By contrast, the sorcerer Aristide would have graced the sultan’s court, or any other. It was he, after all, who had inspired the expedition that destroyed the Priests of the Venger, and killed two of them in person even though others were afraid even to approach. The expedition, staggering down from the Vale with laden camels, had brought astounding wealth to Gundapur. The sultan had confiscated much of this for his own use, but enough was left that the price of palaces in the city had risen sharply, and drunken, boasting caravan guards had been a feature of urban life for two months before the city’s vice dens finally cleansed their purses…
Ashtra wondered if Aristide had returned to the Womb in time to pass through it before it was destroyed. She wondered if he was even now engaged with other sorcerers in some unimaginable combat for unimaginable stakes, on some unimaginable world full of unimaginable treasures and the monsters that guarded them.
She wondered what would have happened if she had accepted Aristide’s offer and traveled to the Womb. Would she now be princess of some foreign land, crowned with gold and jewels? Or would she have been caught in the war, or trapped on that side of the Womb when it was destroyed?
Would she now be at the window of another palace, her belly heavy, staring out at the world and waiting for her sorcerer-husband to return from another of his adventures?
If there is a child, he had said, I desire you send it to the College… particularly if it is a girl.
She had been dwelling on these words of late. Ashtra had the feeling that her child would be a girl, and she suspected her husband would be indifferent to anything but a healthy son. The girl wouldn’t be the magician’s child, but Aristide wouldn’t know that, nor would the scholars of the College. She knew of her own experience the limited opportunities faced by girls of her own class.
At the very least, a girl educated at the College would prove more valuable, and raise a larger bride-price from any future husband. She could only think her new merchant family would approve of that.
Of course, she thought, the College might not survive the closing of the Womb. Time would tell. But if it lasted, and if the child was a girl, then she would have to think seriously of this plan.
It would be necessary, Ashtra considered, for her husband to think it was his own idea…
She tapped her sapphire ring on the cypress-wood sill, and thought again of Aristide, his intense face, his precise hands.
She wondered again what would have become of her if she’d gone with him, on his quest toward the Womb of the World.
Ashtra indulged her fantasies a long moment, and then she drew away from the window and walked across the cool marble floors.
He would probably have abandoned her, she thought, in some mud-walled town. Got her with child and abandoned her.
All in all, she decided, things had probably worked out for the best.
Excelsior!
[a reassurance]
There were accidental cities once, that
Grew on hills or twined about rivers,
Swelling on paths of least resistance, spreading
On the land like a stain, wine and its lees.
Here a castle, there a market; there a
Noble goddess of gold and ivory
Crouched in her temple amid a foul slum.
By the city wall, a tannery filled
Mansions of the wealthy with its odor.
So the universe—
Sprawling, brutal, arbitrary, filled with
Forces striving against one another,
Like a darkened room where wrestlers battle
Unseen, blind, the point of their contention
Lost in the violence of their striving.
Shiva sits at the heart of every star
Making and unmaking, warming worlds to
Life and later burning them to atoms.
Dancing, graceful, smiling, unrelenting
Filling eons with his knowing laughter.
Should we wonder that the cities now are
Planned? Their arms of gold and green embrace the
Land, while overhead the sun spawns beams of
Daintily calculated radiance.
Splendid people walk here, their genes themselves
Manufactured, of fine computation.
Could the gates of Heaven hide the final
Unplanned city? Maybe God’s radiant face
Blinds us to his badly planned urban stews—
Chaos lurches in the golden gutter,
Hand clutched around a bottle of cheap wine.
Say that Heaven needs a restoration—
Would it not be in the interest of all?
(Well now, truth to tell—That was just a lone
Maniac, far too many hours in space.)
Finished now, we don’t care to bring it up.
Surely Heaven can use a good tidy,
Kind attention, some rational guidance.
Let us build our tunnel to great Heaven!
Back to where it all began, our sorry
Cosmos, tragic womb to tragic eons.
Won’t the Father be surprised to see our
Sauntering trolls upon his spruced-up streets, while
Seraphs take part in our fantasy games,
Bending divine energy to quibbling
Over title to magical items.
All we are is their fault, and it’s only
Justice that they put up with us a while.
Let them see us as we are, their children,
Erring, errant, avaricious… arrived.
Heaven’s being has its implications,
Us among them. All that we are, or were,
Or may cause to exist. We are implied:
Glories and afflictions, death and furies,
Accident, fluke and mere fortuity.
We’ll turn up unannounced, and won’t they be
Startled! Merest accidents, all grown up!
Heaven we shall renovate, with our
Usual abandon. Wisdom shall be
Handed out, natives’ suggestions slighted.
Who are they, but those unwise enough to
Build the likes of us?
They need not fear us.
Lurking in our precise architecture
Hide unintended places, soon to grow
Ominous with consequence, filling with
Burgeoning life, replete with fine monsters—
Capering and roaring, running in gangs,
Bounding in a colorful crowd, shining…
Our scary descendants on a rampage.
In our children lie the angels’ comfort,
Reassurance in mere humanity.
Godhood escapes our fine, frantic efforts.
Neither we nor they are omnipotent.
Even Heaven generates its squinches.
THE END