Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Author:Kim Stanley Robinson [Robinson, Kim Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯), General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780553897609
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thus it was that many years later, when the jati had again convened in the bardo, after years of work fighting off the foreigners living at the mouth of the East River, fighting to hold together their peoples in the face of all the devastating new diseases that struck them, making alliances with Fromwest's people embattled in like fashion on the west coast of their island, doing all they could to knit together the nations and to enjoy life in the forest with their kin and their tribes, Fromwest approached Keeper of the Wampum and said to him proudly, “You have to admit it, I did what you demanded of me, I went out in the world and fought for what was right! And we did some good again!”

Keeper put a hand to the shoulder of his young brother as he approached the great edifice of the bardo's dais of judgment, and said, “Yes, you performed well, youth. We did what we could.”

But already he was looking ahead at the bardo's enormous towers and battlements, wary and unsatisfied, focused on the tasks ahead. Things in the bardo seemed to have gotten even more Chinese since their last time there, like all the rest of the realms, perhaps, or perhaps it was just a coincidence having to do with their angle of approach, but the great wall of the dais was broken up into scores of levels, leading into hundreds of chambers, so that it looked somewhat like the side of a beehive.

The bureaucrat god at the entryway to this warren, one Biancheng by name, handed out guidebooks to the process facing them above, thick tomes all entitled “The Jade Record,” each hundreds of pages long, filled with detailed instructions, and with descriptions, illustrated copiously, of the various punishments they could expect to suffer for the crimes and affronteries they had committed in their most recent lives.

Keeper took one of these thick books and without hesitation swung it like a tomahawk, knocking Biancheng over his paper-laden desk. Keeper looked around at the long lines of souls waiting their turn to be judged, and saw them staring at him amazed, and he shouted at them, “Riot! Revolt! Rebel! Revolution!”, and without waiting to see what they did, he led his little jati into a chamber of mirrors, the first room on their passage through the process of judgment, where souls were to look at themselves and see what they really were.

“A good idea,” Keeper admitted, after stopping in the middle and staring at himself, seeing what no one else could see. “I am a monster,” he announced. “My apologies to you all. And especially to you, Iagogeh, for putting up with me this last time, and all the previous times. And to you, youth,” nodding at Busho, whom he had known as Fromwest. “But nevertheless, we have work to do. I intend to tear this whole place down.” And he began looking around the room for something to throw at the mirrors.

“Wait,” Iagogeh said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.