Wherein weariness takes its toll (Ch. 20)

 “There was a great cry from the great father of the spruce trees. All his children wept as they saw the father felled, and Kayatta could not nothing about it. Rage and sorrow filled him. He raged at his friends and clan, who’d done the foul deed. He raged at the gods of winter, who’d forced them into so foul a crime. He raged at the fires of war, for all the lives they’d taken. He raged at the spirits of trickery, for planting the vile seed of the scheme in his mind. He raged at the weakness of his soul, that he’d so fallen into the spirits’ plan, and had shared their plot with the clan. And he wept for the saplings and for the children yet born, who’d never know the great father of the spruce trees. But in the end he felt sorrow for the great father himself.  And though he hated himself for it, he felt too a touch of relief, that for their great crime, his ember siblings would live to see another spring”

Excerpt from ‘The princes of the west wood’, Jennept’s archive of northern stories.

Opal was cheerful as Chy had ever seen her. This probably shouldn’t have surprised Chy; his previous experience with the woman had been entirely in uncomfortable dungeon captivity. Compared to the dankness and rot, the scorching sunlight and mossy air should’ve been a taste of heaven for Chy and Opal both. Instead, a deep melancholy had taken a hold of Chy, while Opal’s spirits remained high.

Bereft of the will to confront Opal on her religious beliefs or lack thereof, Chy’s at times sufficient wits turned to pondering Opal’s state of mind in general. Over their captivity, he’d seen her come alive when presented the opportunity to talk, the chance to tell a story, an excuse to indulge in nigh masturbatory naval gazing towards the story keeping culture of Kadyp. At first, he’d believed deep in his heart that it was all a front, a coping mechanism, a beacon for her ignorance and apostasy. No such luck, she’d proven herself more than willing to continue in her ways after her release. Presented the slightest opening, she pounced on a phrase and molded an argument on the semantics of story structure out of dull observations.

But now that Chy had been convinced of Opal’s sincere love of the hunt, what could he be thinking about her continued cheer? Since the night of his revelation, he’d been nigh comatose, unresponsive in the extreme and unwilling to present much of an opposing view when drawn into open battle. Opal hadn’t been pushy, and yet she’d remained pleased. The reason had eluded Chy. And it continued to elude him as their supplies dwindled into nothing, as the woods grew ever more familiar and yet strangely discomforting, and as dawn rose five days before the summer prophecy.

Dawn was the hour of rising for many. The guards on duty, the workers and soldiers on the earthworks, the hexmistresses and their apprentices, the dockworkers of the point and Gelton, and of course the many trading caravans that yet crossed the now dangerous open fields of the central plains. It was the hour of rising for birds wild, domestic, and foreign, it was the hour of rest for the beasts of the dark, and it was midway through the story keeper’s second daily study session. But she who had been the story keeper was now far from home, and she who was to replace her was yet unknown. And so, as she had during her captivity, Opal rose in anticipation of the first ray of light, that blessing from the west that could so easily hide the nature of the abominable forest in which they lay. Chy remained sleeping, staunchly guarding the area he’d cordoned off to be his bed.

Opal may have been miffed at the man’s tardiness, but she’d seen the great effort he’d put into making the bed last night. It had been a truly heroic effort, and something deep inside her whispered that such effort deserves its just reward. She had no need to name the whispering spirit, as it seemed only a natural conclusion. What would be the point of talking about something, thinking about something, if nothing came of it? That would make for a terrible story indeed. She may too have simply been happy to have seen Chy put so much effort into anything, for in his melancholy he’d regressed to a state of near fast. In the dungeon’s stasis Opal had paid such behavior no mind. In the forests, mere shade and dark had little effect in obscuring the facts of summer, and Opal may have feared for Chy’s safety.

Or maybe she didn’t, for she let him fend for himself. Whether he drank or not was then perhaps not a major concern of hers. Perhaps her predicament was, but if the case was so, why had she been so content to let matters rest as they were?

