Sephirot, p.29
Sephirot, page 29
A fleeting smiled passed across his lips. “It is what I would have thought, before I started on this journey. I never thought there was a purpose for anything. Everything was random. Not that it bothered me. Honestly, I never even thought to ask the question.”
“And now? Do you think there is a reason for everything that has happened to you?”
“It’d be nice.”
“Nice, yes. But is it so?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then perhaps I should ask a different question. Would it make a difference to you, if you knew that there was no ultimate purpose?”
He considered. “It wouldn’t change what I do, no.”
“Then you are no different from my father and I. We mine clay and glazes, and make pottery. There is no purpose for it other than the fact that creating beauty is what we do. It is our nature. And you jump from world to world for the same reason.”
Behind where Daiyu stood, he saw that the silver-gray grid had been replaced by a long, sweeping expanse of deep green grass, stretching off to the horizon, and the flatness had given way to gentle curves and swales.
“It’s enough to know that you’re doing what you were made for,” Daiyu said, and a shy smile touched her mouth.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”
He stepped around her, and his feet touched the springy softness of grass. As he walked, the smell of vegetation rose to his nostrils, the scent of green and growing things. He only then recognized how sterile the air had been, no smells, no humid warmth of life. Moved by some impulse, he took off his sandals and continued barefoot, feeling the edges of the blades of grass bend under the soles of his feet. He carried the sandals swinging from his hand for a time, but finally tossed them aside.
He’d started out this adventure naked. Which is how all humans start out their adventure. It would be ridiculous to be afraid of being barefoot now.
He walked on for perhaps an hour, enjoying the feeling of the soft grass between his toes. The sky was still a uniform gray, and there was nothing else to look at, but on the whole it was still more pleasant than fog or a flat gray expanse of grid lines. When he saw the next interruption in the monotony, he thought at first that it was some kind of optical illusion, an afterimage from staring at the sheet of saturated greenness. But it refused to disappear, a reddish blotch on the horizon that stayed the same size however much he walked toward it.
But finally it resolved, becoming clearer and larger, and revealed itself to be Darick Bevans, High Judge of Gevurah, still wearing his scarlet robes, seated in an ornate chair that looked like a throne, trimmed in gold. There was a twinge of pain from his back, and a defiant anger rose in his chest.
Good. He actually wanted to have a word with that bastard, when he didn’t have his goons around. Find out how he felt about the fact that Duncan had beat him fair and square.
“I told you that your kind never admits defeat,” Duncan said, as he came up to the scowling man, who looked down at him with an expression of arrogance and certainty and judgment. “How does it feel, having lost?”
“You slipped from our clutches by trickery,” Judge Bevans said. “This does not mean you are right.”
“And the fact that you can command men with whips and knives and axes does not mean that you are right.”
“You would tear down order and the rule of law. This must be stopped, by whatever means necessary.”
“I have no quarrel with the rule of law. But fairness and decency are more important.”
Judge Bevans gave a dismissive snort. “It is more moral to be over-harsh than over-kind. Purity and sanctity are the twin pillars holding up righteous society. The soft and weak will only hasten its destruction by inducing men not to undertake the drastic steps needed to protect what we have.”
He laughed. “You’re calling me soft and weak? You saw me take the whip, and even gravely injured, defy you and your lackeys. Is that weakness?”
“You show weakness of spirit,” Judge Bevans said. “Those who intend evil always start that way. Pity is the opening of the door. You showed pity to that demon, who was rightly dying in our streets, and who would have been burned alive had he survived. Pitying leads to empathy, and empathy leads to acceptance. The Evil One uses your pity as a path to destruction.”
“Yet I escaped, and your world remains undestroyed. Odd thing, that.”
“You think to throw my failure back in my face…” Judge Bevans spat.
“No. Only to point out that your assumptions are wrong.” His voice rose, and he wondered at his own sternness and authority in the face of the man who had put him to torture. “You mistake steadfastness and spirit for rebellion and anarchy, and throw away half of the world because it doesn’t bow its head to your cruelty. But what you haven’t been able to tell me is why you do it. If you are torturing and killing people on the off chance of saving your world, you must think it’s awfully important to save. I’ve been in a lot of places since I started my travels, and I can say that without exception, Gevurah is the ugliest, bleakest, most humorless world I’ve ever seen. Why hurt others to defend that? If you can show me that by your desperation to eradicate evil, your world has more sweetness or compassion or pleasure in it, one more friendship forged or love brought to fruition or kindness performed, I will willingly go back to Gevurah with you and place my head on the block without complaint.”
Judge Bevans stared at him for a moment, his expression frozen, eyes dark with fury. Then he bowed his head.
“You would live in a petty life of self-gratification rather than sanctity,” he said, “seeking self-indulgence rather than what is right and holy. But here, I cannot stop you from doing so.” His mouth curled as if he had tasted something bitter. “You may proceed.”
And behind him, the grassy fields erupted in tens of thousands of crimson flowers, each one shaped like a tiny star.
Duncan stepped around the throne where Judge Bevans was seated, and mumbled, “Damn straight I may,” under his breath.
