The Three Lands Omnibus Part 72

Bad training, on the other hand a he followed further this path of thought a was like impure l.u.s.ts, when a man slept with a woman without seeking to purify his act through a priest's blessing. Selfish training, where the teacher cared more for his own self-importance than for the progress of the pupil, was far worse: it was like twisted l.u.s.t, a terrible parody of purified love. Such twistedness in teaching, Prosper was coming to recognize, had begun to destroy even that which was at the center of his vocation as a priest: his ability to train priest-pupils. It would have destroyed his abilities as a teacher in the end if he had not been fortunate enough to be placed under the curse.

Smiling at this paradoxical thought, Prosper said, "You have done very well indeed during the past three months. It is time that your father saw how you have progressed. I'll go home with you tonight, both to apologize for your lateness and also to show your father-"

"No!"

The boy's cry was so deep that Prosper felt the reverberation of it through Orel's body, which was pressed against his. Prosper tried to turn his head to look at Orel's face, but the boy had his face pressed against Prosper's shoulder.

Orel said, "No, you shouldn't bother him; he's very busy at the moment. I think it would be best to wait until you've finished training me. That way he can see the complete results-"

"Orel," Prosper said, and at that single word, the boy fell silent. Faintly through the window where dusk was drawing its shade upon the world came the sound of feasting, but Prosper scarcely noticed it. His mind was on the boy snuggled against him.

He said slowly, "You came to me the evening that you were to ask your father's permission to train with me. You told me that evening that you could train with me. But you did not tell me: Did your father grant you permission to do this?"

Orel was silent a moment. Prosper could feel the warmth of his breath making its way through Prosper's s.h.i.+rt. Then the boy burst out, "He wouldn't understand! If I'd told him, he would never have let me come, and he'd have been watching me to ensure I didn't come near you. It didn't do any harm to tell him Huard was giving me extra catechism lessons-"

"Orel." Prosper's voice was hard this time. There was an aching arising in him that he could not fully understand, but he dared not give thought to it a his thoughts must be on the boy at this moment. "You are speaking as a child. Where is the discipline that you have received in these lessons? Remain silent a moment, then reply to me as you would if explaining why you had not completed a lesson I had given you."

The pause lasted a long while. When he finally spoke again, the boy did so in a low voice. "Sir, I apologize. It was wrong of me to lie to my father, and it was wrong of me to have let you think that my father had given me permission for training. I not only endangered my own spirit through such an act; I also brought danger upon you and Huard, for my father might have thought that both of you had conspired to help me in this deception."

"Good. That is well spoken." Prosper was having a difficult time keeping his voice level, and he was beginning to think that it might be important to understand why. If only he were granted a moment for silence ... "You know what you must do now?"

"I must tell my father and ask his pardon. I must follow his command, whatever it may be. Oh, but Prosper, I can't! He'll tell me that I must never see you again!"

Orel's face, as he raised it from Prosper's shoulder, was as white as a demon's. He was biting his berry-red lip in an attempt to keep his chin from trembling. Prosper felt the words the boy had spoken resound through his own body as though he himself had spoken them. It was becoming more urgent to understand why the boy's anguish was communicating itself so deeply to him, the teacher.

He knew, of course, what he was witnessing. No teacher of five years, much less thirty-five years, could have missed the signs. It happened sometimes with the more sensitive pupils: an early awakening of love, too early to take the form of desire, whether pure or impure. It was simply the knowledge that another person in the world was of such high importance that the person deserved to receive the sort of wors.h.i.+p that would normally be offered up only to the G.o.d.

The priests were divided on how such childish loving should be regarded. Some priests, such as Martin, saw it as a G.o.dly sign that the boy was developing impulses toward love that would, in the normal course of time, eventually develop into the love a young man holds for the woman he is to marry. During his years of priesthood, Prosper had always taken the opposing view: he believed that children's love could easily lead to impure love, or even a since it was often directed by a boy toward his male teacher a to the horrors of twisted l.u.s.t. Thus Prosper had always taken pains, whenever he noticed such love developing in a pupil toward him, to discourage it with severity.

And yet he felt no such impulse now a indeed, he felt quite the opposite desire. Was this a G.o.dly sign, or was some demon working within him that he had not yet known? Bewildered, Prosper tried to pull himself back from Orel as he said, "Your coming-of-age rite is in the spring; you would have had to have ended your lessons with me then in any case. Perhaps your father will allow you to study the ancient tongue under Huard until that time-"

"But I want you!" Orel flung his arms around Prosper, almost strangling him in his embrace. m.u.f.fled by Prosper's s.h.i.+rt, he said, "I love you. I love you."

