by Jon Jacks
And provided he did all this, he could probably turn this chance meeting completely to his advantage.
‘All human knowledge?’ the man said at last, dragging thoughtfully over each word.
He chuckled richly.
‘Then you must think me a fool to promise me this!’ he said triumphantly. ‘For anyone who isn’t a fool would be wise enough to know humans know so little!’
The trader of souls nodded sagely.
‘I see I’m not dealing with just any old fool here!’ he said with a smirk.
‘Don’t go playing your clever little word games with me!’ the wise man snapped back. ‘If you wish to make a bargain with me, then you can start by treating me with the respect I deserve!’
‘I had no intention of treating you any other way,’ the trader replied, a hint of shock in his voice implying he was affronted that the wise man believed he would resort to trickery.
With a wave of his hand, he brought into being seven heads that serenely hovered in the air in front of the wise man.
‘As you have wisely ascertained,’ he said, ‘there is far too much knowledge to be known for it all to be contained in just one head.’
‘Hah! Do you still take me for a fool?’ the wise man growled. ‘If you get me to cut off my head to replace it with one of these, then I am dead and yours to take immediately away!’
‘But there is no need for you to cut off you head!’ the trader pronounced assuredly. ‘For it is already replaceable.’
With an elegant twirl of his fingers, he made the wise man’s head rise up from his shoulders without even the slightest hint of pain. Within that same instant, one of the hovering heads had taken its position upon the man’s shoulders.
They eyes of the head opened wide in awe.
Suddenly, the man knew everything there was to know about all of the planets seemingly endlessly circling throughout the universe!
Abruptly, the head rose up from his shoulders and swept back into the line-up of other heads. The wise man’s head instantly slipped back into place; and the wise man groaned in agony.
Not because it had been a physically painful procedure. It had all, as before, being entirely painless.
The wise man groaned because he realised he wasn’t a wise man at all!
His knowledge was only a fraction of that contained within the other head!
It was like being suddenly plunged into a complete, hopeless darkness.
He felt lost. Useless.
Dead.
He must keep his wits about him!
His soul was at stake here!
‘Hah,’ he said, trying to sound unimpressed. ‘My soul isn’t worth just one of those heads!’
He was about to insist on taking all seven heads as his price for his soul.
But even though he wasn’t anywhere near as wise as the head that had only briefly been his, he was still the wisest man on Earth.
What if all the other heads weren’t quite so wise?
‘Tell me,’ he enquired assuredly, casually waving a finger to indicate the line of hovering heads, ‘what is the knowledge contained within each of these heads?’
And so the trader told him.
Each head knew all there was to know within a particular field of knowledge.
One head knew everything anyone needed to know about animals. Another knew all of the history of the peoples of the Earth, another of its geography. And so on, down to the very last head.
And that head was the head of the complacently unknowing fool.
The wise man chortled gleefully.
So that had been the traders trick, had it?
Well, he had been found out, hadn’t he?
His trick hadn’t worked on him!
Remarkably, as if thwarted in his original intention, as if to demonstrate that now there would be absolutely no trickery, the trader offered to let the wise man choose another head to briefly wear upon his shoulders.
The wise man shook his head.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ he declared loftily. ‘For I will be taking all six for the price of my soul!’
‘But the bargain should be for one head alone!’ The trader insisted in obvious surprise. ‘Why, one head alone–’
‘One head alone will not be enough!’ the wise man declared adamantly. ‘It is all six; or none at all!’
The trader grimaced in frustration. He eyed the wise man as if still contemplating a way that he could regain the advantage in this transaction.
He shook his head, as if realising he was beaten. As if he were now resigned to making the most of a bargain that had otherwise gone sour for him.
‘Then,’ he said at last, ‘I must take your original head; but as a goodwill gesture, I will leave you the fool’s head for free! No one will need it now!’
The wise man chuckled.
He would have no need for his original head when he had these six far wiser heads to choose from. As for the fool’s head, that could be stored in a cupboard. He would have no need of such a foolish thing!
‘Agreed,’ he said.
And with that, the bargain was sealed.
*
As soon as the trader vanished, the wise man’s head disappeared with him.
But one of the wise heads had instantly replaced his own.
He sighed with pleasure, his mind flooded with all knowledge of the seas!
Another head, he must try another head!
He sighed in ecstasy once more. He had never realised that there were so many animals! Never even considered that there would be so much to know about them – let alone that he would ever know everything there was to know about them!
He relished the knowledge now flooding through him, amazed by every new fact, every fresh detail of life on Earth.
In fact, in fact…wasn’t that the most amazing fact!
Who would have thought it?
But no, no! What about that fact?
That was truly incredible!
Wait, wait, though! Wasn’t that…?
Hadn’t he discovered something remarkably similar when he had tried on the head of cosmology?
What was it? What had it been?
He couldn’t remember!
