"Emmanuel," the girl Zina said, "you are ponderous."
Smiling at her the boy said, "Games, then? Would that be better? There are events ahead that I must shape. I must arouse fire that burns, that sears. Scripture says:
For He is like a refiner's fire.
And Scripture also says:
And who can abide the day of His coming?
I say, however, that it will be more than this; I say:
The day comes, glowing like a furnace; all the arrogant and the evil-doers shall be chaff, and that day when it comes shall set them ablaze; it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
What do you say to that, Herb Asher?" Emmanuel gazed at him intently, awaiting his response.
Zina said:
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings.
"That is true," Emmanuel said.
In a low voice Elias said:
And you shall break loose like calves released from the stall.
"Yes," Emmanuel said. He nodded.
Herb Asher, returning the boy's gaze, said, "I am afraid. I really am." He was glad of the arm around him, the reassuring arm of Elias.
In a reasonable tone of voice, a mild tone, Zina said, "He won't do all those terrible things. That's to scare people."
"Zina!" Elias said.
Laughing, she said, "It's true. Ask him."
"You will not put the Lord your God to the test," Emmanuel said.
"I'm not afraid," Zina said quietly.
Emmanuel, to her, said:
I will break you, like a rod of iron.
I shall dash you, in pieces,
Like a potter's vessel.
"No," Zina said. To Herb Asher she said, "There is nothing to fear. It's a manner of talking, no more. Come to me if you get scared and I will converse with you."
"That is true," Emmanuel said. "If you are seized and taken down into the prison she will go with you. She will never leave you." An unhappy expression crossed his face; suddenly he was, again, a ten-year-old boy. "But—"
"What is it?" Elias said.
"I will not say now," Emmanuel said, speaking with difficulty. Herb Asher, to his disbelief, saw tears in the boy's eyes. "Perhaps I will never say it. She knows what I mean."
"Yes," Zina said, and she smiled. Mischief lay in her smile, or so it seemed to Herb Asher. It puzzled him. He did not understand the invisible transaction taking place between Rybys's son and the girl. It troubled him, and his fear became greater. His sense of deep unease.
***
The four of them had dinner together that night.
"Where do you live?" Herb Asher asked the girl. "Do you have a family? Parents?"
"Technically I'm a ward of the government school we go to," Zina said. "But for all intents and purposes I'm in Elias's custody now. He's in the process of becoming my guardian."
Elias, eating, paying attention to his plate of food, said, "We are a family, the three of us. And now you also, Herb."
"I may go back to my dome," Herb said. "In the CY30-CY30B system."
Staring at him, Elias halted in his eating, forkful of food raised. "Why?"
"I'm uncomfortable here," Herb said. He had not worked it out; his feelings remained vague. But they were intense feelings. "It's oppressive here. There's more of a sense of freedom out there."
"Freedom to lie in your bunk listening to Linda Fox?" Elias said.
"No." He shook his head.
Zina said, "Emmanuel, you scare him with your talk about afflicting the Earth with fire. He remembers the plagues in the Bible. What happened with Egypt."
"I want to go home," Herb said, simply.
Emmanuel said, "You miss Rybys."
"Yes." That was true.
"She isn't there," Emmanuel reminded him. He ate slowly, somberly, bite after bite. As if, Herb thought, eating was for him a solemn ritual. A matter of consuming something sanctified.
"Can't you bring her back?" he said to Emmanuel.
The boy did not respond. He continued to eat.
"No answer?" Herb said, with bitterness.
"I am not here for that," Emmanuel said. "She understood. It is not important that you understand, but it was important that she know. And I caused her to know. You remember; you were there on that day, the day I told her what lay ahead."
"Okay," Herb said.
"She lives elsewhere now," Emmanuel said. "You—"
"Okay," he repeated, with anger, enormous anger.
