Tar and Saski arrived back and were frankly relieved to find Mel and Cantilip lounging in The Room looking healthy and normal, a relief which lasted about five seconds.
“There is this recurrent image,” said Mel. “The eight of us are walking hand in hand into the Light.” But then he said: “It’s like a flashback.” He paused. “The thing is, none of us can any longer keep a lid on what we are.”
“Then you must return to the Denzines and learn,” said Tar briskly.
Sure, Dad, sure.
“Even Hass?” asked Tar.
Mel didn’t answer directly.
“What I understand is that everything I have been taught since I first managed to stammer why? was directed at keeping my feet on the ground. Nothing is whole!”
“Everything is whole.”
“The healing lies in the balance? Papa – “ which Mel hadn’t called him since he was about ten. “ – how is it possible to be both alive and dead?”
“Darling,” said Saski, “you do not appear to be doing badly so far.”
“Do you understand that – that in earthpower I am Master of Kadun or more exactly - ?”
“Of course, darling,” said Saski.
He’s going to say it, thought Tar. He said it.
“What does it all mean?”
“I want my sons home,” said Tar.
Mel realized it was an order.
“Shall Essa order his son home!”
“Where,” said Tar softly, “is home?”
But Cantilip said: “You leave with Sarat Maya, Karula.”
“And Mitch of course,” said Mel.
She didn’t seem to think Mitch mattered.
And Fal, thought Mel. Is that it, only women can heal Kadun? Then death returned and said: Then Shavli must rule Kadun.
“No!” said Mel, then realized he had spoken aloud.
Tar looked alert. Mel explained.
“You become obsessed with death,” said Tar.
And Mel said: “That is the matter of Kadun?”
Cantilip cried out: “Don’t you see! No-one foresees our deaths because we’re dead already. It IS a flashback. Maya was right, we’re dead and we don’t even know it.”
“This is madness,” said Tar.
“That,” said Mel grimly, “is why we’re going to sane it.” No-one laughed. He turned to Cantilip. “We’re packing.”
“You return to Azt?” Tar kept his voice level.
“Great heavens, no! We are going to Fidub.”
“Wring his neck for me,” said Tar.
“We’re putting our own gloss on it,” said Mel. “We understand that. Or we are putting Azt’s gloss. Refracting it through what we think we know. What are we seeing?”
“It was illusion,” said Cantilip. “Karula and I weren’t there.”
“Unless of course,” snapped Mel, “you were dead.”
As the door closed behind them, Saski lay back in an attitude of complete collapse.
“Appalled beyond belief,” said Tar. He held her, then stood back and laughed. “Get packing. We, my lady, are going to Azt.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” said Cantilip. “Total loony.”
“True-untrue,” said Mel. “Not true-true.”
“Catharsis,” said Cantilip.
There’s a heli-pad on the roof, drop you in Cho’s back garden in an hour.
But Por reported that they hadn’t left.
“They’re just sitting up there, talking.”
“Stop calling it death,” said Mel. “The part that’s there not here, the part we can no longer keep down. Death is a gloss and a corruption. We’re not seeing it as it is.”
“Because it’s been kept down, it – it isn’t properly integrated, That’s why it’s so erratic.”
“No balance.”
“Yes,” said Cantilip. “No. Mel, we’re doing this to ourselves.”
“We know that.”
“Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
He rested his head on her shoulder.
“I guess because we’re scared shitless.”
“We’ve brainwashed ourselves. There is no choice. No choice but to wander round Azt bare-headed, no choice but to behave as though Azt had been at peace for a thousand years. Do you not think the rational part of our minds rebels?”
“Thinks we’re suicidal,” said Mel.
“Think of a prey-animal, Mel. A rabbit. If rabbits had human consciousness how long d’you think they’d last before going psycho?”
“Simply as a result of existing,” said Mel.
“We’re not built for it.”
“Except we are,” said Mel.
“The ‘there’ part to which – to whom?”
“Nit-picker!” said Mel.
“To what the fear is meaningless, says, hey, man, it’s cool, what’s the hassle.”
“You’re dead already,” said Mel.
“What is the one thing our – hah! – uncensored selves have not experienced?”