He walked for another hour before he saw the next denizen of this land, a place that opened up before him like a flower. He was unsurprised to find it was his Uncle Liam, back in human form, lying on his back in the meadow with his eyes closed, a blissful expression on his face. He had his shirt off and balled up behind his head as a pillow, and both hands laced across his belly.
“Took you long enough,” Liam said, without opening his eyes.
“Sunbathing?” Duncan said.
“Actually, yes,” Liam said, and Duncan realized with a shock that he was casting a shadow. He looked up. The gray sky had turned a deep azure blue, and the yellow-white brilliance of the sun shone unobstructed on his shoulders.
“I suppose you have some sage advice for me, too,” he said. “That’s apparently what this place is about.”
“Me? I don’t believe in giving advice.”
“Well, you did when we landed in Gevurah. You had a lot of advice then, as I recall.”
Liam laughed, and opened his eyes. He stretched, cupping his hands behind his head. “First of all, I was dying. Figured that if there was a time to tell you some parting wisdom, it was then.”
“Death doesn’t seem to have slowed you down much.”
“Let’s say it was just a phase. But second, was I wrong? Not that you listened, of course.”
“All you told me was to get out of there quickly. You didn’t tell me how.”
He sat up and shrugged. “No matter, I suppose. You made it through, which is the important thing, even if you lost a little skin in the process.”
He sat down next to Liam on the flower-spangled grass. “So now what? Do I keep walking and see what happens?”
“That’s what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
“Then no harm in continuing. It’s worked okay so far.”
He looked off toward the horizon, with its gentle curves of green and blue and red. “This place is, I don’t know… evolving as I walk through it. What’s that about?”
Liam picked a flower, and smelled it, then twirled it gently between his fingers. “I guess you could say that Chokhmah is a place that becomes what you need it to be. Or”—he frowned, and tossed the flower away— “it grabs on to what you bring into it, and shapes it into the next step you take.”
“Where does it lead?”
Liam laughed, and shook his head. “You always want the answers to be laid out in front of you, don’t you? Be willing to risk not knowing everything. Take what this place gives you, and be confident that you can meet its challenges standing on your feet. After what you’ve been through, you won’t find them very hard.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think that was advice.”
“That,” Liam observed, “was a dirty trick.”
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“I suppose. Even if you got more out of me already than I should have told you.”
“Will I meet everyone that I came across in my travels? All the ones who I knew from my old life?”
“Don’t know. You’ll have to keep going to find out. But that’s always true, of course. You keep going in order to find out how the story ends.” He lay back down in the grass, folded his hands across his belly again, and closed his eyes.
Duncan stood, and walked off through the sunlit meadow.
He crested the top of a hill, where the breeze rippled through the little scarlet flowers and whispered through the grass, and before him saw the first trees he’d encountered. They were massive oaks, spreading their branches out over a little creek that wound its way through the hills, bubbling over a stony bed. And seated on a flat slab of rock next to the stream were his mother and father, still in the antiquated garb they’d worn in Netzach. Thalia Kyle had her knees tucked under her, and leaned against his father Dennis, who had one arm protectively around her shoulders. Thalia looked worried, Dennis stern, and both followed their son with their gazes as he approached, but did not smile.
“I’m disappointed in you, Duncan,” his father said.
“Why? Because I saw through your lies?”
Dennis’s lips tightened, and Thalia said, “We only wanted to help you, Duncan. We’ve only ever wanted to help you.”
“And you wanted me to swallow your reality. It was like Binah, a watered-down version of what Binah is. You couldn’t even be as authentically kind as Mr. Consentino and Reverend Kate, and the worst of you weren’t as evil as the horrors that Binah conjured up. You wanted me to keep quiet and join in, and Binah wanted to eat me alive. But it was the same lie, really, on two different levels.”
“And you never considered how your rejection affected others,” Dennis said. “It was all about you. A selfish little boy, that’s what you are.”
He laughed, the first real belly laugh he’d had since his journey had begun. Thalia wilted a little beneath the power of that laugh, a sound that blew away all artifice, made the air around them a little clearer.
“And to be unselfish is to let you mold me into what you wanted me to be,” he said. “That’s always been your way, hasn’t it, Dad? If I don’t fit your mold, bend me till I do fit. Here, Duncan, look at the world through my lenses, because yours don’t show you the truth. And Mom… you always let him, didn’t you? Too hard to fight it, especially after Maria died. Too hard to stand up and say, ‘Hey, Dennis? Maybe you’re wrong.’”
“You always were a stubborn child,” Thalia said.
“And you’re right to put it in the past tense,” he said. “I’m not a child. I have the scars to prove it. You can’t shame me or bully me into seeing things your way any more, and if that bothers you… I’m sorry. I still love you, because you’re my parents and I know the sacrifices you made for me and Maria. I know how hard it was when she died. But I won’t pay myself in tribute on that debt for the rest of my life.”
Neither of them spoke. They looked at him, Dennis still disapproving, Thalia still nervous, the fingers of one hand twisting at a bit of her sleeve.
