by Walter Basho
She paused again. “And, yes, of course, we wanted to tame it, to hurt it, the thousands of acres of it, right across the water, never leaving us alone, putting out all its noise and disorder. We had suffered so long with it, and it wouldn’t stop. We wanted to make it stop—I guess you are it, now, on some level. Like I said, it wasn’t rational. It was what we felt.”
“It’s not me,” Albert said. “You were upset. I can understand that much, I suppose. I’m not angry, anyway.”
“We used to be so perceptive, so powerful,” Susan said. “We had everything at our fingertips; bodies and forces and meaning itself were subject to our subtle control. And then we ruined it all and ended up here, weakened and mad. But we immediately tried the same thing we had tried before, even with all our weakness. We tried control.
“We started from all the wrong premises. We thought you needed to look at the universe from a given vantage point. We thought the ‘noise’ of nature itself was something that you have to tame or reduce or yoke. That it’s ‘chaos,’ and that there’s something different between that chaos and what you’re actually trying to understand.”
Susan put her head in her hands. The movement was controlled and elegant, as Albert expected. In this position, she exhaled several times. When she brought her face back from her hands, it was sad and gray.
“I should be dead. I felt the pain of destroying the world, and then I came here and started destroying it all over again. I’m foolish, and I’m tired. I’m tired of stories. I’m tired of control. It’s all right to let it fall apart. It’s all right for the world to start over without us.”
She looked at Albert. “I wish this hadn’t happened to you. It’s all because you reminded Richard of someone. You remind me of him, too.” She paused, unsure if she could say what she meant to. “If you need to hate us for this, it’s all right. Do you understand me? It’s all right, if that’s what it takes to keep you going.” She took his face in her hands. “Just don’t stop. I can’t bear the thought of you wasting away again. I’m begging you. You have to promise.”
He felt very far away, that there were layers and layers between him and the world. From his faraway place, he could hear himself say, “There’s no Albert anymore. I’m foolish and terrible, too. I’ve killed innocents, and now I’m this thing. There’s nothing to save.”
Susan took that in sadly, but her response was skeptical. “Stop it. There’s a ‘you’ down there, still. It’s just not the ‘you’ that you thought it would be, and you aren’t being creative. Don’t stop because of this. Hold on to what’s simple and real, not a story. Who loves you? Who do you love?”
That question stirred something in him, and he was Albert again, saying plaintively: “I love him, I love Niall, but he doesn’t care, he just needed an instrument—”
Susan interrupted him. “I didn’t ask toward whom you had complicated, ambivalent feelings. Focus. Who do you love? Who loves you?”
Albert thought of home and of Thomas. He hadn’t looked at that part of himself for a long time. “I want to go home,” he said.
“Go home, then.” She took his hand in her small hands.
There was a wail, then. It came from far below them, deep within the castle. Susan, with a look of despair, said, “We need to talk about Lucy.” She smiled, that kind of smile that tries to hide or mitigate grief.
“We may not have long,” Susan said, but continued with her speech as it was: deliberate, unhurried. “She’s never been the same. There are days when she is amazing, when she’s like the old Lucy, sharp, clever . . . She actually made most of the theoretical leaps that led us here. Did you know that? She was the smartest of us.” Susan was quiet for a long while after that. “But then she gets into the green moods. We knew about her and the green in the forest. We always knew. We hoped she would be better once we had started to tame the forest, once we had taken the Old City of Terra Baixa.”
Her eyes had drifted away in reverie, but she brought them back to Albert. “She’s family. There were only three of us, three of us left in the world. It probably seems clear-cut to you, but it wasn’t to us.”
At that moment, there was a great cracking as a hole ripped in the wall. Albert noted that, as raw and violent as the action was, the hole it created was mathematically symmetrical. In the middle of it floated Lucy, her wild hair coruscating with a green glow. She breathed out the same bioluminescence from her lips, an exhalation of shimmering algae, airy bits of her soul.
