How very funny

The special hatred of the religious fuck-up for gay men is again of course rooted in the gibberish about a serpent and an apple.  Woman brought evil into their perfect and asexual little male monkey world of just them and God.  Woman brought distraction from God.  Woman brought sex and love and of course gay men do the same and are therefore considered an intolerable offence to men.

There is an infinite number of things one can do with propositions such as ‘Gid created Adam and Eve’, ‘an angel dictated a book’, ‘a man rose from the death’.  You can regard them as metaphor, a poetry, you can explore them in any way you choose, you can piss with laughter, you can take them seriously.  You could even drag in quantum immortality, though quantum immortality says rather that the corpse didn’t die in the first place.

PANTHER -> Site news -> Quantum immortality
by Ysabel Howard - Sunday, 29 January 2012, 06:06 AM

 
Proponents of the idea point out that while it is highly speculative, there is nothing in the notion of quantum immortality that violates the known laws of physics
An easier to understand example is the one given in quantum suicide where a physicist sits in front of a gun which is triggered, or not triggered, by radioactive decay. With each run of the experiment there is a 50-50 chance that the gun will be triggered and the physicist will die. If the Copenhagen interpretation is correct, then the gun will eventually be triggered and the physicist will die. If the many-worlds interpretation is correct, then at each run of the experiment the physicist will be split into a world in which he lives and one in which he dies. In the worlds where the physicist dies, he will cease to exist. However, from the point of view of the physicist, the experiment will continue running without his ceasing to exist, because at each branch, he will only be able to observe the result in the world in which he survives, and if many-worlds is correct, the physicist will notice that he never seems to die therefore proving himself to be immortal, or at least according to quantum immortality. http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Quantum_immortality
 
What you can’t do is what the filth did to Rushdie and are doing to the western world.  Demand that because some people regard such propositions with high seriousness, gravitas, everyone else has to.  I was about to write that only applies to things with a rational foundation, but of course that’s not true.   You are perfectly at liberty to piss with laughter at the proposition that sulphuric acid will damage you and dive into a vat of the stuff.  Let us say merely there are some things it is a good idea to take on board.

If you enthusiastically breath your germs over other people, you are likely to infect them.  Quite a lot of people pissing with laughter at that one.  It looks likely there will be a second lockdown.  Whether the pure mong component of our diverse and plural society will accept it looks likely to be another matter – but then hey, the PM himself said it would all be over by Christmas.  Doesn’t really affect me because I don’t go anywhere anyway  but a pity if the French Open is cancelled. The basic problem with the young tennis stars Sascha Zverev, Dominic Thiem, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Andrey Rublev is that they look like they’ve escaped from the set of War and Peace.  None of them would be out of place in a Moscow drawing-room in 1812.  It’s delicious, and of course I am not so old that I do not enjoy the spectacle of good-looking young men with long brown legs leaping around. 

Offal so corrupt they’re funny.  You are, yes.

Offal so corrupt they think being corrupt is normal, they don’t understand what the word meas.

Filthy vermin who assume the jabber-monkey puke of the religious automatically annuls all fact, reason and morality, diseased insane jabber monkeys howling they got Troof cos they got this book, see, and it’s Troof, so of course they ignore anything contrary to it cos that’s lies

Contemptible vermin whose filthy sexually diseased fascist death cults of obedience, teach them it’s good to be contemptible vermin, what God wants, right, being a bag of infected shit, a psychopath, ignorant, ineducable, vicious, irrational, a nut-job who thinks everyone else is her or his property, to obey them, sickoids who regard independent thought as evil, sadists who require their slaves to abandon all independence of being and know only the will of their masters, however perverted and evil that will is.
So look at  this filthy dirty fat smelly old cunt, Boden, this fucking butcher traitor mong, totally unfit for public service, totally unfit for authority in a democracy.  Hey,  ape, I was injured, I was caused pain by a mong nursey, back pain for the first time since my surgery, and what do you do, fatarse sicko psycho mong butcher, you whine I should do what I’m told, if mong tard Jackson wanted me to push trolleys around I have no right to object, ain’t you gotta do what you’re fucking told in the orld of the ape.  Mong wants to fuck over the University of course, all the evil smelly shit-filled mongs want to do that, nurses on top, nurses are the intellectual elite, of course my silly little degree don’t mean nuffink.  Oh you’re so fucking brilliant, aren’t you, mongs, you can’t learn, you can’t reason, you can’t think, you can’t speak, you despise language and reason and violence is your normal medium of communication. 

PANTHER -> Site news -> What the university is for
by Ysabel Howard - Tuesday, 14 September 2010, 08:24 PM
 
The university exists to train minds and further free enquiry. It exists to contemplate and dissect what people think. It does not exist to provide a playpen for the brain-dead, where idiots may feel at ease. It exists to make idiots deeply uneasy by demanding intellectual rigour of them. It exists to look at what people have said and say, turn it inside out and spit out the pips.
It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
The university exists to pursue truth and academic excellence. It exists certainly also to examine metre in Chaucer, the vowel sounds of Sanskrit, and taxation in the reign of Henry Tudor, as it exists to examine the migration patterns of salmon, quantum mechanics and the causes of multiple sclerosis. It exists to examine everything and get it right or as correct as is possible given our current levels of knowledge.
Attendu que, depuis des années, une inconnue, nommée la Raison, a entrepris d’entrer par force dans les Écoles de l’Université; qu’à l’aide de certains quidams facétieux, prenant le surnom de Gassendistes, Cartésiens, Malebranchistes, gens sans aveu, elle veut examiner et expulser Aristote…’ C’était vrai. Elle entrait en jeu, la Raison agressive; elle voulait examiner non pas seulement Aristote, mais quiconque avait pensé, quiconque avait écrit…
Paul Hazard – La Crise de la conscience européenne (1680-1715)
[Expected for some years, an unknown called Reason forced her way into the Schools of the University...An aggressive reason entered the arena wanting to examine not only Aristotle but anyone who had thought or written...]
Phaedrus said the same confusion existed about the University...The real University is not a material object...What would happen is that the real University, which no legislature can dictate to and which can never be identified by any location of bricks or boards or glass, would simply declare that this place was no longer 'holy ground'. The real University would vanish from it and all that would be left was the bricks and the books and the material manifestation. It must have been a strange concept to all of the students...The real university is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.
Robert Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
 
Look at them all 
Sneering at me 
Infected shit on music-boxes 
Who hate liberty 
England’s enemies 
Shit on democracy 
Psychopathic loonies 
Nobody  
Questions sickies 
Mad apes on music-boxes  
Wound up by a key 
 
Look at them all 
Laughing at me 
Hag-faced dolls on music-boxes wound by a key 
Look at the butchers 
Blood-stained pinnies 
Waddling around wound by a key 
Crippling filth 
Murdering monkeys 
Criminal animals on music-boxes  
Wound up by a key 
 
Truly, you expect me to take wind-up toys seriously?  Even if they are wind-up orcs.
“Tell you about Varna’s Wall,” said Hass. “Every time they shoot down a vampire, they pin another little model vampire to the wall, a small bat-like creature with leathery wings and a pointed rat-face, hanging upside down with blood dripping from its fangs.  Carlin encourages enterprise.  That was the idea of a model-maker in Misinit, who now mass-produces them.   Got one to show you.”  He felt in his pocket and solemnly held up an ickle model vampire.

“Make way for KAF!” bellowed someone.
A pair of young officers tumbled in.
“Ah – brill.  Sir!  Ma’am!  This is a formal presentation.  AC Varna let us out to do this.   Must be as mad as we are.”
The tall, dark and handsome one (Frensat) produced a small box and carefully opened it.  It was the sort of box with a soft lining in which you might find an expensive watch or other piece of jewellery.  In it lay a pair of vamps.
“May we present you, sir, ma’am, with your very own vamps.” The smaller, even darker and definitely plainer one (Sitsi) carefully placed the vamps on the table.  “Just press the switch, and.”  The vamps whirred round in circles, feebly fluttering helpless wings.
 
So you, McGuckin, just so you.

And I laugh

And I laugh because all you have proved is that you are that slimy nefarious corrupt object called ‘the Establishment’ which meets in clubs and on race-courses and spends as much in an hour as would feed, clothe and house a family of four for a month, assumes it governs, unaccountable, cowardly, uncontrollable. 

Oh jolly old boating weather.  Do rather miss the Thames and Eton is awfully pretty.  Used to take the train to Windsor and Eton Riverside and walk upstream.  Oh, are all the little slave-sluts and sycophants and general issue cock-suckers and arse-lickers cheering for the best of schools.  Sure Cameron and Johnson can tell us more about that.  Just think, I used to be able to walk, walk miles.  Nonsense like that doesn’t matter when little penises are twitching.  Just don’t need the use of my legs, do I

Now, pet, I imagine that in  what passes for your mind England and the  English like everyone else and  everywhere else belong to God. It’s a possibility. There is, however,  something in between England and  God in your model, is there not. You, little  you. You represent God and  rule England on God’s behalf. 

There are a  few problems here, as those nice young men in their clean white coats I’m sure  would be glad to explain to you. 

1) there is not one shred of evidence  for your conviction you carry out God’s will
2) If you do carry out God’s  will, then God is clearly a grossly  mentally disturbed being to whom no sane  and civilized person would give two seconds’ attention 
3) There is not one  shred of evidence for  the existence of this God of yours. You believe he  exists. Others do  not. What is not demonstrable cannot be binding. You must see  that. Some people believe this God exists. Others do not. They can’t both be  right and it is impossible for any individual to be bound by both beliefs.
 
So we have a situation here, Houston Control, where this fucked-up  baboon thinks he carries out God’s will. The territory he inhabits may  be summarized as the supreme authority of the Church which I must be  made to accept. The fruits of the independent exercise of the hearts and minds of humans are the 
work of Satan. This is to what Blair and the  rest of the New Labour rabble consider me subject. It's perhaps not so  much a question of why haven't they been arrested as of why haven't they been sectioned.
 
That which makes you look stupid, ludicrous, ignorant, irrational.
 
There is somewhere in literature or oratory a superb put-down I cannot unfortunately recall and can’t be bothered to hunt for.  It may be classical, it may be Churchillian, but the gist is: your refutation of my argument would be greatly enhanced by your having understood it
 
THAT AM I

That indeed, ‘old boy’, are you, the difference being I know what I am and you do not. If you have love and the universe, you do not need God, though possibly you have It anyway. Depends on what you mean by 'God'. 

My happiness is not contingent upon your approval, your liking. That of course your sick sad ego finds intolerable. You must matter to me, no? I must find you important, defer to you, take you into account. I do not. Thus in common with sick sad monkeys of all kinds, Nazi monkeys, Stalinist monkeys, religious monkeys, you force yourself into my life physically, impairing my mobility such that you are ever-present in my life. Vulgar little man, aren’t you, not a gentleman.

As I have previously remarked:

Having class is entirely distinct from being a member of a social class. You, I suspect, may be either what people think of as a 'real' aristocrat, ancient title and blah, or someone who thinks having a lot of money and mixing with the 'right people' makes him posh.

Since, however, you are sly, cowardly, dishonest piece of puke, a thug, a wordless, mindless baboon, you have no class at all. 

You seem to think your culture (what culture?) important. We all have our cultures, of course, and within them many quaint customs that have not survived into the modern age. If we are to be civilized, we do not do such things any more. Perhaps you might ponder that? However, if you insist on being a product of the Stone Age, I would remind you that my culture used to have a fondness for stringing people like you up from lamp-posts. Shall you all swing together/Dressed in the old light blue? Just a thought. Perhaps we should therefore agree to differ? 

Hmm, that would be irresistible. No, not the stringing-up. A Labour Government was so mortified by the distress of an Old Etonian that it allowed him to cripple the grand-daughter of Labour pioneers. You do just have to see the funny side.

But then it is terribly obvious that the entire ‘New Labour’ project was dedicated to the destruction of England, the destruction of freedom, the destruction of reason.
There is of course another light blue here, that of Cambridge (specifically Gonville and Caius).
And I laugh because I have made no impact whatever, as well does a swimmer tell a shark you cannot behave like this, you cannot treat me like this. These creatures are not human, unreachable by human means, by love or mind.  As well to reason with a shark, indicate my inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 
Religion has of course been destroying women for 3000 years, since the first Jew dribbled about that spare rib and the root of all evil.  They’re very good at it, a word in your ear, some ridiculous woman.
I read actually that Ancient Egyptian religion made remarkable strides towards gender equality, though no-one can say how true that was in practice.
A story on a papyrus dating from the 2nd century CE relates that the goddess Isis, bestowing gifts on humanity, gave as much power and honor to women as she did to men. This tale reflects the high status women enjoyed in ancient Egypt. Although they never had the same rights as males, an Egyptian woman could own property in her own name and hold professions that gave her economic freedom from male relatives (women could practice medicine, handle money and make real estate transactions). A wife was entitled to one third of any property that she owned jointly with her husband and, on her death, could will her property to anyone she wished, male or female. Egyptian women were equal in the court system and could act as witnesses, plaintiffs or defendants (as we would understand those terms today). Women were accountable for crimes they committed and would have to stand trial the same as any man.
 

The Goddess Isis
 
Married women were known by the title `Mistress of the House’ and most women’s time was spent caring for the home and children. Her responsibilities would include child rearing (unless she was wealthy enough to be able to afford a slave for the purpose) house cleaning, sewing, mending and making clothes, providing meals for the household and managing the accounts. Even so, there is ample evidence of women tending to chores outside of the home such as the care of livestock, the supervision of workers in the fields (even doing field work herself) the maintenance of tools, buying and selling slaves and real estate and taking part in the commerce of the market place (all of these rights and responsibilities, to this extent, the women of Sumeria and Greece never had).

The Egyptian Wisdom Texts admonish husbands to treat their wives well since the balance between the male and the female resulted in harmony (known as ma’at) which was valued by the gods and, especially, the great goddess Ma’at, she of the white feather of Truth. Marriage was considered a pact between a husband and wife for a lifelong commitment of equal partnership and companionship which could only be broken by death (which was the will of the gods, not of the individual marriage partners) although divorce was common in practice. Women were legally protected against abuse from their husbands and, in the documents from a 12th Dynasty lawsuit, a man had to “swear that he would henceforth refrain from beating his wife, on pain of one hundred blows with a cane and the loss of everything he had acquired together with her” (Nardo, 35).


And I laugh because some dribbling squirming heap of infected shit thinks I should be ashamed of my body, ashamed of being ‘soiled’.  Because as an act of cold brutal deliberate evil these pervert freaks have once again been loosed in this country and it is universally hailed as good.

And I laugh because my not inconsiderable mind means absolutely nothing to them, I might as well never have written a word, and that too is universally hailed as good.

And I laugh because all  you have proved is as I repeatedly say you are filth and evil, haters of love and mind, haters of anything clean, anything upright, anything rational, filth and evil and lovers of filth and evil.  That filth and evil are to be unswervingly, unyieidingly and universally upheld and protected.  That filth and evil are not to be disturbed or upset by being named.

Of course I laugh.  Laugh in their vacant evil stupid faces.

And I laugh because the world is full of books to read and things to find out about, infinitely more than any one human being can manage in a lifetime, and they are so ludicrous that they think they have nothing to learn.  Nothing outside the garbled drivel in their heads, their fuck-up beliefs and their loony conviction of their own perfection exists.

And I laugh because there is one form of ‘medicine’ at which I am very good.  I should long since have bled to death from internal wounds but I staunch the flow, knit the tissues, heal the cuts, because I make me and that they can never understand.

And I laugh because these obscene filthy brutes who have pawed and mauled me, smeared their dirty animal selves indelibly over my body and my life are irrelevant to me.

And I laugh because my life is a huge mad joke.  All I ever wanted to do was write and go for excessively long walks in wild places but I had to earn a living and so fell through a black hole into a parallel universe of the raving mad who have broken my body, raped my mind and wrecked the remainder of my life, a world divorced from reality in which truth and good are the drivellings of the ape with the biggest club, in which everything independent of the dribblings of some authority figure with a club is dismissed out of hand, in which language is treated with contempt and force, power, violence are all, all fact, reason, decency, sanity are jeered at and regarded as a joke, where people regard themselves as slaves, owned, to do only what they are permitted by the mad, are damaged nutters who think it wrong to doubt and question the words of authority, independent thought is regarded as evil and independent action is inconceivable to them,  where a woman’s body is simply a punchbag for inadequates and a woman’s mind is a joke, and that there is universal agreement the world of the criminal and the psychopath, of the Broadmoor patient, be regarded as normality.

And I laugh because these perverted deformities really expect me to see myself as a slave, property, who has sinned, transgressed, said and done things Master does not permit, functioned independently of her lord, been self-willed, disobedient, and of course a freak who does not accept Master’s right to punish her.
Yeah, I have a mind of my own and know how to use it.

And I laugh because they think so very much of themselves and have not the smallest intellectual virtues, contemptuous of fact, unable to learn, unable to reason, to construct argument, to research fact.

And I laugh because like Dill I combine my father’s rationalism with a profound esotericism; unlike Gandalf I have not met a Balrog.  I have met so many fucking Balrogs that it’s funny, nearly as funny as the entire political class intoning, O great Balrogs, you alone we worship, you alone we adore, there is no truth beside you, there is no good beside you, you alone are our meaning and our source.  Sustain us, great Balrogs, fill us with your truth and might, that we may do your will.

Because they sure as fuck don’t do anything else.

And of course, great Balrogs, we thank you for the bounty you send.  It sees the kids through school and uni very nicely.

Has anyone checked out these folks' bank balances? Research funding? PFI? Living above their means? Come on, they can't all be dribbling religious loons. What's the going rate for selling out everything? Where there's muck there's brass.

Nobody wants to give Pussy squeaky rat-toys to play with. Could this be because they're rich rat-toys?

And I laugh because Medicine, the University, Government, politics, everything has become a sick joke. See them press themselves ever further into the ground, yearning to please, for the Balrogs have to be fed.  Feed them everything, all fact, all reason, all light, all life.  The Balrogs are not to be upset, disquieted, perturbed.  Of course no demands may be made of them.  That would be absurd, the slaves making demands of their masters. Since the Balrogs are without flaw and of course omniscient, the idea of correcting them or educating them is absurd and impossible.

So they threw the Balrogs my medically vulnerable body, without a qualm or backward glance.

And so I  hobble about covered in little homunculi, Abraham, O’Mahony,Wilson, Sturridge, Black, Linch, Blair, Goldstone, Milburn, Naylor, Plucinski, Saunders, Rowley, McGuckin, Ardeshna, Whelan wrapped around my torso and legs, forever with me forcing their filthy animal selves on me. 

And I laugh because they are so ludicrous.  Really, you think crawling over my body leaving nasty itchy red blotches convinces me of your veracity and probity?

And I laugh because I still don’t give a fuck.

And because I actually feel rather good about myself.  I have not betrayed my country, my University, my self, soul.  I have not become a squirming pile of infected shit for sale to the highest bidder, dismissing all fact, all reason, all morality in the face of mad animals with clubs and money, a dirty little animal who says yes, o master, whatever you say o master, in you lies all truth, all good, o master, india-rubber man who bends in the middle and falls on his face to evil and calls it good, filth, all the way through, rotting flesh.

Anything you said, o master, only please don’t hurt my back.  The apes really expected me to cower and crawl. 

Yup, it’s OK here up a lamp-post 

Of course historically the lamp-post was  seminal to the revolution, essential kit, one might say, bloated  capitalists, imperialist  running-dogs and fascist hyenas for the  stringing-up of, I think nowadays the  RSPCA would step in. What does the lamp-post mean to us today? Well, it's pretty  critical if you happen to be in Narnia and come to think of it who's to say I am  not, that I have not inadvertently walked through a wardrobe into the realm of  perpetual winter. Certainly I am in an alien dimension, one that runs on totally   different rules. Otherwise, an agile puss can shin up it PDQ with the   imperialist running-dogs and fascist hyenas on her trail and leave them  to  howl and yap and whine at its foot. Nor is this all! I'd think the  base of this  particular lamp-post was pretty smelly by now. The question of course arises as  to how close it is to the barrack-gate, in which  case to talk of being  underneath it is inexact. No, today's Lili Marlene must be curled up on top of  the lamp-post, where after all it's much  warmer than underneath it. The  imperialist running-dogs and fascist  hyenas must be really cold by now. Really,  should one not call the  RSPCA? How do those in the immediate neighbourhood feel about the smell? And the noise! Might they not call the council in? Surely feral  dogs  represent a public nuisance. They could call in the Sanity Inspector. Oh  no, wait, that's me.

I think just to freak your dull, vicious, worm-infested, diseased, twisted repulsive animal brains a little further….

