I did not tell Phan what we were doing or why we were doing it; but I knew in my own heart that I did not need to do so. I do not know what god guided him or whether he had truly found the Tao in his heart and was simply doing what needed to be done.
But whatever divinities inspired us, Phan and I worked together swiftly and efficiently as if we had been comrades-in-arms from childhood.
When the last stroke of paint was laid down and the last silver nail hammered, we went to our control rooms but did not strap down. With slow, cautious rein work, I uncoiled the fragment from the mountain peak, freeing Rebuke of the Phoenix for its final flight.
The ship twisted to port, and the last vestige of our wings shattered against a mountain. I pulled the up rein and let the fragment pull us above the highest peaks of the ’Imalaias.
Then Phan activated the port and starboard Xi strengtheners at the same time. There was no hum in my cabin because the line we had just drawn connecting the cabins and the trolley dampened the Xi flow in the body of the ship. The port and starboard sides of the vessel came alive with the flow of nature, but the central axis of Rebuke was as lifeless as the spine of a corpse.
I pulled back on all five reins. The central cord hauled in the sun fragment, loosening the coils of the net. The other four reins rarefied the air in four small columns, pulling the loosened strands of celestial matter away from one another, undoing the knots Mihradarius had tied. The sun net came apart like a cascade of hair released from a ribbon.
The sun fragment, freed from its net, would have leaped up into the sky, but the Xi strengtheners had created flows that pointed left and right, not upward. Pulled by the opposite natural motions, that perfect sphere of sun fire deformed into an ellipsoid, its long axis stretched across the sky, and in that oblate ball, fire pull against fire, straining to follow two different dictates of nature.
We waited for five tense minutes, watching the fragment strain while the strands of green and brown and silver celestial matter that had comprised the net separated into two bundles of heavenly streamers, flapping upward in the breeze.
The fragment sang its torment, wailing the harmonic of the sun through the mountains of Tibet. Then that song became a cry of freedom as the glowing red ellipsoid tore itself in twain. Two balls of fire shot away from each other, one flying left along that Xi flow, the other flying to the right.
Each of the celestial flames flew into one of the strands of uncoiled net, and when heavenly fire touched heavenly rope, I let the reins go. The strands twisted, but not back into the unified net Mihradarius had designed. Now there were two sun nets, each holding half the fragment.
For a short time, my chariot had not one horse, but two. With reins and Xi strengtheners Phan and I turned those twin steeds around and set them to pull Rebuke of the Phoenix down toward the mountains.
Phoenix cracked under the strain of that turn. The harmonic of the moon reverberated back and forth through the body of the ship, growing stronger with each echo. It jarred my bones and shook my teeth, but I held on to the reins, steering the ship back to the mountain that had tethered it before. The scream of Selene filled my ears, threatening to blot out all other thoughts, but there, there was the pinnacle. I tugged the port and starboard reins and the twin fragments twisted to left and right, coifing themselves in opposite spirals around the peak and yanking at the ship from opposite directions.
Only when they were solidly moored did I release the reins. Then I ran from my cabin over the straining ground, dodging streams of moon sand and bombards of silver rocks. Phan and I met at the moon sled. I cut the mooring rope with a knife; the two of us dove onto the disk of moon rock, and we flew away from the bucking ship.
Behind us the ship screamed one last time and broke in half along the line of deadness we had drawn down her meridian. There was a blinding hail of silver moondust which splattered the moon sled and dug deep into our robes and skin.
But we had succeeded. All that remained of Rebuke of the Phoenix were two huge slabs of moon rock welded to the two halves of the trolley, which in turn hung on to the two sun nets which were wrapped around the mountain. The whole makeshift arrangement chained the sun fragments, like twin Prometheuses, to the rock.
“Well done,” I said to Phan, brushing the silver dust off my body and watching it float away in a lazy spiral.
“Well done, indeed,” he replied, clearing the gleaming moon sand from his glowing face.
