by Ada Palmer
“Almost all. I told them we probably wouldn’t get started before nine, since Their Holiness will need that long with your parents, but everyone’s so eager they arrived early.”
“Guests, Ἄναξ?” I asked.
I should not have interrupted my betters’ conference, but in His Kindness He forgave me. “I said before, Mycroft, I have never elsewhen had so specific a question for My Peer. I must consult His ministers. I think…” Another pause. “I think that I should act.” How to communicate, reader, His tone, the way He voiced it, uncertainty mixed with gravity, as if this were some new discovery. As if He had never acted before.
“You’ve done well already.” The Monsignor patted His shoulder. “You saved the Cousins, ended the assassinations.”
Colonna’s words turned slowly into meaning in Jehovah’s Mind, and meaning to new words. “I have hitherto acknowledged the filial and legal obligations which accompany My human existence, and the filial include the offices given Me by parents, but to complete what parents ask of Me is not to act.”
“Who else…” I began, but trailed off as a glimpse of color among the columns made me pause and peer. It was a figure robed in orange and red, walking with two men in black with beards and broad-brimmed hats that instinct said were rabbis. I swallowed. “That’s the Dalai Lama, isn’t it?”
“The Panchen Lama,” the Monsignor corrected. “Last I checked, Their Holiness the Dalai Lama was inside with the Zoroastrian and Hindu delegations, discussing the moral implications of earthquakes.” He had a wink for me. “Your master sent me quite the guest list. And here, if I’m not mistaken, is another.” The Monsignor nodded to a fresh car, just opening. “Julia, mia cara! Welcome!”
The somehow-not-yet-stripped-of-office Head Sensayer Julia Doria-Pamphili made a light leap from the car into Monsignor Colonna’s open arms, and kissed him like a ba’pa—which, it occurred to me, he probably was, given the frequent interweaving of their houses. Rome has not that many noble lines left. “Delighted to come,” she answered. “Is the rest of my Conclave running late or early?”
“Half and half. How’s the new heart?”
“Better than the old one.” She thumped her chest, where Sniper’s bull’s-eye sigil still sat. “It really is—oof! Felix! Watch it!”
Brillist Headmaster Felix Faust did not apologize, or even notice that he nearly knocked the Head Sensayer and Monsignor flat in his leap from the car. Mania. I know I suffer from mania often, but it is still unsettling to see it in another, a face so transported, so savage in its focus, raw. “Donatien!”
Julia rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I know Felix wasn’t invited, but they saw me walking to the car and guessed. I couldn’t shut them up.”
“Donatien!” Faust panted. “You have to let me attend.”
“Onkel Felix, as a Hive Leader you are not impartial.”
“No one’s impartial.” Faust grabbed his Nephew’s arm.
“You do not speak for My Peer in any trained or official way.”
“I don’t have to speak, I just have to be there: see, hear, smell!” Faust begged.
“You know you always speak.”
“I’ll try not to interrupt. I’ll honestly try! I have to see this. All the theological leaders in the whole world, all together, and with You! Nothing like it has happened in—ever!”
Through five of His frantic uncle’s racing breaths, Jehovah thought. “Take notes that further human knowledge as you watch.”
The old Headmaster collapsed onto the stones as mania released him. “Thank you.”
Now the Addressee too spotted the little clutch of black and orange and theology that watched us from the gallery. He turned toward the lama and rabbis, waved to them, and raised His voice to shout. “Thank you for coming! Je regrette that humans must exist in only one location!”
Murmur or laughter made them pause. “It’s fine, Jehovah!” they shouted back. “No one minds the trip!”
“It was difficult choosing which Aspect’s Reservation should be host!”
“It’s fine! Rome’s convenient!”
“That was not My only reason!” You must not imagine Jehovah animated here. He does not smile, or flush with passion, or crane his neck as He shouts. He seems as ever lost in daydream, but uses shouting to conquer, for a few modest meters, His old enemy Distance.
“No?”
