[Fic] "Finding Marea: Truth and Change in the Circle of Kemar" -- original story

[edenfalling]

Summary: "Listen, and I will tell you a story. Do not write the story. Writing will freeze it; writing will kill it. Everything always changes; what does not change is dead." A meditation on the nature of truth and faith, refracted through generations of women and stories. Contains implied suicide of historical figures; implied historical (and possibly present) human sacrifice, voluntary and/or involuntary; historical and continuing religious persecution, inter-religious tension, and religiously-inspired violence. Also contains theology. *wry* (16,500 words)

Note: This story is a gift for my friend Cat. It is written nominally in the form of a monograph by a fictional character, but it is a highly non-standard monograph, for reasons which will hopefully become clear within the story itself.

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Finding Marea: Truth and Change in the Circle of Kemar

Harai Inosikae
Sister of the Order of St. Allea, Convent of St. Ithigea
Associate Scholar, College of St. Larach
In the year of the Lord 1186

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"Listen, and I will tell you a story. Do not write the story. Writing will freeze it; writing will kill it. Everything always changes; what does not change is dead."

This is the way formal storytelling begins in the Circle of Kemar. The idea of a deliberately oral culture, in which perfect continuity with the past is regarded as dangerous and undesirable, was nearly unthinkable to me when I first encountered it. Decades later, I still find it difficult to understand why people willingly allow their past to distort.

And yet, the idea of change has a certain power and fascination. People change, the Circle says, and if stories did not change with us, they would no longer hold any meaning. They would not be the same stories. Change keeps them constant.

In one sense, this is true. It is, of course, also nonsense, and many storytellers acknowledge that not all changes are good or useful. Still, the Circle continues to tell stories, and the stories continue to change, subtly, inexorably, down the generations.

"A story is a way to say what can't be said in words alone," one woman told me many years ago. "How can you trap something that delicate in writing, without breath to give it life?" She may have had a point.

So. Here at the end of my life, I have something to say that cannot be said in words alone. Therefore, listen, and I will tell you a story. I write the story, so perhaps it is dead before you read the words, but it is my story and I will tell it as I see fit.

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Laila Tolemeus was born in the year 675, which adds to nine, the number of understanding and answers. It is also the number of endings. She was the daughter of Haramis Tolemeus, the provincial governor of Cesta in the Bannerry Hills, and was therefore of old patrician lineage, the kind of connection eagerly sought by imperial officials. Haramis and his wife had six children; the first five were sons. After Laila was born they had no more children, having produced a daughter to care for them in their later years.

She was left to the care of tutors; they taught her to ride, to sew, to make music, and to manage a household. They also taught her to read, whereupon she taught herself history, literature, mathematics, and all branches of philosophy: natural science, politics, ethics, and theology. And she decided that, far from marrying, bearing children, and offering her husband's home to her father in his age, she would give her life to knowledge and to God.

It seemed to her an obvious decision. She was not beautiful, being short and sturdy with a long, narrow jaw, a slightly crooked nose, and a dour cast to her face. She found her suitors somewhat distressing, as they assumed her to be only too grateful for their attention and willing to set aside her life to obey their whims as the law of God. And she had no particular concern for her parents, since they had never shown much concern for her.

When he learned she had rejected the suit of Arrim Tasca, eldest son of Senator Aemon Tasca and a rising general in his own name, Haramis Tolemeus looked at his daughter with open eyes for the first time. He did not like what he saw. Laila was confined to her rooms until such time as she set aside her books and agreed to marriage. Her brothers and mother supported this decision, or remained silent.

After several months of isolation had failed to change his daughter's mind, Haramis removed her extensive book collection and threatened to burn one a day until she submitted. Eight books later, Laila agreed to consider offers of marriage if her father would let her visit a monastery to seek a blessing and to dispose of her library, which she no longer trusted in his hands.

Had she asked to visit a convent Haramis would, perhaps, have refused, but he could see no possible escape in a monastery. He agreed, and in the spring of the year 694 -- ten, the number of dominion -- Laila rode east from his seat in Gantheum to the abbey of St. Amil at the edge of the riverlands, accompanied by a maid, three legionnaires, and a small wagon heavy with books, which she hoped to preserve from any whims of her future husband.

She came back -- there was no getting around that -- but she left her books with the monks, who, grateful for the doubling of their library, agreed to hold and preserve even the interdicted works. Then Laila invited Arrim Tasca to Gantheum, apologized for spurning him, and asked him to re-extend his suit.

Their marriage was calm and unremarkable. Arrim spent his days with the southeastern legions, maintaining order in Rimaspa, pressuring the mountain kingdoms for tribute, and watching for Jenjani raids from across the Great Mother River. Laila maintained order in his household in Dora, oversaw the servants, and hosted sumptuous dinners for generals, artists, politicians, and the favorites of the three emperors who ruled from the year 694 to the year 719. Arrim returned once or twice a year to pay audience to the emperor and speak with his father. He rarely stayed more than a month.

Over the years, Laila bore two daughters and a son. They interrupted her scholarly habits even more than her duties as a general's wife, but they brought laughter into her life, and she became known among Doran aristocracy for the unusual time and attention she lavished on her children. She named her son Aemon, after his grandfather, and after one of the ten legendary kings of ancient Dora. She named her elder daughter Alaia, meaning 'God's love,' which was the name borne by Miria, Mother of God, before she was purified and chosen to bear the Lord. Laila named her second daughter Marea, meaning 'bitter,' which is also a name from the Holy Land, but one less auspicious in the Book of Days.

It is tempting to read a message into her daughters' names, but anyone who knew the truth is long dead.

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There have been three notable women named Marea. The first to bear the name was Mareah, daughter of Jachal of Zai Inonal. She was the second wife of Ahomaal, and was driven into the desert beyond Ezippah by Ifira, his first wife, who accused her of usurping Ahomaal's affection. The Book of Jisa tells that an angel guided Mareah through the wilderness to haven in the utmost east, where her daughter married a king and spread the word of God along the shores of the Broken Sea. But that book is apocryphal and the people of Tuvia in the east are pagans -- Jenjani sacrificers and Calaean symbolists. If they ever knew God, time has erased that knowledge.

The second to bear the name was St. Marea Imiret of Minrocheh. She was a harlot, afflicted with sores and a wasting sickness, who was kind to the Lord in his wandering years. She offered him water and shelter, thinking him a beggar with less than she herself had. He blessed her for her kindness, whereupon her disease left her. Thereafter she accompanied him on his travels and was said to be as close to him as his disciples. She wept at his funeral.

After the Resurrection, Marea vanishes from the Book of Days. The Book of Marea, which purports to chronicle her journeys bringing the Word to the people of Nalus, is both apocryphal and heretical. The Church teaches that Marea lived with Miria until the latter was taken living into heaven, after which Marea returned to Minrocheh where she lived as a nun, inspiring others to similar virtue and dedication. The convent of St. Marea still stands by the sea at Minrocheh.

The third to bear the name was Marea Shouja of Ochre Varos.

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When Alaia and Marea were married and Aemon was newly installed as an officer in the legions, Laila Tolemeus Tasca visited each of her children one last time, and asked them not to look for her. She ordered her servants to keep the house ready for her husband's return and left a brief note on Arrim's pillow. She had gone to seek truth, she said, and trusted he would be well and consider the children. She thanked him for twenty-five years of marriage -- seven, the number of change, shadowed by eleven for the unknown and the soul -- and wished him peace.

Arrim Tasca read the note a month later, shortly after summer solstice in the year 719. He paid his respects to the emperor as quickly as possible and rode south to Gantheum to speak with his brother-in-law. Doranis Tolemeus sent legionnaires to the abbey of St. Amil, where Laila had left her books twenty-five years before, but she had come and gone and the monks refused the soldiers entrance.

So Laila Tolemeus passed from the records of the Empire and the Church, and into the hands of the Circle of Kemar.

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The Circle of Kemar, vulgarly known as the Horse-cult, appeared during the second century of our Lord and is in many ways a rejection of the Church's moral and cultural philosophy. However, the Circle also appropriates and twists much of the Church's theology, and has a similar evangelical bent.

Though Circle members claim to be the heirs of a much older tradition, reputable scholarship places the Circle's birth in Rimaspa and the southwestern reaches of Jana, where the bloody rites of the Jenjani sacrificers mingled with the theology of the Church and the contemplative, goddess-oriented paganism of the mountain peoples. While the Circle incorporates elements from all three of its parent religions, it is a radical enough departure from them, and so distinctive in its teachings and practices, that claims of a more ancient origin can be disregarded.

The first fundamental teaching of the Circle is the goddess Kemar, Mother of Horses, Lady of the Corn. The second fundamental teaching is sacrifice. The third fundamental teaching is the circle.

Kemar herself seems easy to understand -- a variation of both the earth-mother goddess of the southern pagans, and the savior figures from various mystery-cult traditions that flourished along the Great Mother River from Rimaspa to Minrocheh. She takes the place of God as the creator, and of the Lord and Miria as a comfort to the wretched and afflicted. Like the earth and natural cycles she represents, she does not judge. She simply provides the gift of life, and gathers souls into her embrace after their deaths.

Sacrifice, as understood by the Circle, must be voluntary. It has two forms: sacrifice that lends weight to prayers and rites, and sacrifice that preemptively detaches a person's emotions from the worldly things time will inevitably carry away. Sacrifice reminds practitioners of the world's impermanence and their inability to halt the cycle of time. Of sacrifices, the highest is the sacrifice of a life. Of lives, the ones with most weight are human.

