Chapter 19 — Sunderer
~ 1 ~ Martha picked up the journal, her eyes sweeping across her audience’s somewhat distracted faces. She said, "Let’s go back to the rumor about 'the Friend':
“Thiuderieks thought it was exaggerated—that rumor about the Friend who spoke freely with men. It seemed to him more likely that some skilled Maker had made a Calling Portal for this god. Thiuderieks had more interest in meeting a Maker who had such skill, than in speaking with a new god. Then, some time after he had heard the rumor, human emissaries of the Friend arrived at Thiuderieks’s Clan hold.
"The emissaries announced that the Friend who spoke freely with men desired to speak with Thiuderieks, “the foremost of Makers”. Under Thiuderieks‘s questioning, the emissaries of the Friend were unable to hide from him the fact that ‘the god who spoke freely with men’ did so through a Device. When Thiuderieks asked for the identity of the Device’s Maker, they informed him that he had died in a fractionation accident. They told him that the Friend had been communicating with humans in remote northern regions for more than a decade, and that they had traveled for several months to reach Thiuderieks.
“After they had brought the god’s Calling Portal to him, Thiuderieks agreed—more from courtesy than from curiosity—to speak with the god whom they represented.
"Thiuderieks’s two apprentices, known in the Histories as Ingundis the Fair and Thorismund, had, during their apprenticeship, fallen in love with each other. At first they had been so caught up in their work with Thiuderieks, that they had regarded themselves as simply good friends.
"Thersa, with her armed retinue, had come to the Hold of Thiuderieks’s people not long before the emissaries of the Friend had arrived. She had announced, through couriers, the availability of her services as a priestess who consults Place-gods. Thiuderieks had long held her profession in low esteem, because such ‘priestesses’ were usually charlatans. He did not know that Thersa had once sheltered Ingundis the Fair, and Ingundis, for her own amusement, did not inform him that she knew well this woman, who was no charlatan. She would leave Thiuderieks to personally take Thersa’s measure, being sure that he would find Thersa his match in power, force of personality and godly relationships."
Martha stopped reading from the journal and picked up a leaf of vellum. "Now I’m going to read a recently discovered inscription which Matthew Mustafa brought to our Scribes' meeting. This leaf was inscribed very soon after the meeting between Thiuderieks and Thersa, and it presents the testimony of eyewitnesses. It’s a narrative which had been unknown for more than seven-thousand years, and it’s written in an ancient form which uses ‘We see' to introduce narrative, and names of the speakers to introduce spoken words." Martha read from the leaf:
"We see Thiuderieks and his three guardsmen go out through the Garth forest Maze. They go to dismiss Thersa and her people from the east pasture where they are setting up camp. Thiuderieks strides into the pasture, followed by his guardsmen.
We see there many round tents recently pitched by a numerous folk of men, women and children. Work continues on two tents. The folk in the encampment are clothed in garments of fabric woven in colorful designs, and garments of soft animal skins, decoratively-trimmed. A wagon is parked near each tent, and work animals are pastured.
We see Thersa step from the largest tent’s entrance. She stands still, looking long at Thiuderieks. He carries his heavy staff. He is clad in Makers' garb, not the garb of warriors. His laced vest and short leather skirt are covered from breast to knees by a Maker’s leather apron. He walks toward Thersa at a good pace.
We see Thersa to be tall and athletic, and the woman is white as mountain snow. She is dressed for the hunt, in a sleeveless tunic, bark-colored and falling to her knees, and a tightly-laced leather vest, tawny in color. Her perfect arms and shoulders are not covered. To the calf of one of her legs is strapped a sheath holding a dagger. On either side of her stands a tall handmaid, and each handmaid is attired in a modest long, white garment.
First guardsmen: 'Tis a greater encampment than rumor had it.'
Second guardsman: 'Aye, and some among that folk are armed as well as we are.'
First guardsman: 'Look close. There are lady archers carrying longbows.'
Third guardsman: 'Look at the entrance to that largest tent. Do you see a creature of this world?'
We see Thersa and her two handmaids move from the tent together as one glowing creature, like a large creature of the air.
Third guardsman: ‘She is coming out to meet the Master. By the gods, that choice bird has sweet wings!'
The three guardsmen laugh softly.
First guardsman: 'It is, at least, a good show.'
Second guardsman: 'A show? I see all of those folk turning their eyes away from your bird. They fear her!'
We see Thorismund and Ingundis the Fair come from the forest and sit together on large, low tree branch. They are dressed in the garb of Makers, like Thiuderieks. Ingundis holds Thorismund’s arm. She whispers to him.
We see Ingundis the Fair and Thersa look at each other.
Ingundis the Fair: 'My love, have I not told you that I have sheltered with yon priestess?'
Thorismund: 'That is the charlatan whom the Master plans to drive away? Why have you said nothing to him?'
Ingundis the Fair: 'Who has the patience to overturn his opinions? Who can counter his low regard for those who augur oracles from Place gods? My dear one, our Master knows not all things or all persons, Keen Maker though he be. I shall enjoy watching his lesson.'
We see Thersa and her handmaidens stride tall toward Thiuderieks. They stop where less than twenty paces of open ground separates them. Thersa extends her arms, and the handmaids raise their robes to shield their faces.
