The Book of the New Sun Volume 1 : Shadow and Claw

by Gene Wolfe

  MESCHIA: I am at prayer, daughter. Take off your shoes at least, for this is holy ground.

  CONTESSA: Liege, who is this fool?

  AUTARCH: A madman I found wandering with two women as mad as he.

  CONTESSA: Then they outnumber us, unless my maid be sane.

  MAID: Your Grace—

  CONTESSA: Which I doubt. This afternoon she laid out a purple stole with my green capote. I was to look like a post decked with morning-glories, it would seem.

  MESCHIA, who has been growing angrier as she speaks, strikes her, knocking her down. Unseen behind him, the AUTARCH flees.

  MESCHIA: Brat! Don't trifle with holy things when I am near, or dare do anything but what I tell you.

  MAID: Who are you, sir?

  MESCHIA: I am the parent of the human race, my child. And you are my child, as she is.

  MAID: I hope you will forgive her—and me. We had heard you were dead.

  MESCHIA: That requires no apology. Most are, after all. But I have come round again, as you see, to welcome the new dawn.

  NOD: (Speaking and moving after his long silence and immobility.) We have come too early.

  MESCHIA: (Pointing.) A giant! A giant!

  CONTESSA: Oh! Solange! Kyneburga!

  MAID: I'm here, Your Grace. Lybe is here.

  NOD: Too early for the New Sun by some time still.

  CONTESSA: (Beginning to weep.) The New Sun is coming! We shall melt like dreams.

  MESCHIA: (Seeing that NOD intends no violence.) Bad dreams. But it will be the best thing for you, you understand that, don't you?

  CONTESSA: (Recovering a little.) What I don't understand is how you, who suddenly seem so wise, could mistake the Autarch for the Universal Mind.

  MESCHIA: I know that you are my daughters in the old creation. You must be, since you are human women, and I have had none in this.

  NOD: His son will take my daughter to wife. It is an honor our family has done little to deserve—we are only humble people, the children of Gea—but we will be exalted. I will be . . . What will I be, Meschia? The father-in-law of your son. It may be, if you don't object, that someday my wife and I will visit our daughter on the same day you come to see him. You wouldn't refuse us, would you, a place at the table? We would sit on the floor, naturally.

  MESCHIA: Of course not. The dog does that already—or will, when we see him. (To the CONTESSA:) Has it not struck you that I may know more of him you call the Universal Mind than your Autarch does of himself? Not only your Universal Mind, but many lesser powers wear our humanity like a cloak when they will, sometimes only as concerns two or three of us. We who are worn are seldom aware that, seeming ourselves to ourselves, we are yet Demiurge, Paraclete, or Fiend to another.

  CONTESSA: That is wisdom I have gained late, if I must fade with the New Sun's rising. Is it past midnight?

  MAID: Nearly so, Your Grace.

  CONTESSA: (Pointing to the audience.) All these fair folk—what will befall them?

  MESCHIA: What befalls leaves when their year is past, and they are driven by the wind?

  CONTESSA: If—

  MESCHIA turns to watch the eastern sky, as though for the first sign of dawn.

  CONTESSA: If—

  MESCHIA: If what?

  CONTESSA: If my body held a part of yours—drops of liquescent tissue locked in my loins . . .

  MESCHIA: If it did, you might wander Urth for a time longer, a lost thing that could never find its way home. But I will not bed you. Do you think that you are more than a corpse? You are less.

  MAID faints.

  CONTESSA: You say you are the father of all things human. It must be so, for you are death to woman.

  The stage darkens. When the light returns, MESCHIANE and JAHI are lying together beneath a rowan tree. There is a door in the hillside behind them. JAHI'S lip is split and puffed, giving her a pouting look. Blood trickles from it to her chin.

  MESCHIANE: How strong I would be still to search for him, if only I knew you would not follow me.

  JAHI: I move with the strength of the World Below, and will follow you to the second ending of Urth, if need be. But if you strike me again you will suffer for it.

  MESCHIANE lifts her fist, and JAHI cowers back.

  MESCHIANE: Your legs were shaking worse than mine when we decided to rest here.

  JAHI: I suffer far more than you. But the strength of the World Below is to endure past endurance—even as I am more beautiful than you, I am a more tender creature by far.

  MESCHIANE: We've seen that, I think.