Orel's head was brus.h.i.+ng against Prosper's face. He thought to himself that he should at least give the boy a light kiss on the head to indicate that affection between a teacher and his pupil was a natural and indeed a G.o.dly thing. And if the boy lifted his face then, perhaps it would do no ill to kiss him on the forehead as well, for surely the boy seemed to require such comfort, trembling as he now was in Prosper's arms. And if kissed on the forehead, the boy would come to no harm if he were kissed on the lips- It was then that Prosper saw his hidden demon and named it for what it was.

"No!" Prosper jerked himself out of the boy's grasp and rose, stumbling backwards. The suddenness of this rising caused the chamber to swim in his vision. He saw a demon-white boy, and near him a single candle lit against the coming dark.

"What's wrong?" Orel jumped to his feet and came over to hold Prosper's arm. "Are you ill?"

"Don't touch me," Prosper begged in a hoa.r.s.e voice. He staggered backwards and found himself trapped by the bed behind him.

"Why not? Sir, you are ill; let me help you to bed-"

"No!"

The cry stopped Orel short, as he was reaching out to touch Prosper again. For a moment the boy remained motionless; then his face changed.

"Oh, no," he said. "Oh, sir, I didn't mean that. When I said I loved you- I don't love you like that, sir, truly I don't!"

He put out his hand tentatively, as though testing the edge of a blade, and as his hand fell onto Prosper's bare arm, Prosper released a groan. The desire was clawing at him now; he could feel the stiff ache of his need. With a wordless cry of revulsion, Prosper shoved aside the bed and staggered toward the door.

"Sir, truly I'm not twisted a truly! ... Am I?" The final words of the boy's plaintive plea echoed in Prosper's mind as he stumbled out into the coolness of the dying day.

An hour later, Prosper was trying to remember the lessons he had given to priest-pupils about how to kneel on the bare floor for hours without feeling pain.

"Give all the chambers of your mind over to the G.o.d," he had told them. "You will find that you have no chamber left for thoughts of bodily discomfort."

Easy enough to say to a healthy young boy, his mind and body at an age when they are biddable to instruction. But Prosper a fifty-seven years old, with a mind cursed with demons and filled with prayers that he was forbidden to speak a was finding it impossible to ignore the pain shooting through his knees or the trembling of his weary legs. He closed his eyes and tried to still his thoughts, but with no success.

The sanctuary was dark but for the flicker of prayer-lights. Tomorrow morning, Huard would randomly select one of the candles, bracket it into his purification lamp, and use it to purify any individuals who had need of it. Then it would be taken to the altar area, where it would be used to light the sacred flame and afterwards to purify the wors.h.i.+ppers as a whole. At the end of the service, the prayer-light would be quenched, a visible sign to the wors.h.i.+ppers that the Unknowable G.o.d had answered a prayer.

Prosper wondered whether the prayer-light he had lit the hour before would be the one Huard selected tomorrow. His increasing fear was that the single prayer he had been pouring forth to the G.o.d would not be answered.

He heard the creak of the main sanctuary doors, then a footstep, and then, through his closed eyelids, he saw the glow of a lamp. There was a click as the lamp was set upon the gift-offering table nearby. A footstep fell beside him.

Taking a deep breath, Prosper said without opening his eyes, "Huard, I do not know whether the G.o.d's Law permits this, but if it does, I ask you to burn me tonight. I now know that the demons are too strong for me, and I dare not allow myself to live any longer, lest I cause greater destruction."

"Why do you believe that the demons are too strong?"

Huard's voice was colder than Prosper had ever known it. Prosper opened his eyes to see his former pupil standing in front of him, his face as hard as winter ice.

"You know why," Prosper whispered. "You tried to warn me a the G.o.d help me, I treated your warning lightly, as I treated all the warnings that Martin gave me during his years of disciplining me. And yet I should have known... . I should have known. I have burned so many men and women over the years for twistedness a have heard the horrors of their witness, have given them the only hope remaining to them, the fire of purification."

"Is fire the only answer?" Huard's voice remained cold.

"I don't know." Prosper hid his face in his hands, trying to gather his twirling thoughts into one place so that he could make sense of his reasoning. "Perhaps not; perhaps I was too harsh in my judgment of them. If so, I know why. All these years I have been twisted, feeling secret and demonic l.u.s.ts for the pupils I tutored. No wonder I judged other men and women too harshly, whether for twistedness or for other crimes against the G.o.d. I would not face the fact that I was a greater horror than any of the living spirits I judged."

