Читать книгу Elevation 3: The Fiery Spiral - Helen Brain - Страница 9

LUCAS

For three days I proceed in a northerly direction, studying the remarkable flora and fauna of Celestia. I am relieved to be able to push all thoughts of Earth and of what transpired in the council chamber out of my mind. Isi trots next to me, delighted with her freedom to run around freely and hunt for lizards. I eat fruit and nuts from the trees, and drink sweet water from the streams. At night I curl up under a bush, and the cold does not bother me, neither does the hard ground.

On the fourth morning Isi disappears. Shortly afterwards, I come across a curious arrangement of ovoid white rocks, alabaster-like, forming a circle. I inspect them from all angles. They’re taller than I am, and half buried in the sand. The surface is smooth. Similar to the skin on the inside of Ebba’s wrists. But that’s not a good analogy. I need a more scientific way to describe it, although her skin is so very pale, and the veins show blue against it, just as this rock has streaks of cream and pink running through it.

I touch the rock with my fingertips, and instantly a door opens and an elderly man looks up at me.

“Francis,” he says, holding out his hand. “Come inside, Lucas.”

He barely reaches my chest. Although he is a cripple, he strikes me as a person even my father would respect. His eyes are fierce, and his intelligence apparent in his high forehead and perceptive eyes.

I follow him inside, curious to see how he lives inside this rock.

“Take a seat, young man.”

I take the hard, straight-backed chair he shows me. He sits opposite me in a red armchair, rests his canes against the arm, and his hands in his lap. Then, silence.

My fingers trace the carved pattern on the armrests, where the wood twists and turns into leaves and fruit I can’t identify. I examine the room. We are inside the rock but its wafer-thin walls are luminous, letting the light in from outside, forming a seamless curve with the roof. Francis is obviously a man of learning. The desk under the window shows signs of recent work: there’s a quill pen in an ink stand, and a pair of rimless glasses rest on the pages of a leather-bound book. However, the thing that most intrigues me is the row of books lined up along the mantelpiece. He is a scholar, and I have dreamed all my life of meeting someone who was fortunate enough to devote their life to scholarship.

“And have you enjoyed your first few days in Celestia?” His hands rest quietly in his lap, and his question is not asked in the manner of the idle chatter I know from Earth. His head is tilted slightly to one side as he watches me with his brown, birdlike eyes. He’s interested in my response, and I become flustered by his attention, stopping and starting to speak before breaking off into a fit of coughing.

“You find this a difficult question?”

I try to gather my thoughts. He doesn’t appear to be aggressive. He’s not trying to trick me or expose me, so I take a chance and engage with him in conversation. “On Earth if one could not display dominance, like my younger brother Hal, or follow the leader submissively, one was nothing.”

“And you do not have the gift either for dominance or for submission?”

“Precisely.” He is astonishingly adept at reading personality. “I have always wanted to forge my own path, away from the crowds. I can do that here. Nobody bothering me, nobody wanting anything. I’m free to do exactly what I wish, when I wish.”

Silence. A good, peaceful silence lies across the room, like a large dog relaxing in front of the fire.

“You are interested in my books?” His eyes twinkle as he catches me trying to read the titles from my seat.

“A person could spend a thousand years here and still not know the names of all the plants. Do you have a book listing the flora and fauna?”

“Ah, Lucas,” he says, shaking his head so his white hair shimmers. “Always so fond of the list. There’s nothing wrong with lists, but there is more to you than your mind. What about your heart? Will it stagnate forever?”

“It’s not stagnating.” The chair has suddenly become uncomfortable. Is that a splinter sticking into my forearm? I try to ignore it. “My heart is not significant,” I say firmly. “My mind is what matters.”

The seat of the chair jabs my thigh. I change position. I wait. Wait for him to move on, but he doesn’t, watching me squirm as a sharp pain runs through my left hand on the armrest.

I get up and inspect the chair. It’s as smooth as it was when I first sat down, the wood finely polished, the bunches of fruit glistening in the light glowing through the roof. I check underneath it, behind it. It appears perfectly normal.

“Please sit down,” he says, his voice soft but not one that a person would disobey.

Carefully I sit down again and immediately the chair jabs me in the right buttock, as firmly as if someone had stuck a pin into me. I jump up, clutching my bottom. This is too much. “What is going on?”