“Total terror,” said Mel.
“Of losing you,” said Cantilip.
“Of losing you,” said Mel.
“Because,” said Cantilip.
“Because,” said Mel.
“It’s not terror at one’s own demise,” said Cantilip.
“It’s absolute powerlessness to prevent,” said Mel.
“Anything happening to any of us,” said Cantilip.
“Love is destroying us,” said Mel.
“Nobody told us,” said Cantilip.
“What could they have said?”
“Imposed detachment!”
Mel gave a little start, then turned and kissed her gently on the cheek.
“We have been so stupid. What is not whole?”
“What is forced apart. Oh Mel.”
“Love, they told us, love with all your heart and soul, become one.”
“It only works,” she said.
“When nobody wants to kill your beloved!”
“Grubby little rational minds. We understand the risk. We accept it.”
They looked at each other in horror.
“Letting go.”
“Of each other.”
He took her hand and began slowly to recite.
“I who am One, who am One with the One, and You who are all, Protector and Preserver, Creator and Destroyer, in whom all are One, give peace to this house and all within.”
It began to rain, but they didn’t mind. Finally two wet little rabbits descended and found Tar and Saski gone,.
We want to talk to a grown-up.
“It’s the opposite of everything we’ve been taught!” shouted Mel. Am I shouting? “Sorry.”
“No,” said Por. He ploughed on. “Cantilip leaves you? Is she not free? You let go.”
“That’s different. She has choice.”
“Here – the here part of you – accepts totally she is – discrete.”
“But there we are One – “
“What is time?” asked Cantilip. “It doesn’t matter. We shall meet again and then it will be for ever.”
“That is faith,” said Mel. “Must we cross in real time to know!”
“You do not trust?”
“What?”
“Love.”
We are dead and do not know it. It is as simple or as sophisticated.
“What Fal is doing is projecting – realizing, real-izing, making real.”
“Must we suffer the terror and the loss?” asked Cantilip.
“For what?”
“To be free.”
“It seems to me,” said Por, “your little minds are doing a pretty good job so far. Feel it.”
Cantilip lolled across the Plaza, half her head blown away. Mel’s mind shut down. “Feel it.”
Mel walked slowly through a hostile, jeering crowd. They’ll kill him, said someone helpfully. Cantilip retched. “Feel it.” Mel stared at him blindly. “Feel it.” Cantilip sprinkled earth on Mel’s grave then screamed No!. Mel alone in bed turns, reaches for empty space. Desolation overwhelms him.
“Poor little rabbits,” said Mel. “Such complicated minds.”
“Or,” said remorseless Por.
“I am walking behind your coffin,” said Mel steadily. “But the sun is in my hair and I am laughing. It doesn’t matter. What is in the coffin is not you. It has nothing to do with you, with us. Because you are beside me, clutching my hand. So why am I crying?”
“Do we have to make up our minds!” shouted Cantilip.
“No,” said Mel. Immediately it flashed into his mind: time is foreshortened. Oh shut up! he said to his mind. “We’re dragging ourselves under, aren’t we. How do we get out?”
“Only by turning our backs on the whole thing.”
“Not.”
He wrote at length to Sarat.
How can I be this stupid? thought Sarat. There’s one thing we didn’t do. How can I be this thick? We didn’t sit on it together!
Once more he approached the throne, his mood much OK buster, now you get your come-uppance. He sat firmly and with what the tabloids would have called a very male gesture of possession sat Maya on his lap. She snuggled against his chest and put her arms around his neck.
Well? asked Sarat. They surrendered their minds to each other, melded.
Er, yes, well.
I/we look around. Where are we? In the dream, if it is a dream, there is the distant sound of hammering. We follow it, taut, aware of being defenceless in a dream, if that makes sense. We seem to be in a tunnel. Under the earth? Under the Palace? The fault. We do not find these terribly comforting thoughts. Our feet are getting wet. A trickle of water from behind has reached us. The trickle becomes a steady flow. This is a very uncomforting thought indeed. Shall we outrun it? Did we not proclaim we wished to cleanse the sewers of Azt! Er, yes. Not with us in them. At least we know where we are. Must there not be a moment of unspeakable terror? Feel it. I have led you to your death! That is clearly not an ‘us’ thought. At least we’ll go together. But the water levels out at waist-height. We’d better swim! This is clearly the maddest trip yet. We begin to strike out for land. The beaches of Fidub appear before us but recede with each stroke. The fault.