PANTHER -> Site news -> Sarat: The Matter of Kadun (inner and eso): life, death, eternity and Gaia (1)
by Ysabel Howard - Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 10:08 PM
Now of course I shall run away and play with my dolls. After all, I'm merely an Honours graduate of the University of London. It's not as though I were a nurse. On no account forget that I'm just a silly little girl who's never read a book, never had an original idea, and is just trying it on. Indeed it is silly to claim to be the intellectual equal of a psychopathic priest: I am not psychotic.

As he approached the chair, he said suddenly, “My lady, you sit.”
“Sarat…”
“She is not Mistress of Kadun?” he asked, curt, imperious. Once again he was Sarat: “How can it hurt you?”
He ceremoniously took her hand and bowed to her as she sat. I hope I know what I’m doing, he thought. I have no idea what I’m doing.
Maya sat transfixed. I am old and these are my memories. The faded pages of an album turned before her. Here is Mel in the Saa’nda Senta, here is Hass on the beach, Sarat playing with the puppies, that is Mitch holding forth in the Room, Venga, Sorg, Bris, Qine, all of them gone, Azt killed them, and here am I, where am I, but now I am young, Daddy is mending my swing, and I am laughing, in a field with flowers, Asyrion in a field with flowers, and they are all coming to greet me through the flowers, laughing and talking, but as Mel approaches he is Zani and as Sarat reaches out to put his arms around me he is Kaminua, for am I not Asyrion, not, not not Asyrion. I am Maya-ban-essa, Anile empress! My voice rings out or perhaps not, but all around is the music and the people-space is crowded, for this is my court, and there is Mel sitting on a step. I go towards him. Is it really you? And he grins, that irresistible Mel grin. Really, really me! I reach out, stroke his cheek. Sarat comes up behind me and puts his arms around my neck, kisses my ear. Are we all dead? I ask. Sarat just laughs. Am I not Doom of Death? There is no death, says Mel. But I think: only we who are dead can say that. I say to them, this is not real! Nothing realler, honey, says Mitch, but this is Mitch as I have never seen him, Mitch robed in silver. We’re dead, I say, and you don’t even know it.
Tears pouring down her face, she fell real-time into Sarat’s arms. He cradled her head, stroked her hair. Then they flew to Fidub.
Cho and Amida were watching a documentary on wildlife in the Vasucula Archipelago.
“There is a very, very angry emperor to see you,” said Vax.
“Oh dear,” said Cho meekly, “what have I done?”
Sarat and Maya entered without further ado.
“Darlings…” said Amida. Her voice fell away as she took in the vibes.
“Azt killed us all,” said Sarat. “Or not. Not if I have anything to do with it. Would you care to share with me a little more data concerning the Anile throne than you have thus far condescended to impart?”
“What has happened?” asked Cho quietly.
An impossible strain, thought Amida.
Maya began her story. Cho closed his eyes.
“It is a conduit,” he allowed as she finished.
“Or it is death!” said Sarat.
“Never that,” said Cho.
“What then?”
“There is rooted evil in Azt. It is in the earth. It seeps into the bricks. It will kill you if you let it.”
“How do we stop it!” cried Maya.
But Sarat said: “That’s nonsense!” then stopped. “Or if it is not nonsense, then earthpower must heal it.”
“Must we raze Azt to the ground!”
“If you had thought to speak,” said Sarat, “why should I not have sited my capital elsewhere?”
“Conquer Azt,” said Cho, “or it will kill you.”
“Earthpower,” said Maya. “I was the only one to realize. Because I’m a woman?”
“What did you realize?” asked Cho. Think now, Maya, think.
“Love is the illusion and death the reality. It is a very good illusion, we were very happy. Also very dead.”
“But you know that is not so.”
“So?”
“That is the untouchable reality,” said Sarat. “Out of time.”
Cho reached for the ‘phone and dialled.
“Baya, my dear. Their Imperial Majesties have had a little tiff with ultimate reality. Do you think you could give them a vacation?”
Sarat’s head filled with the number of people he had to see, It cleared.
“Out of Kadun for two days seems to me good.”
“What, then,” asked Cho, “did you realize because you are a woman? Think, now, Maya. Consider the history of Kadun.”
“All of it?” asked Sarat in mock-horror.
“No,” said Cho. He grinned suddenly, recalling Sarat’s deep aversion to this particular question. “Now, ma’am, what our readers surely want to know is what it felt like.”
“There was earthpower,” said Maya, “then there was Narulis, then there was Jaizal, then there was – limbo.”
“This ‘rooted evil’, said Sarat. “Krarlik woke it? I just do not believe in rooted evils!"
“You’re being too literal,” said Cho.
“I’m being literal? What about seeping into bricks?”
“You believe in Singing Isles.”
Maya stared.
“A fault in the earth itself.” Cho looked alert. “It felt – if being dead feels like anything, that is what it feels like.”
“That is your gloss,” said Cho. “You have no idea what being dead feels like.”
“That,” said Maya slowly, “is how we really are.”
“It’s this time,” said Sarat. “Now!”
“Then why was it spooky!”
“You are under stress.
“Oh thanks,” said Sarat.
“Every minute of every day – “
“Expecting to be shot? That is not true.”
Cho shook his head.
“Your undivided attention given to four conversations at once, watching the body language of an entire room, an entire city, knowing every word will be repeated and many words will echo around the world. And sleep? An unnatural life.”
“When people just are,” said Maya. “Which they never are, but if they are, they’re like flowers in a field.”
“So?” asked Cho. “Are people not wildlife too?”
“Life,” said Sarat, “is the earth’s partner. If the earth is ‘female’, life is ‘male’ and love the sum.”
“The earth,” said Cho, “can only heal herself through love, in union with her partner.”
“Or life – created the wound?”
Cho smiled.
“Were you not once a member of NoZone?”
“Everyone knows,” began Sarat, “so I used to think, at least – acid rain and greenhouse gases are a long way from – the whole point is it’s universal, affects the whole planet. It’s a long, long way from a five-headed monster lurking under Azt! How can it be localized?”
“Because it’s contained?” asked Maya.
“If everything is a metaphor,” said Cho, “it may be helpful to consider the five-headed monster.”
“Will you not speak plainly!”
“No. We do not know. Only that the ogre is there.”
“Fine. So I unsheath my gleaming sword – “
“Something of the kind,” said Cho.
“Humanity at war with the earth,” complained Maya, “is a product of science, industrialization.”
“An ancient evil,” intoned Sarat. “It’s got to be nonsense!”
“No,” said Cho.
“Narulis built Azt…”
“On the fault. He never fully understood.”
“Fidub built him the chair. Ores. Earth. As a sort of – weapon?”
“Eventually the empire was corroded?” asked Maya.
“That’s what I said.”
“There was an immediacy, but that’s how my little human brain would see it. The long view…”
“Conquer Azt or it will kill you?”
“Jaizal must conquer Fidub!” said Maya.
“A metaphor made real?” asked Sarat. “Only by crushing the earth?”
“You gotta factor in the minds of men,” said Cho.
“Men?”
“Where – where a whole city was at? We antagonize the monster!”
“Because you are so close to victory.”
“Metaphorically speaking,” sighed Sarat.
“They will fight to the death.”
“That at least is comprehensible. OK, let me put this in nice normal words. The evil in Azt has its back to the wall and will stop at nothing to destroy us. That’s something we didn’t know already?”
“It’s all perfectly straightforward. Except you stroll in and tell us it’s not a sentient evil.”
“The earth is not sentient?” asked Cho.
Maya remembered.
“It doesn’t always burst into song, does it,” she said with a wild grin. “Even if you are direct successor. It only bursts into song if you’re a boy.”
“Orgasmic, man,” muttered Sarat.
Cho started then bellowed with laughter.
Sarat and Maya walked slowly up the drive of the white house in the dunes. Once more time hiccupped, they were 17, Hi, mum, we’re back. We’re going straight upstairs…Sarat was aware he had awakened an area in his mind not immediately apposite to the day-to-day running of Kadun. I guess this too is what being Anile emperor is about.
Baya opened the door.
“Darling…” She hugged him very tight, then Maya.
Another hiccup in time – no, this was memory. Mummy and Daddy really didn’t want to know that Sonny had screwed up. Not this time. He felt suddenly resolute but in a vacuum. Essa hugged them. Sarat knew the girls and their partners came home from time to time,
“Has anything much changed upstairs?”
“There is still a kitchen.”
“That’s great.”
Who said to be is to feel everything, think everything, and then to walk away. To feel everything is unbearable, thought Sarat, Kadun had taught him that at least. Must my heart be wrenched by every child with festering sores? And so there must be detachment but most people never feel anything at all. They did not teach me that explained Kadun.
“I think if you don’t mind we’ll go straight to bed,” said Sarat.
We who were 17, we raced upstairs, bounded, laughing, shut the bedroom door behind us, fell on the bed. What, supposed Sarat, is memory other than hiccups in time.
Baya looked at B and P, but their faces betrayed nothing.
Baya on the ‘phone to Cho: “He is bleeding to death!”
“He is coming alive,” said Cho.
“Oh for….”
And Maya held Sarat in her arms while he cried because right this minute the pain of being Sarat was unbearable.
Baz mailed Faun: Cancel everything for the next three days. Urgent family business in Fidub.
Where are you? asked Faun.
Home.
And so the world assumed Cho was on his death-bed and Cho made no demur.
In the morning they were clearly better and dawdled over breakfast in the kitchen. The radio babbled of a suicide off Sindon Head, the neatly folded pile of clothes on the beach, the brief note pinned to them, and once more Sarat is the schoolboy, the callous fledgeling scientist listening to such a tale and observing that the sharks would get him, but the older Sarat wonders, yes, what does it feel like, what does it feel like when your strength fails and you know there is only surrender to the sea. Must there not be a moment of unspeakable terror? Can you not float? popped up his rational mind. Hypothermia, coma. His imagination was seized by the image of the strong swimmer striking out to eternity with no chance of return and it didn’t exactly tax him to work out why.
“Kaduna-gar-jaht,” he said mildly. “It would have helped if someone had told me what this matter of Kadun is.”
Before returning to Azt, they went again to see Cho and Sarat said, I shall do this, this, this, and Cho smiled. Then he said: “You must tell PANTHER in case it goes pear-shaped.”
Sarat sighed and agreed he must tell PANTHER in case it went pear-shaped.
“It’s all nonsense, isn’t it,” he said. “The throne doesn’t understand genetics. Any of us, Mel, Hass. Tar.”
“It’s all nonsense,” admitted Cho.
In Azt he gathered Mel, Cantilip, Hass and Venga.
“By loving each other we get that bastard off the chair,” he said. Slay a five-headed ogre. Which I guess is death.
He asked them if they minded letting Mitch and Karula into the gang and of course they didn’t mind at all, though no-one was particularly volunteering.
Venga looked at him a long time then said, “There is no other way.”
“That,” said Sarat with a dryness that surprised himself, “would appear to depend on what is the destination. As much garbage as the rest of it,” suggested Sarat. “Where is the wolverine now?”
“We’re going to have to go back,” said Hass.
“You mean you’ll mind?” asked Sarat.
And so Mitch and Karula were let in on the joys of sex and Mitch cackled and said, “Well, you know, I did wonder. Sarat and Hass at least.”
“I am a naïve little girl from the ‘burbs,” said Karula.
So then they were eight. Sarat handed them each a scrap of paper and a pen.
“It’s a little game they play in the best asylums. I want you to each write down what you think the matter of Kadun actually is. My little world,” he added, “just went ack over. Fill you in after.”
“His writing’s terrible,” said Cantilip, “won’t be able to get more than five words on.”
“Please, sir, may we use the other side?” asked Mel.
But Hass smiled.
“Do we have limitless time? Because now you come to mention it.”
“Ex-actly,” said Sarat.
Done.
Hass: It doesn’t just play in real time.
Mel: High Harn.
Cantilip: The desecration of the earth and all that lives.
Venga: Illusion taken for reality.
Mitch: Power
Karula: The conviction love is effeminate
“OK,” said Sarat. “There’s one more thing I want you each to do for me and that’s sit on the Anile throne.” And while Mitch, Karula, Mel and Hass squawked, he smiled at Cantilip and Venga. “It’s OK, I guessed.”
At which Mitch nearly dropped his glass.
“There is no harm,” said Venga.
“It’ll love Zani’s heirs.”
Mel looked pleading.
“Could we possibly have a little detail here?”
“The Anile throne,” said Sarat, “is freaky, is very, very freaky, far freakier than previously advised.”
“Freaky,” said Mel.
“Refreshes the parts other attempts at channelling do not reach. It may blow your mind but it won’t hurt you.” I hope.
They arrived at the Jumesit Palace. The bronzes laughed at them. Sarat laughed back.
“I may be a little out of my depth here frankly,” said Karula.
“I think we may be getting used to each other,” said Sarat.
Mel sat. The throne began to hum but Mel seemed oblivious. Narulis takes Nautschka in his arms. Our first-born shall be Anile Emperor, Narulis is saying, our second my lord of Van-senok. Then Mel is clearly engaged in a dialogue or a duel. No, that is not the case. I stain my honour to save your own? You cannot win.
Hass is pale.
“He – “
“He is Zani,” said Sarat.
Mel stumbled down and walked over to the window.
“OK…” said Mitch. If he is Zani who in hell am I?
He sat. The music roared. For a moment nothing seemed to be happening and he was disappointed. Then sword in hand he is fighting for his life but the enemy has no face or form. The shadows clear and Sarat is leading him into the middle of the people-space. My lord of Var-segan! proclaims Sarat but when Mitch turns to bow in acknowledgement there is only Narulis. Just as Maya had, he says very gently, we are dead, we died centuries ago. No, says Narulis. Heela touches Mitch’s shoulder. Papa! They embrace. I have so much to tell you, oh I so wish you had lived to see it. Heela smiles. I have my grand-daughter. Baria is running towards them. Mitch picks her up in his arms, honey, honey. Daddy, oh Daddy, says Baria, then, it’s nice here, Daddy. Why didn’t you bring me to visit before?
Mitch rises, tears streaming down his face, enfolds Karula in his arms.
“Venga,” said Sarat.
“Again?”
“Again.”
Light streams from me. I am enfolded, I who am the universe. I fade. For a moment his outline blurred. My lord Kaminua! His Imperial Majesty commands. The universe cannot obey. I must find form. A wolverine appeared curled up on the throne. He is Sarat-ban-essa, Anile emperor, Master of Kadun. Behna laughed. But it is long over.
Now that was interesting, thought Sarat.
Hass a star, impeccable, but then there is the noise of battle and the pounding of hooves. Come the hadin and of course the horse. A black star falls from the sky and sears the earth, which moves. Flowers cover the scar, spread north, south, east, west, and again there is Asyrion. She turns, smiles, but the Ciletij are screaming and the fires sweep over the flowers and there is only ash and bone. Never again! said Kaminua. A young officer walks the field of desecration and is Sorg. His face turns to a skull, his flesh withers, he crumbles to dust. Asyrion who is also Fal is screaming.
“Cantilip.”
I move through the forest. I am in and of the trees. Marula appears. You are not my mother. The earth is my mother. It was a mistake, Marula said earnestly but she is Nautschka lying in Narulis’ arms. I laugh. Then must I not be Mistress of Kadun! In the beginning were the trees, says Marula. Now let there be an ending.
“Karula.”
Baria is rushing towards her across – yes, you’ve got it, a field of flowers.but suddenly she stops. I can’t go any further, Mom, it’s like there’s a tape in the way. She begins to cry. Never mind, honey, Mom has magic scissors. Karula brandishes them. Karula feels in front of her. I can’t find the tape, honey! It’s there, Mom, it’s there. Just give me your hand, honey, I’ll help you over. I can’t reach you, Mom. Death wearing a silver coronet and sitting on a silver chair is quietly laughing. Hey now, you bastard, says Karula, these are magic scissors. Suddenly Narulis is by her side. He whispers to her. That’s crazy! says Karula. She stands back from the invisible barrier, begins her approach, leaps, soars. Sarat catches her. She looks at him in horror. You’re – Sarat smiles. We’re all here. But where is here?
“Right,” said Sarat.
“Not Maya?”
“Been there, done that,” said Maya.
Mel turned.
“I think perhaps light, coffee, explanation.”
He sounds exactly like Tar, thought Sarat.
They repaired to the Eyrie and Maya related her story.
“I’m an outer and exo kind of guy,” said Sarat, mocking them, mocking his younger self, mocking the universe, “and after all I’m just a kid. I ran back to Daddy, or rather Grandaddy. Very, very fast.”
“To tear a strip,” said Maya.
Venga smiled
“Why was I not told the facts of life!”
And Sarat laughed because it was so very exact.
“Sent to reduce the number of single parents without any knowledge of biology. We’re going to have to plot, guys. Start over from scratch. Only this time we know what we’re fighting. Sort of.”
“That would seem advantageous,” murmured Mel.
I have never seen Mel so shaken, thought Sarat. Perhaps I have never seen Mel shaken.
“Sarat, dearest,” said Hass.
Sarat sighed and told them about the fault.
“Single lady,” said Maya, “seeks devoted partners to make music with.”
“I trust this is all metaphor,” said Mitch.
“I’m standing back from that one,” said Sarat.
Hass grinned.
“No line of dancing bears high-kicked across the floor of the Ciletij Senate.”
“How do we know?” demanded Sarat. “We are going to act as though it’s metaphor. How I summarize it is we have been killed by Azt because we didn’t know. We go about our daily business thinking we have achieved something but we might as well be dead for all we have really achieved.”
“And equally our – unnatural lives,” said Mitch. “In purely basic physical terms. We shall all be dead if we do not slow down.”
“Sleep deprivation as a path to altered states of consciousness,” said Karula. “Where did I read that?”
“True enough,” said Mel, “the protective layer most people have wears thin.”
“The field of flowers,” said Hass, “are they the endless dead?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sarat. “I think they’re the love, the children of the earth and her partner.”
But Karula said: “It is a standard image among the ordinary people. When they ‘cross over’, those waiting for them on ‘the other side’ run towards them through flowers.”
“I suppose in Van-senok it’s a wood in spring time,” laughed Mitch.
“Actually,” said Cantilip, “it is.”
“Sorry,” said Mitch.
Mel said: “With us it’s a coming out of darkness into Light, capital L.”
“That does not say much,” said Mitch after a moment, “for living on this earth.”
“All is illusion,” said Venga. “My lords, my ladies, let us not go the way of the Anile court.”
Sarat looked at him sharply.
“Why they thought that,” said Mel.
“They got too close to death,” said Sarat. “It seemed to them death is better than life.”
“Different,” said Venga, “just different.”
Maya looked taut.
“Is that what we have to do? Eyeball death.”
“Do we ever do anything else?” asked Sarat.
Karula gave a little squeal.
“Do you realize what we have just said?”
“So many appalling things – “ began Sarat.
“No, no. Surely Mel, as an anthropologist, must appreciate…”
It clicked.
“Beliefs concerning the hereafter,” said Mel, “are a pretty surefire guide to the dominant belief-systems in a society.”