“Increasingly since My resurrection I think on the concept of My Peer’s Incarnation experiment! If it is true qu’ He tested Incarnation on Himself before He used it on Me, then perhaps when He scripts His Providence He understands, as His human creations do, pain, time, distance, limit, hope, failure, et being loved! I like this concept! Such a Peer I can respect! And I fear less what He does to His thinking creations!” All this Jehovah shouted, clear across the courtyard before all, a comfortable shout, as when one shepherd calls to another across the dawn slopes to share news of some wild apples he has stumbled on.
Hush held us, and, briefly, held the theologians, too. “Why don’t you come with us inside?” they shouted back. “We can talk better there!”
“I’m waiting for the miracle!”
“What?”
“I had My Mycroft send a message! He should come soon!”
“I’m here,” a gruff voice answered, close behind us on the Blackframe threshold strip.
The whole company caught its breath.
Including Jehovah.
Including Jehovah, reader, Who left us now, as a child abandons his make-believe fortress when the game ends. We could see the speaker, or a sliver of the speaker, a line of face and chest barely visible between wind-rippled folds Griffincloth. Jehovah has learned, through long study, to smile. “Absolute welcome.” He spread His arms. “Our meeting heals what was unendurable in both Our universes.”
The sliver of figure froze on the threshold. “None of that. I am myself, Achilles, my own person, not a shard of Something bigger. You address me as a man, or I leave right now, and You don’t find me again.”
The barely living shell which hosts Jehovah’s Essence paused. “You are three-quarters god, nymph-nursed Peliades, not human.”
I had never seen godlike Achilles shy, not on the battlefield, not in council, not when taking on a giant twenty times his height, not watching Bridger handle the No-No Box, but here he hesitated, like a wild colt at the gates of the corral, warned off by instinct. “I am a man. I live among men, I die among men, and I blame and thank the gods for the blessings and sufferings they hand out, as all men do. I am not a god, or part of one.”
The whole company stared rapt at this antiquated stranger in his muck-blotched camouflage, which eased into visibility as he switched the Griffincloth out of stealth mode.
“Then you come only for the war?” Jehovah asked.
The famous runner Achilles took two cautious paces across the mourning threshold, still ready, like wild game, to spring away. “Making war is all Fate tends to let me do.”
“Making war.” He Who Visits paused to wrestle words. “A strange verb phrase. War consists in unmaking: lives, creations, peace.”
“I suppose so, but that’s not how it seems to humans, not in the middle of it.” The hero flexed his shoulders, narrow like the boy’s they once were. “War is a thing we make, a vast, momentous, horrible thing. Making destruction is still making something.”
“How Manichean.”
Achilles shook his head. “Human.”
“Am I not human, then?” Jehovah asked.
“No.” It healed me, reader, hearing Achilles say it outright, as if someone had finally bandaged a long-open wound. Jehovah isn’t human. “I’ve seen gods many times before.” The hero frowned. “I know the difference between a human being and something shaped like one. Are You glad to have me confirm that for You?”
Jehovah paused, black eyes seeming to strain vision’s limits as He studied the living miracle before Him. “You prove to Me that I am not what humans are, thus that this is not a race of de
luded Gods who think they are not Gods. It is some relief to know humans are not all mad. But if they are not Gods, then there truly exists such a thing as a finite—perhaps even mortal—thinking thing. That deepens My concerns about the character of their Creator. Your Creator. My Peer.” He didn’t muddle his languages in this exchange, not once. How hard He worked, how long He must have planned, to do this right.
“If You’re looking for reassurance that whoever or whatever runs Fate in this universe is nice and good,” Achilles growled back, “I’m not Your man.”
“I know.”
The breaker of armies breathed deep. “Then what do You want from me?”
“Show Me your Creator. This I want from all beings, but expect most from you.”
“I meant why did You call me here today?”
“Minorly because the Council I have summoned contains many of those living who most need and deserve to know that you exist. Majorly because I may be about to act, and if I do, I want you at My side.”
Matchless Achilles glanced at me, then back at my Master. “You want me, too? You have Mycroft already.”
