39 - The crucial question

I’ve forgotten to mention that Surya worked my aura to speed the healing of the wound, each morning and night. I had never thought of him as a healer of the body, but of course he was. “Body, mind and spirit are all one,” he said when I mentioned it. “You gain a much deeper understanding of that when you can see auras.”

He’d done it the night we’d got drunk, though I hadn’t noticed; drunkenness neither hindered nor enhanced his abilities, apparently. He’d even done it in the air, while I was on one double-wing and he on another. “I just project my spirit,” he told me when I asked him how that was possible. “You’re a sorcerer,” I said, which just made him grin and shake his head. I couldn’t disbelieve him though, because I could tell when he was doing it. I’d feel exactly the same sensations as when he did it sitting next to my bed—a fast easing of the wound-pain, a very deep peace and a kind of smoothness inside. The night treatment was usually what put me to sleep.

So it was no doubt to his credit that when I got back to Arko, Kaninjer was surprised to find me much further along in healing than he’d expected, when he’d told me he’d forbid me to fly to Yeola-e at all if I let him. (And I knew, of course, he’d prohibit such a deep indulgence in what Haians term ‘self-induced alcohol poisoning’. Surya and I made a pact not to mention that to him).

Kan had thought he’d have to keep me off work entirely for another eight-day; instead he allowed me half-days, which he defined as five aer, except the first, on which I talked him into letting me go longer because much of the work was mindless, signing and sealing the stack of documents needing signature and seals that had piled up while I’d been gone.

Kallijas, Minis and I agreed that we’d announce his candidacy the next day, and I invited the writers in the morning Marble Palace notice, saying only that I was amending my endorsement, which would ensure that even the tiniest spawn-press scribblers would be there. Since I could be in the Imperial Chamber and even in bed while the three of us prepared, I could pass it off to Kaninjer as conversation rather than work, at least if Minis stuffed the notes he was taking under the bedclothes when my Haian came in, which he did handily.

That evening, Surya not only worked my aura for wound-healing but decided I was up to, and needful of, a short session. Of course he asked me first what I felt. I’d got used to that enough by this time that he wouldn’t have me sit and drink ezethra for it, but just ask me as I came in, and I’d tell him while I was stripping to lie on the table.

The moment we’d arrived home, incidentally, Krero had told Surya, “You’ve moved into the Marble Palace. As of now.” There was no request for permission in this, of either him or me. “Everyone in the world, and that includes every fame-seeking would-be assassin, grudge-nursing relative and foreign plot-monger, now knows that your survival,” Krero said, pointing at me, “rests with you,” pointing at Surya. “Thus, healer, you’re now in my jurisdiction. Sell the house, rent it out, as you will, but the sooner you get all your things into the rooms Skorsas has set up for you—we’ll help!—the better.”

I don’t think Krero thought for a moment of Surya’s other clients. The rooms were in the Imperial section, the most secure; Krero’s policy was that if he didn’t know you, you had to accede to a truth-drugging even to come in, and Krero wouldn’t let Surya set up an office elsewhere in the Palace. Some of Surya’s clients agreed to be truth-drugged, but he lost about half, either because they wouldn’t or because he felt they shouldn’t due to their mental states. He was going to go back to Yeola-e when I did anyway, which was perhaps three months away, so he gradually referred the remaining ones to other healers, and notified his landlord. At least he would not have to pay for rent or food, and when I wrote to Assembly telling them that having me as a client had cost him all his others, they voted to pay him a stipend in compensation until he could practice again in Yeola-e.

So, that first session after we were back in Arko, in his healing room set up complete with the blue-and-purple quilted table and the cloth with the mandala against a gold-filigree Marble Palace ceiling, he asked me how I felt.

The first shock of the world knowing had eased, and the horror was numbed by all the good wishes I had received, but I knew the mark was on me and always would be. Someone would probably grab my arm if I stepped close to a cliff-edge for the rest of my life. More than anything, I dreaded the Committee, which I’d have to face as soon as I got home. By their mandate, they could delve into any and every part of my life, examine every pain I’d ever suffered, speak to anyone who knew me well; there were so many awful possibilities I didn’t know where to start. “What you don’t see yet is that they are going to be your healers too,” Surya said.

“I guess I am not being entirely truthful,” I said. “That is really what I think. What I feel is still about four-fifths disbelief.”

“Everything is going as it should, however much it doesn’t seem like it. Deep breath, now, close your eyes.”

I’d got better at going into trance, too. “Think of the death-in-you,” he said when I was there. “See it as if it were standing before you. See what it looks like.”

I thought fear would break me out of the state, but I still saw it. It looked, instantly and without effort, like the human-shaped Shininao of my dream; in a moment he’d reach out his hand toward my mouth. Even feeling sweat break out all over, though, I somehow kept him in sight. “Make the white line,” Surya said, his voice all around and through me. “Imagine you can speak to him. If you could tell him something, what would it be?”

“Get out of me,” I said, knowing it was what Surya would say was the correct answer.

“A good thing to tell him, though it was maybe about three in a hundred sincere,” he said. “No matter, you’ll get there. If you could ask him a question, what would it be?”

That took thinking, and he just waited patiently, laying his hand on my chest as he’d sometimes do to wordlessly remind me to keep breathing deep. Finally I came out with, “Why must I die young?”

“Ehh,” said Surya, “not a good thing to ask him, I’ll explain why afterwards. Think of another.”

Again it took time; what to ask… that? “Who… are you?”

“A false question,” said Surya. “You know who he is. Another.”

“Wh…what are you?” I whispered. I thought I was grasping at straws, but Surya said, “That’s a little better.”

Now I was at an utter loss; I lay for a good half-tenth with him patiently waiting, and couldn’t think of one more question. “That’s all right,” he said when I told him so. “There’s reason, which I’ll explain; let him go and come up out of it.” Shininao dissipated in front of me and I sat up on the table.

“I can see in your aura how much you’ve managed to dislodge him so far,” he said. “But it’s good to test as well; for one thing, it will make it clear to you. You’ll see what I mean. It can be measured by—well, first, you were capable of seeing him before you, outside yourself. When you first came to me, you couldn’t have done that.” Thinking back, remembering how I had thought then, I had to agree.

“It can be measured, second, by what you think to say to him. ‘Why must I die young’ is the last thing you want to ask him, because he’ll answer. He’ll articulately give all the reasons that you’ve lived with believing, persuade you again of their truth and so take you backwards. ‘What are you’ was better because it touches, albeit barely, on the one question that is absolutely crucial to ask him… or, more exactly, yourself. You couldn’t think of it in trance, because he is still too much in you; care to try, out of it?”

I swallowed my immediate answer: No; I take up hard challenges, not impossible ones. And of course I took a deep breath. ‘What are you’ touches barely on it… absolutely crucial… “I’ll give you another hint,” he said, after a while. “This is the one question, and the only question, that the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee would ask him, if they could.”

I buried my face in my hands. ‘What are you’ is close, crucial, the Committee… No amount of all-out effort by the famously-brilliant mind of Chevenga was any use. He patted my shoulder. “It’s all right; this is where you are now. Don’t insult yourself. To think of that question you must have a stronger conception of him as separate from you than you do, yet, but that will change.” I probably don’t need to say he didn’t tell me what the crucial question was.




--