  JAHI: I warn you again, and there will be no third warning. Strike me at your peril.

  MESCHIANE: What will you do? Summon up Erinys to destroy me? I have no fear of that. If you could, you would have done it long before.

  JAHI: Worse. If you strike me again, you will come to enjoy it.

  Enter FIRST SOLDIER and SECOND SOLDIER, armed with pikes.

  FIRST SOLDIER: Look here!

  SECOND SOLDIER: (To the Women:) Down, down! Don't stand, or like a heron I'll skewer you. You're coming with us.

  MESCHIANE: On our hands and knees?

  FIRST SOLDIER: None of your insolence!

  He prods her with his pike, and as he does there is a groaning almost too deep for hearing. The stage vibrates in sympathy with it, and the ground shakes.

  SECOND SOLDIER: What was that?

  FIRST SOLDIER: I don't know.

  JAHI: The end of Urth, you fool. Go ahead and spear her. It's the end of you anyway.

  SECOND SOLDIER: Little you know! It's the beginning for us. When the order came to search the garden, special mention was made of you two, and orders given to bring you back. Ten chrisos you'll be worth, or I'm a cobbler.

  He seizes JAHI, and as soon as he does so, MESCHIANE darts off into the darkness. FIRST SOLDIER runs after her.

  SECOND SOLDIER: Bite me, will you!

  He strikes JAHI with the shaft of his weapon. They struggle.

  JAHI: Fool! She's escaping!

  SECOND SOLDIER: That's Ivo's worry. I've got my prisoner, and he let his escape, if he doesn't catch her. Come on, we're going to see the chiliarch.

  JAHI: Will you not love me before we leave this winsome spot?

  SECOND SOLDIER: And have my manhood cut off and shoved into my mouth? Not I!

  JAHI: They'd have to find it first.

  SECOND SOLDIER: What's that? (Shakes her.)

  JAHI: You take the office of Urth, who will not trouble herself for me. But wait—release me only for a moment and I will show you wonderful things.

  SECOND SOLDIER: I can see them now, for which I give all thanks to the moon.

  JAHI: I can make you rich. Ten chrisos will be as nothing to you. But I have no power while you grasp my body.

  SECOND SOLDIER: Your legs are longer than the other woman's, but I've seen that you don't move so readily on them. Indeed, I think that you can scarcely stand.

  JAHI: No more can I.

  SECOND SOLDIER: I'll hold your necklace—the chain looks stout enough. If that's sufficient, show me what you can do. If it's not, come with me. You'll be no freer while I have you.

  JAHI raises both hands, with the little fingers, index fingers, and thumbs extended. For a moment there is silence, then a strange, soft music filled with trillings. Snow falls in gentle flakes.

  SECOND SOLDIER: Stop that!

  He seizes one arm and jerks it down. The music stops abruptly. A few last snowflakes settle on his head.

  SECOND SOLDIER: That was not gold.

  JAHI: Yet you saw.

  SECOND SOLDIER: There's an old woman in my home village who can work the weather too. She's not as quick as you, I admit, but then she's a lot older, and feeble.

  JAHI: Whoever she may be, she is not a thousandth part as old as I.

  Enter the STATUE, moving slowly and as though blind.

  JAHI: What is that thing?

  SECOND SOLDIER: One of Father Inire's little pets. It can't hear you or make a s
ound. I'm not even sure it's alive.

  JAHI: Why, neither am I, for all of that.

  As the STATUE passes near her, she strokes its cheek with her free hand.

  JAHI: Lover . . . lover . . . lover. Have you no greeting for me?

  STATUE: E-e-e-y!

  SECOND SOLDIER: What's this? Stop! Woman, you said you had no power while I held you.

  JAHI: Behold my slave. Can you fight him? Go ahead—break your spear on that broad chest.

  The STATUE kneels and kisses JAHI'S foot.

  SECOND SOLDIER: No, but I can outrun him.

  He throws JAHI across his shoulder and runs. The door in the hill opens. He enters, and it slams shut behind him. The STATUE hammers it with mighty blows, but it does not yield. Tears stream down his face. At last he turns away and begins to dig with his hands.

  GABRIEL: (Offstage.) Thus stone images keep faith with a departed day, Alone in the desert when man has fled away.

