel. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
And he thought like Marula: Now let there be an ending.
“Or you are my lord of Van-senok and the emperor’s cousin.”
Mel frowned.
“That sounds like an ultimatum.”
“Oh, my dear boy, no.”
“What then?”
“I shall not offer fatherly advice. For that you have a father.”
“The real problem,” said Mel, “is Hass was there too.”
“No, Mel, that is not the real problem. The real problem is Zur loves you.”
Mel managed a small smile.
“I can’t think why. I’m treating her very badly. For – for 98% of my young life, it was inconceivable I visit Azt, let alone live there. Everything has shattered, do you see, good, bad, indifferent. Everything. For 98% of my life, Zur was my life. “ Then I realized I was Master of Kadun. “Everything must be remade.” Time. Time stretched out before him like an endless field of flowers. But that is only because I am dead. We are finite, damn it! Infinite and finite. Mitch’s voice echoed in his mind. I have no problem with the notion I am finite. Here and there, alive and dead, Azt and Zur, Zur and Van-senok, why is nothing whole? The image returned. Hand in hand, the eight of us are walking into the Light, capital L. “Meanwhile I need a vacation!”
“To that at least I give unqualified assent.”
Vanya rang Tar.
“You must abdicate!”
“I must? To keep him here?”
“To keep his feet on the ground. Or find him some project equally engrossing.”
“What,” asked Tar, “is bigger than the universe?”
“Let no-one deny hands-on experience.”
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.
