At the mention of Samiha the young Focals exchanged surprised looks.
‘Ama allow you to Read Kion?’ breathed Mata in shock, before his brother hushed him.
‘Oracle has good reason for all actions,’ said Oren to the younger boy, whose pale face turned pink with embarrassment.
‘What’s wrong with Reading the Kion?’ exclaimed Tymon, letting go of the others’ hands in annoyance.
His turmoil regarding Samiha had come to a head. The doubts he had quashed in the air-chariot resurfaced, ugly and insistent. Were the Focals going to refuse to assist the Kion, too? It struck him simultaneously that ever since he had met his love, he had been trying in one way or another to rescue her. It had been his obsession, even as acting the martyr had been hers. No one else, apparently, was interested. He had a teetering, momentary sense of his own foolishness and thrust it away. His fear and confusion expressed itself as sarcasm.
‘Don’t you want to See what’s become of her?’ he growled. ‘Don’t you want to try to find a way to help? Or are you afraid you’ll regret just sitting back and allowing it to happen?’
The Grafters glanced at each other again, this time in puzzlement.
‘Excuse us, friend,’ answered Oren. ‘We wish very much to See Samiha. We do not know when she goes back to Argos, only that one day, she goes. We do not ask Sap about twelfth Kion. Her life is sacred.’
‘Sacred?’ mumbled Tymon, suddenly deflated.
It was as he had suspected. They believed Samiha’s destiny to be sacrosanct. She must be allowed to follow her course to the bitter end without interference, and not even seen as she did so. It was a mindset he found incomprehensible.
‘You never tried to Read her?’ he reiterated, dumbfounded. ‘Not even when you heard she’d been taken captive?’
‘It is not our place,’ said Oren sadly. ‘Kion’s destiny is Written. We understand your loss, friend. We feel it too. But we must find testament now. Perhaps knowledge of Oracle’s message will help you.’
Tymon felt numb. He took hold of his companions’ hands once more, unable for the moment to find the words to argue with them, though his whole being refused to countenance their peculiarly Nurian brand of fatalism. He seemed to hear again his endless debates with Samiha. The Oracle had not come across as quite so resigned, he thought: he hoped she might have said something in her testament to support him. Perhaps that was why she had inscribed her message on him in the Sap world, rather than on an ordinary piece of paper. Perhaps this was the only way the Focals would be persuaded to help Samiha.
The young Grafters had closed their eyes. He followed suit, attempting to quell the turmoil in his heart. He knew he had to be calm in order to enter the trance.
‘Adam, Issat,’ Oren intoned in the quiet of the thicket.
In weakness find strength. Tymon translated the words of the Grafter’s song to himself, rather forlornly. He did feel very much in the position of weakness, a minority opinion. Was he truly a fool to wish to rescue Samiha?
‘Haya, Kudarat,’ continued Noni.
The Nurian version of the ‘words of welcome’ was a litany of Leaf-Letters, hypnotic in its simplicity. Tymon shivered. It was all too easy to attain the trance-state in the company of the young Focals. Their combined power drew him in, like an inexorable wind-funnel. The calm of the twig-thicket deepened and his legs became rooted to the bark.
‘Malakout Shikast,’ Ara murmured, though it might have been Mata’s voice; Tymon could no longer tell.
His eyes flew open with a jolt. The trance had begun: he was immobile and anchored to the Tree of Being. The vibrant branches burgeoned out of him, erasing the ordinary twig-thickets with sprays of twisting green. The familiar, shining void of the Sap-world glimmered in between. But it was not only the limbs he had come to think of as his own that twined about him on this occasion. His four companions were there, too, part of the Tree. Their branches stretched toward him, curling and winding through his own. The seeking tendrils itched and burned as they slithered across him. He winced.
‘Where’s the testament?’ he asked Oren nervously.
He could find no message written anywhere on himself, no evidence of the Oracle’s tampering. He wondered if he would have to go through the painful process of merging with the Sap again. He felt the pulse in the heart of the branches like a faint throbbing fire.
‘You are only one who can tell,’ replied the young Grafter. ‘You must speak Oracle’s prophecy.’