“This is the conscience chair,” he says. He’s not laughing at me, he’s not mocking. He sits there, his hands still lying in his lap, speaking as calmly as ever. “Its shape changes to reflect your thoughts. Any untruth, anything you are unwilling to face, it will let you know.” He gestures to the stool in front of the desk. “You don’t have to sit in it. You can sit over there if you wish. But the quicker you face the parts of you that need growth, the quicker you begin your journey.”

“Journey? I’m in Celestia. I’ve reached my destination.”

“Ah, my boy, your journey has just begun. You have many worlds to pass through before you reach the Fiery Spiral. uMvelinqangi waits there, to welcome you home.”

uMvelinqangi.

I know that name, from long, long ago … Suddenly I am back in my childhood. It’s night, and I have had a nightmare. I wake, terrified, and call for my nanny. “Nokhanyo! Nokhanyo!”

She comes in, and her goodness and kindness chase the terrors from the room. She sits on the bed, and I lean against her warm body. “You’re alright,” she murmurs. “Everything is alright. uMvelinqangi is looking after you.”

She tells me about the great god, greater than my father’s god Prospiroh, greater than all the gods in the whole universe, greater than the moon and the sun and the stars. “One day you will be one with him,” she says. And as I fall asleep I hear him calling my name across the sky, and know that he is where I belong.

“You want to be one with uMvelinqangi.” Once again he is reading my thoughts. But his voice is kind, a little like Nokhanyo’s.

“More than anything.”

“You need to journey not outward, but inward into your heart. It is blocked. You have shut out other people. You must open it. Now come, sit down again.”

I perch on the edge of the seat, watching his hands as he picks up a small green alabaster egg from the bowl on the table, and rolls it in his fingers, testing the smoothness. I feel as though it’s my heart he’s holding in his small hands. How do I really know I can trust him?

“You love Ebba.” The words ring out in the room, hanging there, and the blood rushes to my face.

“No. Of course not.” Where did he get this ridiculous idea?

He raises one white eyebrow. “But you saved her, and in the process lost your own life.”

“I was doing my duty, ensuring the sacred task was completed and the amulets restored to the necklace.”

This time the chair jabs me from all sides. His eyes twinkle and I know I’m reddening more – not with shame but with anger. He’s got me trapped. If I get up, I’m a coward. If I sit here, he can torment me with his ridiculous chair.

“Your father was a hard man, too dim-witted to recognise your value. You hardened your heart against him when you were just a child. And then you built an even higher wall to keep everyone else out. Now that wall is hindering your growth. Your journey in Celestia is to dismantle the wall and to reveal your heart to another person, even if that means you are hurt or mocked or rejected.”

I stand up. I don’t have to stay here listening to this senile old man babbling on. “And if I choose not to do this?”

“You will stagnate. Your task – the task of every living being – is to move forward, through world after world until finally you reach the heart of the Fiery Spiral. You cannot be happy if you ignore that task.”

I’m not going to let this old man push me around. I’ve had a lifetime of my father telling me to grow up, be a man, show some backbone. I’m here to rest now, with no one to bother me.

Celestia is a fine place to stay – teeming with creatures and plants to discover. I’m in the same situation as explorers on Earth were centuries ago when they discovered new lands and could document the species. I’m going to document everything I discover here, and for that process, my heart will not be required.

There’s a shriek and a thud outside. Francis glances towards a second door that faces the rock circle. Recognising Ebba’s voice, I swiftly rise to my feet. “Thank you for your advice. However, I have to move on now.”

He pulls himself up, swaying slightly as he reaches for his canes. “Be careful, Lucas. Without growth there is death. You want to fly, but your feet must learn to love the ground.”

EBBA

A door opens. A shock of white hair appears, then a face looks down at me – a wrinkled face with warm brown eyes. It’s an old man, smiling and saying, “Come in, Ebba. I am Francis, one of your guides.”

Isi nudges me with her nose. I check her over. She’s unhurt, and she’s got that goofy grin she gets when she’s really happy. It’s all okay. You can trust him, she seems to be saying. So when she runs past him through the doorway, I follow. I’m in a room with rock walls, a rock ceiling and floor, like the bunker I grew up in. But light shines through the thin walls, lighting up every vein in the rock, giving the room a gentle glow.

I let out a deep sigh. It’s safe here. It’s simple, but there are sunbirds on the honeysuckle outside, and a dove coos nearby. This is more like the Celestia I imagined.

