Kingdoms of the Wall (47 page)

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And that was how my Pilgrimage ended, with the slaughter at my own hands of the gods that I had come here to worship.

By now the two suns had risen, both of them at once from opposite sides of the sky, and by the mingling pink light I saw my comrades running toward Hendy and me, Kilarion and Galli in the lead, and then Talbol and Kath, and behind them all the others, Grycindil and Narril and Naxa and the rest. They had seen me slay the "gods"; and as they gathered around me I told them what had occurred between me and Thrance.

Then we saw the rest of the "gods" emerging from their caves and coming toward us across the plain. They were fewer than we had imagined, no more than fifteen or twenty of them, and some females and children. Why they came to us at that moment I could not say: whether it was to slay us or to worship us, it was impossible to tell. Their dim eyes and slack faces told us nothing. We fell upon them as they neared us and carried them to the edge and pushed them over, every last one of them, just as once long ago we had killed the winged gods of the Melted Ones when we were on the lower plateau. Now we were killing our own. The Summit needed purification. It had once been a holy place and then it had been befouled; and until our coming, no one had had the courage or the wit or the strength to do what needed to be done. But we did. They screamed and whimpered and fluttered about in fright, helpless before our wrath.

We destroyed them all; and when we were done with it, we went into their caves to be certain that none were lurking in there. The squalor and sheer evil filth that we found in those caves is something that I will not even attempt to describe. Two more of them were hiding beneath the dirt, the last of all their kind, blubbering and trembling. Without hesitation we dragged them forth and hurried them to the brink. And so in the violence of bloodshed the reign of the gods atop Kosa Saag came to its end at last.

Now that it was done we could barely speak.

We stood close together, shivering in the bitter air, dazed by the events that had just taken place. We knew that what had happened here had been a necessary thing, that we had purged not only our own souls but those of all our race, and that we had freed the Irtimen settlers of the World also from the curse that had overtaken them. But nevertheless it was a heavy thing to have done so much killing, and we were stunned by the impact of it and hardly knew what to think or say.

It was at this moment that the three Irtimen emerged once again from their ship.

They stepped down the ladder and stood close together just before it, standing uneasily, with their little weapon-tubes in their hands as though they half expected us to attack them with the same berserk fury as we had the others. But we had no reason to do that, and in any case all fury was gone from us now.

I went forward, weary and dazed as I was, and knelt on the ground before them. By twos and threes my companions joined me, until we were all of us kneeling, with our heads bowed.

Then the Irtiman with the golden hair raised her speaking-box and said, speaking simply and quietly as though she too had been drained of strength by what had taken place here, "We have no further business on this world, and we will be leaving it now. You must all move back, to the far side of the plateau, and stay there until we are gone. Do you understand what I say? Fire will come from our ship; and you will be harmed if you are close to it."

I told her that we understood.

She said then in a softer voice that she wished us well, and hoped that we would grow in understanding and wisdom all the rest of our days. And she told us that we need never fear the intrusion of Irtimen into our world ever again.

That was all. They went back into their ship, and we withdrew to the far side of the plateau.

For a long time nothing happened; and then we saw dust rising around the ship, and moments later a pillar of fire burst into life beneath it, and lifted it upward. The little gleaming ship stood as if motionless before us an instant or two on its fiery tail. Then it was gone. It vanished from our sight as though it had never been.

I said, "These were the true gods. And now they have left us."

With that, and with no other word being spoken, we began to make ready for our descent from the Summit.

* * *

Before we left we dug a grave for Thissa and built a cairn over it. She will always lie in honor at the roof of the World. We built a cairn in memory of Thrance also, since whatever his sins may have been he was nevertheless a Pilgrim and a man of our village and that was his due. Then we stood together in a tight circle for a long time, close against one another, needing each other's comfort; for this was the end of our Pilgrimage and the end of all Pilgrimages, and we knew that we had achieved something mighty, though we were not yet sure what it was. I heard weeping nearby me, from Malti first, then Grycindil, then Naxa and Kath; and then I was weeping too, and Traiben, and Galli. We all wept, we survivors, we remaining ones. I had never felt such love for anyone as I felt for these people now, with whom I had gone through so much. We had formed something new on this long journey: we had become a House unto ourselves. Everyone understood that, and so no one spoke of it. We did not even dare look at one another, the moment was so solemn: we stared at the ground, we drew breath deep into our lungs, we held each other's hands tightly and let the weeping pour forth until there was no weeping left in us. At last we looked up, after that, and our eyes were shining and our faces were aflame with the new understanding, which we all felt even though we could not have put it into words.