I piloted the moon sled down the trail until I found the Buddhists’ cave, a large cavern shielded from view by icy ledges. Inside there were two dozen small circular huts made of stitched white furs thrown over skeletons of lashed-together bamboo. On the back wall had been painted a picture of a serene-faced Indian man holding the world in his open palm and looking down at us with a comforting gaze. The image was roughly drawn and little color had been used, but still it compelled the soul as strongly as Athena’s statue in the Parthenon.
“Shakyamuni Buddha,” Ramonojon said.
Yellow Hare looked away from the image, but I bowed briefly to our host.
Near the entrance was a vegetable garden planted with rows of cabbages, turnips, and some kind of bean unfamiliar to me. There was also an underground stream that flowed from a break in the cave walls; the water sparkled clear and cold against the rock floor.
Yellow Hare and Aeson were sharpening their swords beside the river. Ramonojon was sitting in the door of one of the huts.
“What now, Aias?” Aeson said.
“Now we will bring our pursuers here and the will of Zeus will be done,” I said, and my voice echoed through the cave.
I pointed to Aeson and Ramonojon. “I want you two to take the moon sled and deliver messages to the fleets pursuing us.”
“The League or the Middle Kingdom?”
“Both,” I said.
“What are we to say?” Aeson asked.
“Tell them that if they will send to me delegations of a dozen men, comprised of both soldiers and scientists, then they can each have one of the fragments. If they refuse, tell them I will sink the celestial fires into the earth, where they will burn through Gaea’s body, orbiting inside the body of the world forever.”
“Aias,” Aeson said, “how can you arm the Middle Kingdom?”
“I am not arming them,” I said, “though they will think I am.”
Aeson stood up and sheathed his sword. Ramonojon left the hut and walked over to the entrance, where I had tethered the moon sled.
“Tell them to come tomorrow morning three hours after dawn,” I said. “Warn them that if they come before the appointed time or take either of you prisoner, I will carry out my threat.”
The Buddhist and the Spartan sat down on the disk of moonstone and flew off into the sky to carry my promise and my threat to the empires that ruled the world. I watched them go, following their flight with my prayers.
σ
In the icy water of the underground stream, we bathed for the first time since the wreck of Chandra’s Tear. The pure, clear flowing water washed from my body the accumulated dust of the long weeks of work I had spent toiling to return us to Earth. With potash soap and a cloth of rough linen I scrubbed off the moondust that had stuck to my skin, and I watched it float away through the water, adding a mirror gleam of silver to the transparent stream.
When the celestial accumulations had been washed from my body, I lay on my back, floating in the ice-cold river. The last vestiges of the survival pills let me bathe in comfort in that newly melted snow. I relaxed and listened through the flow of water to the comforting heartbeat of Gaea, mother of all things; the deep pulse of the earth washing over my temples welcomed me back to the folds of her bosom.
A few feet downstream, Yellow Hare methodically scrubbed her body clean with a bamboo brush she had found in one of the huts until her skin shone with a red-gold gleam. Then she untied her braids and washed her hair in the silvered waters until it glowed like ravens’ wings in moonlight.
> Phan had built a small fire near the rear wall of the cavern, and Yellow Hare and I repaired there to dry ourselves while the old Taoist entered the stream to wash himself. Left alone with Yellow Hare, I leaned close and whispered in her ear.
“There is a secret I must tell you,” I said. “You will have need of it in case we do not live out the next day.”
She turned her golden gaze on me, and I felt her spirit enter my heart through my eyes and discern the nature of what I wished to tell her. “Aias,” she said, her whispered words soft as a breeze but sharp as the bite of winter wind, “will you betray an oath sworn before the gods?”
“No,” I said. “I make no betrayal, for we are still in ’Ades and I am duty-bound to help you escape.”
She slowly nodded her head and brought her ear to my lips. I whispered to her the secret of the Orphic mysteries, telling she who had guarded my life how to free her soul from the realm of the dead.
