Jinian Stareye

by neetha Napew

  A bell in the tower rang.

  No. No. This was not a bell. The Bell in the Tower rang.

  The sound came from it like a color, not loudly, not vividly, softly as a flute sound, pure, pervasive, running out like a hue to stain the city and the hill on which we stood, out beyond us to the forests and the mountains, and beyond, to the edges of the world, until all within the world heard the sound, bathed in the color of the Bell. The Daylight Bell, painting the world. Within me something woke, stirred, looked around at the world with a feeling of enormous recognition, something there, within, which I had never recognized before. Beside me, Peter sighed, and I knew that within him, too, the wakening had come. From a door low in the beautiful Tower flew ambient flakes of light, settling onto every surface, every creature, on me, on all of us, and we glowed in that instant like angels.

  ‘Listen,’ whispered Ganver.

  From the far northern reaches a sound came back, an echo, a resonance, soft as the first and as pure, slightly dissonant, pushing the color back from the north, past us upon the hill, into the city once more to leave it as it had been, and with it went the flakes of light to enter the tower once more. And at that instant, the first ray of the sun struck the Tower to shine, ivory gleaming, pure and trembling.

  ‘The Shadowbell,’ I sighed, peering into the north, from which that second sound had come. ‘Shadowbell rings in the dark, Daylight Bell the dawn. In the towers hang the bells, now the Tower’s gone. . . .’ But it was not gone in this time, not in this memory. Here, in the mind of Lorn, the Tower still stood and the bells still

  rang-----

  And I stopped, distracted by a flood of recognition. I knew where I was! The line of hills was totally familiar. The way the land folded, the way the forest ran down into the valleys, the buildings before me in the city. I had seen them before; not as they were here, tall and beautiful, but as they had become: tumbled; broken.

  I had seen them not far from Stoneflight Demesne in the ruined city of the Old South Road, the city of the blind runners. It was here the Daylight Tower had stood, here the Daylight Bell had rung. Here. There. Here in memory. There in reality. I wanted to cry.

  ‘Come,’ said Ganver.

  We went down into the city.

  I have had trouble describing that city. Among the skilled pawns there are musicians, singers, writers of tales. Some among them are called poets, and it is they who write lyrics for the singers, epics for chanting at banquets, or merely beautiful words to express things for which ordinary language is insufficient. I am no poet. I longed then for a poet, for someone to put words to what we saw. I have written these words over and over, trying to say what it was like. Any I write are not good enough. You must stretch beyond them. You must bring poet’s feeling to them, knowing the words are not enough in themselves.

  I had been in cities. Not many, true, but some. I was in Schooltown when r was young. And in Xammer, of course. And in our travels we had seen other cities and towns, all of them full of people and commerce of one kind or another. And in every city there is a feeling of-you see, here is where the words are hard for me - a feeling of irritation. Oh, it may not be great. But there is the need to step aside from another’s way and the need to avoid being bumped by or bumping others. People move without regard for one another sometimes, or even mistakenly in the belief they are regarding others. There are bruises and confrontations, and small itches of annoyance.

  There are hard places in cities. Places where cold winds flick past hard stone to catch one’s clothing and blow gritty dust into one’s eyes. Places where sound hits stone and reverberates more loudly than is comfortable. There are other noises, too, calls of vendors and shrieks of children, the scream of ungreased wheels, the rattle of wagons and pound of hooves. Cacophony, one might say. Not altogether unpleasant, most times. Sometimes unbearable.

  There is nastiness underfoot sometimes as well. Things spilled or fallen and left to rot. There is often a smell of decay. Of drains.

  Sometimes there is such crowding that there is irritation, and this makes fear or anger; and following fear comes meetings of councils to make regulations; and following regulations is further irritation at the laws that are made.

  Or dwellings. Consider dwellings. They become dirty and cluttered and hard to clean. There are animals that nest in corners and walls, and the animals harbor vermin that bite. And buildings make an interior darkness, a loss of sun and light. Stairs twist upon themselves in tangled steep ascents.

  Now imagine a city in which none of these things happens. A city in which the wind funnels away from the street, leaving only pleasant warmth behind. A city in which every room is light and airy, in which no vermin dwell. A city in which movement flows like water, with no eddies except purposeful ones, in which hard sounds are muted and pleasant sounds transmitted, in which the stones are as clean as grass and every wall sparkles with reflected light.