“Goodbye, Mom, Dad,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll see you again. Maybe if I get home, we can discuss this again. If you… if the real you knows anything about it.”
He walked past them, a little upstream, and saw an arched bridge spanning the creek, and on the other side, a neat little stone wall edging a road paved with cobblestones.
The road curved through a grove of oaks and maples, hoary with age. There were signs of inhabitants here. Besides the road and the wall were little clearings with neat rows of vegetables, a vineyard, and once, the gnarled gray-green of a cluster of olive trees. A little farther on were some small cottages, and standing in front of the last cottage was Fatima, wearing a kind smile. She leaned on the wall, and next to her was a tray piled high with figs, and cheese, and a fat loaf of freshly-baked bread.
“I thought by now you might be hungry and thirsty,” she said.
“Famished.”
“Then eat.”
He helped himself to a fig, and Fatima picked up a pitcher of straw-colored wine and poured out two cups, then handed him one.
“There is much that could be said.” She held up her cup. “But for now, food and drink and companionship are all I have to give.”
“It is enough.”
The next hour was spent sitting on the stone wall in the sunshine, and by the time it was passed the platter and pitcher were both empty.
“Did the jackal-man win?” he asked, as the sun climbed steadily into the clear sky, sending its dappled light through the moving leaves.
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
“Then no,” she said. “No, he didn’t win. He died, just as I did.”
“Good.”
“But so did Anir, and so did my cousins, and so did their families. All go to dust eventually. No one wins, not in the final tally. The most we can hope for is to have what we have.” She gestured at the platter, now holding only crumbs and the stems of figs. “An empty plate and a full belly, and a good companion by your side, at least for a little while. And no regrets.”
“Thank you.” He took her hand and kissed it, and left her sitting on the wall in the sunshine, a bemused smile on her face.
The road wound up a hill, and the wall grew to a massive barrier over Duncan’s head. It swept around and crossed the road, but was pierced by a gate, at this hour standing wide open, and on the other side of it were buildings and houses and hear the noise and bustle of a town. He passed through the gate, and inside was a tavern. Leaning against the door, watching him with an appreciative eye, was Diana, dressed in a diaphanous lavender garment that revealed as much as it hid.
“Never thought you’d see me again, did you, Duncan Kyle?” she said, giving him an alluring smile.
“Well, at this point, it was kind of inevitable. You’re not going to try to kill me again, are you?”
“That’d hardly be sporting, given that you escaped me fairly, and considering how far you’ve come. And I don’t have my bow handy in any case. But I wouldn’t say no to a tumble, if you have the time. I wasn’t lying when I said that I enjoyed your body.”
“Flattered, but I think I’ll pass,” he said. “There’s one more person I’ve got to see, and tempting as you are, it led to nothing but trouble last time.”
Diana looked at him in silence for a moment, and then shook her head, still smiling. “You have grown, Duncan Kyle. You were as easy to trap last time as a randy teenager.”
“Don’t forget that I was half-dead from drowning when you hooked me.”
She laughed. “Oh, come now. You’re not going to stand there, look me in the eye, and tell me that you would have responded any differently had you been hale and hearty and sound when I found you.”
He returned her laugh. “All right. You got me there.”
“Thank you.” She gave a mocking little bow. “Having conceded to me that far, you may go on. I’m not so proud that I don’t realize it when I’m defeated.”
She blew him a kiss in farewell, and he proceeded up into the streets of the city, now populated by throngs of people, buying and selling at the market, women hawking baked goods, butchers stacking cuts of meat for purchase, fruit-grocers setting out bins of oranges, hanging up heavy bunches of bananas, arranging baskets of figs and grapes and dates. A warm wind brushed his face, carrying with it the salt smell of the sea.
One more person to find. If she was a person at all. But he really wanted to see what she had to say. The Sphinx could have told him a lot had she chosen to. But perhaps it wouldn’t have meant anything to him back then.
Maybe some things had to be lived, not told.
He found her sitting like a guardian by a gate that opened onto a broad and busy seaport. The blue-green waves beat incessantly on a pebbly shore, and moored out in the harbor were dozens of sailing ships. Nearer at hand was a long stone jetty where men, shoulders burnished to a deep bronze by the sun, unloaded baskets of fish from rowboats. She sat, her face impassive as always, but her glossy golden eyes were wide open.
“Welcome back,” she said as he approached, her voice resonant and deep as a cello.
“Back?” he said, looking up into her huge stone face, shielding his eyes from the sun. “I’ve never been here before.”
“That’s true.”
Duncan gave her a wry scowl. “Still speaking in riddles, I see.”
“Call it a habit. You found some clothes.”
“Yup. And I made it through the ten worlds. Where now?”
“Ten?” she said, and with a creak, a stone eyebrow lifted a little. “This is the ninth.”
“I count ten.”
“No,” she said. “The mirror-realm of Da’at is not itself a world. It is only a passageway. I believe you were told that.”
“Oh,” he said, his face falling a little.
“Your expression is as if you were facing a prison sentence.”
“No, it’s more that I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again.” He frowned. “I will get to go home, won’t I?”