We’re so convinced we are shaping the trip we don’t try to shape it. But then what’s the point. Think, think, think ourselves onto the beach. Here we are, vigorously towelling our backs as the sun beats down and the earth cracks beneath us. We cling to the edge of the fault. Steps appear, worn by many weary climbers. We begin our descent to the centre of the earth.
For a moment they clung to each other taut.
“Why,” demanded Maya, “did it stop when it was just getting interesting?”
Sarat’s mobile rang.
“Oh,” he said. “Another kind of disturbance in the ether.”
Tar and Saski surveyed the plotters.
“You are all mad or only Mel and Cantilip?”
“Darlings,” said Saski, “you didn’t finish growing-up. Now you must grow up on the job. It is hard.”
“Oh, is that what happened?” said Sarat.
“You don’t look too bad,” allowed Tar.
“Smile for the camera,” said Sarat. “It’s probable I went mad when I was 17. I may just be getting over it."
“Cho,” said Tar, “if you took a break.”
Sarat smiled wanly.
“D’you think he could cope?”
“What has Mel said?” asked Hass.
“I have said I wish my sons home. Perhaps all five of them for a short while.”
“I thank you,” said Sarat.
“You are not here,” said Tar.
“Something else has happened,” said Sarat.
“We are feeling just a little fragile,” said Maya.
Tar caught up with the missing episodes. He put his head in his hands.
“Mel and Cantilip must sit.”
“We’d got there,” said Sarat.
Mel had got hold of a graphics program. He sat back from the monitor.
“There! I thought I’d externalize it.”
Cantilip looked at the eight of them walking hand in hand into the Light and began to cry.
“I did that,” admitted Mel. “Then I thought – supposing – “
He opened another image.
“Oh Mel!” She laughed and cried at the same time.
“First I put silver blur round each of us, which I found rather cheering. No change of state. Then of course the blur all joined up and the blur is what joins us. So in the end I had the beginning of a solid block of silver blur and then I thought paint out the people, because the people are the blur. But in the middle of the people.”
In the middle of a shimmering radiant block of silver were eight tiny rabbits.
“What is it that our little brains are screaming at us that we cannot begin to accept because it’s so sick, so crazy?”
“There is no difference between life and death. But we know that or we shouldn’t be as we are.”
“Poor little rabbits. Then I thought something else. I thought we’re going through the Light.”
“That’s a bit scary,” said Cantilip. “But it’s still a flashback.”
“How do I know what time does? Does it ask me? Except maybe it’s something we’ve done. We are at the interface.”
She looked around Mel’s old bedroom and began to giggle.
“Cosmic, man!”
“I know, I know! But mentally we’ve taken ourselves over the top and that’s what we don’t know.”
“Because it’s we who are calling the shots. Our little brains are squealing that there’s something we need to let hang out here…”
“Life is death. It only sounds so repulsive because time programmes us to see it linearly.”
“When my grandfather died, I knew he just wasn’t there. He was somewhere, but not there. A dead person is sort of conclusive.”
Mel thought of his dead.
“Yes.” Then, “It’s what Mitch said. But not linear. Every moment in life is the opportunity to come out of the dark into Light.” But then he frowned. “I can’t believe the Anile court didn’t know that.”
“Anile Throne Excursions,” said Cantilip. “Suppose – there’s the Interface, capital I. What all the trips are about is interfaces. No barriers. What is being screamed at us is everything is whole.”
He was summoned to the telephone.
“Make up your mind!” he said with some acerbity.
“Your mood has not improved?”
“Somewhere,” said Mel, “I’m a happy bunny. I just haven’t got there yet.”
Cantilip began to bunny-hop around him. He smothered a laugh and agreed to return to Azt. Then he began to bunny-hop too. They were in love and under a lot of strain.
Mel scowled at the throne.
“It’s not very big. Suppose I sit on the back and Cantilip sits on the seat.”
