Avila was about thirty. She wore the green robe of her calling, hood drawn back, white cord fastened about her waist, white sash over her right shoulder. The colors of the prime seasons. Her black hair was cut short. She glanced around the table with dark, intelligent eyes. There was an almost mocking glint in them, as if they were dismissing the Imperium’s reputation as a rationalist institution. Silas thought that her good looks were enhanced by the robe.
He set the parameters for the dialogue: “In order that we avoid spending the afternoon on extraneous issues, we will assume for purposes of this discussion that divine beings do exist, and that they do take an interest in human affairs. The question then becomes, have they attempted to communicate with us? If so, by what characteristics can we know a divine revelation?”
Kaymon Rezdik, a middle-aged merchant who had been sporadically attending the seminars longer than Silas could remember, raised his hand. “Considering that we have the Chayla,” he said, “I’m surprised that we’re even having this discussion.”
“Nonsense,” said Telchik, an occasional visitor from Argon. Most of the others present nodded approvingly. Telchik was a handsome youth, brown-haired and blue-eyed. “If the Chayla is the work of the gods, they speak with many voices.”
Among the group that day, only Kaymon and one of the younger participants and, of course, the priest, could be described as believers. Most of the others, in the fashion of the educated classes of the time, were skeptics who maintained that either the gods did not exist, or that they took pains to keep well away from the human race. (The view that the gods were survivors from the age of the Roadmakers had been losing ground over the past decade, and had no champions in the field that day.)
“What characteristics,” asked Silas smoothly, “would you demand of a communication before you would pronounce it to be of divine origin?”
Kaymon looked puzzled. “The official sanction of the Temple,” he said, glancing hopefully toward Avila.
“I think,” said Avila, “that, in this case, you are the Temple.”
“Exactly,” said Silas. “If a message were laid before you, with supernatural claims, how would you arrive at a judgment?”
Kaymon’s gaze swept left and right, seeking help. “There is no way to be sure,” said Telchik, “unless you are standing there when it happens. And even then—”
“Even then,” said Orvon, an advocate’s son, “we may be seeing only what we wish to see.”
“Then we may safely conclude,” said Telchik, “that there is no way to know whether a communication does in fact have divine backing.”
Several of the disputants glanced uncomfortably at Avila, to see how she was taking the general assault on her career. But she watched placidly, with a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“And what have you to say of all this?” Silas asked her. “They may be right,” she said matter-of-factly. “Even assuming that Shanta exists, we cannot know for certain that she really cares about us. We may well be living in a world that has come about by accident. In which everything is transient. In which nothing matters.” Her eyes were very dark. “I don’t say I believe this, but it is a possibility. But that possibility is outside the parameters of the discussion. I would propose to you that the gods may find us a difficult subject for communication.”
“How do you mean?” asked Orvon. She pressed her palms together. “Orvon, may I ask where you live?”
“Three miles outside the city. On the heights above River Road.”
“Good.” She looked pleased. “It’s a lovely location. Let us suppose that, this evening, when you are on your way home, the Goddess herself were to walk out from behind some trees to wish you good day. How would you respond?”
“He would lose his voice,” laughed Telchik.
“I suppose it would be a little unnerving.”
“And if she gave you a message to bring back to us?”
“I would most certainly do so.”
She nodded and raised her eyes to encompass the others. “And how would we respond to Orvon’s claim?”
“Nobody’d believe it,” said Selenico, youngest of the participants.
“And what,” asked Silas, “if the Goddess had said hello instead to Avila? Would we believe her?”
“No,” said Orvon, “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” asked Avila.
“Because you are not objective.”
“No,” said Silas. “Not because she is not objective, but because she is committed. There is a difference.”
“Indeed,” rumbled Telchik. “I should like to hear what it is. Shanta would do better to give her message to me.”
“Yes,” said Avila, brightening, “because if you came with such a story, we still might not believe it, but we would know that something very odd had happened.”
Sigmon, a young man whose primary interest was in the sciences, suggested that a deity who wished to communicate would necessarily want an unbeliever, to allay suspicions. “And furthermore,” he said, “he might want to go for drama, rather than a simple statement that we should do thus and so.”
“How do you mean?” asked Kaymon. Sigmon’s brow wrinkled. “Well,” he said, “if I were a god, and I wanted to tell the Illyrians that Haven exists—” All faces turned in his direction.
“—I can think of nothing better than inspiring Karik Endine to produce a copy of the Connecticut Yankee.”
The moon set at about midnight. It was well into the early hours when Chaka got out of the bed in which she had lain sleepless, and dressed. She put on dark blue riding breeches and a black shirt. She had no dark jacket and had to make do with a light brown coat that was more awkward than she would have liked. (The temperature had fallen too far to try to get by without wearing something warm.) She pulled on a pair of moccasins, attached a lamp to her belt, and stopped in her workshop to pick up a couple of thin shaping blades.
Shortly thereafter she stood in the shadow of Flojian’s villa, listening to his horses move uneasily in the barn. A brisk northern wind shook the trees. The night was dark under banks of clouds. The only lights she could see were out on the river, moving slowly downstream.
The villa was dark. The tree on the northern side was higher than she remembered, its branches flimsier. But she got lucky. Before attempting the climb she circled the house, trying windows and doors. The latch on one of the shutters in the rear had not been properly secured and she was able to worry it loose. She opened the window, pulled the draperies apart, and peered into the darkness beyond.
Seeing nothing to give her pause, she threw a leg over the sill and climbed into the room. This was the first time in her adult life she had flagrantly violated someone’s property, and she was already trying to compose her story in case she got caught. Too much alcohol. I didn’t think this looked like my house. Or, I fell off my horse last night. Hit my head. I don’t remember anything since. Where am I?
She was in the reception room where she had first met Silas. To her left was the inner parlor in which Flojian had told her of her bequest. And to the right was the north wing, Karik Endine’s solitary domain. Curtains were drawn across all the windows, and the room was quite dark. She waited for the tables and chairs to appear, and then navigated among them until she found a doorway in the right-hand wall. It opened into more darkness. She went through and closed the door softly behind her.
It was a passageway. She bumped into a chair, started to feel her way around a server, and knocked over a candlestick holder. It fell with a terrible clatter and she froze.
But the noise seemed not to attract anyone’s attention. She righted the candlestick holder and passed through another door into a large sitting room, illuminated through a bank of windows. This was, she knew, Karik’s wing. She looked outside to assure herself no one was about, and used a match to light the candle in her lamp.
The room was masculine, filled with hand-drawn charts and drinking mugs, and heavy oak furniture of a somber cast. (The charts depicted areas of political influence during various eras in the valley’s history.) A chess game, with ornate pieces, was in progress on a tabletop.
A wide set of carpeted stairs led to the second floor. The lower level consisted of three rooms. She opened cabinets, inspected desk drawers, examined closets. The area had been thoroughly cleaned. Clothes, shoes,
