The Sadness of Angels

By Jim Williams

Lord T'ien Huang controls the universe through poetry, telepathy and the violence of his insane Angels. His subjects consider him to be God. Emperor of a universe ruled by the Ch'ang, immortal but not invulnerable, his interest is aroused by Sebastian, a novice monk on the remote and wasted planet of Lu, who can see and speak to God. Should he destroy the boy or toy with him?

Sebastian is rescued from the Lord T'ien Huang's avenging Angels by Mapmaker, an ancient Old Before the Fall with a forgotten history of betrayal, and they journey to the snowbound north. They are accompanied by Velikka Magdasdottir, a girl belonging to the Hengstmijster tribe of warrior herdswomen who maintain a veiled harem of husbands.

In the frozen wastes they encounter the remains of the Ingitkuk who rebelled against the Ch'ang in antiquity and lost their witch princess, She Whom the Reindeer Love. Mapmaker knew her when she died half a millennium ago as Her Breath Is Of Jasmine.

Will Mapmaker lead Sebastian, the Hengstmijster and the Ingitkuk to their doom against the Ch'ang? Can Sebastian master his own powers? How will they survive against the Angel Michael, thawed and frozen more times than he can recall, with his power to destroy humanity by the billion?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marble City Publishing
• Release date: Aug 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781908943484

Jim Williams

Jim Williams, who worked for Linear Technology for nearly three decades, was a talented and prolific circuit designer and author in the field of analog electronics until his untimely passing in 2011. In nearly 30 years with Linear, he had the unique role of staff scientist with interests spanning product definition, development and support. Before joining Linear Technology in 1982, Williams worked in National Semiconductor’s Linear Integrated Circuits Group for three years. Williams was a legendary circuit designer, problem solver, mentor and writer with writings published as Linear application notes and EDN magazine articles. In addition, he was writer/editor of four books. Williams was named Innovator of the Year by EDN magazine in 1992, elected to Electronic Design Hall of Fame in 2002, and was honored posthumously by EDN and EE Times in 2012 as the first recipient of the Jim Williams Contributor of the Year Award.

Book preview

The Empire of the Ch’ang

Book One – Part One

Echoes of the Fall

Chapter One - Visiting God

Sing! To the Lord T’ien Huang, who created the World:

Created the World from a speck of dust.

Praise Him, oh praise Him!

The Lord T’ien Huang: the Just: the Terrible.

Song of the Ch’ang

~

‘Are you a ghost?’ asked the Old Man.

‘Are you a ghost?’ asked the Boy.

‘I asked first,’ the Old Man said reasonably. ‘Here – come here. Give me your hand.’

The Boy took a step forward and extended a hand. It passed through that of the Old Man – or the Old Man’s passed through his, or they both passed through each other: it depended on one’s point of view. ‘That proves nothing,’ the Boy said and the Old Man smiled. ‘Well, at least the child is bright.’

The Old Man’s eyes glided over the contents of the room. That was worrying for the Boy. He had heard of ghost people – but ghost furniture? The Old Man seemed to read his expression. He asked, ‘Does that chair exist where you come from?’ The chair was a large one, heavily carved.

‘No,’ admitted the Boy. The only chair he knew belonged to the Abbot. Everyone else sat on stools and benches or simply squatted.

‘Do you think you could sit on it?’ The Old Man’s questions were uncannily responsive to the Boy’s thoughts. ‘I imagine by now you’re thinking that you’re dreaming, eh? That would account for the furniture much better than the ghost theory. Who ever heard of ghost furniture? Well? Cat got your tongue? Do you think you could sit on the chair?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I can!’ said the Old Man and promptly (and successfully) sat down. ‘Ha ha! What a relief! At least we’ve established that I’m not a ghost – that’s to say that I’ve established to my satisfaction that I’m not a ghost. You probably still have a different opinion since you’re intelligent and therefore stubborn as likely as not.’

‘I can think,’ the Boy protested. ‘Ghosts can’t think.’

‘I only have your word that you’re thinking.’

‘I only have your word that either you or the furniture are real.’

The Old Man’s smile fell. ‘If this is how you behave when you’re dreaming, I can only hope you’re more polite when you’re awake.’

The reprimand shook the Boy and he fell to his knees. He said, ‘I humbly apologize, Magister.’

‘Who says they don’t make boys like they used to?’ the Old Man answered. ‘On your feet, lad. We’ll have a stroll and a chat and sort out the metaphysical business later. But don’t walk through the furniture. It unsettles my stomach.’