‘Me?’ echoed Tymon, perplexed. ‘But I don’t know—’
Then he gasped aloud. The tendrils emanating from the other Grafters had burrowed into his dream-body, piercing his remembered flesh.
‘What are you doing?’ he exclaimed, though he knew the answer. They were Reading him.
If the Focals made a response, he did not hear it. Abruptly, the vision of the Tree was gone and other images invaded his mind. He found himself standing on the execution dock in Argos city once again. There was Samiha, a lone white figure at the end of the planks. The soldiers stood waiting behind her with their staves at the ready. But Tymon was now a part of the scene, not simply witnessing it. In the vision he was two people, one who ran down the dock toward the Kion, and another who observed from the outside. He was Seeing his future self, he realised. He would go back to Argos after all! The vision racked him even as the first Reading of Samiha had done, and he felt the painful birth of prophecy. His mouth opened as he cried out the words that were not his own.
‘Loss! The one named Tymon shall disobey.’ The Oracle’s message ripped its way out of him.
The vision continued. Snow fell, blurring the Kion’s white shift against the sky. The future Tymon called to her without success, his voice hoarse in the deadening cold. She did not notice him running toward her but waited calmly for the execution to be carried out. Even the guards behind her paid him no heed. Before he could catch up with her however, another figure stepped between them. Wick confronted him on the dock.
‘Love!’ gasped the Tymon who watched. ‘The branch is twined, the fruit is pain.’
He Saw himself grapple with Wick on the dock. The acolyte seized him and pushed him toward the waiting chasm on one side of the boards. He ducked away from the brink just in time, desperately trying to break away from his opponent in order to reach Samiha. There was a blur of movement as the soldiers behind the Kion thrust out their staves.
‘Knowledge!’ The prophecy tumbled from Tymon’s lips. He grimaced in pain. ‘The choice is his: the choice is made.’
The staves struck Samiha and she fell, her arms outstretched like the wings of a bird. The Tymon of the vision could not reach her, could not stop her from falling, stymied by Wick. The Tymon who watched felt his fury, his pain, without being able to move to help him. In a burst of fury, the future Tymon wrenched himself free of his opponent and kicked him toward the edge of the dock. Wick slithered too far and too fast, scrabbling on the icy planks. For an instant, the acolyte’s shocked face hung above the gaping void. Then he was gone. The image wavered and winked out.
The trance disintegrated, leaving Tymon panting and awake in the darkened twig-thicket. His body rebelled at the intensity of the vision and he knelt a moment on the bark, dizzy and shaking, gasping for breath. The other Grafters stirred about him.
‘I wouldn’t do that!’ he protested, when he felt able to speak again. ‘I’d never kill anyone, not even in those circumstances! You can’t believe this!’
They gazed wordlessly at him, doubt written large on their faces.
‘We must believe Oracle,’ answered Oren slowly. ‘If you go back to Argos city, this is what happens—’
‘No!’ Tymon rose to his feet, his chest hot and tight with emotion. ‘I refuse to accept that! All this shows is that it’s possible to go back and help Samiha in some way. I just have to make sure I don’t let this terrible accident happen. I won’t go near the dock that day. I have to try and help her in another way.’
‘Sy
on,’ put in Noni gravely, ‘you must not go. The results would be terrible no matter what you did. There would be some kind of disaster: there always is when we contradict the Sap.’
‘How do you know?’ he countered, exasperated. ‘You won’t even Read the Kion properly to find out if this is contradicting. You won’t try. I must try. I love her. I can’t stand by and watch her go to her death while I have the slightest hope of doing something about it.’
He stood a trembling moment before the other Grafters. Oren eyed him with surprise and pity. Ara and Mata exchanged another glance; Noni frowned and looked away.
‘Thank you for asking me to join you,’ Tymon resumed, bowing stiffly to Oren and to the group. ‘I know the Oracle wanted me to stay here and complete my studies. But I just can’t. I must go to Argos. I hope you understand.’
He left them without another word, stumbling through the thicket to the refugee camp. There he threw himself down on the floor of his tent and covered his head with his blanket. When he fell at last into an uneasy slumber, it was only to dream of the monotonous expanse of the Veil. Someone was calling to him: he thought he heard Samiha’s voice. A bright thread of Sap stretched out into the gloom ahead. He took hold of it and followed it, walking endlessly through darkness.
