by Gregg
Marchese
“We Scholars are in a furor to solve this riddle, when
the answer is obvious. Our researcher have been delving the Libraries,
searching back through old view table records, and redoubling their
studies of the lost sources you have recovered, including our copies of
the Sibylline Book. But our reliance on study and records blinds us to
our own intuition.”
Mett lounged in his favorite leaf chair, growing from
the stalk he kept alive in his private apartments with rations of Earth
Current. Nemia knelt on a mat on the floor, outwardly humble, inwardly
frustrated. Why won’t he just come out and tell the answer!
Because if you are to
be the next Supreme Scholar, you must discover this for yourself.
She knew she had cast her private thoughts loud enough
for him to hear, but didn’t care. If
you are so set on going out into the Night Land, she sent back, you must place great trust in this
‘intuition’.
Mett calmly sipped sweetened tea, heated by his research
aide to the proper temperature. I
trust the insights of this great brain of mine, as you should trust
yours.
Alright. Nemia
audibly sighed. Let me guess.
No! Mett glared
at her. We do not hazard life and
soul on guessing games. Know!
The only way I know
how to know is by study, research, synthesis of disparate sources
addressing from various angles a common topic. Despite the
scholarly words, Nemia was near tears. Mett had decided to accompany
this strange prophet--or Avatar, as the Supreme Scholar insisted he be
called--into the Night Land. After this promised song had issued from
the House of Silence. Madness!
Mett audibly sighed too. Gently mocking her? You are the Scholar Potentate. Your memory
is infallible. You have either heard the sermons on view table, or been
there yourself. Review them verbatim, paying special attention to the
way the Avatar addressed itself. And us.
This reassured Nemia, and, her distress subsiding, she
cast her mind in memory mode and rapidly scanned the sermons for the
words the Supreme had suggested. “We...” she mumbled. “We who love
you... Our children... We who dwell in peace... who remember what it
means to be human, and yet are no longer.”
!! A shout of
triumph in her mind and Mett’s. Our
ancestors!
Mett absently sipped his tea, smug. Of course. Now, which ancestors?
Nemia blinked. She suppressed disappointment that Mett
gave her so little credit for the insight she had already made. It was
a way he had often challenged her: Keep deducing toward the final
insight. She reviewed her exact memories of the sermons, selecting for
repeated references. “A Road... the Road... where the Makers have
gone...”
This time she suppressed her elation and sent calmly, The Road Makers. She knew her
history and the answer was again obvious once she gathered the clues.
In the time of the slow Darkening, as the Sun was dying, The Road
Makers had built a Road down from the towering heights, into this deep
crevice where now rested the Great Redoubt. They had continued their
Road up and down the great valley, forging North even against the dense
Shadow they encountered (and perhaps tainting themselves by contact
with it?). They had built their Road into the West as well, where the
last remnants of the dying Sun still glowed with faint reddish light
and distant warmth.
But their efforts had disturbed the realms where Evil
dwelled, and Monsters and Beasts congregated to beset them. Then the
Road Makers became the Builders, and were guided to build the Great
Redoubt, and Nemia felt a sense of gratitude and honor that all the
peoples were their descendants. Although now the Avatar was claiming
that some Road Builders had escaped through the green luminous mist in
the West.
Mett was waiting, a calmly expectant thought in his mind
drawing her to the final insight. Knowing he would know, she guessed. The Avatar is the Master Spirit, founder
of the Great Redoubt.
Now the Supreme Scholar could not contain his pride; he
needed to share the triumph of his revelation with someone. He tilted
his bald head and smirked. His wife
and consort.
Of course! Nemia should have known the Avatar was a
woman. The higher voice and kind patient expressions, the gentle
encouragements, the loving gestures...
Though the Master Spirit designed and oversaw the
building of the Redoubt, it was his wife who welcomed all the peoples
inside and consecrated the Underground Fields. In some ages, the
peoples of the Pyramid had worshiped a goddess in her image, named
Meyr.
Mett was staring at his protégé, wondering
if she would see the final revelation.
Nemia saw at last. And
that is why you trust. Some thought her the incarnation of a protector
goddess. You don’t--?