They were ... in a room, the Boy supposed. A hall? A palace? In the monastery the largest rooms were the chapel and the refectory. Each was stonewalled, with a film of ice during the Short Winter, except for those places where a brazier stood and an oval patch of dampness appeared as though a monk had been evaporated. But here! The space was vast and extended to walls of porphyry and marble. The roof was glass ... or crystal ... or simply did not exist! Above him were the sky and a night bright with strange stars.

‘This,’ said the Old Man, ‘is the Pavilion of Divine Contentment.’ He examined the Boy for impressions. ‘It’s smaller than my other place. But cosy,’ he added. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

The Boy’s name was Sebastian, but he tried to render it in the liturgical language of the Angels: Tse Pa Hs’ien. His family name was Summer: Ssu Ma. The Holy Language was a difficult affair and mistakes could be nonsensical, amusing – or even indecent. Sebastian wondered what language they were speaking now. He supposed that ghosts met in dreams could speak any language they chose.

The Old Man repeated Sebastian’s name. He offered none in return, but simply led Sebastian round the perimeter of the hall. ‘Stop me when you see something you like,’ he said. ‘Don’t expect me to stop on your behalf. I’m not a guide for tourists, and, in any case, I’ve forgotten whatever there was that was interesting. Seen anything yet?’

Sebastian could not answer. On all sides were objects: paintings, weapons, armour, sculptures, porcelain. And, too, there were plants: blossoming trees, fresh and dried flowers. And animals: some tethered and others running free or flying. And water, in streams and pools or shooting in arches from curious fountains. The Old Man considered them, muttering ‘clutter and junk’ under his breath. He asked, ‘Well, boy, have you decided yet who I am?’ He stared at Sebastian through piercing black eyes that now seemed neither so old nor so friendly, but calculating and tired.

‘Yes, I know who you are,’ answered Sebastian hesitantly.

‘Well then? Spit it out – spit it out.’

‘You are’ –­ he wasn’t sure he could say the words – ‘you are the Lord T’ien Huang ... the Creator of the Universe. You are God.’

The Lord T’ien Huang (he did not deny the title) meditated slowly on these words as though he had not heard them in a great age.

‘God...’ he repeated. ‘Hmm ... God...’ He looked on the Boy kindly again. ‘One does tend to forget these things.’

~

‘I don’t normally speak like this,’ said the Lord T’ien Huang. ‘As a rule things are more formal. Of course, we don’t have a protocol for dealing with ghosts – or dream figures, if that term suits you better. I should like you to be polite – at least, reasonably so – if for no better reason than it’s what I’m used to. Do you mind if I make some tea?’

They were now in a smaller room. The proportions were more comfortable and the effect simpler. The walls were of ivory-coloured paper. The floor was covered in mats of split cane. The Lord T’ien Huang busied himself with a small bronze kettle over a burner. From time to time he cast a friendly eye over the Boy to see how he was taking things.

‘I do have servants to do this,’ said the Lord T’ien Huang.

‘Holiness, You have Angels at your command.’

‘Oh yes, them too. Angels, archangels, daemons and other bits and pieces whose names escape my memory. Still, I like to keep my hand in. There is a point to making your own tea, you know. And to cooking and gardening – I do a little of both. I’d like to offer you tea, but it wouldn’t be any use. Sit on that cushion.’

‘I can’t, Holiness.’

‘Are we talking physics or good manners? If the latter, then you have my permission. If the former, then, as you say, you can’t sit on the cushion since for you it has no reality. You must think you can sit on the cushion. Try.’

The Boy sat on the cushion. Even God was mildly surprised.

‘How does it feel?’

‘Strange, Holiness. It doesn’t feel there – not in the way that other things do.’

The Lord T’ien Huang paused for a moment to pass a hand through the Boy. ‘You’re still a ghost. Sitting on the cushion is merely an act of will and imagination. But, I admit, very impressive for a mortal.’ Sighing, he squatted on the larger of the two cushions, sipped his tea and contemplated Sebastian.

‘Can you read these?’ he indicated a scroll of poems hanging on the wall.

‘Alas not, Holiness.’

‘They are some of my favourites. This one is called On washing my head in the rain tub – it’s particularly charming, and sly, very sly. Can’t you read any of it? Aren’t you taught?’

‘It is very difficult, Lord. Our tongue is not the Holy Language and not suited to the sacred characters. Perhaps I don’t study hard enough.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirteen.’

