The Book of Being

by Ian Watson

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

The megalomaniac Godmind is still planning to use all the minds in creation to make a vast 'lens', and if necessary it will burn out all life in the process. Back beside the river and literally born again, Yaleen represents to the guild of riverwomen the perfect proof of salvation, of life after death. In fact, she is desperately searching for a way to save the whole universe from imminent destruction.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 216

Sample

So it was as a child just a quarter short of my third year that I was installed in the temple of the black current in downtown Pecawar. I’d be public proof of how we could all be saved by the grace of the Worm, courtesy of its Ka-store. Whilst in actual fact the whole human cosmos was about to come to a sticky end, maybe no longer than two years hence!

I soon called in the promise which Quaymistress Chanoose had rashly made; namely that in addition to my honour guard of guilds-women I might gather a few friends about me. I asked for Tam to come.

It may have been cruel to wrench Tam away from fair artistic Aladalia to dusty Pecawar. It might have been inconsiderate to ask him to squander his one-go on the river so that he could squire a mere child, in whom happened to have been reborn the young woman he had loved besottedly. Nevertheless I wanted him. I knew I would need the services of a loyal soul or two.

‘Tam’s a potter,’ I told Chanoose. ‘Doesn’t Pecawar, baked by the sun, and the colour of clay already, need a potter to give it some bright glaze? Doesn’t my temple need ornaments – such as vases for the flowers my pilgrims will bring? And splendid faience plates for them to pour coins into?’

I also requested the presence of Peli, the songful water-wife. Peli originally hailed from Aladalia too.

‘It might be better,’ replied Chanoose, ‘if you chose your companions from different directions – not both from the same place! Can’t you think of someone from Jangali or Tambimatu? That way you’d be forging symbolic ties. Two from Aladalia seems like favouritism.’

‘I want Peli.’ Her, I could trust. ‘Besides, then Tam won’t feel so lonely.’ It almost sounded as if I was trying to fix up a marriage between Peli and Tam.

‘Oh, as you please! I don’t suppose it matters; if it’ll make you happy.’

We were talking in the audience chamber – alias throne room – of my temple. Let me describe the edifice.

It had been a disused spice warehouse, which was swiftly but quite elegantly converted by masons, carpenters and furnishers hired by the guild. The rear backed directly on to the river; a new covered verandah overlooked the water. The front faced Pemba Avenue, which converges on Zanzyba Road close to the Cafe of the Seasons. The claybrick frontage was dolled up with outriding sandstone columns to provide a roofed arcade, where food hawkers and lemonade lads soon took up residence along with various licensed souvenir vendors; chief amongst whom was the bookstall proprietor who held the temple franchise to sell copies of The Book of the River. (This was shortly going to be reprinted with my private afterword included, according to Chanoose.)

A grand flight of steps bridged the arcade, running up to an entry porch above. These steps were clad with thin flags of purple Melonby marble to prevent the feet of countless pilgrims from wearing them away too soon. There hadn’t been enough stock within easy reach of Pecawar to build the steps of solid marble. In any case, think of the expense. And the effect was the same.

In this manner the entrance was relocated one storey upward – so as to convey a sense of ascendance. Yet the steps mustn’t be too steep; nor must they commence in the middle of Pemba Avenue. Consequently the entry porch had to be recessed well behind the original wall. This meant that busy teams of craftsmen had their work cut out reconstructing a lot of the interior to accommodate stairway, upper-floor porch and foyer. They laboured overtime and even through the nights by lamplight at double rates.

My audience chamber, which led off the foyer, was mostly panelled with rich gildenwood. A couple of tapestries covered stretches of cheaper old wood. One of these tapestries was a rather abstract representation of desert dimes; it flowed nicely into the gildenwood. The other tapestry pictured a fishmask regatta at a fanciful Gangee. I was assured that weavers would soon set to work upon thoroughly relevant new tapestries depicting scenes from my past life – such as how I had ridden in the mouth of the Worm with the sun’s rays shining forth from my ring. Or how I had confronted a giant croaker in the jungle, me armed only with a sharpened wand (the weavers would need me to be holding something, for the composition). Or even how I had been martyred (but surely not cowering under a bed?).

And in my audience chamber upon a dais, I had a tiny tot-size throne of rubyvein with a fat tasselled cushion for my bum.

The honour guard – who doubled as temple officials – occupied the remainder of that upper storey. My own private living quarters were down below; as were those of my parents, various empty rooms destined for my personal retinue, and the temple treasury – which, when I moved in, was also empty. Short of jumping into the river off the verandah I could only leave my new home by mounting and using the main entrance, which immediately involved an escort; this kept me conveniently in my place.

It had been decided not to include a kitchen in the temple. A tad undignified, perhaps, to have smells of stew wafting over my waiting worshippers? Thus meals were ordered in from outside; and mine were generally cool by the time they reached me. This was a fatuous stratagem, since the whole place reeked of spices. All of the surviving fabric was imbued; and doubtless there was a carpet of spice dust a thumbnail deep beneath the ground floor. A thorough scrub-out with soap didn’t make one whit of difference.

