Part Two: It's All a Matter of Perspective
“Life before the Observation of the Mysterious is the Singularity. It is all Ordered, all of your choices limited by what is agreed to be possible – what is tolerated as allowable. The Ordered life is the life of the city-dweller: surrounded at all times by walls, guided by roads to the limited destinations you may journey. Your choices are limited – you may never even make significant choices – for yourself or anyone – but you are safe. You can be secure in the knowledge that your walls will keep you protected from the Chaos outside the firmament of the Singularity. And that if you do as you should and follow the rules you should be able to reasonably expect to be safe. But your life is not your life. Your life belongs to the city. Every life within the walls must be dedicated to keeping the walls standing. Do you understand?”
I look over at Peitho, nod. I understand well enough to think the question: And what of the Chaotic life? But don't ask it.
“From the Singular state, there are Observation, Interaction, and Contact. Each of these stages of the magickal process add chaos and confusion to your life. And I'm sure you don't need an in-depth description right now. In fact,” Peitho's voice suddenly changes from one of coming, inevitable doom, to one of delivering an intersting piece of trivia: “you may be interested to learn, it is easier – that is to say more likely – for the Universe to make contact with you when your life is already chaotic and confused. When you already live in a Liminal space. A—
“A tween-space,” I say, but I'm hearing Genoa's tavernmaster's voice in my head:
“I live at the literal tween-space tween Genoa and elsewhere and the metaphorical tween-space tween wilderness and savagery. Ya said 'Us.' What tween space are you master of, sorcerer?”
Why can I hear this so... well – and yet I don't remember ever having this conversation?
If I weren't trying to listen to and absorb everything Peitho is saying – because, who knows, maybe it will help me evade her after my inevitable disappearance from Pavia – I might have tried to puzzle out either why I am hearing – and Seeing, I recall – conversations with the tavernmaster which I would fight to deny I'd ever had at least until I was injured – a little.
“Yes. A between-space. When you live at one of these, either metaphorically or actually, you are more likely to experience the Other. Because this is where Order and Chaos reside, where the War is fought most locally – but it is also where the Wheel is turning, the cycle of Creation most active. Let me explain.
“For a tavernmaster at a crossroads, literally anything is possible. His day, as much as he can master it with routine – cleaning, cooking, entertaining – is one of limitless possibility. At any moment, anyone can walk through his door. And that anyone, as Abraham learned under his trees in Mamre, can be a man – or it can be a god – or it can be anything in between.
“There is death in this place. Failure. Miserable feelings of incomprehensible insignificance. Again, metaphorically and actually. Most who Observe the Other, who Interact with It, with whom Contact is made, run from it. Before the Call. Overwhelmed by it, they refuse the Choice which is offered to them – the choice to see Reality as it is or as they perceived it before their Observation. Or they are consumed by the process – driven mad, to acts of unimaginable violence.”
I can feel Peitho in her new silence, I know she wants me to be thinking about Pepin. But I'm not. I'm thinking about— I 'm think about stories you hear like the modern Amityville legend. That family was not the first to experience what they did – not by a longshot. Numerous are the stories of families who, in isolation for whatever reason, have been suddenly and horribly killed.
“Or the choice they make is to kill themselves.” Peitho snears. “But if Contact is made and you learn to see the signs of its speaking, you can converse with the Cosmos – without the aid of medicines. I know you know this because I know your Teacher. He—“ she says this more 'heh', like she had begun to say her, but turned it into a thinking noise; even dragging it out til she suddenly says a different initial phoneme entirely: “The Archi, he would not leave you so ignorant.”
She holds up a hand and her features soften with an indulgent, slow blink of her eyes. “Please. I see the protest you form. Do not waste your words. Respect me enough to believe that I know things which, while uncomfortable for you, perhaps are the Truth as we both know it. The Master might have allowed you to believe that Magick is a bunch of stories and exaggerated little fictions from lying deceivers who profit off the ignorant. But he wouldn't have not taught you how to do it.”
“To profit off the ignorant?”
