Gibbon's Decline and Fall (64 page)

“You talkin' about me!” cried Lolly.

The veiled one stopped, stilled, then, after a pause, said gently, “Why not, child? Has not the race of man been your enemy since your birth?”

“Not all men!” cried Carolyn.

“Of course not! Most of you, male and female, are striving to understand yourselves and put purpose and meaning into your lives. All men are not woman's enemy, but it doesn't take all men to do great damage! It doesn't even take a majority! Wars are usually begun by a minority. Terrorism is always the fruit of a minority. A fanatic few are quite enough to do the enemy's bidding.”

“Who?” begged Carolyn. “Who is this enemy if men are not?”

The veiled figure stood, moving with some agitation. “Ah, well, that is what we wanted to know! We looked first among the general run of men, of course, but we soon learned that
most men were not involved. So we looked harder: We found individual men, sometimes even religious men, who blamed women for all the world's ills, but they weren't the cause. They died and their works died with them, yet the persecution went on. We found popes, like this last one, who dedicated their reigns to keeping women in their place, but even they died, and often the next pope was closer to heaven and undid what the earlier man had done.

“
We couldn't find who began it!
So we said to ourselves, la, if one desires to learn about slavery, one becomes a slave. If one would learn of persecution, one becomes the persecuted. If we want to know what is happening to women, we must send someone to live among women. So we sent Sovawanea aTesuawane to live among you. She was one of my twin daughters.”

Silence. They had not expected this. They had not expected the finality of the words.
She was …

“You sent your own daughter?” Bettiann asked wonderingly.

“We had to know, so we sent her. Innocent as any child, we sent her. Knowing nothing of the enemy, we sent her. She was ignorant of evil, as each of you is born ignorant of evil. But she had not spent long among you before her intelligence perceived what we knew was there. She did better than we; she traced the persecution to its source. She found the devil among you.”

“Who?” Carolyn demanded. “Is it someone behind Webster and his Alliance?”

The figure before them shook her hooded head. “Not behind, friend Carolyn. Though Webster has taken a human name and a human face, he is not a person. He is a force, an unembodied hunger that settled upon this world millennia ago, to feed here, as a great boar might root up a garden to fill his belly. Among ourselves we call such creatures pain-eaters. The dumb pain of brutes does not appeal to their appetites, for they come to a world only when language and intelligence are evolving, to feed upon the pain of articulate grief and shattered dream, of frustrated fulfillment, of mutilated hope. They are the enemies of wise peace and thoughtful contentment; they manure the earth with ignorance and superstition, for in such fields pain is best grown. They are indeed devils.”

“Satan?”

Tess shrugged, her robes quivering and settling. “Whatever
name you care to give them. Satan. The Beast. The Serpent. I have read your scripture. You have a story of a snake in a garden, and your God says there shall be enmity always between that snake and womankind. Perhaps the writer of that scripture had seen this pain-eater as we do.”

“But a real devil?” Jessamine asked skeptically.

“Do you believe in power?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in evil?”

“I've seen it.”

“Do you believe some other life-form might be both evil and powerful?”

“I don't disbelieve it.”

“Then you don't disbelieve in devils. You are merely surprised to have encountered one. It is perhaps less surprising to learn that what this devil commands is said by many of your religions to be commanded by God. It is how he works. He hides himself in the dress of sanctity and sentimentality. He ignores the inevitability of drought to whisper of the sweetness of babies. He ignores the reality of war to tell men they must prove their manhood. Then, when the babies are conceived in their millions, and born in their millions, and are mutilated or starved in their millions, he feasts upon their pain and the pain of their parents. Oh, he is very clever; he hides himself well, but Sophy found him.”

“Found him,” murmured Carolyn. “And what does he intend?”

“He is no husbandman. He is no farmer or pastor. He has no covenant with earth. He will break the world, glutting himself on one final banquet. One monstrous feeding frenzy, leaving only a remnant behind before he goes to graze upon another world. It is the way of such beings.”

Silence. A long quiet, like a pool into which water seeps, the surface barely quivering over a measureless depth. Agnes drew breath, harshly.

“I can't accept this. I can't—”

“It is hard for you,” said Tess in a kindly voice. “You have learned the world is otherwise. Drink your tea, friend Agnes. You have scarcely sipped it.”

Obediently, Agnes dipped her lips toward her teacup. The person in blue brought a dish of little cakes and passed them around, an obviously ritual act, accompanied by bows and graceful embracing movements of the arms.

“So,” said Tess when the cups were empty. “We have eaten and drunk together. This is our ceremony of hospitality. Having done the correct thing, we will now walk together. We want you to see how we live.”

The other two robed figures bowed farewell as the DFC straggled after Tess, away from the porch, across the open road, past the animal pens, along the creek where the small houses stood, gradually taking in the curvilinear carvings on the house pillars and along the eaves, the way the dwellings emerged from the land, as though they had grown there. There were goats and sheep grazing in clearings and chickens wandering along the paths; there were people at work in a sunlit garden, all of them as swaddled and veiled as Tess.

The vast outcropping of rounded boulders loomed ahead of them, so glossy and lichen free that it might almost have been polished. Bettiann exclaimed, and they followed her pointing finger to see jeweled lizards dancing upon the stone, each raising a foot to cool it, then putting it down to raise another, coral tongues flopping out and up to wet unblinking moonstone eyes.

According to Carolyn's internal clock, it should have been midnight, or thereabouts, but here, though they could not see the sun, it seemed to be full day. They walked on, circling, more houses, more little gardens. When they returned to the stone, the lizards had been joined by a dozen of Tess's kindred, who were also dancing. One foot up, one foot down, hands swaying, head turning, veils and robes flowing, a mysterious gavotte, like a ritual.

