“The Slave alone of the Crownsil of Twelve had never entered into Storicai’s evil compact. Though sore of heart, he had kept silent, praying that the others would see in time the great sin they intended, and would repent and stay the hand of Storicai. But when he fell sick to dying, and they repented not, the Slave sent for me and disclosed all he knew… I walked back from the Slave’s house with feet that walked of themselves. I had no thoughts, no feelings; I walked in blackness.
“And I entered this holy house, and I saw the Successor struggling with Storicai and snatching up the hammer to defend himself ― for he is only a boy, and Storicai was a powerful man ― and slay him, and I was too late to stay the great trouble of Quenan. And I saw also, as in a vision, what I must do.
“I am old, Elroi, and the days allotted to me cannot be many more.
The Successor has been reared to take my place since his first breath, for this is our way. He was not ever of the conspiracy, remember; that was only among the Crownsil. He was outraged by what he saw Storicai trying to do, and his only thought was to keep the holy treasure intact, and see the Storesman punished.
“He has the leaping blood of youth, Elroi, but he believes with all his soul in the Wor’d; he will gain wisdom as his blood cools and he will spend his life faithfully, as I have spent mine, to be the Teacher of our people. And, in any case, there is none trained to take his place.” The old man had raised himself to a sitting position in his earnestness.
“All these things went through my mind in an instant. And I knew the Successor must remain unshamed in the eyes of the community, if he is to command their utter belief and trust. Therefore I take his sin upon myself and depart from them.”
The wind spoke to the trees and the frogs spoke to the wind; but in the dim chamber neither spoke.
Until Ellery said, “Teacher, I cannot approve of it. Even in your own terms I condemn it. You once said to me that we must seek the truth, that the truth will save us ― ”
The old man nodded, unperturbed. “For thus it is written,” he said.
And Ellery wondered, not for the first time, if the Teacher meant Thus the truth is written, or Thus it must be.
“How can we seek the truth, and how can the truth save us, if we act out a lie?” Then he burst out: “What evil have you done, that you should sacrifice your life?”
Some measure of the old man’s tranquility left him; he uttered a sigh that seemed to come from great depths.
“You are mistaken, Elroi. I have done great evil indeed. For if the Crownsil have sinned, then have I not sinned more? Is it not I who has been their Teacher? Their sins are upon my head; their guilt that cuts into my heart, is my own.
“It is not they who have failed me; it is I who have failed them. Or they could not have done this thing.
“And as I am their Teacher still, so I must teach them now ― since the teaching of my words has failed ― by the teaching of my example. And the example is that I shall take their sin upon myself. For if faith in the Wor’d is lost, then all is lost, and Quenan becomes as the outside from which we fled… nay, worse, for my people have had no experience with sin, and in the outside they would be as sheep without the shepherd when snow shuts out the sky. I love them, Elroi, and how better can I show my love? ― if only they love each other. It must be done.”
But Ellery mumbled, “I will tell them the truth.” And the Teacher smiled and asked the ancient question, “What is truth? Today at the trial you told them what you then held to be the truth, and they believed you. And now you wish to tell them the contrary, so that they may believe the contrary. Do you think they will?” The old man drew a deep breath; his spare body was taken with a shudder, quickly suppressed. “If you tell them the truth, Elroi, I will deny it. I will deny it, and they will believe me as they have always believed me.
And what will you have gained?”
Ellery beat his fist into his palm. “You know you will not and cannot deny the truth. You know you will not and cannot ever lie to them!” The old man trembled. “Then do not, I pray you, force me to lie to them after seven decades. But,” and he raised his voice, not in agitation but in emphasis, “but I would do so, Elroi, for it is written that I am doing that which must be done, that which was ordained of old for the end of days. You have been the instrument prophesied, and my love for you is great; but some things I know better than you, for all your knowledge. If you have love for me, then I pray you do not tell them. Believe in me.” Ellery sat, immobilized. What to do, what to do? Rush headlong to his car, speed off to find… whom? the police? the sheriff? the governor? the Army? ― someone, anyone who would keep tomorrow’s human sacrifice from being made? And yet, to do that would be to expose Quenan to a world that could only destroy the Valley. But it was destroyed already. Or was it? The Teacher was prepared to give his life in the belief that it was not. Who was he to set his small judgment against the towering spirit of this old man?
And, as Ellery sat, treacherously it came stealing over him again, that strange, utter fatigue. It began to make a roaring in his ears.
What to do? What to do?
The old man spoke gently. “In that cabinet is bread, and also wine, and it is late,” he said. “Will you sup with me?” Ellery shut the door of the old man’s room quietly behind and simply stood there. In the meeting hall the single lamp cast its dim glow. Once it had seemed golden, but no longer. It came to his exhausted mind that he was waiting for something. But what?
He pressed his palm against his eyes. Curious patterns were shifting kaleidoscopically. Suddenly they formed a face. He felt immediate relief, and took away the shielding hands and crossed the room to the door of the scriptorium. He knocked, and there was no answer. He tried the door; it was unlocked, and he went in. The scriptorium was empty. Of course.