The Circle has not openly sanctioned human sacrifice since the Emperor Aratis IV issued the Decree of Toleration in the year 787 -- four, the number that signifies the world. Nevertheless, rumors persist, and the murder or suicide of Circle converts, whether plausibly linked to their religious convictions or not, can easily spark riots and purges.

The concept of the circle may be unique to Kemar's tradition. In many religions, the circle symbolizes the world, or continuity. In the Circle of Kemar, the circle also symbolizes change. Though a finger moved in a circle returns to a similar position, it does not return to the original position. Time has passed. The sun has moved in the sky. The world has shifted. Therefore, the circle is a gyre. But, say Circle members, in time even spirals curve and return to the source. The end is the beginning, and time turns again.

The Circle of Kemar believes life passes through endless cycles; the world treads a circle with new variations each year, and souls pass from life to death to life in an endless dance. Like life, truth also cycles and changes. To define an absolute, singular truth is to stop the circle, deny the possibility of change. And what does not change is dead.

Change is, perhaps, the heart of the Circle.

But theology plays a limited role in the everyday life of Circle members. The Circle of Kemar is above all a participatory religion, creating a close-knit community of worshippers. This sense of community has been fostered by the centuries the Circle spent underground, suppressed by the Church, by the Empire, and by the rulers of many border kingdoms, until the Decree of Toleration. The stories of those years, of that persecution, bind the Circle together, much as the Book of Days, and the history of the apostles and martyrs, binds the Church.

The Circle of Kemar is built on stories.

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The heart of the Church lies in three cities: Dora, capitol of the Empire and seat of the High Archbishop; Ezippah, where the Lord died for our sins; and Kos, home of the College of St. Larach and the most eminent theologians. The convent of St. Ithigea, while largely dedicated to charity and ministry to the poor of the city, allows nuns to study and teach at the neighboring college, under the supervision of the abbess, the deans, and the archbishop of Kos.

When I began to study the Circle of Kemar, I was fresh from my novitiate and proud of my admission to the college. I chose to study the Circle in order to learn what made it so seductive a temptation from the Church, and so resilient that both the Empire and the archbishops had finally surrendered the fight to stamp it out, or even to confine its adherents to segregated villages and city ghettos. I wanted to understand so I could expose its flaws and bring people back to God.

I put aside my habit and walked to the nearest meetinghouse in Kos -- it stood a cautious mile downriver from the college, at the edge of the harbor district -- hoping to present myself as a potential convert. The meetinghouse seemed to have begun its life as a lumber warehouse, and, despite its whitewashed walls and the intricate, swirling designs painted on the floorboards, it appeared cheap and shabby in comparison to the soaring chapels and cathedrals of the Church.

The door was unbarred, and a group of young men were mopping the floor while two girls lowered the brass ceiling lamps to trim candle wicks. One of the men asked my business with the Circle. When I said that I was curious about their beliefs, and asked if they could direct me to a priestess, he smiled indulgently.

"We don't have clergy. What you want is a storyteller," he said. "You just missed Sister Ifira -- she's gone to the market -- but if you have an hour to spare, you can wait at her house. She'll answer all your questions, and ten you didn't ask as well." He then gave me directions to a shop on the street of the weavers.

The cloth merchant behind the shop counter listened to my explanation, shrugged, and allowed me through the door that connected his business to his home. His wife, he said, would soon be back from the market; I could pour myself a cup of water and wait for her.

The Circle of Kemar has no institutionalized clergy. Until I met Ifira Burosca, the implications had not truly struck me, and I still occasionally find myself stumbling over confounded expectations as I did that afternoon. Ifira herself is fixed in my mind as I first saw her, when she opened her kitchen door: bright cotton skirt swirling around her legs; brass chimes swinging from her ears; vegetables, bread, and a greasy packet of chicken bones weighting her arms; and her two sons squabbling behind her as they carried a bucket of coal for the stove.

To someone whose ideas of clergy were formed by the Church, and by the scholars of Kos in particular, this scene was nearly unthinkable. How could a woman caught up in business and family mediate between the sacred and the profane? How could she manage a religious congregation without dedicating her life solely to her faith?

I asked Ifira those questions. She laughed.

"Kemar doesn't need our faith," she told me. "We give it to her as a sign of love and respect. Kemar wants us to be happy, to live right. We're her children, you see -- she gave us life and gave us the world -- so we try to honor her gifts. If we shut ourselves away from life, what sort of gratitude would that show?

Over the next several months, Ifira invited me to watch Circle rituals: group dances, labyrinth meditations, hand games, candle prayers, marriages, and funerals. She told me about their missionary efforts, which had helped her circle grow from three families to over two hundred people, enough that they had spun off a daughter circle with its own meetinghouse on the other end of the harbor district. And she told me the history of the Circle.

Ifira told me stories.

"What is written is dead; I speak these words, and they live," she said one afternoon as she diced onions in her kitchen. "Now, back when the Circle was young, in the days of the Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus, King Mechved ruled in Ochre Varos. He was a strong king and kept his lands free from the Empire, but he had one great problem. He couldn't keep the six faiths from clashing, and much blood was spilled on the sand.

"Finally he threw up his hands and declared that unless the people could make and keep peace in seven months, he would choose one faith and drive the others from the city. But none of the people could bear to speak with their rivals, so the fighting continued for the seven months. At the end of the seventh month, Mechved called the priests, the storytellers, the sacrificers, the southern pagans, the symbolists, and the Amaalite preachers to his palace, and spoke with them about their faiths. Then he withdrew to his rooms for seven days.

"When he came out again, he spoke this law: the only faith in Ochre Varos would be the Church, and all others were banned. Anyone caught practicing a banned faith must convert, leave, or die. Since the Church was the strongest faith in the city, it seemed to be the least costly way to bring peace to Ochre Varos.

"Now, many people were upset, but so long as they practiced their rites in secret, the king made no great effort to discover them and turn them out. And so the peace was kept, with grumbling, for seven years, until the arrest of Marea Shouja.

"Have you heard of Marea?"

I shook my head.

Ifira shrugged, slicing another onion in half. "Some Church-folk have -- this story speaks to many of us, and we tell it often -- but we try not to remind the priests of what we renounced under the Decree of Toleration.

"Now, Marea was a woman raised in the Church, who found the Circle and Kemar and stepped into the light. She danced one of the Great Rites, to unite her circle in prayer and call Kemar's blessing on the city and the Circle. The Rite was held in secret because of Mechved's law, but that night, Marea's father followed her to the meetinghouse. He heard the drums and the singing, and he ran to tell the priests. Before Marea could finish the Rite, soldiers seized the drums, snatched the knife from her hands, and took her to prison."

Ifira tipped the onions into the soup pot and set a cabbage on her cutting board. "In those days, you see," she said, gesturing with her knife, "anyone who danced a Great Rite was sent on to Kemar, since the dance calls the Goddess into the soul and it can hurt to live without her once she's touched your heart. It also lends weight to the prayers. This is the chief reason Church-folk hated the Circle. They called the Rites an abomination -- as if their Lord hadn't sacrificed himself the same way.

"Now, normally there were three options for someone caught practicing a faith banned in Ochre Varos: convert, leave the city, or die. Marea wouldn't convert -- why should she, since she had carried the Goddess in her soul? She wouldn't leave, because Ochre Varos was her home. And she wanted to die, wanted to complete the Rite and return to Kemar. The priests wanted to stamp out the other faiths, wanted to stop the Rites, even more than they wanted to uphold the law. So they shut Marea up in a convent.

"The nuns cared for her for seven months, always watching her so she couldn't die. They wanted to save her life, you see; they didn't understand about the Goddess in her soul. They also tried to reconvert her to the Church. At the end of every month, the priests examined her, to see if she had turned her back on Kemar.

"Now, after seven months, Mechved had Marea brought to his palace, to ask why she refused to convert or leave -- she was causing unrest in the city and people were grumbling about the laws.

"And Marea said to him, 'I won't convert because the Goddess has lived in me. I won't leave because Ochre Varos is my home and your law is unjust. If you kill me, I welcome death; Kemar has touched my soul and I know she waits for me past the end of this circle.'

"King Mechved put his head in his hands and said, 'Woman, change your mind. The city is restless. If I kill you, knives will be drawn and blood will stain the sand again, but if I leave you in the hands of the Church, nothing will be solved. Convert or accept exile, for the sake of the people.'

"Marea said, 'I won't change my mind. Lock me up or let me die.'

"So the king took her by the arm and led her to his balcony. He waved his hand at the crowd in the street and said, 'Woman, you know what this city is like. My laws keep order here, keep the people alive and at peace. You disrupt that peace. But I'm not God, and I can't control everything. I wash my hands of whatever you might do. Do you understand?'

"Marea bowed to the king and thanked him. And when he left, she kicked her guard aside and jumped from the balcony, plunging to her death from the palace walls.

"Now, Mechved was happy because his problem was solved. The people were happy since they could forget her. The priests grumbled, but since they thought she had gone to fire and torment, they soon forgot as well. But we in the Circle remember Marea, who never faltered, and who won her death from the king of Ochre Varos."

Ifira tipped the heap of sliced cabbage into her pot and set her knife aside. "That's one of my favorite stories," she said. "I always like telling that one."

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When she collected her books from the abbey, Laila Tolemeus had little idea what to do with her newfound freedom. She had no family to support her as a scholar, and she had little remaining desire to join a religious order. Her faith had waned during her marriage, eroded by the venality and imperial aggression of Dora in those days, and she felt no particular respect for a God who allowed his representatives on earth to condone oppression, overlook vice, and ban knowledge.