To him, Emmanuel said, speaking slowly and quietly, his face calm, "You do not grasp the situation, Herbert. It is not a good universe that I strive for, nor a just one, nor a pretty one; the existence of the universe itself is at stake. Final victory for Belial does not mean imprisonment for the human race, continued slavery, but nonexistence; without me, there is nothing, not even Belial, whom I created."
"Eat your dinner," Zina said in a gentle voice.
"The power of evil," Emmanuel continued, "is the ceasing of reality, the ceasing of existence itself. It is the slow slipping away of everything that is, until it becomes, like Linda Fox, a phantasm. That process has begun. It began with the primal fall. Part of the cosmos fell away. The Godhead itself suffered a crisis; can you fathom that, Herb Asher? A crisis in the Ground of Being? What does that convey to you? The possibility of the Godhead ceasing—does it convey that to you? Because the Godhead is all that stands between—" He broke off. "You can't even imagine it. No creature can imagine nonbeing, especially its own nonbeing. I must guarantee being, all being. Including yours."
Herb Asher said nothing.
"A war is coming," Emmanuel said. "We will choose our ground. It will be for us, the two of us, Belial and me, a table, on which we play. Over which we wager the universe, the being of being as such. I initiate this final part of the ages of war; I have advanced into Belial's territory, his home. I have moved forward to meet him, not the other way around. Time will tell if it was a wise idea."
"Can't you foresee the results?" Herb said.
Emmanuel regarded him. Silently.
"You can," Herb said. You know what the outcome will be, he realized. You know now; you knew when you entered Rybys's womb. You knew from the beginning of creation—before creation, in fact; before a universe existed.
"They will play by rules," Zina said. "Rules agreed on."
"Then," Herb said, "that's why Belial has not attacked you. That's why you've been able to live here and grow up—for ten years. He knows you're here—"
"Does he know?" Emmanuel said.
Silence.
"I haven't told him," Emmanuel said. "It is not my burden. He must find out for himself. I do not mean the government. I mean the power that truly rules, in comparison to which the government, all governments, are shadows."
"He'll tell him when he's ready," Zina said. "Good and ready."
Herb said, "Are you good and ready, Emmanuel?"
The boy smiled. A child's smile, a shift away from the stern countenance of a moment before. He said nothing. A game, Herb Asher realized. A child's game!
Seeing this he trembled.
Zina said,
Time is a child at play, playing draughts; a child's is the kingdom.
"What is that?" Elias said.
"It is not from Judaism," Zina said obscurely. She did not amplify.
The part of him that derives from his mother, Herb Asher realized, is ten years old. And the part of him that is Yah has no age: it is infinity itself. A compound of the very young and the timeless: precisely what Zina in her arcane quote had stated.
Perhaps this was not unique, this mixture. Someone had noted it before: noted it and declared it in words.
"You venture into Belial's realm," Zina said to Emmanuel as she ate, "but would you have the courage to venture into my realm?"
"What realm is that?" Emmanuel said. Elias Tate stared at the girl, and, equally puzzled, Herb Asher regarded her. But Emmanuel seemed to understand her; he
showed no surprise. Despite his question, Herb Asher thought, he knows—knows already.
Zina said, "Where I am not as you see me now."
An interval of silence passed, as Emmanuel pondered. He did not answer; he sat as if withdrawn, as if his mind had moved far away. Skimming countless worlds, Herb Asher thought. How strange this is. What are they talking about?
Emmanuel said slowly and carefully, "I have a dreadful land to deal with, Zina. I have no time."
"I think you are apprehensive," Zina said. She turned to her slice of apple pie and mound of ice cream.
"No," Emmanuel said.
"Come, then," she said, and, all at once, the color and fire, the mischief and delight, showed in her dark eyes. "I challenge you," she said. "Here." She reached out her hand to the boy.
"My psychopomp," Emmanuel said somberly.
"Yes; I'll be your guide."
"You would lead the Lord your God?"
"I would like to show you where the bells come from. The land out of which their sounds come. What do you say?"
He said, "I will go."