She may have been one of Meyr’s incarnations. Mett had
forgotten his tea and reclined with a haze of adoration over his eyes.
Meyr was the only belief in divine presence ever found in Redoubt
records. No voice could have spoken more directly to the mind of the
Supreme Scholar. And from there she had spoken to his long-dormant
heart.
I even suspect I know
what song we shall hear from the House, he sent, but this time
offered no challenge to his protégé. It did not matter;
Mett was willing to die to follow the Avatar.
Nemia swiftly emptied her mind and lowered her eyes,
though she suspected Mett would not be reading her thoughts now, so
engrossed was he in his own triumph. And that was well; she knew he
would disapprove of the doubts about his sanity that had arisen in her
mind.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Many others in the Pyramid were not as informed as the
Supreme and his protégé, and waited to be convinced by a
song issuing from the House of Silence. The Monstruwacans were ready
with their distance microphones, but some of the oculuses of the Great
Spy Glass were pointed not at the House but at the North-East Watcher,
to see if its bell-ear would quiver and herald the song. Great hordes
of people cycled to the North-West and North-East embrasures, to
listen. The old man had taken up residence in one of the North-West
embrasures himself, though this time one closer to the northern corner
of the outer walls. There he held hand to ear through long hours and
listened to the sounds of the Night Land. Some believed he listened not
to that tumult of baying and roaring, rumbling and screaming and
hideous laughter, but to the dread Silence that underlay it.
The attendant Monstruwacans in the Tower of Observation,
poised over their instruments for days now, still made minute
adjustments to the oculuses of the Great Spy Glass, or scanned view
tables to see if any new emanations through any of the extreme
frequencies had issued from the House of Silence. Their distance
microphones were set to the most sensitive, the range precisely tuned
to the horrid and looming House on the low hill, whose door and empty
windows shone unwavering with that light of unholy stillness.
Dione watched the occasional fidgeting of her attendants
with patience. These were momentous times, and even the superbly
trained and disciplined Monstruwacans could be forgiven their useless
displacement rituals. She knew a large faction of them was convinced
that the words of the Influence, and this promise of song from the
ever-silent House, were lies to entice living souls out to their doom
in the Night Land.
The Master knew that such pre-conception blocked pure
observation. She cultivated an inner poise reflected in her outer
stillness, a profound centering and settling she took now to its
deepest depths, transcending even the sensitive instruments of the
Tower and making herself into a pure receiver of the subtlest
emanation. The gross sounds were obvious and she allowed them to pass
her awareness, content that they would be recorded by her colleagues:
the mad cackling, the snarls and roars, the flares of fire. But beneath
were subtler emanations. She felt the sharp cut of the Electric Circle
through the aether, like a knife edge around the base of the Pyramid;
she felt the pulse of drum-like vibrations from the area of the Giant
Kilns, the thrum of power from the Land of Blue Fire, even the minute
shudder through the earth as some enormous beast writhed along some
hidden crevice. In this state of stillness, she might even have sensed
the movement of a Silent One along the Road, but none had been seen in
the four days since the declaration by the Influence that the House of
Silence would issue song. Far beyond, she registered a distant keening,
background to all else, that she sensed came from the area of the green
luminous mist.
The Master did not allow the agitation of the Night Land
to disturb her stillness. All her awareness was empty to receive,
poised to sense the faintest new hum or beat from the Silence. All the
attendants in the Tower were set to record the first sound ever to
issue from the House of Silence, but Dione was beyond expectations, in
the stillness that would register emanations even such delicate
instruments might miss. She did not wait, for time was gone; she was a
Silence herself, open to receive.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mett gazed out from the embrasure at the frantic Night
Land. The old man stood beside him, not looking but cocking his head
and holding gnarled hand to enlarged, grizzled ear, a posture he had
held for days broken only for occasional sleep periods. Beside and
behind these two figures others of the Mighty Pyramid thronged the
large room, some even erecting scaffolds to clamber up near the high
ceiling and gaze out the transom windows. Most did their best to
listen, but many rustled and scratched or coughed or shuffled, as is
ever the way with untrained humans. A few Monstruwacans in their black
robes were in the front row with Mett and the old man, always
monitoring, their discipline good but their faces set in scowls of
doubt. Mett knew of the internal division among the Monstruwacans, some
willing to consider the words of the Avatar valid, and others convinced
they were the vilest deception.
