The Soul Continuum (14 page)

The dungeon is in complete darkness and quiet enough for me to hear the night murmurings of my new compan
ions: the rustling snore of Moss, the strangled hiss of Nitocris's
breathing, muffled groans of pleasure from whatever attention Phalana is receiving from her mute lover, Kaliki. I have no wish to know what they are doing, or to disturb them, but the impulse to leave before the inevitable pain of my oncoming transformation takes hold. It is irresistible. I need light, and I need privacy.

My long, spindly fingers make contact with soft cushions
and then rocky floor as I make an effort to lift myself from the mattress provided for me. Eventually my eyes adjust to the low levels of light, and some fifty paces to my left, a rectangular frame of firelight reveals the door through which I originally entered. I shuffle toward it, but it is already too late. A surge of pain twists my body as though lengths of rope have been tied to each limb and pulled hard. Before I can stifle my cry, two silhouetted figures appear in the doorway. I recognize their shapes. One is Jabari, and I am overjoyed to see that the other is Ninsuni. Dressed in her sandy-colored robes, she comes urgently toward me carrying a bulky sack and a jug with water spilling over its sides. Jabari methodically moves to each of the candelabra, lighting the candles as quickly as he is able, and the bleary-eyed inhabitants of the dungeon rise sluggishly to find out why they are being disturbed.

A long wheezing moan escapes me as my body contorts.

“Quickly,” says Ninsuni, “drink this. It will ease your suffering.”

“What's happening?” The irritated query is from Phalana.
Her body is glistening with sweat as she approaches, but Jabari steps in front of her and jabs the end of his pike into the floor. The loud clang of metal on stone is enough to keep Phalana back, but not Nitocris. Having followed immediately behind Phalana, she bustles forward, eyes the guard with disdain, and kicks his pike. Jabari grins back derisively but backs off, lifting his pike from the ground and wiping imaginary grime from where she kicked it.

“Get on with it, girl,” Jabari says to Ninsuni. “It stinks down here, and I have a bed to go back to.”

Ninsuni raises the lip of the jug to my mouth, and even though I detect a bitter aftertaste, the cool water is a welcome sensation. I gulp the water down greedily, knowing that I am most likely being given some sort of herbal medicine that will sedate me and reduce my desire to escape. She need not worry. I have no plans to leave.

“Diabolis is waking up,” Ninsuni says to Phalana and Nitocris. “I saw it happen before, and it causes him great pain. I am sorry if he disturbed you.”

“Waking up?” Phalana says, confused. “It looks like he's already awake.”

My heart races like never before. I feel it swelling in my chest like a bladder filling with fluid, pumping harder and faster as it struggles to meet the needs of my next metamorphosis. I arch my back as the ladder of my rib cage snaps outward to make room for the swelling organ within. My scream has a disturbing dual resonance, the sound bursting not from one mouth but two, as the misshapen form at the back of my head bellows in misery.

Jabari shoves Ninsuni aside as he moves in to restrain my convulsing body, but she rights herself quickly and leans in to wipe saliva from my mouth with the sleeve of her robe. She crouches close beside me, her face full of concern, guarding me from Jabari before he resorts to using his pike to control me. These new mutations are vile and horrific: sightless eyes blink open behind a film of translucent pus lining the right-hand side of my belly, and the joints in my right arm expand and curl around in a spiral formation. Everyone is watching now, new spectators gathering from a distance in the half-light of the flickering candles, their faces masking amazement and revulsion, unwilling to admit to their neighbors that the explosion of body parts sprouting from my already warped frame is just another minor drama in a place well-known for Nature's strangest quirks.

It takes five full minutes for the pain to simmer down to a low ache. Ninsuni is at my side through all of it, stroking my head, caring for me, and finally she says, “Is that you, Diabolis?”

I blink at her and try to form words, but my lips are stiff and my throat is swollen.

“I know it is you and not your demon.”

I manage to whisper back, “Demon?”

“Yes, your demon cannot speak as you do. It is interested
in only filling its belly and sleeping. It will not talk.”