"What are you two talking about?" Elias said, with apprehension. "Manny, what is this? What does she mean? She's not taking you anywhere that I don't know about."
Emmanuel glanced at him.
"You have much to do," Elias said.
"There is no realm," Emmanuel said, "where I am not. If it is a genuine place and not fancy. Is your realm fancy, Zina?"
"No," she said. "It is real."
"Where is it?" Elias said.
Zina said, "It is here."
"'Here'?" Elias said. "What do you mean? I see what's here; here is here."
"She is right," Emmanuel said. "The soul of God," he said to Zina, "follows you."
"And trusts me?"
"This is a game," Emmanuel said. "Everything is a game for you. I will play the game. I can do that. I will play and come back. Back to this realm."
Zina said, "Do you find this realm so valuable to you?"
"It is a dreadful place," Emmanuel said. "But it is here that I must act on that great and terrible day."
"Postpone that day," Zina said. "I will postpone it; I will show you the bells that you hear, and as a result that day will—" She broke off.
"It will still come," Emmanuel said. "It is foreordained."
"Then we shall play now," Zina said cryptically. Both Herb and Elias remained puzzled; Herb Asher thought, Each of them knows what the other means, but I don't. Where is she taking him if it is here? We are here now.
Emmanuel said, "The Secret Commonwealth."
"Damn it, no!" Elias exclaimed, and hurled his cup across the room; it shattered against the far wall, in many little pieces. "Manny—I have heard of that place!"
"What is it?" Herb Asher said, astonished at the old man's fury.
Zina said calmly, "That's the correct term. 'Of a middle nature betwixt man and angel,'" she quoted.
"You are being piped away!" Elias said furiously; leaning forward he seized hold of the boy with his great hands.
"That is so," Emmanuel said.
"You know where she is taking you?" Elias said. "You do know. You have no fear, Manny; that is a mistake. You should be afraid." To Zina he said, "Get out of here! I did not know what you are." With violence and dismay he regarded her, his lips working. "I did not know you; I didn't understand."
"He did," Zina said. "Emmanuel knew. The slate told him."
"Let us finish our meal," Emmanuel said, "and then, Zina, I will go with you." He resumed eating in his methodical way, his face impassive. "I have a surprise for you, Zina," he said.
"What?" she said. "What is it?"
"Something that you do not know." Emmanuel paused in his eating. "This was foreordained, from the start. I saw it before the universe was. My journey into your land."
"Then you know how it will end," Zina said. For the first time she seemed hesitant; she faltered. "I forget sometimes that you know everything."
"Not everything. Because of my brain damage, the accident. It has become a random variable, introducing chance."
"God plays at dice?" Zina said; she raised an eyebrow.
"If necessary," Emmanuel said. "If there is no other way."
"You planned this," Zina said. "Or did you? I can't make it out. You are impaired; you may not have known ... You are using a tactic on me, Emmanuel." She laughed. "Very good. I can't be sure. Extremely good; I congratulate you."
Emmanuel said, "You must go through with it not knowing if I planned it out or not. So I have the advantage."
She shrugged. But it seemed to Herb Asher that she had not regained her poise. Emmanuel had shaken her. He thought, And that is good.
"Don't abandon me, Lord," Elias said in a trembling voice. "Take me with you."
"Okay." The boy nodded.
"What am I supposed to do?" Herb Asher said.
"Come," Zina said.
"'The Secret Commonwealth,'" Elias said. "I never believed it existed." He glowered at the girl, baffled. "It doesn't exist; that's the whole point!"
"It exists," she said. "And here. Come with us, Mr. Asher. You are welcome. But there I am not as I am now. None of us is. Except you, Emmanuel."
To the boy, Elias said, "Lord—"
"There is a doorway," Emmanuel said, "to her land. It can be found anywhere that the Golden Proportion exists. Is that not true, Zina?"
"True," she said.
