The fear made him sit up, casting off his blanket. Dark winds, the restless inhabitants of the dormitory, blew about his head. He shivered.
With a kind of exultation matching the exultation he had experienced on entering Reek long ago, he whispered aloud, “I don’t believe, I believe nothing.”
Power over others he believed. He saw it in action every day. But that was purely human. Perhaps he had actually ceased to believe in other than human oppression during that ritual in State, when men had allowed a hated phagor to bite the words from young Naab’s throat. Perhaps Naab’s words might still triumph, and the priests reform themselves until their lives held meaning. Words, priests—they were actual. It was Akha that was nothing.
Into the moving dark be whispered the words, “Akba, you are nothing!”
He did not die, and the winds still rustled in his hair.
He jumped up and ran. Fingers unwinding the wall-scroll, he ran and ran until he was exhausted, and his fingertips raw. He turned back, panting. Power he wanted, not subjection.
The war in his mind was stilled. He returned to his blanket. Tomorrow, he would act. No more priests.
Dozing, he started up once again. He was back on a frozen hillside. His father had left him, taken by the phagors, and he flung his father’s spear contemptuously into a bush. He recalled it, recalled the movement of his arm, the hiss of the spear as it embedded itself among the tattered branches, the knife-sharp air in his lungs.
Why did he suddenly recollect that insignificant detail?
Since he had no powers of self-analysis, the question remained unanswered as he drifted into sleep.
The morrow was the last day of his interrogation of Usilk, interrogations were permitted for only six days consecutively, then the victim was allowed to rest. Rules in this respect were strict, and the militia kept a suspicious eye on the priesthood in all these matters.
Usilk had said nothing useful, and was unresponsive alike to beating and cajolery.
He stood before Yuli, who was seated on an inquisitorial chair carved elaborately from a solid chunk of timber; it served to emphasise the difference between the state of the two men, Yuli outwardly at ease, Usilk half-starved, ragged, shoulders bowed, face wan and without expression.
“We know that you were approached by men who threaten the security of Pannoval. All we wish is their names and then you can go free, back to Vakk”
“I did not know them. It was a word in the crowd.”
Both question and answer had become conventional.
Yuli rose from his chair and walked round the prisoner, giving no sign of his emotions.
“Usilk, listen. I feel no enmity for you. I respect your parents, as I told you. This is our last session together. We shall not meet again, and you will certainly die in this miserable place, for no reason.”
“I have my reasons, monk.”
Yuli was surprised. He had expected no response. He lowered his voice.
“We all have reasons… . I will put my life in your hands. I am unfit to be a priest, Usilk. I was born in the white wilderness under the skies far to the north of Pannoval, and to the wilderness I wish to return. I will take you with me, I will help you to escape. That’s true speaking.”
Usilk raised his gaze to Yuli’s. “Scumb off, monk. That trickery won’t work on me.”
“It’s true speaking. How can I prove it? You wish me to blaspheme against the god to whom I made my vows? You think I can say these things lightly? Pannoval has shaped me, yet something in my inner nature makes me rebel against it and its institutions. They bring shelter and content to the multitude, but not to me, not even in the favoured role of priest. Why not, I cannot say, except that it is how I am made… .”
He choked back his flow of words.
“I’ll be practical. I can get a spare monk’s cassock for you. When we go from this cell later, I will help you slip into the Holies and we will escape together.”