Wonders of a Godless World (8 page)

Sunrise found the orphan still awake. She was in her hut, alone. There was no voice inside her head. The foreigner, after his long unburdening, had fallen silent. Exhausted again, perhaps. Either way, she was glad to have her thoughts to herself. Most unexpectedly, his story had disturbed her.

Oh, at first she had been thrilled. A wonder, he had called her. Capable of doing things no one else, not even
he
, could do. And to hear him say that she could be useful to him, that she could help him—why, it was perfect!

Yes…but was it
too
perfect?

The very acuteness of her happiness gave the orphan pause, and all the doubts she thought she had banished came creeping back. Was it possible that she wanted this too badly? Was there not a starving part of her that had come awake in these last days, ravenous for exactly what the foreigner was offering? To be admired? To be needed? To be better and cleverer than everyone else?

Was it
delusionally
perfect? Could it be that, in her loneliness and deprivation, she was being deceived by madness after all?

Take the foreigner’s tale of surviving the landslide and living all those years since—well,
how
had that happened? What made it possible? How could his foot grow back, or his appearance change? How could he reach into other people’s minds? He had explained none of these things. And maybe he couldn’t. If this was all made up in the orphan’s head, then of course he would have no explanation for his powers, because there
was
no explanation for them. It was a fantasy.

Even the very incident of the landslide. Was there really a far-off valley of stone and ice where, long ago, a mountain had fallen and buried a village? How could she find out? It was the sort of knowledge, she guessed, that might be located in books but that was no use to her. The old doctor might also know, but without speech, how could she even make him understand the question?

There was no way. She was alone with this. If she wanted surety, she would have to find it on her own, her only resources her eyes and ears and the immediate world around her. So, of all the things the foreigner had shown her, was there anything nearby that she could check in person? Something she had not already known, and could not have known, until he had revealed it to her?

She was curled on her bed, staring across the room to the window. Through the glass the upper reaches of the volcano were visible in the dawn, its slopes still mottled with ash, but her eyes were far away, unseeing.

Proof. It was a matter of finding
proof
.

And then suddenly she did see.

She leapt from the bed, went to the window. The mountain! She remembered now. On the day that she had flown with the foreigner, they had soared across the peak, and there, hidden in a crack at the summit, invisible from anywhere else, she had seen a strange little tree. So all she had to do, to prove to herself that
she wasn’t delusional, was climb to the mountaintop and look. If the tree was really there…

Ha. How simple! And why not go right now? What was to stop her? Nothing at all. Grinning to herself—how much better she felt already—she was dressed in a few moments, and then heading through the door.

Outside, it was a warm, hazy morning. A low clatter came from the kitchen, but otherwise the hospital was still asleep. She could be halfway up the mountain before breakfast! Yet she hesitated for an instant, because…well, she didn’t quite know why. She wasn’t breaking any rule. She wasn’t forbidden to leave the grounds. She was an adult, responsible for herself. It was just that she’d never gone anywhere on her own before. But then, she’d never had anywhere to
go
on her own before.

Well, now she did. And it was important. Excited again, the orphan walked along the rear fence, past the vegetable garden, until she came to a large hole in the wire. Ducking through it, she tramped across a strip of wasteland, and then she was in the jungle. There was a path there that climbed through the undergrowth. She took it, and after a short ascent she emerged at a grassy height that overlooked the hospital.

This far the orphan had been before, on picnic outings with the patients and the staff. It was a pleasant spot, with a wide view extending over the jungle to the town, and beyond to the plantations. But today she wasn’t interested in the view. She was interested in the path. From here, it began to climb the mountain proper, leaving the jungle and following a long ridge that thrust down from the volcano’s peak.

That way she had never been. She stared up. It looked an unfriendly route, rocky and bare, and scabrous with ash that had been partially washed away by rain. The slope was steeper than
she remembered, too. So steep that the summit itself was hidden. But the path was still discernible. Indeed, someone had walked on it recently—there were tracks trodden into the ash, climbing away out of sight.

Reassured, the orphan started up, her solid legs pumping steadily, her head bent forward to watch her feet. And at first she felt that she was making good progress, rising swiftly along the path. But gradually the incline steepened, and the last greenery thinned away to ash and rock and brown tufts of grass. The sun lifted above the haze and grew hot. The orphan began to sweat and puff. She hadn’t thought to bring any water, and there was no breeze. She remembered how, in her flight with the foreigner, it had been so deliciously cool when they were drifting above the island. Maybe it would be the same when she reached the summit.

She paused to gaze up. There was no doubt, the mountain was bigger than she had realised. The peak was still hidden by the slope above, and the terrain had grown alarmingly rugged—what had looked from the distance like mere stones were actually waist-high boulders that she had to either skirt or climb over. Turning back, she was surprised to see that now the hospital and the town were hidden too. She was high on the mountain, but staring out she could see only a haze of blue that might have been sky or might have been the far-off ocean, she couldn’t tell which.

Climbing was nothing like flying. There was no freedom of floating above the world. If anything, gasping for breath in the humid air, she felt heavier and more chained to the earth than usual. But she turned and plodded on, and when she looked up again she saw that, at last, the path reached a crest above her. She hurried upwards, but then her spirits toppled as she breasted the rise. Before her the ridge, which from below had seemed to climb all the way to the summit, actually fell away again.

She stared down into a deep ravine cut from the mountainside. Ash lay thick and black about its walls, and its floor was rent by fissures. A pale steam jetted from the ground here and there, hanging like a dirty fog over the stones, and a biting tang assailed her nostrils. She knew where she must be. This was the rift where the eruption had taken place. Only beyond it did the land rise again, springing into rocky cliffs that sheared—straight up, it seemed—towards the final peak, still far above.