"Based on the Fibonacci Constant," Emmanuel said. "A ratio," he explained to Herb Asher. "1:.618034. The ancient Greeks knew it as the Golden Section and as the Golden Rectangle. Their architecture utilized it ... for instance, the Parthenon. For them it was a geometric model, but Fibonacci of Pisa, in the Middle Ages, developed it in terms of pure number."
"In this room alone," Zina said, "I count several doors. The ratio," she said to Herb Asher, "is that used in playing cards: three to five. It is found in snail shells and extragalactic nebulae, from the pattern formation of the hair on your head to—"
"It pervades the universe," Emmanuel said, "from the microcosms to the macrocosm. It has been called one of the names of God."
***
In a small spare room of Elias's house Herb Asher prepared to bed down for the night.
Standing at the doorway in a heavy, somewhat rumpled robe, with great slippers on his feet, Elias said, "May I talk with you?"
Herb nodded.
"She is taking him away," Elias said. He came into the room and seated himself. "You realize that? It did not come from the direction we expected. I expected," he corrected himself. His face dark he sat clasping and unclasping his hands. "The enemy has taken a strange form."
Chilled, Herb said, "Belial?"
"I don't know, Herb. I've known the girl four years. I think a great deal of her. In some ways I love her. Even as much as I do Manny. She's been a good friend to him. Apparently he knew, maybe not right off ... but somewhere along the line he figured it out. I checked; I used my computer terminal to research the word zina. It's Roumanian for fairy. Another world has found out Emmanuel. She approached him the first day at school. I see why, now. She was waiting. Expecting him. You see?"
"Hence the mischief I see in her," Herb Asher said. He felt weary. It had been a long day.
Elias said, "She will lead and lead, and he will follow. Follow knowingly, I think. He does foresee. It's what's called a priori knowledge about the universe. Once, he foresaw everything. Not anymore. It's strange, when you think about it, that he could foresee his own inability to foresee, his forgetfulness. I'll have to trust in him, Herb; there is no way—" He gestured. "You understand."
"No one can tell him what to do."
"Herb, I don't want to lose him."
"How can he be lost?"
"There was a rupturing of the Godhead. A primordial schism. That's the basis of it all, the trouble, these conditions here, Belial and the rest of it. A crisis that caused part of the Godhead to fall; the Godhead split and some remain
ed transcendent and some ... became abased. Fell with creation, fell along with the world. The Godhead has lost touch with a part of itself."
"And it could fragment further?"
"Yes," Elias said. "There could be another crisis. This may be that crisis. I don't know. I don't even know if he knows. The human part of him, the part derived from Rybys, knows fear, but the other half—that half knows no fear. For obvious reasons. Maybe that's not good."
That night as he slept, Herb Asher dreamed that a woman was singing to him. She seemed to be Linda Fox and yet she was not; he could see her, and he saw terrible beauty, a wildness and light, and a sweet glowing face with eyes that shone at him lovingly. He and the woman were in a car and the woman drove; he simply watched her, marveling at her beauty. She sang:
You have to put your slippers on
To walk toward the dawn.
But he did not have to walk, because the lovely woman was taking him there. She wore a white gown and in her tumbled hair he saw a crown. She was a very young woman, but a woman nonetheless—not, like Zina, a child.
When he awoke the next morning the beauty of the woman and her singing haunted him; he could not forget it. He thought, She is more attractive than the Fox. I wouldn't have believed it. I would prefer her. Who is she?
"Good morning," Zina said, on her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth. He noticed that she wore slippers. But so, too, did Elias when he appeared. What does it mean? Herb asked himself.
He did not know the answer.
12
YOU DANCE AND SING all night," Emmanuel said. He thought, And it is beautiful. "Show me," he said.
"Then we shall begin," Zina said.
He sat under palm trees and knew that he had entered the Garden, but it was the garden he himself had fashioned at the beginning of creation; she had not brought him to her realm. This was his own realm restored.
The VALIS Trilogy Page 38
