Quibble, 42. Rectification

The array of kindness loses a valiant comrade, and Nish learns what became of Quiddity.

42. Rectification @Definition

Blind diver, pallid as ash.

A boy stands in a forest clearing, alone.

He is not my son. He is older than my son ever was. I can’t make out his face, quite, but I’m sure this child is a stranger to me.

Something quivers in my periphery, and I skance it. The tail of a wolf. A wolf has just crept past me.

I gaze across the clearing. Two more wolves are approaching the boy. All three start to circle him.

He does not appear to notice them. At least, he makes no move. He just stands there as if stupefied. I wish I could see his eyes.

With that wish, I realize this is a dream. I try to move. I can’t. I try to speak, to call out, to warn him. I can’t.

But I must! I insist.

Still, I can’t. I watch wolves circle this faceless wraith of a boy, and I’m powerless to do anything. The circle tightens. I’m powerless even to close my eyes or look away.

Now I watch them snarl and snap at him, and still the boy doesn’t move. Now I watch one of them snip off a finger, and he doesn’t even cry out in pain. Now I watch as, in a frenzy, they tear him apart.

It was the one dream in which I could never claim control, and I woke in a cold sweat from it before dawn on the first song at the hottest.

I wanted to get out of the wet bedclothes at once, but I knew that was a mistake and stayed put. I adjusted my eyes to the little light the fire’s last embers were casting on the walls of Quibble’s cell. When I could plainly see everything and thought I could judge distances, I ventured out of bed. I drank some water. I pulled the bedclothes off the bed, using the bottom sheet for a laundry sack. On the way to the door, I stubbed my right foot on the hearth. I stopped and lit a candle.

Every time I’d had the dream, I’d worked through the morning thereafter. This time, no. I left the bedclothes piled in a washtub, sighed, and told myself to wash them later. Damn the work. After the insanity of my last cycle’s dreams, today I wanted only to sing. So I made myself an early breakfast.

Any other Sing, the Dazed meet in chorus at only three hours: prime at dawn, sext at midday, and vespers in the evening, each one hour long. But on the first song, they stay in choir most of the day, leaving the chapel only for meals. I’ve always loved to sing, but I’ve seldom stayed past lauds, which was yet well past when Cate always left to ensconce himself in the library. I always felt singing meant putting off pressing work. So it had been years – I don’t know how many – since I spent all the first song in the chapel, singing.

As I hoped, it was a welcome release. I was glad to sing at length and with only short pauses of ten minutes each couple of hours, during which yet sang, low, a smaller choir of Dazed. During the intervals, the others milled around in the chapel, speaking to One another. As I listened and spoke myself, I remembered that the Dazed hold their most interesting conversations during the singing of the first song. How had I forgotten what pleasure there was in simple, aimless talking?

Sometime during terce, while we sang, I thought I heard hoofbeats in the cloister. I was surprised Quotation should come back on the first song, since he never sang it.

I kept singing, finding the top of my range. I played around there, joyfully, and finally I began to find myself in the music. My heart swelled.

I am One with other Ones.

Terce concluded early.

Some Dazed had work to do in the kitchen, preparing lunch. I’d taken trouble to tutor Ell and Nell, first separately, then together, in just what had to be done to produce a decent lamb stew with a thin broth of lamb bone and ramps to precede it.

Those two would direct the work today. I hoped not to need to visit the kitchen at all, if only they did as we’d planned, handing each Dazed slips of paper, in the right order, with detailed directions for each step in the recipe.

This, I’d decided after much wrangling, was the surest method for overcoming the ways Dazed tend to miscommunicate.

You see, Numberless, they skance each other all the time. They almost never look at each other directly, so what they see of each other is always a bit out of focus. Body language is lost on them.

Primed for disorder by their conversations, the Dazed left the chapel in a crowd, bunched up at the doors, rather than in neat rows as usual. Perhaps half of them were still in the chapel when shouts went up in the cloister.

I knew the sound of crisis. Some One hurt, probably. I rushed to the doors, pushed my way through the press of Dazed who stood dumbstruck just outside them, and drew up short, dumbstruck myself, at the sight in the cloister.

Rasalased, Alsephina, Aladfar.

The silence and the lady of control were panting heavily, as if they’d just sprinted up a hill. Not so the adept. Alsephina slumped between the other two Zeros, who were holding her up. Her head hung listlessly.

Aladfar hauled in a deep breath, hoisted Alsephina into his arms, and carried her into the arcade, Rasalased close on his heels. I followed. No sooner had the silence laid the adept in the shade there than he fell to his knees, panting again, and his hands went into his robes, no doubt seeking the solace of his glasses. Rasalased knelt and began softly to slap her adept’s cheek, trying to rouse her.

Another cry of alarmed Dazed went up, and I turned to see Vega striding across the cloister. Alnasl popped in beside her, at once matching her pace. They strode past me into the arcade as if I was of no significance, but when Alnasl saw Alsephina on the ground, he turned back. “Fetch cold water,” he said evenly, and when I didn’t move, he added, “Lots of it! Now!”

