| “I’ll say again, we should simply follow and trust in the light three — the luminous Gaíl, Miché and Jesthí. They will make themselves known to us when the time is right...” |
The second orator cut in, wagging a long finger in front of his straggly beard, which was green, like his austere regalia —
| “No, no, no! No! We simply cannot wait for help, not even for the light three. We have no way of knowing who or what or where they are, so we must take arms against the dark evil of Lúez, Túra and Sílb ourselves — no matter what!” |
The third, a quadruped of tarnished brass, purred with calculated elegance —
“I’m sorry, but our focus should truly stay on the light three — they are sublime immortals, reborn time and time again, often unaware themselves until later in their lives. They deserve our trust and support and...” | “No, no, no! It’s the insecurity of the shapeshifting dark three that need our attention. They are here, among us — now! These beasts have lived since the beginning, but they can be killed. It is our duty to seek them out and cut them down.” | “My corporeal colleagues, time and again time, allow their fleshy substance to be infected by emotion. We have run highly effective diagnostics of the Epic, from which we can compute that the light three and the dark three all contain elements of both Ephaïl and Déhath. This is a simple, conclusive truth based on the perfect facts with which we have been programmed. Yet it is us — we machines — that are constantly accused of perceiving only absolutes. I emit to you now — even a rudimentary task-based terminal can decipher what they cannot, these fleshy weaklings and their — ha...ha, ha ha — their ‘Way of the Perpetually Confused’.” |
The argument continued crackling around them, to murmurs of concurrence and disapproval. Shen looked back nervously — the SYS-soldiers were spreading through the forum, but not towards the Religious Quarter. Suddenly he flared up in brightly overjoyed colour, and jumped about. His top button flicked open. Kai looked at him, partly in fear, partly in confusion. Shen, seeing Kai’s look, and the glares from those around him, quickly wrested himself cool again.
“Don’t worry,” he said to Kai, “We’re safe now. This is the Religious Quarter — people only ever look for themselves here!”
Shen turned silent and looked aside, then, as he scrutinised the words he had just heard himself say, he swelled up again into a bright flurry of colourfully proud chortles, as though he had just invented humour, interrupting the orators, and drawing looks from the audience; many were looking at him through narrowed eyes, as though they could not decide whether to reprimand or revere him. Shen looked around, and shrank away from the gazing, glaring eyes, shyly buttoning up his coat with a whispered, “Sorry.” Quickly losing interest, everyone turned back to the orators. Shen regained his colour and began pacing around Kai, shouldering his way past annoyed spectators as he went.
“Oh, Salvator!” he cried, “Look all around you, my good, good friend — a thousand colours of Elucian. I’ve been looking, looking for as long as I can remember, for the colour to suit me best!” He stopped and looked around, various hues shimmering across his face as myriad life forms and religions filled his eyes, before he sighed distractedly, “For as long as I can remember, indeed.”
Shen’s gaze fell; his attention seeped away. The crowd murmured around his dimming silence. The sun dipped behind the massive temple, cooling all in grey, and Shen looked up sharply, as though he had been prodded back from slumber.
“So many searching souls here,” he continued, then twisted back his glistening neck to look up at the huge temple, “And all of them in the protective, tolerant, nurturing shadow of the official cult — the Elucian Way.”
Next chapter — The Shadow of the Way
Sunday 16 January 2011
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