‘Counting by whose years?’

‘Why Yours, Holiness!’

Sebastian was disconcerted by the last question. Of course his age was counted by the Short Years of the sacred calendar. He would not live out even a single Great Year. Most people did not survive even a single season. The Great Year was of no use in calculating ordinary human events.

‘You are beginning to fade, Sebastian,’ commented his Lord. ‘Do I seem to fade, too?’

‘A little.’

‘It’s the effect of the rhythm of your sleep. You are asleep, you know.’

‘Then are you a dream, Holiness?’

‘No, I am perfectly real – as you are also. That’s the intriguing part. Have I Thought you here, or have you Thought yourself here? Worlds and systems of worlds lie in that difference, and I should love to know the answer.’

‘Surely you know everything, Lord?’

‘Knowledge isn’t the point,’ said God. ‘It’s intelligence and memory that count. Some days I could forget my own name’

~

They padded through other chambers and corridors. Behind the screens Sebastian heard scurrying and saw flickering shadows. The Lord T’ien Huang said, ‘Remind me, Sebastian: where do you come from?’

‘The Monastery of the Holy Wilderness, Lord.’

‘I was thinking of some place larger – like a planet. Never mind: you probably call it something boring and uninformative like the World.’

‘In Scripture it is called Lu.’

‘Now we’re getting places. You mentioned a monastery. Do you have parents?’

‘No, Lord.’ There was a note of sadness in Sebastian’s voice.

‘What happened to them?’ God asked. ‘Did my Angels kill them? I shouldn’t be surprised if they did. They’re a rough lot and always killing people.’

‘They were eaten by bears – I think,’ said Sebastian. ‘I don’t remember. I was too small.’

God nodded. ‘Do you play the Game?’

Sebastian wondered if this were a trick question. Which version of the Game did he mean? On the high altar of the monastery was its holiest embodiment. Moves were made only on festival days though, in a sense, it was played continuously since the daily services were merely preparations, aspects of the collective meditation that allowed the Abbot to execute the move. But the Game was not sacred – at least not in the sense of exclusive. How could it be when it contained within it the accumulated wisdom of mankind: its art, its history, the spirit of prophecy: the entirety of its culture, revealed and still hidden.

Perhaps he was referring to the scraps played by the boys in their idle hours on boards made of rough slate. These were vaguely shameful because their object was not power and wisdom but to win a few shiny pebbles and be considered the king of the dormitory. The Lord T’ien Huang must know that Sebastian was the master of this miserable sport and resent it as sacrilegious.

‘Yes, Lord, we play the Game. We play in your honour.’ (It is impossible to fool God, but mankind has always found the attempt worth the effort.)

‘You do? Excellent. Do you want to see something of my Game?’

‘Yours, Lord?’ Sebastian was astonished. ‘But I am unworthy.’

‘Yes, yes, of course you are. Still, you’d like a peek, wouldn’t you? Naturally you would.’ God put down His cup of tea and slipped His feet in their white cotton socks into His slippers. ‘I don’t like to rush you. There is so much to see and so much to do, but the night wears on and I don’t know when or if I’ll see you again. Come, come.’ He extended a hand and Sebastian took it. It was like the cushion, there and not there. He allowed himself to be led from the small chamber through still more corridors within the huge palace until they came to another hall.

‘Magister, I shall die!’ Sebastian cried as he viewed the full splendour of the Game.

‘Actually, this isn’t all of it,’ said the Lord T’ien Huang.

Sebastian looked at him. He no longer seemed old, but like a man in his prime, or perhaps even a youth. But, of course, He was God and therefore ageless.

‘I’m not usually this enthusiastic,’ God said. ‘Half the time this place bores me to death, but you make me see it with new eyes.’

The Game extended before them: in ranks of boards in tiers to a dizzying height.

‘I received most of these as presents, so I have to keep them,’ said the Lord. ‘I can call up any number of boards in any combination you like.’

Sebastian saw, far away, figures moving among them. They were Angels, he supposed, tending the Game.

The Lord T’ien Huang called out, ‘Lu! The board of the Marquis Fa!’

From out of the myriad boards one floated. It came from somewhere high and glided like a leaf falling until it appeared before them, hovering at waist height. It was small and exquisite. The Lord looked at it disapprovingly. ‘Mostly vanity,’ he said; Sebastian could not tell if the words were for his ears. ‘That piece there is the Marquis Fa himself. A thoroughly vulgar concept. I imagine the poetry that came with it is rotten, too. With these boards I have to look at a lot of shabby posturing and listen to bad poems and worse music. The Game mirrors life and the universe, Sebastian. Thus much of it is rubbish and in bad taste.’

