Quibble, 52. Shadow

As utter control marches to war, Meissa learns how far Asuja will go to claim control for himself.

52. Shadow @Meissa

We fell into the gorge. Hard rock and the graveyard of the Null rushed up to meet us. Had I lungs to breathe, my breath would have flown out of me. Just as we were about to touch ground, Asuja popped out. We landed in a high heap of straw, engulfed by the darkness Within. Asuja had prepared it. In spite of his theatrics, he’d intended all along to give Quibble the yinman.

He taunted her to make himself feel superior, I noted. Can I use that?

We’d arrived not in a spiral but a single chamber Within. Asuja lit me, baring to sight a high ceiling and, standing in the chamber’s midst, a horse. Cobweb, no doubt. Asuja picked up saddle and bridle from where they lay by the straw heap. He darkened me, put me away. When he touched me again, we were Without, riding Cobweb within sight of the monastery, approaching it from the north. Asuja had removed his cloak. He was Quotation now, coming home from days of luckless hunting.

Asuja hid nothing. As his amber, I saw his designs with terrible clarity. Moving in secret a long time had irked him. Now that he’d revealed himself to Quibble, he was ready to reveal himself to Lesath – the person who really mattered to him. He relished the idea that I would witness that confrontation.

The lord of utter control intended to make his adept a martyr. Now that I can excel beyond his power, we’ll just see who’s the martyr! Asuja declared.

Will you gamble everything in a single toss? I said, hoping to delay both lord and adept. It’s wiser to wait.

I’m ahead of you, Meissa, rejoined the excelsior. Waiting gives Lesath time to discern and forestall my plan. I won’t afford Vega that chance, either. Delay is death.

Seek as I may, I could find no fatal flaw in Asuja’s plan, nothing to convince him of its brashness. He’d thought it out thoroughly, and he was probably correct to believe the only realistic alternative – running from Lesath, becoming a rogue – would amount to his death. So I tried an appeal to humanity, but with no better luck than Alnasl had. Asuja couldn’t imagine Vega sparing him.

Kindness blinds you, he told me. If I stood in judgment on Vega, then she’d never expect mercy of me. So why should I expect it of her?

But that is kindness, Asuja. That’s what it means – to give mercy where you expect none. To give it for its own sake.

Attempting to prove this, I showed him my memories of Vega’s mercy. There were few, for she’d seldom touched me. The last memory was of the tubercular One, the girl just skin and bones whom, at Vega’s request, Aladfar rectified before no frightening array of Zeros.

“Am I real?” the girl asked.

Vega grasped Aladfar’s arm, intoning an admonishment not to answer: Don’t rob her of the question! Unanswered questions are good to have. Let her take this one to Utopia.

Revealing the rectifier, the orb with which I had rectified Claim long ago, Aladfar lit it and prayed it aloft. The orb shimmered crimson, and the girl fell dead.

Not answering her wasn’t kindness, Asuja objected. It was falsity and ignorance.

The One was so young she could give no more summary, and Vega thought of her future. One transcended has an eternity ahead. In all that time, One must think of something.

One needs certainty, Meissa. Control. But I’m glad you showed me this memory. Aladfar and Vega are faithfulnesses, eh? Yes, I felt that. I’ll remember it.

Seeing this was the course speaking with Asuja went, I fell silent. I sulked, if I’m honest. Just a relic living within an amber, I was wholly in his power now. Whatever he commanded, I had no choice but obedience. What could I do for kindness? For the first time since Yed imprisoned me, I felt my life was completely out of my control.

Arriving at the monastery, Asuja pocketed me again. Darkness. When next I saw light, he stood in a small room, his cell. There was a narrow cot, a table, a wardrobe, but no writing desk, no shelves, no books. The orange light of the setting sun broke through the west-facing window to bathe the room. Asuja wrapped a cloth around his hand and tied a loose knot to bind me in place.

Of course, I thought. He has nightmares, too.

Mirror! he ordered, turning from the window.

I presented him with his mirrored face, my own as well.

Just me, Meissa. Go away.

Asuja looked at himself a long time. The sun sank at his back, and bit by bit dusk fell in the room. When it was dark, he shucked off his clothes, lay on the cot, and closed his eyes.

