She could hear the walls' murmur, faint in her minds' ear. This new sense Jordan Mason had given to the world was like dreaming while awake. She could order these stones to change their color, texture, even to become warm. She could talk to trees and animals, even the air itself.
Everywhere is sacred; we are all divine. No more could a man justify power or wealth by claiming he needed it to protect his people from material want. The elements were enemies no longer. It hadn't happened yet, but Galas knew that soon, this fact would throw into sharp relief the true colors of every tyrant in the world. New wars and revolutions would follow, but they would be different from those that had occurred in the past. Only men would do the killing now; neither starvation nor exposure would kill those dispossessed of their homes. And very quickly the refugees, who would have been powerless in the wilderness in past ages, would realize they were dependent on the conquerors for nothing. They would make new political pacts, this time with the Winds.
And so the world would fall into chaos, Galas thought, but this time men would have to think of new excuses for getting their fellows to follow them. The arrangement Mason had made with Thalience was clear: the Winds regarded humanity as a treasured companion but not a master. One might command the meek mecha in the walls, but no one commanded the Winds. From now until the end of time, they and humans would share responsibility for Ventus, and neither side would let the other harm their world.
This situation was just. It was everything she had ever dreamed of. It also made rulership irrelevant for Galas—and that, too, was just.
Someone knocked on the door as she was hauling the abbot's old desk from its old position to a better one. "Come in!" She drew a hand through her tangled hair and smiled as Armiger entered.
He was dressed in traveler's clothes again, fresh ones that still looked a bit stiff on him. His face had regained its fleshly colors; the Archipelago had required that he be stripped of his nanotechnological core. He was only a man now, albeit one with memories of being a god.
"My dear friend," she said. "How do you like my new palace?"
"Everywhere you are, is a palace." He laughed at the sour expression she shot back. He too seemed transformed, these days. He was even able to joke. "So you're really staying here?" he asked, sending an appraising look around the narrow room. "The Winds are building new Manses; you could move into one of those, without having to feel you'd taken it from anybody."
"This is all I need." She went to him, and took his hand. "What about you? Have you decided what you need?"
"No." He shrugged. "I don't yet know who I am, I suppose."
"Welcome to humanity, Armiger," she said wryly. "Let me tell you a secret: you will never know who you are."
He shook his head. "Am I human, really? I think I was once, centuries ago. And then after 3340 died, I became human again... when I met Megan. Now that she's gone, am I still? I don't know."
"You are more than ever, Armiger. That is her gift to you. Don't squander it."
"Gift..." He nodded. "The part of her I can keep. Yet I don't know what to do with it."
"Just be, my friend. Learn to simply be."
He shook his head, but not in denial. "And you? Have you given up everything you were to become a nun in a cell? I can hardly believe it."
"It is necessary." She looked around at the narrow space. "I am too ambitious by far. And rulership is addictive. Something new is needed for the great of soul to do, and I wish to learn what that thing is. Consider this cell to be a self-imposed discipline."
He nodded. "But you will soon have no country to rule, anyway."
She smiled ruefully. "Ah, Armiger. I am Mad Galas—I have ever been, and so I shall ever be. What do I care for mere nations? I set my sights higher the instant I was born. So what if I'm just a mortal—no wiser, no smarter? In all the trillions of people in your vast universe, I bet there is no one like me.
"I have to admit to a new temptation. Now that my world is free, Ventus needs a philosopher to protect it against new threats. The greatest, in the long run, is the 'tyranny of condescension' you told me rules everywhere else. Of course, that may not take hold for centuries; we are still an uneducated and rural people. Right now, I worry about who will replace kings and generals as the wielders of power over men. I very much fear that it will be religious fanatics of one sort or another. They will have to use words to compel, because to use naked force without justification is now to reveal your desire for power too clearly. The people will need to have other words with which to combat these ambitious preachers. Being the philosopher to give them their new weapons would seem to be a worthy enough ambition for me."
She sighed. "But I will not commit pen to paper yet. I may never be able to. How could I advise people about how to live, when I don't yet know what it means to merely be a woman, like any other?"
She gestured dismissively. "Help me move this table."
When they had it placed to her satisfaction (by the window) Galas walked to a trunk she'd just had brought in and took out two copper goblets and a bottle of cheap wine that one of the monks had been caught hoarding. She drew two chairs over to the table, and sat at one.
"Come, sit with me for a while," she said as she poured. "And let's gossip to each other about the affairs of men and Winds—and forget gods and philosophers."
Armiger laughed, and took the offered wine.
Snow was falling like some herald of mystery on the day Jordan finally reached his home. White were the distant hills, and white the sky into which their outlines faded. The forest, strong and brooding in summer, was now a delicate thatch of bare trunks, brown and empty. The air was still, clear and fresh; Jordan's face was teased by settling flakes. For hours now the world had seemed very far away, like a half-recovered memory. If he chose to listen with all his senses, he could hear the mecha in the snowflakes singing their questions and speculations—am I a feather? —am I air?—and in deeper and broader distances, the faint chorus-voices of the Winds who worked to heal the wounds they had inflicted on Ventus in their frenzy to destroy Armiger. Jordan had no desire to listen to them; he spent the hours drinking in the silence and the beauty of the innocent snow. His companions too were silent.
As they crossed the border into Castor's lands, Jordan found his serene mood waning. Here were the same signs of human upheaval that they had seen elsewhere on their journey. Violence seemed rare, but they passed an entire village that was empty, another where the inhabitants peeked out from behind boarded up doors and windows. Once, they came upon the abandoned clothing of a man and a woman, lying by the road. Even the shoes were there. Bare footprints led away into the maze of the forest.
Much of the country was paralyzed. The more orthodox folk could not cope with the sudden presence of the Winds in their daily lives. They were cracking under the change, some slowly, others immediately.
Jordan was afraid of how his parents, so delicate in their fears, had reacted to the change. Would he arrive home to find an empty house-or a burnt one? And would Emmy be waiting? Or, free spirit that she was, had she run into the woods like so many others?
About mid-afternoon he suddenly recognized a stand of trees in the distance, and then he knew exactly where he was, and everything in sight became at once familiar and strange.
He stood in the stirrups and said, "There. Beyond those trees."
The town had gone to winter's rest under a blanket of white. Smoke rose lazily from the chimneys, and tentative sounds began to emerge as they reached the outskirts: the barking of a dog, lowing of cattle, the limpid clarity of a distant clanging bell. A few human figures moved down the street, their footfalls inaudible in the snow. There were no signs of violence. The only indication here of the great change that had come over the world was that two of the figures seemed to be talking to themselves. Everyone looked like that, these days, as they conversed with the Winds.