“My sister was trying to keep you from me,” Lucy said, “but I know, I know everything. I can hear all of you.”
“Lucy, no!” Susan cried. “Why does it always have to be a fight? Will you please just calm down and talk to us?”
“Shut up,” Lucy said to Susan. And then, turning to Albert: “We got here and you . . . things, living in the trees, eating the ground, fucking your sisters and brothers and parents, anything, eating anything, you were like apes, do you understand?” she cried. “Apes! And we taught you, we made you human . . . We made you more than human! We made you special! And now you all have the temerity to come here because you feel compromised, you feel that this doesn’t fit in with your ethical model, when you were consuming each other indiscriminately like bugs not a century ago.
“And you: abomination. You dove back into it. You don’t care what chaos you bring forward, as long as it stops your little-boy hurting. You want to turn it back around. I can’t even imagine that kind of perversion. I’m sick of you. I’ll choke all of you.”
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Albert said, and then looked to Susan. “We have to start over. We all do.”
Lucy shrieked at that, in rage. The green extended tentacles and feelers across the space between her and the castle before her; across the space to Albert. The green crept to him, began touching him, began to try to consume him. Then, with a start, the green recoiled from him and flew back toward Lucy. She stared at Albert in awe and horror, understanding a little of what he felt, what he saw.
“He’s sorry,” Albert said. And with that, a rumbling began from deep beneath them, deep under the castle.
Lucy snarled and flew toward Albert, her skin beginning to wrinkle and desiccate, molded puffs of green exhaling from her. Susan leapt forward into Lucy’s path, grappling with her.
“Stop this, Lucy. You’re sick,” Susan said.
“I hate you. I’ll burn you,” Lucy cried.
+ + +
Niall heard the rumbling from the hallway, and heard a voice that was Albert’s but that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Run. Get out.
He and Clare ran to climb the narrow stairs, which were surprisingly moist. Moss was forming rapidly on the walls. The rumbling increased, and they could feel the walls shaking.
Then the walls collapsed around them, only seconds after Niall noticed them beginning to crumble. “Defenses, Clare! Your defenses,” he shouted. Niall imagined his breath as a stream, an open stream, and his body as supple stone. He rode the stones as they fell around him.
Light emerged, and he realized the top of the castle had fallen away around them. He and Clare were next to one another on the now-exposed stairs. Their defenses had kept them from the worst damage, but not all of it. He could feel wetness from his nose and ears and knew it was blood.
He reached out to Clare, and she reached back. Connected, they lifted one another into the air and began flight back to where camp and supper had been. They looked behind them to see the rest of the castle dissolving into rubble, with a mass of trees growing from the ground, through the tower, consuming it and breaking it apart. As they drifted closer to the ground, the westernmost side crumbled, and then the bulk of it fell into itself.
With that they fell about six feet, landing clumsily on the ground.
Niall had the wind knocked out of him, but as he regained his breath, he realized that wasn’t why Clare’s mind, the system, everything Adept had suddenly and completely gone silent.
He struggled to still
himself and listen to his body, but he could detect nothing beyond. All he could perceive, with his clumsy senses, was Clare, curled up in a ball with her hands at her ears, screaming: “I can’t hear, I can’t hear.”
He realized that the castle, the Old People, everything that made an Adept an Adept lay in the rubble of a newly grown grove of trees. His first thought to himself was, This wasn’t supposed to happen, but there was a vision beneath that thought. It reminded him that it indeed was supposed to happen, that there was a Niall in a village, in a dream, in another world, a Niall that needed to be.
He was filled with guilt and satisfaction and fear and excitement all at once, a blur of pulsing impulses and emotions that made him ashamed. He feared that his blasphemous thoughts would proclaim themselves to the Adept world-mind for all to see. The worry was a reflex and unnecessary; he heard nothing, and no one heard him.