The Successor’s bedchamber. He switched on his flashlight and went to the other door and knocked and, again, there was no answer. He opened the door; the Successor was gone. Mechanically he retreated to the long hall.He heard himself groan. Every atom in his body seemed to be crying out for rest, and the distance to his own room stretched infinitely. The bench beckoned, and he decided to sit down.
His legs had already begun to undertake the labor of getting to the bench when a peculiar sound from outdoors paralyzed them. In the same instant the face, which had vanished, sprang again into his mind’s eye. So he made his way painfully out of the Holy Congregation House. He paused outside the door.
There was something in the darkness that made noises like an owl’s noises, or a child’s; but this thing that he barely saw was not an owl, was too large to be a child, and yet was not shaped like a man.
Ellery’s parts shrank in upon themselves.
He took himself in hand. On legs as taut and tingling as they had been leaden-weighted, he approached the thing in the night. Not until later did it occur to him that he could have used his flashlight, which he clutched throughout.
Glimmer ― faint in the faint starlight. Bulk ― close to the ground, cool and damp. Whimper ― incoherent, alien. And then a cough, and then a sob.Fear dropped from Ellery like melting ice, and he knelt and touched what lay there, and moved his hand over it. It was a man clad in a robe, doubled up, hands so tightly pressed against his face that Ellery had to use all his enfeebled strength to dislodge them. He felt a beard rimming the jaw, the soft curling beard of youth.
The Successor.
There was a whispering in the darkness.
Ellery bent closer, trying to make it out. “… tell them, tell them, tell them.”
“I cannot,” a second voice said, the Successor’s. Whose, then, had been the whisper? The young man’s eyes were open now, holes of darkness in his face. “I cannot tell them,” he said.
Ellery tried to rise, staggered. The Successor looked startled; instinctively he put forth a supporting hand, and they struggled together to their feet.“Why were you crying?” Ellery said.
“You said, Elroi, that I must tell
the Crownsil and the people the true happenings,” the Successor whispered. “But…” That was when Ellery remembered the flashlight. He switched it on and set it down on the ground so that it reflected from a large pale rock.
The boy’s face was mask-like; to see his lips move was a shock.
“But?”
“But I cannot say the truth. I do not dare.”
So it came about that Ellery found himself sitting on the cold ground trying to develop a Socratic dialogue with the boyish man-slayer. In the first place, he asked, once the Crownsil had been made *o understand the circumstances of the crime, was it likely they would again convict? But even if they were to convict, was it likely the Teacher would pronounce the dread sentence a second time? But even were the Teacher to pronounce sentence against him, was there reason for the Successor to submit? He was a boy, he had a long lifetime before him: could he not flee? Who was there in Quenan to restrain him by force? Nor need he feel afraid to face the unknown world. Ellery would be to him as a brother, as an elder brother.
But ― ”I cannot, I do not dare.”
Cannot, do not dare? When the alternative is the death of the Teacher? Canst thou remain silent, darest thou?
“Can you watch a man like your Teacher go to his death for a crime which, in the first place, he did not commit and in the second place, was not a crime but an act of self-defense? If you’re worthy to be the Successor,” Ellery said, “you will speak out!”
The mask before him was the mask of tragedy. The change wrought in the short time since he had last seen the boy was horrifying. The eyes were cloudy and deep-sunken, the bloodless lips down-twisted, twitching; the whole young head seemed skeletal.
“You do not understand, Elroi.” The Successor’s voice, the Teacher’s words.
“Then make me understand! Because otherwise I will have no choice but to bring in authorities from the outside world to save your Teacher’s life. And that will mean the end of Quenan.”
Over and over again, the boy wrung his hands. “I know everything you have told me,” he cried. “I would do as you ask ― oh, Elroi, you would not have to ask! But I am helpless. Why do you think I remained silent at the trial? I could not speak because the Teacher forbade it! He forbids it still, and I dare not disobey him.”
“Why, Successor? Why can’t you disobey him? What would happen to you if you did?” Ellery demanded.
The young head rolled from side to side in agony. “I do not know what would happen, Elroi. It does not matter what would happen. It is as if you were to ask me, What would happen were you to raise your arms and fly to the stars? You do not understand. I cannot do it. I have never in my life disobeyed the Teacher and I cannot disobey him now!” Ellery stared at the tragic mask, and suddenly he understood. The Successor was like the next-to-last Emperor of China, the nephew of the wicked Empress Dowager, imprisoned at her command when he tried to reform the corrupt practices of her regency. In prison he was visited by officials secretly in sympathy with his cause. Let the Son of Heaven but give the word, they said, and loyal troops would liberate him and place the
“Old Buddha” herself in confinement. But the Emperor shook his head. It was impossible, he said. How could one raise one’s hand against a venerable ancestor? And he died a prisoner still, held fast by bars far stronger than the bars of his cell.
I cannot do it. I cannot disobey him.
The words rang in Ellery’s ears until they filled the night.
He remembered the dark lane flowing past him. He remembered the path moving like water under his feet. He remembered the noise in his ears, like a howling wind.