“And the dominant belief-system in this society – “
“Is earthpower.”
“In Var-segan, anyway.”
“In Van-senok.”
“In Carlin! Can you really see the rabbiters not - ?”
Sarat began to laugh.
“Thousands, millions of hours talking to ordinary folks. My lords, my ladies, we are lax, remiss. We never thought of asking them what they think happens when they die.”
“However simple, however sophisticated, however down to earth, however numinous, it’s always you, you the – “ Mel stopped suddenly. “I was going to say, you, the corpse, who shapes the trip.”
“But that is not at all what we are talking about,” protested Mitch. “We are talking about the beliefs of the living as to what will happen.”
“NDEs.”
“The whole point of NDEs is they are not dying.”
“We have no idea what being dead is like,” said Maya. “Cho was really quite sharp.”
“We know there is a continuum.”
“Shaped by us.”
“I don’t think,” said Hass, “this is particularly getting us anywhere. Exactly what is happening when we sit?”
“Cho said it was a conduit. I think we’re finding stuff we already know but don’t know that we know and we’re very bad at understanding what we’re telling ourselves.”
“We’re shaping the trip.”
“Certainly. And a pretty restricted trip it is too, confined solely to a rather limited social circle.”
“It would seem to me,” said Mitch “the universe should return to school for it surely has a problem with making itself plain to folks.”
“Why are we all obsessed with Asyrion!”
“I’m not,” said Mitch virtuously.
“You didn’t – “
“We never told him,” said Hass.
“This is not my first – interlude with the chair,” said Sarat. “Somehow there was so much else going on.”
Mitch listened.
At length, he said: “If there is a problem with Asyrion, clearly the solution is to ask her.”
“Common sense is a terrible thing.”
But Karula cried out: “Then how can you say you have no idea about dying!”
“Oh. No,” said Sarat.
“I suppose,” said Mel.
“Our understanding,” said Hass.
“Do we have one?” asked Sarat. “How we understood that particular excitement was as a worm-hole in time. It’s not that they were dead and gee, here they are large as life chatting away to us. They had – had stopped their time and we were able to go there.”
“Is that better?” growled Mitch.
“Normal!” said Maya. “Darling, you only have to spend a night in the Palace to understand the walls of time can be very thin indeed.”
“Especially,” said Sarat, ”anywhere near the throne? I am really not sure I totally suss that particular home furnishing.”
“We are decided?” asked Hass. “Sorg is Fal’s projection?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarat. “I simply don’t know.”
“In a sense and heretofore,” murmured Mel, “if you have continued, you are by definition not dead.”
“That,” said Mitch, “would appear to depend on what you mean by ‘dead’.”
“Which sounds like a student argument about semantics!”
“I think, two things,” said Sarat. “One is what everyone in the world including us means by dead, corpse, funeral, something we do not want to be. The other – we don’t know what being dead is like, we can’t know, because that by definition is what dead is, loss of self-awareness. Some think it happens when the doc pronounces brain-death. Some think – other things. But that’s what it is.”
“Kaminua was a tree-hugger, wasn’t he,” said Maya, “and Asyrion was earthpower.”
“Deep,” said Mel approvingly, “while the rest of us prattle about unknowables, Maya thinks.” I prattle on, he thought, evading….He looked at Cantilip. “I think perhaps we might clarify.” He gave a small smile. “Two near-misses.”
Cantilip sighed.
“Nautschka was the second child of the Master of Van-senok. Her elder sister, the heir, was killed in the – the battle for Kadun. Nautschka was already pregnant by Narulis.”
“Then Sarat is Master of Van-senok!”
“It’s more complicated than that. There are always three lines, d’you see. The female, the male and the first-born.” Has anyone got – “ She held up her summation of the matter of Kadun. “ – a decent-sized piece of paper?”
“You’re not the eldest?” asked Sarat.
“Now he’s getting it!”
“Shavli was Anile heir.”
“Except of course not because you four are dependent on the x million preceding generations,” pointed out Mitch.
My head is swimming, thought Mel. I never knew what it meant before.
“So each of us, each title, has three holders. At some level.”
Amidst all this talk of dying, thought Karula, could it not be construed as symbolic that (if anything happens to us and of course it will not) Shavli a woman will succeed Sarat and Hass a gay man Mel. I think I shall not say that because I have no idea what I am talking about. But then by the looks of them nor do they.
“Narulis did first-born, gender irrelevant,” said Cantilip. “Nautschka bore him a son, the Anile heir. It wasn’t an issue. Nautschka then had a daughter, who became my future lady of Van-senok. We continued down the female line.”
So the successors of Narulis’ eldest daughter, if you’re doing things by the female line.
“Who’s the third?” asked Sarat.
“We honestly don’t know,” said Venga.
Honestly, thought Mitch, a word injected into speech to indicate one is lying. He tutted at himself.
“Oh come on,” he said, with some asperity. “For us in Var-segan it has not been a question that the line that returned to Fidub – “
“Surely it must be clearly signposted,” insisted Karula. “The first Anile empress in her own right. Who had a younger brother. That must be when the divergence.”
“But we are not talking yesterday,” allowed Mitch. “Once the divergence took place, there would be no genealogists lovingly documenting it. Only – “ the words screamed in his brain. “ – adepts of the male line.”
“Krarlik?” suggested Sarat.
“Probably,” said Venga.
“Exactly what,” said Sarat, and people had the sense he was choosing his words with extreme care (if they didn’t have that at the start they sure had it when he’d finished), “have certain elements in Kadun expected of me?”
“We think you’re doing brilliantly so far,” said Cantilip.
“We, my sweet lady of the trees, we?” Not Sarat but Mitch.
Karula gave up keeping her face straight.
“Unswerving in your loyalty to the Anile throne, honey?”
“You sat on it,” said Mitch, “knowing you were Mistress of Kadun in the female line. But he?”
Venga shrugged. I am the universe.
“Why has Van-senok never - ?” began Karula, then realized the complete impossibility.
Cantilip smiled. Cantilip became a slim dryad, tendrils of vine in her hair, clad in leaves and not many of those.
Thus we storm the Great Gates!
“So?” asked Sarat.
“We understood only we had to make it happen.”
“So you - ?”
Venga smiled.
“Made advances?”
I think I have pressing business elsewhere, thought Mitch.
But Cantilip just laughed.
“The abandoning of Van-senok to be Queen of Dabida was not expected of me.” She looked calmly at Mitch. “Or I am a power-crazed hag. If not Mistress of Kadun then Queen of Dabida, a runner-up prize?”
He looked calmly back.
“I do not believe that, honey. But I do not understand.”
Mel took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“My lady is my completion and my resolution, my other half and my culmination.” Then he grinned. “Metaphorically speaking.”
“Yes,” said Cantilip, “Neither of us had ever met anything like them. Head-over, darling, absolutely head-over.”
It came to Karula: sometimes they talk as though they’re separate species. “I do not think,” she said, “at the most fundamental level anyone has ever explained to me the difference between earthpower and – “ She clapped her hand over her mouth and whistled.
“We, humans,” said Mel, “are finite and infinite. You can’t have a one-sided piece of paper. The separation is illusion. Earthpower is the approach from one side. We are the other. Each contains the other.”
“Together,” said Mitch drily, “you represent ultimate reality.”
“The interface,” said Mel. “Where one side of the paper joins the other.”
“Of course one knew that theoretically,” said Cantilip briskly.
Karula spluttered.
“Then it – then neither is the end of the trip.”
“It’s the beginning of the trip,” admitted Mel. “It is advised not to go further.”
“But you do!”
“That’s quite different,” said Mel.
“Physical,” said Hass helpfully.
“Cuddles,” said Venga.
“We have to be human,” said Mel. “To know we are love. Anyone who doesn’t at some level acknowledge that is intolerable to himself and all around him. “
“Most of the messes people get into are because they think they can extinguish human,” said Hass. “Go around intoning, ‘I do not need’. Fine. Starve to death.”
“’Nothing matters.’ Watch other people starve to death. We seem to have somewhat digressed.”
“They do not understand which part of them is saying these things…What were we talking about!”
“What fills our days. Does it matter? How and to whom does it matter?”
“In other words,” said Mitch, “what the hell are we doing here?”
“Literally,” said Sarat. “OK, there’s a fault in the earth. Why is that down to little us to resolve?” He stopped, not sure what he meant, then continued. “Because it’s all one continuum. What Hass said. There is no here without there and no there without here. No socio-political change without disposing of the Cult and no disposing of the Cult without socio-political change.”
“School,” said Mel. “I think a little word with the ‘Time-lords of Endor’.
Mel walked with Fugitry in the gardens.
“In simple words,” he demanded, “why did PANTHER not put Zani on the throne. No nonsense about direct succession.”
Fugitry turned to him and bowed.
“Imperial Majesty! Deal with it, Mel.”
What did I once say? thought Mel I expect to be heeded as much as any other leader of the pack? He took a deep breath.
“Right now, like any other - world-leader – me, little me, truly? – my time is short. I do not expect to be messed about. But that is the opposite.”
Fugitry nodded.
“Your people,” he began, and Mel stiffened, knowing he meant irtubi, “are united in one reflection.”
Mel sighed.
“We listen. All night if need be. We appear to have limitless time. Now time has boomeranged?”
“Why,” asked Fugitry, “is time running out?”
Mel is in a field with flowers. Skip the flowers, said Mel irritably. Fugitry laughed. The rest of our lives stretch before us and when you are 17 that is for ever. At 50 strikes mid-life crisis, time foreshortened. I am 25! shouted Mel. 25 and the world is (mostly) at my feet. Am I not Master of Kadun! And also Sarat. It is I/we who rule the world. Our part of it at least. What is this garbage?
He looked up.
“Tar is soon to die?”
Fugitry looked approving.
“Not bad. But total nonsense. Let go, Mel.”
“What of! Time…”
Every historic building in Azt except the Jumesit Palace had been opened to the public and this, it was widely understood, was simply because Sarat intended to live there.
The Star tumbled to his feet. Imperial Master!
Go in peace, sweetheart, said Sarat.
“Problematic,” said Maya, “I think that’s the word. How can we possibly live here?”
“If I’m right,” said Sarat, “it will change. If I’m wrong, they’re building luxury flats over in Tirin.”
“If we are very wrong,” said Maya. “Sarat – does it occur to you we can burn out our little brains on this one?”
“Not if we let go,” said Sarat.
And Maya too said: “What of!”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Sarat.
“Kadun?” asked Maya. “Life?”
“Oh no,” said Sarat.
Something in his voice told her been there done that.
Then he gathered PANTHER and told them everything but most of all what he wanted from them which every reference they could lay their hands on to the Jumesit Palace and its site, the history, archaeology and geology thereof.
“Blame them,” said Sarat, gesturing toward B and P. “They taught me to take my responsibilities seriously.”
“Including,” sighed Faun, “every veiled allusion to the heart of evil, etc.”
“Rooted evil,” said Sarat.
“Deep in the festering heart of Azt,” said Baz. “Only journos write like that.”
“Do they really.”
The landscape gardeners began work and the builders moved in. PANTHER prowled to contain the unexpected. The builders had no eyes to see but they could feel.
“Strange old place, this.”
“How so?” asked Jaizi.
“Spooky.”
“Wouldn’t like to be here after dark, I’m telling you!” said another.
“Old,” said Jaizi cheerfully. “Everyone sometimes gets the feeling old places – have their past with them.”
“These walls have seen a few things, all right!”
“You’d think a modern lad…”
“Wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have no sense of history!”
But they decided that on the whole there were three rooms, right at the back, almost like an outhouse, they didn’t want no part of.
“Like someone’s walked over your grave!”
“Nah. Like you’re walking over someone’s grave.”
Oh dear, thought Faun. He padded off to explore. The reek of death hit him. Are we really going to have to dig? What is left after 600 years?
“No,” said Sarat, “we’re going to exorcise.”
Faun said: “Letting go of Kadun: the metaphor. What is Kadun?”
“Mine,” said Sarat instantly, then, “Me. Indissolubly linked.”
“The man made the running,” said Faun. “The woman fell into his arms.”
“Was she shy?” asked Sarat.
“Terrified,” said Faun.
“By the way,” said Sarat, “find me everything Narulis wrote about metaphysics.”
“You know already,” said Faun.
“None of it, I think, exactly as transmitted from generation unto generation.”
Mitch surveyed the finished product.
“One well sees that only court dress is appropriate to such an environment.. Does that not act as a deterrent to the ragged of Azt?”
Sarat said: “Perhaps the only point of gleaming robes is to get them filthy.”
The silver palace was apparently opened to the public. Oh man, it’s beautiful. Then puzzlement. Where are Sarat’s private apartments? Does he live here or not? I guess he has to have somewhere for State occasions. This is no nine-day wonder we have here.
He has created a jewel in the heart of Azt, wrote Seani rather feverishly. Recreated? Seani began to research the history of the Jumesit Palace.
“What is he doing?” asked the Cile
“Frankly, sir,” said Bris, “I haven’t a clue. I only know it’s the other stuff.”
“Perhaps,” said the Cile, “Ciletij should examine a higher plane of consciousness.”
Bris wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“They keep it so low-key it’s invisible. Except somehow you know it is all that matters.”
Sarat lit the eternal flame.
“OK, guys, this is the shrine.”
He understands. What does he understand? The point of all this was at least in part bait, but still hidden Azt did not reveal itself.
“This is not Zanocki Park – “ where Azt had decided public debate was held. “This is a place for people to be quiet if they want, a peaceful place. It’s also where I live, at least part of the time, so you will be sure to keep the noise down, won’t you, kids.”
Then, just as the elders were beginning to turn away, their very shoulders murmuring relentlessly casual even on an occasion such as this, Sarat continued, a lasso holding them in place.
“There is the love way or the power way. There is reciprocity, harmony, union. All are One. Some do not know it. Thus it is said, each is both One and the Other and each makes his or her choice. There is harmony with one’s fellow-humans or there is distance, separation, hierarchy, retreat from fellowship when only Might is Right. There is harmony with all that lives. There is harmony with the earth herself, for the final union is that between the earth and all that lives, indissolubly bonded. This Narulis understood. This I know.”
He turned and stepped down. The silence was absolute. Was it something I said? thought Sarat.
He turned, no, not to Maya, but to Cantilip.
“My lady of Van-senok, may I lead?”
“My lord, there is only the dance.”
He led her out into the middle of the people-space.
I don’t know this dance, he thought, but that doesn’t matter. I am being danced. It is dancing me. Cantilip twirled and span, ever faster. I am the trees, thought Cantilip, and he is the wind. The wind stopped abruptly and raised her hand to his lips.
“The time is now,” said Sarat. I think I can hear horns.
Something of a platitude, thought those still retaining control of their brains, which weren’t many.
Then he knew what he was hearing and threw Cantilip to the ground as PANTHER shouted, “GET DOWN! Everyone flat!”
The blast hit the centre of the dais. For one terrible moment Sarat thought, Azt killed them, all of them gone, but a ring of light contained it and there is Mel, ring-master. Sun-ka-sun. I shine. But perhaps he is dead. How else does Mel look in death? Sarat ran forward Halfway to the dais he realized Mel wasn’t the least bit dead but couldn’t work out what the hell he was doing. Venga realized and his pleasant baritone echoed through the hall. Come, hadin, come, come not alone, come hadin, come. Is that wholly appropriate, thought Mitch, then realized it was an invocation.
Maya walked slowly forward.
“No!” said Sarat.
She ducked and the bullet whizzed harmlessly past and into a priceless painting.
“Give me the gun. That is an order, Colonel.”
She held out her hand.
He made to turn the gun on himself, but found he couldn’t.
PANTHER led him away.
“Eh,” said Mel, “someone should give that lass a medal.”
“Looks like I got a reaction,” said Sarat.
Sarat turned to making sure no-one was hurt (no-one was or not badly). It’s as though everyone is talking in whispers, thought Mel.
Slowly the tree began to grow. This may be too much like hard work, thought Venga.
Dabida wasn’t sure what had happened, only that Mel had escaped death by seconds.
COME HOME, MEL! demanded the front-page of the Zur Gazette. Must Mel Die for Kadun? asked The Times.
Mel looked stunned. No. It’s – leave, how can I leave?
“Time just ran out?” asked Sarat.
“I’ll follow on,” said Cantilip. “I think just at this minute they want all of you.”
Mel flew immediately to Zur. Nobody’s going to die – it really wasn’t a very big bomb – look, not a scratch on me
Their answer was pictures of Maya walking towards a loaded gun. Tar and Saski were in Vasucula for the Round-the-Islands Races. In place of parents, thought Vanya. Me? Or I want a constitutional crisis.
Vanya inspected him.
“Quite mad, of course. Nonetheless we love you. Mel, this has to end.”
“That is Sarat’s view.”
“At what cost!”
“I don’t know.”
“Zur has sweated. Quite apart from – I swear your mother is a size smaller.”
“I know,” said Mel.
“Sarat has to do it – perhaps in a sense Sarat had to do it. Now he has to do it. You do not.”
“But I do.”
“How so?”
Vanya listened to a truncated story.
“You will explain that to Dabida?”
“No,” said Mel. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
And he thought like Marula: Now let there be an ending.
“Or you are my lord of Van-senok and the emperor’s cousin.”
Mel frowned.
“That sounds like an ultimatum.”
“Oh, my dear boy, no.”
“What then?”
“I shall not offer fatherly advice. For that you have a father.”
“The real problem,” said Mel, “is Hass was there too.”
“No, Mel, that is not the real problem. The real problem is Zur loves you.”
Mel managed a small smile.
“I can’t think why. I’m treating her very badly. For – for 98% of my young life, it was inconceivable I visit Azt, let alone live there. Everything has shattered, do you see, good, bad, indifferent. Everything. For 98% of my life, Zur was my life. “ Then I realized I was Master of Kadun. “Everything must be remade.” Time. Time stretched out before him like an endless field of flowers. But that is only because I am dead. We are finite, damn it! Infinite and finite. Mitch’s voice echoed in his mind. I have no problem with the notion I am finite. Here and there, alive and dead, Azt and Zur, Zur and Van-senok, why is nothing whole? The image returned. Hand in hand, the eight of us are walking into the Light, capital L. “Meanwhile I need a vacation!”
“To that at least I give unqualified assent.”
Vanya rang Tar.
“You must abdicate!”
“I must? To keep him here?”
“To keep his feet on the ground. Or find him some project equally engrossing.”
“What,” asked Tar, “is bigger than the universe?”
“Let no-one deny hands-on experience.”