Tar looked at him. He sat on the seat. Cantilip sat on his lap and leant back against him.
Oh-oh-oh!
We are in total darkness then sunlight streams in through a gap ahead. We seem to be rabbits. Yes, but we’re magic rabbits. Hippity-hop out into the open but the glare of the sun apparently is so strong that we see no grass, no lettuce but only light. We go crazed, begin to bite and scratch at ourselves. We stop as suddenly as we started, look at each other in shock. We don’t know what to do. A fox is coming towards us. Remember we’re magic rabbits. We jump forward, over the fox’s head, soar. It seems we shall never land. Flying rabbits frightened of falling. But the air – light – air thickens beneath us and we are human again, Mel and Cantilip standing on air. The light stretches all around us. We jump, land in (sigh) a field of flowers, stumble to our feet, laugh, run hand in hand through the flowers. Asyrion and Kaminua are running to meet us. They’re trying to tell us something, but we can’t hear. We meet, fuse. Now I Mel who am also Kaminua call the hadin home to Azt, but they stop, rear, refuse to go further. There is something scary about Azt. I Cantilip who was also Asyrion and am also Kaminua and Mel stand in the centre of the people-space and the Palace crumbles around me, tendrils shoot around the pillars as the earth takes over. But the earth herself is crumbling beneath our feet and we again are falling into the light.
And Cantilip-talal-za-fenan, who has been also Asyrion, ran from the throne whispering, “No, no, it’s impossible!”
Mel rose shakily.
“I think. Not. I don’t think. Thinking is a very bad thing to do in this situation.”
He and Cantilip held each other as though they’d never let go.
Mel turned finally.
“We’ve all been pushed over the edge.” Nobody, least of all he, was sure which edge.
“That bloody field with flowers,” said Hass, who never swore.
“Mel,” said Saski.
He hugged her. Time lurched and he was six, where does it hurt, darling, let Mummy kiss it better. And you can damned well behave yourself too, he said to time. Time crept obediently back into its corner.
“There would appear,” he said, “in some kind of way, to be a sense in which, although perhaps the choice of words isn’t terribly good, the throne is alive.”
Of course, of course, of course, of course. Sarat ran to the chair and sat.
“I am Anile emperor, Master of Kadun, Doom of Death. I command – myself.”
The throne yodelled, as one of those present was later to put it. No-one was in a particularly good mood.
That’s all you did the first time, thought Sarat. Time upsets you, doesn’t it. Sorry, no. we did not understand. It’s being so near the fault, the wound, but it’s all right. You’ve got me now. I’m your partner. You can tell me everything. (Keep searching now, searching for the mind, intelligence, liveness.) What is this, bigamy? Let me just keep busking it, keep my little mind babbling away and not dragged off to cloud-cuckoo land. Until something happens. If something happens. Something will happen. You’re desperate for us to understand. I can see that. You must think we deserve prizes for stupidity, We’re only human. Still, let me try and stretch my little mind. After all I am Fidubi. Singing Isles, right. (Just keep feeling. It won’t have any shape or form known to me. It can’t have. It? Sorry! She.) And what keeps them singing, the union, the partnership. Singing Isles sounds better than Orgasmic Isles! How about we take you to Fidub! Would that be better, calm you down a bit? So we can do this the long way or the short way, right. Healing, I mean. If life in Azt is in partnership, doesn’t that heal the wound? He yawned suddenly. You know, I’m pretty tired. I really need that break. Maybe I should just take a nap. Molecules, we’re all just molecules, you and me. It seemed to him (oh come on, that’s crazy!) that the chair was less hard beneath him. All is One, isn’t it. So how about we just shape ourselves to each other. Cuddles. Everything in the universe needs love. The chair was definitely softer. Oh how can I be this thick. Look I don’t begin to remember how to do this, the theory, never mind the practice. Can you help me?
And
A panther snoozed in the middle of a decidedly curvaceous but much enlarged throne. Its – its? His thought was lost to the on-lookers. I think I’ve stopped breathing, thought Mel. Where is he?
It seemed to him that Sarat answered sleepily: You know.
The interface?
Silence.
No-one moved.
Maya looked helplessly at Tar.