Her most immediate need was for money, since books do not provide much by way of food or shelter. After traveling southeast into the riverlands for several weeks, she stopped in a farming village near Lake Nacoma, whose priest was semi-literate at best and was attempting to serve several outlying hamlets as well as his main parish. Laila offered to take over his duties as a teacher, accountant, and scribe; he accepted gratefully, and offered her his spare room in return. He also asked her to read from the Book of Days on the Sabbath, since his slow pace had limited him to single verses and extemporized stories to illustrate his homilies.

Several families were surprisingly upset at their children's enthusiasm for Laila's books. Others began to grumble about the Sabbath readings.

"How will learning about mad emperors help us plow our fields?" one man asked when his daughter borrowed a history of the Doran-Corsinni wars and spent an afternoon reading instead of doing laundry and minding her younger brother.

"Why should we care how far away Calaea is?" a woman asked when her son drew a map of the continent on the kitchen wall. "Why don't you teach him something useful instead?"

And one day, after the Sabbath service, Laila heard a small knot of people talking about the Book of Days. "Why don't the stories change anymore?" one weather-beaten man asked. "They're not about us, not when the teacher reads them. Maybe writing is no good, like the Horse-dancers say."

He fell silent as Laila approached. "There's nothing bad about writing," she said, "unless the words you write are already dangerous. All writing does is help people remember. Who are the Horse-dancers?"

"Circle-folk," the man told her, "the ones who follow Kemar instead of the Lord. Three families out by the eastern fields converted last spring when the missionaries came through, and one missionary married Zakal Medaeo's daughter." He hesitated, and then said, "Don't tell the priest -- if nobody tells him, he can pretend not to notice. The Horse-dancers don't cause trouble, and we don't want the archbishop and the legions down here."

"I see," Laila said. "I'll keep silent -- I don't want attention, either." Then she tucked the Book of Days under her arm and returned to the priest's house to think.

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The study of heresies and pagan religions is allowed on the tacit understanding that scholars will refute what they learn. To me, it has always seemed more useful to identify the structure and patterns of a religion and attempt to understand it on its own terms, in order to approach its followers with tact and charity. God loves us; we, who are created in his image, can do no less than try to love each other. Therefore, I look for ideas and practices held in common with the Church -- for elements to use as bridges -- not for theological points to refute.

This approach was not appreciated by my abbess, nor by the deans of the College of St. Larach, nor yet by the archbishop of Kos. I was allowed to continue my study of the Circle, but I suspect this was only because I was unable to distill my thoughts into a paper, and thus unable to present them to my colleagues. My other studies were less fortunate.

In my thirty-second year -- five, the number of humanity, whose shadow, thirteen, warns of misfortune and imbalance -- I attempted to publish a monograph on the recently suppressed Madan Island heretics, who deplored infant baptism, renounced the rules of hierarchical succession, and declared that people should seek God without intermediaries. The archbishop's council censored my manuscript, and I was warned to avoid heretical leanings. Shortly thereafter, I was assigned a year's retreat at the convent of St. Fioline in Peruthy, far from any students I might corrupt. I held my peace and traveled east into the hills.

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Peruthy, a small city compared to Kos, lies on the Erisokos River at the western edge of the Bannerry Hills, and is blessed by plentiful waterfalls, rich coal deposits, and its location on the trade route that connects Kos to the riverlands. It is a manufacturing center, home to sawyers and grain traders rather than scholars, smiths and engineers rather than sculptors. Peruthy produces raw materials that other cities craft into furniture, food, and art. Nevertheless, Peruthy has its own beauty, a beauty of utility and efficiency grafted onto the rambling ruins of ancient fortifications and country estates, and its people are willing to explain their work to a curious stranger.

Peruthy was, at that time, experiencing economic troubles as several coal mines petered out, and religious uncertainty was rampant. The sisters of St. Fioline took every opportunity to remind people of their duty toward the Lord, but their efforts had limited success. I learned of at least four moderately heretical preachers come to prominence within the past decade, whose cults gained new converts monthly, but who had thus far remained below the official notice of the archbishop of Toren and the provincial governor of Cesta. I also learned that the local Circle had split into two factions, which were each gaining converts.

The idea of a doctrinal split in a religion that -- so Ifira Burosca and all Kosian Circle members had assured me -- had no creed, intrigued me. It also seemed to me that documenting internal dissent in the Circle, perhaps with an emphasis on how this turmoil showed the flaws in their beliefs, might help return me to the graces of archbishop, college, and abbess.

Ifira had discovered my vocation on my third visit, and had been indignant at my assumption that she would discriminate against a nun. "You're a child of Kemar as much as anyone else," she had said. "You have more to unlearn, that's all. Doesn't the Church teach you not to lie?"

To avoid a similar confrontation, I decided to approach the Peruthy circles without subterfuge.

The original circle remained largely true to my impressions of Ifira's circle, and was thus not the focus of my attention. They warned me to be wary of the second circle, however, which they called a broken ring; its members followed one woman's vision instead of creating a more egalitarian community.

"She speaks well," a ritual choreographer told me, "and there's no question that the Goddess touched her heart. She has that look people get when Kemar speaks to them or fills their souls. But I think the Mother's light blinded her heart as well as her eyes; she saw the infinite, and now she can't see the world in front of her. What's worse is that she blinds those who listen to her stories." He sketched a figure eight, a common warding sign among the Circle, and shook his head.

Sun-crowned, blessed by lightning, moon-touched, heart-blind, soul-swallower, mad. These were the names they gave to Somae Taucannig, a blind washerwoman turned prophet and demagogue. After meeting her, I understood how her intensity could unsettle people unused to charismatic leaders, but the word I believe describes her best is 'driven.'

Her circle called her Mother Somae, though she was childless and had never married. She had brothers and sisters in abundance, as well as cousins, and her nieces and nephews could almost have been called a tribe. They were miners, and as the coal grew scarce, their money dwindled and their anger grew. No one, however, was angrier than Somae.

She called for intercession from the mayor, the governor, and the emperor. She called for Kemar to touch the mountains and crack the stone open on new seams of coal. She called for the mine owners to pay their workers, and to answer when people asked if they had plans to support their dependents, or if they were preparing to take their profits and flee. She called for the people of Peruthy to turn from an uncaring or non-existent Lord, from the lunacy of the cult preachers, and from the foolish complacence of the other circle.

"Kemar helps those who help themselves," she preached as her circle lit candles and swayed in a prayer dance. "Reach out your hands and bring justice to the earth!" Her open hands stretched toward the crowd, and the dancers snaked past to brush her fingertips.

She had little time to meet with me, but I caught her one evening at the door of her circle's meetinghouse and offered myself as an extra set of hands to guide her steps. She tilted her head, her sightless eyes focused unnervingly on my own, and then nodded. "The Mother provides," she said, and held out her hand, her roughened fingers closing around my own.

Over the next month, as she strode between meetings and dances, between prayers and trips to the mines, Somae told me the history of her city and her people. Once Peruthy had mined iron, until the shallow seams of ore were gone. Then the miners found coal deep underneath the hills and began to sell it to iron foundries, or ship it downriver to Kos. The mine owners lured families from poverty-stricken mountain farms to the mines with promises of easy work and rich pay, until Peruthy grew from a town into a city. For a time the dream of prosperity became reality.

But now the coal seams led into the bowels of the earth and the mines were filled with water and poisoned air. The flood of wealth and promises had slowed to a trickle, and the owners were closing mines though the workers still wanted to brave the shafts, sure that easier seams lay just around the corner or through a narrow wall of stone.

"That's the way of the world," said Somae, standing on the cracked earth at the mouth of an abandoned mine, after leading a prayer dance. "The powerful always step on the poor and the weak -- but," she added, her voice rising with emotion, her arms flung wide to encompass the sky, "everything can change. If we stand together in a circle, our strength can shake the mountains!" The listening miners shouted their agreement.

"Strength is the seed inside Marea's story," Somae mused later that afternoon, as we rode back to Peruthy in an empty coal wagon. "Have you heard it?"

"Yes," I said, "but that's not how the storytellers I know interpret it."

Somae snorted. "And people say I'm blind. Fools." She drew herself upright despite the wagon's jolting sway, and fixed her blank gaze on a point just over my shoulder. "Listen, and I'll tell you the story. It lives in my breath and my voice; it changes and will never die. When King Mechved needed to make peace in Ochre Varos, the priests of the Church had the most power, so their faith won and all others were outlawed. But the Circle can't be broken, and we survived, as we always do. Even in darkness and in secrecy the Circle grew, and people left the empty promises of the Church to step into the light."

"Kemar's light," the driver murmured.

Somae nodded. "Marea Shouja was the daughter of a Church family, but she had eyes to see truth and strength to choose her own way. She stepped into Kemar's light and opened her soul to the Goddess. She danced the Great Rite at equinox, to bring life to the crops and fortune to the people, and Kemar touched her. That sealed her fate. To feel Kemar's light in your soul is a blessing and a curse, for who can see in shadows once you've seen the sun?"

"Only the strong," the driver said, flicking the reins at his horse.

"Only the strong," Somae agreed. "Marea's family betrayed her. They led priests to her circle, to capture Marea before she finished the Rite. The priests made her into an example, to puff up their power and fool the people into believing that the Circle was weak. She was sentenced to life, and watched day and night for seven months, but she never wavered. She held to her faith. She was strong.

"In the end, the king summoned her and ordered her to repent, to convert, to lie. Marea refused. The king took her to a balcony and showed her the city. He told her to think of the people, to think of the chaos that would reign without his laws.