But why should he worry? It was still there, that knowledge, waiting for him to access once more when he tried on that particular head!
Momentarily discarding the head that knew everything of zoology, he replaced it with the one that knew all there was to know about cosmology.
Yes, yes, it was in here somewhere! Now, where was it?
What was he looking for?
He couldn’t quite remember!
Wasn’t it something about…something about animals?
Never mind; his mind was a whirl once more with every detail about the planets, all this new information revolving around inside his head as if it were a miniature universe in its own right!
And there…there was a fact that had the most amazing similarities to what he had discovered when he had worn…
Now, which head was it?
Quickly, he tried on the head giving him the most unbelievable insights into how the human mind worked.
Wasn’t it in this head that he’d seen…seen what, exactly?
What was he trying to recall?
Something about…animals was it?
No, no! Geography! The way the Earth had been formed…
No, no; that wasn’t it either!
This was all just so painfully frustrating!
The way the mind worked, though!
How truly remarkable that was!
It reminded him of the way the universe…the way the universe what, exactly?
There was a link! They were linked by the way the mind and the…or was it the Earth’s timeline?
This was all so aggravating!
He would go crazy thinking like this!
He needed a rest!
He just needed to give his whirling, overworked mind a short break!
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Then he could get back to trying to work out what all these connections were that, for the moment, were only just alluding him!
If only he had his own head, he could put the separate parts together, he was sure!
But to have all these swirling yet ultimately un-connectable thoughts – it was so maddening!
He was fortunate indeed to be wearing this particular head. For it knew enough of how the mind worked to know this untreatable frustration was driving him to distraction – to madness, even!
He needed a brief respite.
The fool’s head!
That’s what it was for!
He was right, of course. For when the fool’s head slipped onto his shoulders, it worked perfectly.
Within a split second, he had completely forgotten what all the other heads were for.
In fact, they really were such horrific things to look at!
Hovering there, as if he’d stumbled into some devilish torture chamber!
He couldn’t understand what they were doing here: why he had foolishly thought he would ever need such terrifying, disembodied heads!
And so, naturally, he threw them all away.
And with all those six hideous heads at last out of the way, he found he was perfectly happy just sitting there, his mind completely empty of worries.
And that, perhaps, is all most men truly need to know.
*
Chapter 32
‘I still say it’s a remarkable mirror!’ Degrat said acidly.
‘But if you can’t link one new discovery with another…’ Fandran said in reply, hoping Degrat might begin to understand what the girl was trying to explain.
‘The most important mirror,’ the girl declared, ignoring them both, ‘is the Fourth Mirror!’
‘The one we don’t have!’
Degrat’s mood was still sour.
‘But you must know where it is hidden?’
Tesetra looked towards the girl hopefully.
The girl shook her head.
‘Where something is physically hidden? Well, it’s not quite the same as hidden knowledge. Besides, I don’t have such fine control over my mirror to ask specific questions.’
At last, Degrat nodded in understanding.
The mirrors didn’t always give you the answers to the questions you wished to ask.
‘So,’ Tesetra persisted, ‘do you know what powers this Fourth Mirror holds? And if it’s something we should be seeking to possess?’
‘The mirror reveals the true nature of something, not what we perceive it to be.’
‘That’s hardly a remarkable power!’ Degrat’s sourness had returned. ‘Only magic would prevent us from seeing some object in its true form.’
‘And yet you, Degrat, for all your intense observation of her, for all your abilities enabling you to see inside her heart; you never perceived Tesetra for who she really was?’
Degrat fleetingly glowered at Tesetra. Here was confirmation, obviously, that Tesetra was indeed one of the Snake People.
‘When we see things in our minds only,’ the girl continued, ‘it’s surprising how easily it fools us into accepting that which doesn’t really exist.’
And with that, she revealed that they were all still standing on the mountain top.
*
High above them, a huge yet heavily mixed flock of birds was swirling around in a squawking panic.
Other birds, equally panicked, were swooping low, passing close by them.
The sky was crowded, a mass of rainbow brightness against the blue. And yet the birds appeared to be dropping lower, becoming increasingly more massed, as opposed to taking the natural route of escape and rising ever higher.
‘What’s wrong with the birds?’ Fandran frowned in concern.
‘My mirror revealed something else,’ the girl said, this time raising her mirror up before them all to a great height.
Within the mirror, the Sun shone remarkably brightly.
Yet as the girl talked, it changed slightly, showing first the patterns of a jaguar, secondly of a serpent, thirdly of the plumage of a bird.
‘Why is each age called the First, or the Second, or the Third Sun?’ the girl asked. ‘Because each god also briefly became the Sun while he wielded power over the Earth.’
The Moon appeared; and devoured the Sun.
Now the Sun still shone, yet with a silvery sheen.
‘The Water goddess is now also the Sun!’ Tesetra exclaimed.
