The Book of the Ler

by M. A. Foster

  Morgin ran his hand through the brushy stubble which covered his scalp, and continued, “Below the initiation of change level, they perceive the fading impulse, but do not act upon it. It, however, registers on the Lago consciousness, and they are aware of distant events in their society to an astonishing degree of accuracy, as they pick up the fading echoes of transitions. This perception includes what most people would regard as normal, ah, sexual activity, so I must caution you here not to respond to sexual invitations, and . . . er, innuendoes, so to speak, as you might be inclined to do by natural inclination; such events will precipitate consequences which will amaze you to the ends of your days.”

  Meure said, “You said ‘aware of distant events.’ . . . Telepathy?”

  “No. Crowd-instinct, plus a hair-trigger sensitivity to very small cues in behavior, so most believe. By the way, I mean to ignore all sexual invitations, including those attachments which you might have with each other—such events are inflammatory.”

  Clellendol had been listening, and now he asked, “How is it that these overstressed people manage to reproduce and retain a viable society, then? How does one initiate a family?”

  Morgin looked pained. “Like everyone else, they seem to manage their restrictions one way or another. Actually, they utilize an ingenious method, involving highly secluded establishments, where the necessary performances take place . . . At any rate, it is my hope that you not see them in their release state; they are difficult enough as it is. The last time I was here, to preside over certain discussions, and to provide a Prote, it resulted in an attempt at my life. Nothing is sacred to Lagos, outside their own mores. They do not honor Embasses—only tolerate them, and in addition, they consult no oracles, which is the most unthinkable condition of all.” Morgin shook his head, disbelievingly, as if no people could be so uncivilized.

  Meure had a sudden thought, and followed it. “Why not consult oracles?”

  “They say that in ancient times, they followed an oracle to the land Yastian, where they were trapped . . .”

  Meure said, “If that’s true, then it’s almost as if something wanted them where they are ... Who held these lands before the Lagostomes?”

  Morgin mused, “Yastian, by definition, is the land of the River Yast. Peoples have come and gone. Yastian always has carried the stigma of a dumping-ground for the scraps and rag-ends of the peoples, from all four continents. They sojourned here, and they passed on, on their way to oblivion ... There is still a foreign quarter, in the neighborhood of the Great Docks, where exiles gather, but they are, all in all, few in numbers. Oh, indeed, you might well see all sorts there—Kurbs from the hinterlands of Incana, Aurismen, Meors from the Ombur and perhaps even Seagove; Maosts from Boigne, Garlinds from Intance and Far Nasp, which is just across the river-bottoms, to the east. Clones from Chengurune, for they are great seamen, and other races. I believe one even sees Haydar on occasion.”

  Tenguft asked, “They would not attack me here, when they could smother my spirit with their vile numbers?”

  “No, most definitely. At least not while you were here. You see, such an event would ignite the desire to settle every grudge each Lago had; the result would be carnage on a grand scale: of a fact, many Lagos would be killed, while the menace of the Haydar predation would only be diminished by one, hardly worth the price. No, you are safe—here. And since you can call Eratzenasters from the sky, I doubt if they would set brigands on us, either, although such events are probable.”

  Meure stood by the rail for a time, looking out upon the panorama of the city-state Yastian, the noisome city. Finally, he said, thoughtfully, “Cretus had once an impulse to come here; rather, to return here, since he grew up in the delta. But things have changed, so I believe, and Cretus shrinks from his future, our present. I see little we can do with such a people, save walk carefully and avoid entanglements with them. I share Tenguft’s distaste for them. All the same, I do not wish to return to Incana, either, and Ombur is not a hospitable land.”

  Flerdistar said, softly, “There is no need for us to leave Kepture. We know that what we seek is here.”

  Meure looked sidelong at her, and said, almost inaudibly, “What you seek is where I am, and that is wherever I go: to Chengurune, Cantou, Glordune, or seek the sea-people on the face of the World Sea.” The words came almost without having to think of them, although as he said them, they had a strange, alien taste on his tongue. Then, to Morgin, “You know your way about this place better than any of us; where should we debark?”

  Morgin thought for a while, then said, “There would be no great profit in landing hereabouts . . . come, let us man these clumsy sweeps and steer as best we may for a proper channel. I will try to guide us toward the foreign quarter.”

  Clellendol said, “At least that is good. I would like to smell some sea air for a change.”

  Morgin said, “Do not hope, yet, for the sea. The Great Docks are nowhere near open water, and in Yastian is no boundary between land and sea, only a gradual change. You will only see the Blue Sea if you leave Kepture.”

  Clellendol added, “And also I have not forgotten the Spsom and their hoped-for rescue. No, it is not my intent to leave Kepture. I want to be where they can find us, when they come, not off somewhere else, roaming all over Monsalvat.”

  “Nor I,” said Meure resignedly. “Now. Where are those sweeps?”

  Morgin turned from the rail and sought for, and shortly found, a locker which contained crude navigational gear: sectional masts, ragged sails in much need of repair, and sweeps for the steering of the clumsy craft. These last he distributed among those remaining, save the Vfzyekhr, who was too small to use one, and they began moving the barge according to Morgin’s directions.