S – Does she really know the Master? That doesn't seem like him at—
“Of course not. To work magick.”
I laugh a little. “I was led very strongly to believe that magick does not exist. It's not real. It's made up.”
“Were you? What of your alchemy?”
“Alchemy is philosophy, not magick.” Duh.
“Would someone who did not know how your Draig worked think they were the product of natural, chemical processes, or would they think they were magick? Exactly. To the ignorant, any Craft becomes witchcraft. How was this wall built? How was this street laid down? To the people today, the Romans were themselves Giants – a people who came Before with knowledge and skills which have been lost, but whose evidence forms the natural world around us.”
“Who's being contradictory now?” I laugh – or stop myself from. Laughing might shake my balance.
Peitho looks over at me with an unamused squint.
“We make peoples of the past Giants. We discover their remains, and we make them into Giants. Rather than learning their methods, making them men and women like you and me—“ and at this, she makes a face I can't read, a face like a flinch of unintentional irony. “They are made into giants, myths, monsters. Their creations must have been made by mysterious means. This is the gap in which magick lies. A sufficiently skilled craftsman can make the wizard indistinguishable from the magician. A lost civilization of them must have been great sorcerers indeed.”
I think of the Ether in my jacket – now piled up on the grass.
And then of the aeolipile of either Hero of Alexandria or Vitruvius – or someone else altogether whose name has been lost to the sands of time. The aeolipile, for what it's worth, is a kind of steam turbine. The ones which were actually used were too small and didn't generate enough energy to power things like cars or flying machines – but they could make some pretty impressive things happen with doors and statues in temples – exactly the kinds of things you'd want, were you an ancient priest and you needed it to seem like your gods was active in the world.
Exactly the kind of artifice which could make a magician out of anyone.
“The metaphorical liminal life is one— “ Peitho starts again, then stops herself. “Even for the liminal person – right, the—“
“Person at the Crossroads,” I finish for her.
“Right. The liminal person still lives in an Ordered cosmos, for the most part. The days are still the same length, the years pass after the same number of weeks, et cetera, in nature – but also in the wider aspects of their lives. They often still have a family. If not a family, they likely live in a society, a civilization. Often it is being at the fringes of these things which cause and are concurrent with their liminal existence.
“But all of these things are Ordered, right? They're all aspects of Order. In fact, were they to move their lives closer to the center of that Order, the experiences of the Liminal state will slowly fade until they vanish – to be all but forgotten – entirely. The same could be said of the Chaotic existence—“
“But existence at all within Chaos is the Order.”
“...Right.
“Contact is when Order and Chaos in their multivarious aspects reach into your Singularity. Often Chaos is first.”
“Makes sense. Most don't exist within the Ordered bubble of Chaos.”
“No. Most do not. But Order calls on those who will hear. That is the way of the Cosmos – to speak in a language which will be heard and understood by it's Children.”
“Hmm,” I sort of groan.
“How long does it take for this turmoil to end? It depends. For some, it never does. They never emerge from the liminal space. Contact is made, but they never achieve mastery. I've said this – or as much. But Mastery is not the goal of every Seeker. Indeed, not all who Observe, Interact, or make Contact with the Other are Seekers. This is the biggest reason it is forbidden to look at all – why children are taught to close their eyes and ignore bumps in the night.
“More than this, though – I would suggest that all of the Masters since the Third Age have refused Mastery and died either denying the Secret of the Other, of the Cosmos, or in agony to bear witness to the torture which is the Path to Ascent. But that feels like a flawed projection to me. For every person whom you have heard of with a skill, there are countless times – orders of magnitudes – more with it.
“You learn your Craft in the confusion of the post-liminal space. There is an... energy in this place. Call it by whatever name you like. It is an immaterial thing, and so long as it has given you a name to know it by and you do know it, then the word does not matter.”
As she's saying this, I almost expect to feel that energy she describes tingling along my body, filling my hands as in slow motion I strike an imaginary target. But no. I feel nothing in particular.