‘So that’s where our Water goddess is!’ Degrat cried out equally excitedly. ‘The Moon is also the Sun!’
The mirror of sun-shot rain fell away. Behind it, the real Sun shone, shone through the frantically fluttering feathers of the highly panicked birds.
It shone a bright silver.
And then, as if the Moon had abruptly devoured it, the Sun was the Moon.
*
Chapter 33
The Moon hung, massively, oppressively, in the sky.
The birds fled, flying even lower, swooping down past the mountain top. Swooping lower and lower, dropping into the valleys.
The four corners of the court began to steadily crumble, the rock tumbling, falling into the yard.
Where the birds had been, the blue of the sky began to fade, swiftly replaced instead by the darkness of the night.
The stars came out. The Milky Way spread her white cloak against the darkness.
The Moon appeared to grow larger, ever larger. As if she were weighing down heavily on everything beneath her.
As if she were attempting to draw closer towards the Earth. Towards Tesetra, Degrat, Fandran and the girl.
‘What’s she waiting for?’ Tesetra asked. ‘What’s she trying to do?’
The court’s walls continued to crumble, faster now than ever.
‘It’s my four corners that hold up the sky, that frame the passing of time,’ the girl announced coolly, drawing their attention to the now rapidly disintegrating walls.
The darkness was now also dropping ever lower, the night invading day, eradicating it.
Everywhere, the sheer blackness was conquering the light. Devouring it.
The Moon was growing, drawing closer.
The darkness enveloped them all.
It was the darkness of space.
There was no air to breath.
*
Chapter 34
Thinking this would be their last breath, they each – save only the girl – breathed in heavily,
They didn’t have chance to run for the valleys where, strangely, the light remained. Where the birds still flew, if chaotically and with hardly any room to spare.
The animals survived there too.
And yet, despite the darkness, the complete lack of air, they each soon realised that they were also alive.
‘We can breathe,’ Degrat sighed with relief.
‘Of course.’ The girl remained nonchalant. ‘But only us.’
‘Only us?’ Tesetra repeated fearfully. ‘Then the Stone People? The Corn People?’
‘The time is at last over for those who were spared the last time, when they retreated to the mountain tops.’
The girl was almost too cool, too unfeeling, Tesetra thought.
‘But why?’ Tesetra wailed. ‘Why is the Water goddess doing this?’
The Moon hanging in the sky directly before her was now huge, a vast silvery, perfectly circular lake.
The Water goddess appeared within its glistening framing.
She was beautiful, of course.
Her skin was that of a red serpent.
The Moon was a perfect mirror.
The Fourth Mirror.
*
Now Tesetra could see all the others in the Fourth Mirror.
Like her, like Fandran, they all had the skin of serpents.
The Snake People.
The gods.
This is why they had survived.
Because they had caused it all, all
this destruction.
To start things anew.
To create a new beginning.
To wipe out imperfections.
And to try again.
*
Chapter 35
It dawned on Tesetra that they were the only ones who could raise the night sky, the only ones capable of setting it back in its proper place in the heavens.
‘Degrat, Tlaloca,’ Tesetra said commandingly, recognising the girl for who she really was at last, ‘I need you both to raise the sky!’
Degrat and Tlaloca both shivered, trembled, writhed.
As huge serpents, they rose up and up, effortlessly taking the great weight of the night on their backs.
They pushed hard against the darkness, raising it higher and higher. Letting the light, the day, flood in beneath them.
The birds swooped around their soaring bodies, swirled happily in this new sky, sang out their joy for this renewed world.
The reborn world briefly quaked once more. For despite its newness, the Earth was still delicately suspended on the hooks of an anger that Degrat – and Fandran, too – were at last managing to control, to use to restore rather than destroy.
There was another song, too. One that rang out amongst the glorious trilling of the exuberant birds.
The Snake Song.
Yet this was in many ways a different song to that earlier one of jealousy, bitterness and fury that had wracked destruction upon the earth.
This was a far more joyous song. Degrat had at last recognised that Tlaloca was his chosen, not Tesetra, as he had erroneously presumed.
As their heads rose higher, merging into the streaming white waters of the Milky Way, they kissed, embraced.
Naturally, they couldn’t stay here supporting the night sky forever.
And so they briefly became immense trees that, as they continued to grow, to sprout evermore branches, pushed up the heavens ever higher, restoring them to their rightful place.
Then Degrat and Tlaloca left the trees in place, left them supporting the heavens, while they swam off through the milky waters; merging, entwining, the flashes of what remained of Degrat’s jaguar pattern adding to the cloak of stars as he rapidly shed them.
The Moon shone like the most beautiful mirror, like a huge silvery ball tossed into the sky. And Tesetra rose up with it, taking Fandran by the hand, taking him with her.
As they released their hold on each other, Fandran stayed with her, encircling her head as a crown of stars, as a sparkling feathered serpent.
