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By Root 1153 0

children’s bodies grew under the earth, their roots and shoots moving toward the heat that spilled so fervently from the other side of the Gate, intensified by the adamant gems there. And one day, a pale, striped sapling sprang up, outside the Wall. Then another, and another. And they sent out trunks and leaves and blossoms and one day the blossoms opened and a whole generation of Azenach leapt out laughing. Of course, having been shared out as the holy meal before burial, some of them had no brains, and didn’t laugh but fell down dead like dumb fruit dropped. Some had no wombs, and never had any children of their own. Some had no spleen, having aggrieved many people in their other lives on the far side of the Gate. But those who had fallen dead before they could even draw breath seemed to have enough for the others to share, and they patched themselves up reasonably well, swallowing their siblings’ organs into their bodies. They do, well and truly, take the strength of what they eat. On one side of the Wall, it is a metaphor. On the other, it is fact. Only a few of them have no hearts now—their blood seems to move about in a fashion more like sap, and they are pacifists.”

“I can hear my grandfather on the other side of the Wall,” said Yat. She twisted her streaked hands. “He misses me.”

“They stay here, close to the Wall, even now that new children have been born in the more usual fashion, like Yat, waiting for the day when the Gate will open and they will be one tribe again. But you mustn’t believe her,” the peacock sighed. “She can’t hear her grandfather. Not even sound breeches the Wall. The Azenach on the other side do not even know this colony exists.”

“Don’t tell lies!” Yat shouted, leaping up. “I can hear him! I can! He says: Soon, soon. And the Wall gets hot.”

I shivered. I did not think it was her grandfather, either.

“Oh, Yat, my darling, you must stay away from the Gates. No good will come of you listening to whispers leaking through, and your grandfather does not live in that country alone.”

“What do you know? You’ve never eaten anyone at all!” The child stormed off, and Ghayth made his apologies. The older Azenach held her while she wept dramatically. They all glared at us across the black road. Silently, the Azenach began to light the torches along the way, and while they did it, Yat sucked her thumb. Ghayth stretched his short legs.

“It was good, though, to tell a true tale again! You will stay, won’t you? Tomorrow the young persons’ chorus will perform my Romaunce of Twelve Infidels and an Exquisite Rhinoceros. I don’t mean to boast, but I think the motifs are quite adequate. I have nearly mastered the art of the denouement.”

“No,” whispered Hajji. “We have to go.”

Ghayth looked at her suddenly, and the little panoti blanched, if such a thing were possible for a creature the color of the snow.

“Don’t look at me,” she said desperately. “Stop it.”

“But you’re her,” he said wonderingly. “You’re her.”

“Please!” she wailed. “I don’t want to be!”

“If your headless friend here saw fit to shred the veil of modesty and drag me out, I don’t see why you should get to stay demure,” he sniffed. But he turned to me, unable to conceal his pride: “You see, I am getting the flowery speech down to a science. I can do it for fifteen minutes at a stretch.”

The panoti disengaged herself from John and crept up to Ghayth. She put her hands on his avian face, where he had large, handsome white circles under his eyes.

“Please,” she whispered, and tears filled up her eyes. “Let me be Hajji. Let me stay Hajji.”

THE CONFESSIONS OF HIOB VON LUZERN, 1699

I have tried to re-compose the text as I imagine it to be—that is part of the work of a scribe, to gracefully transmit the document as though no error ever occurred, as though no single letter were in doubt. But if my Brothers could read this as I saw it in that cell with the bold sunlight seeking purchase on the walls, their heart would fall and fail.

The Lord my God knows what those pages said. I will never know. Why did You not send me an angel to dictate