  For the remainder of the day, they worked at positioning the barge as Morgin instructed them; although the Embasse seemed somewhat vague at times about landmarks, as the day wore on he grew more sure of himself. They did not make for any particular point, so it seemed, but rather Morgin tried to maneuver the barge so as to be moved by certain currents. Once, he commented, “This is Upper Yastian; things in the water are fairly constant. One can figure out where the currents are without too much difficulty. Below, however, the matter is something of a different quality: the currents seems to develop a mind of their own. We will not attempt that part, and I hope to hit the edge of the foreign quarter, at the least. Thus we will be spared the hazards of the river, as well as the hazards of travel across Yastian among a pure Lago population.”

  Flerdistar commented, straining with an oar much too large for her fragile build, “I admit to confusion over your attitude; you seem to dislike the tribes you serve. Is that not a contradiction?”

  Morgin answered plainly, without heat, “It is custom that the Embasse be of mixed-blood, thereby miscastes also have their chance to survive, where they would not otherwise. But as we wander, we also see all the Radah within the limits of our wanderings . . . Each people of this planet thinks themselves set above all others in quality, whereas the truth is that each seems to emphasize certain traits at the expense of others. Some are simple and easy; others are rigorous and most difficult. None have uncovered a universal truth. I myself came to Kepture from Chengurune, and so am somewhat more impatient than most. Yet I have my preferences. You offworlders and Kleshmakers may think them arbitrary or arcane, but they are mine nonetheless: personally, I never have difficulties with the Haydar. They are, in my estimation, a brave and honorable people. Yet it is sometimes hard to strike agreements over territory with them, owing to their nomadic ways. Here today, gone tomorrow. They are also fond of violence to excess.”

  He continued, “I would not wish to be an Aurisman, nor live like one, yet they are attentive to Embasses. Kurbs I find over-civilized and arbitrary in the extreme, but they have the quality of constancy—they remain the same this year as last. Garlinds are enamored of chaos . . . I could continue, of course, but the central point is that all have some virtue. Save the La
gostomes: they change everything they touch forever. They utterly ruin land for future use, which is why they remain confined to the delta . . .”

  While Morgin continued to declaim upon the negative values of the Lagostomes, Meure watched the city-state slowly drifting past, also observing the people when the barge drifted close by the shore.

  As he did so, his anticipations slowly sank. Like Cretus and Morgin both, as he saw them, he could see no redeeming feature. This was not the place to be stranded, nor were these people the material from which to fashion the new millenium . . . Odd, that thought. It felt Cretusish, but he could not detect any leakage. Cretus was firmly hidden, completely withdrawn.

  And the rest? Well, the Haydar certainly had a place, and as Cretus said, they had been “high in his esteem,” and he in theirs. Otherwise . . . no. Not even the Haydar! He saw it! It came unbidden, unasked, but he saw it, clearly! He had reviewed each race he had met on Monsalvat, Lagostome, Haydar, Kurb, Rivermen, and Lagostomes again, and what he had learned of each of them, and he saw something of what Flerdistar had spoken of: Cretus had been a great character out of history, for he had set his influence and his logos upon the whole planet. Yes! They had attained it, once, under Cretus. Meure saw plainly that had Cretus endured and continued, he would have fused the warring factions of Monsalvat into the most dynamic human society ever fashioned. But he also saw that when this development was arrested in midstream, as it were, it had functioned upon the unique social conditions of Monsalvat like a virus, to which the population of Monsalvat had developed a perfect immunity, which went far to explain its changelessness, at least to a level from which it could be maneuvered into complete stasis by something else.

  That was why Cretus had withdrawn: they were all immune to him now, something unforeseen by Cretus, or the entity who had manipulated events to bring Cretus back. And what was it Flerdistar had said? Another identity, a double-trump personality, coming into action . . . things moving quickly to completion?

  The thought-pattern started moving, flowing. Meure could feel the answer coming; and there was a block. Something stopped him. He could not follow it.

  He looked at the passing river shore, trying to redistract himself. Meure saw poverty of the most oppressive flowing past them, and more, it was a poverty without honor or chance to escape. The brownish river water washed flaccidly against a muddy shoreline, or against stained and rotting levees and pilings, while the people behind those borders moved about their affairs listlessly, or just sat and stared, or moved among one another carefully, carefully, more fearful of igniting one another than they were of the conditions about them that oppressed them. He saw it. Nothing held them here but themselves. They had built a mental-social refuge, which had become a prison. It was their values that made them distrusted and hated.

  Meure looked hard at the reeking panorama of wretched huts, trash idly piled in random heaps, the careful motions, the ragged children which according to Morgin were procreated outside the home, which would go far to explain the extraordinary similarity of appearance among Lagos—they had the widest genetic base of any population on the planet.

  Meure knew.

  —Cretus!

  There was silence and emptiness. No sense of presence at all. He tried again, this time more strongly.

  —Cretus! Cretus, the Scribe! Come forth! You hear with my ears, so you know as I do, what can be done!