“The rabbit knows what to burrow for…” Chy muttered semi consciously. “Then why don’t I…” he continued. Opal cared little for the little man’s delirious rambling. It was time to move, she knew, but moving had gotten difficult. In what was a complete shock to Chy and perhaps Opal as well, she kicked him. Lightly, of course. “Futures of flame!” was the response, as Chy jerked upright, upsetting the ladybug who’d chosen his forehead as resting place. There ought to have been a blanket to throw off for the full dramatic effect of the moment, but Opal had known it was not to be. Disappointment at the lack of spectacle influencing the woman far more than Chy’s glare, she set about to planning the day. “We’ll circle back to the lake and tickle fish. As long as we don’t say anything foolish, there oughtn’t be a sufficiently ironic moment for a bear or some such creature to strike us. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to leave some kind of offering for the forest. Safe to assume you’ll be giving up your portion again?”

Chy rose as if hungover, though Opal suspected hunger to be the cause. No matter his training, no matter the structure, he needed to eat something. Cursing to herself, perhaps for not having taken action for so long, Opal set about to convince Chy that eating truly was necessary. There were all sorts of arguments she made, from appealing to his sense of duty to the Pontiac to the divinity of the spirit all the way to historical materialism. The last of these almost drew him to argument. As he followed Opal through the network of roots crisscrossing the ground, his counterargument was one she may have feared or may have hoped for: “Eating does nothing here but show I am a man. And men fail, Opal. Heroes do not. Icons do not. At the least, the men worthy of tales eat only when such an opportune moment comes that a point is made of it. And what would I be proving, precisely?”

As she led the charge, Chy saw only the back of Opal’s head. Nevertheless, the light bobbing of her head told him that she approved of the line of thinking. That she could’ve found details to dispute Chy’s assertion was irrelevant for the moment.

What was the Pontiac? Why did it matter that he knew something of what the future held? What could’ve gone so wrong in Tellyphill that they’d chosen the wilderness of apostasy? Surely such questions must’ve past through Chy’s head. Many religions espouse some sort of holiness of creation, and the Ponticate was no exception. Nevertheless, the innate contradiction between monastic solitude and natural exploration reared its head at Chy. He’d been a holy man of no true talent back at the point, and so he’d gone a wandering. Unpledged to any of the great schools and in no position to have joined any of them at any point, it seemed to him at this juncture of his life that he’d gotten a raw deal indeed. He had not the worldliness of the rangers, the learnedness of the priests, the skill of the hexmasters or the lore of the dedicated. He was but an amalgam of the leftovers, not dissimilar to Tellyphill as it stood.

Nothing seemed to matter to him at that point. Betrayed by a belief he hadn’t even known he’d had; he couldn’t even believe in belief of the Ponticate. Why had he done anything? What could he even do but repeat the words of long dead men and women who knew no more than the monsters of Tellyphill? Something was missing.

Something was also missing from the classic story of one disillusioned with religion after witnessing some great injustice. The greatest injustice Chy had seen or experienced was simply that against himself and Opal. If anything, the subject of the injustice was the dignity of the Ponticate. Should that not have made him a martyr? Should his belief not have been all the stronger for the ordeal? Perhaps these thoughts too passed through his head, another arrow in the quiver of condemnation. Maybe it was simply easier to shoot these arrows at a target he knew well.

Just as his rage and disbelief ebbed to another local maxima, Opal took the chance to draw his ire instead. Maybe she enjoyed it. “What good does it do anyone to know the future?” The argument was facetious, intentionally so. Out of habit more than out of conviction, Chy found a sword in the scabbard of dogma. “What else could matter to a man in face of the turbulence and shifting of the endless gale of life? A land in turmoil is uncertain, and a land uncertain is a land in turmoil. Even if it yet knows it not.” So far the conversation could’ve been one they’d had in the dungeon in Tellyphill. In Tellyphill there’d have been a guard or curious official to hear the endless debate. Chy had never understood. There had been no need for him to understand. He had been a holy man confronting a heathen, and an audience had gathered. What more explanation could he have wanted? Unbothered by his naivete, he’d given the people of Tellyphill just what they’d wanted: proof that both marsh and point were bonkers, outdated dens of madness, slaves to mad ancient whisperings. The worldly soldiers and merchantmen of Tellyphill had no need for such repellent relics in their ranks, or in the ranks of their allies.