New Foretellers in their red-embossed white robes were
also in attendance, seeking their perpetual concurrence, equally
well-trained to be still and await the known future. Some of Mett’s own
Scholars stood in the crowd as well, outwardly poised, but he knew
their enhanced brains would be cogitating and collating data.
None of them could conceive of the great syntheses that
had occurred in Mett’s mind. He had divided the time of the last four
days between intensive research in his archives, including into his
copy of the Sybilline Book, and standing here beside his Avatar,
listening to the Night Land. His studies had prevailed. The knowledge
pulsing through his enhanced brain, linking memory and history and
deduction and insight into a webwork of profound revelation, stunned
him with its power. He could not help glancing at the New Foretellers,
and with a minute fraction of his awareness he pitied them for their
limited foreview. His deductive revelations were so much more accurate
and predictive. And these poor Monstruwacans-- some eager to judge,
others keen to observe and record, when he already knew.
For Mett now knew the true nature of the House of
Silence, the reasons for the ages-long gliding sojourns of the Silent
Ones, the soul-stasis the House had inflicted on Naani so long ago, the
ensorcellment the light of the House had put on Aschoff and his
companions. Mett knew truths about this most ancient of mysteries, the
House of Silence, such as no human had ever imagined.
And he waited now, not for some pitiful concurrence of
his incomplete dreams, or to be the first to accurately record some new
phenomenon from the House, but for the deliverance of his soul. Brain
seething with the knowledge and its implications, body still and calm
beside the old man, Mett knew what sounds he would soon hear from the
once-dreaded House of Silence. And that would be the herald to a
salvation of humanity such as no one had ever dreamed, though it had
been there before them through ages nearly unimaginable.
With a remote fragment of his awareness, he wondered
where Nemia might be. She had some clues now too, and might have
deduced the truth. If she were to be the new Supreme at so young an
age, she would have to show her superiority by demonstrating her
ability to answer this mystery. A surge of sorrow struck his heart at
the thought that she would be staying behind.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Koniopses stood in a small zone of space before the
great crystal window set into the West corner of the Pyramid. It was a
position people rarely occupied, for the crystal was so clear as to
seem non-existent, and so large--sloping sixty feet up and back above
his head and forty feet to either side at right angles--that it seemed
no protection at all stood between the observer and all the horror of
the Night Land. But now throngs of people filled the vast room,
pressing up against the crystal, standing on hastily-erected metal
tiers behind.
None stood within three feet of the Foremost Foreteller.
The severity of his stillness, the certainty of his stance and mein,
the presence of his knowing, kept them away. Even Cerantae his aide
stood apart beside him, trying in vain to achieve the Foremost’s
acceptance of the impending future.
Koniopses, turned slightly to the North as were all the
others in the room, seemed to gaze out at the restless Night Land, to
listen to the terrible chorus of sound that had grown through the
recent days and hours. But he was not gazing at nor listening to the
present. He was not even immersed in the stream of time. He was time, all the enormous past,
all the vast future, resting still in him, one complete and final
whole, and he the center-point from which it radiated.
He no longer needed to know what would be. It was, as he
was. A wave of inevitability had surged through time, and now he was
that wave, changing within the sameness.
He noticed Cerantae shuffle one foot three metrons,
heard the restless agitation of the masses behind him, saw a flare of
red light from the Pit casting the distorted shadow of the North West
Watcher toward the Redoubt. The frightful chorus of snarls, growls,
shrieks, cackles, the frantic pulsing of the Giant Drums, the mad
cavorting of the nearer Ab-Humans beside the Road, all the manic furor
from the Night Land that had been growing these few days since the
announcement of the old Janitor, were seen by him. And he was them. But
more so, he was all of human history back even to the days of Sun. It
was from there that he knew the song.
