From: prauda@dol-guldur.hut.fi (Kristiina Prauda)
Subject: Castle: KATHREA'S STORY (PART 6)
Organization: Helsinki University, Finland
Date: 14 Oct 92 22:21:55


									

Later, when we all woke up from the sleep of exhaustion and denial, 
we learned the true amount of the destruction. It was not quite as
total as it had seemed to our horrified eyes, except in the very 
middle of the land, and to the south. The central plain was destroyed, 
altogether featureless, a landscape of true apocalypse. To the south, 
where before the habited lands had gradually melded into immense 
grass plains and deserts, there now rose a new range of mountains - 
sharp, dark, threatening ridges, impassable and terrifying. Luckily
they had shot out of the earth's agony in an area where very few 
people lived. Less lucky was the fact that they had effectively cut 
all the roads to the south, to the central continent.

To the north of the great plain, the earthquake had reached the 
farthest. There were huge rifts, hundreds and hundreds of miles 
long, and sharp spires of mountains between those gorges - much 
higher than the hillocks that had just given violent birth to them. 
One of those gorges was exactly where the Castle of the North used to 
be - the home of my family. They were gone. All my family and friends, 
dead - like all the people in the capital, at the Castle of the King, 
in the villages of the plain and in the Academy of Wizards. The number 
of the dead was uncountable - thousands of thousands and thousands 
again... 

However, there were still areas to the north, between the rifts, 
that were almost unscathed, and there were some survivors there.
Also, to the west, where the plain ended into gradually rising land 
and then to the mountains where we were now, the reverberations had 
not been very strong, and there even some small towns had survived. 
Most of the people who had lived there were still alive: less than 
half of the whole population before the catastrophe, if the survivors 
of the north were counted in. 

My country had been - and still was - surrounded by mountains to the
west and the sea to the east. To the north, there was only the eternal 
cold of the arctic wastes. The main routes of commerce had been through
the dry plains of the south and by the sea; the western mountains had
few passes and they were very high. The newly-created mountains to the 
south had none. Thus, people had no way to go to safer lands for help. 
All the ships were gone with the old coastline. Most of the nobility 
was dead, as were almost all wizards - the explosion had been too fast 
even for them. The best farmlands and storages of food had been on the 
lowlands. The future seemed too bleak to think of, even if one could 
somehow get past the confusion of the moment. 

I do not know why we did not go insane seeing all this. I suspect
that this was because, in a way, we had been insane already, or at 
least dangerously close, and the consequences of the explosion 
shocked us back into some resemblance of sense. Yet our guilt and
sorrow and despair knew no limits. We felt stupefied and helpless, 
still not understanding how this had been possible, and unable to
act in any way. The guilt made us feel apart from everything, as if
we were unfit to live, far more so to act. 

Again, I sought refuge in the house of God. There was a small 
monastery - a nunnery, actually - and church on the highest, most
unreachable slopes of the western mountains: it had been one of the 
smallest and most isolated in the whole country, and nothing that 
happened in the world touched its life much. The nuns were dedicated 
to the contemplation of God and His teachings, and the herding of 
sheep. For the first time in their history, they admitted men in - 
probably because they sensed the hurt and guilt and turmoil in all 
of us, greater than they had ever met in their quiet life. Or perhaps 
they saw that there was no way to separate us. Not then, not after 
that. We were inseparably bound already. 

They offered us their shelter and their meagre but warm hospitality
"for as long as it would be needed", as they said mysteriously. I 
required no housing, though, for I would not leave the church 
itself. Not until God would offer us some way of redemption, some 
direction where to go. For days I kneeled, sat, or lay on the cold 
stone floor, praying when I had the strength, sleeping when I could 
not stay awake, and just existing when I felt I had used up all the 
words and pleas. No-one could persuade me to leave, so somebody 
(most often Soron or Ywarin) brought me food there. I rarely ate 
it, though. 

I am sure they were just as distressed as I was, they just did not
know how to express - certainly not like I did. I think they both
preferred to be alone with their thoughts, so they did not spend
much time in the church with me, except when trying to talk me to
get up and move. But I was adamant. I would not leave until we 
would receive instruction. In this, and only in this, did Ywarin
disagree with me: he was very sceptical about the mere existence
of God, and remained ever so, despite any evidence to the contrary.
Soron did believe, but he, too, thought that my act was silly and
probably futile - he felt I was doing it out of overwhelming grief
more than any real hope of divine instruction. 

The Mother Superior of the nunnery was a small, sweet, angelic old 
woman, and I took an instant liking to her. She came often to be 
with me - just her sitting there had a calming effect on me - and 
I slowly confessed to her everything that had happened. She neither 
condemned or advised, she only listened, and when I was done, she 
did not offer me the customary absolution: she must have seen that 
it would not have convinced me. 

On the fourth day in the monastery she ordered me out of the church. 

"Go out and sit in the sun", she said, coming to meet me after 
the morning service. "God has surely seen your determination and 
penitence by now. You can do no more for yourself or for Him, 
lying around here."

I obeyed her meekly and went to sit on a green mountain meadow where 
the sheep grazed with their newborn lambs, but there was no pleasure 
for me in that. I doubted that anything would ever bring me pleasure
any more. I sat there in the morning light - the sun was still on
this side of the mountains - and as I sat, my head empty of all
thought, the boys came to sit beside me. None of us said anything, 
for there was nothing to say. We sat there silently, me in the
middle, too numb to feel any companionship, even though it was now
evident that there was no talk of anyone leaving any more. It has 
been said that guilt is a powerful force in bringing people together,
and we learned this truth in the most bitter way imaginable.



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