He raised his face. This time it was difficult to see the priest, for Prosper's eyes were darkened by tears. "The fire," Prosper whispered. "Please. It is the only hope I have left."

"No fire," said Huard. "Prosper, you must listen to me-"

He stopped; Prosper had stumbled to his feet and was backing into the dark corner, his chest heaving from the shock. "No," whispered Prosper. "No fire. You are right, of course. I have been avoiding that knowledge as well a have been avoiding it ever since my first day here. Purification is too great a mercy for me, even by fire. For one such as myself, who has allowed demons so great to use me for destruction, there can be no mercy. It must be an unpurified death. I must dwell eternally in the G.o.d's burning flames."

"Prosper, be silent a moment and listen to me-"

"It is all right," said Prosper, his voice beginning to turn to sobs. "I will not seek an unpurified death at the hands of others. I see that would be wrong a to require them to take the guilt of my death upon themselves. I will burn unpurified in any case; it makes no difference. If I cannot serve the G.o.d in any other way, I can at least rid this world of my repulsive, monstrous, twisted self-"

As he spoke, Prosper began to edge his way toward the side door, his feet sliding along the stones smoothly as though led by an inner force. Already, Prosper's mind was reaching ahead. The armory was closed for the night. He could use one of Huard's meat-knives, but that would entangle the priest in his death. The river, then; there was an appropriateness to that choice. On a moonless night like this, it would not take long for the dark current to bring his end.

"Corrupt," he heard his voice choke out. "Wholly corrupt, unworthy of purification. How could I return to the priesthood with these demons inside me? I should not even be polluting this sanctuary. I must go to where the unquenchable fire awaits me-"

"Mystery."

The whisper cut through Prosper's words like a shout. On the point of racing from the sanctuary, Prosper felt his body jerked back by the sacred word as though he were on a leash. For a breathless moment, he stood in balance, feeling the demons tug at him. Then long custom took hold of him, and he fell to his knees.

He heard footsteps softly approach him. Then Huard whispered once more, as though afraid that Prosper had not heard him properly the first time, "Mystery."

Mystery. He had not been listening during this past hour, as his discipline demanded; he had only been talking to the G.o.d. Yet how could he listen now? The G.o.d would not speak to such as him- Mystery. He had allowed himself to speak again; he must stop speaking his thoughts and remain silent. He tried, but felt images of what had happened between himself and Orel begin to crowd into his mind. He gave an involuntary whimper.

"Listen." Huard's voice was soft as he touched Prosper's bowed head.

Prosper tried again. He could feel the weariness now, the pain beginning to shoot like blades through his legs, the trembling that made him feel that he could not remain as he was for a moment longer.

"I'm tired," he whispered.

"You are allowing yourself to think; remain silent. Listen again."

He tried. He could hear the soft crackle of the prayer-lights; he could imagine the one he had lit being brought forward to the altar, where it would be used to light the sacred flame- The sacred flame. Purification to the G.o.d's beloved folk, torture to his enemies. The G.o.d's fire would burn him for eternity; the pain he felt then would be immense in comparison to what he felt now, shaking and sweating- "You are not listening. Try again."

"I can't. I can't!"

"You can; still your mind. Empty it of all thoughts. Await the Mystery."

His eyes were still closed. He could see only darkness. Darkness ... that was what he sought. Not the flame, the visible sign of the G.o.d, but the darkness that represented that which was unknowable. No knowledge he held of the G.o.d could save him now; only that which was not known to him, the Mercy of all mercies that lay in the darkness beyond man's knowledge... .

The darkness was silent. He let the silence take him in, like a current leading him into a river to drown. He did not resist it. Perhaps, then, this was the G.o.d's mercy: the Mystery would take him into the unquenchable fire, so that he might feel the Mystery's peace in the moment before his pain began, never to end.

He was thinking again; he could feel the thoughts dragging him back toward the sh.o.r.e. With a sigh, he released his hold on himself, and on his life, as he awaited the G.o.d's response.

When he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness, and he could feel his body falling. Falling, and falling.

CHAPTER FIVE.

He awoke to the sound of fire. It crackled close by his head, and it took him a moment to garner the courage to open his eyes in order to see what it would be like, this fire that would be with him for eternity.