When the first sonorous tone welled out across the Night
Land, all other sound ceased. The wild baying of Night Hounds cut off
as if all their fanged and foaming mouths had snapped shut in an
instant. The manic cackling of the Laughter, that had been steadily
growing to a frenzied shrieking, ceased. The pulse of the Giant drums,
the shrill dance music of the Ab-humans, the roars and growls of
unknown monsters, all stopped at once.
A single deep tone swelled out into the silence. It
rolled quickly over the desolate terrain beside the Road, lapped around
the Watchers and rolled on over the Electric Circle to engulf the
Mighty Pyramid.
The Monstruwacans confirmed at once with their
instruments that it emanated from the House of Silence--though how they
could not say. Dione merely stood in the Tower and let the deep thrum
of the note vibrate in her bones.
The Scholars began at once to delve into their view
tables, to research all songs that began with that note. Mett only
smiled and raised one long hand as if to receive the rest of the song.
The old janitor lowered his own hand, that had been cupped to his ear
for so long, and smiled a more contented smile.
The New Foretellers breathed in the sound and sought
that strange feeling of concurrence to confirm their belief in their
powers. Kionopses moved not a metron, but the first note sent his
spirit hurtling back through time toward an early age of Man.
Before that eerie tone could roll across the Pit of Red
Smoke and the Dark Towers beyond the Pyramid and echo from the Headland
From Which Strange Things Peer, a second tone welled forth. Then a
rapid series of notes came lilting through the dark air, and the song,
underscored by thrumming base notes, resounded across the Night Land
and up into the Last Redoubt.
The Master was nodding now, her body moved by the
compelling slow rhythm, her heart stirred to the sorrowful yet
triumphant melody. Yet still she was the ultimate observer, beholding
the truth of the song without questions--though none could know the
unutterably ancient instruments which made the sounds, nor how they
could issue with such volume from the House. Dione listened and began
to move, and knew the final meaning of such music.
Mett’s smile grew into a blissful grin. His hand began
to sway and gesture, perfectly punctuating the unfolding melody as his
other hand wove and waved following the underlying base rhythm. He was
lost to all present time, as the immense capacity of his brain focused
entirely on the correctness of his revelation. A wave of triumph surged
from his brain through his entire body.
Koniopses hurtled further back through time, deep into
the First History. Back, back, far before The Cities Ever Moving West,
before the Darkening, into the earliest days of civilized humanity.
There he approached the origins of the song.
As the song rolled on, that deep base pulse almost
inspired the multitudes to march, but their amazement kept them
spellbound. They swayed in the tides of the song, moved by an
incredibly ancient sequence of sounds, that yet seemed as familiar to
them as their childhood chants against Evil Influences. Yet how
different this was, stately and elegant, yet simple and primal! They
knew it, though they had never heard it. It called to something in
their human spirit that no void of time could dampen.
Their amazement became shock--and a collective and
nearly soundless gasp jolted the Pyramid--when a Silent One appeared
before the door of the House. It did not come forth through the door
from within the House, but suddenly appeared outside the threshold, and
began to glide down the low hill upon which the House of Silence stood
and move smoothly along the Road Where the Silent Ones Walk. At once
another Silent One appeared before the door, to glide downward and
along the Road. Then another, and another, until a strange procession
of tall figures, robed and cowled in gray, glided eerily and
purposefully and evenly-spaced along the Road toward the West.
And the song rolled on, the deep thrum of its foundation
rhythm upholding the tragic and triumphant braying of its melody.
The old man turned, and looking into the first eyes he
met, spoke to the entire room, indeed the entire Pyramid: “Now the way
is opened. We may go at any time.” And he walked through the silent
crowd toward the door, along the corridor, down toward the Great Gate.
Mett turned and walked behind him. He was no longer afraid of the Night
Land or the Silent Ones. They were merely the spirits of his ancestors.
And they too were going home.