  Imagine a city in which one might hear either laughter and joy or tears of grief, but never the disquiet of anger. A city in which one might find music or quiet, as one chose, in which one might rejoice or sorrow at remembrance of friends lost, but in which even the sorrow had a sweetness.

  Imagine a city of angels. Imagine the city of the Daylight Tower.

  You will have to imagine it. I cannot describe it, even though we were in it. i

  We lived there for some time, Ganver, Peter, and I. We ate there, getting fruits and edible plants from the vendors, drinking from the fountains. We went to the concerts. We went to exhibitions of art and dance. The various creatures of Lorn do dance, beautifully, and we saw some of those dances. Shadowpeople perched on the walls and sang. Eesties were everywhere. Other creatures came into the city sometimes, sat upon their hind legs and asked the vendors for fruit, and were given fruit or nuts or whatever they liked. There was no medium of exchange. All seemed to be carefully balanced, enough of everything but not too much. And each morning, just before dawn, the Daylight Bell rang in the Tower and everyone listened while the far, plangent sound of the Shadowbell returned. And each

  evening from the far north came the sound of the Shadowbell again, and a flight of shadows coming over the city like black birds, wanting to fall upon us. Then the Daylight Bell resonated to that distant sound with a pure tone of its own, and the shadows fled. Every morning light and dark. Every evening dark and light. A rhythm, a balance. ‘Tha one bell, tha two bell, that cannot ring alone.’ So Murzy had said, long and long ago.

  And after a time in the city, we went one morning to the Temple at the base of the Daylight Tower, through the open portals of that place, into the shadowed solemnity within. A silver lamp stood on a high pedestal, lighting the place, and I knew it was from this lamp that the light came each morning at dawn and to this lamp the light returned when the Shadowbell rang. On another pedestal lay an open book, and from this book a choir of Shadowpeople sang, their voices as clear as the Bell itself. On the tessellated pave was a pool - oh, so familiar to me. A pool like the one where I had been initiated in the Citadel of the Sevens, glowing, running with light and shadow. It was surrounded by a low curb. Around the pool were joyfully solemn Eesties, who dipped long silver spoons into the ambient liquid and drew forth gleaming crystals to lay them upon the curb. Each of us Eesties gathered there ate one of the crystals and then spun our way out upon the northern road to carry the will of Lorn, which the crystals had conveyed.

  We were not compelled to do so. Even as we were whirling along the northern road, busy as flood-chucks with our messages to every creature in the world, I realized that we were not compelled to carry those messages. We did it because we wanted to. It was good to do, and pleasurable, and right. We had felt that way before ever taking the crystals from the curb of the pool. We went on feeling that way. It was the Eesty feeling, the Lom feeling, the feeling of oneness. Bao.

  So, Peter and Ganver and I buzzed along the white roadways of Lom, carrying messages to Shadowpeopie and trees, to flowers and rivers.
Some of our messages were delivered to very large creatures: to a flitchhawk, to a D’bor wife, to a gobblemole. I knew these were the spirits of very large things; the spirits of forests or rivers or seas - parts of the whole with minds and wills of their own. They touched us, and we told them of the will of Lom. There was no difficulty in translation. The message was a - I suppose it was a chemical one. Transmitted through our skins. From crystal to our bloodstreams; from our bloodstreams to the equivalent in others. Simply. Easy. Without possibility of misunderstanding.

  I don’t know how long this went on. Long enough to learn about it, see it, understand it. Ganver left us in no doubt as to the purpose of the exercise. ‘This is how things were,’ he said to us over and over. ‘Before man came.’

  We left the world of the Daylight Bell. I couldn’t tell how we got out. At one moment we were spinning along the road, the next we were in the flickering travel that told us we were traveling among the memories. Forests, oceans, other cities. Something that looked like a huge stadium full of peculiarly shaped revelers. When we moved among the memories, time slowed. I knew we were traversing actual distance. The Maze was very large, and we were moving across it, from side to side, end to end.

  Then we stopped again. Peter recognized the place.

