At the end of the second week—toil, study, meditation, periods of free time spent juggling with Farssal, a stable and static round—Valentine felt restlessness coming over him again, the yearning to be moving onward.
He had no idea how many terraces there were—nine? ninety?—but if he spent this much time at each, he might be years in reaching the Lady. Some means of abbreviating the process of ascent was needed.
Counterfeit summoning-dreams did not seem to work. He trotted forth his drifting-in-the-pool dream for Silimein, his dream-speaker here, but she was no more impressed by it than Stauminaup had been. He tried, during his meditation periods and when he was falling asleep at night, to reach forth to the mind of the Lady and implore her to summon him. This produced nothing useful either.
He asked those who sat near him in the dining-hall how long they had been at the Terrace of Inception. “Two years,” said one. “Eight months,” said another. They looked untroubled.
“And you?” he asked Farssal.
Farssal said he had arrived only a few days before Valentine. But he felt no impatience about moving on. “There’s no hurry, is there? We serve the Lady wherever we may be, don’t you think? So one terrace is as good as another.”
Valentine nodded. He hardly dared disagree.
Late in the third week he thought he caught sight of Vinorkis far across the field of stajja where he was working. But he was not sure—was that a flash of orange on that Hjort’s whiskers?—and the distance was too great for shouting. The next day, though, as Valentine stood casually juggling with Farssal near the bathing-pool, he saw Vinorkis, unquestionably Vinorkis, watching from the other side of the plaza. Valentine excused himself and jogged over. After so many weeks sundered from his old companions here, even the Hjort was a welcome sight.
“Then it was you in the stajja-fields,” Valentine said.
Vinorkis nodded. “These past few days I’ve had several glimpses of you, my lord. But the terrace is so huge—I’ve never been able to come close. When did you arrive?”
“About a week after you. Are there others of us here?”
“Not so far as I know,” the Hjort replied. “Shanamir was, but he’s moved on. I see you’ve lost none of your juggling skill, my lord. Who’s your partner?”
“A man of Piliplok. Quick with his hands.”
“And with his tongue as well?”
Valentine frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Have you said much to this man of your past, my lord, or of your future?”
“Of course not.” Valentine stared. “No, Vinorkis! Surely no spies of the Coronal right here on the Lady’s own Isle!”
“Why not? Is it so hard to infiltrate this place?”
“But why do you suspect—”
“Last night, after I glimpsed you in the fields, I came here to make inquiry about you. One of those I spoke to was your new friend, my lord. Asked him if he knew you and he started questioning me. Was I your friend, had I known you in Pidruid, why had we come to the Isle, and so on and so on. My lord, I am uneasy when strangers ask questions. Especially in this place, where one is taught to remain apart from others.”
“You may be too suspicious, Vinorkis.”
“Maybe so. But guard yourself anyway, my lord.”
“That I will,” said Valentine. “He’ll learn nothing from me but what he’s already had. Which is merely some juggling.”
“He may already know too much about you,” said the Hjort gloomily. “But let us watch him, even as he watches you.”
The notion that he might be under surveillance even here dismayed him. Was there no sanctuary? Valentine wished he had Sleet beside him, or Deliamber. A spy now might well become an assassin later, as Valentine drew closer to the Lady and became that much more of a peril to the usurper.
But Valentine seemed to be drawing no closer to the Lady. Another week went by in the same fashion as before. Then, just as he was coming to believe he would spend the rest of his days at the Terrace of Inception, and when he was reaching a point where it mattered little to him if he did, he was called from the fields and told to make ready to go on to the Terrace of Mirrors.
9
This third terrace was a place of dazzling beauty, with a glitter that reminded Valentine of Dulorn. It nestled against the base of Second Cliff, a forbidding vertical wall of white chalk that seemed an absolute barrier to further inward progress, and when the sun was in the west the face of the cliff was such a wonder of reflected brilliance that it stunned the eye and wrung gasps of awe from the soul.
Then, too, there were the mirrors—great rough-hewn slabs of polished black stone set edgewise in the ground everywhere about this terrace, so that wherever one looked one encountered one’s own image, glowing against a shining inner light. Valentine at first studied himself critically, searching for the changes that his journey had brought upon him, some dimming of the warm radiance that had flowed from him since the Pidruid days, or perhaps marks of weariness or stress. But he saw none of that, only the familiar golden-haired smiling man, and he waved to himself and winked amiably and saluted, and then, after a week or so, ceased to notice his reflection at all. If he had been ordered to ignore the mirrors he would probably have lived in guilty tension, flicking his gaze involuntarily toward them and wrenching it away; but no one here told him what purpose the mirrors served or what attitude he should take toward them, and in time he simply forgot them. This, he realized much later, was the key to forward movement on the Isle: evolution of the spirit from within, a growing ability to discern and discard the irrelevant.
He was entirely alone here. No Shanamir, no Vinorkis, and no Farssal. Valentine kept close watch for the black-bearded man: if indeed he was some sort of spy, he would doubtless find a way to follow Valentine from terrace to terrace. But Farssal did not arrive.