Dione savored every nuance of tone and volume, every
subtle vibration rang in her bones. She knew then the House of Silence
as but a mausoleum that had trapped the souls of her forebears, and was
now releasing them. And they were walking the Road for a final time, to
pass through to the sanctuary they had so long approached but never
attained. Now they would be let through--
Unless this was a brilliant deception wrought by the
Malign Spirits of the Night Land. She was the Master, and none could
cling to suspicion longer than she, as none could so well withhold
judgment. But so compelling... She felt a great weight of
responsibility and grief settle upon her as she accepted her duty to
remain behind, to record and monitor the first Peregrination, so that
future generations would know whether in truth real salvation awaited
in the West, or just another false hope and dire doom. And she could
not decide in her own heart if the risk was worth the threat.
Observe, she reminded herself. I exist only to witness.
But neither could she determine whether she wanted that salvation to be
real, and thus provoke more turmoil in the Last Redoubt than ever it
had known since its inception, or false, and allow the populace--and
herself--to return to normal.
Koniopses heard the music, here across the Night Land,
and there, in the depths of the First History. They were the same. It
was the primal archetypal song that stirred the joy and grief of
humanity of any age. Reworked many times by countless composers, but
ever the same at its source. And this was the progenitor song from
which all the others were inspired. The Foremost Foreteller felt the
most profound concurrence he could imagine, that linked all humanity
that ever existed upon the Earth. It was like an ultimate Foretelling,
and he wondered if the Night Land could be so devious as to provide him
with such a powerful fulfillment, only to deceive him. But if it was
true--
Koniopses knew that he must stay to breed descendants,
who would retain this revelation, until the time when the South Watcher
stamped on the Great Gate. Someone must remain until then, to lead the
last timid souls from this false sanctuary to what might prove to be
their true Home.
He emerged from the revelation of the song to look into
the blessing of his aide’s eyes. He reached out to embrace Cerantae and
whisper, “So few will go now. If they win through, we will remain to
Foretell salvation for the others.”
Cerantae embraced the Foremost. Her face was slack,
though tears flowed from her eyes. “I see,” she whispered. “Some will
wait until the very end. Our children must help them.”
They stood together in their embrace, immobile now not
because of Foreteller discipline but because of the enormity of their
responsibilities and the import of their mission.
-----------------------------------------------------------
“Some have heard our song! Not just with their ears, but
with their hearts they have heard, who still remember what is Good. We
know others still require them to Prepare, though they know that no
arms nor armor, capsule nor scrip are needed. That which hinders the
five Watchers that beset you, is the same power that will ward you on
the Road. As you have seen before. Our song has told you the true
nature of the Silent Ones, who surely you must no longer fear. We have
opened the way for those with hearts still trusting and intrepid, to
come.”
The old man gestured gently before the Watch-Dome. The
long ramp behind him was empty, but the balconies and turrets and
patios of the great Fore Court before him were thronging with the
People. Behind him the Great Gate stood closed, vast heights and
breadths of the hardest Redoubt Metal sealed shut with all the might of
ancient engineering and nerved with conduits of Earth Current. The
small Eye Gate also remained closed, though a faint red light glinted
through the head-sized crystal set into that humble door.
The old man wrung his hands before his heart. “Though we
are not the Powers for Good, and do not make them, we are their
stewards, and may send them forth as needed. And that need may not be
only for you, but for us as well. We are your ancestors, who love you
still, and who have prepared a place for you, that needs the blessing
of your presence to truly come alive.
“The Silent Ones too are your ancestors. Their souls had
been captured by the House of Silence and used to patrol the Road, to
ensure that you do not attempt the salvation of the green luminous
mist. The Silent Ones are Influenced, so that they are impersonal,
implacable, unimpeachable, forever wandering between the House and the
gateway to salvation, but never allowed to go through. They are
sentinels of fear to keep you from your exodus to heaven. Forever they
must walk the Road, warding and occupying it so that you do not. The
only place where they may act is in that land immediately before the
portal, in the brightest shine of the green luminous mist. There, any
living souls that turn aside from the mist in fear and doubt and dismay
may be slain by the Silent Ones, their souls enslaved too to the House.
And they slay by freezing with fear. For these ancestor spirits are
feral, all their hate and resentment and longing for life made greater
by the spells of the House, and their envy is so great that they will
kill rather than stand in the presence of those who have true life.
