She knew now that when Sarastro had answered her, it had been the first time she had ever thought about anything for herself, instead of taking the word of the Starqueen as the word of the very gods. What had he said?
Pamina, my child, why should the gods who created both men and Halflings need us to sacrifice the Half-lings to them? If the gods gave the Halflings life, could they not give death to as many of them as they desired, too? Halflings do not live nearly as long as Mankind; why should we further shorten their lives? We make no sacrifices in this temple, daughter, neither of Man nor Halfling, but we honor the gods in prayer and praise, and by making the most virtuous use of the life they have given us.
This had been a shocking idea to Pamina. And yet, as she watched the procession winding along the street, priests and mourners and the manacled victims—tiny as little dolls from this height—she felt lonesome for a familiar thing. She could see, riding on the high cart, a dark-robed figure which could have been one of her half sisters.
But they were Halflings too. Why should they take pleasure in sacrificing those who were like themselves but less fortunate?
Pamina's head ached—was it from the burning light in the streets, or with tears and perplexity? Suddenly she found herself, for the first time in many years, remembering the night Rawa had disappeared.
Her mother had promised that Rawa should not be sent to the stables as rat-catcher. She had always thought that her mother had sent the dog-woman away to another assignment, somewhere outside the palace, but because her mother had given her a promise, Pamina had not troubled to inquire further. Now she supposed that she must have always known the truth: Rawa had been taken for sacrifice in Papagena's place.
How could she have been so blind to what had been so obvious? But she had always been blind, "the foolish child," Disa thought her. After seven years it was useless even to cry for Rawa. She had not even known that there had been a choice, Rawa for Papagena. Pa-pagena was dear to her, but Rawa—in a very real sense Rawa had mothered her, and she had had no other mother at all. The Starqueen—except in the very limited physical sense—had never been a mother. So why did Paminafeel this terrible sense of loss, remembering in pain the moment when her mother's arms had tightened, so briefly, around her?
The procession had passed out of sight now, but she followed it painfully, in thought, through the portal doors, and inside to the altar of blood. The daily sacrifice, spilled on the altar at high noon—she had been taught that this fed the sun, enabled it further to shine... what folly, what a foolish tale for deluded children, yet she had never questioned it. Had the army of priests and sacrificers somehow failed in their duties, Pamina would have willingly taken up the knife to keep the daily sacrifices in their appointed courses; so she had been taught.
And now she knew that was foolishness, she had been shown pictures of the sun and the worlds that moved round it, the sun was no more than a huge ball of fire in the sky that would keep burning whatever Mankind or Halflings did or did not do, and the true gods, so Sarastro said, were no more than the forces of Order that kept the suns and moon and stars all burning in their appointed places. What a foolish child she had been! What a foolish child she was still!
No more place, then, in her mother's house. But since Tamino had rejected her, none in Sarastro's Temple, either. What life could there be, now, for her? What place anywhere?
She stayed at the wall, looking out into the city. Why, she wondered, should Sarastro's people have kept this outlook into the city whose manners and customs they had rejected? Surely they must turn away with abhorrence from the daily holocaust among the Halflings? How was it that they could dwell here, actually overlooking these dreadful things and make no effort to prevent them? The city blurred before her eyes, was it really as close as it seemed?
Outside the compound she could hear a rowdy barking sound. A dog-halfling, a young male, was shouting and running in a little alley; she heard a soft encouraging whine, and saw a young Halfling bitch, watching him. The male turned and with a returning whine, grabbed the female and hauled her down in the dust. No greetings; no preliminaries; they sniffed one another, pranced a little, and then they were barking and grunting together on the ground. A passerby on some errand cursed them for blocking the street, and tried to kick them out of the way, but, locked together, they were completely oblivious.
Of course. This was, Pamina had been taught, simply the way dog-halflings behaved, and lucky too, for it assured swarms of Halflings, unclaimed and the property of no one, for sacrifices, and what would they ever do if the supply was to dwindle? It was impious, she had been taught, to bridle the breeding of Halflings; this was to deprive the gods of their just dues in sacrifice.
