The Traitor

by Michael Cisco

  Chapter Twelve

  Where have I gotten to now? They have come up around me on all sides to watch me die, I intend to frustrate them. I have a reserve of strength that I will never use in this world, soon the sun will rise and its beam will strike the floor by my head and confuse them long enough. I will give up my spirit when the sun strikes the floor by my head and the spirits are confused. This page is standing between me and where I am going, it will fall away, I imagine it like a white plank half in the dark, laid over that gap, as I write the last word it will fall away, and that gap will open for me, this time no escape. The words will come to the end, I’ll use them that way to push me as far out as possible. From Lohach I went with Tamt from town to town; my description was circulating, the Society was hunting me now in earnest, they had made a description of me and were hunting me throughout the world, some passing meddler had given them my description, perhaps Felix’s unmarried sister-in-law had given them my description, the old whore, when the word came that Lohach was flooded and destroyed, some other meddler gave the Society my description, I was linked with the destruction of Lohach which was not rebuilt, which is ruined to this day; so after that the Society was hunting me in earnest. I was wandering all over the world to avoid them. Tamt was with me until U_____, we had gone that far together, this was three years after Lohach was flooded; at U_____ I told Tamt to go on by himself, U_____ was the first city we had seen since Lohach, I knew the Society would be there, Tamt was not yet wanted, I wanted him to go on by himself, he was old enough, he would go on and I would go on myself, separately. I have not given away his name—Tamt was my brother-in-law’s name—I know he is still free. I parted with him at U_____ and entered the city alone. I watched him go, until he was gone in the trees. I will see Tamt again in the trees. I went into U_____ without Tamt for his sake, Tamt will never be caught on my account, he will never be caught. Tamt is still young. I’ll be dead but Tamt will go on for years, he’ll come here, to Tebeste; I will see him that is Tamt will bring to Tebeste what I brought to Lohach. Tamt has taken over the work that I started. I stayed at U_____ for a few days only, I had to leave almost right away, I stayed only long enough, as long as I had to, I was old enough then, I rested to get ready to go to Tebeste. I’m sure the Society missed me in U_____ only because I lay in a dry culvert for three days there, I lay there without moving and rested, I had my provisions, I wasn’t hurt or ailing, I was hiding as only I can hide. It’s tiresome to go on like this, the Society was searching for me everywhere in the world, they nearly found me in U_____, I rested there a few days and left for Tebeste. Only I can. The only road through the mountains to Tebeste passes through U_____, I smuggled myself past and into the mountains, I was tired but not yet sick, I couldn’t do anything about my age, the Society was scouring the spirits, I had nothing to eat in that regard, they kept me weak by scouring away the spirits, left me nothing, I was already old. I couldn’t prevent my age from slowing me down, although I could keep myself well for the time, but the Society was starving me and I was starting to weaken even then. The Society didn’t stop me, I reached Tebeste. I am not above saying that, knowing what the Society would do to me if they found me there, I went to Tebeste anyway, on Wite’s instructions. I’m tiring, the sun is shifting. Wherever I went Wite and Tzdze were in my mind, I could see the mountain on the horizon all over the world. I’m tiring. In Tebeste the Society was impossible to avoid, the Society was impossible to avoid in Tebeste in ranks around the palace and they would go into the mountains over the city to stare down at the streets, looking for me, they had heard already that I might be there, they were staring down from all but one mountain looking for me, you can imagine that didn’t work, they didn’t find me that way—there was one mountain there on the horizon, I spoke here and there, I don’t remember what I did except that I spoke here and there, the way I did in Lohach, there was no difference, but the Society could make out my voice, it’s always dead silent when I’m not trying to do anything important when I’m not trying to concentrate but just let me try to concentrate and then all of a sudden they ran to meet me everywhere—I can’t go on about it, they came for me, I ran to the Imperial Guards, I did everything in my power to surrender to the Imperial Guards and not to the Society. I was fighting hard to make sure I was arrested by the Imperial Guards, not the Society. I was arrested by the Imperial Guards and brought here; I was not tried by the Society, I would not be here if I had been tried by the Society, I was tried by the Imperial Guards for treason and they sentenced me to die, here I am waiting to die; this was intentional, my going to the Guards, it meant I knew I was starved by the Society long enough, I couldn’t fight off this bug in my lungs, I felt it break into me in this cell, and, when the doctors discovered it, there would be no question of an execution. These doctors said that