ANTHER -> Site news -> Sarat: The Matter of Kadun (inner and eso): life, death, eternity and Gaia (2)
by Ysabel Howard - Wednesday, 8 February 2012, 10:10 PM

 
Tar and Saski arrived back and were frankly relieved to find Mel and Cantilip lounging in The Room looking healthy and normal, a relief which lasted about five seconds.
“There is this recurrent image,” said Mel. “The eight of us are walking hand in hand into the Light.” But then he said: “It’s like a flashback.” He paused. “The thing is, none of us can any longer keep a lid on what we are.”
“Then you must return to the Denzines and learn,” said Tar briskly.
Sure, Dad, sure.
“Even Hass?” asked Tar.
Mel didn’t answer directly.
“What I understand is that everything I have been taught since I first managed to stammer why? was directed at keeping my feet on the ground. Nothing is whole!”
“Everything is whole.”
“The healing lies in the balance? Papa – “ which Mel hadn’t called him since he was about ten. “ – how is it possible to be both alive and dead?”
“Darling,” said Saski, “you do not appear to be doing badly so far.”
“Do you understand that – that in earthpower I am Master of Kadun or more exactly - ?”
“Of course, darling,” said Saski.
He’s going to say it, thought Tar. He said it.
“What does it all mean?”
“I want my sons home,” said Tar.
Mel realized it was an order.
“Shall Essa order his son home!”
“Where,” said Tar softly, “is home?”
But Cantilip said: “You leave with Sarat Maya, Karula.”
“And Mitch of course,” said Mel.
She didn’t seem to think Mitch mattered.
And Fal, thought Mel. Is that it, only women can heal Kadun? Then death returned and said: Then Shavli must rule Kadun.
“No!” said Mel, then realized he had spoken aloud.
Tar looked alert. Mel explained.
“You become obsessed with death,” said Tar.
And Mel said: “That is the matter of Kadun?”
Cantilip cried out: “Don’t you see! No-one foresees our deaths because we’re dead already. It IS a flashback. Maya was right, we’re dead and we don’t even know it.”
“This is madness,” said Tar.
“That,” said Mel grimly, “is why we’re going to sane it.” No-one laughed. He turned to Cantilip. “We’re packing.”
“You return to Azt?” Tar kept his voice level.
“Great heavens, no! We are going to Fidub.”
“Wring his neck for me,” said Tar.
“We’re putting our own gloss on it,” said Mel. “We understand that. Or we are putting Azt’s gloss. Refracting it through what we think we know. What are we seeing?”
“It was illusion,” said Cantilip. “Karula and I weren’t there.”
“Unless of course,” snapped Mel, “you were dead.”
As the door closed behind them, Saski lay back in an attitude of complete collapse.
“Appalled beyond belief,” said Tar. He held her, then stood back and laughed. “Get packing. We, my lady, are going to Azt.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” said Cantilip. “Total loony.”
“True-untrue,” said Mel. “Not true-true.”
“Catharsis,” said Cantilip.
There’s a heli-pad on the roof, drop you in Cho’s back garden in an hour.
But Por reported that they hadn’t left.
“They’re just sitting up there, talking.”
“Stop calling it death,” said Mel. “The part that’s there not here, the part we can no longer keep down. Death is a gloss and a corruption. We’re not seeing it as it is.”
“Because it’s been kept down, it – it isn’t properly integrated, That’s why it’s so erratic.”
“No balance.”
“Yes,” said Cantilip. “No. Mel, we’re doing this to ourselves.”
“We know that.”
“Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
He rested his head on her shoulder.
“I guess because we’re scared shitless.”
“We’ve brainwashed ourselves. There is no choice. No choice but to wander round Azt bare-headed, no choice but to behave as though Azt had been at peace for a thousand years. Do you not think the rational part of our minds rebels?”
“Thinks we’re suicidal,” said Mel.
“Think of a prey-animal, Mel. A rabbit. If rabbits had human consciousness how long d’you think they’d last before going psycho?”
“Simply as a result of existing,” said Mel.
“We’re not built for it.”
“Except we are,” said Mel.
“The ‘there’ part to which – to whom?”
“Nit-picker!” said Mel.
“To what the fear is meaningless, says, hey, man, it’s cool, what’s the hassle.”
“You’re dead already,” said Mel.
“What is the one thing our – hah! – uncensored selves have not experienced?”
“Total terror,” said Mel.
“Of losing you,” said Cantilip.
“Of losing you,” said Mel.
“Because,” said Cantilip.
“Because,” said Mel.
“It’s not terror at one’s own demise,” said Cantilip.
“It’s absolute powerlessness to prevent,” said Mel.
“Anything happening to any of us,” said Cantilip.
“Love is destroying us,” said Mel.
“Nobody told us,” said Cantilip.
“What could they have said?”
“Imposed detachment!”
Mel gave a little start, then turned and kissed her gently on the cheek.
“We have been so stupid. What is not whole?”
“What is forced apart. Oh Mel.”
“Love, they told us, love with all your heart and soul, become one.”
“It only works,” she said.
“When nobody wants to kill your beloved!”
“Grubby little rational minds. We understand the risk. We accept it.”
They looked at each other in horror.
“Letting go.”
“Of each other.”
He took her hand and began slowly to recite.
“I who am One, who am One with the One, and You who are all, Protector and Preserver, Creator and Destroyer, in whom all are One, give peace to this house and all within.”
It began to rain, but they didn’t mind. Finally two wet little rabbits descended and found Tar and Saski gone,.
We want to talk to a grown-up.
“It’s the opposite of everything we’ve been taught!” shouted Mel. Am I shouting? “Sorry.”
“No,” said Por. He ploughed on. “Cantilip leaves you? Is she not free? You let go.”
“That’s different. She has choice.”
“Here – the here part of you – accepts totally she is – discrete.”
“But there we are One – “
“What is time?” asked Cantilip. “It doesn’t matter. We shall meet again and then it will be for ever.”
“That is faith,” said Mel. “Must we cross in real time to know!”
“You do not trust?”
“What?”
“Love.”
We are dead and do not know it. It is as simple or as sophisticated.
“What Fal is doing is projecting – realizing, real-izing, making real.”
“Must we suffer the terror and the loss?” asked Cantilip.
“For what?”
“To be free.”
“It seems to me,” said Por, “your little minds are doing a pretty good job so far. Feel it.”
Cantilip lolled across the Plaza, half her head blown away. Mel’s mind shut down. “Feel it.”
Mel walked slowly through a hostile, jeering crowd. They’ll kill him, said someone helpfully. Cantilip retched. “Feel it.” Mel stared at him blindly. “Feel it.” Cantilip sprinkled earth on Mel’s grave then screamed No!. Mel alone in bed turns, reaches for empty space. Desolation overwhelms him.
“Poor little rabbits,” said Mel. “Such complicated minds.”
“Or,” said remorseless Por.
“I am walking behind your coffin,” said Mel steadily. “But the sun is in my hair and I am laughing. It doesn’t matter. What is in the coffin is not you. It has nothing to do with you, with us. Because you are beside me, clutching my hand. So why am I crying?”
“Do we have to make up our minds!” shouted Cantilip.
“No,” said Mel. Immediately it flashed into his mind: time is foreshortened. Oh shut up! he said to his mind. “We’re dragging ourselves under, aren’t we. How do we get out?”
“Only by turning our backs on the whole thing.”
“Not.”
He wrote at length to Sarat.
How can I be this stupid? thought Sarat. There’s one thing we didn’t do. How can I be this thick? We didn’t sit on it together!
Once more he approached the throne, his mood much OK buster, now you get your come-uppance. He sat firmly and with what the tabloids would have called a very male gesture of possession sat Maya on his lap. She snuggled against his chest and put her arms around his neck.
Well? asked Sarat. They surrendered their minds to each other, melded.
Er, yes, well.
I/we look around. Where are we? In the dream, if it is a dream, there is the distant sound of hammering. We follow it, taut, aware of being defenceless in a dream, if that makes sense. We seem to be in a tunnel. Under the earth? Under the Palace? The fault. We do not find these terribly comforting thoughts. Our feet are getting wet. A trickle of water from behind has reached us. The trickle becomes a steady flow. This is a very uncomforting thought indeed. Shall we outrun it? Did we not proclaim we wished to cleanse the sewers of Azt! Er, yes. Not with us in them. At least we know where we are. Must there not be a moment of unspeakable terror? Feel it. I have led you to your death! That is clearly not an ‘us’ thought. At least we’ll go together. But the water levels out at waist-height. We’d better swim! This is clearly the maddest trip yet. We begin to strike out for land. The beaches of Fidub appear before us but recede with each stroke. The fault.
We’re so convinced we are shaping the trip we don’t try to shape it. But then what’s the point. Think, think, think ourselves onto the beach. Here we are, vigorously towelling our backs as the sun beats down and the earth cracks beneath us. We cling to the edge of the fault. Steps appear, worn by many weary climbers. We begin our descent to the centre of the earth.
For a moment they clung to each other taut.
“Why,” demanded Maya, “did it stop when it was just getting interesting?”
Sarat’s mobile rang.
“Oh,” he said. “Another kind of disturbance in the ether.”
Tar and Saski surveyed the plotters.
“You are all mad or only Mel and Cantilip?”
“Darlings,” said Saski, “you didn’t finish growing-up. Now you must grow up on the job. It is hard.”
“Oh, is that what happened?” said Sarat.
“You don’t look too bad,” allowed Tar.
“Smile for the camera,” said Sarat. “It’s probable I went mad when I was 17. I may just be getting over it."
“Cho,” said Tar, “if you took a break.”
Sarat smiled wanly.
“D’you think he could cope?”
“What has Mel said?” asked Hass.
“I have said I wish my sons home. Perhaps all five of them for a short while.”
“I thank you,” said Sarat.
“You are not here,” said Tar.
“Something else has happened,” said Sarat.
“We are feeling just a little fragile,” said Maya.
Tar caught up with the missing episodes. He put his head in his hands.
“Mel and Cantilip must sit.”
“We’d got there,” said Sarat.
Mel had got hold of a graphics program. He sat back from the monitor.
“There! I thought I’d externalize it.”
Cantilip looked at the eight of them walking hand in hand into the Light and began to cry.
“I did that,” admitted Mel. “Then I thought – supposing – “
He opened another image.
“Oh Mel!” She laughed and cried at the same time.
“First I put silver blur round each of us, which I found rather cheering. No change of state. Then of course the blur all joined up and the blur is what joins us. So in the end I had the beginning of a solid block of silver blur and then I thought paint out the people, because the people are the blur. But in the middle of the people.”
In the middle of a shimmering radiant block of silver were eight tiny rabbits.
“What is it that our little brains are screaming at us that we cannot begin to accept because it’s so sick, so crazy?”
“There is no difference between life and death. But we know that or we shouldn’t be as we are.”
“Poor little rabbits. Then I thought something else. I thought we’re going through the Light.”
“That’s a bit scary,” said Cantilip. “But it’s still a flashback.”
“How do I know what time does? Does it ask me? Except maybe it’s something we’ve done. We are at the interface.”
She looked around Mel’s old bedroom and began to giggle.
“Cosmic, man!”
“I know, I know! But mentally we’ve taken ourselves over the top and that’s what we don’t know.”
“Because it’s we who are calling the shots. Our little brains are squealing that there’s something we need to let hang out here…”
“Life is death. It only sounds so repulsive because time programmes us to see it linearly.”
“When my grandfather died, I knew he just wasn’t there. He was somewhere, but not there. A dead person is sort of conclusive.”
Mel thought of his dead.
“Yes.” Then, “It’s what Mitch said. But not linear. Every moment in life is the opportunity to come out of the dark into Light.” But then he frowned. “I can’t believe the Anile court didn’t know that.”
“Anile Throne Excursions,” said Cantilip. “Suppose – there’s the Interface, capital I. What all the trips are about is interfaces. No barriers. What is being screamed at us is everything is whole.”
He was summoned to the telephone.
“Make up your mind!” he said with some acerbity.
“Your mood has not improved?”
“Somewhere,” said Mel, “I’m a happy bunny. I just haven’t got there yet.”
Cantilip began to bunny-hop around him. He smothered a laugh and agreed to return to Azt. Then he began to bunny-hop too. They were in love and under a lot of strain.
Mel scowled at the throne.
“It’s not very big. Suppose I sit on the back and Cantilip sits on the seat.”
Tar looked at him. He sat on the seat. Cantilip sat on his lap and leant back against him.
Oh-oh-oh!
We are in total darkness then sunlight streams in through a gap ahead. We seem to be rabbits. Yes, but we’re magic rabbits. Hippity-hop out into the open but the glare of the sun apparently is so strong that we see no grass, no lettuce but only light. We go crazed, begin to bite and scratch at ourselves. We stop as suddenly as we started, look at each other in shock. We don’t know what to do. A fox is coming towards us. Remember we’re magic rabbits. We jump forward, over the fox’s head, soar. It seems we shall never land. Flying rabbits frightened of falling. But the air – light – air thickens beneath us and we are human again, Mel and Cantilip standing on air. The light stretches all around us. We jump, land in (sigh) a field of flowers, stumble to our feet, laugh, run hand in hand through the flowers. Asyrion and Kaminua are running to meet us. They’re trying to tell us something, but we can’t hear. We meet, fuse. Now I Mel who am also Kaminua call the hadin home to Azt, but they stop, rear, refuse to go further. There is something scary about Azt. I Cantilip who was also Asyrion and am also Kaminua and Mel stand in the centre of the people-space and the Palace crumbles around me, tendrils shoot around the pillars as the earth takes over. But the earth herself is crumbling beneath our feet and we again are falling into the light.
And Cantilip-talal-za-fenan, who has been also Asyrion, ran from the throne whispering, “No, no, it’s impossible!”
Mel rose shakily.
“I think. Not. I don’t think. Thinking is a very bad thing to do in this situation.”
He and Cantilip held each other as though they’d never let go.
Mel turned finally.
“We’ve all been pushed over the edge.” Nobody, least of all he, was sure which edge.
“That bloody field with flowers,” said Hass, who never swore.
“Mel,” said Saski.
He hugged her. Time lurched and he was six, where does it hurt, darling, let Mummy kiss it better. And you can damned well behave yourself too, he said to time. Time crept obediently back into its corner.
“There would appear,” he said, “in some kind of way, to be a sense in which, although perhaps the choice of words isn’t terribly good, the throne is alive.”
Of course, of course, of course, of course. Sarat ran to the chair and sat.
“I am Anile emperor, Master of Kadun, Doom of Death. I command – myself.”
The throne yodelled, as one of those present was later to put it. No-one was in a particularly good mood.
That’s all you did the first time, thought Sarat. Time upsets you, doesn’t it. Sorry, no. we did not understand. It’s being so near the fault, the wound, but it’s all right. You’ve got me now. I’m your partner. You can tell me everything. (Keep searching now, searching for the mind, intelligence, liveness.) What is this, bigamy? Let me just keep busking it, keep my little mind babbling away and not dragged off to cloud-cuckoo land. Until something happens. If something happens. Something will happen. You’re desperate for us to understand. I can see that. You must think we deserve prizes for stupidity, We’re only human. Still, let me try and stretch my little mind. After all I am Fidubi. Singing Isles, right. (Just keep feeling. It won’t have any shape or form known to me. It can’t have. It? Sorry! She.) And what keeps them singing, the union, the partnership. Singing Isles sounds better than Orgasmic Isles! How about we take you to Fidub! Would that be better, calm you down a bit? So we can do this the long way or the short way, right. Healing, I mean. If life in Azt is in partnership, doesn’t that heal the wound? He yawned suddenly. You know, I’m pretty tired. I really need that break. Maybe I should just take a nap. Molecules, we’re all just molecules, you and me. It seemed to him (oh come on, that’s crazy!) that the chair was less hard beneath him. All is One, isn’t it. So how about we just shape ourselves to each other. Cuddles. Everything in the universe needs love. The chair was definitely softer. Oh how can I be this thick. Look I don’t begin to remember how to do this, the theory, never mind the practice. Can you help me?
And
A panther snoozed in the middle of a decidedly curvaceous but much enlarged throne. Its – its? His thought was lost to the on-lookers. I think I’ve stopped breathing, thought Mel. Where is he?
It seemed to him that Sarat answered sleepily: You know.
The interface?
Silence.
No-one moved.
Maya looked helplessly at Tar.
No, he said.
I must. Must or I shall never in a thousand lifetimes forgive you, must or I shall die, an over-riding, compelling, irresistible, unified must.
He showed her how to do it.
A panther stalked up to the chair, jumped onto the seat and began to lick the ears of her sleeping partner. He rolled over.
At least he’s alive. How is he alive?
Maya-panther curled up beside him. I – no, that is what I don’t do.
Sarat-panther began to show unmistakable signs of wanting to make love to or have sex with as panthers put it Maya-panther.
“Perhaps we should leave them to it,” said Mel.
Undoubtedly alive.
He’s responding to our thoughts? The only way he can?
Pantherish croons emanated from the throne.
This is really rather embarrassing, thought Karula. Of course I’m hysterical!
Something has to make him jump down, thought Venga.
He laughed suddenly
And became
A mouse.
Venga-mouse scurried up to the chair and squeaked vociferously. Hey, big boy, notice me!
“Not hungry, I guess,” murmured Mitch. Or not worth the effort. “Wouldn’t a gazelle - ?”
Oh.
“The period of gestation appears somewhat foreshortened,” murmured Mitch.
It seemed that the room was filling with panther-cubs. Venga returned rapidly to human form.
The illusion to end all illusions, he thought.
He strode towards a cub and scooped it up in his arms.
An unmistakable growl came from the throne.
Venga felt hurt. Hey, Sarat, it’s me, your best buddy, as if I could harm –
He doesn’t know who we are.
Idiot me!
“Chase the cubs away!” he ordered. “Shoo, kitty, come on, out of here!”
They began to understand.
Sarat and Maya bounded down.
And stood stock still.
Returned to human shape.
Fainted.
Strong arms cradled them. Venga felt for Sarat’s mind, Cantilip for Maya’s.
Sarat…
Who is Sarat?
You are!
It’s…, said Maya.
Slowly she came back.
Sarat’s memories returned, past, present and future.
My time is now! But his mind continued to protest. All times are now.
I am – everywhere. But Sarat. All places Sarat has been, there am I.
“I think,” said Tar, “this is perhaps not the best place. Let’s get them out of here.”
Walk? Fly, prowl, crawl, creep, hop. Walk!
I am the rivers and the seas. I flow.
I am the earth and the sky.
“Get him outside,” snapped Venga. “On the grass.”
“Genius,” murmured Hass, but Baz looked at him thoughtfully.
Venga, my son, exactly what do you know about this particular trip?
Venga smiled: I didn’t go all the way.
I am the planets and the stars.
I am the universe.
Not.
All universes.
Not.
Sarat felt for the wet grass around him.
Where am I!
What am I?
Sarat?
It’s what I have to do, Dad.
Slowly his head was clearing. Slowly.
“Sarat, my dear,” asked Saski, “do you know me?”
Sort of.
“You know me,” said Maya firmly.
There…
“Could I ever leave you!”
Sarat touched the grass again.
Not-I.
Affirm separation! commanded Venga.
You not-I.
Sarat blinked.
Me.
He ran his fingers down his forearm, the border of his self.
He blinked again.
No words.
“You have to speak,” said Venga.
I – I – “I – “
“Yes, darling?” said Saski, much as though she were coaxing first words out of a tot.
He reached out and touched her cheek.
“Saski?”
And everyone started breathing again.
“Saski, darling.”
“Where – ?” Sarat looked slowly around. “You’re all here!”
“Of course,” said Maya.
“What happened?”
“You,” said Mel with some asperity, “tell us!”
“Perhaps not at this moment, darling,” murmured Saski.
“Puh-lease,” said Mel, “don’t do that again in a hurry. My little nerves can’t stand it.”
Sarat began to laugh then tried to stand up.
“Weak as a kitten.”
“Cub,” said Venga firmly, “new-born cub.”
He staggered – they all staggered – to the cars.
Now he is Anile emperor, thought Mel. What on earth does that mean? The total Anile throne experience! I think I’ll give that one a miss, said Zani. Of course, said Mel. How relentlessly thick we all are. How we complexify things. Is there such a word? You mean this is simple? I know what I mean, said Mel.

The Anile Heir © 2006
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.

PANTHER -> Site news -> Sarat: Dill dissecting this Matter of Kadun
by Ysabel Howard - Saturday, 21 January 2012, 03:11 PM