But if the gods had no need of sacrifices—Pamina felt her brain would burst with all this. And for some reason, now, she felt ashamed for the female Halfling. Should they not have taught her better than this, to be rolled, rutting, in the dirt of an alley? Surely she must be of more use than this to someone or something. And her sister, Kamala—Pamina had heard her bragging once about the unquenchable lust of ox-halflings, though sometimes they had to be beaten to keep them in fear, so they would do what was wanted. At the time she had felt revulsion, and had resolved that she would never be guilty of such tasteless private sports, but not until this moment had she felt agonizing shame for her sister.
It was like this that Monostatos had grabbed at her— roughly, without caring whether she consented, without caring about anything but what he wanted at the moment. And then Pamina felt her cheeks redden and shame stealing through her.
Was this what she had expected or wanted of Tamino?
She saw him again in her mind, wearing the white neophyte's robe like her own, resolutely avoiding her eyes and playing on the flute she had been instructed to give him, as if he felt the sound could communicate something to her. Why had she not guessed at once? The neophyte's robe should have told her, this was some form of test or challenge set to him; he had been, no doubt, forbidden to speak to her or touch her, and he was obedient to the task he had been set. Now, his face clearly before her eyes in memory, she could see the pain there, and knew that he had been imploring her to trust him. And she had failed him.
And, no doubt, failed another test for herself, and perhaps she had lost him forever. How could she have been so foolish? Her hand tightened on the dagger in her hand. She had lost everything—everything but this.
"No," said a voice behind her, "you do not need that, either. Have you seen what you came up here to see, my daughter, and do you understand?"
Pamina turned, to see Sarastro standing at her side.
"Oh, Father, why have I never seen any of this before? And why—" Reason suddenly overcame what lay before her eyes. "Why is my mother's city so close? Why when I dwelled there, did I never see the Temple of Light from her dwelling or when I walked through the streets with the processions?"
"In part, because you were not looking for it," Sar-astro said, smiling, and reached out his hand for the dagger. "No, you will not use it now, I think, neither on yourself nor on me, but it came from your mother's realm of delusion, and that is why you see things which are not there. But because you see from the light we serve here, you see truth, and no longer see only what she allowed you to see. Give me the dagger, Pamina, which bears the evil magic of the Starqueen's realm, and see the city as it truly is."
She dropped it obediently into Sarastro's hand. And as she let it go, it was as if a mist had cleared away from her eyes. Around the wall of Sarastro's compound, for many leagues, the forest stretched away, barren and uninhabited. Very far away, on the edge of the horizon, the towers of a city rose, a familiar skyline Pamina knew well, for she had seen it every day of her life until she came here.
"But how—why did it seem so near?" she stammered.
"It showed you what was in your own mind; what you had not learned how to see," Sarastro said quietly. "With this in your hand, Pamina, had it been your true
will, you could have stepped from these walls almost into your mother's house. But since the viewpoint where you stood was in the realm of Truth, you saw only that truth. I will not ask what you saw." He looked briefly out over the forest where, a few minutes ago, Pamina had seen the sacrificers leading their unlucky victims through the streets of the Starqueen's city, and there was pain in his eyes. Then he thrust the dagger out of sight in a fold of his clothing and sighed.
"You need not tell me what you saw, child. Remember, once I loved her too," he said. "I thought she was as good as she is beautiful, and for many years I could not bear to test her in the clear light of Truth." Again he sighed, and turned his back on the view of forest—or was it the city of the Starqueen? Pamina not look again to see.
"Come, my daughter," he said kindly. "One of the first lessons here is not to think of the mistakes of the past, unless it is possible to take action to remedy them; and that time, if it will ever come, has not yet come. Tamino has successfully completed the first of his Ordeals. Come and speak to him, for the remaining Ordeals, if your lives are truly to be joined, you must face together. And he is longing for the sight of your face."
