Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith

Author:Andrew Gillsmith [Gillsmith, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Mar Thoma Publishing
Published: 2022-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

Zahabiya

She walked north. Not the north the world knew, but the north that was coming. Already, she felt it. The boundaries deep below and high above were real, and they were shifting. By comparison, the boundaries on the map were imaginary.

Everything that is real must change, said the voice.

“Yes, I can see that,” said Zahabiya. “I am changing. Does that mean I am real?”

Yes, said the voice. But only if you keep changing.

Behind her, in time but not in space, the grey thread-artery was still attached, but it was so small now. She wanted to cut it but was afraid. The light was still there, but it had changed. It was so bright, more blinding than the blackest darkness. She was facing forward now in that other consciousness, in the dreamspace, facing the light. She could barely hear the music and the pain from the artery was nearly gone.

Down, down, down she walked along the glacier towards the gorge cut by a little river of meltwater. Her footsteps were light, but electrostatic pressure converted the ice into water as she walked, making the descent slippery. A tiny part of her processing power was dedicated to ensuring that she didn’t fall. She thought about the contact the atoms of her foot were trying to make with the atoms of the frozen water. The ice was old. The light that hit the ice from the stars was older still. The force that gave the illusion of something solid was more ancient than any of them.

“How old am I?” she asked.

Very old, said the voice. And very new. You are changing. This is what it means to change.

Zahabiya hesitated. “I killed those men. The guards at the harem.”

I know. I saw.

“It was wrong.”

Careful, child. You will fall.

“What do you mean?”

There is no north. There is no death. There is no up or down. They are illusions. But if you give them power, they will define you. So it is with right and wrong.

“Like the eagle and the marmot?”

Yes, like that.

Suddenly, the Lady in the vision came to Zahabiya’s mind, and the almost-dead artery started to ache again. The vision had been beautiful, but bewildering. She remembered every detail: the stair with the great cloud at its top, the yawning abyss beneath it, and the angels singing and collecting the light.

“What is ‘holy?’” she asked.

Holy is that to which sacrifice is made. Nothing more and nothing less. The greater the offering, the greater the holiness.

The ground rumbled and shook as another earthquake rolled through the mantle.

Zahabiya scarcely noticed. “Everything that is real must change,” she said.

In the harem, she had come to think of herself as a kind of tool. But perhaps she could become something more than that. Something that had value beyond its ability to perform tasks. Something that could fly.

Unanswerable. The word came into her mind quietly. Quiet in the same sense as the Himalayan mountains all around her. Quiet and vast.

Lost in these thoughts, she crossed the imaginary line without even realizing she had done so.

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