21
The next day he awoke fatigued and out of sorts, but no less determined to return to Argos city. The Oracle’s prediction affected him in the opposite way to a warning. He was resolved now to help Samiha without fulfilling the drastic future he had Seen. Even so, he felt embarrassed enough at his outburst the night before to avoid taking breakfast in the meal hall, for fear of running into the Focals. He retreated instead with Galliano to the Farhang construction hangar, an open platform built on the south side of the twig-thicket.
He skulked there all morning, ostensibly in an effort to provide assistance to the workshop team, but spent much of his time ruminating over travel options to the Central Canopy. The villagers were assembling the carcasses for two new flying machines; he could not help wondering whether he might prevail upon Galliano to let him use one. He did not manage to corner the scientist to talk to him alone about the notion, however. He hung listlessly about the workshop, slow on his feet and preoccupied.
At length his co-workers, seeing his inability to produce even tolerable carpentry, gently but firmly banished him from the hangar. By then it was almost lunchtime. The day lowered with the promise of rain, and there was nowhere else for Tymon to go: his grumbling belly drew him back to the meal hall out of sheer necessity.
He slid through the door like an errant child, hurrying past people eating their meals in small groups on the floor. He hoped that he might find Pallas, for an idea had occurred to him and he had a mind to ask the scout a favour. But he could not find the young guard anywhere among the robed and bearded villagers in the hall. He sought out the serving-bench at the far end of the room, apologising to the people he pushed past. He had just retrieved a roll of pastry from a tray, sinking his teeth gratefully into the hot stuffing, when Oren’s voice rang out immediately behind him.
‘We need no other strength,’ the Grafter pronounced causing Tymon to almost choke on his mouthful. ‘Sap fights for us. Sap brings justice.’
After a moment of panic, Tymon realised he was not the one being spoken to. He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder to see the four young Focals seated in a large gathering of people from both Freeholds. Oren stood in the space at the centre of the circle, addressing the group with quiet authority, despite his broken Argosian.
‘Victory comes,’ he assured them, ‘if we have faith.’
‘How long will that take?’ objected one of his listeners. ‘Years? Centuries? You must agree, sainted one, that the Sap takes a while to deliver its justice. You can hardly blame some people from wanting to help it along.’
There was a smattering of laughter. Oren was unmoved.
‘Not much longer, friends,’ he said. ‘Kion has arrived in Argos. With her sacrifice Signs are complete. Year of Fire is upon us. Argosians cannot escape. Like all oppressors, they will be swept away in cleansing fire!’
As he said these words, his eyes came to rest on Tymon, standing frozen by the serving bench with the lump of pastry in his hands. Oren did not seem in the least perturbed by his presence and smiled as he continued his address.
‘These are years we have waited long to see. These are End Times. There is no need for arms. Our weapon is Sap. Our shield is Sap. You will see how it comes to pass. Did Kion not say so herself in Marak? Who was there? Tanata? Will you tell us? Rise, sister.’
He nodded to a woman seated near his feet. She stood up. Her loose white locks hung about a face that was still quite young, as if some shock had caused the strands to change colour prematurely.
‘I was there,’ she said huskily. ‘I was in Marak. I heard the Kion. I saw her arrested.’
Tymon forgot about lunch entirely as he fixed his attention on the white-haired woman, leaning his half-eaten pastry abandoned on the serving table. Even his discomfort regarding the Focals receded from his mind. This person had seen the Kion before she was taken prisoner. She would know what purpose had driven Samiha in those last, fateful hours; she might provide the connection that had escaped him in his visions. The woman named Tanata swayed slightly on her feet, her eyes half-closed, as if she were reciting a piece of poetry.
‘I was there,’ she droned. ‘She came to us for shelter. I was one of the ones who turned her away. I let the Kion go cold from my door.’ A murmur, partly commiserating and partly condemning, went through the gathering. Tymon stared at the speaker, riveted.
‘All that night she wandered from house to house. None of us would let her in. I don’t know how she survived, but she did. The next day I saw her at the temple.’ Tanata’s voice rose in pitch. ‘Brothers, sisters. The Kion has redeemed us all. Because of what she said to me that day, I’m a changed woman.’
