17 - Digression: the sword of Saint Mother

Before I recount what happened at the Shae-Tyucheral's, I'll tell the story with which every Yeoli’s story truly begins, and which explains where that sword that hangs from chains in the anteroom of the School of the Sword came from.

Once upon a time in the nation of Iyesi, there was a sect called the Athyel, who believed in no god but the God-in-Ourselves, and that humanity by nature is free. When the King 14^th Jopal had risen to power, he sent his warriors to kill all who would not abandon their own creed and pledge themselves to his. Nine days the streets of the city Iyesinya ran with blood and the sky shone with flame, and all who were not killed fled into exile or hiding.

One teacher in an Athyi school gathered together those students whose parents had been killed, and fled away with them into the mountains. Although they soon were tired and hungry, and some of the children were lost or eaten by wild animals, she barely let them rest as much as they needed, and at each choice of ways chose one without pausing, though she didn’t know which way to go.

One day, near the end of their strength, they came to a deep, wide valley. On the shore of a lake they found a woman fishing. The teacher fell on her knees and begged her aid.

The woman embraced the teacher, and all the children, and said, “Many years ago, the knowledge came to me that Athyi children would flee to this place, driven from Iyesi. So I prepared for you as best I could: my house is large, you see, the garden wide and the herd-animals many. My name is Yeola. Come in! All this is yours.”

So they went in and ate their fill from the great pot of stew which hung waiting, then lay down on the many mats and under the many blankets, while she tended their hurts with Haian medicines she had in plenty.

“Yeola, our saviour,” the teacher said, “we could never thank you enough. But I had no idea which way to go, and every time our way forked, I chose without pausing, so it’s entirely by chance we came here. How could you have known many years ago that we would?”

“Foreknowledge works outside of time,” Yeola answered. “Had chance taken you to the next valley instead, I would have known to wait there. That is hard to understand, I know, for those who don’t have a touch of it themselves; perhaps the best explanation is that the God-in-Me told me.”

The teacher was overjoyed. “You are one of us!”

“Not exactly,” said Yeola. “But I can speak the language of your thought. I believe in none of the Gods as Their priests would have me do, and believe in all of Them as They are. I serve no God, for none has asked it of me; I serve all, because their presence asks, every moment of life. I proselytize for no God, since each is part of the truth as nations are part of the world; but I speak the language of each, so that I may understand all people. To Enchians I would have said my prescience came from the God of their Ancients, to nature-cultists, from the Hermaphrodite, to animists, from the mountain-spirits, to Fire-cultists, from the Twin Hawks. But you happen to be Athyel, so I said it came from the God-in-Myself.

“Well… I thank you for being so considerate as to speak the language of our thought,” the teacher said finally. “But I am curious to know where you believe your foreknowledge of us came from.”

“I believe—I firmly believe—it came from all of Them. Or none. Or me. Or out of the sky. I firmly believe I do not know. Also that I do not care. It came from the world of the unknown, which is wondrous because it is unknown. All the Gods’ names are names for it. Once given, such a name becomes Truth, the name of the Truth a people feel from the unknown. Yours is the God-in-Ourselves, so I said that. Not that it matters a bit anyway; I hope this never ends up in some storybook.” The teacher laughed, and Yeola laughed with her. “You’re here, there’s food and bed, and you may all stay as long as you like, even if that’s permanently.”

So they did. When they were strong enough they began the work of life, on the land, and continued their education from the many ancient books that Yeola-e had. Seek wisdom, she taught them; find the God-in-Yourselves; live by the ultimate law that there is no ultimate law, only our choices. For meanings their native tongue had no words for, they invented new words; for settling their disputes and making their common choices they created new customs.

Years passed, and the children grew up, cleared more land, built houses and had children of their own. Yeola grew old. In their thirtieth year in the valley, as their children were just beginning to have children, Yeola took ill, and it became clear she would soon die.

Around her bed, the people gathered. “My children,” she said, “you think I have shared everything I have with you, but in all honesty I have not. I realize I must, now.

“I could never choose your ways any more than I could think your thoughts. You will choose whether to stay in this valley or go somewhere else, remain Athyel or take up some religion, go on with the customs you’ve invented or return to Iyesian ones. Yet there is one choice I did dearly wish to deny you forever, pretending to myself in my foolishness that this peaceful garden in which we live was the whole world. There was one thing I hid from you. You must choose what has always been the hardest choice. It’s in the chest where I keep my most precious things, at the very bottom.”

At the bottom of the chest, they found a sword.

The sight brought back the most painful memories to those who had fled Iyesi. They saw again in their minds the iron-armoured soldiers of Jopal, the spears and swords blood-drenched, the houses in flames; they heard again the cries of the dying, and smelled again the smoke and the blood.

“Never did I want you to carry, and learn to use, the tools of killing,” Yeola whispered. “But someday those may come here who want to kill you, who have no ears for your words of justice or sense. Someday having it may save your lives, and that choice I cannot deny you. You must choose whether to take it up or not.

“I ask only this: in that same chest is a smaller box. Open it and see what’s inside.” They found a book, of an age beyond thinking. The pages were darkened but the writing still visible, and it made them start and shiver in their hearts. A human hand is unsteady and will leave flaws; this writing was perfect, as could only have been done by a machine.

“I knew Jopal would burn your libraries. So I took this, which the first Athyel collected from the ruins of the Fire. They knew people would start doubting it was human-crafted fire that burned the whole world, for by using such great power that way humanity threw it away, and can no longer imagine having it. So the proof must be preserved. This was written when such weapons existed, and speaks of them.

“The knowledge to make them is lost—but only for now. Do you know what the commonest weapon of war was, five hundred years before the Fire?” She pointed at the sword.

“We won’t have this thing!” one of the people cried. “We’ll throw it in the very deepest part of the lake!” But another clenched his fists and said, “Are you mad? She’s right, someone will come, just as Jopal did. If our parents had all had swords, everything would have been different!” They fell to quarrelling, each side calling the other mad. When they finally made peace, they turned to her sadly and said, “Yeola, we truly see this thing’s two edges.”

“You are forgetting something,” she said. “This is not a good or evil thing, for it does not live. It’s only a piece of steel. Never can it kill, without a living hand wielding it, and bare hands can kill too. What brought the First Fire, and will bring the Second, if there is one, is not weapons or knowledge, but choices made in error. Remember that.”

Yeola died that night. Once again they wept and clung together, and found their strength in each other.

They buried her ashes beside the lake, and all bathed naked in the pure water, to cleanse themselves. In her honour they named the valley in which they lived Yeola-e.

Later we, for we are all Yeolis, came to call her Saint, for having been divine in her humanity, and Mother, for having been mother in spirit to all of us. Her sword, serving as a sign to all and belonging to no one, now hangs in the anteroom of the School of the Sword, for we did choose to take it up.