Sailing to Byzantium Read online

  Once, I know, these things were seen in a different light. But it was inevitable that as we began to penetrate the depths of space we would come to see the metaphysical meaning of the venture on which we had embarked. And if we had not, we could not have proceeded. The curve of secular thought had extended as far as it could reach, from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first, and had begun to crack under its own weight; just when we were beginning to believe that we were God, we rediscovered the understanding that we were not. The universe was too huge for us to face alone. That new ocean was so wide, and our boats so very small.

  I urge my little craft onward. I set sail at last into the vastness of the Dark. My voyage has begun. God embraces my soul. He bids me be welcome in His kingdom. My heart is eased.

  Under the Master’s guidance we have all come to know that in our worldly lives we see only distortions—shadows on the cave wall. But as we penetrate the mysteries of the universe we are permitted to perceive things as they really are. The entry into the cosmos is the journey into the sublime, the literal attainment of heaven. It is a post-Christian idea: voyages must be undertaken, motion must never cease, we must seek Him always. In the seeking is the finding.

  Gradually, as I reflect on these things yet again, the seeking ends for me and the finding begins, and my way becomes clear. I will resist nothing. I will accept everything. Whatever is required of me, that will I do, as always.

  It is night, now. I am beyond any hunger and I feel no need for sleep. The walls of my chamber seem transparent to me and I can cast my vision outward to all the world, the heavy surging seas and the close blanket of the sky, the mountains and valleys, the rivers, the fields. I feel the nearness of billions of souls. Each human soul is a star: it glows with unique fire, and each has its counterpart in the heavens. There is one star that is the Master, and one that is Kastel, and one that is the young astronomer who shared my bed. And somewhere there is a star that is me. My spirit goes outward at last, it roves the distant blackness, it journeys on and on, to the ends of the universe. I soar above the Totality of the Totality. I look upon the face of God.

  When the summons comes from the Master, shortly before dawn, I go to him at once. The rest of the House of Sanctuary sleeps. All is silent. Taking the garden path uphill, I experience a marvelous precision of sight: as though by great magnification I perceive the runnels and grooves on each blade of grass, the minute jagged teeth left by the mower as it bit it short, the glistening droplets of dew on the jade surface. Blossoms expand toward the pale new light now streaming out of the east as though they are coming awake. On the red earth of the path, strutting like dandies in a summer parade, are little shining scarlet-backed beetles with delicate black legs that terminate in intricate hairy feet. A fine mist rises from the ground. Within the silence I hear a thousand tiny noises.

  The Master seems to be bursting with youthful strength, vitality, a mystic energy. He sits motionless, waiting for me to speak. The star-screen behind him is darkened, an ebony void, infinitely deep. I see the fine lines about his eyes and the corners of his mouth. His skin is pink, like a baby’s. He could be six weeks old, or six thousand years.

  His silence is immense.

  “You hold me responsible?” I say at last.

  He stares for a long while. “Don’t you?”

  “I am the Lord Magistrate of Senders. If there has been a failure, the fault must be mine.”

  “Yes. The fault must be yours.”

  He is silent again.

  It is very easy, accepting this, far easier than I would have thought only the day before.

  He says after a time, “What will you do?”

  “You have my resignation.”

  “From your magistracy?”

  “From the Order,” I say. “How could I remain a priest, having been a Magistrate?”

  “Ah. But you must.”

  The pale gentle eyes are inescapable.

  “Then I will be a priest on some other world,” I tell him. “I could never stay here. I respectfully request release from my vow of renunciation.”

  He smiles. I am saying exactly the things he hoped I would say.

  “Granted.”

  It is done. I have stripped myself of rank and power. I will leave my House and my world; I will go forth into the Dark, although long ago I had gladly given that great privilege up. The irony is not lost on me. For all others it is heart’s desire to leave Earth, for me it is merely the punishment for having failed the Mission. My penance will be my exile and my exile will be my penance. It is the defeat of all my work and the collapse of my vocation. But I must try not to see it that way. This is the beginning of the next phase of my life, nothing more. God will comfort me. Through my fall He has found a way of calling me to Him.

