Chapter 1: Descending the Stair
Seven thousand feet above a drowsy world, basking in the summer sun, a cool breeze buffeted the spire of the Worm Tower, sending tiny vibrations humming through it, forming a single lonely note.
Tull Genet, the Tcho-Pwi, the no people, born half human and half Neanderthal, lay motionless on the smooth glass surface, seemingly pressed against the vault of heaven. His Neanderthal foster brother, Ayuvah hovered over him, eyes wide with wonder.
“You are a Spirit Walker!” Ayuvah shouted, grabbing Tull’s face. There was such surprise in Ayuvah’s face that his eyes could not have grown wider, his jaw could not have dropped further.
Tull had always been nothing, a no one. For a long moment, he could not quite untangle the words.
Tull’s sight dimmed, as if he would lose consciousness, and then he felt as if something inside him snapped, as if some part of him had been yanked a great distance only to land here on the tower.
He felt an overwhelming sense of peace, as is he were sitting beside a warm hearth, instead of lying her near Craal, at the edge of doom. The tower of Benbow glass, green as moss, felt cold and hard beneath him, and the sun, yellow again, seemed pitifully diminished after the silver and violet flame of his vision, did little to warm him. His mouth felt dry, his tongue leaden.
“Where did you go?” Ayuvah asked. “Did you walk the paths of the future?”
“I … flew toward the sun,” Tull said, working hard to shape the words. In only moments, it seemed, he had nearly forgotten how to speak. “But I heard you calling to me. So I came back.”
Phylomon frowned more deeply, rubbed his forehead with his hand. “Can you stand?”
“No,” Tull said, quite certain. All of his muscles felt mushy, uncoordinated. His spirit had left his body. Of that he felt sure, but in doing so he had broken connections with his flesh. He had left only for moments, but now he almost felt that he needed to relearn simple things.
Yet while I was gone, Tull realized, I learned more than I ever thought I could know.
It wasn’t that he was wiser. He couldn’t state categorically what he had learned. That the universe is large? That life is a journey, and in traveling hard roads, we become strong?
No, Tull could not quite name what he had learned.
Phylomon sighed. “Do you think you can walk in a bit?”
Tull considered. Obviously the other two could not carry him.
Ayuvah grinned widely. “Father says, that the shorter the walk, the quicker he can reattach to his body. But he says that it requires thought. It is like the little fingers on an anemone, reaching over and exploring, grasping so softly.”
Yes, Tull thought. He reached out with his spirit, with those tubules of light, and grasped at his flesh. He could feel it happening, but sensed no immediate change.
“Give me … few minutes,” Tull mouthed.
Phylomon reached for his water flask, took a sip, and slowly poured the rest for Tull. “The journey down is much easier,” he said. “We won’t need to hurry so much. Let’s sit. Tell us when you are ready for travel. That is, if you can walk at all.”
Tull nodded slightly. He lay still. Sweat streamed off him, and he was gasping like a landed fish. The long run to the top of the tower had left him exhausted. Yet as a he lay there, he could feel himself reconnecting. He had been climbing all day, yet he felt no physical sensation, no stiffness or pain. Everything he touched seemed dim, unreal.
He remembered Chaa after his Spirit Walks, and how he had just lain still. Tull now understood why.
The sensations in his body returned slowly; it took nearly an hour before he could feel his arms and hands. It was cool on top of this tower, and as the sun began to drop it would only get colder.
Tull climbed shakily to his feet. “Let’s get moving.”
The three descended slowly at first. Ayuvah held Tull’s shoulder to make sure that he didn’t fall. After a few minutes, Tull broke Ayuvah’s grip and tottered down under his own power.
After another half an hour, Phylomon suggested, “If you are up to it, we should hurry. We don’t want to get stranded on the stairs in the darkness.”
Tull was a Tcho-Pwi, taller than most Neanderthals, but with a Neanderthal’s broad muscles. He prided himself on this strength.
So they ran.
Down, down the crystal stair, the shadows lengthening on the plains below them. The clouds flowed past them, and as they ran through one, ice crystals tingled on Tull’s flesh. They were still 5000 feet above the ground, and they raced earth again, spinning, pausing only once to rest.
As they neared the bottom of the Worm Tower, stretching shadows on the hills caused new pictures to form on the ground. The doubled image of a man and a woman, the man selling her into slavery, drawing the figure eight upon her palm. Yet there was a subtle change from the image Tull had seen that morning, and it took a moment for Tull to notice it. The man and woman did not smile in either image. It was as if the artist Huron was trying to show a new way to view the relationship.
Instead, she stared at him in resentment while he frowned at her in cold anger. It was the same with all of the figures that began to appear—each image had become distorted, filled with pain and hopelessness. Tull realized that the downward spiral was the easier path, and he could see that one’s direction in life colored all of one’s perceptions. Yet the shadows remain but illusions, he realized. Actions might be the same, but perceptions changed.
Though the journey was easier on his legs, Tull’s feet became wet again with sweat. His mind reeled from running continuous circles, and he struggled to concentrate on always turning, stepping, turning. He plummeted beyond the families of beasts and beggars, beyond the world of thieves and businessmen, down to a crater where a man and woman engaged in bestial sex. Written in shadows upon the back of the woman’s hand was a single word Death.
