Short fiction complete, p.69
Short Fiction Complete, page 69
“If they had given me honor, my skills would have been proved,” Isak said. “I could achieve a place that was my own.”
“Humph,” Artaneel said.
Isak gave the city one more wistful gaze. Above the tenements, the villas of the gentry—those of wealth or privilege or both—clung to the slopes. Up from the valley floor they lifted, stairstep and terrace, irregular reach upon reach, in zigzag upward quest. Like aspiration. And, on the far side’s crest, glowering over all below from its narrow headland, the old dark castle whose ruined wall, deeply broached in a dozen places, dribbled its rubble down the face of the cliff below its footings. Citadel Lagash. Isak thought of shattered hope.
They did not linger. From the plaza two streets led down; one eastward, one west, each trailing across the face of the slope until turned back by the deep empty void of a ravine. The westward one, the Avenue of the Acolytes, was the one less travelled, for it did not lead toward the city’s central parts and was the sharper climb, but it was not as far that way to the Shrine of the Narrow Streets District. As heirophant. Artaneel had to be at his shrine in time for the observances of the Twinned Ones’ rising and for Gamow’s set. Isak wanted to be there also, to mark those moments on his charts. In spite of disappointment, his research would go on. As soon as they were under the brow of the bluff, the villas began.
“When you came to me,” Artaneel said, “I told you that to go with it to the Brothers would not be wise. You know as well as I the peril in which a prophet stands. You insisted.”
“I thought they would want to know,” Isak said. “I thought it was important they should know. And it was only a foretelling.”
“And when they summoned you, I warned you they would see it as a prophecy. I offered you protection—offered even to tell them it was all a mistake. But you insisted.”
“I thought if I could explain to them, they would see that I spoke truth,” Isak said. “Even if they hadn’t before.”
“If you thought that, you are a brash young fool,” Artaneel said. “To say that our gods dance a pattern that is known and changeless implies things which are heretical. Your foretelling may be proved correct or wrong—I do not know—but I know this: the Brothers would not hear with open ears a prophecy attained by no more revelation than the plodding step-by-step by which you say it came. Events so radical should come with portents of commensurate power.”
“But I told them truth,” Isak protested.
“When you speak of our gods, it is the Brothers who decide what is truth,” Artaneel said and, with a slash of his hand, dismissed the argument that quivvered on Isak’s tongue. “I’ve done all I could to protect you. I’ve even let them know the foretellings you’ve produced for me have been uncommonly reliable. But I can do no more, and they will do what they will do. The only sign of hope I see is that they permitted you to leave their presence. Putative prophets have been known to enter their chamber and not be seen ever again. Feeding the eels, no doubt.”
Now they walked between high walls again; gated walls on the street’s uphill side, over which the roofs of villas could be glimpsed, while on the downhill side the walls were blank-faced bastions. The homes they guarded stood too low on the slope to be seen, and their street gates would be on the next level down. Filth littered the stones; there had been no rain for more than twenty passings. Insects were a squirming skin on the choicer bits.
Climbing toward them, a four-drome team strained against the weight of a wagon loaded high with wine casks. The ratchets were set on all six of its wheels. In arrhythmic spasms they whacked and clicked while the wheel rims scraped on stone and the dromes’ paws scrabbled for purchase among the cobbles. Isak backed against a villa’s wall to avoid the snapping jaws of the left-lead drome. Beside him, Artaneel did the same. The drover beat his goad against the wagon’s side.
“Ho, good heirophant,” he called, leaning down. “Already the leaves be full on the vines. How promises the vintage?”
Artaneel’s jaw lifted. “You have asked at your shrine?”
The drover waved his goad. “Aye. And gave offering.”
“Beyond your tithe?”
“Aye. Half again my tithe.”
“Yet you must ask?”
“They have been known to mislead, good heirophant,” said the drover. He touched his brow. “Seeing you come from the Temple, I had thought perhaps . . .”
“From,” Artaneel stressed. “Not of. As for the foretelling, you were told what our gods would have you know.”
“You want to know if the wine will be good?” Isak asked.
“That, and whether the harvest will be plentiful or slack, and when it will come. And what the storms will do.”
“You expect more of our gods than they will give,” Artaneel said.
“They will give some storms,” Isak said. “I cannot say where they will fall, but there should be only a few.”
“As few as the last growing time?” the drover asked.
“Possibly a few more,” Isak said.
“More like the time before that.” Artaneel’s hand clamped on his arm, but he paid no attention. “As for the season, it will soon turn cool. Rain will fall on the vineyards. The grapes will ripen slowly and the harvest will come late. I know you do not welcome this—” He could see it on the man’s face “—but I tell you truth. That is what the gods will send.”
It was hard to look up at that man’s scowl, that man with the goad in his hand. But he had spoken truth, unwelcome though it was. He should fear nothing.
“You be not a priest,” the man said, narrowly peering. “How can you be saying what the gods will send?” Artaneel’s hand on his arm was urgent now, but he did not move or heed. “It is what I know,” Isak said. He nodded to his heirophant. “He has never known me to read them false.”