“I thought before today that My Peer brought Me here only to learn. I was wrong. No humanlike being in this world’s history has been handed as much power as I have, and there is about to be the greatest war. Providence admits no coincidence. My Peer arms Me because He wishes Me to act. Now. He cannot lend Me omnipotence, but he can lend Me all the substitutes humanity has forged, and He must intend that I use them.”
The mortal son of immortal Thetis sighed. “Then You think we’re both here only for the war?”
“I am not certain of the ‘only.’ I believe My Peer could have incarnated Me anyone, anywhen, anywhere. He incarnated Me here, now, Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet MASON, Hiveless Tribune, Imperator Destinatus, Heir to the Throne of Spain, Gordian’s Brain-bash’ Stem, the new Cousins’ Architect, the Mitsubishi Tenth Director, intimate Ally of every Earthly Power. And He made you. Will you join Me? Stay? Help?”
“Help? I don’t yet know what You’re planning.”
The God held out His hand. No, there was more in this gesture than flesh’s finitude; the God held out His Hand. “Help make My Plan.”
Achilles’s eyes fixed on that Hand, as if he faced a cup and in it equal chances of cure or poison. No, that’s not right. He wasn’t looking at Jehovah’s Hand. I was. Achilles, I realized as the silence swelled, was looking at me. This was my fault, his eyes accused. I brought him here, not just today but that day, long ago, when I first found his hiding place. I dragged him out from toys and safety, paved this path for him, this Fate, this moment, all my doing. He was right, but I was right too. We needed him. I’m sorry, Achilles, but I would do it again.
“Take me to your Council.” Achilles did not have to take Jehovah’s Hand yet, but he did. He could have waited, pointed, bade Jehovah lead the way and followed, wary, independent still. Instead, eyes still on mine, he took His Hand. Matchless Achilles—did I choose for him?
“How do You like to be addressed?” the lord of the Myrmidons asked the Lord of Stranger Things as they turned together toward the colonnade.
“Honestly.”
Achilles laughed. “I meant by what title. Like most gods, You have too many names.”
“Let each choose for himself.”
“Jehovah!” Monsignor Colonna called after them, and so in my eyes proved himself one of the strongest people in this world. “Will you introduce your new friend to the rest of us?”
The Addressee turned, as if surprised there were still other people in this world. “We … are new-acquainted. Let Mycroft do it. Mycroft knows him well.”
The daggers of all eyes fell on me, the priests’, Julia’s, deadly Dominic’s. “Mo-onsignor, this … this is…” I froze. I could not have finished the words alone, but the hero’s own smile told me it was time. “This is Achilles. The … the actual ancient Greek hero from the Iliad, Achilles. Brought to life. Except they’re dressed like they’re from the age of World Wars because they were created out of an old plastic toy soldier, by a child named Bridger, who was miraculously conceived without parents, and had no belly button, and could make toy things real, and was the kid you saw in the video, with the flying winged sandals who came to the Rostra and resurrected Ἄναξ Jehovah, Who was killed, actually completely totally really dead killed, by Sniper, and was actually really genuinely resurrected and brought back from the dead by Bridger, who then unmade themself to keep their powers from being used for evil during the war, but left behind Achilles for us, because the world needs an experienced veteran to teach us how to be soldiers again.”
It poured from me easily once I began, so much truth, a torrent, like when a welcome blade finally lets the tiresome lifeblood drain away.
“A pleasure to meet you, Achilles.”
There is no treasure in any bank vault to match the presumption of honesty, the willingness to believe that what we said—even what I said—was what we truly believed. They all presumed our honesty, every priest and rabbi and shaman and sensayer, throughout the hours of those talks. Not everyone thought everyone else was right—this was a conference of doctrinal adversaries—but everyone believed that what each person said was what that person honestly believed. Whether a man claimed that there is an afterlife, or that there isn’t, or that three equals one, or that infinity equals one, or that He is a God, or that he is Achilles, all claims were respected. I do not know how many of the assembled believed Achilles was Achilles—perhaps none, since we had not yet made public the medical reports—but all believed that he believed, and faced him with respect.
“Jehovah, before you gather your guests, you should join your parents and the Holy Father. The issue of your legitimation is being settled.”