When eventually there was enough money in the coffers, the idea was to erect a really stately temple mostly of Melonby marble, with a large courtyard, somewhere out in the suburbs. Meanwhile I must make do with this converted warehouse, which looked sumptuous enough so long as you didn’t try to prise off the veneer, and made believe that the powerful odour was some kind of incense as in old tales.

And why not make believe? In spite of new gildenwood panelling and those tapestries which blanketed the surviving old wood, for some reason the smell of spice seemed particularly noticeable in my throne room. This set me to wondering whether visitors from other towns might imagine that it emanated from my presence, diffusing hence to spread throughout the town! Just so had I once imagined that Dad, in his working clothes, was the source and origin of Pecawar’s native aroma.

Which brings me to the matter of Dad himself. His was a slightly tragic case, which I was truly sorry to see – albeit that I was to blame. Me; and Chanoose’s machinations in making me a priestess.

Mum was up; Dad down. Mum revelled in the glory. She was proud and committed. Dad, on the other hand, was out of a job – since he could hardly continue counting spice sacks and totting up ledgers now that his daughter was a high priestess. Worse, he was out of a job inside a former warehouse where every sniff reminded him of his previous independence. He who had ever held his job at arm’s length, far from family matters – save for those excursions with Narya during the war – now had his nose rubbed in empty reminders of the past; with wife and ‘false’ daughter always close at hand. However, he put a brave face on necessity. Mum and Dad occupied a decent suite adjacent to my own; and whilst Mum found much to busy herself with in improving the accoutrements of the temple, Dad gravitated inevitably (though a little grimly) towards the counting house. Soon he was totting up donated fish-coins with wry perseverance and improving the book-keeping.

By now our family house had become a museum. Mum happily countenanced this and acted as advisor in the matter. Dad refused to go back there or have anything to do with this conversion of his former home into a tramping place for curious strangers.

So now we had two prongs of pilgrimage: the temple, and our house along the dusty lane. A third holy place could obviously be the cemetery where Yaleen’s murdered body lay – Must keep pilgrims busy! Give them a full itinerary! – and about this, debate grew a little heated, with me entering the fray.

It was a lamplit evening in my throne room, and Chanoose had a pronouncement to make. Present to hear it were myself, Mum and Dad – and Donnah, captain of the guard and major-domo of the temple.

Donnah was a tall busty redhead, with noteworthy muscles and strapping shoulders, whose attitude to me – the holy brat – I still hadn’t quite figured out. By her accent Donnah was from further north. Sarjoy or somewhere. She managed to be both extremely protective, to which end she always wore a four-shot Guineamoy pistol, and quite offhand in her duties as major-domo; which was how Mum found an easy entree into temple management. To be sure, the temple was Donnah’s command; but it wasn’t exactly a boat, to be kept spick and span. I suspected that Donnah was the restless sort and may have felt miffed to be made captain of a revamped warehouse – never mind that she was performing sterling service for her guild: its prestige, its revenues. In Donnah, I fancied, Chanoose had appointed someone who wouldn’t become a kind of rival quaymistress in town. Yet Donnah’s inner person remained opaque to me; far more so than dear conniving Chanoose. Of one thing I was certain: Donnah wouldn’t allow me to manipulate her, or gain the upper hand.

I perched on my throne. The others squatted on quilted floor-cushions, Jay-Jay guildhall-style, except for Chanoose who stood.

‘We must decide about the cemetery,’ she declared. Donnah immediately nodded agreement. ‘Yaleen’s grave ought to be visited.’

That could be difficult,’ I pointed out, ‘seeing as I’m sunk in sand in an unmarked spot.’

‘We must mark it, then.’

‘And how would you find it, to mark it?’

Mum spoke up. ‘I’m sure I haven’t forgotten the spot.’ Chanoose smiled brightly at her.

‘Maybe my death-box already broke surface and got burnt,’ I said.

‘Oh no.’ Chanoose shook her head. ‘Impossible. Far too soon. Now as to a memorial –’

‘But the sands shift,’ said Dad. ‘The memorial would lean. It might fall over. That isn’t very dignified.’

‘In that case,’ suggested Donnah, ‘maybe we should retrieve the body and build a proper marble tomb nearby? With the corpse embalmed within?’

Dad twisted his hands about. ‘I doubt if the people of Pecawar would consider a tomb all that proper! You should leave her poor body be. She was my daughter – I do have a right to say this!’

‘I still am your daughter, Dad.’

Dad looked bewildered for a moment. He sighed; subsided.

‘It seems to me,’ I went on, ‘speaking as your priestess, that the whole idea’s nonsense. It defeats the purpose of why I’m here in this temple. What we’re concerned with is Kas, not bodies. Not that I’m disparaging bodies! But damn it, I’ve had three of them by now.’