The excelsior floated Within. Below him spread a concave floor, and above him a tarry-not gaped. Red light burst through the tarry-not, filling the vast chamber. Unity’s voice resounded in the Depth of Night.

“There must be control,” It pronounced.

“There must be control,” Quotation agreed.

“Recite the confessions,” came the command.

“All are One. We are a consensus. Before Unity, which is the sacred heart of the dream, censoriousness is perfecting. I censor myself that I may avert my soul from the impurities of the seen, wherein lies Without.”

“But you are not One, Quotation. You excel me. You have been Without. Account for your heresy, or you shall face annihilation.”

Pain seized the excelsior’s body, ripped through him, escaped the confines of his dream and bled into me. Mirror! he gasped. I threw up the mirror before him instantly, as eager as he was to blunt Unity’s wrath.

Drawing a ragged breath, the excelsior said, “Through me, Unity, you will have utter control. All heresy will end.”

“You dare to say that word!” Unity shrieked. “You are an unrepentant heretic!”

Quotation gritted his teeth. “I’m your heretic! My soul is yours.”

The Depth of Night vanished, tarry-not and floor. All within the dream was a red agony, a hell of control. I cried out wordlessly in torment and terror.

“It’s yours!” Quotation screamed. “It’s yours, Unity, yours!”

His body fell to pieces and those pieces crumbled to smaller pieces, then to dust. With a puff of air, he blew away in a fine mist and became nothing.

Then he woke. Pale light, the first hint of dawn, shrouded the land beyond the window of his cell.

Within. A long and winding journey Within. Night-doors. Then, a night-door I knew, and its key – dazzler, trance, penitent.

Bearing me in his open hand, Asuja strode through the cave’s chill air and out into sunlight beneath the Arc of Edict. We espied the glacier’s face, scanning the noon-pointing daggers of ice. Here and there were signs of life – the tip of an elbow, the crest of a hood, the scarlet glow of a lit control, the glass itself obscured by a penitente.

Utter control, the excelsior intoned at large, show yourselves!

A rainbow of light uncoiled from the air at Asuja’s side, bringing Lesath. The crack of his pop-out reached Asuja’s ears before the lord fully materialized. Zeros started to step out from behind penitentes.

Approaching the arc, they formed arrays of sixteen, ranked four wide and four deep, except one array numbering fourteen, lacking two Zeros. There were eight arrays. In sum, counting Lesath and his adept, utter control’s force amounted to one hundred twenty-eight. A power of two – this was a total array, Zeros gathered for a purpose.

Each hand held a dimly gleaming red glass. At each belt was slung a long dagger in a sheath. I shuddered within. Their purpose was war.

Asuja winked at Lesath.

The lord smiled faintly, then cried out to the arrayed Zeros: “Utter control!”

They lifted their glasses in unison. The glacier’s face sparkled with red light.

“You know our aim,” Lesath bellowed. “Now see our means!”

Asuja stepped forward and, taking me between thumb and forefinger, he lit me softly and held me high for all the array to see. Panes of glass coursed through me from subtly different directions, rushing flat against my face, as the arrayed Zeros espied me in negative. They extinguished their controls, lowered their hands, and hurrahed.

“We shall kill kindness forever!” the lord went on. “Four arrays under Algol will take Egg 17. The other four, under my command, will take Egg 10. Our excelsior comes with me. When Fear waxes strong, he will prove his worth. Then all Within, Zero and One alike, shall heed our rule. For there must be control!”

This speech was no doubt calculated to inspire and to raise a second hurrah, but the arrayed Zeros stood stock still. Not a hand or a voice lifted.

“There must be control,” Asuja echoed, turning to his lord, “but not yours.”

Lesath’s eyes widened. His left arm sprang from his cloak, but too late. Already, Asuja held a glass before Lesath’s face. Vision! the excelsior charged me.

Numberless, I wish I could forget the memory Asuja fed me to light his glass. All was dark in my mind; I felt only touch. We were Within. Just ahead of us was the sound of footsteps. Asuja espied One walking alone ahead of him. Then he ran, overtaking her from behind, throwing an arm around her shoulders, clasping his hand over her mouth. I’m a Zero! he whispered. Stay quiet, or you will go Without. Show you understand. Nod. She nodded. He released her mouth, clutched at her shift, tore it away from her.