 
“It is generally accepted,” said Dill, “that the walls of time fade and reform, that our guests are real. That they are going about their business in their own time and not indeed visiting.”
“Yes.”
“I understand, although I have yet to experience them, there are other manifestations of this in support of this theory, scenes that could not be taking place in the here and now.”
“Yes. The Bronzes. The Bronzes are a frieze which does – emphasis on does – not exist. There anyway!”
“We may and do – constantly – ask precisely why this temporal phenomenon should be so. We may indeed ask if it is so. I do not think we question that it could be so. Is the phenomenon of Kaminua and Asyrion of a different order? It is the proposition that one may choose to continue one’s terrestrial existence in – what shall we say? A time bubble, a space out of time where time does not exist. Again we may say this could so but clearly a more complex and so more questionable process would be involved, though we may adduce the fact that each of us is – “ She broke into a grin. “ – a part of the bloody Whole extant outside time. Nonetheless our physical, our corporeal beings are rooted in time and to – clothe our essence in a physicality rendered proof against time is to say, is it not, that the physical form must be generated, created by the essence. Or at any rate controlled, and this too is not outside the boundaries of what is known to us, or how could we heal? What else after all is shape-shifting? We may indeed posit that we choose mortality.” Sarat realized why she was in lecture mode. “That Kaminua and Asyrion reached a place where they were capable of making that choice is indeed not wholly outside the bounds of possibility. However, we have been told stories – fed a lot of hooey, as you prefer, that – deliberately? – counter that possibility. She died of that which Fidub could not heal and he grew old and grief-stricken.”
“I love you,” said Sarat.
She smiled benignly.
“But it is not only to say that, not only to say that the physical form must be generated by the essence. It is to make profoundly – “ Again she grinned. “ – profoundly rather than mildly dubious statements about the nature of life and death and time. And will. What precisely is it to say? It is to say that the essence after they died was capable of choosing to generate a permanent non-changing physicality and health. Or is it? Is it perhaps to say that at some moment, say at the middle age they appear to chosen for eternity, they decided to exchange normal life for that eternity. I know little of the Denzines. I may be about to learn a whole lot more. Principally I refer you to the load of hooey. If Kaminua had knowledge that they would one day be together for ever, why was he grief-stricken. I would ask also how Asyrion at middle age could have made that choice when history – for what history is worth – records that she died young, whether or not of ‘that Fidub could not heal’. A further possibility is of course that they were not Kaminua and Asyrion but Denzine shape-shifters.”
“Baz tried,” said Sarat. “Baz and Hass. The conclusion was that if they were not real then the falsity was impenetrable.”
“They’d have to be real good,” said Dill. “Lastly, and lastly is perhaps most interesting of all, because it applies to the Jumesit, the reality of the phenomena of which is least in doubt, it seems to me the walls of time do not fade when our ancestors were doing anything interesting. No window is opened onto Narulis’ councils of state. We do not see Susheela fleeing with her son. I accept of course that had they resolved the matter of Kadun we should not be having this conversation but one would have thought they had either perception or experience to impart. I do not know what to make of that.”
“It may be,” said Sarat. “No. Yes! Possibly. Can we possibly be shaping that trip? This is my experience and others may counter it. We’ve become so used to the – phenomenon we don’t instantly report Susheela brushing her hair! I have noted that Narulis does not drop in when I’m working. Oh of course! It’s only when we switch off our conscious minds that we can see – “
“Oh of course! It’s there all the time. All times are now.”
“That is a little dizzying,”: said Sarat.
“A little. The other thing is that it would seem that of all the emperors only Narulis and Jaizal actually lived in the place.”
“I can’t think why. Fortuitous.”
“Fortuitous also that you and Narulis should be taking a break at the same time. Nor do we apparently perceive the day to day work of the palace, the staff, the cooks, the soldiers, the servants.”
“Tell you in a minute,” said Sarat. “If we go back to the original – proposition – that their existence is their own time is tenable, then - they are trying to break through to our time. Is that conceivable? To the time when something happens which might not have happened yet which happens to be our time? We know party-tricks take a considerable amount of energy and that particular trick – maybe they never get down to the nitty-gritty because they can’t make the final leap.”
“I like it. I am not sure I believe a word of it, but I like it! And depart because it hasn’t happened yet?”
“They were literate!” said Sarat with some irritation. “If I were just capable of passing through time to convey something to my successors, should I not write it down beforehand and hand it over?”
Dill pealed with laughter.
“Suppose two – phenomena are indeed the case. A frieze is not I trust making a frenzied effort to communicate with the future. People are.”
“The Bronzes are a bit more than a mere frieze. The Bronzes are a frieze which is alive. It’s a battle scene, warriors in chariots, chargers, and sometimes they laugh at us. If you wanted to communicate with another time, wouldn’t you make your push where the walls of time were known to be thin? There’s something else. In purely human terms. They may not know exactly what they’re doing any more than we do.”
“Or of course,” said Dill, “they might not want to be here at all but end up here because the walls of time etc.”
Sarat burst out laughing.
“At which point they exchange a few commonplaces to be polite and retire to their own time thinking, oh shit, failed again!”
Dill had wrinkled her brow.
“These Bronzes then parallel Kaminua and Asyrion? They are a moment frozen in time – presumably the battle never ends – and they do not accord with our physics? Have you assayed them?”
Sarat was still grinning.
“Risk a spear in the ribs…The Star tried to seduce me. I don’t think I told you that.”
“In novels concerning time-travel,” said Dill after a moment, “a big thing is generally made of not changing the past.”
“My point exactly!” said Sarat enthusiastically. He made wide eyes. “Suppose you got pregnant!”
“We must talk about that. She – accepted your argument?”
“She accept my polite decline!”
“I must confess I have never wholly been at one with that point about not changing the past. It always strikes me as somewhat deterministic – except of course in this case when it is crucial to my well-being! That is because if the past is co-existent, the past is also now and indeed do we not repeat that like some kind of mantra.
“As fixed points go,” said Sarat, “it’s a dodo.”
“That – I think – is my point. If we say they wish to communicate with a particular future, then equally that future – any particular future – our now – must be co-existent with their past. We can therefore drive ourselves mad thinking that possible futures also are co-existent: they arrive here but it is the wrong future! What is it you would like them to tell you?:”
“The chair. Where. When. How. You realize we have no proof she was ever here!”
“About that,” said Dill, “I have theories. The first emperor and the last (but one)! You know of course there are stories, Jaizal must have the throne!” Sarat nodded. “You know that when you arrived here there was a replica and not a modern one. And of course you know that Van-senok is implicated in a fashion we have yet to determine.”
But it is long over, thought Sarat. What - ?
“When each of us sat – hang on. I’m thinking about five things at once. The uppermost is probably Mel knows. I don’t mean – he’s an anthropologist. He must have studied earthpower academically. Venga’s trip included Behna laughing and saying, but it is long over! The subject of which was apparently I in wolverine mode on the chair. Damn! There’s something there.” He closed his eyes. “Space-rock. Is rock. Cantilip. Kai. What’s in a word? Earthpower in Harn has nothing to do with earthpower in Kadun. The – creed of earthpower in VS derives from that damn’ meteorite.”
“That you do not know formed the lake!”
“That’s the one. And Cantilip knows that. Or guesses. They came from Sug. There hasn’t been time. People haven’t been around for long enough. Nor do or did I believe Fidub could not heal. Have you seen me glowing lately? OK, let’s count the ifs. If and only if there was indeed a meteorite and if the throne was made of rock from it, then its fall pre-dated Narulis. If it was something we might identify as radioactive, bearing in mind its physics might be different, then, nonetheless, that – those – emissions – oh. What you just said. Something Cho wondered. Narulis was given a kitten and found it grew into a sabre-tooth the size of a house so he regretfully gave it away to a good home.”
“But look at her now, placid as a new-born kitten! Fidub was her home. Or if you prefer somewhere a few million light-years away.”
“Lending incredibly tenuous support to the meteorite at the bottom of the lake! Why C-R is a perfectly rational question to which no-one appears to have an answer. If you really wanted to hide her, you could go much deeper into the trees, not build her a little house. I’m trying to remember what I said in that casual way one says things apparently of purely academic interest! That we’d assumed peace reigned and Fidub made Narulis a present. Maybe chaos reigned and they made him a weapon.”
“The Singing Isles,” said Dill. “I am thinking something that blows my head off.”
They looked at each other.
“The culture of Fidub is earthpower?”
“Now,” said Sarat brightly, “if we just explain how a chair made of incarnate earthpower constitutes a weapon against the Cult we’ve cracked it.”
“But she must do,” said Dill. “She is independent of time.”
“How,” repeated Sarat. Dill was shaking with laughter. “What’s so funny?”
“I am thinking of Mitch and the Fidubi scam.”

“The Great Divide,” said Hass, “is for many reasons such an obvious name.”
“One never thinks it may be symbolic of a greater truth!”
“Did they have plumbing then?” asked Dill..
“Fidub had plumbing.”
“Ah, yes, Fidub,” said Sarat dreamily. “Theory – Notion – Notion 127 suggests the cataclysm threw Fidub up from the ocean-bed.”
“Meaning the centre of the crater may be somewhere in the middle of the ocean.”
“Which.”
“Which makes it a little hard,” said Dill, “for irtubi to have been scurrying around collecting pieces of space rock.”
“Shards,” said Hass and Sarat at virtually the same time.
“Bits broke off?” said Dill.
“Why shouldn’t they?” asked Sarat.
“If you’d come light-years through space-time, wouldn’t you be feeling fragile?”
“Earthpower. Rock-power! The power of this earth?”
“The problem with that being Harn.”
Dill giggled.
“This empire rocks! Suppose there is confusion, conflation, isn’t that a good word, of the two?”
“Suppose it was more like a shower,” said Sarat.
“I like it,” said Dill after a minute. “Not that I’m sure it fits or anything!”

“Done for dumping,” muttered Sarat.
Sarat’s desire to test a hypothesis by putting the chair in the field of flowers was restrained by not wanting anyone to see him do it.
“There will be a prize,” suggested Dill, “for the most convoluted but plausible story anyone can come up with to seal off the field.”
“Why not sort of tell the truth?” suggested Venga. “A radioactive meteorite! A very, very old one,” he added hastily. “Mass panic! One cannot be too careful.”
“He has led a sheltered life,” said Hass.
“Space rocks,” said Dill, “are like big bucks, man.”
“You mean there’s money in this?” asked Sarat. “I don’t see a connection.”
“When did you last monitor the meteorite market!”
“I really don’t see a connection! This is about concealment.”
“Unless it’s about possession,” said Hass. “If the Cult can use this whatever – and if it knows there are bits of it around – “
“It’s had 600 years to dig up Azt!”
“You remember the throne guards a deeper mystery.”
“How could we forget.”
“Suppose the five-headed monster is on our side! I mean, suppose it guards whatever. You know,” he added brightly, “like the werewolves.”
“What happens to the bad guys?” asked Hass.
“Frightened to death,” said Sarat. He paused. “What I think is we’re going to go on with this until we prove ourselves wrong. If we prove ourselves wrong, we’ll have a lot more information to go on. Does that make sense?”
“We might,” said Dill, “even have some facts!”
“Optimism is a wonderful thing.”
“Why,” asked Sarat, “are the supposed tombs of Kaminua and Asyrion in an underground cavern in Ciletij?”
“Been there, done that,” said Venga. “I didn’t mean – I meant, it wasn’t Ciletij when they – “
“Didn’t die,” finished Hass.
“What,” asked Sarat, “does Cantilip know about the crowns?”
Venga sighed.
“Meaning what do I know? Very little. What Van-senok knows…”
“Kai,” recalled Sarat, “is – satisfied whatever Cantilip and Mel are doing is to do with Zani.”
“Somewhat surprising, therefore,” said Hass.
“Indeed.”
“There is of course no absolute binding reason why Zani should not have – could not have – “
“If you were Cantilip – or indeed if you were Mel – might you not describe having discovered Zani roamed around Van-senok as a piece of different puzzle?”
“In your own time,” said Dill.
Sarat turned to her.
“I am truly sorry. “ He made it sound as though he was confessing to murder. Then he laughed. “You didn’t grow up in Zur. Give us a minute on egg-shells.”
“Come, hadin, come, come not alone, come hadin, come?” asked Dill
“There are of course two versions,” sighed Hass. “School-books and the other.”
“So is there a third?” asked Dill.
“Fourth, fifth, tenth? Zani became King of Dabida in the year the empire fell apart.”
Hass laughed suddenly
“But the shattering of the empire was not a single instant in time like dropping a cup from an upstairs window. In other words what chiefly reigned was chaos.”
“But always Fidub,” objected Venga.
“Ah, the great chroniclers,” said Sarat.
“Suppose,” said Venga, “we start from the proposition that the only cats who know what went down are those who were there. We might then wonder what they told the folks back in Maona-pri. If ‘there’ was Van-senok, of course.
“We know – we think we know – we might know – Zani didn’t want the Anile throne. Literally. Which suggests he sat on it. Where was it?:
“Or perhaps he didn’t want the crown?” suggested Venga half-jokingly.
“When someone reaches the top of the heap – unless he’s Anile Emperor, of course. In Dabida, in Fidub, to become Prime Minister – or King – one is informed of certain things. There are therefore persons who know these things already.”
“When these things are,” said Sarat.
“Exactly,” said Hass. “When these things are contingency plans in the event of invasion or natural disaster. When they are other kinds of information, it may be that the passage of time has mangled them in transmission, even if the original version were correct.”
“Volunteer requested,” murmured Sarat grinning. “I wondered how many days’ hard riding from the Great Gates to Van-senok and that at least we can determine.”
“My understanding,” said Dill, “is that as history measures these things, two weeks out of Zani’s life would not have appeared significant.”
“Before?” asked Hass. “This was before? We know – think we know – Jaizal was defeated and Zani withdrew to the south. Peculiar, certainly, and also very public. Zani therefore – agreed to defeating Jaizal and already knew he had no interest in the Anile throne. Jaizal’s grip on the empire was – I was going to say tenuous but I think in Var-sega’ in Van-senok non-existent. There was no empire, only a shell, an entity in people’s minds.”
“An agreement,” said Dill slowly, “an agreement with Var-sega’ with Van-senok that no attempt would be made to maintain the illusion.”
“The first plotter,” said Hass. “No wonder we’re so good at it.”
“Then of course there’s Carlin,” said Venga.
“Most certainly there is Carlin,” said Sarat, “Carlin which so admirably failed to notice being crossed by an army of invasion.”
“Where have I heard that before?” murmured Venga.
“Oh no, no, no, no,” said Sarat. “The deal was that he’d save them the trouble. Of having to fight for their independence.”
“Certainly,” said Hass, “as far as the Houses were concerned, the empire had outlived its purpose.”
“I shall dwell on that,” said Sarat. “When I’m having a bad day, it will lift my spirits.”
“Where have I heard that before?” murmured Venga. “Save them the trouble of having to actually do something.”

“The national mythology,” said Venga. “A simple lad, our Zani, bright, certainly, brave, certainly, but not a – complex character.”
“Ah,” said Dill. “I wondered where the egg-shells were.”
“I might also observe,” continued Sarat, “that he was probably exceptionally well briefed. To put it another way, PANTHER knew what was really going down in Kadun.”
Dill said: “It really nagged at Mom and Dad. Why PANTHER allowed the empire to collapse. If PANTHER were all they are cracked up to be and PANTHER are all they are cracked up to be.”
“Were they?” asked Sarat suddenly, emphasizing the ‘were’. “Suppose there was something new, something PANTHER couldn’t handle and learned how to handle but by then history had taken over?”
“No Anile heir, no you,” said Dill.
“I hope!”
“That would be a turn-up.”
“He was a kid,” said Venga. “Probably thought he wouldn’t have a hope. I mean a real kid, about seven!”
“I think,” said Dill, “we may be – satisfied that the Houses were not hanging on for him to reach maturity.”
“We know that,” said Sarat, “as much as we know anything. Fidub brought the goodies to defeat the Cult. If Fidub could not – could and could not – defeat the Cult, then it was business as usual. Only when All-Kadun became a political entity was there any point.”
“The same point,” said Hass.
:”Oh yes,” said Sarat. “Mitch and I are loose cannons.”
“I take that point,” said Dill, “but it is surely more complex than that. There was the pressing need for modernization, for dragging Kadun into line with the rest of the continent.”
“Vastly easier if someone else does all the work.”
“Someone or ones cleaned out Azt. Someone or ones killed Jaizal. Someone or ones for most of 600 years kept the Cult down. I think for the moment we shall leave it open who. An open mind!”
“Let us start with what we know!” said Venga enthusiastically.
“Who we know,” corrected Sarat. “Kai.”
It took them a moment to catch on.
“Mel could not have known,” said Hass.
“Known what?”
“Let us take this slowly. Before he met Cantilip, Mel had a – liaison with Estanzia Morsen’s daughter and would-be Chief Minister of Harn whose – academic enthusiasm is the defeat of the Cult in Harn.”
“Who possibly knows everything there is to know about how Harn became a democracy and possibly has been fed an alternative history like the rest of us.”
“And – possibly – told Mel something neither of them thought remotely significant at the time?”
“Eight years later – “
“Oh no, no, no, more like eight months.”
“And who else knows about the history of Harn? Why, Mel’s friend Kyse.”
“Whom we all adore.”
“We all adore Kai. It remains a – curiosity.”
Hass sighed.
“My sons have paired with irtubi! They wish to restore the Anile throne! I know Tar is super-cool. Couldn’t he have pretended to be surprised? I am remembering – when we thought Bal should urgently get to know and love us, we told him Fidub wants them screwed and we’re the screw-drivers. If Mel knew anything before he went to the City, Tar told him. I remember also – the – urgency with which he wished Tar to know about Cantilip.”
“And things,” said Sarat.
“Certainly things!”
“When we are children,” said Dill, “when we are young people, we go to school.” She smiled. “Occasionally. If we are good students, we learn history. I liked history. Only – “ The smile grew broader. “They have us over a barrel because we are just starting our journey into the other matter when we are just finishing our schooling and unless we investigate a particular aspect most extraordinarily thoroughly we not perceive that the two histories do not always tell the same story. In this case there are three histories.” She looked around. “You are listening intently. That is good.”
Venga grinned.
“Dare I ask it!”
“Do I consciously imitate Mitch? Half and half. I enjoy imitating Mitch. We learn that the fall of High Harn was an on-going process. We learn that initially the extremity, the bestiality of the Cult sparked rebellion among its very adepts who nonetheless retained some spark of humanity and curtailed its more obscene practices. And those two histories mesh for assuredly only adepts of some kind could withstand. We learn further, hard though it is to believe, that the City is the core of an ancient civilization on the eastern seaboard, far from High Harn, and that when their more local practices had been reined in, High Harn sought not exactly empire but dominion and spread eastwards and there they were stopped. What does this spell?”
“D-E-N-Z – “
“You are correct.”
“PANTHER learned from the Denzines?”
Dill giggled.
“You are probably correct. Mitch refers to my education as being carted about the continent. That should be continents, of course. Until the modern age, the Age of Communication, Var-segan was as remote from Azt as from the City, indeed as humans measure distance the City is closer, and we are sea-faring people. I do not know that a piece of water was endowed with any great significance. If you say it was possible to drown in storms, I do not know that there was any greater risk of that than of having one’s throat cut or worse riding to Azt. You will recall I ended up in Zur but by far the majority of my schooling was in the City or in Var-segan.
“One way traffic not,” suggested Sarat.
“Harni are not unfamiliar with Var-sega’. But do we not see something plain bizarre?”
“Such as why you are approaching this in a roundabout fashion?” asked Venga.
“I merely assess the facts.”
“When are we talking about?” asked Sarat.
She looked at him approvingly.
“And what is missing from this history?”
“Earthpower. If this is Cantilip’s jig-saw, I can only empathize”
“The City, the City-state it governed, did not extend the length of the coast. The knowledge there was land on the other side of the water we may assume did.”
“So the Cult arrived in Kadun and again spread east, north and east. If we plot their course, we observe three things. 1) they stayed north of the Great Divide, 2) they stayed west of at least that part of Carlin in which a certain field is to be found, 3) there was a multitude of contact between Carlin and Fidub along that eastern seaboard, as at least one of us undoubtedly knows. Azt in those times was itself some kind of a city-state, ruling a surrounding territory the borders of which were ill-defined. It did not, however, represent any notable attempt at civilization and so we may imagine the Cult found it fertile soil.”
“Has anyone got a map?” asked Venga. “I try to visualize the ancient world. A few centres of trade, of arts and a great deal of almost nothing in between.”
“In my bag,” said Dill. “Netbook not aged parchment!”
“Quicker to draw it,” said Sarat. “It needs to be blank.”
“Nearly blank,” said Hass.
Sarat reached into the drawer of the coffee-table and produced a piece of letterhead.
“How appropriate…:” He turned it over.
“OK. Spheres of influence.”
“Or we could just talk to Fugitry,” said Hass.
Sarat grinned.
“I want answers. Now. Has anyone ever tried that?”
“Anyone,” said Venga, “is not the Anile emperor.”
“Of course,” said Hass, “:if they wanted us to know, they could have told us.”
“Denzine involvement in Van-senok, that’s our theme?”
“The Denzines put her in Van-senok?”
“Let’s take this slowly. The convulsions in Kadun came to the attention of our little friends across the water.”
“Back a step. If earthpower defeated the Cult in the west, then there was no need for Narulis, therefore the Denzines defeated the Cult in the west. Discuss. Or of course there was no need for Narulis.”
“I strive,” said Sarat, “to be kind, to be generous. Kindness and generosity dictate that I believe that no-one knows the full story, only all the stories have not been put together. Oh yeah.”
“I have never seen a good moment to introduce this into the dialogue,” said Dill. ‘The meaning of ‘anile’.
Venga chortled.
“But it sounds so good! It was the name given Narulis by the Cult and it stuck.”
“No smoke without fire?” suggested Hass.
“An insinuation the real work was done by the Denzines?”
“I should think more subtle,:” said Sarat. “Not flattering, but more subtle. Narulis did the spade-work. The Denzines had the understanding.”
He ferreted in the drawer for a pen and to his surprise emerged clutching a fountain-pen. “So this is where I inscribe decrees?” He uncapped it and tried it out. It worked, so he sketched out a couple of continents.
“OK. Deel, the site of High Harn. Enbahaluk over there somewhere. Simaluk down below….”
“Mel talked to Fugitry,” sighed Hass. “Fugitry told him to remember the Mossai Wars.”
Dill smirked.
“Mom would be real proud of me. The Mossai Wars were a struggle between two cousins, whose names it will astonish you were Enbah and Sima for governance of a single territory, ending in the division we see today.” She stopped suddenly.
“Oh dear,” said Venga.
“I do not envisage war with Dabida,” said Sarat drily.
“You know they talk in metaphors,” said Hass. “Suppose the ‘single territory’, metaphorically speaking, is Van-senok.” He paused. “Are we avoiding saying we keep coming back to Mel?”
“And the ‘governance’ is – that’s absurd! No-one wants to – eradicate earthpower. Even if that were possible.”
“Metaphor, metaphor, metaphor. The indigenous culture of Kadun. Suppose we’ve got a few things wrong. The Anile Court turned rotten. That wasn’t because – “ He burst out laughing. “Could have been something in the drinking-water, could indeed. But if you are earthpower watching the whole thing go down the tubes, you think the flaw is in Fidub But the culture of Fidub is earthpower.”
The guys stared.
“Worked that out ages ago,” yawned Dill. “It is my thinking that we in Kadun should launch our own space programme, Earthpower I, Earthpower 2, Earthpower 3, in order to make certain people sweat a little, for assuredly there appear to be three distinct bodies of thought under the same name, and I should say also there is deliberate attempt to confuse the three. . I and 2 both originate in the idea of a creator or creatrice. Mark I holds that the power of the earth is limitless, being that which pushes up mountains and creates rivers and that that is the physical manifestation of the power of a creator distinct from the earth itself, which or whom assuredly no human can constrain. Mark 2 often appears in what is at least in appearance a trivialized, a castrated – a most inappropriate word! – form. In this version it is the earth that is the creatrice – the goddess – and the sentience of the earth gives life to that which we more normally consider as living. As I say, the trivialized form may appear as look at all the pretty flowers. In your Singing Isles – hence I may say Fidub’s insufferably high opinion of herself – “ Venga pretended to smother a grin and Hass murmured something about disassociating oneself. “ – the case is different. The story is, is it not, that Fidub has kept her people sufficiently elevated in consciousness not to produce a human smog that crushes the music from the singing earth – “
Sarat might have been heard to mutter something about nobody believes exactly that.
“I have been to Fidub! I cannot doubt the music. I can, however, as can everyone with half a brain, doubt the explanation. Or else this planet is even more extraordinary, Exhibit A of course being Jaaba Sen.. Concerning the emanations from the soil of Fidub I grant you and I have read widely on this matter that no-one else has a better explanation, not least of the phenomenon, grudgingly attested to throughout known history, that the bad guys do not feel comfortable in or perhaps on is a better word the Isles, their feet hurt. What might seem a simple medical condition vanishes when they catch the ferry. There are for the moment – I may think of more – two things to be said about this phenomenon. One is that this group of islands is surely geologically odd – yes, I am aware that geophysicists have failed to detect any oddity. The other is the take on the nature of the earth, which is here not all-powerful but subject to the life that inhabits it. Here the earth is vulnerable,but the vulnerability is not – NoZone notwithstanding – vulnerability to pollutants but vulnerability to the emanations of the human mind and this is the root of the concept of the Whole.. This is a fundamental difference and interesting! In Mark One and Mark Two the human consciousness aligns itself with the power of the earth If you ask what older adepts of earthpower could do to defend themselves against the Cult – that defence I gather that Cantilip side-steps by appearing in dryad form – you really do not want to know. If you do want to know, they entered their minds and conveyed the experience of being eaten alive, together with being severely mauled, usually by bears. – “
“Do look at all the pretty flowers,” murmured Hass.
“Among, therefore, the truckloads of hooey we are being fed is the concept earthpower could not defend Kadun – among, therefore, the histories we re-assess is precisely what Narulis achieved in Kadun.”
:”One feels quite faint,” said Venga.
“The power harnessed,: contributed Hass, “was – therefore – the power of the earth.”
“Just so and that power does not have a – morality attached. As we know non-human animals are not kind to their prey, they do not have a code of humane slaughter.”
“Into this tripped Fidub,” said Sarat. “So Fidub said the power of the universe is love – and earthpower laughed in her face?”
“We have to ask why this power is called love."
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006.
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book.