“Call it a nonsense sound if you like. It is this, this... aspect if you like, of the Light – the Source – this leakage of the stuff which is made when Order and Chaos touch but only briefly— This is what will either bring you to the next place, lift you up to Mastery, or destroy you and everything you covet.”
She says this at the same time as the slow-motion killing finisher of the routine we have been doing. I do not know whether this is intentional. I do know that the punctuation, for all it takes a number of seconds to land and is, in that way, the difference in a pin-drop and an explosion, is effective.
“You learn to harness it,” she continues, moving into the next form – and speeding up, if I'm not mistaken. “To use it. To choose and choose well. And then there will come a moment wherein It will show itself to you - the Light. Perhaps even one of the Entities themselves. They will have been putting their Ideals in your path all this time. No doubt you will have communicated with many of them – perhaps from both sides, if you have found yourself in the Liminal Space with the intention of choosing but without a predetermination of which side. What happens next depends upon your preparedness. As I said – magick is not knowing how to hold onto the Light without burning your hands – it is holding it in your hands at all times and using it without burning yourself. It may. The Knowing may burn a hole in you. It may consume you entirely – kill you or leave you a shell, a husk. Whatever the case, you will have a Power. What you do with it is up to you.
“This is the Call. The stages before are a time of Chaos and confusion. But they are nothing when compared with The Call. After the Call— Leaving the Singularity to merge with and put your own form of Order upon the Chaos of the eternal Cosmos is the first creative act. It is the explosion into being of the Cosmos. It is the transition from fear to terror, the illumination of some of the dark and the realization of the true depth of one's insignificance.”
“Spoken like a cultist,” I say. I don't mean it as anything but an observation; definitely not a dismissal. But dismissively is how it is said.
“You say this like it is a bad thing. Why are you this way? What is the difference in a cult and a religion?”
“There isn't one – not really. I mean, I guess it's a matter of scale? I didn't mean—“
“You didn't listen. You think that you know what it means to be a part of a religion, what it is to go through cult ceremony, because you have participated in, been initiated into, so many. But you were initiated as an Outsider – a Pilgrim – a Tourist. You are initiated tonight and tomorrow sent away. You think that hearing about a people and visiting them is to know them, is the same as being one of them?”
Peitho does not so much as make a single error in her motions – she doesn't speed up, makes no erratic movements – her heart rate doesn't even seem to be accelerating as she berates me.
“Arrogant boy. You were taught the first steps of how many mystery schools, cults, and religions? Why? So you could claim mastery over them? Idiot. To show you all the ways to the top that were available to you. To inspire you to find your own. I'm surprised you were allowed to leave. Are you really a novice – less than a novice, an unpracticed adult novitiate?”
“You having second thoughts?” I ask.
My eyebrow is cocked, and I'm half-smiling – because I was joking. But Peitho does not see the humor. I should stop hoping that she might.
S – One of these days.
R – You're only planning on being with her for two more of them.
“I am not having second thoughts. I knew— No. I am learning that you are less prepared for this than I was led to believe. Or perhaps you have regressed in your skill and belief – can you regress in knowledge? Have you forgotten things which might save us? There is no way to know – and there is not time. There is not time for me to discover what you have learned, what you can already do. And there is not time to teach you anew.”
Peitho drops herself out of whatever form she was in with a sigh, swinging her hands in wide arcs at her hips.
“Robert—“ She looks at me. Her body glistens with sweat in the rosy light of the rising dawn. But her face is disappointed. “You let me speak like you are listening to me. And then you dismiss me so easily, as though you have heard nothing of what I have said.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“I see your face. Listen to me. You are unattached to anything, so I understand that it is difficult for you to hear what I am saying and not scoff it off as something you don't want to try. Your life— I can't imagine what it was like for you, growing up at the Master's side...”
She puts her hand on my elbow.
“No. You can't.” I agree, looking at her from the corner of my eye.
“You're right. And I won't try. But I can understand never wanting to go back to that – having to do the same things, day in and day out.” Her eyes press against mine, and I can feel her meaning as much as see it in her eyes.