We assembled then such belongings as remained with us after all this time and in silence we went down the way we came, putting the Summit behind us, descending into the chill depths of the fog zone and through the realm of wind and storms to the Kingdoms beyond, and so onward and downward, onward and downward, toward the place from which we began. Hendy walked beside me. She walks beside me now.

What befell us on the journey down is of no importance, and I will pass over it here. What matters only is that we ascended Kosa Saag, enduring all hardships to attain its Summit, and saw at that Summit the things that we saw, and learned what we learned there, and came home with the knowledge. Which I have set down in this book for you all to ponder and learn.

The gods are gone. We are alone.

And we know now that the changes that befall our people upon the Wall are not god-changes; for those whom we had thought were gods were changed just as so many Pilgrims have been. What causes the transformations on the Wall, so I now believe, is not the presence of the gods at the Summit sending down the radiance of their power, but rather the inherent nature of the air up there, and the powerful light of the sun, and also the force that wells up out of the rocks and plays across our flesh, the heat of change-fire that kindles and inflames our natural shapechanging faculties and makes them all the more potent. I know that this is heresy; but yet that is what the Irtiman told us and that is what I have come to believe, and so be it. At one time there were superior beings on the mountain, yes—gods indeed, perhaps, or close enough to it—but it was not they who worked the magics of the Wall upon the climbers.

And the Kingdoms? What are they?

They are the resting-places of those who have failed to learn the lesson of the Wall. Some who climb Kosa Saag die along the way in making the attempt, and some few succeed, but lose their minds in trying; most, though, simply fail. Those are the ones who have created the Kingdoms as halfway places for themselves, between the jungle and the clouds; for there is no going home for them, and no going upward either.

There is nothing to reproach in that. You have to be something of a madman to want to fight your way to the Summit—as is Traiben, as is Hendy, as was Thrance in his way. As am I. Most people are simpler and easier people than we are, and they fall away from the quest. The Kingdoms are for them. We who are meant to have the knowledge of the Summit are the only ones who will persevere that long and that far.

And now I have returned, and I have brought the knowledge of the Summit with me, and I share it with you now, as I go among you with the marks of the mountain on my flesh and you look upon me with wonder and fear.

What I have to tell you is this, and nothing but this:

The lesson of the Wall is that we cannot continue to hope for comfort and instruction from the dwellers atop it. It is time to lay that fable aside. Those whom we took to be our gods are no longer there to help us along the path of our lives. Without expectation of their aid, then, we ourselves must discover the new things that need to be discovered, and we must put those new things to work assisting us to discover even more. It was given to me, and those who returned with me, to bring this lesson home to you, where no one else had done so; but I have the blood of the First Climber in my veins, and perhaps His spirit guided me as I led my Forty to the Summit.

What we need to do is to break a path through to the fountain from which wisdom flows. It will be our task to build wagons to carry us between villages, and then sky-wagons, and then star-wagons that will take us into the Heavens; and then we will meet the gods again. But this time it will be as equals.

These things are not impossible. The Irtimen achieved them. They were little more than rock-apes, once, long ago, and they made themselves into gods. So can we.

So can we.

We can be as gods: that is the truth that Poilar Crookleg offers you. For there are no other gods within our reach; and if we do not make ourselves gods, then we must live our lives in the absence of gods, which is a terrible thing. That is the wisdom that Poilar Crookleg has brought down for you from the Summit of Kosa Saag, out of all his sufferings. This is his book, which tells of all that happened to him and his comrades there, and what they saw, and what they discovered. These are the things I experienced, this is what I learned, this is what I must teach you for the sake of your souls. It is knowledge that was not easily won; but I offer it all freely to you, and, if only you will accept it, it will set you free. Listen, then. Listen and remember.