Sheri Tepper - Grass

“I’m not sure,” she said.

The angel in the doorway spoke impatiently. “The very small being is working on mercy, Sir. And justice. And guilt.”

“Mercy? And justice? Interesting concepts. Almost worthy of direct creation rather than letting them evolve. I wouldn’t waste my time on guilt. Still, I have confidence you’ll all work your way through the permutations to the proper ends…”

“I don’t have much confidence,” she said. “A lot of what I’ve been taught isn’t making sense.”

“That’s the nature of teaching. Something happens, and intelligence first apprehends it, then makes up a rule about it, then tries to pass the rule along. Very small beings invariably operate in that way. However, by the time the information is passed on, new things are happening that the old rule doesn’t fit. Eventually intelligence learns to stop making rules and understand the flow.”

“I was told that the eternal verities—”

“Like what?” God laughed. “If there were any, I should know! I have created a universe based on change, and a very small being speaks to me of eternal verities!”

“I didn’t mean to offend. It’s just, if there are no verities, how do we know what’s true?”

“You don’t offend. I don’t create things that are offensive to me. As for truth, what’s true is what’s written. Every created thing bears my intention written in it. Rocks. Stars. Very small beings. Everything only runs one way naturally, the way I meant it to. The trouble is that very small beings write books that contradict the rocks, then say I wrote the books and the rocks are lies.” He laughed. The universe trembled. “They invent rules of behavior that even angels can’t obey, and they say I thought them up. Pride of authorship.” He chuckled.

“They say, ‘Oh, these words are eternal, so God must have written them.’”

“Your Awesomeness,” said the angel from the door. “Your meeting to review the Arbai failure—”

“Ah, tsk,” said God. “Now there’s an example. I failed completely with that one. Tried something new, but they were too good to do any good, you know?”

“I’ve been told that’s what you want,” she said. “For us to be good!”

He patted her on the shoulder. “Too good is good for nothing. A chisel has to have an edge, my dear. Otherwise it simply stirs things around without ever cutting through to causes and realities…”

“Your Awesomeness,” the angel said again, testily. “Very small being, you’re keeping God from his work.”

“Remember,” said God, “While it is true I did not know that you believe your name is Marjorie, I do know who you really are…”

“Marjorie,” the angel said.

“My God, Marjorie!” The hand on her shoulder shook her even more impatiently.

“Father James,” she moaned, unsurprised. She was lying on her back, staring up at the sun-smeared foliage above her.

“I thought he’d killed you.”

“He talked to me. He told me—”

“I thought that damned climber had killed you!”

She sat up. Her head hurt. She felt a sense of wrongness, of removal.

“You must have hit your head.”

She remembered the confrontation on the platform, the railing. “Did that young man hit me?”

“He knocked you over the railing. You fell.”

“Where is he? Where are they?”

“One of the foxen has them backed into an Arbai house. He came down out of the trees just as you fell, snarling like a thunderstorm. He’s right out there in the open, but I still can’t see him. Two of the others came with him. They carried me down to you.”

She struggled to her feet, using a bulky root to pull herself up, staring in disbelief at the platform high above. “Falling all that way should have killed me.”

“You dropped onto a springy branch. Then you slipped off that onto another one, lower down, and then finally fell into that pile of grass and brush,” he said, pointing it out. “Like failing on a great mattress. Your guardian angel was watching out for you.”

“How do we get back up?” she asked, not at all believing in guardian angels.

He pointed again. Two of the foxen waited beside the tree. Vague forms without edges; corporate intentions and foci, patterns in her mind.

“Did they help with the men?” she asked.

He shook his head. “The one up there didn’t need help.”

She stood looking at the two for a long moment, thinking it out. Dizziness overwhelmed her and she sagged against the tree, muttering “Rocks. Stars. Very small beings.”

“You don’t sound like yourself,” he said.

“I’m not,” she replied, managing to smile, her recent vision replaying itself in her mind. “Have you ever seen God, Father?”

The question distressed him. Her eyes were wide, staring, glassy. “I think you had a bit of concussion. You may even have a fracture, Marjorie…”

“Maybe I’ve had a religious experience. An insight. People have them.”

He could not argue with that, though he knew Father Sandoval would have. In Father Sandoval’s opinion, religious experiences were something Old Catholics should eschew in the interest of balance and moderation. Once matters of faith had been firmly decided, religious experiences just confused people. Father James was less certain. He let Marjorie lean upon him as they staggered a few steps to the waiting foxen. One of them picked her up and carried her upward along slanting branches and scarcely visible vines to the plaza high above. She could feel foxen all about her, a weight of them in her mind, a thunder of thought, a tidal susurrus, like vast dragon-breathing in darkness.

“Good Lord,” she whispered. “Where did they all come from?”

“They were already here,” said Mainoa. “Watching us from the trees. They just came closer. Marjorie, are you all right?”

“She’s not all right,” fretted Father James. “She’s talking strangely. Her eyes don’t look right…”

“I’m fine,” she said absently, trying to stare at the assembled multitude, knowing it for multitude, but unable to distinguish the parts. “Why are they here?”

Brother Mainoa looked up at her, frowning in concentration. “They’re trying to find something out. I don’t know what it is.”

A foxen bulk completely blocked the door. Marjorie received a clear picture of two human figures being dropped from a high branch. She drew a line across it. In the crowd behind her there was approval and disapproval. The picture changed to one of the two men being released. She drew a line across that as well. More approval and disapproval. Argument, obviously. The foxen did not agree on what ought to be done.

Her legs wobbled under her and she staggered. “Rillibee hasn’t come back?

Brother Mainoa shook his head. “No. His voice went off that way.” He pointed.

She approached the door of the house. The two climbers, their hands and feet tightly tied, glared back at her.

“Who sent you to kill Brother Mainoa?” she asked.

The two looked at one another. One shook his head. The other, Steeplehands, said sulkily, “Shoethai, actually. But the orders came from Elder Brother Fuasoi. He said Mainoa was a backslider.”

She rubbed at the pain in her forehead. “Why did he think so?”

“Shoethai said it was some book of Mainoa’s. Some book from the Arbai city.”

“My journal,” said Brother Mainoa. “I’m afraid I was careless. I must have left the new one where it could be found. We were in such a hurry to leave—”

“What were you writing about, Brother?” Marjorie asked.

“About the plague, and the Arbai, and the whole riddle.”

“Ah,” she said, turning back to the prisoners. “You, ah… Long Bridge. You intended to rape me, you and the others, didn’t you?”