I stand before you now and avow that my words to Yellow Hare were no violation of my oath. For it was by the secret of the mystery that Aeson had given me the duty of ensuring our survival, and that duty had not yet been fulfilled when I spoke those words to Yellow Hare, initiating her into the sacred band of those who know the true path of Orpheus. And with that secret handed over I no longer feared whatever might come of my actions. From that point until this, neither I nor any of those who stood with me feared whether life or death would come to us.
A little later, ’Elios set over the range of peaks in the west, but the two sun fragments still gave light to our mountain, twin beacons that guided Aeson and Ramonojon back from their embassies. Cleaned and dressed, Yellow Hare, Phan, and I went out to greet them and help them moor the moon sled to the ledge outside the cave.
“How did you fare?” I asked my messengers once we had stepped back into the shelter of the cavern.
“The Middlers were at first reluctant to send a delegation,” Ramonojon said, arching his back and rubbing his shoulders. “It was clear that they suspected some trap. But when I told them that Phan was alive and partially responsible for our safe return, their general decided that they had to come and find out what was worth his risking the lives of his family.”
“I do not think he will be disappointed,” Phan said. “And if all goes well, I think my family will survive.”
I turned to Aeson. He cupped his hand in the river and drank deeply of the silver water. Then he wiped the glow from his lips. “General Antiokles, commander of the squadron of celestial ships pursuing us, will be here. He is eager to find out what cause would turn two Spartan officers and an Athenian scholar away from their obvious duties.”
“Well done,” I said. “Now, gather around. We have a great deal to do before morning.”
At my behest, Ramonojon found us some sheets of rice paper, a few bamboo pens, a dozen sticks of red ink, and a few inkstones that the Buddhists had left behind. Phan and I settled ourselves on the fur-carpeted floor of the largest hut, laid the paper on wooden boards, and began to write.
By the light of the sun fragments gleaming down through the clouds into the cave, we scribed the bridge between our sciences. Phan, used to writing with brushes, stumbled a few times setting down Middle Kingdom characters with pen strokes. And my hand slipped occasionally, as I was unaccustomed to a stick of bamboo in my hand rather than a quill feather. But the problems of our mortal shells were easily swept aside by the understanding that flowed from our souls onto the pages during that long, bright night.
When ’Elios rose in the east to greet his kidnapped children chained to the mountain, I had covered thirty sheets of paper with ’Ellenic text and formulas while Phan had filled five sheets with the more compact Middle Kingdom characters.
“Now we must ready ourselves for our guests,” I said.
Aeson and Yellow Hare dressed themselves in their armor, which they had cleaned and burnished during the night. Their Spartan brassards with the iron badge of ’Era’s peacock hung nobly around their necks and the horsehair plumes of their helmets stood straight and firm. During the night Ramonojon had stitched up the holes in Phan’s torn silk robes, restoring dignity to the old man’s attire. My Indian friend had also washed my scholar’s robes, restoring them to whiteness and giving a gleam to the blue Athenian fringe. On my right shoulder I placed my badge of command, proudly displaying the unblinking owl of Athena.
Ramonojon himself donned a simple robe of Buddhist saffron. The yellow garment silently but boldly declared his separation from both the League and the Kingdom.
At the third hour after dawn, we arrayed ourselves to receive visitors. We stood ten yards within the cave and waited facing the cave entrance; Phan and I stood next to each other in the center, Ramonojon behind me to the left, Yellow Hare and Aeson flanking us. The Spartans stood at attention, their flared steel swords held naked in front of them in the traditional stance of an honor guard.
A wind rose in front of the cave, whipping up billows of snow. In my heart a clap of thunder sounded. Something great and terrible rose within me, growing in size until it filled all the caverns of my spirit. The whole of my mind became awash with the sounds and sights of a vast storm, but the tumult in my heart did not disturb me, for by the power of that divinity who rules the heavens I stood above the clash of thunder and beyond the blinding force of the lightning strike.