5
Thomas was inconsolable the morning after Albert went to war. He kept his misery in silence as he ate the breakfast Mister Ewan made him, and as he watched Mister Ewan pack his things, and as Mister Ewan drove him and his mother to Over-town, where they were to see the Kelvins.
Thomas and Cynthia had last met over a decade before, when they were children. They spent most of that meeting staring tentatively at one another, and then got into a short but vicious fight just before the Newtons returned to Eden-town. In retrospect, everyone chose to describe the meeting as auspicious.
This time, Cynthia introduced herself with a joke about the fight. She had chestnut hair and color on her lips, Thomas noted: they were red and matched the embroidery on her robes.
She took Thomas for a tour of the town. It was smaller than Eden-town but had an air of sophistication: he saw several people at the bank, doing business and chatting. The people of Over-town greeted Cynthia with an enthusiasm Thomas envied, and when she greeted them in turn, she knew each one by name.
They took lunch at a tavern. They sat at benches outside and enjoyed Over-town in spring. They had roast chicken and cheese and a drink Thomas had never tried, ale mixed with apple juice. Cynthia called it a shandy. She told a couple of stories, and Thomas laughed at them without having to pretend. He stopped worrying. It was all going to be fine.
At first he had planned to tell her nothing about Albert, but after the afternoon he decided it would be good for him—for them, really—if he shared it all. He asked her out to the courtyard of her house. They sat under a fruit tree.
“I miss him,” he told her. “Terra Baixa is so far away.”
“It’s not that far away, really,” she said.
“And . . . you’re all right with this? I imagine how it must sound to you,” he said.
“It’s fine, it’s all right,” she said, quickly. “This is a strange arrangement for us. I wouldn’t expect us to just fall in love by coincidence.” She paused. “I just want to be happy. I want us to be happy. To make a nice family.”
“I do, too, I really do.”
“If he comes back, I’d love to meet him. I’m sure he’s nice. We’ll work it out.” She smiled at Thomas, briefly, then focused on smoothing out her robes.
“You’re wonderful, you know that? Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course.” She stood to walk around the courtyard.
Thomas kissed her once, while they were alone, by a lake. It was nice. She smelled nice.
“That went well,” Lady Newton said on the way home. Thomas shrugged. He didn’t talk to her much anymore.
When he returned to Eden-town, Sister Alice was waiting for him. “We are going to begin a new round of education for you,” she said. “Something appropriate to the next generation of Administration.”
Sister Alice accompanied him to his quarters, where they had a cup of tea. She told him that he had to sleep for the kind of travel they were about to do. He did, on his bed, right in front of her. When he woke up, they were in the White Island’s Old City.
Sister Alice said that the future was in conquest and warfare. This effort required soldiers, but also Administrators. They would keep the law and manage the resources of towns and inspire the people in these newly civilized lands to be a part of the enlightened world.
Thomas stayed in the Old City for months. He learned about how to keep the law and adjudicate differences. He learned how to raise and discipline a militia, how to grant and manage property, and how to keep a bank. The bank was the most difficult; not so much the mechanics, but the core concept itself. Banks had value only because the Adepts said they did.
After the first month, Alice drew him and other Administrators together. “We’re going on a trip,” Alice said. “The first troops are heading to Terra Baixa. I want you to see them off with me.”
They went to the Abyss. Thomas had heard stories of it since he was tiny, but he had never thought it actually existed. They rode two days, along the river. When they got there, they saw the holes—the dark, ancient holes to hell.
“They’re just an old structure from before the apocalypse. There is no hell,” Sister Alice said.
“And . . . you’re sure of this? Conclusively?” Thomas asked. Sister Alice stared at him, and he shut up.
There were hundreds of soldiers there. Thomas was sure Albert was, too. He tried to gaze into the crowd to see him, but there were too many soldiers. They stretched out for leagues, a wave of heads and arms and movement.