‘I do not understand, Lord.’

‘No. Ah, well. By the way, you’re fading again.’

‘I’m sorry, Lord.’

‘Not your fault. But we must hurry. I don’t know when – or indeed if – I’ll see you again.’

‘Surely, Lord, You may see me any time. You may see me any time You wish?’

‘Ah, you’re thinking of omnipotence. Don’t. It’s an overrated notion – especially where people are concerned. Hasn’t it occurred to you, Sebastian, that much of the fun lies in not knowing what will happen? In not having power to bend events completely to your will?’

‘The Lord T’ien Huang wishes fun?’ Sebastian asked.

‘Frequently. But I hate discussing theology. Would you like to play?’

‘The Game?’ Sebastian felt the confusion of awe.

‘Yes. Board!’ cried the Lord T’ien Huang, and from somewhere in the hall a board floated towards them. ‘Music!’ A stringed instrument began to play. ‘Poetry! No, forget that. Something comes to mind, something I remember. Do you know The Boy Visiting the Tomb of the Ming Huang Emperor?’

‘No, Lord.’

‘No?’ God seemed mildly put out. ‘You ought to. I wrote it. What do they teach boys these days? Never mind. It goes like this:

Behold, this is the tomb of the Ming Huang Emperor, said the Teacher.

Mighty were his works and great his wisdom.

Can he see me? asked the Boy

He is dead, said the Teacher.

The Boy nodded wisely, and forgot the name, as boys do.

Well? What do you think? I suppose you’d prefer it to rhyme? Hmm – on reflection it isn’t a very good poem: a trite conceit expressed in indifferent language. But there was a time when I thought it was very good – and, of course, everyone said it was.’

‘The Angels and Archangels, Lord?’

‘Yes. They like my poetry. You, on the other hand, are polite but don’t flatter.’ The Lord T’ien Huang fished in the pockets of his robe and came up with a small porcelain cup, the one from which he had drunk tea. He seemed pleased by it. He placed it in the centre of the board. ‘This will stand for me.’

Sebastian was astonished once more. ‘It is only a cup, Lord.’

‘So it is. It is a cup, and a universe contained in a cup, and a god who created a universe.’ He ran his finger around the rim. ‘It is a circle – continuity – repetition – closure.’ He picked the cup up and examined the decoration of fishes. ‘See how they float in our universe? They do not touch its limits but they are constrained by them. The pieces are ultimately nothing. They have no meaning except that which we give to them. This’ – he indicated the cup – ‘is the universe of time and space because I have chosen it. Do you understand?’

Sebastian hesitated. It occurred to him that God was being silly. Perhaps silliness was a Divine attribute like omnipotence? He was tempted to say he understood – this being the schoolboy’s answer with all its usual dishonesty. Instead he shook his head, which made the Lord T’ien Huang smile with unfeigned pleasure.

Sebastian found a tray by his side. It was filled with pieces. He understood now that in themselves they meant nothing. He reached for one and placed it on the board any old how.

Then he faded. Or the Old Man faded. Each disappeared to the other.

~

The Lord T’ien Huang stared at the fading image of the Boy. Then he looked at the board where the Crystal Knave had been placed adjacent to his own cup. Youth – disingenuousness – transparency. The piece had these meanings. Also: hardness – deceptive innocence – illusion – treachery. Meanings were not fixed within the Game and little could be known from an opening position. It was like life at the point of birth: full of potentialities as yet unknown: but not of infinite possibilities. The outcomes were defined in the beginnings, but no particular outcome was predetermined, though in retrospect only one outcome would be seen as inevitable.

The Lord T’ien Huang glanced at the boards around him here in the Hall of Ineffable Potency. They were only a fraction of all the Games in creation and how each of them fitted with the others was a mystery as yet unsolved. But that they did fit was a first principle of the Game.

The Boy meant something.

He was a good boy. He was ignorant but intelligent and of shining integrity. The Lord T’ien Huang admired him intensely and feared him as much as he admired. He wondered what the Boy had seen: what he had heard.

Great age had made God both sentimental and cruel. He wept at all the pitiable existences that flickered through His creation. Yet, given that they were bound to die, it mattered not when, and they could be destroyed for His convenience without materially adding to their fate of suffering and pointlessness. Indeed that tension between sentiment and cruelty was the poignancy of His own existence: each aspect justifying the other; for He was neither a slave to the banality of useless emotion, nor a monster of unfeeling horror.