I turned my head to the right and saw Phan standing amid a quietness, a gentle flow like the zephyr winds of spring, but deep and sonorous like the tides of the ocean deeps. He was gazing at me and through my eyes and through his eyes the greatnesses that stood within us watched each other for a time, then reached out across the streams of Pneuma that bound us light to light and breath to breath, and so they touched.
“Aias,” Aeson said from a long way off. “They are here.”
I turned to look at the cave entrance. A large moon sled had landed outside. Next to it a dragon kite floated coiled, hovering only three feet above the ground. The delegations stepped from their transports and in two columns entered the cave. On the right came the men of the Delian League led by a Spartan general and an Athenian scholar, both wearing badges of command. I did not know the Spartan, but the Athenian was a sixty-year-old man named Polykrates. We had worked together some years before in the study of Middler science; he was a man of agile mind and great devotion. I could feel that Athena’s hand was behind his presence here.
Behind these two leaders came a dozen soldiers in light bronze infantry armor with sheathed swords and throwers, and at the end of the line came two young women dressed in scholar’s robes. The general saluted Aeson and Yellow Hare and they returned the gesture. Polykrates stared at me with a quizzical look, as if he hoped to divine the meaning of my actions.
On the left marched ten soldiers of the Middle Kingdom dressed in brown silk armor; they had sheathed swords across their backs and personal Xi lances holstered at their belts. After them came their general, a middle-aged, tall man wearing a light coat of steel that moved like cloth in accord with the motions of his body. Then came two younger men dressed in robes similar to Phan’s. They looked uncertainly at my companion, then bowed their heads very slightly.
Phan and I stared at the delegations for a time, letting the spirits within us flow out to touch the hearts of the men who had come to listen. The sound of the wind outside mingled with the thunder that roared out from me, and the wash of the mountain stream joined with the harmony of Xi that flowed out from Phan, filling all those present with the song of Heaven and Earth.
“You have come for the sun fragments,” I said, and the thunder rose in my words. “You may take them once your scientists have read these papers.”
Yellow Hare stepped forward and gave my writings to Polykrates, while Aeson carried Phan’s work to the Middle Kingdom scientists.
The scholars opened the sheaves cautiously. They began to read with mild curiosity which was rapidly replaced by avid fascination.
“Aias!” Polykrates
said, looking up at me, his face painted with awe. “Have you truly done this?”
“Read on,” I said.
One of his subordinates jabbed at my early pages. “Here is an experiment we could do tonight,” she said. “We have all the equipment on the ships.”
I smiled slightly. The first few experiments in both Phan’s and my papers were designed so that the normal complement of scientists that accompanied any army of either empire could do them. The later experiments we outlined would require the laboratories of Athens or ’AngXou and the attentions of dozens of scientists.
As I knew it would, the animation and wonder of the scientists grew as they read through the works.
Writing the scientific part of the thesis had been simple. It had been much more difficult subtly placing into the pages the historical references that showed how the two empires had come to their eternal conflict, and why both sides thought they were losing the war. Kleio had warned me that no one now alive would understand those words, but if as Athena had promised the science we were giving them would remove the desperation from both the Delian League and the Middle Kingdom, then sometime, perhaps in thirty years, fifty years, or even a century, scholars would arise who would be capable of reading the hidden meanings of my text, and they would step forward to speak history in the grove of Akademe.
Both groups of scholars finished reading at approximately the same time, and both turned to ask us questions. I did not give them the chance.
“Here,” I said, handing another sheet of rice paper to Polykrates while Phan did the same to one of the Middle Kingdom scientists. The paper I offered showed how to hitch a sun net to a celestial ship using an arrangement similar to our controls for Rebuke of the Phoenix. Phan’s diagram showed how to guide a fragment between several battle kites down a corridor of rarefied air laid across a strengthened Xi flow; it also explained how to make the corridor using samples of captured fire-gold.
Celestial Matters Page 35