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PANTHER -> Site news -> Sarat: Shavli, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun (1)
by Ysabel Howard - Thursday, 23 February 2012, 12:54 AM

 
I keep thinking maybe people can read. That's really rather cutely naive, isn't it.
Now, where were we?...This is to some extent a draft. You will understand, at least those of you who have anything resembling minds - oh and who assume a right to employ them independently, perhaps even assume that God didn't give humans minds capable of independent exercise in order that on no account do we employ them independently - that I am not a specialist in spy satellites or ground-penetrating radar. I can, however, unlike some people, read and digest information. More research is required and a consequent working-up of the text. You will get the gist. At any rate a relief to return to intelligent people.
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Shav turned from avid contemplation of a mollusc, not because she was a closet biologist but because she liked time on her own, and getting it could be hard; she was in Essa’s beach-hut and Dad working away at the other end was so peaceful it was like being alone, except maybe a bit better.
“I was remembering,”: she said, “when Turny died. I remember bits – the apple! We were babies. I don’t really – Sarat was very upset.”
Essa looked up.
“She was put down. He didn’t like that.”
“Killed.”
“I thought you were old enough to try to understand. You and Sarat. Zik wouldn’t be left out.”
“I think I understood about wearing out. I got lost after that. That didn’t matter. You gave us a sense – your sense - of – completeness, that death is part of life, not something – intrusive, alien. It was reasonable and right.”
“You think of a death neither reasonable nor right.”
“I think she was pregnant,” said Shavli.
“Shavli…” Essa put down his pad and walked over to her, feeling as though in slow motion.
“People say he froze,” Shav was continuing. “Seconds. No-one – holds it against him. He didn’t, did he. He went straight in. I think what he found stunned him.”
Essa put his arms round her shoulders.
“If he doesn’t want to tell anyone,” said Shavli, “or yet, anyway.”
“I do not see how the death of my beloved Turny - ?”
“I just thought,:” said Shav, “after that he really got the zoo bug, there were so many small furry deaths. I can hear everyone shouting it’s not the same! Of course it’s not the same.”
“We already had the hamster and the rats!”
“I can’t get rid of the feeling there was something strange. Of course there was something strange!”
“How do you know unless you try?” said Essa. “I said the vet could do no more.”
“That is so Sarat.”
Essa smiled.
“Start as you mean to go on. Move over…” He sat beside her. “The problem is she was dead. Therefore he connected with her mind at the moment of death or with another about to die.”
“What I know,” said Shav, “is how Sarat would react to anything small, furry and terrified.”
Essa laughed.
“You think he would see no difference.”
“I don’t think he’d see any difference at all.”
“I too think. He found himself where the living do not go. That is enough. The physician in the emergency room performing resuscitation does not relish interruption but Baz is not the fool who interrupts.”
“If he didn’t know, she couldn’t have been – viable. Ghastly word.”
“Shavli, you do not know. She?”
“She’s not here any more.”
“Let us stand back a little. The two people perhaps in all the world we think do not – what is the word, perhaps panic.”
Shav gave a small frown of concentration.
“Flip. Baz flipped. Sarat does not freeze. Baz does not flip! And remember, there must be a hundred million watching worldwide. They don’t even flip or freeze in private!”
“We are all human.”
Sarat lay by Shavli’s pool. His intent seemed even madder than it had in the Jumesit. That, he said to himself firmly, is why we have other people to run things past. Shav and Petrush emerged from the house in swimming-gear. The table was laden with fruit, iced juice and pretty pastel sorbets. Vaccinating sheep didn’t seem such a bad choice.
Petrush took a running dive and surfaced spluttering.
“You’ll need a cool head,” said Sarat.
“Cool is my name.”
He heaved himself out of the pool and helped himself to a bowl of sliced peach.
“What drags you away from the delights of Azt?”
“You fly,” said Sarat.
“We do.”
“Of course you only have the entire Kadun Air Fleet at your disposal”
“This would be so secret even I don’t know I’m doing it.”
“Ah-uh!”
“The reason I’m not entirely mad is that the empire used to have a northern coast. Now it doesn’t.”
“Ah-uh doubled in spades?”
“I could be difficult. I could go to court. I could waste ten years of my life on lawyers trying to prove the old maps are forgeries. I could stir up a hornet’s nest that’d reach the stratosphere. I don’t want to do that. I just want to know a couple of things.”
“You don’t want us to bomb anywhere, then.”
“I’ve read up a bit on stealth. Stealth and spy-planes. I think you can do it without being spotted. If you are spotted – that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about.”
“You’re talking about the no-fly zone?”
“Jaaba Sen,” said Shav. “Are we not all one people, the continent at last at peace?”
Petrush made to play a violin.
“There’s a spy-plane called a 580.”
“There sure is.”
“It’s the nature-lover in him,:” said Baz. “The last untouched wilderness. More violins.”
“Sarat, surely you are not cynical and disbelieving.”
“There are more angles than – something with an infinity of angles? Marula’s zest for a tree-hugging emperor might have led one to suppose that she would want me to ask for her trees back. There are more conspiracy theories about that place. Bar the total loon element – site of an ancient civilization – the consensus is not only that there are no humans there but that there never were any humans there. That’s why it’s protected as a world heritage site. Even the loons think the ancient civilization was on the coast.”
“Why does that make them loons?”
“They were aliens. Maybe the loons are aliens too. It’s not the principle of aliens. I just think there should be more of them, more centrally located. They set up house on about the most inhospitable bit of the planet then vanished?”
“Maybe the climate suited them then changed?”
Petrush was grinning evilly.
“Quite apart from that’s what you were kind of told at C-R.”
“Quite apart from that. I started with – I start with the Denzines are going to wreck the perception of any human instrument. I want to know what’s there not what that bastard Fugitry wants to show me. And I do want the crowns, number two, two in number, I mean, which is interesting in itself because the one thing every spotty teen knows about Narulis is Brig, Nautshka and Vrim. The crowns were made for a pair.”
“He does not speak with awe of Denzine Master Fugitry.”
“This is my territory?”
“There’s an air corridor,” said Petrush. “I think we might have some fun here. Make the switch in mid-ocean? Suppose we set up a dummy flight from the City to G-T. Somewhere in the water, it lands on a carrier and gets replaced by our bird. Our bird zooms respectably between the fences then vanishes off the radar. All hell breaks loose because they think it’s crashed. I’m working on it!”
“I knew you’d understand,” said Sarat.
“I’m an understanding kind of guy.”
“What usually happens if you’re found in a prohibited area? Shoot on sight?”
“That may depend. Most no-fly zones are known sensitive areas, military installations, government buildings. This one – it may be hard to justify shoot on sight when the crime is disturbing sleeping moose and the weather is shit. There are no fences along the side of this road. Folks can get lost. Shoot down some Ciletij tycoon in his private jet!”
“Some strange magnetic force played havoc with the instrumentation! Of course we do have to contend with the proposition that there is some strange magnetic force, which may be why it’s a no-fly zone.”
“I need a map,” said Shavli. “What occurs to me is there’s a research station on the ice. Supplies have to come in. People have to go out. They go round?”
“Surely only if they’re going to Vasucula.”
“It’s an international zone. Some of them must be going to Vasucula.”
“I should imagine,” continued Petrush, :”they put up sheep-dogs to guide the stray lamb back to the true path. Depending on what kind of lamb it is of course.”
“Bearing in mind,” said Baz, “it may be some tree-hugging Fidubi, closely associated with NoZone.”
“Ciletij is not your friend.”
“Parts of Ciletij are my friend. I might even think all Ciletij was my friend if I hadn’t had the affrontery to succeed. A powerful and prosperous Kadun, it is argued, only needs someone less nice than me in charge. It’s a kind of – it’s ingrained in some quarters. Why would Kadun want Ciletij. It’s cold, it’s windy, and it has a northern coast which even it can’t want.”
“Less nice and more acclimatized?”
“Kadun has minerals too.”
“Nonetheless and heretofore, here you are, taking a real intelligent interest in that which you swore I recall – “
“You see my problem! For 600 years they showed no sign whatever of wanting the empire back. Kadun had to modernize. All-Kadun was geopolitical convenience, as Karula put it
Fanfare of trumpets, Mitch and I, as rationalist as we are revolutionary, in equal parts loose cannons and saviours – that vital continuity with the past, you know.”
“That would be the past in which no-one on the whole continent wanted the empire back.”
“That past. The one in which being modern go-ahead young men we are thought safe: we shall have no interest in the past..”
“And still less in the more sequin-studded aspects of the other matter.”
“None whatever in those. I demand dancing bears.”
“That Ciletij does not relish a united Kadun is not ground-breaking. There had therefore to be something worse in the offing, which we know, and in particular, which we also know, that worse was centred on the other matter. OK, let us call it The Secret, capital T, capital S. The Cult could not be allowed to discover The Secret. With which it could do or perhaps has done still greater evil? That would tend to suggest the chair and admirable though she is I do not know that one can say one can do anything with her.”
“What you really want,” said Baz, “is him to tell you all the mad crap he’s found on the Grid.”
“We do?”
“The best part is some of it’s real,” said Sarat. “If we go inside I can project onto the wide screen."
“It’s the zig-zags,” said Baz. “Do your head in.”:
They sat round the TV screen looking at a jagged red line.
“The ancient enmity,” said Sarat dreamily, “ between Ciletij and Kadun might lead one to suppose the border – a broiling pit of magma might suffice. That is the border. It follows the course of the River Gradun, faithfully follows that course, every curve and loop. It stays ten nani south of the river at all points. Those who’ve been on the ground – guys who were in the resistance – say there is no physical border, not even a piece of rusted barbed wire.” “‘Welcome to Ciletij. Please do not disturb the wolverines. They have just as much right to peace and quiet as you do.’ The trees, the trees!”
“Nor is there any no-man’s land or no-fly zone. What do you notice about this border? Suppose I took off from VS to fly directly to Azt?”
“I cannot quite believe,” said Shavli, “Ciletij are happy for KAF to wander in and out of their air-space.
“When was this border delineated? Oh, of course!”
Sarat grinned happily.
“It was not negotiated with the entity Kadun because no such entity existed. North of Azt it follows the general rules laid down for borders, sentries, guys who want to look at your papers. At Var-sega’ it’s a couple of rows of electric fence and two crossing-points.”
“Marula is in this up to her neck? Conclusion: VS handed over a whole chunk of itself in return for what?”
“We may assume then at the semi-hysteria surrounding Kadun territorial ambition is a complex feint. One may appreciate – though then again one may not – they wanted C-R in Ciletij but it would seem to me the creative cartographer – when the name of a country and of its people is the same, a certain ambiguity is achieved. Rape of Ciletij, the nation, which did not in fact exist. We could posit the – price of the Rape was Van-senok, but that in itself seems a little odd. Unless of course, etc, etc. Superficially odd.”
“How about this for a story?” said Shav. “We’re testing a new ground-penetrating radar. We want to see if it works through trees. Not too much untouched primeval forest on Fidub. Contacts in KAF – pause for violins, hands across the sea – offered Van-senok. Unfortunately, some strange magnetic force played havoc with the instruments and we became hopelessly lost. What happens if we play that in real time?”
“How about that’s Act Two?” said Petrush. “We could get good pics, go back for a second look and then get caught?”
“You don’t seem to think FAF will have a problem with this,” said Sarat.
“PANTHER operation. PANTHER wants a look at Ciletij, we do what PANTHER tells us.”
“He said with wide-eyed innocence. I haven’t talked to Cho and don’t intend to. The fewer people who know I’m not going to invade Ciletij the better.”
“If Ciletij poses a threat to the security of the continent…”
“This space-rock of yours,” said Shav. “Ours! I’m wondering – suppose it’s incorporated into terrestrial weapons?”
“There’d be explosion, death, injury in the area of impact. A normal bomb. But just maybe the – fall-out! Play havoc with the perception of those within an unknown radius?”
“Isn’t that an interesting thought?” said Sarat.
“Baseline is people on the ground are not harmless charcoal-burners. They see us, they call. If they see us. They’re cautious guys. They call even if they’re not sure what they’ve seen. Missiles rising out of the lake. That is one short call.”
“I have an overwhelming desire to see,” said Shav. “I quell it.”
“Exactly,” said Sarat. “Land or air I do not see this as a Sarat-friendly zone.”
“If we came in from VS, it’s minutes. On the other hand, they will not expect anyone coming in from the north. OK, lemme set the scene. A Fleet ice-breaker with spy-birds on board is there. And what are they doing? They are surveying the ice. Probably there already. If they aren’t, we are.”
“Inspirational,” muttered Sarat.
“Range?” asked Shav.
“I thank you. These birds go for ever.”
“I hadn’t realized that,” said Sarat
“I think not the 580. They make a bee-line south-east. How much artificial intelligence is required? What is the role of and who are the human controllers?”
Baz looked up from a book not as gripping as the surrounding narrative.
“We are. Cats hate the cold.”
“Tick that one off,” said Petrush. “The rest is detail. As to where we land, having done the deed, my choice is a Fidubi carrier in mid-ocean. Whatever happens, whatever is said, this is nothing to do with Kadun.”
Sarat grinned.
“Just figure out how I give you a medal.”
“We can talk about that when we’ve got the goods. All we need now is not to smash into a tree.”
“All of it is apparently untouched wilderness, from the ice right down to VS. Terrapin shows just that.” Terrapin was a Fidubi satellite. Terra pin, geddit. Some people have a strange sense of humour. The other one was called Turtle. “It has quite a reputation. Sightings of almost every monster the human mind has conceived – I noted with regret none had five heads – giant reptiles, lush vegetation, the ancient civilization. A particularly popular theory is genetic mutants. The bears are the size of houses, the wolves the size of rooms. Some tone this down to merely larger than normal, consequent upon genetic isolation. I hear the next question hurtling to your lips. Terrapin shows blurred at C-R. Extremely poor quality images.“ He pursed his lips. “Heavy cloud cover, you know.”
“It’s live, real-time?”
“Shielded?” said Shav at the same time. “Artificial clouds? I know! It’s all the chemtrails from the air traffic.”
“It only passes over twice a day.”
“Every day,” said Petrush. “You assume of course.”
“I assume of course. Eagle-I – who the hell names these things? All the Ciletij commercial satellites only release data under licence. “
“All the geophysical data, GPR, that has to be interpreted. We have to learn to interpret this stuff?”
“The hands-on approach. Do you trust anyone, present company excepted?”
“That is an interesting question. Yes. ‘Our specialists’, no.”
“A select few who handle potentially highly sensitive data.”
“Let me tell you about Jaaba Sen. You might think it a tourist attraction. There will be signs not just of humanity but of tourism at the very least at the periphery. If people do not put more than a toe inside, still they may gaze in awe and wonder. There is a fairly substantial town called Cood and it has no such signs. Closer to the trees are other smaller towns, equally pristine. That there are actual wolves and bears is not in dispute. It may be they are the best deterrent. Ciletij mythology abounds with the terrors of the forest. Certainly there may be terrors in that forest for those who penetrate too deeply, even if they are only shape-shifters pretending to be terrors of the forest. It may also be that if one penetrates too deeply, one is politely halted and turned back. Military installation. Or of course not turned back, merely turned into snow-drift.
“That figures in the more complex conspiracy theories. The military are breeding mutants. Some escaped.”
“There remain zoologists, ecologists – and archaeologists. Two hundred years ago an explorer called Stoobard Solden ventured too far and returned broken and babbling. That of which he babbled was perhaps more interesting. He said the dead walked the forest, his every move was watched. He saw the shades among the trees, but no shadow was cast on the ground. Scientific psychology decided this was a variant of snow blindness, visual hallucination caused by an excess of light. Unscientific psychology talked about it a great deal but showed no particular inclination for field work, at least until high summer. They returned - thoughtful, convinced indeed they had been watched and what watched them were the spirits of trees. I fear they were not tree-huggers. It had not occurred to them there could be harm in cutting down a young tree and building a friendly fire. It would seem the trees thought differently. It would seem the trees moved in the night and blocked their path. The only opening was back whence they came and they took it. That of course stinks of Van-senok.
“The Academy of Geobiology took to the skies and mapped the region, thus providing photographs of some of the most spectacular scenery you never saw. An intrepid band of white-water freaks tried penetration by kayak and vanished, presumed drowned. More latterly the Institute of Zoology gained a permit – from whom is surprisingly or not as you prefer obscure – to conduct some form of census, head-count, of Ciletij’ indigenous wildlife and to map survival in so extreme an environment.. Nothing untoward was seen or they agreed not to let on. The moose thrives, you know. The extent to which the territory they covered was controlled may be implicit in the survey method or may just be one of the few ways to conduct such a survey in such terrain. They selected squares of each kind of habitat and tagged their inhabitants. The scientists had no problem with ‘spooky as hell’ and I quote but attributed it to the constant howling of wolves and cracking of trees under the weight of snow. They even admitted to a feeling of being watched but of course it was nonsense and indeed directing cameras at what wasn’t there confirmed its absence. They concluded that thinking a wolf-pack has you ear-marked as lunch wears you down. One of them said that when he stopped to adjust his pack and the rest of the expedition were just that bit further away than normal he felt as vulnerable a new-born moose separated from the herd! Never being able to be off your guard. It must have been like that for early humans. That was very much the overall conclusion, that it’s ‘like being at the beginning of the world, not just somewhere humans don’t go but where we’ve never been’. Let us say it is not a hospitable environment.
