Though badly in need of comfort, Gallan and Raddia stood as far apart as the size of their cabin allowed – because the moment their minds met in mutual knowledge of each other, the combined revelations made them petrified with fear.
But no matter how hard she tried to disbelieve it, shirking all nourishment – she wouldn’t even take a sip of milk – Raddia knew that their Bitter Day, with terrifying prematureness, had arrived; after seven days of fasting and mind-silence, they would be taken to the ritual grounds by their Makers (the shame, that Lorn and Navva should still be alive to witness, unthinkably, obscenely, their mating!) for their Surfacing rite.
And yet her dark folly, and the happiness, the pleasure it had given her, was even more terrifying to Gallan, because it seemed to speak of the feelings that had stricken – and eventually sealed the fate of – the Nameless Mates.
Their fable was by far the most frightening thing a child of Lurien could be told, and that was why Navva, the more forbidding of their Makers, had made sure they were familiar with it at an age so young that its memory still made Gallan and Raddia weak at the knees.
The Nameless Mates, went the fable, owing their namelessness to the atrocity they had committed, were Deniers – but unlike their wicked kind, instead of repenting for their evil ways and begging for a merciful death, they had shown the most flagrant contempt for the laws of Lurien, pridefully declaring they would never become Mates or Makers, because they were something altogether different (a thing there was no word for), and were bound to each other with unbreakable bonds of a feeling, also bereft of a word, which forbade them to let their Substances unite.
And so they got their wish, and rather than quickly and painlessly dissolving into the Sacred River they were exiled from Lurien, stripped off their robes, nude and filthy and shaking like hunted beasts, and driven through the Mists and up Mirror Mountain – and thence finally cast into a world of touch, where, thinking they could outsmart their punishers, they embraced the barks of two massive trees that stood side by side, hoping they would remain together till the end of time, their roots and branches touching in undying, nameless bliss. But the next day a company of lumbermen came and felled the tree that had absorbed the female Mate’s Substance, and proceeded to cut it up, deaf to her screams, which her Mate, immobile and helpless, could do nothing to stop, thus having to suffer in silence the sounds of her excruciating pain as she was chopped up with axes and sliced with saws, thereafter to be tossed into the flames as firewood, pelted by the rain and lashed by the wind as roof rafters, trod and spat upon and riddled with woodlice as floorboards, eaten up by mould in attics and cellars. No matter how far her parts would go, the shrieks of her abuse would always reach her Mate’s tree, until they were both driven mad, forced to spend an eternity in unremitting agony.
Would this be their own fate? Gallan and Raddia wondered, when suddenly, while their minds were still brimming with damning thoughts about the Nameless Mates and their own untimely Bitter Day, a voice like a wailing wind intruded, sweeping everything aside and compelling them to a panicked alertness.
The Circle demanded their immediate presence at the ritual grounds.
It was an unprecedented sight, even if glimpsed surreptitiously: it seemed that every Mate and Maker in Lurien had been summoned to the Sacred River. And though occasionally a Surfacing or a Submergence – usually one serving as an example – might be attended by uninvolved viewers at the Circle’s behest, this was doubtless a rite of the utmost importance to one and all.
Raddia had never felt more desperately in need of a mask or a veil – anything that could spare her the acute embarrassment and numbing fear of being forced to look; but that was why, of course, hoods, caps or other means of concealing one’s face were forbidden to Mates: not only to banish furtive open-mouth speech and eye contact, but also to ensure that, when necessary, they would have no choice but watch.
What terrified her most was the tall, gaunt, pallid figure standing in the middle of the Everbridge; for neither she nor Gallan – nor, for that matter, many Makers, who were also struggling to look and not look at the same time – had ever set eyes on a Sage.
These strange and feared members of the Circle were chosen as soon as they surfaced by the whiteness of their milcloth garments, which attested to a purity of Substance so great, that not even the cloth spun from the Sacred River’s milk could touch the blood beneath their skin. They were led to the Domicile, a stone building at the outskirts of Lurien devoid of windows or furnishings, and lived there, avoiding all thought and mind-speech amongst them, and never eating, touching anything with their hands, or mating, a preservation of Substance which granted them exceeding wisdom, mind powers, and longevity.
Makers sometimes sought the Circle’s advice, or reported incidents of gravity, by standing outside the Domicile and mind-speaking in tones of humility and reverence, although they seldom received a single word in answer – for rare was the chance that anything truly significant, thought of or performed within the boundaries of Lurien, escaped the Sages’ preternatural keenness.
But surely, Raddia said to herself – hoping this brief half-thought would be lost amidst a hundred others like it, as everyone wondered in dread whether it was their own disobedience that would be punished by the Circle – surely a few butchered hens couldn’t warrant such a momentous gathering.
And then – relief, sweet and tingling, as the assembled Makers and Mates, many amongst them similarly relieved, saw a woman escorted to the opposite bank of the Sacred River by two veiled Makers. Yet Gallan and Raddia’s peace was short-lived, for as the woman approached they both recognized her: it was Tulanda, though in such a state of dishevelment it looked as though she’d been to a cesspool-world of touch and back: her face was smeared with dark brown dirt (a sure sign of the miasmal Mists; Lurien’s soil was pale yellow), thorny twigs and dead blackened leaves were entangled in her matted white hair, and her left foot was bare, focring her to hobble on her right leg – although her skin grazing the grass should be the least of her concerns.
Because, since the Denier Gorfen was absent, and presumably dead, it was safe to assume that his ill-fated Mate had been brought there for a public, shameful, solitary and premature Submergence, a punishment intended for Makers and Mates alike – a reminder of what awaited the former and what could happen to the latter should they choose to disregard their duties and scorn the laws of Lurien.