“So now you need not fear them. Rather pity them, for
they are your ancient selves lost in envy and hate. Now you hear the
song they have always heard, and understand its call to eternal living
death, the vague torment of a liminal world, unable to emerge into true
life, prevented from slipping into final salvation. If you redeem
yourselves into the green luminous mist, you may redeem them as well.
Thus they also have hope in you, but the House turned that all to
despair, and held it ever after in their weak minds, using them to
deter you.
“Be not deterred. You know the truth now. Go forth
boldly, feel compassion when you pass the Silent Ones on the Road, and
do not stray from it before the final trust of the green luminous mist.
A peace and delight await you as strong as the despair and pain you
have long suffered. Embrace it and it shall embrace you. Do not live
waiting for certain death. Rather die striving for uncertain life, and
be reborn into bliss.”
The old man turned and began the short walk down the
ramp toward the Great Gate at the base of the Northwest wall of the
Last Redoubt. Mett went close behind, and many others surged forth to
follow. No armor did they wear, no discoi bear, no capsule embedded in
the flesh of their arms, no pouch even filled with tablets and water
dust and gear for survival in the Night Land. In soft boots and loose
robes, swaying dresses and leisure trousers, the old and the young, man
and woman and child they swept forward, a rapture of trust and hope in
their faces.
Seeing this, some of the Watchmen in the metal Watchdome
beside the massive hinges and pistons made to haul the levers and throw
the switches that would release the Earth Current to swing the doors
wide, as they had been instructed by the Master Monstruwacan. It was an
order the Master Watchman might have resisted, insisting upon a
thorough testing to see that Dione was not Influenced herself, but the
order had been supported by personal visits from both Kionopses the
Foremost Foreteller, and Supreme Scholar Mett, who now walked in the
van of the mob following the old man toward the gate. As the first
faint crack of darkness appeared in the seam of the Gates, some of
those same Watchmen prepared to join the throng themselves and take the
Road to the green luminous mist.
But other Watchmen, still fearful that some tragedy
would ensue, seeing the gradual opening of the Gates onto a horror they
had feared their whole lives, hauled back the levers and switches to
stop this madness, while others leapt between the old man and the
Gates, discoi held upright. Their thumbs held the triggers, determined
even to engage the spinning of the blades to deter this insane venture.
“Halt!” some ordered, fear become rage in their faces and voices.
Others pleaded. “Don’t make us force you.” Terror and dismay made them
rigid.
The old man paused and smiled at them. “Fear is a
persistent force. But see?” And he waved at the tiny spot of crystal in
the Eye Gate high above. They all looked up, and saw that, along with
the red glow, a tint of green now glinted there. The discoi wavered.
Mett stepped forward beside the old man, put a long hand
on his shoulder, and stared into the eyes of the Watchmen. “You too
have heard the song. The Powers for Good await us. We would enjoy your
company on the Road, and your bravery and steadfastness in our new
home.”
“Though there you will not need such often,” the old man
added.
The Watchmen wavered. Some lowered their discoi and
stepped aside. But then a gust of utterly cold air passed in between
the crack in the Gates, and a flare of red light, and a distant growl
and moan from the Night Land without. The Watchmen flinched and leapt
back on guard, some turning toward the controls to close the Gate
again.
But other Watchmen blocked the entrance to the
Watchdome, while some worked the controls again and the Gate began to
open wider. Shouts arose, a discos spun and chopped, and the sickening
shriek of its wicked blade striking armor pierced the air. More discoi
flared into life, more shouts and that terrible tearing of armor rent
the air, as the two factions engaged in battle.
The Great Gate stood still, but now the crack was wide
enough to allow a single person passage. The old man nodded and stepped
through. Hand still on his shoulder, Mett followed. Others stepped
through behind him.
Instantly Mett was struck by terrible cold and a
desperate darkness, pierced by strange flares and glows of colored
light. A full mile ahead a thin line of white light split the dark.