The orphan sagged despairingly. Her path had vanished, and even if she made it to the foot of the cliffs, she would never be able to climb them. She had misjudged the mountain entirely, and now it was showing her what a fool she was.

Yes…but even so, was her tree up there?

She studied the summit, half-wreathed in shreds of cloud. Was there a hint of foliage protruding just at the pinnacle, from a hollow in the rock? Maybe. Maybe. But it was so far away. It was impossible to be sure. She had wasted her time. Her face felt flushed with embarrassment. She was worse than a fool. She was slow and stupid and should never have come.

And then suddenly she wasn’t alone.

The tree is there.

Ah. So he had returned from wherever he had been.

I’ve been right here. Watching you.
To her deep annoyance, he sounded amused by her efforts.
I can’t believe you just walked out your door and started to climb this mountain without even a second thought.

If it was so funny, then why didn’t he make it simpler for her—why didn’t he fly her, right now, to the top again?

What would that prove? You know that when we fly, our bodies don’t go with us. And if your body doesn’t actually go to the summit, then whether you see the tree there or not, you still won’t be sure it’s real.

Then how
could
she be sure?

His tone had sobered.
It’s not enough to trust me?

And how she wished that it was, but the doubt persisted. If he was a product of her madness, then this was exactly what he
would
say.

For a time he didn’t answer. The orphan sensed that his mind was roving away from hers, searching for something. Then he was back.
Look.

Her eyes were drawn into the ashen ravine, and she saw a surprising thing. There were people down there, small figures among the confusion of stone.

In fact, they must have been there for some while, because they had set up tents. They were camping. The orphan knew about camping—how people came sometimes to look at the mountain or to climb it. Occasionally a line of them would walk past the hospital on their way, young and foreign and laden with backpacks. But why would anybody want to camp there now, amid the rocks and smoke? And odder still, some of them were dressed in silver suits, with big masks over their heads. They were clambering all about the place, peering into the fissures.

Do you know who they are?

Of course she didn’t know.

They’re vulcanologists. They came here yesterday, because of the eruption. It caught them a little by surprise. This mountain has not been active for hundreds of years. Now everyone is worried—will it erupt again? Right now, in fact, back at the hospital, your friend the old doctor is holding a meeting to discuss new evacuation plans, just in case. How does he get all the inmates out, where does he send them, who will pay for it? Oh, a lot of people are waiting to hear what those scientists down there discover.

Fascinated, the orphan watched the figures. Vulcanologists. So were they like her? Could they read the earth’s vibrations in their bones?

Scorn.
Not them! They need their instruments to do that, and even then they can’t be certain of much. They don’t even know if it’s safe to be up here right now, or if they might get caught in an eruption themselves. But you know, don’t you?

Yes, she knew. She’d known before setting out. The ground had been quiet beneath her feet. There would be no eruption today.

And that gas coming out of the cracks in the ground—what about that? Is it hot? Is it poisonous? Do they need those silver suits?

The orphan blinked. She hadn’t thought about the steam except to note that it was an ugly colour and smelt bad. But now she felt her curiosity bloom. Her inner senses reached forth and she saw, as she had on the day of the eruption, that the mountain was not a single mass of stone, but rather a rough pile of debris, vomited up over ages and jumbled together only loosely. Far below waited the chambers of molten rock that had caused it all. They were in abeyance now, but even so they bubbled and heaved in their prisons, and plumes of gas rose continuously through the earth to emerge from the fissures that riddled the ravine floor.

But no, the steam wasn’t dangerous. Most of its heat had been spent as it rose—warming layers of stone down below until they glowed red. And while the fumes at their deep point of origin would have poisoned anyone who breathed them, they were filtered by the earth as they passed through, leaving behind deposits in a multitude of shapes and colours, yellow and green and purple, like noxious forests in the depths. Beautiful. And deadly. But at the surface, harmless.

The foreigner was laughing.
Oh, you’re wonderful.

The orphan could hardly contain herself. She wanted to tell someone what she knew, to run down to the people in the silver suits and make them understand.

Is this proof then? Is this real?

It had to be real. It had to be. But even now, the doubter in her remained defiant. Had she been down there inside the earth? Had she seen those colours with her own eyes, or tasted the poisons on her own lips? Did she know for absolute certain it wasn’t the madness putting lies and visions into her head?

Very well. If you need to see something with your own eyes, something you could not possibly have known about, then there’s a place I can show you.

Where?

Go back down the path a bit, the way you came.

The orphan hesitated, but there was no way forward in any case. She took a last glance at the peak, then turned away and stumbled down the incline, sending small stones cascading ahead of her. For some time the foreigner did not speak, and the heat grew, and the orphan felt more and more thirsty.

Turn off the path here.

She veered off, skidding sharply down a scree of rubble and ash. Eventually she found herself in high grass. She kept descending, the sun burning on the back of her neck, and then abruptly she plunged into jungle. That was better. It was still hot under the canopy, but there was shade, and the pleasant smell of damp earth.

See, there’s no path. Nothing has led you here but me.

It was true. The orphan could see no sign that anyone had ever been there. She was in a steep-walled gully. And what luck—there was a stream trickling along the gully floor. She fell to her knees and drank handfuls of water, only slightly muddied with ash. The foreigner waited until she was done.

Just a little way now, up the gully.

It was simplest to follow the stream. The gully climbed back towards the mountain, the sides becoming more sheer the further she went, until a darkness loomed ahead of her, and the rocky walls sprang up to meet overhead in an arch.

It was a tunnel. Running away into blackness.

You’ve never seen this before, I know. Neither have those scientists, although they would like to. But you’re the first ever to come here.

The orphan stood on the boundary between daylight and dark, fascinated by the shadows ahead, cool and beckoning. What was this place?