The peering eyes turned to Artaneel. “His foretellings go beyond the sanctions of the Temple,” Artaneel said. “His methods do not conform to doctrine. But—” grudging now “—where I have had occasion to review his foretellings, I have discovered no fault.” The drover’s glance returned to Isak. His face wore a new look. “A prophet?” he wondered, cautious, but with a touch of awe.
“No,” Isak said. “They are only foretellings. I am not a prophet.”
“And you have said enough,” Artaneel said, hauling on his arm. “Come. Already we are late. You—” to the drover “—go again to your shrine. Give offering again. Thank our gods for the knowledge they have given.”
“Even though the shrine priests told otherwise?”
“They serve our gods,” Artaneel said. “As do you and I, and—yes!—this boy. Gods whose signs and ways are often beyond understanding. Isak, come.”
They edged past the wagon’s big wheels while the drover shouted at his drome and applied his goad to the midbody haunch of the one nearest. The beasts snarled annoyance and pawed the stones. The wagon creaked, lurched, began again its jolting uphill progress. Isak cringed from the rear wheel as it moved past him.
“Should I have said nothing?” he asked as they resumed their descent. “Clearly the knowledge had value for him.”
“You should have left it for the priests of his shrine to decide what he should be told,” Artaneel said. “They had their reasons.”
“Their own reasons,” Isak said. “No one knows what reasons the gods have.”
“It isn’t needed to know our gods’ reasons, to serve them,” Artaneel said.
“Do I not serve them also?” Isak wondered.
Artaneel glared at him but said nothing.
“It appeared to me,” Isak said to his heirophant’s surly silence, “that the priests of his shrine must have seen advantage for themselves in falsely telling him. As you must know, it is a thing that happens, and it is the only reason I can think of.”
“Something about the wine,” Artaneel said. “Very possibly. Nevertheless, by speaking you cast doubt on all the Temple—gave weight to the most subversive whisperings, of which there are many. You would put in danger the entire structure of—”
“Should I permit to stand a thing that is not true?” Isak asked.
Artaneel uttered an exasperated snarl. “You are a puzzle to me, Isak. In some ways so perceptive. In others an innocent boy.”
Isak struggled to understand. “Because I thought the Brothers would be wise? Should I have thought otherwise?”
“Men have had their tongues split for asking such questions. Be warned.”
“Do they fear the truth, that they are not?” Isak asked.
“Enough,” Artaneel said. The firmness in his voice forbade another word. “Isak, it is only this: they are men not accustomed to thinking of our gods in the way you have taken to think of them. As I took pains to warn you. Nor will they adopt your way of thinking merely to accommodate you. To explain your prophecy—your foretelling, that is—in terms of your own way of thinking, not theirs, and expecting to convince them by that method, is folly of the highest order.”
“I could explain to them no other way, good heirophant,” Isak said. “Should I have been less than truthful to the Council of Brothers?”
“You twist what I say,” Artaneel snapped. “I say only you expected too much of them.”
“But if they were wise . . .” Isak began, but saw the look on his heirophant’s face. “Have my foretellings ever led you false?”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Artaneel said. “I must admit I do not myself grasp how you come to know how the gods shall stand in our sky. Nor has it concerned me to know; scribe’s work. But now that I am caused to think on it, I see that I should have been more thoughtful. I should have realized that, to do what you were doing, you had to be dabbling at prophecy, regardless of what you said you were doing.”
“But I am not a prophet,” Isak said. “I am only a scribe who has come upon a method to anticipate how the gods will share our sky. Anyone, properly informed, could have thought of it. And, knowing the method, anyone would come to the same findings as I. Should I claim mystery where there is none? Is it not enough of a marvel merely to have that knowledge?”
A gate opened in the wall a few paces ahead of them. A woman in a servant’s smock and leggings bustled out. She glanced their way, but dumped her jar of slops on the cobbles without a pause and disappeared back inside. They barely missed being splashed. Wrinkling his nose, Artaneel stepped around the mess.
“It does not matter what you call yourself,” he said. “The Brothers see it as prophecy. No—” He corrected himself. “They see it as an attempt at prophecy. Had you the wit to be facile in explaining to them, perhaps they would have believed. But you were not.”
“When it happens they will know I offered truthful guidance,” Isak said. “It will be a frightening time for people if they have not been forewarned, but—” He shrugged, and scuffed the stones. “I have done what I could. And it shall pass, and nothing will be changed.” Slowly he had realized that, in his disappointment, he had been graceless to this man who, for all his scolding, had tried to shield him from harm. “I hope your efforts for me will not bring their displeasure on you.”
Descending steeply, the street doubled back from the edge of a ravine to begin another traverse. The cobbles were almost like stair steps. Artaneel reached out. “Steady me, lad.” Isak took his hand and helped him pick his way down. Beyond the turn the way leveled out. Here the villas were smaller. Flakes crumbled from the stones of the walls on either side. Artaneel took back his hand.
“Their displeasure will not touch me,” he said. “I am expected to report all prophets that come to me. In their view, that is what I have done. From the beginning, the hazard has been only yours.”
Mention of hazard turned Isak’s thoughts inward again. He trudged on in silence. Here the cobbles were strewn with more garbage than among the higher villas. It was necessary to be careful where they set their feet.