  As the STATUE continues to dig, the stage grows dark. When the lights come up again, the AUTARCH is seated on his throne. He is alone on stage, but silhouettes projected on screens to either side of him indicate that he is surrounded by his court.

  AUTARCH: Here I sit as though the lord of a hundred worlds. Yet not master even of this. The tramp of marching men is heard offstage. There is a shouted order.

  AUTARCH: Generalissimo!

  Enter a PROPHET. He wears a goat skin and carries a staff whose head has been crudely carved into a strange symbol.

  PROPHET: A hundred portents are abroad. At Incusus, a calf was dropped that had no head, but mouths in its knees. A woman of known propriety has dreamed she is with child by a dog, last night a shower of stars fell hissing onto the southern ice, and prophets walk abroad in the land.

  AUTARCH: You yourself are a prophet.

  PROPHET: The Autarch himself has seen them!

  AUTARCH: My archivist, who is most learned in the history of this spot, once informed me that over a hundred prophets have been slain here—stoned, burned, torn by beasts, and drowned. Some have even been nailed like vermin to our doors. Now I would learn of you something of the coming of the New Sun, so long prophesied. How is it to come about? What does it mean? Speak, or we shall give the old archivist another mark for his tally, and train the pale moonflower to climb that staff.

  PROPHET: I despair of satisfying you, but I shall attempt it.

  AUTARCH: Do you not know?

  PROPHET: I know. But I know you for a practical man, concerned with the affairs of this universe alone, who seldom looks higher than the stars.

  AUTARCH: For thirty years I have prided myself on that.

  PROPHET: Yet even you must know that cancer eats the heart of the old sun. At its center, matter falls in upon itself, as though there were there a pit without bottom, whose top surrounds it.

  AUTARCH: My astronomers have long told me so.

  PROPHET: Think on an apple rotten from the bud. Fair still without, until it collapses into foulness at last.

  AUTARCH: Every man who finds himself still strong in the latter half of life has thought on that fruit.

  PROPHET: So much then for the old sun. But what of its cancer? What know we of that, save that it deprives Urth of heat and light, and at last of life?

  Sounds of struggle are heard offstage. There is a scream of pain, and a crash as though a large vase had been knocked from its pedestal.

  AUTARCH: We will learn what that commotion is soon enough, Prophet. Continue.

  PROPHET: We know it to be far more, for it is a discontinuity in our universe, a rent in its fabric bound by no law we know. From it nothing comes—all enters in, nought escapes. Yet from it anything may appear, for it alone of all the things we know is no slave to its own nature.

  Enter NOD, bleeding, prodded by pikes held offstage.

  AUTARCH: What is this miscreation?

  PROPHET: The very proof of those portents I spoke to you. In future times, so it has long been said, the death of the old sun will destroy Urth. But from its grave will rise monsters, a new people, and the New Sun. Old Urth will flower then as a butterfly from its dry husk, and the New Urth shall be called Ushas.

  AUTARCH: Yet all we know will be swept aside? This ancient house in which we stand? Yourself? Me?

  NOD: I have no wisdom. Yet I heard a wise man—soon to be a relative of marriage—say not long ago that all that is for the best. We are but dreams, and dreams possess no life by their own right. See, I am wounded. (Holds out his hand.) When my wound heals, it will be gone. Should it with its bloody lips say it is sorry to heal? I am only trying to explain what another said, but that is what I think he meant.

  Deep bells toll offstage.

  AUTARCH: What's that? You, Prophet, go and see who's ordered that clamor, and why.

  Exit PROPHET.

  NOD: I feel sure your bells have begun the welcome of the New Sun. It is what I came to do myself. It is our custom, when an honored guest arrives, to roar and beat our chests, and pound the ground and the trunks of trees all about with gladness, and lift the greatest rocks we can, and send them down the gorges in honor of him. I will do that this morning, if you will set me free, and I feel sure Urth herself will join me. The very mountains will leap into the sea when the New Sun rises up today.

  AUTARCH: And from where did you come? Tell me, and I'll release you.

  NOD: Why, from my own country, to the east of Paradise.

  AUTARCH: And where is that?

  NOD points to the east.

  AUTARCH: And where is Paradise? In the same direction?

  NOD: Why, this is Paradise—we are in Paradise, or at least under it.

  Enter the GENERALISSIMO, who marches to the throne and salutes.