“Dancing on the sunny stone, left foot, right foot,” breathed Bettiann, seemingly content merely to watch.

“Come,” said Tess, paying no attention to the dancers as she moved on toward the largest structure in the village. They went through a doorless opening in a curving wall that was tall but featureless and found themselves in a simple enclosure open to the sky. At the center stood a stone image, an erect figure, robed and veiled as Tess was, its draped right hand extended to hold a flaming cup. Scattered inside the enclosure were many rough natural stones, gently hollowed and smoothed on their tops, obviously intended for sitting. Following Tess's example, they sank down on various of these, entranced by the dancing flame.

“I have brought you here for Agnes's sake,” said Tess. “Perhaps this will convince her who we are. This is our deity.
We call her Sovanuan, Essence of Knowing. The name is akin to my daughter's name, Sovawanea, which is Essence of Seeking. Your people might call this goddess Wisdom, or Sophia, as she was once called, when your women had a right to a female goddess. Wisdom is mysterious and hard-won. We portray her as veiled, for we can never know what she looks like, and every veil lifted shows us others behind it. We veil ourselves when we come to revere her, to remind us that Sovanuan dwells within us also, and even there is veiled from our clear sight.”

“You come to her with prayer?” asked Agnes in a faraway voice. “With rites of some kind?”

Tess shook her head. “No prayers. No rites. We eschew such formalities.”

“Sophy talked about gates,” Faye remarked. “Toll gates.”

Tess nodded. “Formalities are gates, yes. Catechisms and rites and canons, all of these are gates. We believe that each of us has an inner and an outer path toward Sovanuan, each of us must find our own. This isn't a place of worship. We believe that nothing worthy of our worship would want our worship. This is merely a place of reverent attention.”

“It is peaceful here,” breathed Aggie, her voice breaking. “The sky seems very pure. The wind is hushed. At night, I suppose, you can look up at the stars.”

Tess nodded in agreement. “We come here at night sometimes, when something troubles us, some problem we cannot think out. Now and again the Sovanuan within us raises a veil or lets her flame brighten, dispelling shadow, showing ways that were hidden, letting light in. If we are very fortunate, once in a great while we may see the aureoles and rainbow splendor of the Goddess Herself, and we come away dazzled.”

“See what?” Agnes cried.

The veiled head turned, regarding her. “I said, if we are very fortunate, we may see the splendor of the Goddess, plumes of light, glories of radiance—”

“Could that … Was that … maybe what I saw?” Agnes choked.

“What did you see?” Tess asked gently.

“Splendor. Like fireworks. Facets like scales, and a glory like nothing I have ever seen.…”

“When, Aggie?” Ophy squeezed her shoulder. “When are you talking about?”

“There, in San Francisco. When Sophy took the vial.” She
swallowed, groping for words. “I saw a glory around her, an aureole of pure light. I heard music, instruments and voices, human voices but others as well, a chorus so huge and a harmony so ramified there was not room for it in this world. I felt the universe pulse around me, the walls of the room where I stood pushed out, each pulse an expansion, as though I were in some mighty lung that breathed in. There was a scent, a savor, so fragrant and delicious! All those years, every day spending hours in prayer, and I never felt … never anything like that, and then suddenly, there, with no warning.…” She put her hands to her face, shuddering with each breath, still murmuring, “I thought it might be a peacock devil, luring me as Sophy had always lured me, but then no warning, nothing, no word, and she was gone away.…”

Tess stepped forward, her pose tense and strained, one hand extended toward Aggie, becoming a twin to the carved figure that stood behind her. Ophy shook her head at the rest of them as though to say watch it, don't press it. She put her arms around Agnes.

Tess ignored the tacit warning. She said wonderingly, “If you were one of us, I would know what that means. But you are not one of us.”

“What would it mean if I were?” Agnes cried from Ophy's sheltering arms. “What would you think?”

“We would know the Goddess spoke. We would know we were receiving guidance.”

“Nothing spoke to me!” Agnes cried. “Or if it did, I couldn't understand it. As for guidance! I couldn't even think, much less be guided! And then later … later it all seemed impossible. I told myself I must have been seeing things. Hearing things. And Father Girard said it could have been Satanic.…”

Tess shook her head, her veils shaking with an almost liquid agitation. She cried out, a shrill bird sound unlike her usual voice, a clarion warning. “No! Agnes McGann! There is a devil, but you would know him if you had seen him. You have seen the Goddess! If you have been given this gift, you must not refuse it. You must not make it less than it is! You must not believe this comes from evil! How can you?”

The cry broke the peace of the place, and they shifted uncomfortably, glancing at one another.

Tess spoke more quietly, shaking her veiled head. “Forgive me. I have no right to direct you; you are not of my
people. Besides, we did not come here for disputation. We came so that you could see us, learn about us, so that you will understand.”

A long silence threatened to stretch forever.

“Enough,” breathed Tess. “Let us go back where we will be more comfortable.”

They departed the enclosure, Ophy and Jessamine supporting Aggie, the others walking silently, leaving the veiled Goddess staring at her flaming cup. None of them noticed that Lolly stayed behind, her eyes fixed on Sovanuan's flame as though it held some secret she had long wanted to unravel.

T
HEY RETURNED TO THE HOUSE
. A chilly wind had arisen, so they went across the porch into the large room behind it, where they found a few chairs of woven cane and comfortably cushioned bed-benches against the wall. Aggie dropped into one of the chairs and huddled there, Ophy protectively at her side, while the others sat or sprawled on the wide benches. Each of them was looking toward Carolyn, whom they seemed to have appointed their spokesman.