"Marea laughed, and told him, 'The people are stronger than you think, and the Goddess is with us. We'll find our own way to peace without you. Kemar has touched my soul, and you have no power over me.' And she leapt from the balcony, into the light, flying home to our Mother past the end of her circle."

Somae's hand described a graceful arc through the air, and then flew upward with open fingers instead of finishing the descent. "She triumphed. This is our example. This is our memory. This is our strength. Kemar be thanked."

"Mother be with us," the driver responded as we reached the city walls.

"She is," said Mother Somae. "She always is."

---------------
Laila Tolemeus did not accept Kemar immediately. She was attracted to a deity who promised comfort to the oppressed, and whose earthly followers did not make a mockery of that promise, but she found it difficult to let go of the doctrines and beliefs she had followed for over forty years, even if she no longer felt much love for them. She was also uneasy at the Horse-dancers' disdain for the written word, and their acceptance of blood sacrifice. Nevertheless, she spent many evenings talking with Orin Fichona, the Circle missionary who had married into a farming family and settled in the village. He was the same age as her son; the two young men were nothing alike, but Laila enjoyed helping him at his work.

"We don't say writing is evil," Orin told her as he methodically weeded his wife's vegetable garden. "We say it's dangerous -- it tries to deny time, to deny change. Time washes everything away in the end."

"Some things remain, though, some traces to testify to the past. That's what history is," Laila said as she followed him, gathering the uprooted weeds into a wide, shallow basket. "If you don't leave written records, aren't you afraid that the Circle will vanish and be forgotten? Also, how can you know if your stories are true? How can you prove that they really happened? How can you be sure that you follow the same rites as a circle in Minrocheh or Amarida?"

"Why would that matter?" Orin asked. "The rites honor Kemar and gather our hearts so we pray as one -- if they work, it doesn't matter that each circle dances differently. As for your other questions..." He shrugged and tossed a handful of weeds into the basket.

"The Circle will never vanish; we hold the truth in our hearts, but we don't fight change. If we have to move, we move. If we have to hide, we hide. And all the time, we tell the stories so other people can hear the truth. All the stories are true -- we don't need to prove that. Not everything can be proved with words and numbers, anyway. Some truths you have to feel in your soul." Orin surveyed his work, and nodded in satisfaction.

Laila hefted her basket thoughtfully, considering the Church's likely reaction to Orin's rough philosophy. "Perhaps," she said. "But words convince more people."

When the missionaries swung past Lake Nacoma in the spring of the year 720 -- nine, for understanding and endings -- Laila spoke with Orin's parents, Achal and Oria Fichona, and requested to travel with them. She loaded her books into her wagon, reclaimed the mules she'd lent to Orin, and left the village at the tail of the missionary caravan. Laila didn't evangelize, but she danced and sang in rituals; she took her turn at cooking, washing, and other caravan chores; and she studied the theology, rites, and organization of the Circle.

"Why Kemar?" she asked Oria in late summer. "I see the appeal of throwing out the clergy and speaking directly to the infinite. I even understand letting go of things because nothing lasts forever. But why a goddess instead of God? Why Kemar, who only watches, instead of the Lord, who died to save us?"

Oria smiled. "I don't need anyone to save me. I've done nothing wrong, and even if I had, no single man's sacrifice can carry the weight of the whole world. Why should I bow down to a false god if empty promises are all I get in return?"

"The sin in the garden--" Laila began.

"That's not how we tell the story," Oria interrupted. "Seeking knowledge -- seeking truth -- is never wrong. It's what people do with knowledge that's dangerous." She sketched a spiral with one hand, tracing around and around as her finger inched forward across the space between her heart and Laila. "The garden is a lie. The garden denies time, denies change. When Zefaiah and Adin ate the fruit, they joined the world. They began to change. Any god who punishes people just for being born -- just for living -- is a false god."

"And sacrifice?" Laila asked, pushing Oria's hand aside.

"Two reasons," Oria said. "First, nothing is free. Second, nothing is forever. It's hard, it's painful, and it's terrible... but so is life. Besides, we don't kill the unwilling like the Jenjani raiders do, and the Church has no high ground to spit on us, not when they worship a man who sacrificed himself."

By autumn, Laila began to lend her voice to the preaching. She made little headway with farmers, but her ability to quote the Book of Days, and to argue theology with the authority of over three decades' study, made an impression on many village priests.

She continued listening to the missionaries, and began to write their stories in the margins of her books, adding notes with each village until she felt she had all the pieces of each story. Then she rewrote them in the endpapers, in her own voice. She also wrote her understanding of Circle theology, and her attempts to either reconcile it with Church theology or to prove the Church's teachings wrong.

Oria and Achal were bemused. "What will you do with your dead words?" Achal asked when he discovered what she did with her free hours.

Laila shrugged. "I don't know yet," she said, "but someday, this will be important. I feel that in my heart. Perhaps it's Kemar's wish."

Achal looked doubtful, but he told the missionaries not to bother Laila for her habits. Instead, he and Oria welcomed her around their fire at every meal, and clapped and sang as she argued with priests. She asked them not to use her true name outside the caravan, since her husband and brothers might still be searching for her. The missionaries understood her caution.

"We'll call you 'Sister Broken,'" Oria said, "because you break the circle of the stories when you trap them in your books. Just make sure you don't write down where our son lives -- we move, but it's not so easy for him to hide."

Laila agreed. She continued listening and debating, and writing stories, and Sister Broken's name began to spread through the riverlands.

"You're wasted with us," Achal said to Laila after she'd traveled with the missionaries for nearly two years. "You should go to the cities, to bring Kemar's light to the cathedrals and the colleges where the Church teaches lies. Maybe they'll find a use for your dead stories."

Laila thought on that for a long time. When spring began to blossom into summer, Sister Broken turned her wagon away from the caravan and left the riverlands, heading west toward Kos and the College of St. Larach.

---------------
Sixteen years after my time in Peruthy -- the number of cycles and the return to beginnings, shadowed by two, the number of arguments -- a recently ordained monk was brought before the Archbishop's council on charges of heresy and false vocation. He had written a monograph questioning the doctrine that condemns pagans to hell or limbo. Surely, he wrote, if the Lord came among us to take all sin onto himself, if the Lord perfected the law with the teaching of divine love, then those pagans who led otherwise blameless lives -- who worshipped the divine under masks, as it were -- should not burn or suffer eternal separation from God, particularly if no missionaries had yet gone among them to offer them the choice of accepting the Lord.

His name was Brother Enos Harumonos. He named me as the source of his struggle with the creed and law established by the Church after the Lord's sacrifice.

Rather than wait for the council to assign penance, I suggested to my abbess and the deans that I might go on pilgrimage to the abbey of St. Amil, and then further into the riverlands to the shrine of St. Deianora, martyred for her refusal to convert to the heresy of Pomosa, which denied both the divinity of the Lord and the existence of hell. Within the week, I had joined a small company of pilgrims and left Kos, heading upriver and east to the Bannerry Hills.

We circled to avoid Peruthy, which was still in chaos from the coal miners' ill-fated rebellion a decade past, and from the more recent introduction of steam engines to pump water and dead air from the reopened mines. After leaving the main road, we climbed a series of switchbacks that led us to Ganthy, the provincial capitol of Cesta. Despite its political importance, Ganthy was small -- merely a fortified town and castle in a narrow valley near the top of the ridge. The heart of Cesta's economy lay in the lower hills, near Peruthy, and its religious center had long since moved to Toren, Peruthy's sister city on the Erisokos river.

A bad storm trapped us in Ganthy for three nights. I passed the time in the chapel, debating theology with the elderly local priest. When he learned that I taught at the College of St. Larach, he recommended that I stay an extra day or two at the abbey of St. Amil, to properly appreciate the monks' famous library.

"Many people tithe their books to the abbey when they die, or as penance," he said. "Several generations of the Tolemeus family -- they hold Ganthy castle in trust from the emperor -- have given to the abbey, starting with Laila Tolemeus nearly five hundred years ago. She was the mother of Aemon Tasca the Younger, you know, before she vanished."

I agreed to give the abbey library the attention it deserved. This was far from a difficult promise to keep, since the library was everything the priest had said, and more besides. Instead of the typical monastic arrangement of one room and one librarian, the monks of St. Amil had extended their library six times over the centuries, and a cadre of nearly twenty librarians and assistant librarians tended the books and escorted visiting scholars. Initially they frowned on letting me past the first room, but my credentials from the College of St. Larach convinced the head librarian to assign me a young assistant.

I spent a week exploring the library of St. Amil. The monks had collected hundreds of illuminated copies of the Book of Days, in all its various translations, and they had at least one copy of nearly every theological book or treatise I had ever heard of, as well as hundreds whose existence I had never imagined. Their secular philosophy, history, and mathematics sections were equally rich; they owned texts on farming, mining, building, and dozens of useful topics; and their collection of poetry and fiction, though small, was well-chosen. They had books from all quarters of the Empire and from beyond -- from the mountain kingdoms of the south, from Nalus on the northeastern sea, from the southeastern reaches of Tuvia beyond the plains of Jana, and from distant Calaea, on the shores of the Broken Sea beyond the mountains of Accia and the salt deserts.

I recognized at least a hundred titles that I knew had been interdicted and burned in Kos. "How did the abbey acquire dispensation to hold pagan and heretical works?" I asked on my third day.

The assistant librarian shrugged. "So long as we store the dangerous works separately from the approved writings, there's an old precedent for keeping them. It dates to Laila Tolemeus Tasca, who gave us nearly two hundred books when she left the Bannerry Hills to marry Arrim Tasca and live in Dora."

