Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [614]
‘I let you guess when I believed the time to be right. The plague must be stopped, the people must learn obedience. Otherwise, civilisation will sink and die under the impact of centuries of cold. Only with that thought in mind could I persevere as I did.’
‘Respected Father, you could not represent civilisation when the blood of thousands was on your hands.’
‘They are here with me now, son, those men of Asperamanka’s army. Do you imagine they have a single complaint against me? Or your brother, also here?’
The soul uttered the equivalent of a cry. ‘Matters are different after death. There is no real feeling, only benevolence. What about that unnecessary war you caused to be waged against our neighbors in Bribahr, when the ancient city of Rattagon was destroyed? Was that not sheer cruelty?’
‘Only if necessity is cruelty. My speediest way from Kharnabhar to distant Askitosh was to turn westwards from Noonat and speed down the Bribahrese river, the Jerddal – a much more easily navigable river than our ill-tempered Venj. So I came to the coast where ships awaited me, and was not recognised, as in Rivenjk I would have been recognised. Do you comprehend me, my son? I speak only to set your mind at rest.
‘It is important that the Oligarch remain anonymous. It lessens danger of assassination and jealousy between nations. But a party of nobles from Rattagon sailing on the Jerddal did recognise me. In view of the hostility between our countries, they planned to dispose of me. I disposed of them instead, in self-defence. You must do likewise, my dear son, when your turn comes. Protect and cherish yourself.’
‘Never, Father.’
‘Well, you have plenty of time to mature,’ said the glimmering shade indulgently.
‘Father, you have also struck out against the Church.’ The soul paused. It was unable to master its feelings, at once of respect and hatred, towards this smokey fragment. ‘I must ask you – do you think that God ever listens or speaks?’
The hollow which had once been mouth made no movement when it replied. ‘It is given to us gossies here below to perceive wherefrom our visitors come. I know well, my son, that you come from the heart of our nation’s holiness. Therefore I ask you: in this purgatory, do you hear God speak? Do you feel him listen?’
In the questions moved a kind of leaden evil, as if misery could be happy only in propagating itself.
‘If it were not for my sins, he might listen, he might speak. That I believe.’
‘If there were a God, boy, do you not reckon that we here below in all our legions would know of him? Look around you. There’s nothing here but obsidian. God is mankind’s greatest lie – a buffer against the bleak truths of the world.’
For the soul, it was as if a strong current was drawing it towards an unknown place, and it felt close to suffocation.
‘Father, I must leave.’
‘Come nearer to me that I may embrace you.’
Accustomed to obey, Luterih drifted nearer to the battered cage. He was about to hold out a hand in a gesture of affection when a strong rain of particles shot up from the gossie, enveloping it as if with fire. He scudded away. The glow died. Just in time, he recalled the stories which claimed that the gossies, for all their resignation to death, would seize a living soul and change places with it if they could.
Once more, he uttered his protestations of affection and rose up slowly through the obsidian, until the whole congregation of gossies and fessups was not more than a dwindling star field. He returned to his own prostrate form in its cell. Sluggishly, he became aware of the warmth of the living body.
There were still eight years to go before his cell was hauled round to the exit, still three before his cell had reached even halfway, in the heart of the dolorous mountain.
The environment never changed. But Luterin’s revulsion for himself began to stale, and change came to colour his thought. He began to brood on the division which had been growing between the Church and the State. Supposing that division became still wider and, for whatever reason, recruitment