Valentine stayed at the Terrace of Mirrors eleven days and went onward, in the company of five other novices, via a floater-sled to the rim of Second Cliff and the Terrace of Consecration.
From here there was a magnificent view back over the first three terraces, far below, to the distant sea. Valentine could barely see the Terrace of Assessment—only a thin line of pink against the dark green of the forest—but the great Terrace of Inception spread out awesomely at the midpoint of the lower plateau, and the Terrace of Mirrors, just below, blazed like a million bright pyres in noonday light.
It was becoming unimportant to him, now, how swift his pace might be. Time was losing its meaning. He had slipped entirely into the rhythm of the place. He worked in the fields; he attended lengthy sessions of spiritual instruction; he spent much of his time in the darkened stone-roofed building that was the shrine of the Lady, asking, in a way that was not really asking at all, that illumination be granted him. Occasionally he remembered that he had intended to go quickly to the heart of the Isle and to the woman who dwelled there. But there seemed little urgency to any of that now. He had become a true pilgrim.
Beyond the Terrace of Consecration lay the Terrace of Flowers, and beyond that the Terrace of Devotion, and then the Terrace of Surrender. All these were of Second Cliff, as was the Terrace of Ascent, which was the final stage before one went up onto the plateau where the Lady lived. Each of the terraces, Valentine came to understand, completely encircled the island, so that there might be a million votaries in each at any time, or even more, and each pilgrim saw only a tiny segment of the whole as he pursued his course toward the center. How much effort had gone into constructing all this! How many lives had been given over entirely to the Lady’s service! And each pilgrim moved within a sphere of silence: no friendships were begun here, no confidences were exchanged, no lovers embraced. Farssal had been a mysterious exception to that custom. It was as though this place existed outside of time and apart from the ordinary rituals of life.
In this middle zone of the Isle there was less emphasis on teaching, more on toil. When he reached Third Cliff, he knew, he would join those who actually c
arried out the Lady’s work in the world at large; for it was not the Lady herself, he now understood, who emanated most sendings to the world, but rather the millions of advanced acolytes of Third Cliff, whose minds and spirits became amplifiers for the Lady’s benevolence. Not that everyone reached Third Cliff: many of the older acolytes, he gathered, had spent decades on Second Cliff, performing administrative tasks, with neither the hope nor the desire of moving toward the more taxing responsibilities of the inner zone.
In his third week at the Terrace of Devotion, Valentine was granted what he knew to be an unmistakable summoning-dream.
He saw himself crossing that parched purple plain that had darkened his sleep in Pidruid. The sun was low at the horizon and the sky was harsh and bleak, and ahead of him lay two broad mountain ranges that rose like giant swollen fists. In the jagged boulder-strewn valley between them the last ruddy glimmer of sunlight was visible, a peculiar oily light, ominous, more a stain than a radiance. A cool dry wind blew out of that strangely illuminated valley, and on it came sighing, singing sounds, soft melancholy melodies riding the breeze. Valentine walked for hours but made no progress: the mountains grew no nearer, the desert sands extended themselves infinitely as he trekked, that last shard of light did not depart. His strength was ebbing. Menacing mirages danced before him. He saw Simonan Barjazid, the King of Dreams, and his three sons. He saw the ghastly senile Pontifex roaring on his subterranean throne. He saw monstrous amorfibots crawling sluggishly in the dunes, and the snouts of massive dhumkars rising like augers out of the sands, probing the air for prey. Things hissed and twanged and whispered; insects swarmed in nasty little clouds; a rain of dry sand began to fall, lightly, clogging his eyes and nostrils. He was weary and ready at any moment to yield and halt, to lie down in the sand and let the shifting dunes cover him, but one thing drew him on, for in the valley a glowing figure moved to and fro, a smiling woman, the Lady his mother, and so long as she could be seen there he would not cease pressing forward. He felt the warmth of her presence, the pull of her love. “Come,” she murmured. “Come to me, Valentine!” Her arms reached toward him across that terrible desert of monstrosities. His shoulders sagged. His knees weakened. He could not continue, though he knew he must. “Lady,” he whispered, “I am at my end, I must rest, I must sleep!” At that the glow between the mountains grew warmer and brighter. “Valentine,” she called. “Valentine, my son!” He could scarcely keep his eyes open. It was so tempting to lie down in the warm sand. “You are my son,” came the voice of the Lady across that impossible distance, “and I have need of you,” and as she said these words he found new strength, and walked more rapidly, and then began to run lightly over the hard, crusted desert floor, his heart lifting, his stride widening. Now the distances quickly dwindled, and Valentine could see her clearly, awaiting him on a terrace of violet-hued stone, smiling, reaching to him with outstretched arms, calling his name in a voice that rang like the bells of Ni-moya.
He awoke with the sound of her voice still ringing in his mind.
It was dawn. Wondrous energy flooded his spirit. He rose and went down to the great amethystine basin that was the bathing-pool at the Terrace of Devotion, and plunged boldly into the chilly spring-water. Afterward he trotted to the chamber of Menesipta, his dream-speaker here, a compact, fine-honed person with flashing dark eyes and a taut, spare face, and poured forth the dream to her in one long rush of words.