Beyond that shone a dull red light he knew to be the Red Fire Pit, with
that vast shadow obscuring it that was the shape of the Northwest
Watcher. To its right that long dull glare must be the Vale of Red
Fire, and still further right and North the distant glow of the Plane
of Blue Fire. Beyond that he knew the House of Silence stood, hidden
now by the bulk of the Mighty Pyramid. Then his eyes teared in the
intense cold, and all dissolved into a blur. But through that blur he
beheld in the West a distant gleam of green.
“Ahh,” he heard his Avatar sigh. “We are almost there.”
Mett followed as the Avatar took the first steps outside the Great
Refuge, moving left along the wall toward the West and South. Behind,
the People one by one came through the Great Gate and followed, with
even a few Watchmen joining them. Mett picked his way over the uneven
ground in soft boots, feeling the cold through his Scholar’s robes. He
felt the first stirrings of fear.
Eventually the First Peregrination, over a thousand in
all, stood in awe before a slim line of white fire hovering near their
knees and arching away into dark distance. The Electric Circle. Beyond
that line the full fury of the Night Land awaited, and the utter
abandonment of their home of so many generations. They looked back at
the Great Pyramid, towering up into the black sky with its many windows
and embrasures and balconies lit with Earth Current. Soaring above that
the Tower of Observation stood--though not as tall as it had been,
since the upper half had been severed from the Earth Current. And a
large section of the base of the Pyramid showed dark since the lower
cities had been abandoned. But in between glowed the Four-Hundred and
Eighty Cities, with the many embrasures on this Southwest side dotted
with people who had come to watch the vulnerable Peregrination. They of
that Peregrination might have quailed then and returned, but they heard
the words of the Avatar.
“Though you have made its container, this too is a
manifestation of the Good Powers.” He held his hands out above the
Circle, as if blessing it, or drawing in its strength. “But now such
Powers will accompany us always, and we are safe beyond this line.” And
he stepped casually over and strode across the uneven ground beyond.
Mett kept his eyes focused on his Avatar. Though it
should have been a marvel to him to stand here, upon the Electric
Circle he had only seen from so far above, he spared no mind for awe,
but hopped over it as if it were a child’s toy and followed the Avatar
into the Night Land. With various responses of awe, urgency, curiosity
and excitement, the others followed. The First Peregrination had
entered the Night Land.
-----------------------------------------------------------
In the Tower of Observation, Dione stood calmly while
the other Monstruwacans recorded and adjusted and observed with
suppressed agitation. Often they would report in slightly shrill tones
some detected emanation from the Night Land: a pack of approaching
Night Hounds, a further increase in the volume of the Great Laughter,
dark things drifting down from the Headland From Which Strange Things
Peer. And the quivering of the bell-ear of the North East Watcher
continued, alerting all the Night Land that humans were abroad.
Dione heard the clipped accusations in some of their
reports. She struggled to remain calm. Occasionally she closed her eyes
and nodded. Observe, she said with all her being. Just observe. But she
felt it was her charge to protect all the peoples of the Redoubt, and
that in this she was about to fail. She could not bring herself to look
through an oculus and see those vulnerable people out there in the
terror and cold of the Night Land. She was the Master, but she chose to
stand among her attendants in the Chamber of Observation and remain
still while they monitored through the Great Spy Glass, and reported on
this historic moment.
Nemia wandered through the halls of the Scholars’
section, stunned at the speed of change. She had barely had time to say
good-bye to the many members of her Youth League who had chosen to go
out with the Peregrination--as so many Youth had chosen--before the
Senior Scholars had told her that soon they would meet in council to
decide if Mett was Influenced in his final decree that she be appointed
Supreme. Excitement arose in her heart, and she felt a sudden kinship
with Naani, whose blood she bore. That had been a bold and courageous
ancestor, and now Nemia thrilled that she might at so young an age
achieve a position as one of the Redoubt Archons. She felt certain that
Mett, though inspired almost to obsession, had not been Influenced, and
so her ascension was assured. But memory of Mett brought both fond
sentiments and terrible worry, that he might have been merely wrong,
and would die in hideous torture out in the Night Land. She could not
bring herself to an embrasure, where so many others of the Redoubt
watched the progress of the Peregrination, and so she wandered,
thinking about her near future.