He found himself lying in a bed. Next to him flickered a prayer-light, quite ordinary in appearance. Then Prosper turned his head and realized where he was.

Huard, seeing his movement, turned away from the basin where he had been wringing out a rag. He walked over and placed the rag upon Prosper's head. The coolness washed over Prosper as if he had been dipped in a river.

As though no pause had taken place in their conversation, Huard asked, "Did the G.o.d speak to you?"

Prosper stared at Huard for a moment; then his breath caught in his throat. "Yes," he whispered, feeling wonder tremble through his body as he remembered. "He told me not to fear. He told me that he loved me." Prosper stared a moment longer at the priest, then turned his gaze toward the prayer-light near his head. He said softly, "How can the G.o.d love one such as myself?"

"Are you ready to listen to the answer?" Huard's voice was no longer hard, merely inquisitive.

Prosper looked back at the priest. His own body seemed light, as though it could have lifted into the air had not the blankets been holding him down. He felt more like a G.o.d-loving spirit than a temporal creature. "Yes," he said, "I am ready to listen."

"Prosper, you are not twisted."

Prosper tried to understand this, failed, and gave up the struggle to master the matter without further instruction. "I am not twisted," he agreed, like a pupil reciting a text he is not yet mature enough to understand.

Huard smiled. He nudged Prosper over in the bed and then sat down next to him, his large body pressing against Prosper's. Prosper lay where he was, feeling Huard's hip against his own, feeling too Huard's palm as the priest laid his hand upon Prosper's. The priest said nothing, and after a moment it occurred to Prosper to wonder why, if he had l.u.s.ted after all of his priest-pupils, he had not noticed any desire for Huard during these weeks of close living a did not feel any desire even now whilst Huard's body was so close to his.

He said slowly, "I had not felt twisted desires before tonight, had I?"

"It may be that you felt them momentarily," Huard responded in a matter-of-fact tone. "Prosper, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when you told me that you had never felt l.u.s.tful desires during your time as a priest. If that had been true, you would have been a bodiless spirit rather than a living creature. More likely you felt momentary desires, either for your pupils or for other priests or for the temporal women and men to whom you served as confessor. But you were so convinced that a G.o.dly person like you could not feel such desires that you thrust the knowledge from your mind. It was part of the demonism in you a not the brief desires, which are a normal occurrence, especially in times of hards.h.i.+p such as you are undergoing at present. The demonism came from believing that you were immune from the temptations that normal men experience. Do you remember the first words you spoke to me when I came to your training school?"

"Yes," said Prosper, again speaking slowly, for his mind seemed to be gradually rising out of darkness. "I speak it to all of my priest-pupils. *You must not believe that you are in any way superior to the men and women whom you will serve for the G.o.d, for you are filled with as many demon-temptations as they are.'"

"Some teachers," said Huard, still holding Prosper's hand, "are better teachers than they are pupils. They speak words of wisdom that they themselves do not heed a or so a teacher once told me." He smiled.

"Then the fact that I recognized my desire for Orel-"

"Is a sign of returning G.o.dliness, rather than the opposite. Yes." Huard reached forward and pulled the cloth from Prosper's forehead. "Mind you, the fault in what happened tonight is as much mine as yours. I knew that it was likely that your awakening awareness of the evil impulses within you would cause you to confront demons that you had not previously recognized, though they had always pulled at you. If you had had true twistedness a a lifelong desire to lie with men or boys a then I would certainly have addressed the matter through your discipline before this, and would have trained you to turn your desires toward women or toward celibacy, whichever the case seemed to merit. Cursing twisted persons is almost never necessary, I have found. But precisely because I knew that you had no more twisted desires than the normal man does, I didn't think to forewarn you about how to react when you were tempted to act on erotic desires whose action would cause you to break the G.o.d's Law. It is easy enough to discipline oneself in such matters, if you are prepared beforehand."

"Yes," said Prosper. "I taught you that as well." He gave a sigh as he wiped the dampness from his forehead. "What a fool I was to think that I could live without the demon-temptations of an ordinary man. I had convinced myself that I had only two choices: to live a life as demon-free as the G.o.d's life or to be demon-filled beyond saving. And that allowed my native demon a new way to attack me: I cast judgment upon myself tonight, rather than trust you and the Unknowable G.o.d to care for my spirit." He looked up at Huard, his gaze now steady upon the priest's. "I'll never be entirely free of my demon of judgment, will I?"

