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– Does the Kin have its songs?
– Yes, it does, – Aspity replied, stroking Aglaya's naked shoulder. Her hands, cold and dry like the dead soil, felt familiar. Rough, but not scratchy to the warm skin, exactly like an inquisitor's uniform. It wasn't bad, no. Aglaya wished to feel them as more than a gentle, warm touch around her neck and kisses imbued with deep love or lust. That was too far away from her limits. Too far away from her understanding.
Aspity knows about her desires, so she always gives in to her. She knows everything. And it can be pretty annoying to feel the existence of someone who stands over the chess board – or maybe just looks up from there? – just like you, sometimes. However, her hands give a feeling of… peace. A feeling which doesn't even exist in Aglaya's mind.
"Then what is peace for you?" – the steppe women once asked. And Aglaya couldn't find an answer for a while. Her body was nothing but a machine. For a machine, there were only two words, which existed to describe its condition: "operable" and "inoperable". A perfect and familiar mechanism. An unstoppable working machine with everything's under her control. Ah, she has known it for as long as she can remember. She has known it too long to accept any changes.
That's why she can't let the machine stop working, even now. "Peace in constancy".
That's why they need to keep talking – doesn't matter about what – to not fall asleep after all . To keep the brain working.
– Is it something like local ditties?
– No. Only the townsfolk sing ditties. Children sing them to make their games noisy and then grownups take it as a habit. They all are scared of silence after all...
– Isn't the Kin too?
– No.
– But there are children in it too. They spend time in the Town, don't they?
– Children, the elderly, adults... doesn't matter. They all are the Kin. The Kin doesn't fear the sound of silence like settlers do. We know that this is the only way to sense the truth.
Then they both fell silent. Maybe they ran out of words. Maybe they both felt that they had said enough for this moment and waited for another. Just them, the ticking of the Cathedral clock and thoughts left for now. Silence helps sort out the mess in your head and eventually shows you the one true answer. The machine works better without interferences. It's easier to find the path without rain.
– Rituals, then?
– Yes.
– I heard a lullaby behind the door, in the Termitary.
– A lullaby... is kind of a ritual too. A sign of a deep defense. – then, pauses started appearing between her words and it made Aglaya grow more and more curious.
Her ears were very sensitive to the sound of voice. She could recognise the smallest notes of lie, but not with her. She wasn't like Clara, a strange little girl (or girls?) with an always-changing voice. But hers...
What did it hide?
Did it hide anything?
Of course it did. Everyone's voices... hide the things that stay in the mind. An average person needed about several months to remember the voice and build the connections – why did she remember the word "Lines" first? – or a week at least. But an Inquisitor could do it in a few seconds. However, Aspity's voice involved too many things and they just kept messing with one another from time to time...
It sounded like everything and nothing at the same time. Like the smell of the blooming steppe in September.
– From the Plague?
– Not only from that. From... "zobolon" , everything bad. Those who are asleep are at their most defenseless. Like nestlings without a shell... Aren't they, inquisitor?
– ...
Aglaya looked up to meet with asymmetrical deep eyes. Seemed like they were already waiting for her glance. Everything matched once again. How could she always hit all of the targets? A woman who had never picked up a gun?
– You hit the spot.
– I don't hit. I touch. Here's the difference.
– Another ancient shamanic skill...– replied Aglaya with a deep sigh.
– Maybe it could be called that... It's not a "skill" and I'm not a shaman. I can't teach you, just as you can't… continue me.
– I didn't want to anyway.
Aglaya closed her eyes and turned away clumsily and hardly noticeable, as much as was possible to do lying in Aspity's arms like in twigs of hawthorn. It wasn't like Aspity held her really tight or anything. It wasn't uncomfortable for them either. Something uncomfortable for them has simply never existed in this world. At least, it couldn't be something material.
Aglaya heard a short, raspy chuckle above her head. The soft warm breath stirred up some locks of her hair next to her temple.
– Seems like I hurt your feelings.
– No, you didn't.
"The village idiot once read the Great Inquisitor like an open book, then said that she wasn't good enough for him to teach her to do the same." – her giggling squinted eyes seemed to say. Aglaya felt her ears close to turning red from indignation messed with childish resentment. Or because of the lie she hid behind rolling her eyes and annoyed "Tch".
– Stop speaking nonsense, you're acting like a...
– I can't give you something that I don't own, – A lax smile crossed her skinny face.
– You don't own your own skills?
– As I said before, you're half right...I didn't get it from someone. I didn't learn it by myself...It was born with me, 5 years ago, like my skin or my tongue.