“You don't want to go back,” I say, my voice somewhere between a breath and a declaration..
Her eyes look away from me in response, down at the grass somewhere at my side.
“I have a feeling—“ she starts, then stops. She looks back up at me. Whatever girlish insecurity I had seen for just a second is gone, replaced with the straight-mouthed, bellicose determination which seems to be her default. “Before we reach Pavia, you should speak with the Goddess again.”
I look at her. “Why?”
“You will not want to be too long from her information. Not now that you have access to it.”
Sometimes—
S – Sometimes I think she knows I have her Figurine.
R – You think that's a trap?
“Yeah, no— I get that. Why is that?”
“Because it changes by the moment.”
“You don't really know what you're saying, Peitho. What you mean is that you want me to look into the future?”
“I don't know what I'm saying,” Peitho pahs.
“Is it?”
“Yes. Of course it is.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. Her hair is pushed back enough that I can almost get a good look at her cleavage. Almost, that is, if I were willing to risk looking.
“Yeah, that isn't really how it— But I understand what you mean. What do you think I need her to show me?”
“I do not think you need Her to show you anything.”
“Then why—“
“Because,” she cuts me off, her voice and face obviously filled with growing irritation. “Have you not been listening to me? You are in a liminal place. Ever since I— But of course your life was liminal long before I killed Francis, wasn't it?”
Her face, when she says this, is not her face from last night. This is not the “I'm sorry I killed your friend” Peitho from last night. This Peitho is smiling, grinning, almost. And I do not like the way her outside incisors seem... sharp – like fangs. Fangs I have to be imagining – fangs which I don't like imagining are the right space apart to fit in the gaping, lurid holes in Francis's neck.
Nor the evident pleasure in her too-big eyes.
“Life is the void which is spanned by Zoroaster's Bridge. The Ordered Life is that Bridge. It's taking the Path laid out before you by others. The narrowness of that Bridge is how you choose to take the Ordered Path – Good versus Evil, right? But the life of Mastery, the Magick Life, is choosing your own way.”
I feel, looking at her as she stands just a few feet away from me, like we should be having this conversation in the heart of a tornado or something. There should be some great calamity happening, some climactic event where she has to shout this at me, holding out her hand as I or she is pulled away and I have a choice to make – take her hand... or don't, to cataclysmic effect.
But we aren't. And she isn't. Or, if she is holding out her hand, I don't notice it.
“Don't you mean the Chaotic Life?” I ask.
“Do I?” she asks. “Either way, you have a choice to make. It wouldn't do to make it hastily. Now – get dressed and try to look like we haven't been back here fucking all night, all right? I'll wake up Ted.”
* * * *
Somehow she gets dressed first. Don't ask me how she got the vest back on – I didn't watch her take it off, and it seemed even weirder to watch her dress – especially after refusing to watch her un-. And then she just kind of leaves. I watch her go. Not in that I hate to see you leave but love to watch you go kind of way, either. Well – not entirely, I guess. Hard not to look at Peitho that way.
And when I find myself thinking that she likes it – that, in fact, she wants it that way – I'm not sure I'm not wrong.
You can't ever know another's mind – and never a woman's—
I think she just likes me confused.
R – She spends the last of the night to talk to you about magick and Between Spaces, about the appeals of Chaos and the terrors of Order – and you do not think that keeping you confused regarding her is not intentional?
S – I never thought that. I—
I – Might be stupid.
R – Would prefer to think that. We know.
S – And how is it not stupid to think that she's working some kind of magick on me? And don't start with me that that's what women do – work magick on men. That's the basest – meanest – interpretation of what it is to be a woman I can imagine.
I – Is she not?
R – And what if she is?
I hate it when the Voices agree on anything – and, anway, Tedoro is up and it's time to leave.
Tabling that argument for another time, I check that everything is in its proper place – including but not limited to Peitho's Figurine – and get moving toward the carriage.
Two more days, but only one more night.
Would I be able to make it to Pavia without dreaming of Pepin killing someone? I was about to find out – but something told me it was about to get much more difficult to refuse.
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