The Physiognomy

On the opposite side of the sphere, we found an entrance to that network of tu

There, beneath the streets, we ran into a band of conspirators carrying weapons, and they told us that there was a full-fledged war being waged now above. They did not have to tell me that Below was still alive, because every now and then we felt the tremors as another piece of his miraculous creation blew apart. They said the City gates were impassable not only because of the buildup of troops but also because the rubble from the decimated Ministry of the Territory had blocked the way. We were told to head toward the eastern boundary of the City, where a large hole had been blasted through the outer wall. They could not accompany us, because they were needed to reinforce a battalion taking up positions in the waterworks.

To my surprise, many of the conspirators we met had either heard of or knew Ea. While he was being held in a cage after first arriving in the City, and while the construction of the sphere was taking place, he had spoken to the workers. They could not resist his calm demeanor and his smile. As one young woman put it, "He showed us that our own fear was the Master's greatest magic." I learned that it was through this contact that the idea of overthrowing Below had come about. Ea was the one who had given them the O sign and told them of Wenau. Before they pushed on toward the battle, they lined up and shook his hand.

"He told us you would return," one of them said to me. "He told us you were searching for paradise and were a changed man."

Then we were alone again in the dark underground, and as much as I tried to ignore it, the beauty was not willing to let me go so easily. I faced the prospect of withdrawal with great fear, for I knew that it would only slow us down. Aria and Ea would not leave me, though. We hid in the tu

On the third day, though I was still shaky and sometimes needed support to continue, we came up out of hiding near the eastern wall. The entire City was in ruins. It didn't appear that there was a single building left standing, just mountains and mountains of debris everywhere. The bodies of citizens, the bodies of soldiers were strewn amid the wreckage, and the smell was horrible. We made our way through the destruction and came to the hole in the wall we had been told about. Out beyond it we could see pastures and forests, and it seemed to me the world that had been always right before my eyes was a sort of paradise. I was weak and still groggy from having beaten the beauty for a second time, and I could not help but weep at the sight.

"Cley," I heard a voice say, as we moved toward freedom.

I turned around and saw the Master standing fifty yards behind us, holding a leash with Greta Sykes straining at the end of it.

"It's over, Cley. They've all either died or left," he said. "From the time as a young man when I first journeyed here across the sea and over the mountains, my mind near bursting with a sublime reality, the only thing I was unable to see was how it would end."

His face was now a death mask, gaunt as that of an unwrapped mummy. I don't know where he found the strength to hold back the werewolf.

"Let us go, Below," I said. "There's no reason to harm us any longer."

He looked absentmindedly at the ground for a moment. "I can't be bothered with you, Cley. I haven't the time. There is so much work to do. Last night, I had another dream. A magnificent vision," he said. With this, he turned and hobbled back into his City.

When we were clear of the wall and out in the meadow beyond it, Ea touched my shoulder and pointed up in the sky over the smoking ruins. There I saw what I took to be a giant bird, circling.

"A vulture?" I asked.

He shook his head. "The demon has found a home," he said.

Those who escaped the destruction of the City settled in a valley about fifty miles west of Latrobia where two rivers crisscross. We all refer to it as Wenau, though it is not the Earthly Paradise. People still die here, fall ill, meet with misfortune, but there is a natural beauty to the place and a kindness among its inhabitants that sometimes make it seem divine.

I am here now, writing these final words to you. I have a small place with a garden in back. Ea showed me how to hunt with a bow and how to gather berries and roots. I am far from the pompous fool I was when I first went to Anamasobia. For one thing, I no longer fear the dark and sleep most peacefully with the candles snuffed. I am, perhaps, a fool in different ways, exuberant beyond all reason at the warmth of the sun and the smell of the earth. It is not important anymore to have a title, an exalted position, though in certain ways I feel I have them in being a simple member of this village.

We have all helped one another to survive and grow. Because of the memory of Below, we have no government, so to speak, no people of power. Disputes somehow manage to get settled without bloodshed and trade takes place. We are suspicious, to a fault probably, of devices that will make our lives easier, remembering how much freedom one must forsake for their comfort. Who knows if this will continue into the future?

After we arrived here, I saw Aria every so often across the fields, working in her own garden. She and the Traveler had settled fairly close to me and raised her boy. His name is Jarek, and sometimes in the afternoon, he ran across the fields and sneaked into my room and talked to me when I was trying to write. Eventually I had to get up and go for a walk with him in the woods or go fishing down by the river.

He asked me all sorts of questions, and I did the same of him. Ea had taught him some of the ancient ways of the Beyond, and already he was well versed in the use of plants and trees to cure illness and induce visions. Ea had told him that I was a man of great learning, but I felt the most I could offer him was my silent reassurance that he was a remarkable fellow. Though my paper supply—which I purchased from the Minister of the Treasury's wife in exchange for my old top coat—was quickly dwindling, the boy and I used it for drawing pictures of the frogs and rabbits and other denizens of the field.

Aria had nothing to do with me. I saw her passing on the path, and I said hello, but her veil did not so much as stir. It was a great effort for me to prevent these moments from crippling the pleasure of my new life, but how, in good conscience, could I have expected more? Ea stopped and chatted sometimes, and I quizzed him about paradise. He laughed and told me about the time before his long sleep. His stories about the Beyond were always designed to show me that the real Wenau was, itself, less than perfect.

One day I asked him, "Is there really a paradise on earth?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

"Where is it?" I asked. "What is it like?"

He rested his bow against the ground and put his hand on my shoulder. "We are journeying toward it," he said. "It is everything you thought it would be."

From then on, when I saw him across the field, he called to me, "We are close, Cley. We are almost there." That went on for years and finally became our joke. Many a morning, I came out onto the steps of my home and found an animal for cooking or an armload of fruit freshly gathered from the fields, and I knew he had been there.