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I Pi

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Deep Truth then consists of those events, not which shock and startle us, but which resist the notions which we have used. Contrary to what is believed, Deep Truth is not in the surface, but at the bottom of a deep well, or mine, which is reached only after all the earth above it is excavated.

Reflections , Similisaster, Long Count 997.12

It would seem that evolution cannot be true, with the disconnected families of life which exist on Isthar, I must conclude, not only that the Lord exists, but that he continues to make his hand present. Else how could we see, not diversity, which would grow as twigs on a tree, but discontinuity? And without the tree of life, evolution is impossible.

Evolution Denied, David Desideradas, Long Count 991.11

And so from these notes, you see that all the combinations of height and colour of all these flowers follow the rules of inheritance that I have discovered. And so it must be for every trait, for every creature, that what is visible was, in someway, hidden and brought to light. For those who deny that the greater is but an image of the smaller, what other disproof could I give?

Before I denied evolution, and yet, I must declare that where every I turn my short gaze, there it is. How to reconcile the vast expanse of life with this discovery, I do not yet know.

On Traits of Living Organisms from Their Parentage David Desideradas, Long Count 993.11

Long Count Date: 998.11.95

When Marchangela awoke she saw the three men sleeping. “Lazy males.” She thought, though she did notice that her swords had been cleaned, and thanked whoever did it. She thought she must have had a blow to the head when she fell backwards into the cabin. Feeling behind her skull, she felt no blood, and therefore decided it must not have been that bad. She did a rapid visual inspection of her limbs, and decided that everything must have turned out for the best.

She looked around deck, the anchor was tossed overboard, and there was no one about. This puzzled her. There were masses of blood everywhere, but the men had not been badly injured. Surely if they had had to fight, then there would have been more injuries. She also saw the long boat, with its own sail and collapseable mast, still in place. Again, if the remains of the crew had fled, surely they would have taken that.

The light of very early morning streamed almost horizontally over the deck, and the clouds in the distance were cleary the remains of fire, at this point one large billowing fire was far to the East, and there more spindly rivulets of smoke that pushed their way upwards. There was no sign high above of the events of last night, but clearly from the black billowing nature of the large cloud, there was something desperately wrong.

She made an examination of the ship, and saw that they were some distance from the coastline, but not farther than could be rowed easily. She was not particularly a good swimmer, but she imaged that it was swimable. At this point, the Magus awoke and came out, stretching, from the cabin, he closed the door behind him, obviously letting the two others sleep. He smiled at Marchangela, and then went back to the officers area, and came out carrying a pigeon from the two cages he brought, and released it into the air. It’s white wings rapidly becoming lost against the deep blue of the morning.

“What happened here?” Marchangela’s question had a slight, very slight, air of impatience about it. She wanted to know what had transpired.

“We performed an exorcising ritual, and with the taken psyches gone, the crew collapsed.” He turned to release the second pigeon, thinking that this was enough of an explanation.

“And what happened to them.”

There was an involuntary stiffening on the Magus’ part, and he turned. “What do you mean, we killed the soma and tossed them overboard.’

“Noooooooo! What do you mean you killed them and tossed them overboard?” They were our only link to what happened. We needed them.” Her face was pulled tight and sour, and then relaxed as she stamped her foot and rolled her eyes. “What were you thinking. I would have expected Maxiumus and Fareed to make that kind of mistake. But not you.”

“I’m sorry.” The voice was hurt and soft. “We didn’t want to take the chance.”

“Sorry?” She rolled her whole face and looked upward as looking for strength. Now we have to go back to the city to explore.

“We can’t go back.” The Magus wanted to ask how she knew the names of Fareed and Maxiums, but filed it away for later, because he was not getting a word in edgewise.

“Why not?”

“A message from Livia.” With the weight on the third word.

Marchangela scowled, she knew from his accenting that it was some kind of nasty way of finding out she was dead.

At this moment, awakened by the racket, came the two other occupants of the ship. Maximus and Fareed both had that sheepish look of having overslept, they were both bloodstained and their hair was stiffened with it.

“Of course we killed them. It was dark, what were we supposed to do?”

Marchangela looked at them only briefly and then looked back at the Magus by way of dismissal. “You should have known better. And I am assuming you have an orb with you.”

The Magus nodded. “Yes, you are right, it is my fault. I got carried away with fear. And with the events of the last few days. I… I have not done well. Forgive me.”

“For the present,” interrupted Maximus, “we need to clean up, launch the small boat, and get going. I would advise we burn this boat to the waterline, so that someone else doesn’t use it to chase us.” He didn’t know what had happened last night, but as far as he was concerned they were at war, and he was going to assert his right of command. Well perogative. Well, something. Anyway, there was something going on, and as a patrician who was marked for being a general and then later for politics, he was going to be in charge of it.

Marchangela turned to him. Put on her best face, and soothed, “I know you did well in protecting us, and acted as best could be done. I am angry only at,” gesturing at the Magus, “Albertus here, because he knew of the cause of what happened, and having prisoners would have allowed us to gather information that we need.”

Fareed nodded, and put a hand on Maximus’ shoulder, “I think she has you on that one. We all got carried away. It was a terrible, terrible event.”

