Now he mumbles.
I wonder what it feels like when the gods speak through you. It's frightening to imagine. In all the pantheon, there isn't a single god you'd want to turn your back on. If you lent your coat to a god, you'd never get it back again. Not in one piece. So why is it such an honor to lend them your tongue?
Stop mumbling, old man. Pull yourself together.
6. The Snake Who Watches the Lovers: Humans know nothing about love. They stand beside each other naked and think nakedness is love.
A snake knows love.
Love is the smell that drags you away from everything that is safe, across fields, over roads, into villages, while in the back of your mind a voice tells you truly, "If humans see you, you'll die." Not death by languishing, but death by crushing, feet trampling you as bones snap and guts rupture. And you continue anyway, not because you want anything but you are incapable of seeing anything but the path toward passion.
Humans think that lovers are star-crossed if their families disapprove.
At their most ardent, humans still take a moment to find a soft place to lie down.
7. The Black Sphinx Who Pulls the Chariot: The conquering hero rides through the city, believing he is the terror and envy of all who see him. With his helmet stuffed down around his ears, he can't hear the muttering of the people in the street.
"Can't he afford a horse?"
"I knew him when he was a brat who threw stones at old women."
"Putting on weight, isn't he?"
When he parks this chariot outside the Ministry of War, children come and scratch my ears. They call me kitty.
8. The Flowers That Girdle the Woman of Strength: What is the nature of strength?
Nothing fights with us flowers. Nothing eats us, except for the occasional budworm. People don't try to make their reputation by conquering us.
The woman of strength strives to close the lion's mouth, and this time she succeeds. Or maybe it's just that this time, the lion allows himself to be subdued.
If the lion wins the next time and tears her apart, we flowers will certainly be damaged too. But the lion won't go out of his way to hurt us. He won't resent us. He won't want revenge on a bunch of flowers.
What is the nature of strength?
9. The Hermit's Staff: Straighter than any tree that ever grew…I was a tree once, a sapling. Cut down by a woodcutter, because it was his nature to cut wood. Selected by an artisan, because I stood straighter than my fellows. Whittled and trimmed, planed and sanded…shaved down to some human's idea of how trees should really grow.
I am half the diameter I once was. A spindly weakling. If this hermit put his full weight on me, I would snap.
But I am very straight.
I am here for symbolism, not support.
10. The Creature That Bears the Wheel of fortune: The wheel doesn't float in midair; I hold it up.
The crowd watching the wheel thinks that it turns on its own. I like to foster that illusion.
"Oh, no!" I shout. "It's turning, it's turning, oh, no! Harvests will be bad, winter will be hard, infants will be born sickly." And people of the celestial audience shake their heads gravely as if the universe has revealed its callousness.
"At last!" I shout. "It's turning, it's turning at last! Crops will ripen, summer will be kind, children will laugh and see the world with wondering eyes." And people of the celestial audience sing hymns to laud the banishment of evil.
The spectators think the wheel turns on its own.
They think it really has an effect.
When I grow bored of this game, I'm going to drop the wheel and watch the looks on their faces.
11. The King Who Bears the Scales of Justice: Visitors to my court wonder why I'm not wearing a blindfold. But if I wore a blindfold, how could I read the scales? Put my finger on one side or the other? That would give a fair reading, wouldn't it?
I'm not being cynical.
I know that if I were wearing a blindfold, I'd peek. People wearing blindfolds always peek. Stage magicians. Knife-throwers. Children pinning the tail on the donkey.
I'm not being cynical.
It wouldn't matter. The scales still work. Justice is served.
But a blindfold would be pure showmanship.
Not that I have any complaint with showmanship. I've thought of getting a blindfold so people would believe I'm impartial.
"It's not enough for justice to be done; people must believe justice has been done." People always repeat that maxim after the scales make an unpopular judgment. What they mean is that the truth is not good enough if the truth is unappealing. They don't want the scales to reveal the truth, they want the scales to confirm majority opinion.
I'm not being cynical.
12. The Tree That Bears the Hanged Man: Other trees get normal lynchings. On me, they hang the guy upside down.
I feel ridiculous.
The lynch mob strung him up last night. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of hysterics. No one mentioned what this guy's crimes were. If any. The mob laughed and cursed loud enough to frighten the squirrels out of my branches.
At one point, I thought two of the vigilantes were going to get into a fight, but the others stopped them. I don't know what it was all about.
Then they hung up this guy by his foot.
What morons.
It hasn't hurt him. He's humming to himself. Humming, for God's sake! He sounds quite cheerful.
What morons.
The elm across the road has been sniggering for the last two hours.
It'll be the talk of the county.
I'll never live this down.
13. The Bishop Who Follows the Specter of Death: Some criticize me. Some say I give the murderer legitimacy.
No. Not true.
I have never condoned death. Nor war. Nor famine. Nor pestilence.
I march in the parade of destruction because I have vowed to attend those who suffer misfortune. I am in the parade, but not of the parade.
I have no vested interest in suffering. But when suffering happens, a righteous man must face the problems head-on. He must take action.
Bless you. Bless you. Bless you.
14. The Pool of Temperance: I'm working on a stone. Millennia ago, a lizard of a now-extinct species knocked a stone off the bank. The stone was red and sharp-edged. Quartz, I think.
I was looking for a project at the time. Something to keep me busy. Something to occupy my mind in the dry days of summer. Something I could look at and think, "I made this. It's mine."
The stone is my project. It's almost smooth now. A smooth, speckled red.
It's pretty. I think so, anyway.
The angel above me has his foot on the stone and seems to find it comfortable. My stone is clean and polished. I'm proud of that.
I know it's not much. It's just a stone. But it's mine, it's mine, it's mine.
I made it. Me.
15. The Devil's Pedestaclass="underline" Day 2,189,345 in Hell. Noon. Greenwich Mean Time.
Satan lifts a claw and gores another notch in my side. Two witnesses stand by to watch, to make sure all the legal formalities are observed. This is Hell; we believe in legal formalities.
There are now 2,189,345 notches in my side. I am zebraed with notches, tigered with notches. One notch for each day of damnation.
I am the calendar of Hell.
Satan lives in dread of losing track of his time here. Sometimes he forgets whether he's made the notch for the day, and he gnaws at his talons, trying to decide whether he should make another notch. But he knows if he's already made today's mark, another would throw off the count.
He goes through this every day. Despite the rigorous routine, despite the witnesses. And he worries that sometime in the past, millennia ago or just yesterday, he really did make a mistake and now he's permanently wrong.
I have no trouble keeping track of his notches. I know how fresh my pain is.
If Satan clawed his own hide, he'd know too.