The Doors of the Universe

by Sylvia Engdahl

  “If that were true universally, Stefred would know,” Noren had objected; but he’d recalled as he did so that Stefred wasn’t aware even of telepathy.

  “He knows,” Lianne had replied. “He said, ‘May the spirit of the Star go with you,’ didn’t he?”

  Naturally he had, and he’d said it with more feeling than people did on less momentous occasions. Now, suddenly, it occurred to Noren that the common, conventional phrase might—like the equally improbable-sounding prediction of the Star’s physical appearance—reflect an actual concrete fact. Was the difference only in the extent of the Founders’ understanding?

  He took his blue robe and the clothes he wore, nothing else. As a condemned heretic he had arrived in the City with nothing, and he’d acquired nothing during the interval, for as stewards, Scholars were not permitted personal belongings. The data discs he’d generated he took to the Outer City lab, placing them in the custody of the Technician in charge with specific orders about their storage. From there, he proceeded to the City’s exit dome. His hand trembling, he pushed the button to slide back the heavy Gates. They began to open, revealing blinding white pavement beyond; Noren touched the button again to reverse them as he stepped through.

  From the outside they were, of course, unopenable.

  He was prepared for the panic that hit him; having been conditioned to it both by dreaming the First Scholar’s death and by his own initiation ordeal, he knew what he would feel. There was no ugly mob now, still he found himself flinching as he approached the platform’s edge. Here the First Scholar had been struck down. Here he himself had been pelted with dirt during the reenactment to which he’d been subjected, without warning, at his recantation. He had not been outside the Gates since that day. His trips to and from the outpost had been made by air; Scholars never stood on this platform except during public ceremonies. The first such ceremony of one’s priesthood, he’d heard, was a grueling test of nerve: one was sent out alone so that remembered terror would counter one’s aversion to mass obeisance. One was not expected to endure either for more than a few minutes; prolonged exposure to kneeling multitudes was unheard of.

  Noren started down the long flight of steps, wide steps up which crowds swarmed at recantations and on feast days. The steps, too, held memories. Talyra had stood on them, watching in anguish as he’d faced abuse, humiliation and finally the sentencing. He had believed then that he would never see her again. Would she be living now if there’d been no reunion? She might have died anyway with her first child, no matter who she’d married. That was something he would never know.

  Before recantation, he had been on the steps himself; it was there he’d been recaptured after his escape from the village had proved useless. He had been injured and penniless; he’d known it was only a matter of hours till Technicians would apprehend him—but he had reached the walls of the City. And the sight of the City had so stirred him that nothing else seemed to matter. The sound, also . . . there had been music, his first experience with the awesome electronic music he’d since come to take for granted. It had heartened him. Was it not better, he’d thought, to die defiant than to he dragged to his fate like a work-beast marked for slaughter? A blue-robed priest had emerged from the Gates to preside at Benison, the daily ritual for opening the markets; when that priest had read from the Book of the Prophecy, Noren had cried out against the apparent falsity of the words. He’d kept shouting his protests till Technicians stunned him. The crowd assumed the Star itself had struck him down for his blasphemy. He had known better, and had believed himself doomed to torture and execution, yet inside he had hardly minded—for they had carried him through the Gates into the City. The City . . . the one place on the earth he had ever wanted to be.

  Now, years later, he looked back up those steps toward the again-impenetrable walls and the glimmering towers beyond. They shone in the hot sun of midmorning. He could not gaze at them any more; it hurt too much, hurt more deeply than the sting of his watering eyes.

  And besides, at the foot of the steps, a small, eager cluster of people was gathering.