  ‘The Blot,’ he said. We were looking down on it from a height. It lay beneath us like a clot of filth, full of noise and stinks. Iron railways with cars that ran upon them. On every side the forest had been cleared; the stumps protruded from the earth like severed fingers. We spun down the road, down - onto nothing.

  The road had been broken. Torn up. Great chunks of it lay here and there. I could see no purpose to the destruction at first. Then I saw the stone of the road had been quarried to build a squat, ugly building against the mountain side. People went in and out of it, hurrying, bumping into one another. At one side a group of men screamed at another group. A dispute over some detail of the construction. The sound was ugly. The emotion was ugly.

  ‘Come,’ said Ganver.

  We went away from there, into memory again. In and out. Always to scenes of destruction. Roads torn up. Forests leveled. River plains ignored while slopes were cleared. Cliffs of easily quarried stone neglected while roads were torn up to build ugliness.

  And then we saw scenes of rebellion. Those great creatures, the spirits of the places, creatures like the Flitchhawk and the D’bor Wife, rose up. Ganver let us watch while they rose in wrath and fought against the intruder.

  And we watched the intruder, man, fight back. With chemicals and fire; with sonic beams and huge machines. The Magicians from the Base fought back. Far to the west, over the sea, the people of the Chasm were driven down into the depths by that rebellion. Here in the east the people were scattered, fleeing the wrath of the facets of Lom.

  But in the end the Magicians conquered. Those who had risen up were made captive in their own places. Chimmerdong was ringed with gray fire. Boughbound was dead. The spirits of Ramberlon dammed up and driven away. Only a few of the great ones roamed free still, and they roamed a saddened world.

  ‘Would you blame me, human?’ asked Ganver. ‘Boughbound Forest was my friend. So was River Ramberlon. Great beings, those. Lost, now, for a thousand years. Would you blame me?’

  Peter answered. ‘I would not blame you if you had killed us, Ganver. We were stupid, heedless beasts, and Lom would have been better without humans. But you didn’t kill the humans. It’s Lom who’s dying.’

  ‘And with Lorn dies the Flitchhawk,’ I said. ‘Isn’t Flitchhawk your friend, too?’ D’bor Wife will die as well. And all the Shadowpeople. And likely you, too, Ganver, unless your scarlet egg can protect you, like some eternal womb. I agree with Peter. I could have forgiven you for killing all us humans, but why are you killing the world?’ At that time it seemed the only thing to say. At that time in my Eesty shape I cared more about the world and all its glories than I cared about myself, the human, Jinian. I knew then why the Eesties made judges out of their accusers. Having seen what we had, I hated us, even myself, though I had never cut a tree and had done more to restore the roads than anyone else I knew.

  ‘Let us go back to the city of the Bell,’ it said.

  So we returned.

  A shadow lay upon the city. There was pain in the city. The Eesties moved jerkily, there was an uncoordinated feel to things. Sound was not always pleasant. We ached with the feeling of the place.

  ‘Do not go to the pool,’ someone called. ‘We are not going to the pool.’

  Ganver stopped. ‘What is this? What Eesty rejects the pool of bao?’

  ‘We,’ said the voice, ‘We of the Brotherhood.’

  It came into view then. One star tip painted in the mockery of a human face. Ribbon-decked. One of those who had abused Queynt. One of the Oracle’s followers.

  ‘And how many of you are there, Riddler?’ Ganver’s tone was indulgent, even fond, the voice of age to the silliness of youth. The Eesty that confronted us was not large, not old. Scarcely larger than Peter and I. ‘How many? A few fives? You children? Who have only carried the will of Lorn for a season or two? And now you are a Brotherhood?’

  ‘We are those who protect Lorn from the interlopers,’ it asserted in a proud, impatient voice. ‘Seemingly, we are the only ones. The rest of you go on as though nothing were happening. Look around you. old star! Look what these filthies are doing to our world!’ At the sound of its voice, several others had gathered around it, all with that painted caricature of a face, all with the fluttering ribbons. Suddenly I understood these painted faces, these ribbons, The faces were a symbol; a symbol of that which was to be destroyed. The flapping ribbons were symbolic of the clothing men wore. They costumed themselves as the enemy, mocking him. Ganver’s attitude and voice did not change as he reasoned with them.

