Yama thought that for a holy man of great age, of one of the oldest bloodlines on Confluence and from the second oldest city in the world, Theias had a remarkably short temper. But he bowed and said, “I have been rude. I am sorry. I see you know my true name, so I must presume you have some interest in me.”
“Your reputation preceded you, and I must say it was larger and more colorful than the truth.”
“I suppose your people keep doves,” Yama said.
Theias looked at Yama sharply. “Doves? There are all kinds of birds in Gond, but I do not pay much attention to them. Doves do not talk, in any event, or at least ours do not. No, I heard about you on the geophone, and then there is the heliograph, which I used to talk with this cockleshell before I boarded her. I heard that overnight you changed a whole tribe of indigenous squatters on the roof of the Palace of the Memory of the People, and that you started a war between the departments. Some say you are the harbinger of the return of the Preservers; some say that you are a mage in league with the antitheist heretics. I do not suppose you are either one. To look at you, I would say that you are a not particularly successful cateran off to try his luck in the wars.”
“I wish that I was. It may sound strange, but that was once my ambition. But I do not know what I am, except that I am not what people want me to be.”
“Is that so? I would say that is the root of your trouble. Does the stick know it is a hoe?”
“If it is used as a hoe, then I suppose it would.”
The envoy swatted Yama’s shoulder with his fan. “No no no. A stick does not have to ask itself stupid questions. It accepts its nature. If you tried to be more like a stick and less like a hero you would cause less trouble. What is that book you were reading? The Puranas, I would say, except no edition of the Puranas has pictures such as yours.”
“It is an old edition, and it has been added to since. One of your people was a part of the story. A man named Dreen. He was the Commissioner of Sensch.”
“I already know something of Dreen’s seduction,” Theias said. He scratched behind one of his large, translucent ears, then folded at the knees and sat down and patted the decking beside him. “Here. Sit with me. Perhaps you will show me the rest of the tale.”
They sat together on the forecastle deck, under the shifting shade of the sail, for a long time. Theias fluttered his fan under his chin and cursed the heat, and asked many questions about the pictures. Yama answered as best he could, and discovered that he knew more than he had realized. Pandaras brought food—unleavened bread and plain water for Theias, and bread, chickpea paste, slices of melon, and a basket of sweet white wine for Yama—and stayed to listen, sitting quietly and working on the embroidery of his shirt collar.
At the end of the story, Theias said, “Poor Dreen allowed himself to become what he was not. We still mourn him.”
“He is not dead, I think.”
Theias said sharply, “Even if he stood here before me I would say that he was not alive.”
“Because the Ancients of Days made him into their servant?”
“No no no,” Theias said impatiently. “You have much to learn.”
“I do want to learn. I am seeking the truth about myself, and I am trying to understand how I can train my mind so that I might hope to find it.”
“Foolish boy. There is no mind, so you cannot train it. There is no truth, so you cannot hope to reach it.”
“Yet I have heard that the men of Gond are great teachers. What do they teach, if not the truth? What do they train, if not minds?”
“We do not teach, because we do not have tongues. How can we tell others what to do without tongues?”
Theias said this with all seriousness, but Yama laughed at the absurdity. “I do not think you are telling me the truth! You play with me.”
“How can I lie when I have no tongue? You have not been listening, young man. I waste my time with you. Farewell.”
Theias swung onto the forestay and scampered up to the crow’s nest.
Pandaras bit off the end of a colored thread and said, “He’s a puzzle, master, isn’t he?”
“He is trying to make me think, but I am not sure what he wants me to think about.”
“I’m only your squire, master. I wouldn’t know about these higher matters. My people, we’ve always let others worry about hard questions. We prefer stories and songs for the pleasure of telling them and singing them, and let others worry about what they mean. Was this Angel in the story the same woman that appeared in the shrines?”
“At first I thought that the woman in the shrine was an aspect, but I think now that she was more like a reflection. The perfect image of a person, but without volition. Like a picture, if a picture could move or speak. In any case, the Angel of the story in my book was not the same as the one who first set out on the long voyage. She was copied many times, and the copies changed so much that sometimes they warred with each other.”
“I used to quarrel with my brothers and sisters,” Pandaras said, “often in the very worst way. Sometimes, I swear, we all wanted to kill each other. It’s always the way when someone is close to you, it’s either love or hate and nothing in between.”
Theias came down from the crow’s nest late in the afternoon. He sat in front of Yama and Pandaras and said at once, “What is the difference between Angel and yourself?”
Yama had been thinking about this, and the question did not surprise him. He said, “She would not accept her nature, but I do not know mine.”
“You are not as stupid as you pretend to be,” Theias said, “but you are not as clever as you believe. I am not talking about small distinctions of intent, but of actions. Both of you have meddled in the destinies of other bloodlines. Therefore, which of you is worse?”
“I did it only because I was asked. Angel did it because she wanted to make an army of followers.”
Theias looked at Yama intently. “Is that a sufficient difference?”
“In my case, I do not understand how it was done. It is one of the many things I do not understand.”
Theias smiled. “Then perhaps there is some hope for you.”
“I want to understand these things. You are pleased that I have no control over my powers, but I am frightened for the same reason.”
“And I would be frightened if you did have control over them.”
“I have been able to save myself from my enemies, but often with consequences that seem worse than the danger I faced.”
Theias said, “If it is in your nature to resist your enemies, then that is what you must do. But I thought that you did not understand your nature.”
“Angel wanted to rule the world. I do not want that. Even if others wanted it, I would refuse.” Yama smiled. “I am amazed that I am even speaking of such things. The world belongs to no one but the Preservers.”
“False humility is worse than pride. If you refuse to accept the burden of your destiny, then you are denying your nature.”
“Your bloodline is old, dominie. Does it remember mine?”
“Some say you are of the bloodline of the Builders, but I do not see it myself. They were gone long before any of the Shaped were brought to Confluence, and left only their works behind. Perhaps the Builders never really existed—have you thought of that? People reason that servants of the Preservers must have constructed the world, and so they invent a mythical bloodline and give them all the attributes they imagine world-builders might possess. But perhaps the world created itself, once the Preservers had willed it. For if the Preservers are gods, then they can speak true words, words so true that they are no different from the thing they stand for.”
Yama remembered the slate he had been shown in the City of the Dead, which had shown a man of his own bloodline with a starry sky behind him. But perhaps the slate had shown only a story. Perhaps everything was a story. He said, “Words are not truth, are they?”