“I am indeed obligated,” Jehovah acknowledged. “I shall attend. Achilles, do you want to meet My mother?”
“Frankly, no. In fact, definitely no. In fact, never if I can help it.”
Jehovah gave another deliberate, studied smile. “I shall endeavor to protect that wish. And I shall return to you as quickly as duty permits.” He turned to follow Colonna. « Au pied, Dominic, Mycroft. »
Reluctant to leave Achilles’s side, I fell in beside Dominic, on whose face I found a fixed, demonic glare. Achilles glared back at him, and only then did I realize how close fire was to fuel. Dominic had tormented Bridger toward his suicide; Achilles was Master Jehovah’s new favorite person in the world. The bloodlust between them made me nearly drunk.
We left. Achilles stayed. Questions followed. For me they were the Holy Father’s questions, as I translated Jehovah’s many attempts to say that, since He preexisted His human birth, He did not understand how the issue of legitimacy applied to Him. For Achilles they were all kinds of questions. Where do you live? (Wherever I can hide.) How old are you? (Eleven or three thousand.) Do you speak Ancient Greek? (Yes.) Do you think your existence means the Greek gods are real? (I hope not.) Greek metaphysics? (I sure hope not; that afterlife was terrible, and I’m not looking forward to going back.) Monsignor Colonna transplanted the conversation to a frescoed meeting room, where Holinesses and High Priests in the robes of every faith and unfaith mingled with the common costumes of Hive and Hiveless, mostly sensayers, not all. New cars from distant Reservations raised the attendance to seventy-six, each adding to the onslaught of questions, but no interrogation could tire matchless Achilles.
The King of Spain did tire, but persisted. For an hour I watched His Holiness Pope Celestine IX voice open reluctance to allow his longtime friend and spiritual son to bind his kingdom and himself to such a woman, but in the name of public fear about the succession, the pope granted the king’s petition. Joyce Faust D’Arouet would undergo confession and contrition, and several weeks of counseling on her conduct and her faith, but she and Isabel Carlos II would then be free to marry. Their Son, conceived after the late queen’s death, would be legitimated, and could then be proclaimed Crown Prince, and ta
ke the Oath of Office.
His Holiness Pope Celestine IX next led Jehovah to the meeting room, where the Holy Father warmly greeted every theologian as a valued equal, from Her Holiness Chief Sensayer Julia Doria-Pamphili who oversees the billions of the Alliance, to Dominic who mentors only Heloïse and Carlyle. I heard some style Dominic ‘Their Holiness’ as well, a title which he, as High and Sole Priest of a Universal God, deserves, I suppose, much as anyone.
Jehovah used no titles here. “Thank you all for coming. There is Providence. I have been made almost-Master of the world. There will be war. Achilles and I must decide what We shall do. I wish your aid in guessing My Peer’s Will.”
They debated seven hours. The transcript, as I said, belongs to the Vatican, but what I can show you instead is the view inside the papal library not many doors away, where Raphael painted the sages of Athens and saints of Heaven eternally in this same dispute over the nature of Earth, God, soul, and Man. See there immortal Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Jerome, alive in paint, in their fat volumes, and in dialectic. Since the museum crowds are at the second reconstructed Vatican outside the city, these famous rooms serve as the pope’s personal library, packed with books on Great Questions, and here wait those who are not admitted to today’s debate: the King of Spain, a cluster of aides (who carried on their own debate while the masters worked inside), and Carlyle. Madame is at confession.
“Five minutes!” Faust howled. The king described this to me, a true howl of anguish as, four hours in, when he failed for a fifth time to hold his tongue, the Brillist Headmaster was punished with a ‘time out.’ “I’ll shut up! I promise!” He hammered on the inlaid door that slammed behind him. He had tried his best. I had watched him throughout the conference, fidgeting, mouthing attendees’ sets under his breath, then mouthing comments, then voicing them. His first interruption had been received politely, but that only encouraged more. “Shit!” He slammed the door again. “Five minutes! They could write ten commandments in five minutes!”
His Majesty confesses that he laughed. “Smart money said you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, Felix.”