Francis gestures to a wooden chair next to a small table. “Have a seat, my dear.”

I sit down, and Isi flops onto my feet. My fingers fiddle with my robe as I remember my father outside. He told me the portal would close soon. I chew the inside of my cheek and stare at Francis. He is so old; everything he does is slow. Would it be rude to ask him to hurry up?

He lowers himself into the armchair opposite me, folds his hands in his lap and sits quietly, watching me.

What is he doing? Why doesn’t he say anything? I fondle Isi’s ears, thinking about my father and what it will be like when we go back to Greenhaven together. The first thing I’m going to do is to ask him to get rid of Samantha-Lee. I don’t trust her. She obviously wants Micah for herself.

When I look up Francis is still watching me, and I shift in the chair, wondering what is poking my back. Why isn’t he saying anything? How will Samantha-Lee react when my dad banishes her from the island? Surely he will be the leader of the resistance again as he was seventeen years ago, before he disappeared – he and Micah together, maybe?

“So.” Francis speaks at last. “So, that boy tricked you. He betrayed you.”

Although his voice is kind, the words are like skewers stabbing me. “Micah didn’t betray me. He loves me.”

He raises one white eyebrow. “You believe that, my dear? It wasn’t his voice you heard outside the council chamber?”

“It was Bonita Mentoor. She’s always hated …” but as I say her name I realise there’s no way she could have known about the hair clip. It was definitely Micah’s voice I heard talking to the guards, and whom I saw addressing the crowd.

I can feel my face warming as I look into his clear brown eyes. I’ve been such an idiot. Micah set me up. My father must be mistaken. Maybe he didn’t see the whole thing. It’s going to be terrible going back, though, and facing Micah. Thank the Goddess I’ll have my dad with me to sort him out. The Boat People are going to be so excited when he comes back, and maybe they’ll accept me as one of them. They’ll exile Micah and Samantha-Lee, send them to the mainland – if they allow them to live. My dad will take over, and help me rebuild the farm …

The chair jabs my side. I shift over and it jabs me in the opposite hip.

“Micah said you would be a hero, like your ancestors.” There’s no judgement in his voice, but the heat intensifies in my cheeks until my whole face is burning.

“Yes, sir.”

“So you agreed to assassinate the general to please your boyfriend, to secure his love for you.”

The chair jabs my buttocks.

“Your aim was to save your relationship, not to save the two thousand?”

“Well … it was both,” My voice fades as my shame grows. “Yes, sir.” My words are barely a whisper.

“You opened the portal, but your heart wasn’t pure, so you allowed Prospiroh to gain access. He has taken Theia. He is holding her captive and no god can intervene.”

Everything feels slippery, like it’s sliding away from me, into a black pit. How could I be so stupid?

“You have become the tree that spreads its roots upward, to admire the pretty birds that chatter in its branches. Your roots have forgotten to draw deep into the ground where the nourishment is. Nothing anchors you to the ground. With every windstorm you shake and rock.”

I don’t want to think about it.

“Reopening the portal will make Earth a defenceless target for Prospiroh’s storm bolts. He can destroy every last living thing. You cannot enter the real Celestia because you are still alive in your Earth form. You do not belong here yet. You need to go back and complete your journey through Earth. You will have to journey across Celestia until you reach the second portal that will take you home,” Francis says, leaning forward in his chair. He looks me in the eye, and I wonder if he can read what I’m thinking, if he knows my dad is out there with an alternative way home. “It’s a long way from here, and it will tax you to the end of your spirit. You will be alone for much of the way. You will encounter the angry dragon that lives inside you and tame it. It will give you time to grow and mature so when you return to Earth, as you must, you will be unshaken by the storms of life and the tasks that await you.”

“How do I get to your portal?” My dad’s one sounds so much easier, but Francis is taking so long. It might be closed by the time we reach it.

“You must cross the plain and climb the mountains until you reach the Fiery Spiral.”

“How will I know if I’ve found it?”

“It finds you, when you are ready. Come with me.” He reaches for his sticks and levers himself up. “Let me show you what I mean.”

He takes me into a courtyard garden smelling of jasmine and honeysuckle, and gestures to me to sit on the low wall around the well. He begins to turn a handle, and a bucket descends into the depths on a chain. A flock of white-eyes chatter in a shrub, twittering and jumping from branch to branch, and a chameleon rocks on a twig overhanging the doorway. I want to relax and enjoy it, but I can’t.

