The Rite of Spring: The Student

The Rite of Spring: Fragment 18k

The Student
in which Taynuic leaves home and looks at a map

Things were getting dificult between my father and me, those days. I suppose it happens to everyone, when they're growing up. You start out thinking your father's the next thing to the God, and end up realising he's much like you; but there's a stage in the middle, when you realise that he's not so near to the God, that's difficult. There was the row about me talking to the Ear. Then he wanted to know what had become of old Malledich's half of gold, and so I told him about talking to the Mouth, and we had a better row. Then he saw me talking to Ballasalltshain again, and we had a row about that. And what with one thing and another, I got fed up with it.

Here was this old fool, I thought, who'd broken his oath to his House and been cast out of it, who went on and on about truth and reason and lied to me, who went on and about the danger and pollution of women but had ploughed the first one who'd offered, living on the coin I earned and showing his gratitude by abusing me. I forgot, then, that he'd raised me, and fed me, and kept me clean and warm and dry, alone, when I was too young to care for myself. It happens to everyone, when they're growing up.

Anyway, four mornings after I'd been to the House of the Hand, we had one row too many. I walked out of the Alley of the Morning Star with a fixed and defiant intention never to return. I went to the House of the Foot to talk to them about the God. It was an odd experience. The House of the Foot is the southernmost of the riverbank Houses. Beyond it, there's the inland quay, and then the shipyards stretch away to the Delta Gate. I spent a good while standing on the inland quay, watching the merchants and the shoreporters bustling their barrels and bales about, while I plucked up courage to go in.

The fact of it was this. The Houses I'd visited so far - the Ear, the Mouth, the Hand - all of them were Houses my father thought of as at least a bit respectable. Rational Houses. The others - the - well, all the others, were Houses of unreason. Debauchery, depravity, darkness. The House of the Foot might be the least bad of them, but... well, I was still my father's son, and all my attitudes were learned from him. The people I could see going in and out of the House were peculiar too. Many of them were very obvious foreigners, with pale skin or outlandish clothes. Occasionally a pilgrim would pass in or out, leaping and capering down River Street.

Eventually I plucked up courage, and went in through the busiest door. No-one stopped me. I found myself in a great chamber in the base of the tower. It was well lit from above. The floor was a vast mosaic, with a very complicated design which at first I could not make out. People mostly stood about in groups, talking to one another. People would come in, walk directly to a particular group, talk for a while, and then leave. Some people stayed a long time, never moving from their particular point, and there were some of these no-one seemed to speak to. Most of the people were nearer the middle of the room, but I noticed that no-one stood in the very centre.

After I had watched for a long time, and completely failed to understand what was going on, I went up to the nearest of the single men. He was a short, pale skinned person with a thing I'd never seen before - hair as pale as hay - and patterns on his face which I think were tattooed. He at once greeted me by saying something I could not begin to understand. I begged his pardon, and said that I thought I had not heard him correctly. Then he said, in a horrible accent, "you want go to Haxklixtak?"

It took me a moment to understand what it was he was asking. Then I said

"where is Hax-klik-stak?"

I might as well have said 'what is Hak-whatever-he-called-it'.

"Is here"

said he, with some excitement, pointing to his feet. I blinked at him for a moment, and then said

"I am here."

"No! Here. On floor. Is map - is world. There - there"

- he was pointing to the empty middle of the floor -

"there is place you call Great Place of God. Many days journey. Here"

- again he pointed to his feet -

"is Haxklixtak. My City. Good City. Much trade in good furs. Also copper and bronze. Good profits if you bring fine cloth. Also pretty things. I have good ship. Short journey with me!"

I said I was sorry, I did not want to go to his city.

"Oh!"

says he. Then, "what for you come here, then?"

I explained that I was looking for a priest of the Foot. He shrugged.

I wandered away into the empty middle of the room, and studied the floor. There was a circular pattern marked out there, about a manheight across, but it was broken on one side. In the middle of the circle was a smaller circle, no more than a span across, which was dark. In - and outside - the broken half of the circle were blue tiles, almost up to the centre spot, while the rest of the circle, and beyond it on the other side, were white tiles, with markings in grey and black and red and blue. A line of blue came out of the blue in the bigger circle, and curled around the spot, before going off across the white side of the circle almost to the rim.

The Rim!

I suddenly saw that the centre spot represented the High Place of the God Incarnate. The blue line was the River at Her Feet, and where it seemed to fray as it reached the blue part of the circle was the delta. The blue area was the Ocean, of course. I guessed that the grey lines must be roads, and that the thinner blue lines must be lesser rivers, and canals. The biggest blotch of red I could see was just across the blue line from the spot. I saw at once that it must be the City at Her Gates. I guessed that the smaller red spots were villages.

I walked carefully round the Rim, finding the Dawn Pass, and then the Midnight Pass, and last the Evening Pass. And then I looked up.

If this was the Great Place of the God that lay at my feet, if this black circle I was standing on was the Rim that I had never seen, how vast must the world be! I looked across to where the man I had spoken to stood, perhaps twenty paces away. It takes five days, I've been told, travelling quickly, to get to the Rim from the City. That was one pace on the floor. His city - Hak-thing - was twenty times that distance. Twenty fives are one hundred and twenty. One hundred and twenty days! But perhaps you could travel faster by ship? I didn't know, then.

And then I realised, too, that although where he was standing there was blue and white together, the floor between us was white. How would he get there, by ship? As I looked around, I realised that more of the floor was blue than white. There was blue all round the edges. The white patch that the circle was on was about twenty paces across - all the way to Hak-thing - and, I supposed, thirty paces long. But - it was not the only white patch. There were others! I was amazed to think of other lands across the sea. What must they be like, the people there? I wandered around in something of a daze. I saw that wherever there were people standing, there was indeed a red mark. Cities. Many, many cities. Could any of them be greater than the City at Her Gates, I wondered? And all the different accents, so varied and strange, clicking or rasping or slurring.

At last, someone spoke to me. A woman in a plain grey smock, and wildly coloured leggings.

"Do you need help, my son?"

A priest of the Foot. I said, yes, please, I wanted to ask some questions. The priest smiled, and said

"Ask". I said "please, do you know why there are so many different cults, if there is only one God?"

and the priest replied

"I don't know; I haven't found Him yet". And although I asked many more questions, that was the best answer I got.

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