I faced the crowd of Dazed, still gawking around the chapel doors, and shouted: “Cold water! Bring us two large pitchers of cold water! Follow it up with a bucket!”

For once, Nell sprang into action.

Now Rasalased was growing distraught and slapping Alsephina fiercely across the face. Vega took her arm, trying to hold her back, but the lady of control wrenched free, and at last it took both Vega and Aladfar to restrain her and pull her away. She screamed once, wordlessly, and then sank to the stones of the arcade and fell mute.

I knelt to examine Alsephina. She wasn’t breathing. Her open eyes didn’t move. At the center of each of her pupils shone a bright vermillion star.

I clapped my hands in front of her face. Still no movement. Alnasl knelt opposite me. Pointing with his left hand – his right stayed in his cloak – he observed, “The gray in her irises is still there.”

“Is that good?” I asked.

The vision grimaced. “Maybe.”

“Where’s Quibble?”

He stared at me blankly, as if I wasn’t there.

“We came here for aid,” Vega said to him. “Hold nothing back. Answer her.”

“I don’t think they have Quibble.”

“Think?!” I exploded. “Do they or don’t they?”

“Adroit, silence!” Aladfar barked at me. “Vision, what happened?”

“Alioth had six adepts with him. When I arrived, Quibble was in the street. Two of them had her by the arms. I couldn’t pop her out of it. She was talking with Alioth. When I popped in, the lord said they’d made an arrangement and Quibble told me not to interfere. When I turned around to confront her, another Zero popped in at my back. Alioth called him Asuja. Then the newcomer lit a control. Utter control. It got Quibble. Then it was a fight, and I had to get her free from the two holding her. I bested the first at once, but the second was fast. We deadlocked. Alioth fell and Asuja extinguished his control. I think he was afraid he might kill Quibble. When he released her, I guessed he must be the phantom. The other adepts popped out. I shouted at Quibble to pop. When she was gone, I expected Asuja to come after me, but he popped away, too. Then I found my focus and won.”

Marginalia hurried up to us with the pitchers. Taking the first, Alnasl poured it over the adept’s face. There was no reaction. He waited several seconds, then splashed her fast over the face with the second pitcher. Alsephina stirred, turning her head side to side. “Lady!” she called.

Rasalased scrambled to Alsephina and clutched her hands. “I’m here, Seph!”

“Sal, I can’t see. Are we Within?”

“We’re Within, Seph,” the lady lied. “We’re safe.”

“Within,” the adept repeated.

Alsephina’s breath caught, gurgling horribly in her throat, and stopped yet again. She convulsed like a newly Dazed in the throes of a seizure. Then the spasms passed and she lay still as before. Rasalased heaved a sob. “No, no, no, no, no,” the lady cried as she bent to kiss her adept’s lifeless hands. Vega draped an arm across her shoulders, but Rasalased seemed not to notice.

Alnasl rose, and he and Aladfar retreated to a corner of the arcade to confer.

I looked at Vega. “What happened?”

“Control attacked Aladfar and Alsephina on the northeast hill. I don’t know how so many of them got so close undetected. Rasalased and I were on the southwest hill. It was a play for Quibble, clearly, so I sent Rasalased to help the others while I popped to the consensus to get Quibble out. But she refused to come. She popped outside to meet Alioth. Then Aladfar called me, and I had to answer. I had to leave her.”

“You couldn’t all pop in around Quibble?” I asked, disbelieving.

Vega set her jaw and shook her head.

“Control was relentless,” she said. “Usually, in a glass fight, the arrays split. That gives you the best chances. But control wasn’t fighting to win, only to occupy us while their lord did his work in the consensus. So the array massed attacks on each of us, one by one. We couldn’t rally to Quibble for defending each other.” Vega dropped her voice to a whisper: “Alsephina popped to Rasalased’s defense ahead of the rest of us. She took on all their dreams at once, by herself, head-on.”

The lady of kindness shut her eyes, bowed her head. I got to my feet and hurried to Alnasl and Aladfar. The vision was sharing his amber: it shone faintly in his palm as the silence touched it with only a fingertip. I began to speak, but Aladfar raised his free hand to me and I kept my peace. A few seconds passed, then he withdrew his hand and said to his adept, “Well enough done in a pinch, vision. You gave her the chance to pop out. But you missed the chance to pop her out yourself.”

“Maybe,” Alnasl admitted, impatiently nodding his head. “Maybe I needn’t have fought the second adept, but I didn’t have time to think. And what would it have done to Quibble if I’d popped her out while she was under Asuja’s control?”

“I can’t believe you two!” I interrupted, incensed at their waste of time. “You’re analyzing a glass fight? Do it later! Where is Quibble?”

“Either we analyze it now or we make all the same mistakes again,” Aladfar said. “But that is the question: where is she?”

