The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [49]
Alaric sunk his head into his rough cowl as shrinking from a chill that was nowhere to be found.
“Do you believe then, that we are dead, and in Paradise, and that tree you saw and touched was none other than the Tree of Eden, and we poor souls have passed from earth, but not lifted up our glasses to look upon the light?”
I looked up at the rooty mud roof of my chamber. I wanted a cheerful debate—Alaric gave me sepulchral poetry.
“Like Thomas Didymus, I do not know,” I sighed. “In all my days I have known nothing stranger nor more unearthly than this place, yet it does not have the tang of Paradise, to me.”
“Nor me,” breathed my Brother.
“Leave me to my work,” I said. “Prester John must soon meet the people of his nation, I feel certain. My pulse quickens each time I reach for his book among the others! Go, and make friendly with our hosts. Perhaps if I press, they will allow me to harvest more fruit from that tree.” I felt my excitement growing again, running away with me—for did I not wish to study this mortal trinity of books, to do Your work, Lord, without concern for my own hungering after knowledge, after the Priest-king? But instead of these reasoned thoughts I heard myself barking roughly: “More and more, until I am sated—and God gifted me with a great appetite for books, Brother Alaric!”
My friend adjourned, shaking his head, and I, my fever stoked all the higher, pushed a new nail into the soft tallow.
And I prayed for an improvement in the virtue of Prester John in future pages, for as of yet, I loved him more as a man than a priest.
THE WORD IN THE QUINCE
Chapter the Fourth, in Which John
Suffers a Troubling Dream
I do not remember being found. I only remember a dreaming like drowning, a heavy weight pressing upon me. No matter how I strained, I could not get free. But at least it was dark and cold in the dream, and I saw neither sun nor moon. I liked the dream better than living, better than wandering in a world of unbaptized sheep. I do not even remember being carried, or cleaned, or laid upon a bed of any kind—though I dreamed so long that all of this must have occurred while I slept. I only remember the dream: I sat in a long field under the cooling evening sky, and all the stars, all the many stars, hung like lanterns, their strands tied to the terrible belly of a golden-rose sphere hanging heavy in the sky. The sphere drooped low, huge, bigger than any sun or moon, as big as the whole sky, pure crystal, the color of candlelight, with veins of blood flicking through it. I felt that if I put up my arms I could hold some tiny portion of its grand belly. The stars hung from it on silken strings, each no bigger than a pearl. And yet, when I looked up at it, I felt deep shame, and wept, though I knew not why. It turned, slowly, in my dreaming sight.
Below this sphere sat a throne of carved black wood, and the posts of that chair had collected a sifting of snow, though no snow now fell. None other than my friend Kostas sat upon the throne, his narrow face regarding me with sorrow. At his feet two hounds crouched, one made of gold and one of bone.
“In the kingdom of memory,” Kostas said, “the amnesiac is king.” He watched me implacably, the good and measured soul who carried my parchment and ran for wine at dusk with my coin, who remained so perfectly untroubled by the question of whether or not painting the face of God was an act of devilry or divinity, whether Christ was Flesh or Word, or the awful mystery of Word-in-Flesh, who wanted in all the world little more than a few wet dates and a bit of lamb-fat for his bread.
“Kostas,” I whispered, and fell before him with my face to the stony earth. “I want to go home. I should not have left. Look at how I am punished the moment I abandon my city.”
“What home can there be for heretics like us?” said my friend, and I knew he spoke the truth—at least concerning myself, who had thrown his