Raddia had never beheld a Submergence, she hadn’t even once prepared herself in thought for Lorn and Navva’s rite, but what she dreaded most at the moment, wholly indifferent to Tulanda’s glaring panic, was the chance she might disclose last night’s encounter and their failure to prevent her from fleeing, hoping to lessen her penalty or simply out of spite, to do blind damage and not be alone in her degrading death.
While Tulanda was forcefully plunged into the Sacred River and held in place by the veiled Makers, splashing and flailing and even whining disgracefully, it felt as though they were all holding their breath, waiting for the man with the long hair and beard and the striking robes – sky-white and glowing like the indestructible milkwood of the Everbridge, existing since the dawn of time and not built by hand – to pronounce the foolish Mate’s crime; but no matter how they hushed their minds to harken, the Sage remained silent, which was somehow even more intimidating.
Raddia’s shaking hand shot out and grasped Gallan’s, and together they forced themselves to stare, craving the moment when the Makers would seize Tulanda’s head and thrust it into the agitated milk, when suddenly a commotion broke out amongst the ranks of the anticipating crowd, a flurry of wincing and sidestepping – some even gasped in fright and disgust, before the Sage turned and fixed his blank gaze upon them, commanding instant silence –, and through the hastily vacated space there emerged, guided by two male Makers and gawking around, a thing that made Gallan and Raddia’s previous astonishment and horror pale in comparison: a grimy, foul-smelling, hideously d
eformed Fault.
Since they almost never left the quarry, the fields and the lumber grounds, where they toiled their whole lives till they dropped dead and were buried (or, as some maintained, devoured) by their equals, Faults rarely entered the thoughts of pure Lurienites; in fact their very existence was kept secret from young Mates, so that their curious, restless minds wouldn’t be polluted by thoughts concerning these thoroughly despised creatures. As their name denoted, they were the fruit of spoiled Surfacing rites, born without a Mate and also without Substance, and afflicted with horrendous flaws; their Makers, forbidden from mating again, were forced to inhabit inferior homes, shunned by other Makers, and they usually reached Submergence age not long after the birth of their defective offpsring, performing the rite alone, beyond the ritual grounds and out of sight of the Everbridge.
Amongst their own kind, though frequently copulating by carnal contact like the animals they were, Faults were sterile, so the only reason why they still existed was their use as beasts of labour, for which purpose they continued to be bred, carefully so their population wouldn’t get out of hand, with Lurienites who had debased themselves – such as Deniers, or their Mates – and whose Substance was deemed defiled and thus excluded from a proper Surfacing rite. It was an abhorrent thing, no better than to let onself be ridden by a donkey, but nonetheless it did occasionally happen.
And this particular specimen, besides the usual beastliness of Faults – the fact that they gabbled loudly and nonsensically, and shoved their grimy paws, on which milcloth never grew, everywhere they could, like monsters from the worlds of darkness who fumbled stupidly about – was made even more repellent by a purple, hairy blemish that covered the right half of his face, and by his incessant, raucous laughter, as he was led, stark naked, his private parts dangling horribly, through the red-clad figures who flinched from his touch and averted their eyes from his abominable countenance.
And when Tulanda realized the nature of the stir, and saw the Fault reach the edge of the Sacred River and, breaking free from his escort, jump into the milk with a roar of glee, she was instantly transformed into a beast as well, frenziedly fighting the Makers’ grip, screaming to be submerged, and struggling in vain to dunk her own head into the milk. But before long her milcloth garment began to dissolve, which meant that her Substance, despite her frenzied resistance, was leaking into the Sacred River, and merging with whatever coarse and primitive spirit inhabited the monstrous Fault, who, aroused by the warmth of the milk, was stroking himself and moaning with pleasure.
Poor Tulanda, Raddia thought, quite safely, for every female Mate was no doubt thinking the same, along with, Thanks be to fate it isn’t me. And yet not one of them could tear her appalled and greedy eyes from the horrific spectacle; if this were a regular rite, after a while two small, plump, rosy-white bodies would rise to the surface, then glide to the bank, crawl out, stand up on wobbly legs, and coughing out the milk speak the name given them by their Makers’ Substance and the Sacred River. But in this pitiful mating, while Tulanda wept aloud, at last surrendered to her ignominious coupling, and the Fault splashed about and guffawed, the surface of the milk remained unstirred.
And then, as everyone waited with bated breath a quick, merciful submerging of both parties, a string of bubbles rose and burst in the middle of the river, followed by a curiously-shaped thing which bobbed and then finally emerged: a Fault if there ever was one: a two-headed creature, hirsute as a shaggy sheep, with a single circular eye in the centre of each head, tainted with its Maker’s deep brown colour and black end spots – the eyes of a thing already dead, and yet suddenly the two misshapen mouths sprung open together and let out a piercing double shriek.
Raddia couldn’t say exactly what happened next, because like many Mates and Makers she had promptly fixed her eyes on the grass she stood on, to avoid sullying them with such a ghastly sight. Later on, Gallan, who had stepped in front of her to hide her and kept watching, would tell her that Tulanda and the Fault were held under the milk but didn’t dissolve, their corpses ultimately floating away whole, while the abomination, milcloth-less, whining and squirming, was seized by a handful of Makers who, at the Sage’s command, drove knives through its eyes, cut off its heads and limbs and tossed them into the Sacred River, its whiteness momentarily maculated by a blood as dark as the excrement of a cow.
There was, however, a thing he wouldn’t need to tell her, for it affected both of them at once, while the crowd dispersed as quickly as possible: the Sage’s voice, cutting like a blade into their horror, to speak five ominous words.
Seven days. No second chance.