‘You are the three-in-one,’ said Chanoose, amiably toying with this new phrase. Three bodies! Surely you can spare one of them for cult purposes?’

‘No, no, no. It’s stupid.’

We argued a while; and to my surprise I won. The guild would not, after all, exhume my semi-mummified remains from the sands. Instead they would merely affix a plaque to the stone archway of the graveyard. Then of course eager pilgrims could always hope that a fierce gale might blow up on the night before their visit. The corpse of Yaleen might possibly surface in its death-box specially for them. The Rods could rake in some spare cash, if they were ingenious. They could try to sell relics. Splinters. Ashes. Hanks of hair.

Visits! By pilgrims! Now we come to the meat of my role as priestess (as opposed to the bones in the sand).

The idea was not that I should actually proclaim to visitors, even though I’d had a fair amount of practice at this while I was a cherub in Venezia. Visitors were expected to buy my book, to receive my message. They practically had to flash a copy to gain admission. And by now Chanoose and I (and Dad) had sorted out the vexed question of royalties, not wholly to my satisfaction …

A word about this. The guild had invested heavily in me; so the cost must be amortized. One source of revenue was straight donations to the temple. Another was entrance fees to our house – cash which seemed to be swallowed up in the cost of caretaking! A third source was profit from my book, less the six per cent which I could keep as my private purse. This was a far cry from the fifty-fifty split which Chanoose had brashly offered at my graveside; but then circumstances had altered radically, hadn’t they? As financial consultant to myself and the temple, Dad actually concurred in this arrangement, though he insisted on a fatter split in a few years’ time. Meanwhile he and Mum were living free. As was I. And what could I possibly spend money on? If I did set my heart on something, said he, far better to soak the temple for expenses and keep my purse intact. (True, temple expenses would have to be met from the same sources – and I later discovered that such expenses included the cost of Tam’s fare to Pecawar; the guild wasn’t picking up the tab.)

Enough of fins and fish! As I say, the guild were wary of any proclamations I might make; but I must needs be present twice a day in my throne room for audiences, with Donnah and a couple of guards standing by.

Goodness, did some visitors try my patience – no matter how goodly a store of that commodity I’d garnered during the two years while I was pretending to be a normal infant! A stooped old lady would approach, clutching her copy of the book. She would cast a handful of fins into the offering bowl, then address me as if I was some fortune teller.

‘My eldest daughter – Shinova, you know – she died of a fever in Port Barbra these nineteen years since. Did you meet her in yon Ka-store? Is she well and happy? Will I join her when I die? And it won’t be long now, not the way I felt in my heart this Winter … I shouldn’t want to go to yon Eeden, and never see my flesh again. If Shinny’s in your Ka-store, give me to drink, child wonder, tiny joy!’

‘Have you ever drunk of the black current before, Mother?’

‘Never.’

‘Drink now.’

One of my attendants would present this old biddy with a slug of darkness in a little glass cup. Exit another satisfied customer, wiping her lips. Her name and address would be registered for temple records; she was enrolled.

Other petitioners were sharper-brained. Indeed I suppose the majority were, so I shouldn’t be too anecdotal. But I had to pack a lot of people into these sessions, and she was the sort who stood out.

Soon a flood of local landlubber women were joining the new cult; and Chanoose reported delightedly that much the same was happening in other towns, where proxies of mine administered the dose. For some reason Guineamoy seemed a tough nut to crack – while north of Aladalia progress was hampered somewhat by an absence of the black stuff locally. Barrels of black current had to be boated to Port Firsthome and beyond.

‘I do hope,’ I remarked to Chanoose one day, ‘that the black current can replenish itself quickly enough!’

‘How do you mean?’

‘At this rate we might drink it dry.’

‘You can’t be serious. We’re only taking a tiny portion. And it’s allowing us. No boat sailing out to the midstream for fresh supplies has met any bother. Besides -’

‘Okay, just a joke.’

‘This isn’t a joking matter.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Our volunteers are working double-time at Aladalia to supply the northernmost towns.’

“Ah, the brave black current bucket brigade.’ I wondered who was paying them. Me, probably.

‘Yes, brave indeed! But we aren’t rushing recklessly.’

‘I didn’t suppose you would be.’

‘Still, we’ll have to start enrolling men before too long; or we might lose impetus. That reminds me: this fellow of yours, Tam, is starting upstream soon. He’s booked passage.’

‘Glad to hear it. But not so glad that the one thing reminds you of the other! I recall you fancying how my father’s might be a convenient toe to dip in the water, to see if he got stung. So it’s to be Tam’s toe now: is that your idea?’

‘It’ll have to be some man’s toe, sooner or later. Will the current accept men? Thereby hangs our whole enterprise in the long run. Obviously the man in question should be somebody you’re close to, so that the current can share your concern. Speaking of which: have there been any intimations lately, which you’ve neglected to mention? Any messages, contacts?’

‘I’ve been a little busy of late, Chanoose. Or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘Not when you’re asleep, you haven’t. . . .