  This was, in their view, a blessed day. It was something to tell their grandchildren: the day a Scholar descended the steps, the day they knelt within reach of his hands! There were a few Technicians in the group; these might have seen Scholars at close range before. But the villagers certainly hadn’t. They had not been sure whether a Scholar’s hands were made of ordinary flesh or were, perhaps, translucent. Noren steeled himself and extended his arms in blessing. He had no right to deprive them of that. This first congregation was composed of reverent people, those who cared about the Prophecy, the future—the ones who did not care had remained in the market stalls. His appearance being unprecedented, no custom compelled anyone to come forward; he had not beckoned; these had approached him as seekers of hope. A priest gives. . . . If they wanted a tale to pass down to their descendants, well, he was here to make sure they could have descendants to pass it to.

  “May the spirit of the Mother Star abide with you, and with your children, and your children’s children,” Noren said with solemnity. “I have brought you good news of the coming age.”

  * * *

  It was both easier and harder than he’d expected it to be: easier because words did come to him, sincere words that left him feeling no taint of dishonesty; yet harder because he had not foreseen the practical problems that would arise.

  He had known he would attract attention, but that was an understatement. People flocked to him. They knelt silently, not cheering—for that would not be seemly—but simply waiting, eyes devoutly raised toward the sky; and after he’d passed, they got to their feet for a better view. Whether they heard what he said was questionable; they were too absorbed by the thrill of his mere presence. But at this stage, that did not matter. He was a long way from asking them to break the High Law. What he must accomplish at first was simply to win their trust—and that he could do only by being worthy of trust. More and more clearly, as the first day passed, Noren understood why Stefred and Lianne had believed he might succeed where equally worthy Scholars would fail. Only his mood of self-sacrifice was making this possible. If he had come to the people in any state other than total despair about his own future, he could never have borne their veneration. As it was, he didn’t have to remind himself that he had no ulterior aims.

  It was not, of course, necessary for the people to venerate Scholars as they did; that was no part of the Founders’ design. No Scholar had ever encouraged the belief that priests were superhuman. It had arisen spontaneously over the generations, and there was no way to stamp it out, for the sole alternative to being seen as transcendent would have been to become all-too-human tyrants. But now, Noren saw, there was some chance he could counter that belief. He could demonstrate his own humanity. He must move very carefully, however. He must retain authority to speak, and given a choice, he preferred mystical authority to individual authority. Better that he should be classed among impersonal beings than that he be considered an idol in his own right.

  The fact that he’d be assumed to be superhuman was his chief protection against being recognized as a former heretic. No one in the first weeks would be likely to look at his face, and he’d soon have grown a beard. People saw what they expected to see. As long as he kept away from his home village, where he might run into his father or brothers, there was small danger. His family would be unlikely to speak out in any case, lest they be accused of blasphemy; the provision that only older Scholars could appear publicly was meant to prevent multiple recognitions rather than particular ones. He had been away for six years, and was not the same person he once had been. The years had aged him more than they’d have aged a carefree farmer.

  He had no plan as to where to go, but it soon became apparent that without declaration of a destination, he would never get away from the market area outside the walls. People would block the roads; as word spread, they would travel from far and wide, leaving farms and village sho
ps untended. Furthermore, it would soon take on the atmosphere of a carnival. His first listeners might be devout, but they would soon be joined by the merely curious. Before long everyone would want to see the show. Huge crowds always came to the markets for festivals, such as Founding Day and the Blessing of the Seed, for a trip to the City outskirts was a welcome break in humdrum lives. But that was not the kind of foundation he should build on,

  Escape, to be sure, would be simple. He had only to command, and Technicians would put an aircar at his disposal; they would take him unquestioningly wherever he ordered. And indeed, if he was to visit outlying villages, that would be the most practical way of getting there, as well as the way everyone would expect a Scholar to arrive. But it didn’t seem the best way. You have the right instincts, Stefred had said; and instinct told him that though he had full power to command Technicians—a power that couldn’t be taken from him unless he was ceremonially banished from the priesthood—he must use it only for the indirect access to lab facilities needed to continue the genetic research. He did not want to ask Technicians, even those eager for the honor, to fill his personal needs. Nor did he want to do what everyone would expect. The whole point was to get people used to changes. . . .