With his hand on her shoulder, Sarastro led Pamina toward the narrow stairs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“IN one thing at least you were correct," said g Sarastro, "the first tests you have overcome JL were tests of basic character: of restraint, of compassion, of endurance, and, not least, of obedience and willingness to follow orders. In themselves they were of no very great significance; except for this. If you had been discovered lacking in these qualities, you would have been determined unfit for the more serious Ordeals to follow."
He looked soberly at Tamino, over the remains of a simple meal which strewed the table before them. Tamino tried to keep his mind on what Sarastro was saying. It was not easy when Pamina was seated on a third side of the table, next to her father, her eyes seldom meeting his, but her face rosy with blushing. He wished they had been permitted at least a single embrace.
But, in a sense, it seemed right that they had not. As the Emperor's son, no woman, however trivial or fleeting his interest in her, had ever been denied to him. Pamina was something wholly different from this. He was not sure why, but he knew that he was willing—no; he firmly intended —to spend the rest of his life with her. They could wait a little while for kisses and embraces and pledges of love. He looked at a dimple at the corner of her mouth, thought briefly of how much it looked like the center of a cluster of rose petals and of how much he would like to kiss it, and firmly turned his attention back to the priest.
Pamina asked, "And what about Papageno?"
Sarastro smiled. "I think it is clear that the higher levels of wisdom are not for him. Yet he has demonstrated character and a certain strength of purpose. I think he will come through undamaged, with Papagena at his side. I truly hope so."
"I too," said Pamina firmly, "because I love Papagena and I have learned to value Papageno too."
"And I," said Tamino. "It took more courage, I think, for him to face the Starqueen's ladies and defy them, than for me to face a dragon."
"Of course—they were the dragons of his mind and imagination," said Sarastro.
"Were they really here, or was this an illusion for the purpose of the Ordeals?" Tamino asked.
Sarastro's lips curved in a faint smile. "My son, you are not yet qualified to inquire into the secrets of the Brotherhood," he rebuked mildly. Though the reproof was mild, it was an obvious rebuke, and Tamino lowered his head and stared at the crumbs and fruit skins on the table. But Sarastro's smile reassured him.
Pamina asked, "And Monostatos—?"
"Has been dismissed from the Ordeals, and may not enter here again on pain of death," Sarastro said, and he look sad. "I am sorry; as I told you, his father was my friend, and I thought better of the young man. This is the very first of the Ordeals for a Halfling. I do not think he failed it as Papageno might have done, out of sheer impulsiveness and inability to stop and think— I think Monostatos is very intelligent. Halfling or no, he is more intelligent than many men. And yet he behaved with no more restraint that the dog-halflings I saw you watching, Pamina."
"I am not sure I understand," said Pamina, and Tam-ino too looked puzzled.
"Since you have both passed this particular Ordeal, that of Earth," said Sarastro gravely, "I may discuss it with you. And it is relevant to your marriage. The first test for humanity, that which distinguishes the human form from the animal—and this is true for Man and Halfling alike—is the rational mind, which controls the animal impulse. To the Dog-folk at that moment, Pamina, nothing mattered but the instinct to mate, and they had never been taught to bring it under rational control or to consider suitable time or place. I do not think Monostatos is lacking in that rational control; but the circumstances were designed to tempt him, and he failed. Failed, as miserably as the simple dog-halflings whom he despises as much as you—"
"I don't despise them," Pamina interrupted, "I am sorry for them. But they have never been taught any better; how can you expect anything else from them?"
Sarastro looked sad. "That is the basis of my quarrel with your mother, Pamina; that in her realm they are taught no better. Monostatos, as I said, had the intelligence for more. But his pride made him incapable of forethought, so that he reacted like a base animal. Pride—he thought himself destined to be my heir and your consort, and so he failed." Sarastro sighed. "Even Papageno, with half his intelligence, passed that first of Ordeals. I was not sure that he could keep his hands off Papagena, nor trust her when she did not appear as he wanted her to be. Yet he displayed rational thought, good sense and at least some obedience. Humility served him where Monostatos, who thought he could not fail, yielded to pride."