Not this memory! I said. Use another! Not this!

Asuja ignored me, jerking aside his cloak. As if it was mine, I felt his exposed sex harden as he wrestled the One to the chamber’s floor. His hands closed over her throat as he thrust himself into her – and his control blazed before Lesath’s eyes.

Kneel to me, the excelsior commanded.

Gazing steadily at the glass-dream, Lesath knelt.

Enough! I begged. Stop!

Still Asuja refused my plea, and the dream of the One’s merciless rape carried on. Even as he raped the One, somewhere deep inside Asuja ran an undercurrent of shame. As Quibble had said, he knew what he did was wrong. He knew, and it gnawed at him, yet he did it anyway. Finally, he rolled off of the One, rose, cloaked himself, and left her whimpering on the floor. But when the dream ended, his mind did not go dark. Instead, he began to relive the memory from the start. Darkness, footsteps.

Not since I lay trapped Within, Yed’s prisoner, had I felt such torment.

Do you yield? Asuja asked, and for a blank, baffling moment I imagined he was asking this of me. Then he said, Intone it to us all.

I yield, said Lesath.

Stopping his recall, Asuja ordered the control: End! The glass flickered out.

Now, seeing the excelsior with perfect clarity, I reeled with horror and despair. If the truth of kindness is mercy shown for its own sake, Numberless, then this is the truth of control: simple, bare brutality, power exercised for its own sake. Asuja gave himself to that sadistic power, acquiesced fully to its demand so that he himself could wield it. And now there was no hope for him.

Lesath got to his feet, faced Asuja without any sign of fear, and said, “Well done, excelsior.”

Asuja blinked in surprise. It was only a moment’s lapse, but in that moment the lord of utter control might have regained the mastery. Yet he made no move.

“Lord, you will be the sacrifice, not I,” Asuja told him.

“I’m prepared,” the lord replied, perfectly suave. “Are you? I tell you this, Asuja, mark I mean it well: you won’t escape as easily as that.”

“You knew?”

Lesath sighed. “You still haven’t learned to see all the pieces on the board, adept. Yes, I knew you’d betray me, and this was why I made you do it. Did you think my test was controlling the One? That’s only violence. Any One may commit violence. The test I gave you was controlling me – and yourself. Only now have you passed it.”

Asuja marched beside Lesath at the head of a phalanx of Zeros. They went night-door to night-door Without, bound for Egg 10, but I had no interest now in their march to war. The excelsior had already struck kindness a heavy blow. I spoke to him bitterly: Last night, you dreamed of Unity’s control, and out of kindness, I tried to shield you. No more! My pity has limits. I will never pity you again.

Didn’t you hear what Lesath said? Asuja answered. He made me do it.

Did he thrust a lit glass in your face? Control you? No. He made you do nothing.

He threatened me. It was a test. If I failed, he said he’d kill me.

Then you should have died! You might sell your soul so cheaply, Asuja, but I won’t. You will not find it so easy to wield this amber. I will not be the pawn of a monster.

From a pocket deep within his robes, Asuja took out a small wooden box, turned it over in his left hand. On its lid was engraved an unadorned doorway, before which there stood a naked human figure, seen in silhouette, shaded black. It was the shadow of a man. Asuja flipped the lid open.

I don’t need your pity or your shield, he intoned. I need you for one task only, and until then, you may lie alone beyond the door of night. Tell me, do you know what a shadow box is?

Go to hell, Asuja.

To hell? Oh, Meissa, you’re already there.

He put me in the box and shut the lid, and night, night was all.

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rem

The ancient Egyptians believed that since their shadows — for which their word was shut — were always with them, the shadow must be a part of the soul. So, they kept shadow boxes in which part of their shadow was shut, their shut shadowed. They used the same word, shut, for their statues as well as their legacies, how people remembered them, since a person could only exist if they made some mark on the world. The book of the dead, called Spells of Coming Forth by Day, depicts the deceased emerging naked from the tomb as a silhouette, featureless and painted entirely black. This shadow of the deceased, this mere icon, stood for the person.

The shadow of Irynefer comes forth from the tomb to meet his ba (a human-headed bird representing personality). Photograph by Jaap Jan Hemmes (Nile magazine).

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