I was growing curious about this woman, Laila Tolemeus, who had owned interdicted books and raised one of the most famous generals in the history of the Empire. "Which books were part of her collection?" I asked. "Are they too delicate to read, or have they been copied?"

The monk was sorry to inform me that those books were no longer in the abbey. "We only copied the holy texts," he said. "As for the others, when Lady Tasca left her husband, she came here and reclaimed her books. Then she vanished."

Perhaps the best way to engage scholars' attention is to place a mystery before us. My attention, far from being on the ostensible purpose of my pilgrimage, was now firmly fixed on Laila Tolemeus, her pagan books, and her inexplicable disappearance. Still, there were no further clues at the abbey, and I had a pilgrimage to complete. I joined the next passing group of travelers -- in high summer, at least one party arrived at the abbey each week -- and set out toward the shrine of St. Deianora and the heart of the riverlands.

---------------
The shrine of St. Deianora stands in the town of Pomosa, which otherwise has little to distinguish it from a hundred other farming communities in the riverlands. The shrine itself lies on a low hill outside the town wall, and three inns sit nearby, just inside the town's main gate. Their food is more expensive than necessary, but the Pomosans regard the prices as payment for the disruption pilgrims bring to their lives. That, at any rate, is the explanation Larachine Avedura gave me.

When I met her, she was still Larachine Challo, midway through arranging her marriage to a local farmer. She worked at her family's inn and earned some coin on the side by showing pilgrims around the burned foundations of St. Deianora's home while she explained the fine points of the old Pomosan heresy, the saint's death, and the Church's response.

I was, therefore, surprised to learn that she belonged to the Circle of Kemar. I was even more surprised that a circle existed in a pilgrimage site, let alone a site carefully watched for the recurrence of heresy. The Circle is officially a tolerated pagan religion rather than a heretical sect, but given humanity's flawed nature, it seemed rash to invite the close attention of the Church.

Nevertheless, after Larachine told me the story of St. Deianora opening her door and preaching to the mob that had come to kill her, and continuing to preach the Lord's divinity as she was stoned to death, she excused herself to attend a Circle meeting.

I asked if I could observe. She agreed, and led me to a house right against the village wall, on the opposite side of town from St. Deianora's shrine. Thirty people -- the entirety of the Pomosan circle -- were squeezed into the large common room, with a few spilling through an open doorway into the kitchen. Larachine introduced me as a daughter of the Church, asked her circle to answer any questions I might have, and left me pressed against the front door next to a tall, dour man with dirt-stained hands.

"Are you converting?" he asked.

"No," I told him. "I'm a nun, from the convent of St. Ithigea in Kos. I study heresies and pagan religions -- I've been studying the Circle for nearly thirty years."

He nodded minimally. "Tasso Avedura," he said. "Larachine and I are marrying after the harvest." In the kitchen, someone began to beat a complicated, rhythmic tattoo, and the press of people linked hands and shuffled around the common room in a series of concentric circles.

Tasso stayed by my side, making no move to join the prayer dance. "I'm Church-folk, not Circle-folk," he said in response to my questioning glance. "I come because Larachine's the storyteller and I love hearing her talk. Besides, she respects the Church -- she tells St. Deianora's story, and she knows half the Book of Days by heart -- so I try to respect this."

He shifted restlessly, as if unsure what to do with his hands, and then shrugged as the circle members began to sway and sing a hymn to Kemar's love. "It's hard," he said, "but I have to try. It wouldn't be right not to."

When the meeting finished, Larachine and Tasso spent a few minutes in quiet conversation, ending with a kiss. "I'll stop by the fields tomorrow," she called after him as he walked toward a small gate in the wall. He waved, and then he was gone.

"I'll walk you back to the inn," Larachine said, rejoining me. "What did you think of our circle?"

"It's small," I said, as we began walking, "but large enough for a true meetinghouse. Why don't you build one?"

"All religious structures in Pomosa must be approved by the archbishop of Sarill. He doesn't approve of us." Larachine traced a figure eight in the air, and then smiled. "We're growing -- we have four families with children now, as well as converts. Things will change."

I murmured something noncommittal and changed the subject. "Tasso is a son of the Church, and if your circle follows the pattern I've seen in other places, being a storyteller requires great dedication and faith. Are you sure your marriage will last if you build it on such unstable foundations?"

Larachine smiled. "Unstable? Faith is the best foundation. It's true that Tasso only sees a reflection of Kemar's light, and all reflections are distorted, but it's still the same light. We'll show our children both paths and let them choose. If Kemar gives that choice to us, her children, how can we trust our children any less?"

She pointed past her parents' inn to St. Deianora's shrine. "Faith is faith. That woman had as much faith and strength as Marea in Ochre Varos, and no faith goes unrewarded. Listen: I'll tell you, and maybe Kemar's light will touch you through my words.

"Marea Shouja was raised in the Church and she loved the light of God. But one day she looked around her and saw what people did in his name.

"In those days, Ochre Varos was a desperate city. People hated each other and said it was God's will. People killed each other and said it was God's will. People bloated with sickness, lost their homes to drought and wars, starved and died for lack of water, drowned in floods, and said all their troubles were God's will, or a punishment because other people had turned away from God. Then they hated and killed each other again.

"Marea looked, and she turned away. She thought she was turning from light to darkness, but in turning from the reflection she found the true light of Kemar. The Goddess doesn't punish us. The Goddess doesn't teach us to hate. She teaches us to endure, to find joy in the hard times, and to remember that nothing is forever. All things change, and even the earth moves beneath us.

"In those days, King Mechved of Ochre Varos had outlawed all faiths but the Church, because of the hatred people preached. The priests thought they could hide the light and keep people from seeking it. Marea thought she could hide her new faith and keep her family from trouble. But light can't be hidden -- it shines through the darkness.

"So when the Circles gathered and chose to hold a Great Rite, to call life to the land and luck to the people, Marea stood and said, 'I will dance.'

"She danced. She called Kemar into her soul, and she was filled with light.

"In those days, when people felt the Goddess in their souls, we sent them past the end of this circle to be with Kemar. In these days we wait -- we share the light on this earth -- but it's hard to stay when you've seen what lies beyond, or so I hear." Larachine sighed, still looking toward the shrine beyond the village wall. "Someday I'll see Kemar, but I hope she waits until my children are grown and Tasso is gone. I wouldn't want to be pulled in half.

"It was easier for Marea, of course, since she'd already drawn away from her old life. But her circle was betrayed, and she was held prisoner so she couldn't return to the Goddess. Priests and nuns tried to make her convert, the way the Pomosan heretics tried to make St. Deianora convert, but Marea wouldn't trade light for a reflection.

"After seven months, they brought her to King Mechved, who told her she was causing unrest and begged her to surrender for the people's sake. Marea told him, 'I danced for the people, and I owe them nothing anymore. Let me go home to Kemar.'

"King Mechved looked at her for a long time, and then looked over the balcony railing at his city. He said, 'I owe safety and prosperity to my people, and you disrupt that. But you're also one of my people, so maybe I owe you something as well -- and if you're gone, the people will forget you and be peaceful again.'

"He stepped aside and gestured Marea to the railing. 'Here is your choice,' he said.

"Marea smiled. And she stepped off the railing, into the light."

Larachine turned back toward her parents' inn, and smiled. "If I didn't have Tasso, I would dance. I'd call Kemar and open my heart to her -- I'd stretch my soul wide enough to hold her touch. But for now, this circle is all I want. Time will carry me home fast enough."

---------------
Laila Tolemeus arrived in Kos sometime in the year 723. The exact date is unclear, but she was certainly there by mid-autumn, when Sister Broken is recorded as debating the prior of the abbey of St. Larach. She is then recorded as being imprisoned in the neighboring convent of St. Ithigea while the archbishop's council prepared for a trial. 723 adds to twelve, the number of both perfection and stasis, whose shadow, six, is the number of journeys and pauses along the way.

One of the nuns, Sister Josia Agipae, became Laila's primary caretaker. She brought Laila meals, guarded her during her daily walk in the convent gardens, and tirelessly coaxed her into conversation. They spoke of politics, poetry, and history; of the famine in Jana that had driven the Jenjani across the Mother River in greater numbers than usual that summer; of the emperor's death the previous winter and the chaos and raw ambition of the succession struggles; and of nearly every topic under heaven, except theology.

Josia was a shipwright's daughter who had married a fisherman. When he died, their sons inherited his boat and his house, and Josia left secular life behind. "I miss my house," she told Laila as they walked the tidy, stone-lined paths of the garden, two weeks into Laila's imprisonment. "But Sikoros and Girian, they didn't need me hanging round their necks like an anchor while they went courting and settled themselves. I visit every month, and I think we're happy this way."

She smoothed the skirt of her habit, and smiled. "Besides, it's a noble calling to serve the Lord. I didn't always have faith -- I never paid enough attention -- but God's love is a shelter in this world. When Davos died, rest his soul, I was all at thirteens until I opened my heart to the Lord and found a new path. Marriage and family are great gifts, but they can pin your attention to material things and blind you to God."

Josia turned to Laila. "Were you ever married, Sister Broken?"

"I am married," Laila said. "I simply choose not to be with my husband. And, like yours, my children are grown; they don't need me hovering at their shoulders."

"But your husband, doesn't he worry? Why isn't he here, trying to save you? And your children, I'm sure they'd want to know that you're in danger."

"If he were here, I doubt he would try to save me. Acknowledging me could only bring him shame, and while we respected each other, we were never close. As for my children... I'll be dead soon enough; it's best not to worry them over something they can't change."