execution was out of the question, they will dissect me after I die but they have forbidden that I be executed. I’m tiring. The sun has already risen behind the mountains, soon it will come up over the mountains, I will die when the beams strike the floor by my head where I lie I will not rise again, the spirits will be confused, the beams will shine in through the window through which, if I could stand, I would see Guards marching in the courtyard, where they’re always marching, where these Alaks of ours have taken over the world, saying the message of the Alaks is love, all humanity in one happy family; they decide what they will find in the world before they see it, they choose to believe they have found what they have made, the world is shiningly agreeable to them, they have already filled up your head with imbecile ideas, their world like any world is insipid. Like any world theirs is insipid, as is yours. But I spoke here and there in Tebeste, in plain view of the palace I spoke here and there in Tebeste. I was listened to. I was heard here and there. I’m speaking here for the last time, I’m going to raise myself up one last time and speak. The sky is getting light, I will die and die and die but I am ready, I’m going stronger than I came, I will die spitting the saliva of my outrage at them, moreover coughing the bloody pieces of my testament at them, my gentle guards and the soldiers down below, the city all around and the palace out of my sight and their brainless music box of a King, I won’t die cowering I have my Wite and Tzdze Tamt and “blunder” Illan and Vyo, Xchte and my uncle Heckler and tired dying imaginary Nophtha on the floor writing in his cell and seizing you at the last moment, I’m rising for the last time to seize you for one more moment, the gleam of Wite’s spectacles is hovering over your shoulder! No one will be spared, whatever so-called good deeds you’ve done, your tepidity and every so-called evil soul in the world will be devastated all the same. Wite has already lost all resemblance to his former state, he’s become something else entirely, he’s as blind and relentless as a hurricane—do you imagine there’s something you could saythat would “change his mind”? What words would you choose to address to a hurricane? What will you say when the prisoners of the world come for you without mercy? They have been caged in human insanity irrelevance and impotence and when they come out to make your only possible apocalypse they will be elementals of insanity irrelevance and impotence, they will be inhuman and come for you without mercy, with merciless faces showing no human part—how long did you think they would stay in their cages of insanity irrelevance and impotence? Wite will bring the prisoners out. How much longer do you think they will stay in? Wite will bring the prisoners out. Wite is their standing invitation, wherever they come out they will have his help if they need it, he is there, he is here with me, I’m used up now and dying, as are you, I won’t live to see it, I’ve lived to start it, I’ll find it as I pass and recommend you to it. They only needed to know, prisoners in human insanity irrelevance and impotence, once they know there will be no stopping them any more than you may convince a hurricane, they will be elemental and not human, Wite was the first, he will blot out this city, this city will be cleared away and this tower, my prison, this cell, the bars, the guards, all indiscriminately blanked, and this testament amid the ru
ins will outlive. They will come for you without pity, you’ve knocked that pity out of them long ago—how should I pity you? I have no pity for you, what have you done to earn my pity? Are you entitled to my pity for the paltry fact of your so-called humanity? It’s not a humanity that I recognize, there’s nothing human in it! My pity is reserved only for those you’ve pushed out of your commonsensical way, you’ve pushed them right aside and now you press them up against the walls of your ruts, you’re right now trying to crush the life out of them against the walls of your ruts, they are the ones who have earned my pity, they have, compressed into them, a power that must explode I am telling you it must explode and lacerate the commonsensical crowd that presses in on them, lacerate them and hack them down, turn to the walls of that rut and hack them down, clear all common sense aside with the back of the hand and put an end once and for all to cities mobs societies armies churches, put a full stop once and for all to these pestilential mobs cities societies churches armies—and when that is done, they and I will have nothing to say to one another, we will return to our homes in the mountains, under the trees, by the rocks, and live ghostly lives in unbroken silence and solitude, and watch trees rocks grass and water reclaim the ruins. Those future ruins of your city now shall have vanished under a blank expanse of trees and grass stones hills rivers lakes oceans swamps sun and weather, and shall have been blanked out of the ghostly minds of our silent solitary successors. Once and always alone they are going on, they will go on and you will drive them on, and they will betray you to what isn’t human, I was part of them once and I betrayed and betrayed, I betrayed you all and I could never betray you enough.