Then they all started screaming, a scream of anger and fear. Thomas started in shock. Every cell in him wanted to run. He closed his eyes and found his breath, scanned his body, found his stillness. It was difficult. Albert had always been better at this. He tried to listen to his breath, but all he could hear was the screaming.
“That was awful,” he said to Alice later. “Why did they do that?”
“They are leaving here, to go to a land they have never seen before, a land that is hostile. They are going there to confront the unknown and kill people. Wouldn’t that idea make you want to scream as well?”
“Are we doing the right thing? Is this really the best way to advance civilization, to take an army into an unknown land and kill?”
“Warfare is the advancement of nobler ends through organized violence,” Alice said. “That’s the point of all this.” She was gone the next day.
Thomas got to know another Administrator named Matthew. Matthew was a few years older than Thomas and lived in the Old City. He helped the Adepts with development and plans. Many nobles lived in the Old City, preparing to take and administer land in Terra Baixa. Matthew couldn’t wait to go to Baixa. “It’s going to be amazing—wild and full of life. An opportunity to make a mark in a place that hasn’t seen civilization for thousands of years.”
Matthew showed Thomas all around the Old City, which was built along both sides of a river. Most people took boats to get across. The river was filled with them going back and forth as well as the boats that traveled between the city and the coast. Thomas stayed on the north bank, where the Adept schools and banks and government were established. The south end was full of taverns, and entertainment, and common people.
On Midsummer’s Night, Matthew found them a boat to the south side. They took in a play, and went to a tavern after that. Thomas had too much to drink and passed out next to Matthew in his quarters. He was mortified next morning, but Matthew just laughed. The next week, Matthew left for Terra Baixa. “Wish me luck. I’ll try to find Albert and send him your regards.” Thomas never heard from Matthew again.
Thomas lost track of the days. The summer whiled away with work and reading and the sights of the city. Each evening, he would walk down to the bank and watch the oranges and reds and purples of the setting sun. One evening, when he returned from his walk, an Adept was waiting outside his door.
“There is a message for you,” the Adept said.
“Thank you. What is it?”
“Open the door,” the Adept said. “Give me a sheet of parchment and a stylus.”
Thomas d
id, and showed the Adept to a desk. The Adept closed his eyes and started to write. When he was finished, he had a letter. It was in Albert’s handwriting.
“That’s lovely,” Thomas said. “It’s from Albert. Albert is a school chum,” he said to the Adept.
“This came to me from Richard, of the Old People,” the Adept said. That seemed like a happy thing to Thomas, but the Adept didn’t seem happy.
Thomas read the letter. “He’s a bit homesick, I think. Poor thing. I hope he doesn’t have to stay too long. I’ve heard a range of estimates on the military presence, but I choose to remain optimistic.” He smiled to the Adept.
The Adept snorted at him. It was a very uncommon thing for an Adept to do. Thomas opened his mouth, then shut it. “Are you all right? Shall I fetch you a glass of water?” he asked. The Adept simply stood and left, without another word.
Thomas stayed in the Old City until the equinox, when the training was concluded. He went home the old way, on a horse, up the coast to the north.
When he arrived home, Lady Newton told him it was time. The Kelvins and their Adepts took the trip to Eden-town. Thomas and Cynthia married in Lady Newton’s study, a quiet and official ceremony. They had a nice supper in their house; Mister Ewan made a pudding. Then the Kelvins all left, except for Cynthia.
+ + +
“We . . . usually noble couples have a child within the first year or so. We might . . . want to start trying,” she said. She had been in Eden-town over a month.
“I’m just so nervous. I don’t even know what to do,” he said.
That night, Cynthia ordered a light supper brought to their quarters, some cured pork and cheese with a salad. Mister Ewan also brought a bottle each of wine and gin. Thomas knew the clear liquid on sight, though he’d never drunk more than a sip himself. Lady Newton always had a small glass at the end of the night.
“Thank you, Ewan,” Cynthia said.
“We’re having gin? With supper?”