"If I were in their place, I'd rather know," Josia said. "Lying is a sin, and lies of omission are still lies."

Laila shrugged. "They live too far away for a message to reach them in time." They passed the courtyard door, and she stepped forward to hold it open for Josia. "Nevertheless, thank you for your concern."

Josia continued to talk with Laila over the next month and a half, until the trial began. Laila was summoned to the archbishop's palace, which stood in solitary splendor on a small island next to the cathedral, and forced to listen to hour upon hour of accusations and legal precedents dealing with heresy and paganism in Kos.

"Why the Horse-cult?" Josia finally asked that evening. She stood outside Laila's cell, guarding the open door while Laila ate her meager supper. "I suppose I understand leaving your husband -- if Davos had been cold to me and I'd felt a calling, I might have done the same -- but I don't understand turning from the Lord. It's only brought you trouble."

Laila ate several bites of coarse bread while she worked through her answer. Finally, she said, "When your children grew old enough to think for themselves, you didn't hold yourself over them with a switch in your hand. I didn't either. I trusted that I had done my best, and I stepped back. I didn't want to live their lives for them. Kemar loves us, and she lets us choose our own paths. To me, the Lord seems like a jealous father, who fears that his son might surpass him and who cripples the boy with self-doubt and impossible rules.

"Change is the only constant," Laila continued. "Trying to codify the infinite is futile at best and dangerous at worst. Look at us -- I'm trapped in a cell because I dared to ask questions, and you're bound keep me here though you might otherwise count me a friend. I won't bow to any god who thinks this is right."

"Who can know what God thinks?" Josia countered. "God is perfection. Humans are creatures of error, and the Church is a human creation. You talk as if there's no difference between humans and the infinite, as if we could dream of surpassing God, but that's nonsense. If Kemar loves people, shouldn't she give you help and something to guide you?"

Laila spread her hands and smiled. "Kemar does help us, but only when we help ourselves. She loves us, and so we love each other. She shows us that nothing is permanent, and so we don't cling to things that will only crumble and cause us pain when they vanish, nor do we despair in hard times because they too will pass. She tells us that someday all things will circle to the beginning again, and so we have faith. Who needs more?"

"Most people," Josia said dryly. "In any case, you don't follow her guidance. You wrote the stories, though you say you shouldn't hold onto things."

"Humans are creatures of error," Laila said, equally dryly. Josia laughed.

Laila drank a swallow of water and continued. "I don't want to preserve anything forever; I know that's futile. I simply want to save my words until the Church is ready to listen. The stories live in the Circle, but the Church doesn't trust anything until it's been written down and dead for a hundred years. The Church hates change."

Josia stood silently for a long moment, and then held her hand over the threshold of Laila's cell. "The Church may hate change, but God loves truth and I trust that his word is strong enough to withstand the Horse-cult," she said quietly. "I'm being called to your trial tomorrow, to testify whether you seem repentant. Your books are stored in a room down the hall from the trial chamber. I can hide a few before they convict you and burn them."

Laila set down her bread crust and her cup of water. "Thank you," she said, rising to clasp Josia's hand. "If the books will be burned, I don't care about damaging them. Tear out the endpapers -- that's where I wrote the stories and the teachings of the Circle. Have those bound, and hide them."

"What name should I write? 'Sister Broken' can't be the one you were born with."

Laila hesitated, searching Josia's face for deception. She found none. "Laila Tolemeus Tasca," she said. "Dedicate it to my children."

Josia looked at her sharply, and then squeezed her hand before releasing it. "Oh. Your son, he's the one who sacked the Jenjani fortress across the river from Rimaspa in the eighth month," she said. "At his triumph in Dora, the new emperor proclaimed him a general and set the laurel crown on his head with his own hands."

"I knew since he was five years old that Aemon would be a soldier, not a Senator," Laila said softly, "but to be a general at twenty-two -- this is more than I dreamed. He has surpassed his father."

"His human father," Josia said.

Laila shrugged. "All things in time. Thank you, and God bless you. Peace upon you." She sketched the cross in Josia's direction.

"Kemar smile on you, and peace in your soul." Josia drew a circle in the air and shut the door. The heavy iron bar slammed down across the oak, leaving Laila in darkness.

---------------
Attempting to find a woman who has vanished from written records is, to say the least, difficult. I stopped at the abbey of St. Amil again on my way home from Pomosa, but found nothing of Laila Tolemeus Tasca besides her genealogy, the bare facts of her public life in Dora, and a small portrait. I was therefore forced to imitate a collector of folktales and wander through the western edges of the riverlands, seeking stories of a woman who traveled with a cartload of books. I hoped that such an unusual traveler might have been remembered.

Several villages did indeed have a story of a traveling female scholar, but that element had become tangled with older folklore. The woman with the books, called Lady Broke-back, was a witch who lured children from their homes and turned them into songbirds, until a brave brother and sister burned her spell books and converted her to either the Church or the Circle, depending on who told the story. The songbirds changed back into children and the penitent witch settled down as a holy hermit.

"Where did she live?" I asked.

Every village gave a different answer, generally pointing to a local holy site. One boy, however, told me that Lady Broke-back had left the place where she had been so wicked, since she would always hear songbirds and be tempted to return to evil. She had driven her cart into the setting sun, over the mountains to the sea, and had joined a convent in Kos.

That seemed to be as much help as I was likely to get from folktales.

Upon my return to Kos, after I had satisfied my abbess that I understood St. Deianora's lesson, I began to search the abbey and college archives on the chance that a woman with a cartload of books had arrived in the early eighth century. Fortune favored me: within a week, I discovered the story of Sister Broken, a Horse-cult missionary, who was tried and executed for practicing a banned pagan religion, incitement to paganism, and possession and distribution of interdicted books. It seemed, if not altogether likely, then at least not impossible, that Sister Broken might be related to Lady Broke-back and therefore also to Laila Tolemeus.

Execution for religious crimes -- in those days, generally carried out either by stoning or burning at the stake -- struck me as a poor fate for a woman with the courage to set aside both a life of ease and the comfort of her native faith. I thought her courage and convictions misguided, but I had, through the years, come to see some of the appeal of the Circle and Kemar, so I refrained from judging. I believe Circle members see a reflection of the infinite, while they believe I am the one caught by mirrors, but we each agree that the other sees something and that something exists to be seen, if not comprehended.

One paragraph in the trial report intrigued me. "After the trial, the council examined Sister Broken's books a final time, and discovered that most had pages torn from the fronts and backs. Sister Josia Agipae of the convent of St. Ithigea, who guarded the Horse-cultist before her death, was put to the question. She revealed that Sister Broken had incited her to create a piecework book composed of the torn pages, but died before the book's location could be discovered. Though she did not repent, final rites were administered; may her soul shed its burden in purgatory.

"If the book is discovered," the report continues, "it shall be burned."

No further mention of Sister Broken's book -- created and hidden by Sister Josia at the cost of her life -- exists in Church records. Therefore, I went to the Circle.

---------------
Ifira Burosca had died nearly a decade before; her circle was now under the care of Rappah Nolos, a woman born and raised in both Kos and the Circle. She was a spellbinding storyteller, not for her words -- which were plain -- but for the quiet presence she drew around herself like a cloak. Her circle said that she wore Kemar's shadow when she told stories. She said that she looked for the stillness where truth would echo.

Ifira had kept a close eye on all the affairs of her circle, though she had no official authority over anything but storytelling. Rappah led the weekly rituals and trained new storytellers, but she left the children to their parents, the care of the meetinghouse to a loose association of circle members, and the music and choreography of the rites to Ifira's son, Tassian Burosca. The circle seemed to function equally well either way.

Rappah and her husband, Keiros, were chandlers, and I found her in the workroom behind their shop, mixing perfume into beeswax. Trails of steam, scented with lavender and mirian, wreathed around her figure like gauzy veils.

"Votives for the Miria shrine in the cathedral," Rappah told me in her soft voice. "The new archbishop cares more about saving coin than keeping heathens from supplying his building and his rites. Bank the fire while I pour the wax."

She dipped a wide, copper ladle into the pot and poured moon-pale wax into moulds, filling rank upon rank of hollows, until all several dozen were nearly two thirds full. Now and then, wax splashed up the sides of the hollows, or dripped from the ladle to puddle and cool on the crisscross frames of wood that held the wicks taut in the moulds. I banked the fire, leaving an even bed of coals; Rappah set the pot back on the stove and covered it with a heavy wooden lid. Then she took a sandglass from a shelf and motioned me upstairs to her kitchen.

"We have until this runs through," she said as she flipped the glass and set it on her table, "before the second pouring. What did you want to ask?"

I explained my search for Laila Tolemeus and the inconclusive report of a book filled with stories from the Circle.

"Sister Broken's book?" Rappah said as she finished scraping wax from her hands into a shallow copper bowl. "Yes, I've heard that story. We don't tell it to Church-folk. Why should I tell you?" She rubbed her hands with a scrap of canvas and studied me.

"Because the Church needs to hear the stories of the Circle, and priests and scholars trust written words more than spoken ones," I told her. "I know the book is interdicted. I won't tell anyone where it's kept. But the Decree of Toleration extends to written materials, even if the cardinals thought that would be an empty promise in the Circle's case. If I make a copy, I'm sure I can persuade the College deans that it's a true theological work, and it should be removed from the interdiction list. Knowledge shouldn't be hidden -- please help me bring Sister Broken's words back into the light."