I realize that what I call the human part of my psyche, she calls a demon. Strange. If there really were such things as demons, I would think of this me, not the other me, as the demon.

“How do you feel?” Ninsuni asks.

“I want to be alone,” I tell her.

Ninsuni looks around at the others. The small crowd
is silent now. Most of them have eager expressions, wanting
to see the next bizarre mutation as it happens, but some of them appear worried: Phalana, and surprisingly Moss,
who did not appear to be interested in me until now. Kaliki,
unable to show facial expressions, simply observes me with arms crossed while Nitocris stands a little farther back, frowning with concern.

“Please can you give Diabolis some privacy?” Ninsuni asks.

Jabari grunts but concedes and backs away to wait by the door. The others back off too, returning to their alcoves. Only Ninsuni remains.

“Why do they not try to escape?” I ask her.

“Escape? Where would they go?”

“I don't know, but it is unnatural for the human spirit to accept imprisonment, especially if it is unjust.”

Ninsuni pulls the drawstring of a small sack and pulls out a leather pouch. “Some people think that the soul is imprisoned within the body,” she says. “Does that mean they should look for death to escape?”

“Some do.”

She tips a brown powder out of the pouch and into the palm of her hand, sniffing at it before sprinkling it into a nearby sconce above my head.

“Are you thinking of escape?” she asks with a sideways glance.

“No. I wish to remain hidden. If I stay in the streets, my hunter will eventually find me.”

Ninsuni takes something else out from her sack and lights the sconce. The powerful incense I smelled earlier fills my alcove.

“What is that?” I ask.

“It is an herb we use to keep you all calm. Really, it is of no use anymore.” She smiles. “Only new guests in the Chambers of Veneration are affected by it. All the others are used to it by now. It was just something the priests advised we should use many years ago. That and the medicine they put in the water. I don't know what that is.”

She places her things back in the sack and sits down cross-legged before me, suddenly looking concerned. “But I am more interested in this hunter of yours. Who is he? Why does he hunt you?”

The incense fills my nose, and I can understand why they use it. My heartbeat slows and my head feels as though a warm cloud has filled it.

“It is too difficult to explain,” I tell her. “He is not like anyone else. He is from . . . another place.”

“What do you mean? Is he a Syrian or a Mizraimite? Perhaps he is—”

“No, no, he is not from this world. He is . . .” I should not have spoken.

Ninsuni leans forward, places the tips of her fingers on my chin, and gently lifts my face to regain eye contact. The unexpected touch sends a cold thrill through me. “Not from this world?” Her eyes are intense and wide, full of questions and wonder. “Then from where? Is he a demon? A god?”

I choose not to answer. There is a thirst in the dark wells of her eyes, an infectious keenness of mind and eagerness to understand, but the task is too great. The synapses of the human mind are vast, creating opportunity for lofty concepts to be perceived and wondrous new paradigms to be imagined, but even in this small region of the cosmos there are more laws and variables than there are synapses in Ninsuni's brain. No, revelation is impossible. This is simultaneously the terrible curse and beautiful blessing of humanity—that their hunger for enlightenment is greater than their capacity to digest it.

“I am tired from my change,” I tell her, “and if understanding is a journey, I fear I would not have the stamina to
travel its path, and that you would never reach the destination;
the distance is too great.”

Ninsuni's shoulders slump, and my stomach sinks when I see the disappointment in her eyes.

“Are there pretty, pretty trees?” The whispered question is not from Ninsuni but from a tentative listener who has crept up behind her. It is Moss who asked the question.
Copying Ninsuni, he sits down with legs crossed like a student waiting for a lesson. He licks his lips and scratches nervously
at a lichen-like growth on the sole of his left foot.

“Pretty trees?” Ninsuni blinks at Moss in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“On the journey.” Moss speaks louder but flinches, as if ducking an imaginary blow. “There might be pretty, pretty trees.” He pulls out his silver trinket box from a fold in his robes, then stares at it intently, fidgeting with it; a convenient distraction to avoid our gaze. Ninsuni opens her mouth to speak to him and I imagine she is about to send him gently on his way, but I stop her.