  Inspiration, when it came, was a flash of light. He found himself speaking almost as one did in the controlled dreams, not knowing what was to come, afraid, yet at the same time confident. “I will build a new City,” he said, “beyond the end of the longest road: a City without walls, without towers; and the unquickened land there will bear fruit. And in this, no Technicians will aid me. . . .”

  It was tantamount to a declaration that the sun would stop in its tracks and rain would fall up instead of down. Everyone knew that unquickened land—land not treated by the Technicians’ machines—did not, and could not, become fruitful. Such words from anyone but a Scholar would have merited not mere derision, but the charge of presumptuous blasphemy. And, Noren thought grimly, even he had sown seeds of potential retribution. If he did not make good his words, if the genetically altered plants would not grow in untreated soil . . . well, this was the sort of commitment Stefred had warned he must make. Carefully, he did not specify exactly when the miracle would come to pass; but there would be a limit to people’s patience. Omniscient as they thought him to be, he had placed himself at their mercy.

  That idea, strangely, was heartening. It made their present adulation much easier to face.

  “Beyond the end of the longest road” was a long way, a journey of many days on foot even without stops in intermediate villages. He had made such a journey before; the village of his birth was far out on one of the spokes that radiated from the City, and after escaping, he’d traveled inbound by night, sleeping in farmers’ fields during daylight hours. Only at the end, after his injury, had he dared accept a ride in a trader’s sledge. Now he would not ride at all. People would be glad to build a sledge for him, to harness a team of their best work-beasts, to spread sand before it as it traveled so that its runners would glide more smoothly than on a routinely sanded road. To them, that would seem fitting. Yet even had he possessed miraculous power to produce wheels he would not have ridden, though he knew his stamina would be taxed.

  City dwellers were not hardened as villagers were; in years of confinement, one lost one’s physical prowess. Even his labor at the outpost was now far behind him. The oppressive heat, hour after hour, began to drain him, and he appreciated, for the first time, how Lianne felt about it. As a boy he’d been inured to heat, had never known the cool relief of a tower’s interior. He could become inured again. In his renunciation of the City, he had not counted physical comforts among his sacrifices. All the same, he found to his surprise that his body’s demands were the cause of his first role crisis.

  If villagers thought Scholars ageless and sexless, they gave even less thought to such mundane matters as these awesome beings’ bodily needs. Noren didn’t recall this until he realized that he was thirsty. He had been on his feet half a day in the hot sun, speaking to groups most of that time, repeating the same blessing over and over. No one had offered him a drink of water; it would never occur to anyone that he might want one. He could, of course, ask for it—but that was awkward. No one had pure water in hand, and in any case, how could he pronounce the blessing in one breath and ask for a drink in the next? It would be undignified. He himself wouldn’t mind that, but his audience would; he must uphold the ideal image they expected. His mouth got drier and drier. He began to wonder, half-seriously, whether the sacrament of drinking impure water should be established far sooner than he’d planned; but no, he could not yet break the High Law in their presence. There was not even any impure water, since streams close to the City were all diverted to the purification plant. Longingly, as he left the market area, he eyed roadside taverns.

  By the time sunset approached he was, by supreme irony, suffering more seriously from thirst than from any emotional burdens.

  The blue robe was a hot garment, never designed for long wear. Under it, sweat drenched Noren’s clothes. How, he thought in dismay, was he going to wash? How would he manage other bodily functions that might be assumed unnecessary for Scholars? He could not remove the robe except in privacy, and at a farmyard cistern there’d be none; as for excusing himself to use a privy, the very thought was ludicrous.