“Following that there was a flurry of interest in our wonderful wildlife but few people sincerely want to get eaten and visitors to Saaba Valley, the national park north of GT where you may see wolves under carefully controlled conditions, substantially increased. From the other side, numbers of large dangerous and potentially dangerous carnivores, includes lynx and wolverine, caused concern that in a bad winter they might venture down to human habitation and gobble small children, but it appears to be the perfect self-regulating eco-system. Perhaps interestingly, fell creatures that emerge from the trees and eat babies are not among the myths.
“Where there are no people, there is no archaeology. There are people in Ciletij. It does not cause hearts to race to think there were previously people in Ciletij. They know there were previously people in Ciletij. The question is the furthest northern extent of human habitation: there is no reason to think this prehistoric community would be any different from those disinterred in more accessible places. We know the world is slowly warming. The myth of the remains of an ancient civilization is dismissed totally. Of what would it have been built, blocks of ice? Thus the aliens…The overwhelming emphasis is actually on guilt-tripping Ciletij. Behold the original extent of the forest and dwell in shame on how much of it was felled to create the Ciletij we know and love today. Before you bite me, I know I might have said something of the kind! That was from the simplicity of my tree-loving heart, not a part of what perceive as a sustained campaign to make sure no-one gets close.”
“Suppose I went to this - what was it called? Cood. OK, there’s no tourism industry. So I’m a trail-blazer – Zeshanzesh, are there not - folks who never saw a reason to leave the Leolisle find the entire continent open before them!. I’m there with my back-pack and I want to go hiking. I’m not some extremes freak and I’m not stupid, I know if I get lost my chances of survival are not high. A little gentle exploring. First, I buy a map, right?”
“Fat lot of good it does you! We’re not completely backward,” said Baz. “We sent a cat to Nyon-Va, ten nani from the trees. It showed exactly what you’d expect. A lot of contour lines, some on top of each other, a lot of inverted green Vs, meaning trees, and a lot of water. No roads, no trails, no trains. By the way, there’s nowhere to stay. Against the odds, the natives are friendly and put you in their spare room when you politely conceal your disarray at having dropped off the edge of the world.”
“What was his story?” asked Shav.
“Her story. Fidubi geographer now working in Kadun, which she is. Had a few days off and wanted to see the real north. Touring. Which she was. It’s the southernmost of the – I was going to say settlements. I guess that’s what they are. I guess the ancestors of the good folks of Nyon-va go back to the beginning of people in Ciletij. They’re wired. They have bright lights and music and a weekly dance and all the news but they’re not expecting callers.” He sighed. “There’s just one slightly jarring note. There’s a family runs an international mail order biz in fur, fur hats, fur boots, fur jackets, fur gloves, fur gilets, hand-stitched.. Of course no-one goes into the forest. Of course it’s the perfect untouched self-regulating eco-system. I’d guess Nyon-va has been going into the forest since there were people. It’s cottage industry at base. It’s not going to decimate the fur-bearing populations.”
“No, Petrush,” said Shav.
“The sooner you resolve this matter of Kadun, the sooner I have freedom of movement back!”
“I shouldn’t bet on it,” said Sarat.
“VS,” said Shav. “Where does Mel fit in?”
“As I read it, everyone is to some extent caught up in someone else’s plot. What I think is that Mel knows everything Cantilip knows. What Cantilip knows is what Marula has chosen to tell her. I think it fair to assume Cantilip’s initiation into her heritage was abruptly curtailed by her choice of partner. Cantilip and Mel are running their own investigation. I read that as Cantilip taking an independent look at her heritage. I can relate to that.” He paused. “I said Marula hasn’t asked for her trees back: I have not been asked to pull any levers. It may be Mel has. It would be a great deal less painful on all sides for Mel to negotiate with the Denzines or Ciletij.”
“For a start he doesn’t want a bit of his country back. The past,” continued Shav, :”may be as embarrassing as the present if the present is built on a lie.”
“That’s the one. I don’t think this is about any of us in the here and now.”
“But can that be the case?” persisted Shav. “Do people not fight for their history? That is not – very recent history?”
“Owww!” said Sarat. “I don’t think I’m going to find VS worked for the Cult or assassinated Kaminua. Some comparable crime. What I do recognize is the extent to which I have been compromised. The charade at CR. It’s peculiar.”
“It was that, all right,” said Petrush.
“You’re sure it was a charade?” asked Shav.
“No! First I thought, why on earth draw my attention to the place at all. Then I thought once I’d sat on her I’d know she was odd, so it was kind of double bluff. Once I had ‘experienced the mystery of Casin-ruhn’ I should be drawn into the conspiracy to leave everything alone. Mel has no control over the Denzines. Cantilip has no control over her mother. Neither of course has any control over Ciletij – “
“Cantilip,” said Shav, “is independent of her mother in a way that could never have been foreseen.”
“That too. Cantilip is in a position to do things she could not have done until Marula was dead.”
“Looks to me,” said Petrush, “there are two ways of looking at this at base. One is that persons unknown know the full story and are keeping it from you. That is an unfriendly act, the next question being why. The other is that no-one knows the full story although he or she may think she/he does. Either way, you are being kept in the dark and fed shit.”
“It annoys me,” said Sarat. “I am Anile emperor, you know.”
Petrush grinned.
“A third – perspective is that everything worked to constrain you once you reached that august position. You are tied down, Sarat. The price of empire has been that you would not even think of interfering in the affairs of the rest of the continent.. How gross would that be! Why would you? Or how badly do they want you to keep your hands to yourself? I am not making insinuations against your fellow-plotters. I understand you are bonded in blood. But our illustrious elders? Airoch, Tar, Marula, Saryulin.”
Your best friend won’t tell you, thought Baz.
“Or again there is a double-bluff?” suggested Shav. “You have rewritten the continent’s history. It cannot occur to you it needs rewriting again.”
“Cho?” asked Sarat.
Shit, thought Baz.
Shav didn’t answer directly.
“They did not predicate – isn’t that a good word? Exactly who you are. The staying Sarat clause. I think if you fail to stay Sarat you think you have failed. True?”
“Very,”:said Sarat.
“Both of you,” said Petrush, “you and Shavli, for the first what 16 years of your lives you were Fidubi kids. Surely well-heeled ones, surely well-connected ones, but you grew up – “ He grinned suddenly. “ – And remember I am not some writer for Glitz fabricating your early life and struggles, I was there. With the – perspectives of ornerry folks. Most of it’s down to the Straits! A vital separation from Zur.”
“Most of it’s down to Mum and Dad,” said Sarat.
“His Imperial Majesty’s mother is a Fidubi housewife,” said Shavli. She giggled. “Like me.”
“You use the last of the lavatory paper,” said Petrush, “you go down to Zerq’s and get more!”
“You remember that!”
“I remember. That was one sick rabbit. Sure Baya had cubs to help, but they did not undertake to run the joint. That is the difference.”
Shavli grasped the nettle
“Cho – loves you to pieces. They have sweated blood. We all have. Cho would do anything for you. Bomb Ciletij! Possibly. That doesn’t make him incapable of – as you said, being part of other things. Cho could not do anything that would hurt you. Sarat, does it occur to you they don’t want you to know because it would hurt you.”
“No.” said Sarat, then, “What can hurt me more than I have hurt myself? That is – responsibility for being alive,” said Sarat. “We live with the consequences of our choices. Suppose all of it’s crap. Suppose Susheela didn’t flee to Fidub with her son! Would it matter?”
Shav considered.
“To you? To the working-people of Kadun? That’s why you are not safe!”
“Others,” observed Petrush, “may be more deeply - invested in history. To an extent – “ He sighed. “You have augmented. History – you stop any Fidubi in the street. When we were kids, it would not have been – relevant – not sure that’s the word, but you get my meaning, that Fidub was responsible for the empire. There was a nice – a safe? – gap between us and the past. We were now.”
“For the record, that’s not what I think. Or that the empire was always the shit-hole Ciletij said it was. There is absolutely no justification for that. What I do think revolves around Zani. I think that story is a deal more complicated than the official version. But it wouldn’t – diminish him. I don’t think I’m going to find he didn’t lead an army to the Great Gates and found Dabida.”
“Could Mel have an interest in that story!”
“History tells us Jaizal sent a mighty army to crush him and he emerged victorious. I’ve heard less plausible stories but not many. I do not doubt Zani’s courage, oratory, weaponry or numbers and I still think they would have been massacred if there hadn’t been something else, some display of power to convince irtubi he could defeat Jaizal. The field effect is apparently confined to north of the GD, to which I say oh yeah? Second, I – we, this one comes from Mel. We think Zani sat on the chair and that’s why he didn’t proclaim himself Anile emperor, simple, humble guy that he was. There are other questions keeping historians busy, whether eso or exo. PANTHER was unable to stop the rot and then suddenly proved capable of both defeating Jaizal and cleaning out Kadun. Zani marched across Carlin and Carlin failed to notice.
I think all of them, VS, Carlin, PANTHER, wanted the collapse of the empire. I think Zani was in league with them up to his neck and the deal was he’d defeat Jaizal so long as he did not become emperor and they could have their independence back. I think – some show of power and/or who are the Imperial Army! Senoki, Segani, Carlini.”
“Certain resonances,” said Shavli.
“The world was confounded when the Army of All-Kadun joined me. But of course it didn’t:” “I think there are two things. I do not on what I have heard see any likelihood of any government – or throne – falling. To the extent that this is bound up in the eso, it cannot make the six o’clock news and – dislocate the continent’s image of itself, that of the man or woman in the street. But I would say the relationship of the academic discipline of history to the other matter is necessarily at times somewhat jagged and to that extent the man or woman in the street may be living a lie.”
“That’s why Mel loves Kyse,” said Sarat.
“Kyse?”
“His rationalist if not revolutionary historian friend. He says the word is lying.”
“I should like to meet Kyse. I conclude this mystery of ours is eso. That may seem obvious given the centrality of a silver chair. I thought it worth wondering if riot and revolution might ensue!”
“The spill-over?” suggested Shav. “We started by talking about Ciletij missiles!”
“We try to keep them separate,” agreed Petrush.
“If we filter that lot,” asked Sarat, “do we come to something with which I could go public? The cause merely of terminal embarrassment, caught lying?”
“It’s a possibility. It says a lot for Mel.”
“Oh yes,” said Sarat, “it says a lot for Mel.”
“Apart from having sat on the chair and chatted to Kaminua, you are squeaky-clean.”
“And Maya,” said Sarat.
Baz looked up sharply..
“I was going to say I cannot believe anyone who knows would sink so low as to use that.”
“Who knows?” asked Petrush.
“Us,” said Baz, “you, family, Pietri and Caluna. Hass and Venga. Mel and Cantilip.”
“Marula.” said Shav.
“There would have seemed no harm?”
“Sheds a whole new light,” said Baz. “Mel may be trying to make up for being a bloody fool!”
“Eh, our Mel? Never!” said Paw sauntering in.
“Missed all the fun.”
“Tell me later. Cool off…”
He headed for the pool
“OK,” said Petrush. “We know how the Quadrant worked. Division of labour. Fidub handled space. Shall we list what we do know for a change? We know that the military use of nuclear power is banned world-wide. We know that all physical manifestations of military power are essentially a side-show for the masses because the only serious wars ever fought were fought with mind. We know that guys with dangerous minds are not immune to being shot which makes it a good idea to have handy something to shoot them with. We know that Ciletij historically has a horror of mind-power and prefers tanks and – again historically – has relied on the south for the fancy stuff, in particular Fidub. We know that PK can stop advancing tank but it takes as many guys as there are advancing tanks and on the whole it is simpler either to blow up the tank or for those guys to work together on the terrain. We know that the Ciletij sense of vulnerability is increased a thousand-fold by your little venture. We know that there are other forms of modernization besides main drainage and all the guys who worked with Ciletij in Kadun know that thinking Ciletij know that too – “
“Concur,” said Sarat.
“We know that elements in both Ciletij and Kadun forced into a shotgun marriage do not wholly warm to sharing their little secrets with each other – “
“Concur,” sighed Sarat.
“We know that the Cult is active, particularly – curiously perhaps – in Ciletij, calling for continent-wide disarmament because why retain the military when clearly there is and never will be anyone to fight. I am thinking hard about your space-rock. I do not much like my thoughts. Suppose it were incorporated in a normal common-or-garden bomb. Its power has survived travel through aeons of space and we may – predicate it would therefore survive the heat of explosion. That explosion may be expected to cause the normal level of damage of a blast but I am wondering about – fall-out. Might the fall-out not cause havoc with the perception of those in the surrounding area? I am of course wondering also how that might mesh with the CR charade.”
“Mmm! Radiation as some kind of cutesy clue. The idiot boy has been told…That occurs to me too. This stuff is powerful and it has a half-life? We know it’s powerful. It may be a faint feeble remnant of its former self? It’s terribly tempting to think of the Rape as this power on the loose among people who had absolutely no way of handling it, but there wouldn’t seem to be any way the dates fit.”
“We’re good boys and girls and everyone knows we’re good boys and girls, but your heirs and successors getting hold of a power - ?”
“Maybe that’s what happened before?” said Shav.
“I am not prepared,” said Sarat, “to be put off by a theory. Possibly a conclusion I am duly supposed to reach. Nor am I an idiot. I shan’t leave matches around for the kids to play with.”
“Sarat and Hass played with alphabet-bricks on the floor of the Room,” said Shav in a good imitation of Mel. “No-one is going to think him a second Jaizal.”
“They don’t want you to have that power now,” said Petrush. “It’s too dangerous. The mere fact that it exists becomes a threat.”
“It comes back to who knows what. They couldn’t say the chair was lost because VS knew damned well it wasn’t.”
“The stories around the chair are all good,” said Sarat.
“Maybe that’s the point of the nuclear metaphor. The power itself is neutral.”
“Jaizal must have the throne! Why, if she’s one of the good guys? I had her assayed. Young Scientist of the Year. Fidubi ores! She is indeed made of impure silver and the more detectable impurities are those of lodes formerly found in extremely small quantities on the Utmost Isle and now exhausted, as evidenced by artefacts in the Museum of Early History. I actually read the assay report – don’t start me on wavelengths and photons – but of course ‘trace elements’ rang no bells at the time. Or after for that matter. Did you know the average friendly homely meteorite is mostly iron? But if this space-rock contains something unknown, literally alien, it reacts - ? What is she, guys, what is her – potency, if that’s not a sexist word?”
Baz looked at Shav and Petrush and answered for them.
“Earthpower.”
“Does it not crumble mountains and shatter continents?”
“It might just,” said Petrush (Cool is my name), “be beginning to come together.”
“This is a pure flight of fancy,” said Sarat, “but suppose, just suppose, on some immeasurably distant planet, something sentient looks to us like rocks. Rocks can be hurled through space, we know that. Suppose some humdinger of a cosmic cataclysm - ?”
“Who noticed the sentience?” asked Shav.
“Who do you think!” sighed Baz.
“Cantilip? That rather puts her in the clear.”
Sarat said mildly, “You have to remember we have been through a remarkably wide range of experiences together.”
“I’m going to assume you have tried simple questions. What is your name? Where do you come from? What do your parents do?”
“It doesn’t work like that. Maybe you should sit. The nearest I can come is our – pre-occupations taken outside time until time itself dissolves.”
“She is your pre-occupation!”
“How can I put this?” said Sarat. “I haven’t sat on her since Maya died.”
“Sorry.”
“It shook us all more than we let on. What is being screamed at us is everything is whole. There is no difference between life and death. These are not things I want to hear right now.”
“Oh Sarat.”
“But she responded to you?”
“She responded to love.”
“Time to eat, I think,” said Petrush. “I fear that having been insufficiently forewarned, the range of seeds we have to offer is limited or indeed non-existent.”
“Lad were brought up proper,” said Shav, “Eats what he’s given.”
“News travels fast,” growled Sarat.
“If you want to really freak Kadun,” said Baz. “Anyone who noticed the diet before put it down to the hot weather.”
Sarat grinned.
“Meaning Mitch.”
“You have to understand,” said Baz, “food underpins the entire empire.”
“I think you need to go into that a bit more…”
“It’s our memoirs, at once riveting, unclassified and seminal. Tell you later.”
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006.
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book