“Wait,” I say, and Moss looks up.

Moss's words have reminded me of a simple truth. Sometimes the journey is just as important as the destina
tion. Even if they could never get to a point of understanding the deep and hidden things of the universe, the revelations
they receive along the way would not be wasted.

“Perhaps Moss has a point. You may never reach the
destination, but you might see some pretty trees along the way.”

“So you will tell us?” Ninsuni's smile shifts into an amused pout, presuming she has guessed correctly that I have changed my mind, and I gaze into her eyes. Perhaps it is the effect of the incense, but for a moment, all my pain is forgotten. Her enthusiasm is infectious, but it would soon be dampened were I to explain who Keitus Vieta truly is. If I am going to explain anything at all, I must start with something simpler but something wondrous.

“Tell us what?” The question comes from someone else and I instinctively twist my distorted neck to see who asked it, but I recognize the strangled inflection. The charcoal visage of Nitocris appears from the smog. Her expression is difficult to read beneath the charred skin, but her tone tells me she is suspicious, perhaps even mocking. Kaliki comes too and settles beside Moss. His left hand rests a little too
close to Moss's insect trinket box, and I wonder if he wants to
steal it so that he can melt it down and add yet more bizarre jewelry to his already overcrowded skin. With another nervous flinch, Moss glances at Kaliki, who slowly withdraws his hand from Moss's box without looking down, as if the proximity was pure accident, and Moss snatches his prized possession away, returning Kaliki's flat expression—which I imagine would be a playful smile if he had one—with a reproving frown.

Inseparable from Kaliki, Phalana comes to stand behind
them both, arms crossed where her breasts might have been, her head cocked in a pose of interest. Even Jabari looks like he is listening, though he is trying to appear uninterested.

“Well?” Nitocris paces behind the others like a jackal waiting for a carcass. Jabari watches her with a sly smile, as if expecting her to put on a show. “Are you going to teach us about the chthonian depths, Diabolis?” Nitocris continues. “Are you going to woo us with your knowledge of demons and angels?”

“Pay no attention to her,” Ninsuni whispers.

“I will not, but perhaps it would be a mistake to—”

“No! Please do enlighten us.” Nitocris stops pacing. Despite
the damage to her throat, her voice is remarkably loud and
full of spite. “Jabari here tells me that the chief priest believes
you are a true seer and prophet, so . . . why don't you tell us everything from the beginning. Tell us all about the great battle between Apsu and Tiamat, because obviously, you must have been there. You must have seen it all. Perhaps you even saw the birth of the gods. Do you think you can woo Ninsuni with such stories? Do you think she will believe you?”

Ninsuni closes her eyes and purses her lips. I do not know where Nitocris's venom has come from, but I am not willing
to receive it, and a flush of anger forces the next words from my mouth.

“You will hear no such stories from me, because none of that happened,” I tell her. “There
was
no beginning.”

It is Phalana who speaks next. “But everything has a beginning.”

Nitocris tries to hide a smile as if proud that I took her bait to make myself look foolish. She says nothing else but takes a step back toward the smog of her own alcove, exchanging a satisfied gaze with Jabari. I can tell she is still listening.

I shuffle sideways on my mattress so that I can free an
arm and, raising the multi-jointed limb, motion to Phalana's
lover. “Will you come here, Kaliki?”

Kaliki glances at Phalana, then back at me. He presses his palm against his chest, and if his face could express, I think it would show questioning surprise. Something I did not expect from him.

“I only want to show everyone something you are wearing.”

He shuffles forward, jangling as he moves, and I take one of his pale hands. I feel him twitch as if he is frightened and wants to snatch his hand away, but after another glance at Phalana, who nods, he looks me in the eye, then relaxes his hand. Each of his fingers has a row of gold rings, all different in design and symbolism, but one stands out from the others, and I press one of my fingers against it.

“Do you know what this means?” I ask him.

Kaliki shakes his head. Behind him I notice both Jabari and Nitocris glance in our direction as if curious about what it is I am drawing attention to, but not wanting to admit it.