  ‘Do you not trust Lom to meet this challenge, Riddler? Lom has met others. Greater ones than this. Don’t you trust Lom?’

  ‘Lom is deluded. We waited, old one. We waited for wrath. For destruction. We waited for the mountains to flame and send these creatures into smoke, as happened in the time of the mud monsters. As in the time of the metal beasts from the farther star. Nothing. Only corrupt messages come from Lom, pitiful messages, messages which seek to bring these men into wholeness. The Brotherhood will not carry these messages.’

  ‘The Brotherhood may not,’ said Ganver, and his voice was like thunder in the city. ‘But Ganver will, and all the Eesties of Lom who are not witless children.’

  We were in the Temple of the Bell once more. The lamp glowed with its glorious light; Shadowpeople sang from the book; dignified Eesties with solemn faces lifted crystals from the pool and laid them upon the curb. Green they were, glowing like drops of dew upon new leaves. We took them, absorbed them, then went out of that place.

  ‘Oh, by all the gods,’ moaned Peter, reaching for me. We had no hands to hold with, but we touched. The human parts of us could not believe the message we carried.

  Lom had decided that man was destructive because he was weak. Man knew no way but’ destruction. He knew no way of quiet strength and slow building, no way of harmony and peace. He was weak and small and needed weapons and walls to protect himself. He did not believe in the kindness of others. He did not perceive the willingness of Lorn to provide, even to these foster children from some other world.

  And Lorn, in response to this weakness had decided to give man Talents. The message we carried was the Talent message, to be touched to children yet unborn.

  All I could think of in a dazed way was that the Gamesmen would be much less proud if they knew. I -suddenly I was much less proud. My Talent of beast talking, it had been given. My Talent of Wize-ardry. Was that, too, a gift? Peter’s Talent of Shifting. And Mavin’s. Himaggery’s Wizardry. All the Seers, the Sentinels, the Armigers. All the Sorcerers. Nothing of our own. Only what we had been given? Tragamors and Elators, nothing of their own. In each of us it was a Lom gift.

  We had stopped our tra
vels in a space of gray nothing, a cloudy, peaceful place. Ganver confronted us here, looking into our hearts, knowing that we knew what message it was we carried. ‘How much do you need to see?’ Ganver asked. ‘How much of what we did, we Eesties? We carried the gift which Lom gave; we carried it high and low, far and near. To every place men dwelt, we carried it. Not all received it. Of those who did, most misused it. Some few learned to control it. Those you call the Immutables, they learned to do so. But most, most simply accepted it. Shall we go into the later memories, shall we see what happened then?’

  I knew what had happened. More of what had already happened. Men began to use their strengths as they had used their weaknesses. To destroy.

  Ganver did not show us much. It did not need to. There were more broken forests, more broken roads. There were creatures killed who should never have been killed, whom it was a monstrous arrogance to have killed. There were Great Games played upon the plains of the world, leaving them deep in blood, bones, and cold. Seldom - oh too seldom - were there places of beauty built. Too seldom were there things of beauty done.

  ‘Do you accuse me?’ Ganver asked. ‘Do you still accuse me.’

  Peter was stubborn. ‘My question is still the same, Ganver. Why are you letting Lom die?’

  ‘Let us go back to the city of the Bell,’ said Ganver.

  So, we went back for the third time. This time the city hummed with dissension, like a warnet hive, full of hostile rumor. The ribbon-decked young Eesties were everywhere, and those old ones of Ganver’s bulk seemed somehow diminished. ‘We go to the pool,’ called a familiar voice. ‘But we do not carry this last message of Lom.’

  ‘Why, Riddler?’ asked Ganver in a voice that already knew the answer. ‘Why?’

  ‘Lom is mad! It has chosen to set these monsters beside the Eesties. It has messaged them to become as we are. To run the roads of Lom!’

  They pushed us before them, thrusting us into the Temple. The pedestal where the lamp had rested was toppled. The lamp had rolled into a corner and lay there, lightless. There were no Shadowpeople singing. The book was closed. There were young Eesties at the pool, painted ones. They were fishing blue crystals from the silver surface as fast as they rose to the top. From the low curbing they were raking them into baskets, carrying them away. Before any of the young ones could move to stop him, Ganver had seized two of the brilliant blue stone gems and passed them to us, into us.