The Lord T’ien Huang destroyed. But He did so always with tenderness.

He looked forward to seeing the Boy again. Hopefully many times.

Nevertheless, it would be necessary to kill him.

Chapter Two - killing The Monkey’s Children

That which has wheels has wheels: and that which has legs has legs.

Thus did the Lord T’ien Huang create them.

The wheeled shall not give rise to the legged; nor the legged to the wheeled.

The Fool says otherwise and is anathema.

The Catechism of Lu

~

‘Wake up, sleepy head!’ said Runt, shaking Sebastian roughly. ‘The bell’s already sounded for Prime. You don’t want to catch it two days on the run.’

Prime – the first hour of the monastery day, when the brothers were in the chapel – was the time when the novices prepared their breakfast. It was a simple meal, just bread and moss tea, but still it was necessary to fuel the fire and boil the water, and by turns two novices were delegated for a week to perform the task. Yesterday, however, Brother Tmas, the novice master, had caught Sebastian asleep and beaten him – though only lightly, since Brother Tmas was by nature a good-tempered man who believed in ruling by teaching and example rather than force.

Sebastian got out of bed. He changed from his sleeping furs into his quilted day robe and slipped his feet into felt boots before the cold chilled him. Then, a little breathless, he followed Runt’s rush light down the stairs from the dormitory. All the while he kept an ear open for the chanting which would tell him exactly how late they were.

The kitchen was not in the main block of buildings. It was in the nature of kitchens that they burned down every few years, and so they were kept segregated, which meant a dash across the icy courtyard in the grey glimmer of the Spring-sliver.

At any other time of day it would have been the same: that icy dash. Seconds, hours, minutes, weeks, months and the Short Years were arbitrary reckonings, revealed to human beings by the Archangel Fa, emissary of the Lord and for that reason holy – as well as convenient. The Great Year was almost inconceivably long.

Spring-sliver had begun about five years ago (the habit was to speak of Short Years), and marked the first appearance of the sun after Winter. A curved slip of light lay on the horizon and each day hovered at the world’s edge, causing variations in the twilight. During the century when the coming Spring would rule, that sliver of light, growing gradually larger and brighter, would slowly rise from the horizon until, at last, Summer would arrive. Not that this bothered Sebastian since he would be dead.

‘Come on! Come on!’ shouted Runt. ‘I’m freezing my nuts off, waiting for you.’ He made it to the double doors that acted as a heat trap for the kitchen. Following on his heels, Sebastian noticed a stirring in the caravanserai.

The caravanserai formed a part of the Monastery of the Holy Wilderness. In Spring and Summer it was a staging post on the road to the North close to where it crossed the mountains. As Winter ended, so in each Great Year the site was repaired and re-occupied: an event that began when the ice had retreated sufficiently. Later followed travellers. Among the first were cartographers, mapping the lands anew as they had to after each glaciation. After them came pilgrims. Finally came merchants and adventurers; for, as Spring and Summer spread over this hemisphere, the products of Winter became scarcer, prices rose and they followed the scent of money.

It was said that Angels came, too. But they could come at any time and their arrival was more often a curse than a blessing. Sebastian had never seen an Angel.

‘Oh, that’s better,’ sighed Runt, rubbing his crotch against a stove. ‘Go to. Put some water on.’

Sebastian did as Runt suggested. Although Sebastian was the brightest of the novices, his friend was the biggest and strongest. He was a cheerful, red-haired, shambling, lurking presence. Like most boys he was only more or less honest and more or less loyal, but Sebastian felt he could count on him.

Tepid water was already available. As the stoves were run down at night, the heat was directed at warming water in a cistern. Sebastian drained some off and placed it on a burner. Runt fed the stove with coal. Then, together, they scraped and pounded some dry moss and put it into a kettle. Moss was important to the diet of Winter because it survived beneath the snow. Without it your teeth and hair fell out.

Despite the stoves, the kitchen was cold. This was true of every room the boys knew. The stoves were designed to conserve fuel and gave off little heat except to whatever was being cooked. While the water came to the boil, Sebastian and Runt chatted.