"No more than I will ever be entirely free of my native demon," his teacher replied. "Though I am no longer the prisoner of gluttony, I must do battle with it for the rest of my life." Then, seeing Prosper's forehead crease, he added quietly, "You have the strength to do battle with your demons, Prosper. Believe that when I say it now, as you would not have believed it if I had told you earlier. You had to come by that knowledge yourself, in a moment when it seemed you could go no further-"

"And I felt myself too tired to go on." Prosper gave a short laugh as he raised himself into a sitting position on the bed. The lightness had gone, but the weariness he felt now was like the weariness he always felt at the end of a long and profitable lesson with a pupil: the weariness of s.h.i.+ning success.

Huard, who had been smiling, turned suddenly sober in expression. He c.o.c.ked his head at his former teacher and said, "One question you have not asked me which you should have asked when I entered the sanctuary a should have asked before you ever fled from this chamber."

The pain, coming as it did at a time when he was so open to new sensations, cut into Prosper like the blade of a new sword, but he did not allow himself to flinch. "Orel," he said in a hushed voice. "Is he hurt?"

"He was greatly troubled when he found me, but I was able to calm him. I explained to him that you were afflicted by a demon of fear that came upon you in moments of heightened emotion, such as you had undoubtedly felt upon learning of Orel's affection for you. I a.s.sured Orel that your fear in no way arose from a belief that he was twisted."

"A demon of fear," said Prosper softly. "Yes, you warned me against that as well, just as I have warned pupils over the years not to allow fear to overcome their battles with learning. If I had only listened to the advice I gave to you and my other pupils, I would have known that fleeing this chamber was the worst possible action I could take a it leads to greater demons entering into one, such as-" He hesitated.

"Such as the temptation to commit the crime of slaying oneself," said Huard solemnly. "I trust that you realize now what a grave crime you were about to commit a not only against the G.o.d, who gave you the body that you were about to desecrate, but also against Orel, who would surely have blamed himself for your death, no matter what I told him."

"Yes," whispered Prosper, and was silent for a long while afterwards.

The priest's door was open to the evening. Prosper could hear the chatter of the tribe's men, women, and children as they pa.s.sed nearby, on their way to the midnight service. Huard, hearing the same noise, rose and began to disgown in preparation for placing the black robe of the Mystery upon himself.

Prosper settled back into the cus.h.i.+ons of the soft bed. The silence that was upon him now seemed too precious to break by attending the service and listening to words. He could not help thinking, though, of the boys whose voices he had heard amidst the crowd. "Huard," he said, "you told me once that I had a gift for teaching."

"You are the best teacher I have ever had the honor to meet," Huard replied quietly. "I know that my judgment on this is shared by others. If you don't trust me, ask one of your priest-pupils when you return to your training school."

"I will not be returning to the training school." Prosper's voice seemed to echo through the stillness of the chamber. He felt oddly calm as he raised his gaze to be level with Huard's. "I can never be a priest again. I see that now."

The morning sun rippled sparks of light upon the river pa.s.sing Huard's doorway. Huard leaned forward and splashed the coolness of the water upon his face, drying away the sweat of the morning. A breeze teased at his hair, cooling the water further.

An arm touched his as Prosper bent forward and joined him, splas.h.i.+ng water into his eyes to take away the dryness of the night. Huard smiled at him, saying, "I was beginning to wonder whether you would sleep through the noonday service."

"The rest did me good." Prosper leaned back, staring up at the branches against the sky, wondering why he had never noticed the beauty of their interlacing curves, like a fine scribe's hand in a ma.n.u.script. "Was that voice of Orel's father that woke me?"

Huard nodded. "Orel told him last night that you had been training him. Botolf was much bewildered a he said that what Orel told him made no sense, for during the past three months the boy's swordsmans.h.i.+p had improved fourfold. Botolf was sure that the G.o.dliness Orel had received from learning his catechism was the cause. Botolf was even more bewildered when I explained to him that your training was the cause of his son's increased discipline." The plump priest sat back on his haunches, looking for all the world like a tamed wolf sitting contentedly beside a hearthfire. "Botolf tells me that he wishes Orel's brothers to attend your school for temporal boys when it is opened next spring."

Prosper was still a moment, feeling the cool breeze tickle his face. Then he suddenly ducked his head and plunged it into the water.

He surfaced shaking his hair as a wolf-dog shakes his fur after a bath, sending water splattering onto Huard. The priest laughed. "You look like a boy."

"I feel like a boy. Like a thirteen-year-old boy. Do you understand why?" Smiling, Prosper turned his head toward the priest.