The rest of the morning was spent cleaning, loading and then preparing the small boat. When Albertus asked Marchangela how she knew the names, she said that she had dreamt it in the night before. It was Maximus who asked.

“So what did we see. I had assumed it was an eruption of a volcano, and that what we saw were the spirits of the dead, which had come to kill us. This one,” pointing to Marchangela, “seems to say you know differently.”

The Magus, who was sitting calibrating his instruments, did not even look up.

“In teloikopolis there was a thing called the well of souls.”

Maximus began hauling a box of food into the long boat. “There were legends.”

“I know the facts attached to those legends, there was such a thing, I believe what we saw was the well being destroyed, or destroying itself. And the spirits were not of the dead, but of the taken from the living.”

Fareed perked up as he coiled rope to put in the boat. “That is black magic, are you a black mage?”

“No, they come from another place, and, I believe, taken by means I do not understand. They tarry in the well, and we release them slowly, so as not to swamp the world at once with them. Once the well was destroyed, the psyches there in rushed out, and took what bodies they could. For those that cannot will go howling out into the void, never to be embodied again.”

“It seems like a harsh fate.” This from Maximus, who was now rolling a barrel of water into the boat.

“I was not clear on what was happening until recently. I am still not sure whether my theory is correct, but it seems to fit the facts better than anything else does.”

Fareed set the rope in place, turned to the Magus.

“Let me understand this, you were responsible for the place that blew up, which means that everyone in the town, what is left of them, will be hunting us. We are chased by raging dervishes who hate you for imprisioning them, and probably interdict because we carry the foulness with us from the death of a city, and, I will tell you, my people will be occupying the ground shortly because they have coveted it. If there is anything else I should add to this list of good news. Please tell me now.”

The Magus adjusted a device with a small telescope and mirror. “I believe it is a prequel to what will happen shortly on the next passage of Lucifer.”

Marchangela stopped and looked at him. The others continued working, but at a dramatically slowed pace.

“And why pray tell didn’t you tell me this?” Marchangela’s voice had a certain edge to it.

“Until yesterday, it was a concern, not a situation. Let me explain. The Well of Souls catches and regulates those who come from Lucifer. It, and the others like it, for I believe there to be other such places, were like cisterns, filling up at the transits, and emptying out between the long periods where there was no alignment between Lucifer and Ishtar.”

Fareed “But there can be no life on Lucifer – it is a vast sheet of ice.”

“There is no life on Lucifer, but Lucifer’s twin, in an state of energy where the sun is warmer, is teaming with life, and with people. They are drawn from Earth, not Lucifer.”

“And can we see this ‘Earth’? Is it at the far side of the Sun?” Maximus sat down. He was not sure he was going to understand, but he at least needed to have some words to hang on to.

“No, as I said, it is in a, how to say it, a realm of being like ours, only with a warmer sun. This warmer sun makes their Ishtar uninhabitable, and Lucifer is inhabitable. Only there is another difference – Earth has ‘the moon’.

Fareed spoke with that kind of whine that a believer had when speaking of dogma: “There is no moon, the prophet’s book speaks of a period which is that of Icarus. It is Icarus and its comings and goings which the faithful follow.”

The Magus put his hands on his knees, looked at Fareed. “Perhaps you would like to explain what we saw.”

Fareed “A volcano and spirits, as Maximus said. I will not believe in any moon but The Moon or any god but The God.” He then stopped, looked at the other three. “Or any better explanation that comes along.” He smiled awkwardly.

The Magus was hunched over, clearly in pain, but continued. “If a Volcano had produced that much ash and an explosion that quickly, the wave that it sent out would have engulfed us, and the wind would have been acid and filled with ash. No volcanic eruption produced that explosion, it comes from the strange forces that the well used.”

Maximus added in “I think him right, when a volcano explodes like that, the force is over much greater an area, and it would have continued. This was different, though I don’t know how.”

The Magus straightened up. “In any event, I have sent a carrier pigeon to Arinth, so that my brother will gather an expedition and go examine the results of what has happened there.”

“They had best go in force.” Interjected Maximus, now sitting on one of the boards of the long boat.

“And I am about to send another back to teloikopolis to the safe place. If the others survived, they will find receive word from us. If not, then not.” The Magus looked back east, “Though I wish I could be going back there, I feel I have a duty to.”

“We were warned.” Said Maximus.

“On a source of unimpeachable integrity.” Chimed in Fareed. “But we can get the details of future catastrophe later, we are fortunate not to have been overtaken by present disaster.”

The rest of the day was spent loading the boat, just before dusk, high over head, there circled a bird of prey, a long winged falcon. The Magus spied her, took out a glove and gave the signal, downward she spiraled, and finally to land on the heavy leather glove. He took out a fish, breaking the head open to allow her to feed on the brains. Clearly, she was, in as much as could ever be said, his. He stroked her, and then placed the cap on her. “There my pretty, I did not think I would see you again when I released you. But clearly you and I are to travel together a little while longer.”

It was dark soon after that, they slept again, going on military time – waking in day, catnapping in darkness, and waking with day again. It strained the body, this rising and falling with the sun, but it was now essential that they not waste a moment where they could be travelling.

Dawn came red that next morning, and they had already shoved off the long boat from the ship by that point.