Rappah set the cloth beside the copper bowl and laid her open hands on the table between us. "Listen, then, and I'll tell you the story of Sister Broken. This once, I won't tell you not to write it. I don't think she would mind if she were here to speak, and you're right; the Church needs to hear the other side of their records and histories.

"Sister Broken was a Doran noblewoman who loved three things. She loved books, she loved her family, and she loved truth. Because she loved her family, she left her books to become a wife and mother. Because she loved books, she left her husband once her children were grown. And because she loved truth, she left both her books and all hope of returning to her children. She joined the Circle.

"Kemar tells us that all things change, so we try not to hold onto things that won't last. But that's hard -- it's the hardest thing in this world -- and a person can spend her whole life learning to let go. Sister Broken died before she learned to open her hands and heart all the way. She wanted to catch stories from the air and trap them on paper so they would last forever. She wanted to keep her name alive in ink. So she wrote a book. She trapped herself in ink and paper and hoped that someday a person would read the words and unlock her voice.

"When Sister Broken died, she gave the book to her friend, Sister Josia, who gave the book to the Circle in Kos. The Circle didn't want a book. 'What use is it?' we asked Sister Josia. 'What would we do with dead stories?'

"'The stories aren't for you,' Sister Josia told us. 'They're for the Church, but the Church isn't willing to listen. One day, Church-folk will be ready to hear, but we trust books more than our ears, so save Sister Broken's book until that day. And when that day comes, let them read.'

"So the Circle took the book from her hands. Within a week, Sister Josia followed Sister Broken into death." Rappah traced a gyre in the air. "She went to the light. Kemar loves those who care for the truth and for each other."

"The Circle has survived in Kos, sometimes in secret and sometimes in the light of day, and we keep the book until the day the Church is ready to listen, ready to open the pages and bring the ghost of Sister Broken's voice to life."

Rappah shrugged, then, and tapped the empty sandglass on the table as she stood. "I don't know how much truth you can find in dead stories, but maybe there's enough that you can still hear some of the echoes, especially if you read them aloud. Maybe that will make people curious, and they'll come to us to seek the living truth."

"You know where the book is?" I asked.

"Yes. When I've finished the candles, I'll show you."

---------------
Sister Broken's trial dragged on for nearly three weeks after Laila Tolemeus's agreement with Sister Josia Agipae. Religious trials were usually shorter, but the Circle had begun to flourish in Kos despite the imperial ban. The archbishop, Makos Tegorae, hoped to turn people against the Horse-cult and drive it out of his city; he had, therefore, turned the trial into a comprehensive public attack on the Circle.

This gave Sister Josia ample time to sort through Laila's books. She borrowed a shielded lamp under pretext of sitting up in night vigils for her friend's soul, and crossed the half mile between the convent and the archbishop's palace night after night, to tear pages from books, shuffle them into a rough order, and bring paper to Laila so her friend could record the story of her imprisonment and trial.

Sister Josia was no bookbinder. Her creation is a collection of badly sewn pages bound together with rough cord and protected by several layers of cloth -- more a series of pamphlets than a true book. The paper is yellowed and fragile with age, but the Kosian circles preserved it carefully, keeping it safe from acid, oils, and the damp, salty air.

As I touched the pages -- the first person to read them in centuries -- I wondered what had driven two people to give their lives for this book: Sister Broken to write it, and Sister Josia to preserve it. Laila left her motives in ink, as honest as self-professed truths ever are. Sister Josia's remain murky. Something she read during those weeks, or something spoken in the quiet darkness of Laila's cell, moved her enough that she gave her life rather than reveal the location of that hastily compiled book. I can only speculate what touched her heart. She never wrote it down.

The only evidence of Sister Josia Agipae, in her own hand and words, is the title page of Laila's stories and a brief theological argument appended to the collection. "God so loved the world and us, His wayward children, that He sent His Son to live among us and bear the burden of our sins. Perfect love is beyond us, but man is created in God's image," Sister Josia writes, "and we must strive to honor that image. God loves us all, even heretics and pagans. Therefore accept this book and its author with compassion, though their message is flawed. We are all flawed, and who among us is worthy to cast the first stone?"

She signs that message, "Josia Agipae, Sister of the Order of St. Allea, of the convent of St. Ithigea in Kos, in the year of the Lord 723. I go to my fate with an open heart."

I have spent my life trying to respect others' faith, and to bridge the chasms between different views of the infinite. In Sister Josia's brief plea, I found a kindred soul, four and a half centuries dead. And I found myself remembering Larachine Avedura's words on St. Deianora.

"Faith is faith," Larachine told me, "and no faith goes unrewarded. Reflections are distorted, but it's still the same light."

---------------
Listen to the first story in Sister Broken's book:

"In the beginning, the world was empty, dark, and changeless, until Kemar danced and sent time flying ahead on its gyre," Laila writes. "Her sweat became water and her breath air, and when she paused in her dance, dry land rose from the waters so she could rest.

"But the world was still empty and dark. And so Kemar kindled light in her hands. She hung the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky, and set them dancing.

"But the world was still empty. And so Kemar swirled her feet in the waters, and ran her hands through the earth, and shouted into the air. All the creatures of the world -- fish and birds, trees and grain, wolves and deer and flowers -- woke into life. And they moved along the great cycle of time, from birth to death to birth.

"But something was still missing. And so Kemar spat onto the earth and shaped mud into a man and a woman. She touched their eyes so they could see, she kissed their mouths so they could speak, and she touched their hearts so they could love. Then she breathed into their nostrils to wake them.

"'You are man and woman, Adin and Zefaiah,' Kemar told them, 'and I've made this world and its wonders to share with you. Time is flying ahead of us, and not even I know what tomorrow will bring. Love the world and each other, but don't cling to anything. Time will change all things in due course. Some of those changes will be hard, but nothing lasts forever. Remember that, and be strong through the storms.'

"Adin and Zefaiah were afraid. They said, 'Must we be subject to time? The world is beautiful now, and we love it already. What if things are never this good again?'

"And so Kemar reached out and plucked time from its path, and she wove it around the edge of the place where Adin and Zefaiah stood. 'I've made you a garden,' she told them, 'where time can't enter and nothing will change. You can stay here as long as you like, but only if you sacrifice knowledge. You will become like children and you won't be able to leave. Is this what you want?'

"'This is what we want,' they said.

"And so Kemar laid her hands on the heads of the man and the woman, and when they opened their eyes they were like children. 'This is a garden I've made for you,' Kemar told them sadly. 'Nothing here can hurt you, and all things here are yours to enjoy, except the fruit of the tree in the heart of the garden. That is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if you eat its fruit you will die.'

"Then Kemar began to dance again, and time whirled her away into heaven."

To me, this story is a distorted reflection of the Book of Days. To the Circle, my story is the distortion and this is the truth.

Many of Sister Broken's stories have similar echoes of the Book of Days, with similar pagan or heretical distortions. When the great flood covered the earth, the Circle's stories blame humans who wanted to hold back time -- and thus hold back disasters -- and who only staved sorrow off for a generation until all their catastrophes struck at once. Pride and sin are still central to the story, but Kemar has little personal involvement.

When Kemar asks a man if he has faith in her love, he offers to kill his son himself; she accepts the gift and raises the boy's soul in a rain of fire from the mountaintop. Instead of preaching divine vengeance for a lack of faith, Kemar's prophets promise war, plague, and famine caused by human desire and blindness. And while the Circle speaks of heaven -- of light and reunion with Kemar -- they define this as an interval of peace in a mother's embrace, a pause along the endless circle of death and rebirth. A desire to break that cycle -- to stop time, stay in heaven, and reject Kemar's gift of the world -- is as close as Circle members can come to blasphemy.

Still, myths and theology are only one portion of Sister Broken's book. By far the largest is a collection of tales dealing with the history of the Circle, from its birth sometime in the second century of our Lord to Laila's day, some six hundred years later. These stories deal with journeys, martyrs, traitors, oppression, unexpected victories, and all the various folktales and hagiographies that accrete around any religion.

Marea's story is the last in the book. Whether Sister Josia placed it there on her own initiative, or whether she consulted with Laila, I cannot say. I can, however, say that the story was clearly important to Laila. It is one of the few stories written in more than one variant, though two are clearly marked as lesser versions, with a notation of the original storyteller's name. At the conclusion of the main version, there is a small note.

---------------
This is how Sister Broken tells Marea's story. Listen:

"During the reign of Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus, Mechved of the Hagarites was king in Ochre Varos. The Circle and Church were both young in those days, and their missionaries fought over the hearts of the people. Sometimes they fought with words, but more often their followers fought with steel, and so the sands of Ochre Varos were soaked with blood.

"Mechved decreed that as there was only one king in the city, so there would be only one religion. He gathered the Circle, the Church, the Amaalites, the Jenjani sacrificers, the southern pagans, and the symbolists of Calaea, and spoke with them for seven days, until his mind was clear.

"'The Church holds the greatest number of people within its arms,' he proclaimed, 'and the Church works in the light, without blood and death. Therefore, the Church of the Lord will be the only religion in Ochre Varos.'

"The Jenjani sacrificers moved their altars across the river; and the Amaalites muttered and grumbled, but continued to observe their private rites and abstentions in their homes; and the pagans bowed to whatever god they faced, but named their own gods in silence, as they had always done; and the symbolists peddled their potions and fortunes, but bit their tongues instead of preaching that the world was an illusion; and the Circle was driven into the shadows.

"And so Mechved's choice brought peace to Ochre Varos. But it was the peace of the sword, for any person caught practicing rites not of the Church was tried for heresy and treason, and forced to repent and convert, or be exiled. The priests of the Church pressed for Circle members to be hanged or burned, but Mechved feared the power of martyrs, for Ochre Varos was tinder-dry and a martyr could spark violence like wildfire.