Eventually her mind began to work, and she found herself
moving toward her private chambers. She would calm this churning mind,
and meditate on the juxtaposition of threat and opportunity, until
Seniors came to tell her of their decision. Other Scholars might come
to report on the fate of the Peregrination. She knew even then that
though it might reach its goal of the green luminnous mist, that in no
way assured that the Peregrination had reached salvation. She prepared
herself to accept that she, and all the Great Pyramid, might never
know.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Koniopses and Cerantae hung together in the
Centre-Point. Radiant emanations of Earth Current wreathed the air
around them, but a thick beam of bright white light gleamed in the air
between their hearts. Their eyes were closed, their breath even, all
their being still but for this exchange of energy between their souls.
Time was one, and they knew the eternal union that bonded Mirdath and
her lover bonded them too now. From this union, sharings emerged in the
one being they made.
Our children must know of
this First Peregrination.
Yes. As clearly as we know
love.
We shall give them that
power.
The Foretelling power shall
be enhanced in our heirs, who shall know this time as they know their
own.
Through a million years they
shall know.
And remind all the Pyramid:
The Road may be made safe by
the Powers for Good.
If they trust and take
courage.
Beyond the green luminous
mist may be our true home.
Or a terrible death
out in the dark and utter chill of the Night Land.
The bright bond of light shortened, drawing the two
together. They embraced in slow stillness and rapture, centered between
the vast lineages of their ancestors and the precious promise of their
descendants, knowing they served both. They savored the bliss of their
union. Beyond the green luminous mist could await safety and home, but
here, in their communion, was a delight of service and sharing that
approached even that. But only their direct heirs would have this
power. The rest of the Pyramid’s population would need to be reminded
either to take the Road, or resist the despair that led to foolish
risk.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The Master Monstruwacan entered once again that state of
stillness where time hung poised. Over a time that must have been
recorded as days, reports came to her ears:
“Silent Ones moving along the Road.” Pause. “The people
stand aside and let them pass. They do no harm.”
“Now a pack of Night Hounds approach. They stop to bay
and snarl, but do not charge. They seem unwilling to step onto the
Road, but prowl restlessly. Now they slink off whining and are lost in
darkness.”
“Strange black forms we have not seen before approach
the Road. We believe they have come down from the Headland from Which
Strange Things Peer. They scurry along the edge of the Road, and the
humans pause, pull together around their leader. The black forms writhe
at the edge of the Road, but do not move onto it. The humans hurry on.
The black forms scurry along beside them for a time, but then crawl
away and are lost into the Night Land.”
“The Giants’ Drums pulse louder. Giants roll forward
some strange new engine, aim it at the helpless humans moving slowly
along the Road. The Giants load their great weapon... but do not fire.
They wait and watch as the humans pass on.”
“Now Ab-humans dance and writhe beside the Road on both
sides. The humans pass among them. The Ab-humans cavort in frenzy,
waving over-large hands, nodding their misshapen heads. Some humans
cower, turn to go back, but then the old janitor turns to speak. We
cannot hear, they are too far away even for our distance microphones.
But the humans turn again and continue on.”
Dione heard the mutterings of some of her colleagues,
that the lesser monsters of the Night Land were merely allowing the
humans to pass on to a greater horror that waited within the green
luminous mist. But she maintained strict objectivity and held no
opinion.
She moved at last and placed her eye to the oculus
reserved for her. She watched as the final report echoed through the
Chamber. “The glow of the green luminous mist grows brighter. It is
tinted with gold now. At full magnification, the Great Spy Glass can
discern the mass of humans on the Road amidst the haze of light. But we
have seen none depart the Road into the Place Where the Silent Ones
Kill. Their leader suddenly skips in glee, and is lost into the mist.
One of those who follows, tall, bald-headed, turns and waves a broad
hand in farewell. Then he and all the others are lost into the green
luminous mist.”
Dione turned and slowly walked to her chambers below.
Now she would sleep. She wondered what her dreams would bring. She
strove to accept that though she had Observed, she could know no final
answer to the mystery of the green luminous mist.
© Gregg
Marchese
2 Oct 2010
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