Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [294]
To some souls venturing there, the ranks of the departed were terrifying. For the queen they held consolation. She looked down upon them, those mouths pickled in obsidian, and was reassured to believe that at least some wreckage remained from existence, and would ever remain until the planet was consumed by fire. And who knew if even then …
For venturing souls, no compass bearings seemed possible. Yet there was direction. The beholder was a lodestone. All here had been collected according to plan, as stones on seashores are graded according to size. The ranks of fessups stretched below the whole earth, leading beyond Borlien and Oldorando to far Sibornal and even to the remote parts of Hespagorat, to semi-legendary Pegovin beyond the Climent Sea, even to the poles.
The soul barque moved to a breeze that did not blow, finally drifting to the gossie of what had once been her mother, the wild Shannana, wife to RatanOborol, ruler of Matrassyl. The maternal gossie resembled a battered birdcage, its ribs and hipbones forming tentative golden patterns against the darkness, like a leaf crushed long ago in a child’s book. It spoke.
Gossies and fessups were tormenting things. As negatives of being, they recalled only the incidents in their lives which were pleasant. The good had been interred with them; the evil, the dross, lost along with freedom of action.
‘Dear Moth, I come dutifully before you again, to see how you fare.’ Her ritual salutation.
‘My dear daughter, there are no troubles here. All is serene, nothing can go awry. And when you appear, everything is gained. My joyous and beautiful one, how did I squeeze such an offspring from my unworthy loins? Your grandmother is also here, delighted also to be back in your presence.’
‘It is a comfort to be in your presence, too, Moth.’ But the words were a formula against entropy.
‘Oh, no, but you must not say that, because the delight is all ours, and often I think how in the hurried days of my life I never cherished you enough, certainly not as much as your virtue warranted. There was always so much to be done, and another battle fought, and one may wonder now why energy was spent on those unimportant things, whereas the real joy of life was being close with you and seeing you grow up into—’
‘Mother, you were a kind parent, and I not a dutiful enough child. I was always headstrong—’
‘Headstrong!’ exclaimed the old gossie. ‘No, no, you did nothing to offend. One sees these things differently in this stage of existence, one sees what the true things are, what’s important. A few little peccadillos are nothing, and I’m only sorry if I made a fuss at the time. That was just my stupidity – I knew all along that you were my greatest treasure. Not to pass on life, that’s the failure – as those down here without offspring will testify in endless dole.’
She continued joyfully in this vein, and the queen let her ramble on, placated by her words, for the fact was that in life she had found her mother self-absorbed and without more than perfunctory kindness. It delighted her to find that this battered cage should remember events of her childhood which she had forgotten. Flesh had died; memory was embalmed here.
At last she interrupted her. ‘Moth, I came down here half-prepared to meet with YeferalOborol, expecting his soul to have joined you and grandmother.’
‘Ah … then my dear son has come to the end of earthly years? Oh, praise be, that’s good news indeed, how glad we shall be to be united with him, since he never mastered pater-placation as you have, you clever girl. How glad you make us.’
‘Dear Mother, he was shot by a Sibornalese gun.’
‘Splendid! Splendid! The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned. That is a treat … And when do