  One instant it was not there. Then it was.

  —I hear. The “voice” was tired, resigned.

  —Magus and Hanged Man, she said. And what am I?

  —A most deadly combination, so I now see. I, too, know that ancient theory. My vice, you see; I looked far, I saw Her, and I saw beyond her as well, back to the beginning. I should have guessed it, but it’s my nature, what I am, not to guess, do you see . . . that’s why the transfers never took before: you can only transfer personality among likes, or upward, up the hierarchy. A double-trump personality could only shift to another double-trump. And to think that the entity projected itself across space to bring you, to house me. Pardon me, but I must laugh to myself over that one. It has unleashed doom upon Monsalvat. You will change it more than I, and the entity will go, too. The Ler girl has seen far into it. I am, as she said, Magus and Hanged Man. The numbers are one and twelve. My symbol is their sum, thirteen: Unity.

  —And what are mine, Manipulator of Symbols and Giver of Oneself to a Unfied Cause?

  —You know, nor would you ask. The Fool and the High Priestess. Zero and two. Equals two. Innocence of action and innocence of thought. Motiveless, resultless, energy. But Monsalvat lives on stasis.

  —No more.

  —You dare not ignite these pestiferous Lagos!

  —I will ignite them, you control them.

  —You have an escape, if you will but wait for it.

  —I no longer believe in escapes. I was brought here to stay here, forever. Do you think for a moment that that thing will permit any ship to approach this planet, with us on it? We have to go forward, now.

  —As soon as it learns what you have in mind, it may send you back without a ship, directly, though it would cost a lot of lives to do so . . . It may not be able to deal with us, on the other hand. I know it’s not a God, or anything like that; it has limitations, although they are hard enough to find.

  —It sent a manifestation of itself, but it couldn’t perceive you . . .

  —I don’t believe it can perceive you, either, directly, though it can discern your effects. I mean, it knows something’s there. That may be the adept’s camouflage which my presence lends you: we muddy each other’s image for it.

  —And for others as well.

  —Ah, well, it’s just as you say, sure enough. Horny little beast, she didn’t know who she was having, or why she was there in the first place . . . the light of a double star blinds those who have learned to see by the light of one.

  —However it was, she wants something of you, she came across the oceans of space to get it; I am not the source of these rumors about the Ler of long ago.

  —However polite the greeting, it always comes down to the matter at hand.

  —As you say, the matter at hand. How is it you are the source? And what it is you’ve seen?

  —To the first, I am not so much source, as focus. We Klesh always knew something, do you understand . . . something from the old days that was never spoken of directly.

  —Something from Dawn?

  —Aye. Dawn. And who knows where they heard it. The Warriors were . . . secretive about it, so I understand. But it was before the Klesh, the secret, it was . . . but you can’t keep a secret like that entirely shut up; you see, the Warriors performed a crime, and they never stopped trying to justify it among themselves, and so perhaps the very first slaves overheard something, and added it to other bits and scraps later on, and so in the slave grapevine, it was known. And if you had the power to look into a window upon all space and time, what question would you ask, Meure Schnasy, what would you look for? The most important thing in the world to you, out of the basic facts of your life. And so did I. I looked through the Skazenache, I did; many times. I kept having to go further back, further and further. I have seen the exodus from Dawn on the great ships, the Great Warriors caged up and glaring like wild animals, the Klesh fearful; I saw the Radahim made out of human stock that the Warriors sifted, one by one; some had uses, some had esthetics, and some were just caprice: that was toward the end. I saw the Warriors make their first captures, I saw them find Dawn.

  —What they did, it was not on Dawn?

  —No. Before that. In a period when they were exiled and wandering, lost and trying to lose themselves, long years, visiting unknown planets, trying to find a place that suited their temperament.

  —What?

  —I am hanging on to life by one thread, and that’s the one. And as soon as you know it, you’ll sell me to her, you will . . . and so it was that I became the focus of what she’s perceived out of t
he past, her past. I spread the story. We needed something to believe in, even an irony: Our Lady of Monsalvat.

  —St. Zermille, that I’ve heard them call on?

  —I invented St. Zermille. I, Cretus, will tell you that. If you can guess it yourself . . .

  —I would rather have you tell me; just as I would have you tell me what happened to the girls. Why was no one concerned? I wanted to ask, but everyone seemed to know except me.

  —And I wondered if you’d noticed. They were here, and then gone. It happens all the time; not as if an everyday thing, but often enough. It was so in my day, when I was a buck, and I would look no farther. Of course, ordinary foul play might be suspect, so you, say, might think. But not Morgin or Tenguft or I: we are natives. Not you or Flerdistar—you were otherwise occupied. This leaves the unfortunate boy, whom we cannot question, and Clellendol, who is so perplexed he is ashamed to ask. Him, a criminal, and a crime was performed under his nose. No—I do not wonder, because of what I remember. You would not suspect anything because you did not know what to look for. For example . . . the auburn-haired girl? Clearly, unmistakably a Medge or Urige. The other one? An Ellar of Holastri, which is an island off the southern tip of Glordune.