No, he said.
I must. Must or I shall never in a thousand lifetimes forgive you, must or I shall die, an over-riding, compelling, irresistible, unified must.
He showed her how to do it.
A panther stalked up to the chair, jumped onto the seat and began to lick the ears of her sleeping partner. He rolled over.
At least he’s alive. How is he alive?
Maya-panther curled up beside him. I – no, that is what I don’t do.
Sarat-panther began to show unmistakable signs of wanting to make love to or have sex with as panthers put it Maya-panther.
“Perhaps we should leave them to it,” said Mel.
Undoubtedly alive.
He’s responding to our thoughts? The only way he can?
Pantherish croons emanated from the throne.
This is really rather embarrassing, thought Karula. Of course I’m hysterical!
Something has to make him jump down, thought Venga.
He laughed suddenly
And became
A mouse.
Venga-mouse scurried up to the chair and squeaked vociferously. Hey, big boy, notice me!
“Not hungry, I guess,” murmured Mitch. Or not worth the effort. “Wouldn’t a gazelle - ?”
Oh.
“The period of gestation appears somewhat foreshortened,” murmured Mitch.
It seemed that the room was filling with panther-cubs. Venga returned rapidly to human form.
The illusion to end all illusions, he thought.
He strode towards a cub and scooped it up in his arms.
An unmistakable growl came from the throne.
Venga felt hurt. Hey, Sarat, it’s me, your best buddy, as if I could harm –
He doesn’t know who we are.
Idiot me!
“Chase the cubs away!” he ordered. “Shoo, kitty, come on, out of here!”
They began to understand.
Sarat and Maya bounded down.
And stood stock still.
Returned to human shape.
Fainted.
Strong arms cradled them. Venga felt for Sarat’s mind, Cantilip for Maya’s.
Sarat…
Who is Sarat?
You are!
It’s…, said Maya.
Slowly she came back.
Sarat’s memories returned, past, present and future.
My time is now! But his mind continued to protest. All times are now.
I am – everywhere. But Sarat. All places Sarat has been, there am I.
“I think,” said Tar, “this is perhaps not the best place. Let’s get them out of here.”
Walk? Fly, prowl, crawl, creep, hop. Walk!
I am the rivers and the seas. I flow.
I am the earth and the sky.
“Get him outside,” snapped Venga. “On the grass.”
“Genius,” murmured Hass, but Baz looked at him thoughtfully.
Venga, my son, exactly what do you know about this particular trip?
Venga smiled: I didn’t go all the way.
I am the planets and the stars.
I am the universe.
Not.
All universes.
Not.
Sarat felt for the wet grass around him.
Where am I!
What am I?
Sarat?
It’s what I have to do, Dad.
Slowly his head was clearing. Slowly.
“Sarat, my dear,” asked Saski, “do you know me?”
Sort of.
“You know me,” said Maya firmly.
There…
“Could I ever leave you!”
Sarat touched the grass again.
Not-I.
Affirm separation! commanded Venga.
You not-I.
Sarat blinked.
Me.
He ran his fingers down his forearm, the border of his self.
He blinked again.
No words.
“You have to speak,” said Venga.
I – I – “I – “
“Yes, darling?” said Saski, much as though she were coaxing first words out of a tot.
He reached out and touched her cheek.
“Saski?”
And everyone started breathing again.
“Saski, darling.”
“Where – ?” Sarat looked slowly around. “You’re all here!”
“Of course,” said Maya.
“What happened?”
“You,” said Mel with some asperity, “tell us!”
“Perhaps not at this moment, darling,” murmured Saski.
“Puh-lease,” said Mel, “don’t do that again in a hurry. My little nerves can’t stand it.”
Sarat began to laugh then tried to stand up.
“Weak as a kitten.”
“Cub,” said Venga firmly, “new-born cub.”
He staggered – they all staggered – to the cars.
Now he is Anile emperor, thought Mel. What on earth does that mean? The total Anile throne experience! I think I’ll give that one a miss, said Zani. Of course, said Mel. How relentlessly thick we all are. How we complexify things. Is there such a word? You mean this is simple? I know what I mean, said Mel.
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.