One point they had often discussed was whether this building had always been a kitchen. Perhaps during previous cycles it had been something else – a stable perhaps. All the monastery buildings showed indications of earlier use: outlines of old roofs left as marks on the wall; blocked windows that would be opened up only in Summer; post holes that once anchored wooden structures. The buildings, Sebastian thought, must wax and wane through the slow rotation of the seasons. Unless by chance a record survived, each re-occupation must be like the rediscovery of an ancient ruin and the use of each part must be divined anew.

‘Do you think this was ever a chapel?’ Sebastian asked.

‘That’s a new one,’ Runt said. ‘I’ve never heard that one before. Stable, maybe. Storehouse? Yeah, why not? But chapel? What makes you think that?’

Sebastian pointed out a niche carved into one of the walls.

‘It was probably somebody’s idea of a cupboard,’ Runt proposed.

Sebastian nodded, but doubted that anyone would go to such an effort for such a trivial purpose. Also he had seen similar niches elsewhere in the monastery. Some had been filled with rubble and mortar as if to obliterate their memory. Others contained stumps of stone, which Sebastian thought were the remains of idols. A number bore traces of ancient decoration – so ancient it must have been painted during a previous cycle – and always the subject was the same: the Coming of the Angels and the destruction of Lu because of its Great Sin.

~

Today they would kill the Monkey’s Child.

After the service, the brothers trudged into the refectory where Sebastian and Runt had brought the food for breakfast. The other novices were gathered, too, squatting on the freezing floor and sipping from their horn cups. The Abbot, enthroned in his chair, gave directions for the reading from the Catechism of Lu: those portions that demanded the killing of the Monkey’s Children.

Because of the execution, the usual exercises of the day were cancelled. Instead Brother Tmas would gather the novices in the classroom and take them through the true doctrine. That which has wheels has wheels and that which has legs has legs ...

‘Where’s this one come from?’ Runt asked as they shivered their way across to the classroom. He meant the Monkey’s Child.

‘The caravanserai,’ said Sebastian. He paused. In the yard was a pile of faggots. He regretted the waste of fuel that was so scarce in this treeless waste (not that he had ever seen a tree). ‘Brother Tnio uncovered a book in one of his searches.’

‘The rotten sneak,’ said Runt bravely between the two of them. The novices – and probably the monks too – feared and despised Brother Tnio who was permitted access to all places and all possessions without warning. Only a visitor could be stupid or ignorant enough to bring an unhallowed book into the monastery.

‘Still, it makes for a change,’ Runt said.

Sebastian could not recall when he had last seen a Monkey’s Child killed. He had been very small. It must have happened not long after the death of his parents, when he had been brought snivelling and drooling into the Order from his original home, wherever that was: somewhere in the far reaches of Winter. The Order was all he had ever consciously known as home and family. To wish to be other than he was and with the history that he had, was to wish not to exist at all. He was told his parents had been eaten by bears, and he had no reason to believe otherwise.

‘Last night I dreamed I met the Lord T’ien Huang,’ Sebastian volunteered.

‘I dreamed of a girl with big tits,’ said Runt. ‘It was difficult to sleep. The rats were at it all night. Squeak –squeak – squeal – screech.’

‘We played the Game.’

‘Did you win?’

‘No. We made only one move. We discussed philosophy – I think.’

‘Oh?’ said Runt. ‘Well, if I were you, I’d keep quiet about that sort of dream. Stick to girls with big tits – it’s safer. Speaking of which, I’ve never seen any – I mean real tits, in the flesh. Have you?’

‘No,’ answered Sebastian.

‘What colour do you think they are?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Yellow, I hope,’ said Runt. ‘Yellow’s my favourite colour.’

Big Ears, the classroom monitor, said there had been a change of plan. ‘Hee hee – I heard Brother Tmas and Brother Tnio talking,’ he said excitedly. At least Sebastian thought he was excited: it was difficult to tell with those boys who suffered from the shakes. Big Ears was one of the worst and that was why he was given the easy tasks sweeping the floor and putting away the writing slates. His ears weren’t so bad. They stuck out only because he was bald.

‘What are they planning, O Great Lugholed One?’ Runt asked.

‘They’ve got a Monkey!’ Big Ears was trembling.

‘Oh, for God’s sake sit down before you fall down,’ Runt said. He glanced at Sebastian, who gave a shrug. They were always being promised a Monkey, but the rumours were never true. Monkeys never came this far North. Once a pedlar with a cart and a cage had brought an animal he said was a Monkey, but it was only a squirrel so Brother Tmas said. Monkeys were rare and important. Not exactly sacred, but kept so that the truth could be demonstrated to those deluded fools who believed in the Monkey’s Children.