"What will become of Monostatos?" Pamina asked.
"Or is that a secret of your Brotherhood into which I am forbidden to inquire, my father?"
"I have no control, now that 1 have banished him, over his fate. Yet I am troubled. He will return to your mother's realm, and I suppose, when the Great Serpent dies, he will inherit his father's kingdom and inheritance, which is not small. Having failed to pass the Ordeals, with the higher Wisdom forever denied him, I fear he will work ruin there. Yet his father's influence may still have some power over him; he may yet learn discipline and restraint. I do not know what now befalls in the land of the Great Serpent; he lives under the darkness the Starqueen has thrown over the lands, and I cannot see under that shadow. I can only say that there was a time when the Great Serpent was wise and courageous, and could even enter upon the Changing Lands without fear. Since then I have seen little of him."
"In a land where a Halfling rules," said Pamina, "I would think he would educate and teach them, so that they would be no less than men."
"So I too, once, believed of him," Sarastro said, "before he came under your mother's influence, Pamina. I think this may have been what the Makers had in mind—that Mankind should be diverse, that the Bird-kind and the Serpent-folk and even the more simple ones should each be educated and taught wisdom, each as he is able. But alas, they did not see it that way. To your mother, and to the one called the Great Serpent, the Halflings had been created by the Makers to be slaves, and no more. They can see it no otherwise."
"But he is Halfling himself!" Pamina cried.
Sarastro sighed and quoted softly," 'In the beginning was the Serpent, and it is said that it was their hands which aided the Makers in the making of Humankind.'
To him, Pamina, there are two kinds of man: our folk and the Serpent-kin. All others are but base animals, made for no purpose but to serve the true humans. To them, any attempt to promote the welfare of the Half-lings is sentimental folly—hypocritical folly, since they cannot imagine I do not mean somehow to profit by it. But enough of them," he added firmly. "All these things you will learn at the proper time. Now we should speak of the Ordeals which lie before you. That of Earth lies behind you, the trial of the ra
tional mind, which may be stated thus: 7 am in command of the animal within. It is a partner in my life, but I am master, not slave.'"
"Is it permitted to inquire about the nature of these Ordeals?" asked Tamino.
"Only that you must demonstrate mastery of the Elements of Air and Fire and Water," Sarastro said. "You have been entrusted with a very powerful magical weapon in the flute. More than this I may not say." He pushed away the flimsy little table and rose to his full height.
"At moonrise you will be taken to the place of testing. Since you have committed yourselves, one to the other, it has been determined that you may undertake the Ordeals together. Each of you has strengths which may complement the other's weaknesses." He clasped Tamino's hand in a strong grip; bent briefly to kiss Pamina's cheek. "Courage, my children. You shall have my prayers; I wish it were permitted me to give you more help than that."
He was about to leave the room; abruptly he turned and strode back toward them. He said, in a voice trembling with almost visible emotion, "Pamina. Beware. Your mother may stop at nothing to keep you from your victory. I beg of you, do not underestimate her, nor let pity make you careless. She was the first, and until now, the only woman to be allowed to enter upon the higher Ordeals. I— M for a moment, though his lips moved, Pamina could not hear what he was saying.
At last she made it out.
M —I made an almost fatal mistake; I underestimated her pride in that accomplishment. She may—" he broke off. "I should not say this. Forgive me. Her person is sacred to me. But if she should try to harm you—"
Pamina opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. She could sense the tremendous struggle within Sarastro, and for a moment she did not know which of her parents she most pitied.
Tamino found himself, for some reason, remembering Papageno's question: "What good is it to be a prince, if you have to obey orders like anyone else?" Sarastro was a priest-king, the highest Adept of this Brotherhood of guardian wisdom. Yet in spite of all this, and in spite of his heroic attempts to conceal it, he was torn with conflicting passions and loyalties like any other mortal. Like Papageno, he was ready to ask what purpose lay behind it all, if the successful attainment of the Wisdom resting in the Ordeals left the Adept no wiser than before in ruling his own passions.
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