  I wait for a gesture of dismissal, but it does not come.

  “You understand,” he says after a time, “that the Law of Return will hold, even for you?”

  He means the prime tenet of Darklaw, the one that no one has ever violated. Those who depart from Earth may not come back to it. Ever. The journey is a one-way trip.

  “Even for me,” I say. “Yes. I understand.”

  I stand before a Velde doorway like any other, one that differs in no way from the one that just a short time before had carried me instantaneously halfway around the world, home from Sanctuary to the House of Senders. It is a cubicle of black glass, four meters high, three meters wide, three meters deep. A pair of black-light lenses face each other like owlish eyes on its inner sides. From the rear wall jut the three metal cones that are the discharge points.

  How many journeys have I made by way of transmitting stations such as this one? Five hundred? A thousand? How many times have I been scanned, measured, dissected, stripped down to my component baryons, replicated: annihilated here, created there, all within the same moment? And stepped out of a receiver, intact, unchanged, at some distant point, Paris, Karachi, Istanbul, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam?

  This doorway is no different from the ones through which I stepped those other times. But this journey will be unlike all those others. I have never left Earth before, not even to go to Mars, not even to the Moon. There has been no reason for it. But now I am to leap to the stars. Is it the scope of the leap that I fear? But I know better. The risks are not appreciably greater in a journey of twenty lightyears than in one of twenty kilometers.

  Is it the strangeness of the new worlds which I will confront that arouses this uneasiness in me? But I have devoted my life to building those worlds. What is it, then? The knowledge that once I leave this House I will cease to be Lord Magistrate of the Senders, and become merely a wandering pilgrim?

  Yes. Yes, I think that that is it. My life has been a comfortable one of power and assurance, and now I am entering the deepest unknown, leaving all that behind, leaving everything behind, giving up my House, relinquishing my magistracy, shedding all that I have been except for my essence itself, from which I can never be parted. It is a great severance. Yet why do I hesitate? I have asked so many others, after all, to submit to that severance. I have bound so many others, after all, by the unbending oaths of Darklaw. Perhaps it takes more time to prepare oneself than I have allowed. I have given myself very short notice indeed.

  But the moment of uneasiness passes. All about me are friendly faces, men and women of my House, come to bid me a safe journey. Their eyes are moist, their smiles are tender. They know they will never see me again. I feel their love and their loyalty, and it eases my soul.

  Ancient words drift through my mind.

  Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.

  Yes. And my body also.

  Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end.

  Yes. And then:

  The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth His handiwork.

 
There is no sensation of transition. I was there; now I am here. I might have traveled no further than from Adelaide to Melbourne, or from Brisbane to Cairns. But I am very far from home now. The sky is amber, with swirls of blue. On the horizon is a great dull warm red mass, like a gigantic glowing coal, very close by. At the zenith is a smaller and brighter star, much more distant.

  This world is called Cuchulain. It is the third moon of the subluminous star Gwydion, which is the dark companion of Lalande 21185. I am eight lightyears from Earth. Cuchulain is the Order’s prime outpost in the stars, the home of Second Sanctuary. Here is where I have chosen to spend my years of exile. The fallen magistrate, the broken vessel.

  The air is heavy and mild. Crazy whorls of thick green ropy vegetation entangle everything, like a furry kelp that has infested the land. As I step from the Velde doorway I am confronted by a short, crisp little man in dark priestly robes. He is tonsured and wears a medallion of high office, though it is an office two or three levels down from the one that had been mine.

  He introduces himself as Procurator-General Guardiano. Greeting me by name, he expresses his surprise at my most unexpected arrival in his diocese. Everyone knows that those who serve at my level of the Order must renounce all hope of emigration from Earth.