"Marea Shouja was a daughter of the Church, but she questioned her faith. She wondered why the Church feared other religions -- what did truth have to fear from lies? She had eyes to see, and strength to follow her sight. And so she left her father's Church and stepped into the Circle and Kemar's embrace.

"That summer, her circle planned a Great Rite. Marea chose to dance, to call Kemar into her soul and spill light and hope into the darkness. She was at peace with her choice and her faith, but her family became suspicious. And so her father followed her that night and brought soldiers to disrupt the Rite before Marea could seal it with her life.

"The Church held her in a convent cell, praying for her soul and torturing her so she would turn back to her childhood faith. But Marea was strong, and she had felt Kemar's touch in her soul, and so she held firm. They pressed her to accept exile, but she said, 'Ochre Varos is my home, and the law is false. If you shut me outside the walls, I will come back through the gate, again and again until you let me stay or kill me.'

"After seven months, Mechved summoned her to his palace and ordered her to convert or accept exile peacefully. 'The city is restless,' he told her, 'and my laws are all that keep blood from soaking the sand. Your defiance brings no help your people; you only incite them to violence and force my soldiers to kill them. See the truth and relent.'

"Marea laughed. 'The city lived before your laws, and it will live after you are dust and forgotten. People are stronger than you think, and we see more clearly than you. Trust us to make our own choices.'

"Mechved tried again to persuade Marea, but his words were empty and couldn't touch her. And so he led her to a balcony and spread his hands. 'If you refuse to convert or to accept exile, only two paths remain. Here is a guard to take you back to prison, and here is the balcony rail. This is your last choice. I wash my hands of your fate.'

"'I made this choice long ago,' Marea told the king. Then she climbed onto the rail and threw herself into Kemar's light."

Beneath this story, there is a rough sketch of the desert flower called mirian, which lent its name to Miria, Mother of God. Twined around the flower is a stem and leaf of the bitter herb called marach, from which perfumers make funeral incense. Written beside them are the words "purity" and "sorrow," both scratched out, and the word "death" underlined.

"Marea gave her life for her faith," Laila writes underneath the illustration. "Would that I were half as certain of my choices. Nevertheless, what is done is done, and not even doubt can last forever. Perhaps even Marea's certainty would have ebbed in time, but we trap her in her moment of strength as an example to us all. I think Kemar understands our need for guiding stars, and in her mercy she forgives us this small weakness."

According to the Circle storytellers I have known -- Ifira Burosca, Somae Taucannig, Larachine Avedura, and Rappah Nolos -- Kemar is not merciful. This is not because she holds humanity to impossible standards, but because she does not judge. Kemar does not allow or disallow anything; that implies a control over fate that she does not claim.

Yet Laila asks her forgiveness. Is that a sign of a theological shift over the past five centuries, or simply a remnant of her decades as a daughter of the Church? The Church of Laila's day had no interest in the fine points of a pagan or heretical religion, and the Circle has left no records for us to search. Whatever the truth may be, it has shifted and flowed, like water in an endless river.

"That is as it should be," Rappah said when I spoke to her. "That's the way of life."

---------------
After so many stories, it seems odd to shut away voices and turn to the written records of the College of St. Larach. Even bone-dry lists of names and dates, however, have stories to tell -- to say nothing of the great historians' epic works -- and they deserve as much attention as the Circle's ephemeral tales. Perhaps some truths must be felt in the soul or nowhere at all, but others can be confirmed by words and numbers, and such proofs lend a comforting weight to the more rarified realms of philosophy and theology.

In the year 100 -- one, the number of the infinite, shadowed by seventeen for glory -- Hagaral the Great came to the throne of Ochre Varos, which was then a minor tributary kingdom of the Empire. Over the twenty-six years of his reign, he cast off the imperial yoke and extended his lands to Lake Nacoma in the north, and well into Rimaspa in the south.

His son lost Rimaspa. His grandson lost the lakelands and all territory east of the Mother River. His grand-nephew, Mechved II, ruled little more than the city-state Hagaral had inherited, and only his tributary alliances with various Jenjani princes kept him nominally free from the Empire.

The last thing Mechved could afford was civil war. In light of the violence between the Church and the Circle -- court records in Ochre Varos overflow with tales of assault, robbery, slander, rape, and murder -- his proclamation of one received religion is less a matter of faith than an attempt to paper over quarrels that could easily have undermined his struggle against the encroaching Empire.

Marea Shouja was arrested, along with a circle of nearly fifty people, in summer of the year 177 -- fifteen, the number of anger and strife. They were convicted of performing forbidden pagan rites, and most were released once they swore on the Book of Days not to repeat the offense. A few were exiled, and Marea -- described in court records as "the Horse-cult priestess" -- was turned over to the archbishop when she refused to convert.

It is not clear why she was not executed. The Circle might have objected, but they might equally well have taken her death as the completion of the Great Rite. Perhaps Mechved or the priests misunderstood the mood of the Circle, or perhaps they were simply cautious. Perhaps Marea's father, Vaparchim Shouja, called in favors from both government and Church officials; secular tax records show that he was wealthy, and Church records show that he contributed richly to the fledgling cathedral in Ochre Varos.

In any case, Marea was held in a convent for nine months. By spring of the year 178, five more Great Rites had been interrupted, nearly a hundred people had been executed and a hundred more exiled, and Circle adherents had led several retaliatory raids on Church members. Marea was brought to Mechved's palace, perhaps to serve as a public example.

It is not clear whether she leapt from the balcony, whether she was deliberately pushed, or whether she fell accidentally when the crowd beneath turned restive; accounts differ. All accounts, however, agree that her death triggered a deadly riot of at least two days' duration, after which Mechved partially repealed his law. Henceforth, he proclaimed, members of the Circle of Kemar, commonly known as the Horse-cult, would be allowed to practice their rites, provided they refrained from proselytizing and human sacrifice.

In summer of the year 180, Mechved II died. By the end of autumn, Emperor Rumis Iorigaleus had conquered Ochre Varos. This time the city did not retain even nominal independence; Mechved's brother was deposed, and an imperial governor and general were appointed in his place. The emperor banned all religions but the Church.

The Circle of Kemar remained outlawed in the Empire for the next six hundred years.

---------------
When I was a young woman, I dedicated my life to God, to truth, and to the Church; I saw no difference between the three. Now that I am old, I see many shades of meaning -- many reflections -- where once I saw nothing but pure light.

My faith is strong. I have no desire to leave the Church, or even to renounce my vocation. I have never regretted my choices.

And yet, I find that God is not the Church, nor, perhaps, is God the only truth. Perhaps not all people can face truth head-on, and must view it sideways, backwards, upside-down. Perhaps they find truth in ever-changing reflections.

Perhaps even immutable truths change, depending on who tells the story, or who listens.

Take, for example, the sin in the garden. Every person in the Empire -- Church-folk, Circle-folk, Amaalite, pagan, sacrificer, or symbolist -- knows that story. It is written. It does not change.

And yet, perhaps it does. When I was young, the story told me the dangers of disobeying God. It told me the source of evil and unhappiness in the world, and it told me the limits of humankind.

Now, I wonder if those warnings are all the story holds. Zefaiah desired to be like God, to be wise. In the garden, without knowledge, Adin and Zefaiah could not choose to be good. Without death, they could not have eternal life. Without the possibility of doubt, what is the worth of faith? Without the possibility of evil, what is the worth of good?

Adin and Zefaiah chose to be human. They chose to think, rather than to live naked and innocent as the beasts of the field. They chose knowledge and its consequences: sorrow, pain, and death. Rather than the changeless perfection of the garden, they chose the uncertainty of time which wears away all things but God.

"Listen, and I'll tell you a story," the Circle storytellers say. "Everything always changes; what does not change is dead."

The words of my stories do not change, but they are far from dead. They live in my heart and the hearts of countless thousands. Their lessons and their hope lift the Church in our quest to know God and follow his will, to do the Lord's work on earth as his will is made manifest in heaven.

---------------
Listen, and I will tell you a story.

In the days of the Emperor Aratis IV, the Decree of Toleration established the six received religions of the Empire. Nevertheless, people continued to distrust each other, and the Church, the Amaalites, and the symbolists continued to treat their own heretics harshly.

In the days of the Emperor Itharis Damicas, four hundred years later, little has changed.

Listen to Sister Josia Agipae: "God so loved the world, and us, His wayward children, that He sent His Son to live among us and bear the burden of our sins. Perfect love is beyond us, but man is created in God's image, and we must strive to honor that image. God loves us all, even heretics and pagans."

In the face of perfect love -- in the face of the infinite -- why do we persist in anger, hatred, and suspicion? Why do we seek out our neighbors' flaws and ignore our own? We are all flawed, and none of us is worthy to cast the first stone. The one who is worthy has, instead, granted us forgiveness and mercy.

Listen. Truth changes even as you hear it. Even God can change, as he did when he took on human flesh. Without change -- without choice and consequence -- life has no meaning, and truth becomes a prison with no door.

Life is what we make it, God is where we find him, and we always have choices, even at the very limit of our endurance. This is the truth I learned from the Circle. This is the truth I read in Sister Broken's book. This is the truth I take from Marea's story.

Forget words and numbers and logical proof.

Open your heart to the infinite.

Listen.

What do you feel in your soul?

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End

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Some additional story notes are available for the curious. Also, this is a backdated repost actually made in 2014 so as to have the whole story available in a single place. You can find the original posts using the -finding marea tag.