Beyond the Wall of Time (24 page)

“I never avoided any taxes!” he said, angered at her gaze.

“Your friend and his father do. You know that is the reason why their settlement is always on the move.”

“So you don’t approve of them? This after they treated you as an honoured guest?”

“I’m not asking about tax,” Lenares said, as abruptly as ever. “I don’t care about money. I want to know how many people the
storm killed so I can estimate how much larger the hole in the world has grown. It feeds on unnatural death.”

“A hundred thousand people slaughtered by one storm?” Stella said.

“They may not all have died,” the Destroyer responded.

“But you said before that nothing remains.”

“I said that to keep expectations low. I am hoping people will have some pleasant surprises ahead of them.”

“And suffer in the meantime,” Stella said disapprovingly. “Perhaps making rash decisions based on your ‘low expectations.’
You are a cruel man.”

“I will ask you in ten years’ time whether you still think I am cruel. Conditions are different over here. Cultures are more
complex. As I have explained to you previously, I must work within the boundaries the people have set.”

“So how many dead?” Lenares persisted.

“Perhaps twenty, thirty thousand,” said the Destroyer. “Maybe fewer, maybe more.”

The cosmographer shook her head. “The hole in the world will soon be big enough for Keppia and Umu to do whatever they want.”

“So what are the implications?” Moralye asked in her soft voice.

“The next thing they send against us will be far worse,” Lenares said. “We have reached a tipping point. From now on, there
is little we can do to keep the hole small save killing the gods themselves.”

It took the best part of the night for the storm to blow itself out. For hours the wind shrieked, thumping against the barrier
and the walls of the pit. Around the middle of the night a huge crash woke everyone in the camp: the wind had succeeded in
bringing down the top half of the thin granite column that had, according to Seren, marked the height of the original granite
rock. People shook their heads at the strength of wind required to do such a thing, and after that there was no more talk
of leaving the pit. Indeed, many people came up to Stella and Kannwar to thank them both for the protection they had provided.

Stella’s head nodded. Her mouth said all the right things, with more graciousness than she herself could have mustered, and
in a slightly lower voice. Stella herself was a tiny ball of awareness in the back of her own head, a badly hurt and frightened
presence lost in her own mind, not in possession of her own body. A body that now belonged to the Most High.

It is the only way I can save you
, he had said as she lay on the ground, the terrible flame scouring her life away.
Don’t struggle against me.

I don’t want to be saved
, she had replied.
I’m tired. Let me go.

The Most High had sighed then, a sound encapsulating the weariness of the world.
Ah, if only the world would let go. But you must learn, Stella Pellwen, that the world does not let go, not when you play
such a large part in it.

Save someone else
, she persisted.
Others are dead or dying and want to live. Save them.

If I let you die , many others will follow. Do you want that?

She had responded with anger.
Then don’t arrange the world in such a way that it depends on me! Change the story! Write me out of it!

You know it does not work that way. Your friend Leith knew this, and eventually accepted his role. It’s not like you to be
selfish.

But I’m so tired!
she had cried.

So am I
, said the Most High.
I make you a promise, Stella Pellwen. When the world lets me go, I will ensure it lets you go also.

Reluctantly she had allowed him to fill the empty spaces she had been driven from. Immortal by virtue of her Water of Life-touched
blood, she had been vulnerable to anything that stopped her heart, preventing the tainted blood from renewing her skin, muscles
and bones. The lightning strike had convulsed her heart, and the blood had ceased flowing. It had taken direct and continued
intervention from the Most High to restart her circulation.

Will it always be like this?
she asked as another family came to pay their respects.

No. Soon your body will begin to renew your heart. When that happens I can leave you alone.

Why am I so important?

I truly do not know
, answered the Most High.

What sort of answer is that? Of course you know.

I do not. I am aware of possibilities, that is all. Every choice you make subtly alters the balance of those possibilities.
Because you are one of the travellers you act as a—forgive me the pun—lightning rod to the gods, attracting their attention.
Were you to leave, they would have less reason to focus on this group. And in many possible futures you have important tasks
to complete.

Always important tasks. I’ve had seventy years of important tasks. When do I get to rest?

Seventy years?
the voice said, and for a moment the Most High sounded ancient.
Seventy whole years? That is a very long time.

You don’t have much of a talent for sarcasm
, Stella replied. She knew this was no way to talk to a god, especially not one who had in anger split Dona Mihst asunder
and cursed the First Men, but she spoke with the carelessness of one with nothing left to lose.

No, I do not. When people converse with me they are generally seeking answers, not humour.

It was a fair point, and Stella chewed on it for a while.

Around them the refugees from the storm settled down, organising whatever comforts they could and preparing for sleep. Children
cried, old men chattered and quite a few snored; sounds infinitely preferable to the screaming that had filled Corata Pit
a few hours previously. There was little to eat, but hunger was a small inconvenience.

I have questions for you
, Stella said.

The Most High smiled, lighting up her mind.
I’m sure you do
, he said.
Please ask them, but be patient with my replies.

She’d intended to ask him about his children, the Son and the Daughter, but her thoughts turned to her own family. Bitter
thoughts.

Why did my brother die?

He drank himself to death
, said the Most High.
But you know this, so it is another question you wish to ask.

Why did he have to die while I was away serving you?
The question was more accurate, nearer to what she really wanted to say, but the asking carried mixed feelings, anger and
guilt among them.

Ah. He didn’t have to die. Death attended upon the lifestyle he chose.

That is only part of the reason
, Stella snapped.
Why didn’t you prevent it? Why couldn’t his death have waited until I returned? We rendered you a great service and suffered
for it.

Near the heart of it, this.