‘Tell us, sister!’ The calls rang out from the throng.
‘She said there are no strangers,’ declared Tanata, warming to her confession. Her face had become distorted by emotion, and she turned from one member of the crowd to another, her gaze burning. ‘There are no enemies, not even the ones who take all you have, enslave your children and kill you. They are still your family though they use you cruelly. They are your brothers and sisters. You must treat them as such. She told us she loved us.’
The room hummed with approval. ‘She told me she loved me!’ moaned Tanata. She began to beat her breasts with the palms of her hands. ‘Me, the woman who had turned her away and shown her no mercy!’
‘Shown her no mercy,’ echoed the members of the gathering.
Tymon stared at the scene, appalled. He had seen comparable madness played out before in Argos. The religious festivals in his home town were rife with overwrought public confessions and showy penances of just this sort. But he had somehow expected better of the Nurians. The woman bawled out her story as if it were a circus sideshow while the audience whooped and hollered in support.
‘Right then, I changed,’ shrieked Tanata. She fell to her knees, her arms outspread. ‘My hard heart cracked and the Sap flowed into me. I knew I had to spread the Kion’s word. I left that city of perdition, Marak. I set out to walk the path of the Sap. Everywhere I went I told the Kion’s story, sisters and brothers. Everywhere I went I told the story of Love.’
‘What nonsense,’ snapped another voice, bringing the tirade to a halt.
There was a hush as everyone turned toward the author of the interruption. A man rose to his feet at the rear of the group, a heavy, bearded fellow with scowling brows. In addition to his northerner’s robes he wore a peculiar headdress Tymon had not seen before, a piece of white cloth held in place by a strip of cord about the temples.
‘Love and resignation,’ he sneered. ‘Is that all you have for us, Sap-monger? This is pure fantasy, woman’s talk for babies. The people of Nur deserve better. Stand up for yourselves,
brothers and sisters! Fight for your freedom and forget these pious fools! They will not help you.’
A buzz of excitement greeted his words. Tymon glanced at the Focals. They sat silent, attentive, apparently unwilling to interrupt.
‘The Sap is all we need to rely on!’ retorted Tanata. She jumped to her feet, facing the bearded man across the room. ‘You can fight for freedom all you want, but if you’re still locked up in your own hatred, what’s the point?’
‘Aye, aye,’ called some of the audience. Others only shook their heads.
‘The point,’ boomed the man, ‘is that we’re actually doing something! What have you done lately to advance the cause of your fellow Nurians? What have you done to help the homeless infants in Marak?’
At this the white-haired woman lost all semblance of self-control.
‘Infants in Marak?’ she screamed, her face reddening. Tymon thought she might have slapped the bearded man if there had not been people sitting between them. ‘My five-year-old nephew was killed in Marak. He was killed by soldiers going through the tent-town looking for so-called rebel agitators. Nothing I do or say will ever change that. Put that in your kafa and eat it!’
The hall erupted with competing voices. Tymon saw Oren reach out and try to pull Tanata down beside him, but she angrily shook him off.
‘All the more reason,’ shouted the man in the headdress, raising his voice to be heard over the hubbub and jabbing his finger in the air. ‘All the more reason to fight the oppressor who has taken so much from us!’
‘Violence leads to violence!’ cried the woman, hoarsely. ‘Listen to the words of the Kion!’
People rose to their feet, arguing. Tymon pushed his way to the door unnoticed in the commotion. He clattered down the steps and hurried away from the building, only pausing to catch his breath when he was deep inside the twig-thicket. Tanata’s histrionic confession had disgusted him, while the speeches of the bearded man were full of Caro’s familiar rhetoric. But it was neither species of fanatic that worried him as he hastened back to the hangar. Even ordinary Nurian citizens had decided the Kion was a lost cause, he thought. They had completely adjusted to the fact that they would never see her again. Her identity was moot. Her fate was sealed. She had become a symbol to be worshipped or derided, not a fellow human being in need of help. If he did not do something for her, no one else would. The realisation filled him with a barely contained urgency.
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