Sebastian and Runt left Big Ears wringing his hands and grimacing. They did a quick scout of the classroom but the only things different were the catechism written on a board and the large parchment with the drawing of a Monkey on it in place of the real thing; which they had seen before.

‘Hee – hee – better get to the chapel!’ Big Ears called and began to shamble towards the door. The two friends followed. The bell was ringing.

They rushed to the choir stalls either side of the chapel aisle. There was a choice of the icy stall or the damp stall: the difference being caused by a degree or so in temperature across the church. There was no agreement as to which side was best. Though the boys would not have admitted it, it was whichever one the Cock novice chose. Runt was currently Cock and he chose the icy side. He ragged the others. ‘Yo ho! Look at the wet backs!’ And a feeble response: ‘Ya boo to the icicles!’

Brother Tmas came in, brandishing his baton and calling for order. He directed them to begin the chant for the day: Thou, Lord T’ien Huang, great Author of affliction and its surcease. Despite the subject, it was, to Sebastian’s ear, one of the most beautiful of the chants, and others might have agreed, for, outside the church, the monks and the visitors stood by Spring-sliver light listening to the soprano voices chanting a capella into the air until, with its final line, O spare us the wrath of Thine Angels! they swelled to a roar and then abruptly stopped.

The procession entered, led by the Abbot: a dozen monks: a dozen travellers of various kinds: Brother Xver, the eldest and most frail at fifty, advancing one juddering stick at a time. Runt whispered with a grin the old adage: ‘If the Angels don’t get you, then the water will,’ and Big Ears giggled ‘Hee hee’. The Angels hadn’t got him, but the water most assuredly had.

‘Praise to the Lord T’ien Huang, Creator of Heaven and Earth!’

‘Who has saved us from the wiles of Iblis-Shaitan and our Great Sin!’

And so it went on according to the formula, with the Abbot at the altar on which lay the Game obscured by mist from Brother Xver’s small stove and the smoke of tapers.

As the service droned on, so the boys dozed off. Because today was marked by the killing of the Monkey’s Child, the chants were gloomy ones asking for forgiveness for mankind’s Great Sin. Sebastian sometimes wondered what that sin was. It involved denying that the Lord T’ien Huang was God but it was rumoured that there were other things, foul and unspeakable: hideous beliefs and unholy rites. They were all set out in the fabled Black Book of Lu, though no one had ever seen a copy.

Now, at the climax, the order of service changed. The usual collect was replaced by the verses concerning the separation of the wheeled and the legged. The boys began to chant them, and, as they did so, so the congregation filed slowly out of the church. The Spring-sliver seemed bright and the air warmer than the freezing interior and the mound of faggots less sinister to the minds of children because of their promise of heat to their starved bodies.

Yet a figure was on top of the mound, bound to a stake. The Monkey’s Child.

Ya! Ya! The Monkey’s Child! Show us your arse and drive us wild! The cry of the novices when playing their games.

‘That which has wheels has wheels...’ The voice of the Abbot. The Word of God.

Monkey! Monkey! Whence do you come? Here, little Monkey’s Child, and smell my bum!

‘That which has legs has legs.’

Monkey’s Child, you make me sick! I’ve got balls and I’ve got a dick!

The Monkey’s Child was a girl. She was shaking fiercely as Brother Tnio and the sneaks circled with their torches.

Monkey’s mugs are covered in zits! They’ve grass-green hair and sky-blue tits! Whatever colours grass-green and sky-blue might be.

The girl’s breasts were flesh of her flesh: neither sky-blue nor yellow. They trembled as she trembled. She must be freezing, Sebastian thought, tied up there, half naked in the bitter weather. If only there was some way to warm her.

Bollocks to the Monkey and shit on its spell!

BURN! BURN THE MONKEY AND SEND IT TO HELL!

Brother Tnio threw his brand onto the pile of faggots and the sneaks followed. For a brief moment it seemed that the torches would flare uselessly, but then the pitch-moss caught. A circle of flame flashed around the pyre. The lowest tier of logs was alight. The next, too. And the next. The girl screamed. The boys yelled wildly: ‘Burn! Burn the Monkey!’ A monk cried: ‘That which has legs has legs!’ Now her flesh was in the fire. ‘Ya! Ya! Sky-blue tits!’ The smoke roiled around her, catching her grass-green ... no ... her burning hair! Her clothes were falling from her, but there was nothing for the prurient to see in that coil of blackening flesh. ‘Show us your arse and smell my bum!’ Please, Lord T’ien Huang, let her be dead! Sebastian prayed. ‘Ya! Ya! Burn in Hell!’ Let her be dead! Oh, God, let her be dead!

