Among this black-clad crowd I spotted a sparse sprinkling, who, like myself, were dressed in colors or in white. They could only be my fellow apprentices. And these, too, were a cross-section of humanity. I was surprised that men and women in old age could be apprentices like me. I saw only two others who were close to my age, one a girl, the other a handsome boy with blunt-cut blond hair. He was perhaps twenty feet away, too far for me to speak to him, too far to overhear if he spoke. His master was also a teenager by appearance, a severe young woman who must have come from the Indian subcontinent, and who still wore the forehead jewelry called a bindi, common to her culture. Like Messenger, she appeared to be at most nineteen or maybe twenty years old. But also like him there was a sense of unapproachability about her.
The boy, the apprentice with the golden mane, turned and looked at me. He stared for a moment, then smiled. It was not a genuine, spontaneous smile, but I appreciated it nevertheless—this was not a gathering of the happy-go-lucky fun lovers of humanity, and anything warm or even polite was like water in a desert: welcome, even if the taste of it was off.
A very tall woman messenger with long gray hair strode to the front, mounted a few steps of the platform, bringing her to where we could all see her. When she spoke it was with the same eerily intimate voice Messenger used, a voice that seemed at once grand and formal, and to be a whisper made directly into my ear.
“We are called to judge one of our own,” she said without preamble. No one showed any surprise. “The accused will step forward.”
At that the young messenger, the master of the blond boy, moved to the front and mounted the steps to stand just below our grim master of ceremonies.
“This messenger, whose own name is Chandra Munukutla, is accused of attempting to alter the fabric of time.”
Messenger sighed softly and the muscle of his jaw twitched.
“The facts of the case are these,” the spokeswoman said. “This messenger was sent to address a wrong. She found a victim and rather than confine herself to her sacred office, she shifted time in such a way as to free the victim.”
My head swirled sharply to Messenger. “I thought that was impossible,” I blurted, though I had the sense to whisper it. The temporarily abandoned apprentice shot me a look. Not angry or even appreciative, just interested. I ignored him and hoped no one else had heard me.
“Silence,” Messenger said quietly.
The gray-haired messenger went on. “We are given great powers, but those powers are only to be used to uncover truth, to understand what has occurred, to offer the game and to discover and then impose the punishment that wickedness has earned. We hold those powers in sacred trust from Isthil; they are not ours to use.”
Again, there was no surprise, no whispered commentary, no pointing of fingers, just stolid, silent attention from the messengers.
“Speak, if you wish.”
The Indian messenger, what was her name? I remembered Chandra only because I know a girl at school by that name. Chandra spoke.
“I acknowledge the facts,” Chandra said in true messenger style, minimal yet intimate, with very little emotion discernible. “But in this case the victim was an eleven-year-old girl who would be burned by acid, permanently scarred, disfigured . . .” And now the facade of emotionlessness slipped a little and passion crept into Chandra’s voice. “Her face would be a mask of horror, her lips would be so badly burned that she would be unable to eat in the presence of others. All because she had run away from home rather than be married to a man of fifty years. I saw a way to make a very small change in the time line that would save her. She would never be attacked, and thus those responsible would not need to face the game or the doom.”
Now I felt tension in the onlookers. Who among these messengers had not faced a similar dilemma? If I could somehow kill the demon that had taken Graciella’s father and thus cause his many sins against that girl never to occur, would it not be far better than punishing those who had wronged Graciella later in life?
“These are the temptations that come to all messengers,” the spokeswoman said. She wasn’t pitiless, she did not argue that it was evil to save the girl, and I am morally certain that each of us, certainly I myself, believed she had done something essentially good.
“These are the temptations,” the spokeswoman repeated. “But the law that governs us is clear.”
“Who saves a life saves all the world,” Chandra said, an edge of desperation now all the more clear and heartbreaking for the restraint with which she said it.
I had heard the saying before. I believed it was from the Bible. But the gray-haired messenger corrected that misimpression. “Thus say many great traditions, Chandra, including the Talmud of the Jews, to which people I was born. But messengers must set aside all other faiths and serve only the balance maintained by the Heptarchy, under the oversight of great Isthil. We serve Isthil and the balance. We are not gods, we are servants. It is not ours to choose when and when not to obey.”
I bridled instinctively at that. What system of morality could possibly condemn one who had saved a girl from a lifetime of pain?
I wondered, if it were put to a vote, how many of the men and women, the boys and girls present would deny the essential goodness of what Chandra had done.
I glanced at Messenger and read nothing but sorrow and grim determination on his face. My heart sank. I realized then that we were not a jury, but mere witnesses.
The gray-haired messenger waited as though she expected someone to speak. But no one spoke. The facts were not in dispute. The “accused” admitted her guilt, if guilt can possibly be the word applied to an act of simple, human decency.
When no one spoke, the gray-haired woman said, “I ask for the judgment of Isthil.”
11
“I ASK FOR THE JUDGMENT OF ISTHIL.”
At that a beam of light so bright and terrible that it seemed to shine through each of us, so bright it might have been the eye of a nuclear explosion, shone from above, directed at one of the seven thrones.