  GENERALISSIMO: Autarch, we have searched all the land above this House Absolute, as you ordered. The Contessa Carina has been found, and, her injuries not being serious, escorted to her apartments. We have also found the colossus you see before you, the bejeweled woman you described, and two merchants.

  AUTARCH: What of the other two, the naked man and his wife?

  GENERALISSIMO: There is no trace of them.

  AUTARCH: Repeat your search, and this time look well.

  GENERALISSIMO: (Salutes.) As my Autarch wills.

  AUTARCH: And have the jeweled woman sent to me.

  NOD begins to walk offstage, but is stopped by pikes. The GENERALISSIMO draws his pistol.

  NOD: Am I not free to leave?

  GENERALISSIMO: By no means!

  NOD: (To AUTARCH.) I told you where my country lies. Just east of here.

  GENERALISSIMO: More than your country lies. I know that area well.

  AUTARCH: (Fatigued.) He has told the truth as he knows it. Perhaps the only truth there is.

  NOD: Then I am free to go.

  AUTARCH: I think that he whom you came to welcome will arrive whether you are free or not. Yet there is a chance—and such creatures as you cannot be allowed to roam abroad in any case. No, you are not free, nor ever again will be.

  NOD rushes from the stage, pursued by the GENERALISSIMO. Shots, screams, and crashes. The figures around the AUTARCH fade. In the midst of the uproar, the bells toll again. NOD reenters with a laser burn across one cheek. The AUTARCH strikes him with his scepter; each blow produces an explosion and a burst of sparks. NOD seizes the AUTARCH and is about to dash him to the stage when two DEMONS disguised as merchants enter, throw him down, and restore the AUTARCH to his throne.

  AUTARCH: Thank you. You will be richly rewarded. I had given up hope of being rescued by my guards, and I see I thought rightly. May I ask who you are?

  FIRST DEMON: Your guards are dead. That giant has smashed their skulls against your walls and broken their spines upon his knees.

  SECOND DEMON: We are two traders merely. Your soldiers took us up.

  AUTARCH: Would that they were traders, and in their places I had such soldiers as you! And yet, you are in appearance so slight I would think you incapable of even ordina
ry strength.

  FIRST DEMON: (Bowing.) Our strength is inspired by the master we serve.

  SECOND DEMON: You will wonder why we—two commonplace traders in slaves—should have been found wandering your grounds by night. The fact is that we came to warn you. Our travels but lately took us to the northern jungles, and there, in a temple older than man, a shrine overgrown with rank vegetation until it seemed hardly more than a leafy mound, we spoke to an ancient shaman who foretold great peril to your realm.

  FIRST DEMON: With that intelligence we hastened here to give you the alarm before it should be too late, arriving at the very wince of time.

  AUTARCH: What must I do?

  SECOND DEMON: This world that you and we treasure has now been driven round the sun so often that the warp and woof of its space grow threadbare and fall as dust and feeble lint from the loom of time.

  FIRST DEMON: The continents themselves are old as raddled women, long since stripped of beauty and fertility. The New Sun comes—

  AUTARCH: I know!

  FIRST DEMON:—and he will send them crashing into the sea like foundered ships.

  SECOND DEMON: And from the sea lift new—glittering with gold, silver, iron, and copper. With diamonds, rubies, and turquoises, lands wallowing in the soil of a million millennia, so long ago washed down to the sea.

  FIRST DEMON: To people these lands, a new race is prepared. The humankind you know will be shouldered aside even as the grass, that has prospered on the plain so long, yields to the plow and so gives way to wheat.

  SECOND DEMON: But what if the seed were burned? What then? The tall man and the slight woman you met not long ago are such seed. Once it was hoped that it might be poisoned in the field, but she who was dispatched to accomplish it has lost sight of the seed now among the dead grass and broken clods, and for a few sleights of hand has been handed over to your Inquisitor for strict examination. Yet the seed might be burned still.

  AUTARCH: The thought you suggest has already passed through my own mind.

  FIRST & SECOND DEMON: (In chorus.) Of course!

  AUTARCH: But would the death of those two truly halt the coming of the New Sun?

  FIRST DEMON: No. But would you wish it? The new lands shall be yours.

  The screens grow radiant. Wooded hills and cities of spires appear. The AUTARCH turns to face them. There is a pause. He draws a communicator from his robes.