  These concerns overrode that of food, but he’d eaten nothing all day and eventually must do so. This was the one such problem he’d considered before leaving the City. Technicians, when in the villages, bought food; they never took from the villagers without paying. But he could have carried no large amount of money, and in any case, people might be insulted if he tried to pay. No one had ever dreamed of such an honor as seating a Scholar at table, yet an honor it would be, and in that one respect he must let people serve him. He must also, he now saw, request a private sleeping room—though it would mean turning its occupants out—as well as the unheard-of luxury of an individual wash-water jug and slop jar. His hosts would hardly begrudge this, but he disliked the thought of demanding privileges. Furthermore, it wasn’t quite the fashion in which he’d choose to prove himself human . . . or was it? On second thought, Noren decided, the vulgar gossip that would spread would be a healthy thing.

  He had not traveled far the first day, for he had spent most of it with the market crowds. By nightfall they had thinned out; after once being blessed, people didn’t presume to follow him without invitation. He must eventually, he supposed, choose followers. It wouldn’t be fitting to go alone, and he’d rejected the idea of a Technician escort such as would appear with a Scholar before the Gates. Besides, to build a new “city” he would need help, and it must come from people willing to abandon their past lives, willing to take the frightening steps he would ultimately ask them to. But that was in the future. For now, he could think no further than water and rest.

  At the crest of a long hill overlooking the City was a farmhouse. Leaving the last cluster of suppliants, Noren, dizzy with fatigue, climbed the path to its door. To his immense relief the family saw him coming and met him outside. “May the spirit of the Star be with you,” whispered Noren hoarsely. The formal greeting was now, and must remain, automatic, for it would be a terrible breach of courtesy to inadvertently omit it. “I should like to share your table if I may.”

  The farmer, a graying man, was so stunned he couldn’t reply; but his wife was a woman of presence. “Reverend Sir, you will be welcome,” she said simply. She met his eyes squarely, even from her knees; Noren liked that.

  “If I enter your house, you must not kneel to me,” he said. “That is fitting only in public places, and I wish to be your guest.” He wondered if he would be able to stand on his own feet long enough for the others to rise to theirs.

  They gave him a room, obviously their own, and after he’d bathed, a hearty meal. Like all farm and village families, they had ample food and no need to apologize for its quality, since only one type of food existed—he was served b
read and stewed fowl, just as he would have been in the Inner City’s refectory. They waited silently before eating; he realized they expected him to recite the customary words. It had been many years since he’d done that, though he’d used those words in other rituals. “Let us rejoice in the bounty of the land, for the land is good, and from the Mother Star came the heritage that has blessed it. . . . And it shall remain fruitful, and the people shall multiply across the face of the earth. . . .” That took him back to his childhood, even to the time when his mother was alive, and to the later time when he’d burned with resentment at the idea that she’d been led to believe in the Scholars’ blessings. What would his mother think if she could see him now?

  “I must rise at dawn and be on my way,” he told the family, “‘for I go to build a new City. . . .” They listened solemnly to the new prophecy that had in a single day become more real to Noren than that of the Founders. No one, not even the old man, seemed surprised. It fit; it was right; it was natural. It was the business of Scholars to build Cities, to make the land fruitful, to enable the people to multiply. The change was not going to be hard to effect after all. It required only his wit—and his willingness to pay the price.

  At daybreak he stood on the hilltop and watched the sun rise. As he’d seen the City first, coming by another road down this same hill, he looked his last upon it. The lighted beacons atop the towers faded as the sky brightened. Sunlight struck the silvered surface of the domes, which from this distance appeared as a single scalloped wall encircling the tall spires within. Inside one of those towers, Lianne would be waking. . . . Resolutely, Noren turned his back on the scene and started down the other side of the hill.

  * * *

  Gradually his life assumed a new pattern, a pattern composed not only of what he must cope with on the journey, but of his blossoming plans for its end. So the First Scholar had felt, embarking upon another “impossible” scheme, hating his own role, expecting no happy ending for himself, yet believing more and more that it would work. That future generations would be saved by it. It was so simple . . . one committed oneself first, and then faith came! Noren had never understood that; even after experiencing the dreams repeatedly, he had not. But both Stefred and Lianne had seen.