When the light faded just enough that I could reopen my eyes, there sat upon that throne what looked superficially like a woman, but a woman who must have stood fifty feet tall. Yet how can a measurement we use to determine such mundane things as size and distance possibly describe this creature?
I can say only this: that I fell to my knees.
I am not a very religious person, and I don’t think of myself as someone easily cowed or easily awed. But in Isthil’s presence it was as if no other stance was possible. I fell to my knees not in fear, but because no human being could do otherwise. My insides shook. My hands and legs trembled. I felt bathed in electricity, in an energy so powerful, so incomprehensibly great, that no one, not the greatest men and women in the world, not the greatest men and women in all of human history could have done anything but kneel and be utterly transfixed.
“Isthil!” The word came from my mouth with a voice that was mine, yes, but transformed into a sound I did not know I possessed.
I was not alone in crying her name in a sort of ecstasy. The name Isthil came from every mouth, and I saw Messenger on his knees, no longer even aware that I was present, bathed in that light, absorbing that light as if he was a starving man being offered a banquet.
“Isthil!” we cried in ragged voices.
“Isthil!”
Isthil stood before her throne. In her hand was a sword that might have felled skyscrapers or cleaved giant aircraft carriers with a single blow.
Then Isthil shrank, reducing her intimidating size to that of an ordinary woman, though no one not deaf, dumb, blind, and senseless could ever have mistaken her for anything but a goddess. It was in this reduced but still awe-inspiring form that she spoke.
“I come among you to judge a servant who has erred,” Isthil said. “The penalties are these: a doubling of time owed as my messenger, isolation, or obliteration.”
“Obliteration. Does she mean death?” I asked.
; Messenger did not answer, but I earned a sharp, worried look from the accused woman’s apprentice. He had edged closer, as though he perhaps sensed my sympathy for his master’s plight.
“I will not impose obliteration,” Isthil said. “There was no evil intent in this messenger’s heart. Thus I choose as an act of my will to withdraw the shadow of death. But my will alone may not decide all things. Chance must have its say.”
I nodded, understanding at least some of this from what Messenger had taught me as well as from my brief reading in the book of Isthil. The Heptarchy was charged with keeping balance in all things, but in all things chance—luck—must have a part. This is why we summon the Master of the Game to offer a sinner an opportunity to win and thus escape. Chance plays a role in all such contests, as it does in all our lives.
But of course Isthil had her own ways of submitting to chance. “I call upon my brother, Ash, god of peace and war.”
A definite murmur swept through the taciturn messengers. My Messenger’s eyes went wide. He had told me that Ash had turned against mankind, that he was an enemy to humanity, allied with Malech, the god of pleasure and denial, whose servants included Oriax.
Ash did not appear in a burst of nuclear light as Isthil had done. We all strained to see him arrive on his throne, but instead we felt rather than saw a presence behind us, and turning, I saw him.
If he was related in any way to the magisterial figure of light and stern beauty that was Isthil, that relation was very, very attenuated. Ash, god of peace and war, was large but not superhumanly so. Rather he looked quite ordinary. He was dressed like a man who might be headed out to play a round of golf or perhaps take the boat out on the lake.
Except for his face.
His face had something canine about it, a subtle pushing forward of the nose and jaw so that they evoked a muzzle. His teeth were prominent, bared in a mouth that drew back in an expression that reminded me strongly of a stray dog I’d tried to adopt once. The dog had to go, sadly, because his earlier experiences in life had left him with what animal behaviorists call “fear aggression.” The dog—and this god—were hyperalert, nervous, twitchy, afraid, and covering that fear with an expression of belligerence.
The dog’s belligerence had expressed itself with angry yips, snapping of teeth, and a low growl. I heard something very like that low growl coming from Ash. It was like a low note played on a stand-up bass, with the bow drawn slowly over tight strings.
His eyes were wild, darting here and there, seeking avidly for threat in each face he saw. His bare arms were strong and muscular, his movements quick. My father used to talk about fellow soldiers he’d known who walked around with a “chip on their shoulder,” actively seeking trouble.
The blond apprentice must have made a face or a move that caught Ash’s attention because in a blur of Flash-like speed, Ash had him on the ground with a glittering bayonet in his hand, the tip pressed against the apprentice’s throat.
“Did you have something to say?” Ash demanded in a feral snarl.
“No. No, sir.”
“Another pound of pressure and the tip of my blade punctures your carotid artery. There will follow a spurt of blood, a pulsing geyser of it that will weaken quickly as your blood pressure drops.” Ash leaned down close and now his face was very definitely, unquestionably, a canine muzzle, teeth bared. “Do you worship me?”
“If you want me to,” the apprentice managed to say between chattering teeth.
“Good.” Ash slapped the boy’s face not gently but not like he was looking to inflict damage, and said, “Good boy.” Ash hopped back, the blade simply disappeared, and he was once again a suburban dad with a very fit and large body and scary eyes. “What is it you want, Isthil?”
“Random chance,” Isthil answered, apparently not at all surprised by Ash’s behavior.