Menesipta sat silently.
The coolness of her response dampened Valentine’s exuberance. He remembered going to Stauminaup at the Terrace of Assessment with the fraudulent summoning-dream of the volevant, and how swiftly Stauminaup had dismissed that dream. But this was no fraud. He had no Deliamber here to do witcheries on his mind.
Valentine said at length, “May I ask an evaluation?”
“The dream has familiar overtones,” Menesipta replied calmly.
“Is that your whole speaking of it?”
She seemed amused. “What more would you have me say?”
Valentine clenched his fists in frustration. “If someone came to me for a speaking of such a dream, I would call it a dream of summoning.”
“Very well.”
“Do you agree? Would you call it a dream of summoning?”
“If it would please you.”
“Pleasing me isn’t the point,” said Valentine, irritated. “Either the dream was a dream of summoning or it wasn’t. What is your view of it?”
Smiling obliquely, the dream-speaker said, “I call your dream a dream of summoning.”
“And now?”
“Now? Now you have your morning duties to observe.”
“A dream of summoning, as I understand it,” said Valentine tightly, “is required in order to attain the presence of the Lady.”
“Indeed.”
“Should I not advance now to Inner Temple?”
Menesipta shook her head. “No one goes from Second Cliff to Inner Temple. Only when you reach the Terrace of Adoration does a summoning-dream suffice of itself to call you inward. Your dream is interesting and important, but it changes nothing. Go to your duties, Valentine.”
Anger throbbed in him as he left her chamber. He knew he was being foolish, that a mere dream could not be enough to sweep him past the remaining hurdles that separated him from the Lady, and yet he had expected so much from it—he had hoped Menesipta would clap her hands and cry out in joy and ship him at once to Inner Temple, and none of that had happened, and the letdown was painful and infuriating.
More pain ensued. As he came from the fields two hours later an acolyte intercepted him and said bluntly, “You are ordered immediately to the harbor at Taleis, where new pilgrims await your guidance.”
Valentine was stunned. The last thing he wanted now was to be sent back to the starting point.
He was to set out at once, on foot and alone, making his way outward from terrace to terrace and getting himself to the Terrace of Assessment in the shortest possible time. They provided him at the terrace commissary with enough food to see him as far as the Terrace of Flowers. They gave him also a direction-finding device, an amulet to be fastened to his arm, that would scan for buried road-markers and emit a soft high pinging sound.
At midday he left the Terrace of Devotion. But the path he chose was the one inward toward the Terrace of Surrender, not the one that would take him back toward the coast.
The decision came suddenly and with unarguable force. He simply could not allow himself to be turned away from the Lady. Slipping off on an unauthorized trek, on this highly disciplined island, held serious risks, but he had no choice.
Valentine circled past the rim of the terrace and found the grassy path that cut diagonally across the recreation field to the main road. There he was supposed to turn left toward the outer terraces. But—feeling extraordinarily conspicuous—he turned right instead and set out briskly toward the interior. Soon he was beyond the settled part of the terrace and the road had narrowed from wide paved highway to earthen track, with forest pressing close on all sides.
Within half an hour he was at a fork in the road. When he started at random down the left-hand branch, the quiet pinging tone of the direction-finding amulet vanished, returning when he had made his way back to the other fork. A useful device, he thought.
He walked steadily until nightfall. Then he camped in a pleasant grove beside a gentle stream, and allowed himself a sparing meal of cheese and sliced meat. He slept fitfully, stretched out on the cool moist ground between two slender trees.
The first pink glimmer of dawn woke him. He stirred, stretched, opened his eyes. A quick splash in the stream, yes, and then a bit of breakfast, and then—
Valentine heard sounds in the forest behind him—twigs snapping, something moving through the bushes. Quietly he slipped behind a thick-trunked tree by the edge of the stream and peered warily around it. And saw a powerfully built black-bearded man emerge from the underbrush, pause by his campsite, look cautiously about.
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Farssal.
In a pilgrim’s robe. But with a dagger strapped to his left forearm.
Some twenty-five feet separated the two men. Valentine frowned, considering his options, calculated tactics. Where had Farssal found a dagger on this peaceful island? Why was he tracking Valentine through the forest, if not to slay him?
Violence was alien to Valentine. But to take Farssal by surprise seemed the only course that made sense. He rocked back and forth a moment on the balls of his feet, centered his mind as though he were about to juggle, and sprang from his hiding place.
Farssal whirled and managed to get the dagger from its scabbard just as Valentine crashed into him. With a sudden desperate hacking motion Valentine slammed the side of his hand into the underside of Farssal’s arm, numbing it, and the dagger dropped to the ground; but an instant later Farssal’s meaty arms wrapped Valentine in a crushing grip.
They stood locked, face to face. Farssal was a head shorter than Valentine, but deeper of chest, broader of shoulder, a bull-bodied man. He strained to throw Valentine to the ground; Valentine struggled to break free; neither was able to sway the other, though veins bulged on their foreheads and their faces went red and swollen with strain.