But he did not remember stumbling to his pallet and falling on it; he did not remember the new dawn creeping up from behind Crucible Hill.
He knew only darkness.
VI FRIDAY
April 7
WHEN HE OPENED HIS eyes there were no shadows, but the great hush that hung over the Valley was not the usual noontime quiet. It was the silence of a ghost town, or rather of a town or a Mary Celeste suddenly abandoned by its human beings.
Then an ass brayed, and another; a bellow burst from the chest of a bull; dogs began to howl, as if something dreadful were about to happen.
Or was happening.
Or had happened? With a cry, Ellery jumped out of bed. But then he remembered. It was not to be until sundown.
But… the silence? Had all Quenan fled into the desert rather than stay to witness?
He was still in his stale and rumpled clothes. The sleep had not refreshed him; and the sun pouring through the window did not wash away the ache in his bones.
He went out into the lane. No one was in sight, and he walked through the village. Here and there, through an open window, he caught a glimpse of movement; once he saw a distant someone ― the Waterman?
― working in a field. The mills are to turn, and the dry fields burn. No, the people of Quenan had not left their Valley. They simply could not bear to look upon it on this day, as if the hills themselves were due to depart with the departing sun. Most of them had withdrawn into their houses and shut the doors.
Great must be their grief.
And great was the silence which hung over the Valley of the Shadow, and all that endless afternoon Ellery wrestled with his problem and found no answer to it.
The choices always seemed to come down to three: He could let the events take their course, bowing to the will of the Teacher.
He could tell the truth to the community. But in that case, the Teacher had said, he would deny it, and the people would believe him and not Ellery; and Ellery knew that this was so.
He could go for help to prevent the sentence’s being carried out. But then Quenan itself would die.
Talk about Hobson!
Ellery walked the tree-lined lanes, climbed the green terrace of the hills, picked his way along the immaculate furrows of the fields. No one appeared to speak or even wave to him. Twice he headed in the direction of the only figures he laid eyes on in his wanderings, but when he reached the place no one was there. He could not bring himself to knock on any door.
Late in the afternoon he found himself drawn back to the Holy Congregation House. The Teacher was alone there, sitting on a stool. He greeted Ellery with the familiar gesture of benediction and indicated the bench. Ellery sank onto it. The old man-seemed completely at peace.
“Teacher,” said Ellery, “I beg you to reconsider.”
“Very well,” the patriarch said calmly.
Ellery’s heart jumped. “Then you will tell them the truth?” he cried.
For a moment the old man said nothing; then: “I have reconsidered, Elroi, as you asked. I find no reason to change that which is written. I will say no more to the people, nor will you.”
The sun began to set. The people seemed to come from everywhere ― houses, barns, fields, trees, shadows ― springing up like the reapings of the dragon’s teeth. They came from everywhere and became one, a sluggish beast of many heads sluggishly moving along.
And Ellery became one with them.
He saw the Teacher, tall among the many, the throng making way for him with sighs and moans as he moved slowly through, his right hand describing the ritual blessing.
And so Quenan came to the place; and when the crowds parted and Ellery saw what it was that their bodies had concealed, lying on the earth, he almost cried out with relief and joy.
How could he have been so blind as to take literally what was intended as a symbol only? What he was witnessing was a parallel to the rites of the Penitentes of the New Mexico mountains ― the Brotherhood of the Light, as they called themselves ― who yearly re-enacted the great passion of their religion and chose one of their number for the central role. Performed in secret places, intended as a purging of sin, the mystery stopped short of the taking of life, although its principal suffered torments enough.
He wondered how the isolated community of Quenan had learned of these remarkable rites. Or had they developed
a similar rite independently, altering, as it were, the ancient prompt-book? For what he was now witnessing…
The Teacher lay down in the place prepared for him.
There was now not even a sigh.
So might the ancient Egyptians have stood at the annual re-enactment of the death of Osiris ― knowing it was drama, yet not-knowing, too, with one part of themselves believing it to be a real thing, happening before their eyes.
And the Superintendent stepped forth from among them, holding a vessel of some sort in his cupped hands. And all breath was stopped, even the breath of the wind.
The Superintendent tenderly lifted the Teacher’s head with his left hand and held the vessel to the ancient lips with his right and then departed from him. The Teacher lay perfectly still. The sun set then, plunging the scene in blood, reddening the palms of the recumbent patriarch. All at once a soft spring breeze arose, and the grasses whispered in alarm…
Ellery awoke to a great anger. To allow himself to be so cozened and bewitched! The Teacher and his puppets had succeeded in infecting him with the disease of their fantasies, making him believe that the real was unreal and the unreal real. But he was cured. What had seemed an experience of pathos and profound tragedy was simply a distasteful demonstration of bumpkin fanaticism. The old man was a natural-born actor, and soon the lesser actors in this primitive drama would be stepping forward to perform their silly roles, too. Well, he had had enough of the nonsense!
It was time to call a halt.
A woman nearby began to wail, rocking back and forth. Another woman ― ah, the Weaver! ― took up the lament. The children began to cry in a frightened way. (They had been coached, too!) And then the man…
And on the Eighth Day Page 16