“Life and death, I hope.”
“Suffering of one type and suffering of another type,” Isthil said, sounding disapproving.
“Mmmm. Yes. I see.” Ash considered for a moment and we all waited. I think he enjoyed the suspense and the attention. “There is a symbol, half black, half white.” And suddenly there was a yin-yang symbol floating in the air off to one side.
And then, just as suddenly, Ash held a tall wooden bow. The bow must have been eight feet from tip to tip, with the thickest part as big around as a wine bottle. His free hand moved and an arrow was in it; he whipped the arrow against the bow and notched it.
The yin-yang symbol began to spin, faster and faster until it was just a gray blur.
Isthil saw what he intended, arched a weary eyebrow, and said, “If the arrow strikes black, the term of indenture is doubled. If it strikes white, then the messenger who has erred will suffer isolation.”
“Shall I loose a test arrow first?” Ash asked, grinning beneath fearful eyes. “Shall I see how many of these creatures of yours I can impale with a single arrow?”
“That wouldn’t be the randomness I require,” Isthil said patiently. “The duty for which I requested your presence.”
“No, I suppose not. But it would be fun.” Lightning quick, he drew the string back to his cheek, sighted on the spinning target, ostentatiously closed his eyes, and . . .
Twannnng!
The arrow flew. It hit the target with a satisfying thwack! And the target’s spinning slowed, slowed, until we could see that the point was almost dead center.
Almost. But clearly in the white.
“This is nuts,” I muttered under my breath.
Messenger glared at me in alarm. There was no way Ash could have heard and yet . . .
In the blink of an eye he was before me. He seemed much larger up close. His breath stank of rancid meat. The low growl that came from him at all times was now loud in my ears.
To my surprise he did not stab me with the bayonet or shoot me with the bow. He laughed and his eyes grew small, yet though smaller, I saw things there: slaughters, men and women disemboweled, children dashed against rocks. Blood and bone and spilled intestines.
“Yes,” Ash said to me. “It’s madness. All madness. Didn’t you already guess that? Don’t you know that you serve the cause of insanity?”
I didn’t try to answer. I did try to swallow and tasted ashes.
“The balance,” Ash sneered. “There’s only one thing threatening the balance between existence and . . . non. You.” He poked a finger hard against my breastbone. “You and your species. Remove man, and the balance is effortlessly maintained. What do you have to say to that, child of a warrior who died while killing?”
“My father was a soldier,” I said. It came out as a squeak, a pitiful noise.
“Oh, you’re all soldiers,” he said with a sneer. “You will all kill, given the right motivation.”
I closed my eyes, unable to look any longer into his, fearing what I might see there. When I forced myself to look again, he was gone.
Isthil remained undisturbed, waiting until the sideshow was done. Then she stood, raised her sword in the air, and said, “This doom I impose: the messenger will endure one month of isolation. Her apprentice will take refuge with another messenger, so that his learning will not be interrupted.”
She looked out over the faces turned up to her and pointed the sword directly at Messenger. My Messenger.
“You,” she said, and with a lesser blast of light, she, too, was gone.
One by one the messengers began to disappear.
Chandra, the messenger who was to be isolated, said a few words to her apprentice. As she spoke, she looked at Messenger once or twice, and her apprentice just managed to stop himself from turning around to stare. Then two wraiths drifted up to stand beside her. She nodded acceptance and without a backward glance, walked away, becoming more and more transparent until she was gone entirely.
“A month in isolation doesn’t sound so bad,” I said.
“It will be a month in total darkness,” Messenger said grimly. “A month without sensory input. No
thing but your memories and your imagination. Everyone who endures it goes mad within days. The question will be whether she has the strength to come back from madness.”
Given the severity of the punishments we inflict on evildoers I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. Isthil had just inflicted madness on Chandra? For an act of kindness?
I looked thoughtfully at the empty thrones. And I thought again of Oriax. Was she right that these gods were cruel?
I had very little doubt that Oriax’s own master was crueler still, but did that justify what I was doing for Messenger and for Isthil?
I felt as if I’d been convinced to attend a cult meeting and had, without conscious decision, swallowed their doctrine. Fear and guilt had made me susceptible.
You have to think about this, I told myself.
But this was not the time, because now the blond apprentice was nerving himself up to join us. He was apprehensive, and how could he not be? But had his former master said something to him that warned him specifically to be wary of Messenger?
As he drew close he nodded cautiously to Messenger, who did not respond. “My name is Haarm DeJaager.”
He had a sort of German-sounding accent, but very slight, and his English was flawless.
“Harm?” I echoed.
“With two a’s.” He made a tight grin. “It’s short for Herman. I prefer Haarm. It’s common in Holland.”
A Dutch boy, then. I would have liked to ask him a hundred questions, and I wondered if he felt the same. He must be as lonely as I was, as far from friends and family. But even as I contemplated the unlikely possibility of sitting down at a Starbucks with Haarm, I felt the twinge of wariness. He, like me, like all messengers, had come to this by virtue of some terrible act. Haarm could be anything . . . a thief, a liar, a killer.