Alnasl spread his arms, baffled. “Within?” he offered. “Her amber doesn’t have much range. The teaching chamber? I can go look.”

“Not yet,” Aladfar objected. “If she went there, she’d wait for you. Where else would she go?”

“Here?” I suggested.

“She’s never popped here,” Alnasl said.

“But her amber has,” Aladfar pointed out. He brooded a moment, then turned to me: “Where’s Indication?”

“On Sing? The library.”

At once, the silence and vision marched off towards the tower door. I lingered a moment to look at Rasalased, still bent sobbing over Alsephina’s corpse. My heart went out to her, but I reproached myself: None of that, Nish! Focus on the living!

Marginalia appeared again at my side. She said nothing when I skanced her. She was holding something. I looked down. An empty wooden bucket.

“Of cold water!” I said, almost cackling. “What were we all to do with an empty bucket, Nell? Hit the Zero with it?”

“My pardon, Adroit, but I fetched exactly what you asked for.”

“It doesn’t matter. Look, Nell. Look at me.”

The Dazed’s eyes rose to mine, went down again.

“I can’t help you and Ell get started. The two of you are on your own. Remember to station people correctly. Hand out new slips from the box in the numbered order, as they finish each task.”

“Yes, Adroit.”

I hurried up the arcade. Catching the silence and vision up, I said, “Who’s this phantom?”

“An adept of utter control in service to the lord Lesath,” answered Alnasl. Then he halted and caught Aladfar’s arm. “Silence, he hoodwinked us! He’s using a yinman to disguise himself. The protégé Quibble and I met on the steppe was Asuja.”

“I thought the protégé was a girl.”

“Disguise! That’s how he hid on the hill. His amber and yinman work in concert. As long as you’re touching your amber, he feeds you an illusion – sight and sound.”

“Does the excelsior know?”

Alnasl gave a slight shake of his head. “I didn’t have time to tell her.”

“Total illusion?” Aladfar pressed.

“I think it may be imperfect. The amber Nihal shows Quibble is just for show, but she can’t hide the neckband holding Asuja’s real amber. It’s how I found out. Asuja would have covered that track if he could.”

Aladfar pushed back his hood, scratched his scalp, and loosed a sigh. “What’s it all about, vision? What’s his game?”

“Don’t you see, silence? It’s a confidence trick! Asuja is herding Quibble where he wants her – away from us. He’s not after her, though. He’s after Meissa’s amber.”

“He’s had chances to take it.”

“Not take it! He can’t just take it – that does him no good. The glass would still answer to Quibble. Why appear to her as the protégé? Why befriend her? He’s working to win her faith. He’s trying to make her give him the amber.”

“A mirror? Second sight?”

“Exactly.”

“But why would Quibble ever do that?”

“Quiddity, that’s why. Asuja knows!”

“Knows what?” I said. The two Zeros blinked in tandem, as if they had forgotten I was there, and began to turn away. I clutched the vision by the arm, spun him around, and fixed my eyes on his. “Alnasl, you’d better tell me right now!”

Aladfar stepped between us and grasped my arm. I released Alnasl. Aladfar let me go, then nodded to a nearby bench. “Definition, sit down,” he said.

I sat and stared up at him expectantly.

“It’s not the vision’s fault. He stood against it. You mustn’t be angry with him.”

“Angry about what?” I asked.

“Nihal – Asuja – told Quibble that we kidnapped Quiddity and zeroed her.”

“But Quibble told me One can’t be zeroed. It doesn’t work.”

“It halfway works,” Aladfar said. “The One becomes Numberless, trapped in the amber glass. Did Quibble tell you about Meissa’s imprisonment?”

I nodded.

“It’s like that for the Numberless. They go deep Within, away from the light. It’s a living hell, and they go mad from it.”

“But if Quiddity’s Numberless, then Quibble came Without—”

“She’s not, Definition. I see it clearly now. Asuja told Quibble that lie to drive her from us and prime her for a second revelation. Utter control has a trump yet to play: the truth.” Aladfar closed his eyes in assent. “Yes, we took Quiddity.” His eyes opened, mere slits. “We took her,” he said, “and we rectified her.” Opening his eyes fully, he gazed at me with a face as blank as an iso’s mask. “I rectified her.”

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rem

I apologize for the recent delays in releasing chapters 41 and 42. At the end of January, I had to decamp to winter with friends in Florida. At my new digs, I soon found myself taking on the task of homeschooling four young children, and my hands have been full since then. Also, this chapter in particular gave me some trouble during revision.

Concurrently, I’m taking a one-month hiatus from writing reflections. “Infinite Lock-In” took a lot out of me. I need some downtime before tackling “Social Media Made Me an Asshole.” If I get inspired, I may give “Productive Mysteries” a shot sometime later in February. Meanwhile, this Saturday, I’ll publish the first chapter of the novella Quiddity, exclusively for founding subscribers.

rem

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