‘It isn’t?’
‘No — of course not. Your identity isn’t you. The you you know is merely an accretion surrounding an empowering kernel of awareness. It aggregates slowly until it achieves self-identity — the differentiation between self and other. Each aggregation is unique, of course. It happens in an infinity of ways. Creating … everyone. Each identity is but the mask upon awareness.’
‘You are speaking of consciousness.’
‘Call it what you will. Yes.’
For the one serving ostensibly as the tutor, Murk found that he was learning a great deal.
‘I know these things because of what I am,’ Celeste continued musingly. At that moment Murk thought her incredibly cute — he had to remind himself of just what she was. ‘For a time beyond this time there was perfection. Oneness. Then we shattered and fell into imperfection. Now we are corrupted. Tainted by this existence. Many of us have made unwise choices. I understand all this, of course. We were … unprepared … for such unfamiliar demands.’ She sighed in a very human-like manner. ‘And so I cling to what I know to be an impediment. Delusion.’
Murk had no idea what to say — all this was far beyond him. His training was in Warren manipulation, in the characteristics of Meanas. All that knowledge was of no use here. But then, he reflected, he was not being expected to serve as an adviser among the misty heights of philosophy or theology. No, she had come to him hoping for something else. Something this entity instinctively sensed she needed even though she had no idea of what it was, nor perhaps even a word for it.
But he understood now. Like a charge of static climbing his arms and back, he understood. She did not want or need a guide or an adviser; she was looking for someone to serve as … well … as a parent. His chest clenched at the magnitude of the responsibility until he could not breathe and he had difficulty in maintaining his shift into the edge of Shadow. Gods! Why me? I didn’t ask for this. Yet it happens to nearly everyone, doesn’t it? One mistake and there you are.
He thought of what his own bastard of a father would have done and decided to do the opposite. ‘You do what you think is right,’ he said, thinking: I sound like an idiot! ‘What you think is for the best. Do that and you can’t go wrong, no matter what.’
She was peering down, studying her fingers while she twisted them together. She did this for a time, not speaking. Murk wondered whether he’d said enough while at the same time remaining vague enough, and whether he ought to risk saying anything more.
‘Yes,’ she finally said. ‘I suppose so. What I believe is the best course.’ She dropped her hands, almost exasperated. ‘But it’s so hard!’
‘Yes, it is. Very hard. The right thing usually is.’
She had dropped her gaze once more. ‘I suppose so. It is hard, though. This not knowing …’
‘Welcome to imperfection.’
One edge of her mouth crooked upwards and she raised her gaze. ‘Thank you, Murken. I think I just …’
‘Needed someone to talk to.’
Now her brows rose in astonished surprise. ‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I’m way ahead of you in this imperfection thing.’
Her answering smile seemed to show an emotion Murk might’ve even named affection. ‘I think you are perfect the way you are, Murken Warrow.’
‘Thank you, Celeste. I feel the same way about you.’
She nodded absent-mindedly — her thoughts had already moved on. ‘So I shall seek union with this other that I have found.’
Murk froze for an instant. He’d almost shouted No! but caught himself in time. It’s her decision. She knows best, man. Don’t interfere. But … forgiving gods! What if I’ve just allowed something terrible here? Surely this Ardata is most like her if anyone is. She must be the best choice out of a bad lot.
He became aware that she was studying him closely. ‘You are troubled,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Yes, lass. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I’m worried for you. I want things to work out for the best. I don’t want you hurt.’
She smiled again, relieved. ‘I see. Thank you.’
Movement in the sky snagged Murk’s eye and he looked up to catch a glimpse of their hunter gliding overhead. Would she never go away? He reflected that spite itself was unrelenting. That it fed on its own sustained sense of resentment and animus. He supposed that given that, she’d be up there for a long time yet.
He lowered his gaze to see Celeste watching him with something like puzzlement. He frowned. ‘What is it, lass?’
‘You do not approve of my choice yet you refrain from dissuading me. Why?’
‘Because it’s your choice. Not mine.’
‘Ah. I see, I believe. In that case, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘This may be goodbye then.’
The way she said that made Murk wish he were up there in the treetops in truth so that he could hold her and comfort her. ‘I’ll be fine, lass. You’ll see. Good luck.’
‘Thank you.’ Her deep jade image began to fade.
‘Don’t say thank you. It was a privilege and a pleasure. Don’t you worry now.’
The image dissolved into nothing. Murk sensed himself alone once more. Far below in the flesh he allowed himself a long slow exhalation. He felt that no matter what he should ever face in the future it in no way could ever approach the agonizing gamut of emotions he’d just traced. It was like attempting to disarm a Moranth munition while blindfolded without the first idea of how to proceed. What a responsibility! He’d never have children. That was for damned sure!
He raised his gaze to the sky. The moon was shining high behind the passing cloud cover. He’d prefer facing Spite to having to grope through another talk like that again. Hostility was so much simpler. So much more straightforward. The pain from bruisings and broken bones passed so much more quickly than bruising to the spirit. He focused upon calming his heart rate and breathing: the night was only half over.
And yet thinking about it all, he really ought not complain. He wasn’t the one attempting to cut the sword-arm off a Seguleh.
* * *
As the time passed, it became Shimmer’s habit to wander the sprawling dispersed grounds of Jakal Viharn. And every day, just when she thought she’d tracked down all the satellite temples and altars, she’d always stumble across a new structure: a leaning, crumbling stupa, or a hollowed-out tree stump huge enough to serve as a shrine, cluttered with candles, prayer-scarves, smoking incense and bowls of offerings.
What structures she found amid the jungle were all severely tumbled and fallen down. Mere foundations remained, or a single standing wall, canted, supported only by the roots of the trees that had brought the building low. She walked hills and cut channels before grasping the truth that Jakal Viharn consisted more of earthworks than of any stone buildings. She began to study the immense courses of humps and ditches and came to realize that many of them represented titanic forms that would only be comprehensible from above: an inward curving spiral as broad across as she could walk in one morning; a snake as large and long as any natural hill; and mounds. Many mounds. And most of these severely subsided, eroded and undercut by all the marshlands surrounding the site.
She was walking the border of one such mound, now hardly more than a rain- and jungle-eroded hump, when she came across another of the few adherents, monks and nuns, who lived in these grounds and spent their days in constant devotional meditation tending the shrines, lighting the incense sticks and refreshing the offerings. This one struck her as different from the rest, however. The nuns she had met so far had all worn their hair hacked short; this one’s black mane hung like a curtain of ink. She sat on a log, a long plain wrap of white silk drawn up tightly about her. At her feet sat a very young girl, an orphan perhaps, similarly wrapped in bunched white robes.