  “I have resigned my magistracy,” I tell him. “No,” I say. “Actually I’ve been dismissed. For cause. I’ve been reassigned to the ordinary priesthood.”

  He stares, plainly shocked and stunned.

  “It is still an honor to have you here, your grace,” he says softly, after a moment.

  I go with him to the chapter house, not far away. The gravitational pull here is heavier than Earth’s, and I find myself leaning forward as I walk and pulling my feet after me as though the ground is sticky. But such incidental strangenesses as this are subsumed, to my surprise, by a greater familiarity: this place is not as alien as I had expected. I might merely be in some foreign land, and not on another world. The full impact of my total and final separation from Earth, I know, will not hit me until later.

  We sit together in the refectory, sipping glass after glass of a sweet strong liqueur. Procurator-General Guardiano seems flustered by having someone of my rank appear without warning in his domain, but he is handling it well. He tries to make me feel at home. Other priests of the higher hierarchy appear—the word of my arrival must be traveling fast—and peer into the room. He waves them away. I tell him, briefly, the reasons for my downfall. He listens gravely and says, “Yes. We know that the outer worlds are in rebellion against Darklaw.”

  “Only the outer worlds?”

  “So far, yes. It’s very difficult for us to get reliable data.”

  “Are you saying that they’ve closed the frontier to the Order?”

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. There’s still free transit to every colony, and chapels everywhere. But the reports from the outer worlds are growing increasingly mysterious and bizarre. What we’ve decided is that we’re going to have to send an Emissary Plenipotentiary to some of the rebel worlds to get the real story.”

  “A spy, you mean?”

  “A spy? No. Not a spy. A teacher. A guide. A prophet, if you will. One who can bring them back to the true path.” Guardiano shakes his head. “I have to tell you that all this disturbs me profoundly, this repudiation of Darklaw, these apparent breaches of the plan. It begins to occur to me—though I know the Master would have me strung up for saying any such thing—that we may have been in error from the beginning.” He gives me a conspiratorial look. I smile encouragingly. He goes on, “I mean, this whole elitist approach of ours, the Order maintaining its monopoly over the mechanism of matter transmission, the Order deciding who will go to the stars and who will not, the Order attempting to create new worlds in our own image—” He seems to be talking half to himself. “Well, apparently it hasn’t worked, has it? Do I dare say it? They’re living just as they please, out there. We can’t control them at long range. Your own personal tragedy is testimony to that. And yet, and yet—to think that we would be in such a shambles, and that a Lord Magistrate would be compelled to resign, and go into exile—exile, yes, that’s what it is!—”

  “Please,” I say. His ramblings are embarrassing; and painful, too, for there may be seeds of truth in them. “What’s over is over. All I want now is to live out my years quietly among the people of the Order on this world. Just tell me how I can be of use. Any work at all, even the simplest—”

  “A waste, your grace. An absolute shameful waste.”

  “Please.”

  He fills my glass for the fourth or fifth time. A crafty look has come into his eyes. “You would accept any assignment I give you?”

  “Yes. Anything.”

  “Anything?” he says.

  I see myself sweeping the chapel house stairs, polishing sinks and tables, working in the garden on my knees.

  “Even if there is risk?” he says. “Discomfort?”

  “Anything.”

  He says, “You will be our Plenipotentiary, then.”

  There are two suns in the sky here, but they are not at all like Cuchulain’s two, and the frosty air has a sharp sweet sting to it that is like nothing I have ever tasted before, and everything I see is haloed by a double shadow, a rim of pale red shading into deep, mysterious azure. It is very cold in this place. I am fourteen lightyears from Earth.

  A woman is watching me from just a few meters away. She says something I am unable to understand.

  “Can you speak Anglic?” I reply.

  “Anglic. All right.” She gives me a chilly, appraising look. “What are you? Some kind of priest?”

  “I was Lord Magistrate of the House of Senders, yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Earth.”

  “On Earth? Really?”