With a final whoosh the flames engulfed everything, and, alive or dead – and she must surely be dead – the Monkey’s Child was lost to view in a brightness that blotted out the feeble Spring-sliver.

Then, by some particular trick of combustion, which must have left portions of the interior unconsumed, rats burst from the pyre even though it was a mountain of flame.

‘Ya! Rats! Ratty-ratty-rats!’ the boys rejoiced as the creatures scurried half-blinded by unaccustomed heat and light. ‘Ya! Rats!’ striking at them with sticks and kicking out with their coarse boots, stamping on those within reach

‘Got one! Got one!’ Runt cried. He swung it delightedly by its tail. Its tentacles waved uselessly. Little puffs of condensation spurted from its anal vent. Its wheels spun on air.

Runt tore the wheels off the beast and flung the carcass onto the pyre to join that of the Monkey’s Child.

Chapter Three - The Maker Of Maps

This was mankind’s sin: that it set itself against the Lord and denied Him. And the Lord sent his Angels to destroy the cities of men, to pull down their farms, their workplaces and their houses, yea and everything which they had builded, so that it was like unto a desert. And the Lord poisoned the desert that it should be barren. And the waters of the desert were poison also.

The Tribulations of Lu

~

The body of the caribou lay by the stream. Wolves had stripped the flesh. The tentacles lay in a rotting mound. Some miles back, near the drumlin field, Mapmaker had found a dying wolf. It was unwounded and he surmised it had eaten from the caribou.

The drumlin field had been left by a glacier that had retreated North. Mapmaker had surveyed it against his map from the previous Great Year. Earlier drumlins had been flattened during the latest Winter and carried with other spoil to a new location five miles further South. Mapmaker suspected the deepening of the valley by earlier glaciations had enabled a truly formidable glacier to form this time, and it was this addition of mass rather than a change of climate that had moved the drumlins and moraines Southward.

He had sampled several of them and taken cores to analyse. The plain was mainly ancient sedimentary rocks, and the same stuff formed most of the spoil left by the melt: that and the occasional erratic granite boulder picked up in the mountains and carried down by the ice. The deeper cores, however, were interesting. He had found traces of fused slags and shards of worked metal. He believed they were the remains of a foundry, though not one in this location. Most likely it had been much further North. Whatever the case, it was very old: a thousand years; possibly more. His map had been made three hundred years ago in a survey after the last melt, and revealed no signs of such a place. A thousand years? Two? Three? Perhaps it was lost beyond all reckoning: the ruin of a civilisation that existed before the coming of the Angels.

It was on his slow return march with two reluctant mules bearing his gear, that he scented caribou. They were the tentative beginning of the Spring migration. A few young bulls, expelled from the herd, acted as advance scouts, finding forage, water, fords and passes which would establish the main migration route. Mapmaker had come across a few further South, mostly as corpses like now. They were the first to encounter new hazards and terrain made unfamiliar by the passage of Winter ice. Mapmaker left the bodies alone. They acted as markers for the herd, warning of dangers: in particular the presence of poisoned water. Caribou emitted a range of powerful odours. It was said that other animals could detect them at fifty miles and grasp their significance.

Mapmaker read the bones. They belonged, as expected, to a young bull. There were no signs of old lesions and the beast was not full-grown. So far as he could tell, it had not been killed by the wolf. The various traumas were inflicted post mortem, consistent with being dismembered by scavengers. The caribou had been poisoned by the stream, and the wolf had been poisoned by the caribou. Mapmaker had tested the stream a fortnight before and found heavy traces of metals and cyanides, most likely wash water from defunct mine workings. On their own they would not have caused the creature to die suddenly, but it had probably been drinking from similar streams for weeks and the concentration had in the end proved fatal. It was tough on the wolf. Most likely it was the runt of the pack and had been left to devour the liver. Mineral garbage tended to accumulate in the liver, which made it food for heroes, fools and, in this case, starving runts.

He decided to move on. The wolves might return and there was no good water; the mules would go crazy if they could smell it but not drink. While the Spring-sliver lasted he would push on a few miles to where a spring tapped a deep, unpolluted aquifer.

‘Yo, boys!’ he called to the mules. At his voice,