The sun abruptly set, and Tull found himself running in darkness, into a black hole with no end.
He reached the landing, and because he was heading down, because he was running eternally down, his legs buckled beneath him and he fell into the ashes from the fire that Phylomon had set the night before.
For minutes Tull lay panting in the darkness, choking on soot, too dizzy to move any longer. He felt himself sinking, falling, forever into darkness.
Phylomon felt uneasy that night as he worked the cramps out of his legs beside a glowing fire. While Tull and Ayuvah practiced with sword and spear, the power of their blows, the frantic energy of their struggle, left him depressed.
Both of them were improving. With a few years of training, either one of them could fight display battles in Craal’s best arenas. He thought, If they are ever taken slave, arena fighting might not be such a bad life for them. With luck, they could live long enough to become trainers themselves.
But there was so much more to life. Phylomon would much prefer death to life in slavery, even a decent life in slavery.
Such dark thoughts left him in a foul mood. The day had not gone as it should have. The Worm Tower was supposed to be a teaching tool, but Phylomon wasn’t sure what Tull had learned.
Phylomon had asked him, and Tull had just shook his head, as if he couldn’t say.
There was defeat in Tull’s eyes. He had been beaten mercilessly as a child, left limping and crippled. But it wasn’t the boy’s physical condition that worried Phylomon, in was his emotional
You are a foolish old man, Phylomon told himself.
Though Tull expressed amazement at what he’d seen, he had ultimately come away baffled. Phylomon had hoped for more—to give the boy some direction, some initiative.
Somehow … Phylomon wanted the boy to become enlightened.
Tull was such a child. Couldn’t he see that the kings, the merchants, the great teachers, inventors, and artists of his generation were already alive, and Tull was among them? If Chaa could be believed, then Tull was destined for greatness.
Yet the boy had lain in the ashes at the bottom of the stairs, choking on defeat.
At dinner, Tull had found Wisteria still weak, but awake. He spoon-fed her and caressed her hair, and he spoke encouragingly about his run up the tower.
He then said something that intrigued Phylomon. Tull told his wife, “The tower is not a work of art, I’ve realized. It is the journey that one takes, that is the true work of art. Life is art, and we must sculpt ourselves to live it well.”
Phylomon suspected that the boy didn’t understand the import of those words. How could he? He was only nineteen.
Phylomon had lived a thousand years longer, had borne so much pain and grief, that he wondered if Tull could ever understand that always, in the face of pain and despair, learning to live and be happy was the greatest art of all. So much care and precision needed to be taken, so much balance had to be maintained.
Worst of all, Phylomon thought, the boy is a damned Spirit Walker.
He had not considered the possibility of such a thing, but here it was—a half-breed who was a Spirit Walker. Such powers, like the powers of the Dwea of old, had always been reserved only for the Pwi.
But over the past six hundred years, Phylomon had watched the blood lines mix, human and Neanderthals mating over and over again. So many humans who believed that their blood was pure would be ashamed to see how many Pwi ancestors they had.
A new species was emerging, Phylomon decided, something neither human nor Pwi. Only sixty years ago Phylomon had run across an unusual Pwi, a Dicton, a woman who carried two extra chromosomes that contained a dictionary of the English language. For generations, that characteristic had marked only a pure human heritage. Now, here was a Tcho-Pwi Spirit Walker.
Would the boy become subverted by the teachings of some damned Pwi shaman? Would he reject a technological future? Phylomon considered.
Tull had the potential to become a Spirit Walker, but he would need help, training. If Tull could be trained to become a Spirit Walker, he might become a great general. A human general would find it difficult to outmaneuver a Spirit Walker on the field of battle. Was that what Chaa had foreseen for Tull? And if Tull became enamored with his powers, with his magic, would he feel threatened by a technological future? Would he reject it?
Phylomon respected the psychic abilities of the Pwi, but how could those powers compare to technology? The Spirit Walkers could see the future, but technology would create that future. The Spirit Walkers could project their consciousness over great distances, even to other worlds. But technology would carry their children to those places.
Magic blinded them. What they took for power was a trap, instead. The Spirit Walkers could not enlarge their people’s understanding of the universe, heal the sick, or extend life. Only the Starfarers had accomplished these things. If only Tull could be made to see that!
Slowly, like the opening of a morning lily at the rising sun, Phylomon realized Tull could be made to see.
In the city of Sanctum, beneath the ancient flagstones that passed for streets, Phylomon hid a secret. Falhalloran, the ancient vehicle of the Starfarers, was perhaps the most powerful artifact on Anee. Falhalloran could demonstrate to Tull the power of the Starfarers. It would be dangerous to show Tull the power of the artifact, he realized. Too much power could fall into the wrong hands. But Chaa had said, “Do not fear to teach him your secrets.”
Phylomon weighed the risks. He had decided to die when he set foot on this journey. Perhaps it was too late to go back. Ah, to see Falhalloran one last time! Phylomon’s cramps made him feel old. Yes, he thought, it is time to pass my secret on.
***