  I nod. “What is the name of this world?”

  “Let me ask the questions,” she says. Her speech is odd, not so much a foreign accent as a foreign intonation, a curious singsong, vaguely menacing. Standing face to face just outside the Velde station, we look each other over. She is thick-shouldered, deep-chested, with a flat-featured face, close-cropped yellow hair, green eyes, a dusting of light red freckles across her heavy cheekbones. She wears a heavy blue jacket, fringed brown leggings, blue leather boots, and she is armed. Behind her I see a muddy road cut through a flat snowy field, some low rambling metal buildings with snow piled high on their roofs, and a landscape of distant jagged towering mountains whose sharp black spires are festooned with double-shadowed glaciers. An icy wind rips across the flat land. We are a long way from those two suns, the fierce blue-white one and its cooler crimson companion. Her eyes narrow and she says, “Lord Magistrate, eh? The House of Senders. Really?”

  “This was my cloak of office. This medallion signified my rank in the Order.”

  “I don’t see them.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “You have no rank here. You hold no office here.”

  “Of course,” I say. “I realize that. Except such power as Darklaw confers on me.”

  “Darklaw?”

  I stare at her in some dismay. “Am I beyond the reach of Darklaw so soon?”

  “It’s not a word I hear very often. Shivering, are you? You come from a warmer place?”

  “Earth,” I say. “South Australia. It’s warm there, yes.”

  “Earth. South Australia.” She repeats the words as though they are mere noises to her. “We have some Earthborn here, still. Not many. They’ll be glad to see you, I suppose. The name of this world is Zima.”

  “Zima.” A good strong sound. “What does that mean?”

  “Mean?”

  “The name must mean something. This planet wasn’t named Zima just because someone liked the way it sounded.”

  “Can’t you see why?” she asks, gesturing toward the far-off ice-shrouded mountains.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Anglic is the only language you spe
ak?”

  “I know some Espanol and some Deutsch.”

  She shrugs. “Zima is Russkiye. It means Winter.”

  “And this is wintertime on Winter?”

  “It is like this all the year round. And so we call the world Zima.”

  “Zima,” I say. “Yes.”

  “We speak Russkiye here, mostly, though we know Anglic too. Everybody knows Anglic, everywhere in the Dark. It is necessary. You really speak no Russkiye?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Ty shto, s pizdy sarvalsa?” she says, staring at me.

  I shrug and am silent.

  “Bros’ dumat’ zhopay!”

  I shake my head sadly.

  “Idi v zhopu!”

  “No,” I say. “Not a word.”

  She smiles, for the first time. “I believe you.”

  “What were you saying to me in Russkiye?”

  “Very abusive things. I will not tell you what they were. If you understood, you would have become very angry. They were filthy things, mockery. At least you would have laughed, hearing such vile words. I am named Marfa Ivanovna. You must talk with the boyars. If they think you are a spy, they will kill you.”

  I try to hide my astonishment, but I doubt that I succeed. Kill? What sort of world have we built here? Have these Zimans reinvented the middle ages?

  “You are frightened?” she asks.

  “Surprised,” I say.”

  “You should lie to them, if you are a spy. Tell them you come to bring the Word of God, only. Or something else that is harmless. I like you. I would not want them to kill you.”

  A spy? No. As Guardiano would say, I am a teacher, a guide, a prophet, if you will. Or as I myself would say, I am a pilgrim, one who seeks atonement, one who seeks forgiveness.

  “I’m not a spy, Marfa Ivanovna,” I say.

  “Good. Good. Tell them that.” She puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles piercingly, and three burly bearded men in fur jackets appear as though rising out of the snowbanks. She speaks with them a long while in Russkiye. Then she turns to me. “These are the boyars Ivan Dimitrovich, Pyotr Pyotrovich, and Ivan Pyotrovich. They will conduct you to the voivode Ilya Alexandrovich, who will examine you. You should tell the voivode the truth.”