Why is it taking so long? My father didn’t want me to rescue Isi because there wasn’t time. What if he goes without me? I pick at the moss squeezing between the stones and watch the bucket coming up, centimetre by centimetre. Finally it’s in front of us, filled with glimmering water.

Francis leans over and pulls a fern from the clumps growing around the well. He dips it in the water and lays it next to me.

“What do you see?”

“It’s a fern.”

“What more do you see?”

“Um, a fern that hasn’t fully opened yet. With drops of water on it.”

He picks it up and runs his finger up the stem. “Can you see that it forms a spiral? It is straight at the bottom, but near the top it coils in on itself in ever-diminishing circles.”

Isi has followed us out, and now she rests her white head on my knee and gives a sigh.

“This is the form of the Fiery Spiral, the source of all that is,” he says. “It flows at the centre of everything, a river of light, of growth and wholeness. And our worlds are like the droplets on the stem.” He points to the glistening orbs of water one by one as he names them, “Celestia, Zulwini, Earth, Proskubia, which is the world where Prospiroh is holding Theia captive, Azuria, and so many more. The task of all living creatures, human, animal, god, no matter which world they inhabit, is to grow, to blossom, to bear fruit and to move on to the next world. And each world brings us closer to the centre of the Spiral.”

“The gods must move onward too? Surely they own Celestia and Earth and … wherever they live? Aren’t they perfect?”

“All beings must travel onward, perpetually onward until they reach the One.” He taps the head of the fern again, and his fingernails are waxy against the soft, green leaves.

“And then what happens?”

“We don’t know until we get there.”

I shake my head, trying to let the words filter through my brain.

“That is why your Earth is in trouble. The gods of Celestia are at war. They have stopped looking ahead to the Spiral. Instead they have turned inward, creating new worlds to focus on so they don’t have to see what keeps them trapped. Their bickering has become more important than the journey to the Spiral.”

Please hurry up, I think. I haven’t got time for a whole history lesson. “You have found yourself in a new world before you have blossomed. You were not ready to leave Earth, and so you cannot enter Celestia. Yet you must traverse it if you are to find your way back home.”

“Is that why Lucas can see things I can’t? Is that why he’s here?”

“Ah, Lucas.” His pale face softens into a smile. “Because he gave up his life to save you, and because he has the blood of the gods in his veins, he was able to move straight to Celestia.”

“So … I’m here in Celestia too soon, before I have finished my journey through Earth, and that’s why everything is bare and ugly. Why there are no animals or birds singing or insects. It’s because I’m not actually dead yet, like Lucas. Like Isi.”

“Isi is Theia’s dog, immortal, and able to transcend time and move between worlds, because her heart is pure. She lived on Earth with each of your ancestors, she lived with you at Greenhaven, and she is here now to help you make your journey. You used a portal to travel from one world to the next, but that portal is closed, so you must travel across this world, to the top of the mountains you see on the horizon. Another portal lies there.”

But my father is outside, ready to take me back to Greenhaven. Surely that’s easier. I can just go home, complete my life there as I normally would, until I die of old age, and then come back here to Celestia and see it as Lucas clearly does, as a beautiful place.

“There is only one way. Other ways may seem easier, quicker and far more pleasant, but be careful of tricksters, trying to get the necklace from you.” He reaches over and touches the amulets one by one. “Each world is like an amulet on a necklace and we must all pass through them one by one until we reach the end. We are all journeying, even the gods. When the time comes to hand it over, you will know it.” He leans down into a shelf carved into the rock wall, and brings out a small flask made of thickened glass. It swells out at the bottom like a bulb, and has a long, thin neck. He fills the bulb with water from the bucket and replaces the stopper.

“If you look into the water,” he says, holding it to the light before he hands it to me, “it will show you the way forward.” I close my fingers around it, feeling how neatly it fits into my palm.

“Go now,” he says, levering himself up with his sticks. “The journey is long and taxing, but you have everything you need to complete it. Don’t try and take the easy path. There is only one that will take you to the portal.”

He opens a door half hidden behind the honeysuckle. “Sit still, quieten your heart and mind, and the flask will show you the way to the portal.”

I wave him goodbye and hurry off. Am I too late?