 
PANTHER -> Site news -> Sarat: Shavli, Petrush and this Matter of Kadun (2)
by Ysabel Howard - Thursday, 23 February 2012, 12:54 AM

 
Later, with Sarat catching up on the news of old friends as Petrush told it, which wasn’t necessarily how the old friends saw it, Shav curled up with B and P.
“His way,” said Paw. :”Like everything else.”
“That’s how it seems to me.”
“It’s been too long, man!” Petrush was saying. “Friends, family, never mind the other crap.”
“Busy, busy, busy!”
“A week makes a difference?”
Sarat grinned.
“A week here, a week there, where will it end?”
“So when did you last have a vacation?”
“A real one? The honest answer is I didn’t.”
“Shav, she likes chilling out on her own. Me, if I have nothing to do I want to do it with her!”
How am I? thought Sarat. Am I really as OK as I seem? But nicely done and with distinct possibilities. It might be too much to think a member of his family actually understood.
“That’s the one. I’m not absolutely sure I can explain. Thinking of Maya is a state of mind, a state of being, not an – activity, except it’s not thinking of, it’s loving. The loving does not stop. It has its down side. The – emanation from - “ He gestured in what he hoped was the direction of the Sohenisle. “I need a month off to think of Maya, to talk about Maya. And what? I spend a month thinking and talking and the problem’s solved, she’s not dead any more?” I do not think Cho is handling this well, thought Petrush. Guilt? “There is a gap in any – flopping at the end of the day, lying by the pool. A space. I can’t play racquetball on my own. Sure, I could find someone. I don’t want to play racquetball with ‘someone’, I want to play it with Maya. We made up our own rules and – I don’t actually want to play racquetball at all, don’t care if I never play again. What I want is the – Sarat-Maya experience we found faffing about on the court.”
“If you are not finding it necessary to visit Fidub because Cho-Sarat relations have taken a downward turn, independent of all the crap we went through earlier, that is itself crap.”
“I know,” said Sarat.
“Good! I think we can offer you a week of constructive idleness. You have friends. They regard the lunatic with amused but deep affection.”
Sarat grinned.
“I know! Some of them were at the Imperial.”
“Of course, the hub of the known world. It is about this time of day that old friends and brothers decide to go out for a drink but that is perhaps a little complex. Nor do I think we should be seen going to the base to initiate our mission, interesting though that might be. What shall we do?”
Sarat stretched out his legs.
“Nothing sounds good. Seaweed. :Do you remember the ten minutes we thought we’d made botanical history?”
Petrush blinked then broke into a huge grin.
“It’s a whole new species, man!”
“Raw veggies,” said Shav.
Paw chortled.
“You know this diet. It’s the Sarat diet. It bears no relationship to any trend, fad or meticulously researched biochemistry – you find me a raw food freak who starts the day with a jug of strong coffee, cream and sugar. He’s perfectly happy to entertain sometimes. He’s perfectly happy to eat normal food if someone puts it in front of him. On the whole, he doesn’t.”
“Home from home.”
Baya had been fairly ruthless. Neither she nor anyone else was going to move a muscle to accommodate The Diet. If he wanted to purchase, prepare and subsequently peck his way through a tray of seeds when everyone else was having steak, that was fine. Later, Ven went vegan. The white house in the dunes is, well, in the dunes; they ate a lot of fish.
“On the whole, coffee is about the only hot thing that passes his lips. We see it in context. Cho doesn’t. What it was like. All of them, when they arrived in Azt, they didn’t have meals, except in the canteen if they were lucky. Grazed on the nearest shrub. If it was crap, they ate that. Very definite views on. When things began to settle, there was the pressure for – suitable. Who could forget crates! The editor of Mode cornered Maya and told her damn it. people want diamonds, not as though you haven’t got it. There was an element of having taken the candy away from the kids, glam enough when they were networking in the City. You have to understand – I’m sure you do. It was one thing to read reports, even hear first hand from CLIK. They insisted on seeing for themselves and they did. The total immersion poverty experience. I hadn’t seen conditions like that. I don’t suppose you have. They were outraged and they said so and what they said they meant. We all know Mitch’s granite slab. They saw it. The schools are crap, the hospitals are crap, the building you live in is crap, the bed you sleep in is crap, the blanket that covers you is crap, the clothes you wear are crap! There is no way out. It really puts you in the right frame of mind to organize the social event of the century! They did take the point about having it.but there was no way they were going to waste time on it. Then Bal announced he wanted to inspect the joint. Urban legend that Sarat grunted he’d have to eat in the canteen like everyone else. As all good readers of Glitz know, they used the museum, formerly the Summer Palace. Unfortunately by then it opened late to enable working people to visit. Fortunately it had the necessary chandeliers and wide aisles. You think the plot was precision planning?”
“That was the seed of the people space?” asked Shav.
“It was. There was no point in inviting them to dinner because they wouldn’t go. Part of that was the no-diary no-schedule stuff, but a lot of it actually wasn’t, rejection of a – socialite element. We are not repeat not here to be seen with all the ‘best people’. Anyway, Mitch said, we are the best people. Soul-brothers….They settled to having their dining-table as the social centre of Azt and that meant anyone could be invited, builders, bankers, barmaids and they served the sort of food anyone could be happy with and by the way stamped the imperial seal right through the heart of Azt.”
“After Maya it changed. Sarat still invited anyone he damn well pleased to dinner but it was much more one to one or two or three, much cosier and more private. Then he changed his diet. You cannot invite citizens of Azt to dine and offer them seeds. Apart from anything else if they’re poor it’s gross. But by then we did indeed have the people space and the Jumesit as the social centre of Azt was established.
“So what’s the point of all this if I can’t even eat what I want! That’s what we think’s going on. Basic decisions about how he is prepared to live his life, about what he has done to his life, and he’s not sharing. Another sixty years of this!”
“But he likes it.”
“Oh, he enjoys it all right. Not sure that’s the same thing. Don’t ask me to explain that! I think there’s a lot of – not sure I can explain this one, either. The cliché, the joke about love, so long as I’m with you we can live on rotten apples on a rubbish tip and I won’t notice. I think there was a lot of that in their relationship. He’s noticed his life and is assessing it.”
“Sarat is taking excellent care of Sarat,” said Paw. “If there were evidence of self-neglect, we should be concerned. There isn’t and we aren’t.”
“The word,” said Shav, “is the student life he never had.”
“He doesn’t go to bed, either. I take it you’ve heard.”
“I’ve heard. Maybe not from the horses’ mouth.”
“Neeeigh! You know there’s that one ginormous super-gigantic sofa. When he’s finished for the day he turns out the light and sleeps on it, worries about washing in the morning.”
“It’s very comfortable,” said Shav trying to keep a straight face. “I hope he cleans his teeth. I can see – a kind of a watershed, getting rid of your double bed. Apart from the obvious that it’s too empty.”
“Only 50 other rooms to choose from. If he were a student, I don’t think anyone’d turn a hair. Being a bereaved emperor makes them make it into 50 different kinds of grief syndrome. There’s a – ditching of inessentials because they don’t seem to matter and even don’t matter.”
“What would concern me is exactly that. As though he feels chased by time.”
“Facing the possibility of his own death? How can he not?”
“Yes,” said Shav. “But you’re happy.”
“We’re happy,” said Baz.
“Most young people have a period when they were single. I think Cho’s so worried because he’s never been on his own.”
“Cho should have more sense,” said Baz rather shortly.
Paw nodded.
“We all know where the buck stops,” said Shav. “If it goes pear-shaped, it won’t be Mel or Cho in the firing-line.”
“It’s more character-forming to live in a bedsit?”
Shav laughed.
“I’ll remember that! But Cho, do you really think living in a bedsit - ? What about Hass and Venga? Do they eat seeds?”
“We remember,” said Baz after a moment, “all of you when you were tots, babes. You had a pink velvet headband with silver sparkles. You loved it and wept buckets when it finally fell apart.” I did, thought Shav, but what - ?. “His first date with Maya, the first time they went out on their own, without the gang, he took her to a beach-party, all flutes and candles. You’d have thought it was frantically respectable if you didn’t notice the horizontal shapes in the dunes. They didn’t, not for some time I think, obviously we didn’t know exactly when.”
“Maya staying the night wasn’t a clue,” sighed Paw. He grinned. “Until her bed wasn’t slept in.”
“I do know about Sarat and Hass,” said Shav, thinking this was where Baz was going.
“Nobody knows about Sarat and Hass.”
“They’re not - ?”
“Oh no, no, no. I was there, Shav.”
Where? Oh.
“Oh Baz.”
“The way I feel about is it’s not just the most awful thing that’s ever happened to me, it’s the most awful thing that could ever happen to me. Now imagine how Sarat feels. He said it was like an axe-wound in his head. You have a cut, the edges come together, it slowly heals, but if you’re not a bit careful round it the edges spring apart and it bleeds like it did when it was new. Maybe for a shorter time. I’ve really thought about that one! It’s the best analogy I can think of. How are you feeling! I never thought about it till it was me doing the feeling, thought it was just the sort of dumb-arse question journos ask, like Karula said, how do you expect me to feel? It’s much more than that, or rather Sarat’s total antipathy to his nearest and dearest – I feel the same. There you are, you’re dealing with it. If that sounds crude, getting the edges of that wound together is major microsurgery but you’re hacking it. Then your dear grey-haired old grandfather asks how you’re feeling. That’s bad enough, but he wants you to talk about it. Pull the edges of the wound apart, really get in there and make it bleed. Sarat talks to Hass. When he wants to. I do too. Doesn’t matter if it’s 3 in the morning. Hass knew what he had to do and he did it. Just be there whenever Sarat needs him. He doesn’t get excited, he doesn’t gush.” He paused. “He doesn’t try to analyse. He – knows what it feels like. When I say he’s there I don’t exactly mean Azt. He pours love on it.”
“It sounds awful,” said Paw, without saying what sounds awful. “We all Cho would move heaven and earth for him.”
“I don’t know,” said Shav. “It’s not the same, is it. I can’t see Sarat appreciating Cho and Amida moving in, however selfless they were about it.”
“We didn’t see how it would work,” said Paw.
Baz said: “When I say he’s there I don’t mean literally, every minute! They seem to do exactly what they like. They wandered in, without much of a by your leave to the host. That’s what I mean about Sarat and Hass. Sarat understood, in his heart if not his brain. They chose a few rooms, they decorated them to taste, they got on with being Hass and Venga. Last seen at the Round-the-Islands Race.”
“That’s what I mean about rubbish tip,” said Paw “There’s an awful lot of that in Hass and Venga. They don’t care where they are.”
“After all…” muttered Baz. “Fluid. It’s the fluidity in Hass. He doesn’t go with the flow. He is the flow! Anyone else, there’d be sharp edges.”
“I’ve always had a lot of time for Hass,” said Shavli. “I didn’t know quite how much. Cho’s not an idiot. I guess he’d do anything to help but can’t unless Sarat talks to him.”
“Come on, you know it’s more than that. This bloody notion of his Sarat and Maya are still – connected somewhere.”
“Is it so bloody?” asked Shav. “I don’t mean it how Cho means it.”
“Maybe…I mean it how Cho means it. It’s 30-carat crap and Cho knows it. Hass would know instantly. I think I would too.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” said Shav. “He thinks Hass is too – ethereal.”
“Hass is about the most level-headed guy you could ever hope to have by your side in a crisis! The head of PANTHER does not go lame-brained just because he dotes on his grandson. Which I told him.”
“Never a dull moment,” said Paw.
“I’m ethereal,” said Shavli. “I think – I’m sure you do see but like the gang were shocked by total immersion poverty, we at Base Camp Fidub were a bit shattered by the ramifications of going to Kadun to fix the drains. I mean really Sarat, I know you want everyone in on the act, but the entire universe?”
Baz chortled.
“Dear Mum, we have had such adventures, today all of us sat on the Anile throne…”
“Sorg,” said Shavli. “This is to do with Falita and Sorg?”
“Could be,” said Paw.
“Maybe he’s not putting it very well,” went on Shav, “Cho, I mean. That does not seem likely. Not saying exactly what he means. Obviously Sarat isn’t experiencing a ghost. Maybe he thinks because of the – connection a – a door is open, the ghost can be inside Sarat’s head?”
“OK,” said Baz, “I don’t believe that and as I said Hass would know. So what you’re – your train of thought is neither of them – Sarat and Hass – want to shut the door and Cho is adamant – and if were true he’d be right – the door has to be shut. The axe-wound was me, Shavli. I think you need to understand that.” He looked at them both. Paw put his arm round him. “Calm, centred, honest…Bloody wound up, but not because of me, because of bloody Cho. I was there. I forced them apart. I am sure. Maya went – wherever, whatever. The first thing Sarat said was the second most awful, she’s not here any more. It was very, very final.”
“You’ve said that to Cho.”
“I have said that to Cho. Sarat says – he has not said to Cho – yet – feels like a damn research animal.”
“That’s awful.”
“The trouble is,” said Paw, “in the nicest possible way, that’s what we all are, the subjects of our own experiment.”
“There’s only one way of studying what happens when we die,” growled Baz. “Maybe two – take a finely judged overdose and be very close to the hospital.”
“I suppose we’re all thinking,” said Shav. “Cho’s getting on, etc. Whether it’s of more immediate interest.”
“We’ve thought,” said Paw.
“It hasn’t changed what I think,” said Baz. “If you ask me if we continue in any – recognizable form, I’d say no. But. That’s what you mean, I guess.”
“There is a question of volition.”
“Oh, there is. Again, if you ask me – she wanted to go. Whatever ‘she’ and ‘wanted’ mean in that context.”
“It must have been unbearable. But he – “
“How can you describe an instant which is past everything? I work on it. Yes, he tried to kick me out. He did not want to follow. Maybe I shouldn’t have….He – wanted to keep that instant – stay suspended out of life, out of death, out of time. He did not want to keep her here. He just didn’t want it to end. Does that make sense? It was down to him to end it. Or her. Or the – natural order of things.”
The most private part of a very private relationship and Baz wrecked it, thought Shavli. That I do not say. What Sarat and Baz have said to each other, that I do not ask.
“Shall we lighten up? Next thing, Sarat and Petrush come in and find us with tears pouring down our cheeks. They’ll have to ask how we’re feeling.”
“That would be appalling,” said Paw.
Baz looked at her thoughtfully a minute.
“We seem to have taken a nosedive from dietetics,” she said. “I’m thinking. A man has a solid relationship with someone who really understands him but then someone else comes along and the relationship is just as solid, just as meaningful, but the second person seems much more glam – “ They looked puzzled. “Then there’s a dislocation in the second relationship and the guy really needs to talk to – his first love, but he’s terribly embarrassed, maybe even a bit ashamed, but the first person wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t notice…”
“You’re talking about your dad, aren’t you.”
“He knows that! Sarat, I mean. Shavli – he does not want to talk! Except to Hass.”
“I was just thinking,” said Shav.
“Did they talk?” asked Petrush.
“Boy, did they talk! Did he talk?”
“Oh yes. Succinctly. Man, I take a month off to ‘talk about Maya’, the problem’s solved, right, she’s not dead any more. After that we talked plants. Cho is not handling this well.”
“You noticed! I got all of it.” Pause. “After Maya died, I talked to Dad.a bit. We decided – if there was something Sarat didn’t want to say, that was cool.”
“You would not seem to have shared with Cho.”
“I think Cho – I don’t know.”
“You have a clue what the something is?”
“Oh yes,” said Shav. “D’you remember when Turny was put down?”
Petrush tried to recall.
“I was away with Ma and Dad. That’s right! What I got was the upside, I guess. Sarat, you are becoming a biology bore! It was after that he was really hooked. Your Dad talked you through it. Wasn’t there something about an apple?”
“Even Zik remembers the apple. Dad thought Sarat and I were old enough to try to understand. Zik wouldn’t be left out. What we got was a sense of wholeness. He said you couldn’t have all the people who’d ever been born in Fidub still alive and all the dogs and all the mice and all the flies, and all the birds, and, and because there wouldn’t be any room for plants and if there weren’t any plants there wouldn’t be anything. I was totally lost on the detail, but I remember the feeling of how it all fitted and I do remember the apple! He took an apple and held it against Sarat’s arm. He said that everything you need to keep alive, air, juice, that apple, it has to be processed inside you. You can’t just hold it against your skin and it becomes part of you! We could see that had to be quite complicated and fascinating and brilliant and it’s why you have blood, to take the tiny bits of processed food and air all over your body to feed it and the heart is what sends the blood right through your body. But because it’s all so complicated over the years things start to go wrong, little things, and your body’s really good at putting them right, but eventually more things go wrong than right and when something major goes wrong, like with the heart, your body isn’t getting any food, any air, so it just stops, and that’s all it is. So of course Sarat protested. Dad reminded me. He explained that every bit of Turny was basically worn out, not working properly, beyond mending and it was kinder to put her to sleep. Sarat said how can you be sure unless you try.”
Petrush smiled gently.
“That’s my man!”
“Isn’t it just.”
“Your thinking is – “ I’m trying to put this in standard form. “They’re doing CPR in the emergency room and some moron – sorry, Baz – interrupts.”
Shav was taken aback.
“No, basically.”
“I would agree. If that had been the case, Baz not being a moron would not have interrupted! The point is surely that so far as we understand that word she was dead.”
“That’s exactly what Dad said. I said – she was,” said Shavli, slightly emphasizing the ‘she’.
“Who - ? Shavli!”
“I don’t even know if it’s possible. Nothing Baz said today went against it. He said it was like a suspension of time. Sarat didn’t want to keep her or follow her or any of the words of volition. He just wanted to keep that moment. He knew he couldn’t keep their baby alive. He wanted to be there when she died.”
“She?”
“She’s not there any more.”
“Before I burst into tears you have not one scrap of proof!”
“She died in his arms! People say froze, shock, or just love. He didn’t freeze. He plunged in. I think what he found stunned him. Dad follows that bit, but he thinks it’s something to do with what happens when you die, Sarat found himself somewhere – because, you see, she was dead.”
“So far as we understand that word.”
“It was all seconds.”
“There does not seem to be any question of Maya trying to heal herself.”
“There’s just something that doesn’t mesh. What I feel like – a bit - is a detective picking apart a suspect’s story. If he wants to tell us.”
“So Cho thinks the worst because it does not compute! Thank you, Cho. That will be all…I am remembering – when they really confused us. Yes, we could heal people. Yes, we could heal animals. Our aged pets should still be – if necessary put down. But not of course our aged humans. I am curious. How did your Dad hack that one?”
“Bluntly. He said no, we did not swan around healing. We could not and did not heal without preferably the participation but certainly the wish of the being being healed. When it was trivial, whether a cut paw or a cut finger, it really wasn’t an issue. Non-human animals have a sense of their lives which is different to that of humans. A human can want to go on living despite total physical disability. A non-human animal has a sense of having reached its end. To over-ride that is an evil, a violation. Yes, you can have your old dog bouncing around like a six-month old puppy, but it’s not actually your dog, it’s a creature of your will, because you do not want to lose it. That, hopefully when we are older, we shall have to confront in ourselves at any death. Shock is natural, a sense of loss is natural. Do we cry because we needed the dead person or do we cry because the dead person enjoyed being alive?”
“Why does that not surprise me? One appreciates these things of course, perhaps less bluntly. The core of PANTHER is is it not there be no over-riding of will, human or non-human. If we consider our Denzines friends are not capable of talking straight, that Fidub could not heal is that which does not wish to be healed?”
“Eeek,” said Shav. “At which point the story become ludicrous.”
“I want to think about that one, hard. What’s the rest of the goss? What was that about food?”
“Hilarious. He’s gone back to the Sarat diet, bearing in mind one cannot decently offer the starving poor raw grain.”
“I thought they weren’t starving any more!”
“A history of diet from rotten burgers to raw grain!” She filled him in.
“So people are finding his conduct a little odd?”
“I think Baz fingered that one clearly enough. If he were a student, no-one would notice. Since he’s Anile emperor, it has to be some kind of grief syndrome. He does talk. He talks to Hass.
Only to Hass. And Baz. That was made entirely clear. It’s part of my circumstantial evidence! Have you ever talked to a gay guy about fatherhood?”
“Now you come to mention it…So Cho thinks what you think and thinks Hass can’t truly understand. You think!”
“I think.”
“Was there an autopsy?”
“No-one told me about it.”
“Pretty little PANTHER minds could surely have established. If and only if, I should doubt Sarat is the only one to know. I can well see that if Cho sees himself as surrounded by a conspiracy of silence, that would make him just a little on edge. I would add that the progress made in Kadun is not such that Faun – for example – could stand up in court and delineate the nature of Maya’s injuries and the state of her body, shall we say, because he looked. One thing I grokked. Because of that accident of geography, Fidub is largely free from memories of Maya. Oh, not home. Specifically I guess his relationship with me.”
“Isn’t that interesting,” said Shavli.
“I told him straight down the line, if he is – not finding it necessary to visit because of this hiccup with Cho, that is crap.”
“Good one. “
“I may just have got him to spend a week with us chilling out. These are delicate negotiations but I think it a firm possibility!”
“That would be brilliant. Something else I remembered. When we were little. Often, often we went to stay with Cho. But Cho hardly ever came to stay with us. It suddenly struck me, Cho probably doesn’t really have much of an idea of what home was like. I like to think if I could just sort out Sarat and Dad, everything else might fall into place a bit better. Butt out, Shav!”
“He has a problem with your dad?” Frank disbelief.
“I think he thinks he does. When he was 17, he ran away with Cho.” She shared her analogy. “They are so alike. People see the superficial, mover and shaker, wheeler and dealer. Ah, how he takes after his grandpapa! It’s crap.”
“I have always known that. Believe me, I do not have Cho down as one excited about algae. I do not think you can call the moving and shaking superficial.”
“He’s Anile emperor,” said Shav, then stopped.
“Do continue,” said Petrush.
“B and P think all of it is making some fundamental decisions about how he’s prepared to live the rest of his life, ‘what he has done to his life’ and I quote. That’s all quite ordinary and exo.” She sighed. “I wonder if Cho fully even understands that. Sarat was set for ordinary life.”
“Honey, he was never going to spend his life in a lab! He would have had a future in NoZone marketing the environment. He chose to market something nearly as big. To which I would add, he wanted to rock and rock now. If scientists rock the world at all, it is in their later years, when all that meticulous research has paid off!”
Shav giggled.
“Maybe that’s because they don’t have the resources of half a continent at their disposal.”
“Oh we are so thorough! Where are you going?”
“All that was pure Dad, the exposition. We all know the identity crisis, but that’s not the two people. The brash Fidubi brat is Cho and the Anile emperor is also Cho. Sure, Sarat and Mitch did the marketing but they also did the research. Mitch spent years in the PANTHER records. It works because of that ground-work, because the foundations are solid.”
Petrush laughed.
“While I take that point, I would add that we spent the afternoon undermining everything the continent ever thought about itself.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Wherever we’re coming from, it doesn’t affect where we are now. Do you see- a sequence of events can be described, each following from the one before, but that doesn’t mean the end-point can only follow from the start. Suppose we proved Narulis never existed! Oh, there’d be repercussions…But there’s no way – some guy is getting his chronic asthma properly treated only because Narulis existed and if Narulis hadn’t existed he wouldn’t be.”
“I am not entirely sure about that.”
“Couldn’t be. No alternative sequence of events is conceivable.”
“No-one else was or is capable of the idea – I do not know that Narulis wrote about the treatment of asthma. That may be to say someone embedded certain ideas in the history of Kadun. Surely Mitch’s point that they were indigenous is very much the issue here, indeed that they came from Narulis the foreigner very much why they were resisted.”
“It’s a lousy analogy?”
“It may be better to say suppose Zani never existed! Someone undoubtedly founded the kingdom of Dabida with certain core values, for there it is for all to see…What I thought – there are facts – “ He grinned. “The sort of fact at which Mitch excels. Facts which are not scientific facts, but may be given the status of scientific facts, although they are not the facts of science. The existence of Dabida as we know and love her is surely one. But I was thinking of the minutiae. Science told them- if you call statistics science - what percentage of the population had no piped hot water or no main drainage. Mitch took us through a day in the life, what exactly that meant. Only when you have defined the problem can you define the solution. It is that I see as independent of any forebears. We seem to have digressed. I say seem. Would it be incredibly unjust to say you too think Sarat should talk to an elder male relative, just a different one?”
“No. What would be incredibly unjust is to think that I shall prod, encourage or otherwise interfere!”
“That is a fine sentiment and the simple human conviction of knowing best is of course apparently where Cho is coming from. Sarat in this scenario would be secretly longing to share, Cho is not an idiot therefore Cho’s apparent conviction that the person Sarat should be sharing with is he must be regarded as having some rational basis.
Shav gurgled.
“Baz told him the head of PANTHER does not go lame-brained because he dotes.”
“Children, children! I am shocked! My problem here is my genius for seeing both sides with equal clarity. Poor Sarat! Not only two people, but four, possibly eight, sixteen…We all of us may have our loving families playing that kind of game, but he has the entire world. It is impossible not to side totally with his desire to tell the entire world to butt out. But Cho is not an idiot emotionally or any other way. I do not think even I can draw a parallel between this and our new mission – but I can try. If that territory is demonstrably Kadun and remembering transparency is his middle name – he could go the long way round, right, the international court. If I assess my man correctly, he does not give a damn where the border is as a matter of principle. He would merely prefer what is on the other side of it not to be a secret weapon aimed at Azt! I can relate to that. There would be a hell of a lot of – fall-out! – for perhaps very little. If we take it as given Cho has something serious on his mind, why the hell does he not come out with it? Perhaps he chooses not to because the fall-out would be too great, though I cannot imagine what that could be.”
“I have a plan,:” said Shavli.
“What happened to the fine sentiment?”
“Observe, my sweet, observe. If he comes and stays with us, we can have a family reunion. It must be ten years since we’ve all sat round the same table. Unless Sarat really objects – “
“I do not think Cho will press him with Zika by his side!”
“Which would be of interest in itself, we can have a look at them together and see what we think then.”
Extract from The Anile Heir ©2006.
I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this book

PANTHER -> Site news -> Hey, kids, we get to eat roast aurochs
by Ysabel Howard - Wednesday, 22 February 2012, 11:43 PM

 

We know from, among other places, the Lascaux cave illustrations of 17000 years ago that there were creative, artistic cave-persons, and we know also by deduction that there were cave-persons whose approach to, say, fire was more pragmatic, shall we say, than to just squeal it was a mighty god, or else the species would not have moved on at all. Is it not a most interesting question, then, why I or anyone else in a free country in the C21st century with the whole of world thought, the whole of world art, available for our contemplation should be bothered by the more retarded sort of cave-person?