Just as in Tellyphill, Opal seized the chance to answer. The monstrous new trees were her audience, the nigh deafening churn and hum of summertime insects her applause. But her fellow actor remained Chy. And they’d each played their parts so many times. Little need for thought then. “No true hero is born of that which is assured. No thing is ever truly assured. We may know how a story will end thanks to the presence of the structures within. But so what? How we may feel about that ending is what’s important, not the ending itself. And though we see clearly that which will pass, for a structure is a frame and a skeleton, and can be sketched with little information indeed. Though we know this, the twists are secret to us. Whether we shall see the end that we assuredly predicted is unclear. And even if we do, we may be so changed as to see the tragic as comic and the victorious as ashen defeat.”

Had Chy heard this all those weeks ago, he’d have thought Opal insane, or perhaps divinely touched. Had he heard this just a week ago, he’d have thought it very wise indeed. He’d have considered how it fell in with his knowledge of prophecy. Maybe he’d even have used Opal’s logic to excuse prophecies that seemed never to come true. But his mind was clear. Uniquely so. And for once, someone noticed the trick, the slight of hand. The mistake. At least, a mistake, if not the central one.

“The future is everything, Opal. You split hairs, where there are none to be split. In the first place, what good is hero with no heroism needed done? But again, the future is everything. It’s not just the raw fact of who sits upon which throne, where which border passes, which great storm wrecks which coastal shanty town. It’s the spirit of the people, the spirit of each man. If the structure hints at victory, it hints at whatever victory must mean to he who detected the structure. The structure is in the eye of the beholder, a prophecy is in the eye of the goddess. So, if you deigned to see victory in the structures you’ve divined, then it’ll be victory as you see it. Have you sensed victory from Tellyphill? Who’s? If you saw Tellyphill victorious, that means Tellyphill victorious as Tellyphill would see victory. Not hollow and tragic. If you saw tragedy, it could be tragedy veiled in victory. But you can’t have the bird and the arrow.” Here he struggled with words, perhaps with thoughts. Opal seized the chance, ruffled and surprised to be so substantially challenged. Her words were spoken playfully, in complete contrast to Chy’s hard blandness. Yet there was an edge underneath, one Chy had seldom heard.

“An archer skilled enough can gather the arrow from the bird. And a storyteller skilled enough sees more than just one side of things. So the signs of one structure and another become confused. Still, to ascribe one isn’t wrong. At the time it is right, and as stories are told by men, the structures in them reflect those of reality. That the structures conflict is only because reality conflicts.”

“If the structure explains that which is and that which isn’t, what good is it beforehand?”

Opal felt in no mood to answer these bothersome questions, and so easily distracted herself by spotting the various birds and flowers, only some of which were as unnatural as the forest in which they dwelt. That Chy had gotten under her skin was clear, and so the golden sounds of speech fell silent, washed quickly away by the torrent of chirps and chitters of the woods in summer.

Would that wars were games; they’d be rather dull indeed. Given that hindsight which historians and casual observers enjoy, that fullness of knowledge, that perfection of calm, distant, unattached understanding, the right move often seems painfully obvious. Mistakes seem impossible. Perhaps the clashes of culture and mind are similarly simple in retrospect. Should one know both positions to their depths, what could be simpler than to draw upon the next line of defense? Than to strike at where the other is unsure, where compromise might be possible? Should you know which beliefs are contingent, merely adopted out of logical necessity rather than genuine dedication, that alone would sweep away a great many oratory twists.

For all of Opal’s knowledge, for all of her study of Pontiac ways, for all that her theories may have held water, for all that she had been the head of a culture, as the general on the battlefield, she was blinded by the fog of war. And it was for her short sight and leanly bellicose nature that the obvious question came to mind.  

The dampness hit them with a rush, the wet earthy smell so evocative of something unknown and something familiar. Opal walked to the lake’s edge, searching for a shallow flat spot to begin the hunt. Chy found a log half long fallen; half rotted yet dry. He leaned upon it, moss and bark adding to the mural of mess that his clothes had become. As Opal set to work, an urge to speak, to say the last word, took hold.

