20
When we came up over the rim of the cliff into this sublime and ultimate realm the one thing that we all wanted was only to rest awhile, every one of us. We could look up and see the abode of the gods almost within reach, yes, or so it seemed to us then; but there was not one of us who had the strength or the determination to venture onward immediately, not even Traiben, whose boundless curiosity seemed at last to be overmeasured by fatigue. We had spent ourselves freely, too freely, perhaps, in the crossing of the land of the Kvuz and the conquest of that bare rock face, and now we had to recollect our energies and renew our will before pushing onward toward whatever the next challenge was that might lie ahead.
On this innermost plateau that was the pedestal for the highest of the peaks of Kosa Saag, we had entered into a vast enclosed place of forests and rivers and streams and valleys. It was like a secret world atop the Wall. The air was even thinner here, but we knew well by now how to adjust our bodies to cope with that, and for all its thinness it was sweet and cool and fresh; and there was thick blue grass everywhere underfoot, and the great cloud-tipped mountain rose above us in stupendous majesty and beauty. We found ourselves a pleasant site beside a swift stream and made our camp there, thinking to stay a day or two, or perhaps three, before pushing onward. But we stayed longer than that: how much longer, I could not say, for one day flowed serenely into the next and time slipped past without our realizing it. A great deal of time, I suspect.
This was an easy place, though, and we had not had many of those during our journey up the Wall. Here was a place where we could strip and bathe and cleanse ourselves, and drink cool water, and pluck succulent fruits from trees whose names we would never know. And so we did, for day after day after day. It was as if we were enchanted. Perhaps we were. No one spoke of moving onward: as I have said, not even Traiben. Indeed Traiben and I avoided each other’s eyes much of the time, for neither of us had forgotten that as boys we had vowed to rise through Kingdom after Kingdom until we had attained the Summit, and if that was what we had sworn to do, why were we still here? Many a time I saw one of the others looking at me worriedly, as if fearing that at any moment I would pick up cudgels and flails and drive everyone back to the upward task with all my old zeal. But the inner fire that had carried me this far was banked for the moment. I was in as much need of rest as any of the others, and they had no reason to fear any renewal of discipline just yet from me. I had loosened my grasp on them; I let the idle days go by.
Only the Irtiman showed any eagerness to resume the climb. He came to me and said, “Poilar, I owe you my life,” and I nodded uneasily at that, for he was pale and even thinner than before and it seemed to me that he had hardly any life left in him. Then he said, with a touch of anxiety in his tone, “Will we be staying in this valley much longer, do you think?”
I indicated the long shadow of the great mountain, falling far across the land. “We’ll stay here until we’re fresh again,” I told him. “We’re going to need all the strength we can muster for what lies ahead.”
“No doubt we will. But as the time passes, you see—”
The voice out of the speaking-box trailed off. He stared at me sadly.
I knew what was troubling him. He had suffered greatly in his solitary wanderings and such little strength as he still had left was fading: he saw the end coming and wanted to die at the Summit among his friends. Our long delay here must have been maddening to him. Well, I understood his need; but we had needs of our own. The long unrelenting skyward march had drained us deeply. We were none of us young; we were in our third ten of years and even the strongest of us felt the burden of this climb. And the most daunting ascent of all still stood before us. We were not yet ready to attempt it.
The Irtiman was aware of that, and he knew also that he had no claim on us. So he put his impatience aside. For my part I promised him that I would bring him to his fellow Irtimen at the Summit, no matter what: and that was a promise which I was to keep, although in a strange way indeed.
We talked for a while afterwards. I asked him about his village, where it was situated in relation to the Wall and whether it had the same sort of Houses that ours did, Musicians and Advocates and Carpenters and all the rest, and if they acknowledged themselves to be subjects to the King. He was silent a long time when I had asked these things, and drew so deep into himself that I feared for him. Then he said, “I told you that I came from a very distant place.”
“Yes.”
“And so it is I was born on a world beyond the sky.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. “A world beyond the sky,” I said in wonder, dully repeating his words like a simpleton because I had so much difficulty comprehending them. “Then you are a god?”
“Not at all. Mortal, Poilar, very much so.”
“Yet you say you come from one of the worlds of Heaven?”
“A world called Earth, yes.”
I thought of my star-dream of long ago, when I had danced at the Summit and looked upward toward those worlds from the Summit, and saw the cold fire of them, and felt the potent god-life of them pouring down upon me.
“Those who live in Heaven are gods,” I said. “Their homes are the stars, and the stars are fire. Who can live in fire except a god?”
He smiled patiently and said, in that sad, sad, weary voice that came slowly out of his little speaking-box, “Yes, the stars are fire, Poilar. But many of them have worlds much like this world close by them, the way your world is close by its star Ekmelios. And those worlds are solid and cool like your world, with oceans and mountains and plains, and people can live upon them. Or upon some of them, anyhow.”
“Ekmelios is a sun, not a star. It’s much bigger than any star, and brighter, and hotter. And there’s Marilemma, also: we have two suns, you know.”
“And both are stars. Suns are stars. Ekmelios is close at hand, and Marilemma is a little further away; and still further, far out in the heavens, are other stars, millions of them, more than you could ever count. Each one is a sun, bright and hot. They seem to you to be little points of light only because they’re so far away. But if you were closer to one of them you’d realize that it’s a ball of fire very much like Ekmelios and Marilemma. And most of them have worlds moving around them the way your world moves around Ekmelios and Marilemma.”
All this was difficult for me to follow, but he let it sink in for a moment or two, and as I revolved it in my mind it began to make a kind of sense to me. Still, I wished that Traiben were beside me now to hear this, for I knew he would understand it much more completely.
The Irtiman said, “My world has a yellow sun. I could try to show it to you in the night sky, but it’s not very big and so it’s very hard to find. It’s so far away that the light that comes from my world’s sun takes an entire lifetime, and even more, to reach your world.”
“Then you must be a god!” I cried, feeling proud of myself for so quickly seeing the flaw in the logic. “For if it takes more than a lifetime to get from your world to mine, then how could any mortal hope to live long enough to make the journey?”
“He couldn’t,” said the Irtiman. “Not me, not you, not any of us. But we have a special way of traveling, which takes us from here to here without having to pass through every point between. And so the trip from Earth to here requires only a year or two instead of a lifetime and a half. But for that I could never have hoped to come here.”