Aspity leaned the back of her head against the wall and looked down, touching her chin.
– Even if I tear out my tongue and sew it to your palate, it will be too weak to take root. It'll crumble into dust and clog up your lungs. Clay isn't a robust material...
– But you're human. You're not made of clay. You're warm, you're breathing.
– You warmed the clay in your hands so it became warm too. The living Earth gave it a piece of itself and it started breathing and bleeding. The Kin, kept within the Earth, gave it the memory of thousands and clay became an Udhar...the box, the arc. You don't have a clear translation... And Menkhu connected my line to others' so "I" was created.
Aglaya remembered that evening. She had almost forgotten this...no, she had tried to convince herself that it was nothing but an illusion of the bloody sunset, the light of wich was passing through her legs... "Through the bones" – Aspity had objected.
It's impossible. "nonsense" – her brain could had screamed. But the Inquisitor had seen a chimera of the dead and the living. Of the past and the present. Had touched the miracle and spoken to the curse. Literally. What should she believe?
And the most important: how to solve the things then? Should it be solved at all? How... to stay alive?
– You're frowning again. Didn't I satisfy your curiosity?
– I'm confused, – Aglaya sighed and closed her eyes. Aspity touched her temple with her cold hand. After her words about clay, it felt a little bit weird. Her fingers were like the mixture of cold morning soil and dusty roots. It felt pleasant to Aglaya's hot head...– I don't...
It was unusually difficult to accept the fact that you can't do something. Especially for someone whose purpose was to be a genius. A child who learned to answer all questions is not skillful enough to answer the silence. That was why it felt so lousy.
– I don't understand. I don't understand anything at all about this Town...For the first time, the great Inquisitor doesn't know how to solve the problem, – Aglaya grinned, – Even you...You are the one I don't understand the most.
Few long seconds of heavy silence had passed before Aspity reached out and touched the rest of the unpleasant truth with her needle hands. Before Aglaya let it happen.
– And I'm not sure if I want to...
– Are you afraid to discover something worse?
– Understanding won't make things less shaky. I got used to being on thin ice. It's... enough for me.
" I don't want to change anything. I don't want to change us. It feels safe and precarious at the same time, as if we were lying on the ice and you were telling me it was fine.
I want to trust you despite us being close to drowning "
Aspity didn't hurry her own tongue, just like she didn't hurry Aglaya's inside mechanism so she could hear its tempo.
– The ground, the Earth... is not the ice, Inquisitor. It's viscous and thick. But not fragile.
– Every time I leave the Stone Yard, I notice this. Thanks.
– You've got improper shoes.
– The steppe's got unwelcoming ground.
They both quieted down for a moment, staring at each other, then started chuckling.
They didn't think about how it was unusual and wrong for both of them. How it was far away from their limits. This town, or maybe the strange, soulless, "dead" Cathedral had the strange feature...to make people cross their limits. Or was it alive in the same strange way as the Earth, who couldn't reach her children hidden inside of buildings but gave these buildings pieces of roots, so they could reach her heart and become a part of her? A part of the miracle? Unnatural, grafted branch...
A heartbeat kept on ticking slowly inside the great machine, in sync with the Cathedral clock. Slowly, like a web, verdure bloomed inside of this mechanism, and slowed down its pulse to sleep by singing a lullaby of roots and leaves. Aspity couldn't sing. No one had ever heard her singing. No one had ever heard the steppe singing.
But Worms, herb-pickers, Menkhus listen to its song for their entire lives. It's far away from the "songs" that we are used to knowing. It's a buzzing of the twyre, a roar of the roots, a whisper of the herbs growing from the depths. This voice sounds hoarse and tired. It sounds out of tune. It sounds like the word of thousands and of a single person at the same time. Someone's speech.
Someone's talk...
Someone's humming.
Someone who's very close and very far away. Too close to move. Too far to serenely dissolve in her embrace.
Hugs have never saved anyone anyway. They have never solved anything. But hearing...no, feeling the vibrations of a voice under the skin as the heartbeat inside a chest makes you feel this illusion of safety – the same that a lone mother, in the Termitary, tried to give. Makes you feel that bond you had lost when you were born...
And that's enough. Inquisitor doesn't need the lullaby. She doesn't need this ghostly safety, hope, feelings which the sound of voice awakes against your will from very deep inside. She needs someone who will hold this deadly rope too. The drowning one always wants to be bound to someone as much as they want for someone to be bound to them too. Someone who will go down with them.
Give me your hand, prettiest one of the Inquisitors. Let me give you the bond you're looking for and sew it in with my song in the lines on your palms. The saving straw in the heap of needles.