“But they will wait until after the overtaking, won’t they?” he said suddenly, speaking even as the thought came. “And then they would know.”
“If they thought it possible your prophecy had a crumb of truth,” Artaneel said. “Otherwise, why should they?”
“But in the Annals of Prophecy, every time there was doubt, that is how it was done.”
Artaneel snorted. “Children’s tales.” The toe of his slipper sent a salt roast’s rind skittering over the stones. “Is that your true belief, Isak? Truly?”
“Is it not true?”
“Once I believed it,” Artaneel said. “Now I have come to suspect such tales are told to encourage a prophet to reveal himself.” His hand sliced the air. “Have you thought? In all the Annals, there is no account of a prophet who was wrong.”
“But I am not wrong,” Isak said. “In all my studies I have not found one occasion when—”
He broke off at the scuffle of paws behind them and looked back in time to see an acolyte with flying cloak astride a piebald hund pelting toward them. The beast’s speed and nearness magnified its apparent size; it seemed to fill the street. He thrust Artaneel against the wall on the street’s down- slope side and flattened himself beside him. On his shoulders he felt the breath of the beast’s passing. When he looked again, he caught only a glimpse as steed and rider disappeared around the next switchback’s turn. Flurries of scavenger bats burst skyward from the lower streets, marking their progress.
“They do not often show such haste,” he said, still shaken.
Artaneel stepped away from the wall. “A fact you might wisely contemplate, Isak,” he said. He found a clean stone with enough of an edge to scrape his sandals, removing the worst of the mess he’d stepped in while getting out of the acolyte’s way. “We do not, of course, know the nature of his errand. But he came from the direction of the Temple, and he is now ahead of us in the direction we are going. Do you know of any other matter that presently occupies the attention of the Brothers?”
“There could be many things we have no knowledge of,” Isak said. Unexpectedly, the heirophant had begun to walk again; Isak had to scramble to catch up. “Many things. Have we reason to believe his haste was in the service of the Brothers? It could be an entirely personal errand. Or some priest’s.”
“While he wears that crested cap?” Artaneel demanded. “And that hund wore Temple livery.”
“It has been known to happen,” Isak said.
Artaneel’s response was to stop and turn to face him. “And you would take that risk? Isak, though I may earn the Brothers’ censure, for your welfare I would suggest you turn back—take some other course. Those travelers we passed might let you join them. Then you would be safe.”
“But if I flee they would have reason to think I had doubt of my foretelling,” Isak said. “Then, even when the darkness has come—as I told them it would—they would not see my right to honor, nor the merit of my understanding of the gods.”
Artaneel snorted. “Small benefit for you if by then you are feeding the eels.”
“Surely they would wait.” Almost painfully, Isak wanted to believe that.
“Gamble your life as you wish,” Artaneel said. “I have given my advice.”
“Have you less . . . less respect for them than I?” Isak wondered.
For a moment, the heirophant’s face wore a closed, sullen look. Warily he looked around. They were almost alone on this part of the street and none of those who shared it were near. Nevertheless, when he spoke, it was with careful words.
“I have known them longer than you, Isak, and more closely. They are men like other men. Like all men, they have failings.”
Less sure of himself than he wanted to be, Isak moved his weight from one foot to the other. But it was purposeless to stand there, going neither uphill nor down. He took a tentative step, then another, downhill.
For a distance they walked in silence. Around one turn, down the length of the next traverse, and then around the turn at its end. Through that silence Isak’s discomfort grew. He had made the proper choice. He was sure of it. Yet still he felt doubts. As they descended his doubts deepened.
“Do you think I have not been wise?” he ventured finally.
Here the street had widened and become more populous. Servants in household liveries came and went on their masters’ errands. Merchants’ wagons stacked with goods labored up the slope while attendant hawkers pounded blank-paneled gates, shouting their wares, or haggled at opened gates with those inside. A beggar with a dirty rag across his face felt along the wall, crying alms and rattling his bowl. A few bareheaded acolytes strolled carelessly with the human tide. A gentleman’s carriage passed them, city-bound, two matched drome at its hitch and four footmen in black-and-crimson tunics trotting ahead to clear a path. A curtained palankeen followed, borne by four stolid, barefooted porters who, with no choice in the matter, trod onward regardless of the filth that lay thick on the stones. Gorged bats hopped out of the way of their feet, hopped back to feed when they had gone on.
“I am divided,” Artaneel said. Isak could hardly hear him above the noises of the crowd. “You have served me usefully. Your foretellings have brought me stature in my service, and might have brought me more had I dared place greater reliance on them. Yet this prophecy of darkness has seemed from the beginning too preposterous for any clear-thinking man to consider. No. In this, from the moment you came to me with it, I must say you have been terribly unwise.”
“Should I have done nothing?” Isak asked. “Told no one? To know that such a thing will happen and not speak? Not to anyone? Could you, if you had foreseen?”
Artaneel shook his head. “I do not know. I have foreseen no such happening. I do not believe it possible. You asked if you have been unwise, and I have told you. If no one has believed it will happen, have you done any useful thing by speaking?”