Child, you left Loulea with Leith and the others because you wanted to escape the village. You saw your destiny in the wider
world. But you did not consider the effect your feigned death had on your brother, who had already been driven half-mad by
the drink. It was because you left that he took to it more fiercely than ever. Your leaving precipitated his death.

No
, she whispered. But the truth of it encircled her damaged heart.

You have a complaint against me. I hear it and take it seriously. You rendered me a great service, you say, and suffered for
it. You wish to know why that should be so.

Stella wanted the conversation to end, but where could she flee to avoid the god?

Yes.

You came into my service as little more than a dumb animal, unaware you were serving me
, said the Most High.
I yoked you to my service like an ox put to the plough, so that your suffering would not be in vain. At no time during the
Falthan War did you choose to serve me: I made service out of your actions.

So it wasn’t your plan that I ended up enslaved by the Destroyer? That my part in the salvation of Faltha was as his unwilling
consort, while Leith got to play the hero?

Such petty, bitter words, but they were at her core. How could she keep them hidden from him?

I do not have a plan. Why would I create things separate from myself, entities with conditional freedom, only to prescribe
their actions? You acted foolishly and paid a heavy price as you walked on the path you chose. Leith acted bravely and suffered
far less as a result—though you have always underestimated the extent of his suffering and guilt. He always believed, for
example, he was responsible for his brother’s death. Yet despite your different paths, you ended up in the same place. That
is because, in the end, you put yourself aside and acted with courage. If I have a plan, it is to encourage people to find
the least difficult path possible.

Time to hazard her question.
Is that why you have had so much trouble with your own son and daughter? Because you don’t have a plan? Isn’t this all your
fault?

A brief silence. She’d shocked him perhaps. But he must have thought about this many times during the thousands of years since
his children had rebelled against him. It might be he’d never been called on to explain it before.

Perhaps you see me as a benevolent uncle, someone unfailingly pleasant and indulgent,
he said.
If so, you need to dismiss the thought. Love is not always pleasant and indulgent. It can be severe. Sometimes it must be
severe.

Is that a threat? Have I threatened you? How could a mere human be a threat to the Most High god? Oh, I forgot. Kannwar of
Dona Mihst has already shown how it is possible.

A wave of anger washed across her emotions. His anger. Before he could speak, she added:
You’re about to tell me I’m speaking about things I don’t understand. You will say you cannot explain your inscrutable purposes
to such a limited mind as mine. But the problem is this: you tried explaining your purposes to Kannwar two thousand years
ago, when he was a child, because you wanted to raise him up in opposition to your own rebellious children. You tried and
failed. Don’t you see you need to get better at explaining things? Don’t you think you ought to become a little less inscrutable?

She waited for his anger to consume her, but his voice remained mild.
The problem with Kannwar was not in the explanation or in his understanding
, said the Most High with brittle patience.
It was his refusal to accede to my plan.

You do have a plan then.
She loosed the words at him like an arrow.

I have many plans. Plans for this, plans for that. But I do not have one overall plan within which everyone must fit. Instead
I have an infinite number of plans, each one abandoned whenever anyone makes a choice. Kannwar made his choice; I abandoned
my plan.

You had a plan for your children too, didn’t you? What was it? What went wrong with it?

Very well
, he said, and Stella felt a sigh blow across her soul.

Yes, I created the world and all within it. I loved it and made a special place in which I could watch it grow without ruining
it. Remember, I need to keep separate from it in order for it to remain itself. You have been to that special place and call
it the House of the Gods.

Yet this was not enough for the people of the earth. They came searching for me, besieging me in my own house, demanding I
provide for them, that I do the work I had created them to do. This they called ‘worship.’

I thought worship was the reverent paying of respect
, she said.

So did I. But the children of the earth have always seen worship as the exchanging of a feather-weight of devotion for a ton-weight
of assistance. I gave them mouths, it is true, so they could know desire and satisfaction. But I gave them arms and legs so
they could be instrumental in satisfying their desires. What they call worship is the voluntary amputation of their limbs,
the substitution of my limbs for theirs. Some of them even wanted their mouths removed so they no longer had either wants
or satisfaction.

So I hid from them. Not out of fear or timidity, but because I could not grant them their desire without destroying the essence
of what they were. However, the knowledge that I existed in the world, and was approachable, led many of them to cast away
their independence, to abandon their responsibilities in endless acts of so-called worship, all designed to draw me out. The
children of the earth put themselves in situations where, in my name, they would die without my intervention. They planted
no seed, they harvested no crops, relying on me to provide.

They began to die.

I was enraged by the first doubters. “See,” they cried, “the Giant of the Desert”—for so they called me—“does not exist, for
he does not rescue those who love him the most. Those who trust only themselves live happy, fulfilled lives, while those who
trust him die of starvation and disease.”

So, against my own wishes, I intervened, weakening the Wall of Time. I sent wind to spread the wild seed and rain to help
it grow. I let it be known that this was miraculous, a sign that the giant still cared for them. Many of my worshippers left
their temples and harvested the grain, but others remained as professional clergy and stole much of the food under the guise
of a tithe.

Should I have intervened, Stella? I could have. But then the Wall of Time would have been breached, and I would have swallowed
them all.

Then came the Time of Quarrels. Those who had worked hard all their lives, planting and harvesting in season, were jealous
of those who had been miraculously provided for. The temple-dwellers tried to extend their demands for a tithe to all who
harvested grain, irrespective of who had planted it. The earth became a battlefield, a place of pain and suffering, as each
faction fought the other. Even the temple-dwellers rediscovered how effective their own limbs could be. Having neglected them
in my service, they used them to deal death to their enemies.