“So many things seem wrong, Chy. But it’s not the world that’s wrong here, it’s you! Why should you be having a crisis of faith, now of all times? Abused by those in power, on the run and on a holy mission? That’s a prophet’s dream! Shouldn’t you be rejoicing in your martyrdom, wearing your scars with honor and pride? Why should your faith be shaken? You know that your faith isn’t universal! As far as I can tell, that’s why you were in Tellyphill in the first place! You knew about Kadyp, you know about the borders of the old empire, so why are you now so morose?”

Her tone had fluctuated little, verbosity and linguistic attenuation discarded in favor of what felt like an emotional appeal. That is was truly a half-baked smattering of reason and emotion mattered little, for Chy answered with no hesitation, though in a whisper barely audible above amphibian croaking.

“If the first city cannot believe, then who can? What could it possibly mean to point to the future if this is all its led to?” Here he paused, but whether to gather his thoughts or to allow Opal comment was unclear. She offered none, and he continued. “There’s nothing left! There’s nothing to carry on a holy mission for!”

Opal really ought to have recognized Chy’s melancholy, it would’ve been very appropriate. But confusion mounted, and unflappable she was not. Her words were not strange to Chy, though the barbed seriousness was almost astonishing.

“But you still believe, right? The goddess still sees all that is and can be, still reveals the strands and ties to the Pontiac, who still speaks twice a year, whose words are still interpreted by thousands of dedicated scholars and holy men, who come to a consensus upon the Pontiac’s meaning and spread the words through the rangers and the priests to ever man woman and child willing to listen, and as for centuries, once consensus has been reached, it has never been wrong. So if you still believe, why despair now? What was it that you really believed in anyways?”

There seemed to be a struggle within Chy, its nature a mystery both to Opal and himself. Was he contemplating what to answer her? Did he have an answer, logical and thought out, that led him to his despair? If so, did he want to share this answer with Opal? Was this nihilism one to crush any belief system so thoroughly one could not help but become despondent? Did he want to spare Opal this fate? Perhaps. But maybe he didn’t have an answer. Maybe he barely had an intuition, nothing thought out, not even as after the fact justification for the way he’d acted and felt. If so, was he trying to find a way out? Trying to retie the bonds of faith around his heart?

Or maybe he was just hungry and was scheming a way to ask for some of Opal’s fish without seeming a willful child.

Whatever the case may have been, he slumped upon the rotting log, lower and lower, as once more the deafening din of bug and bird filled the space around the lake. It was only as Opal had caught her third fish that she thought to turn to Chy. By then most of an hour had passed, and Opal had thought of some lovely symbolism stemming from the fish she caught. The first had taken her but a minute to catch, the second just a touch of concentration, but the third had been a struggle. Strangely, the first had been the largest, followed closely by the third, with the second barely a tiddler.

She’d thought it resembled the three branches structure, so common in the tragedies of the north. The hero would gain great acclaim at the outset of a tale, followed by a series of minor successes, growing his fame and pride. Then, a series of trials and setbacks would befall him, ultimately culminating in a certain breaking of his spirit. The structure differed slightly, but in the end the hero would prevail, gaining some great treasure. Yet that treasure would be somewhat tainted, by the costs of the journey or by some defect previously foreseen. Then the hero would lament, for was this prize what he’d sought?

She thought it a great moment to expound upon the point, but she’d have to wait; Chy had collapsed upon the log, body weary from exhaustion and deprivation, soul weary from disappointment. Before she could play professor once more, Opal would have to play nurse.

Nature has never been kind to her children. That is why she is so seldom worshipped, in her truest form at the very least. Men pick the aspects they like and decide that they are worthy of praise. Over time, the good and the bad split into distinct entities, then reform as aspects of a wiser one. That the gods grew farther and farther from nature as man became a world himself was no bar to this process. It was just nature wearing a cloak, after all. And no matter how strongly they might’ve believed in whatever it was they believed, nature would eventually toss the cloak aside and reveal herself in all her savage glory. If men still felt awe, still decided there was something to worship, their faith was truly unshakable. The question remains though, faith in what.