We see Thersa’s skin glow at once like molten metal. It is red hot. Then it becomes white hot.
First guardsman: 'That creature throws light and heat like the sun!'
We see the guardsmen throw up their hands to shield their faces.
We see Thiuderieks’s face reflect the great heat and light. He squints, but he does not shield his face from the glowing woman. Sweat pours from his body.
We see Thersa stride toward him. The glow of her skin fades away.
We see Thiuderieks breathe deep. He advances to meet her, his three guardsmen following.
We see Thiuderieks and Thersa halt, three paces between. They are silent, each carefully taking the other’s measure. Both of them look magnificent, standing eye-to-eye. Thersa moves suddenly within arm’s length of Thiuderieks, drawing her ankle dagger. She is too quick for him and for his guardsmen. The guardsmen cannot unsheathe their swords before she feigns a slash across Thiuderieks’s neck and offers the dagger to him. It is cradled in her two hands held out toward him. He touches his index finger to its tip and lightly runs the finger along the blade's length to the hilt. He grasps the hilt and holds the dagger up to the sun, squinting as its shadow falls upon his face.
We see Thersa stretch out her hand to the carved cap of Thiuderieks’s staff. She runs her fingers down the staff and over his hand. She grasps the staff below his grip and they gaze at each other. Thiuderieks flips the dagger in his other hand and offers it to Thersa hilt-first. She sheaths it with the speed of lightning, using one hand and watching him constantly.
We see Thiuderieks’s hand on the staff gently force Thersa’s grasp down along its length, and they both slowly drop to their knees. Their backs remain straight, and they face each other eye-to-eye. The two handmaids and the three guardsmen drop down onto their knees.
We see a curtain of gods' Dartings spring up around Thersa and Thiuderieks. The Dartings are hissing cold flames of strange colors, obscuring our view of Thersa and Thiuderieks."
Martha paused in her reading to say, "After Matthew had read this to us, Elise Handke said, 'I once saw Dartings around Ottilie, but she instructed me to keep it secret, and she said that to a modern ear, that hissing has the sound of radio static.'
"Now we’re near the end of the leaf, where there is a brief exchange between Thorismund and Ingundis the Fair:”
Ingundis the Fair: 'That is not bad work for a charlatan.'
Thorismund: 'Truly, you ought to have warned the Master. Is she a Persona of a god?'
Ingundis the Fair: 'Who knows what she is? Whatever she is, Thersa was good to me in my distress. You should know that no one in her camp—other than her handmaids—speaks her name.'
Thorismund: ‘What do they call her?
Ingundis the Fair: ‘They call her Thersa the Deathless.'
"The leaf ends there." Returning to the journal, Martha continued,
"Thiuderieks had, indeed, met his match. He questioned Thersa in great detail about her claim to have searched for a suitable spouse for a thousand years, and to have recognized her spouse at once in him. Once he had accepted her incredible story as truth, Thiuderieks found that he was completely in love with Thersa. He offered his hand in marriage, and she accepted."
Isabel raised her hand. “Martha, where does the name Ingundis the Fair come from? The the others in this story have simple names.”
Upon receiving a nod from Martha, Yohanna answered, “Isabel, the Clan was, in those days, a mixed racial group just as it is now, their social cohesion resulting from their Makers’ communion with gods. Thiuderieks's Hold was in the Clan’s southern region in Africa, and Thiuderieks and Thorismund are Black, like me. Thersa and ‘Ingundis the Fair’ came from the northern part of the territory, Thersa being from the extreme north. Her two handmaids were African.
"Ingundis the Fair was originally called by the teasing Clan name, ‘the crafty white girl’. History has altered that founding Keen Maker’s name to make it more elegant.”
Isabel asked, “What’s the meaning of ‘Ingundis’?”
“Ingundis,” Rhoda informed her, “means ‘around whom all revolve’. As you’ve already heard, Ingundis is the name of a goddess worshiped in those days by some northern tribes, including Thersa’s. The goddess Ingundis was identified with the Pole Star around which revolve the stars which never set. Those stars and all caribou were held to belong to the goddess. The woman’s name Ingundis has come to mean ‘an accomplished young woman’.”
"I recall,” said Leo, “that it was Ottilie who told Reyna about the goddess Ingundis.”
"Young Thersa had chosen to make a sacrifice to the goddess Ingundis in order to find a spouse suitable to her position as the only descendant of her father, the head of her tribe. The sacrifice’s ritual required that she not return to her tribe without a fiancé, and she had sought him in vain for a thousand years without understanding why her life as a maiden should be so prolonged. She had wandered in constant hope of finding the mate whose image she bore in her heart.
"Ingundis the Fair set out with Thersa and her retinue to find the place of Thersa’s origin, being sent by Thiuderieks on the long trek in order to obtain the blessing of Thersa's tribe for their union—and for Ingundis the Fair to learn what she could about the nature of Thersa’s sacrifice. After the passage of a thousand years, the situation no longer existed, of course, which had made Thersa seek a foreign spouse, but for her to suddenly return to her people with a powerful spouse like Thiuderieks might not be politically wise, without proper preparation.
Thiuderieks’s deepest motive for encouraging this journey was his strong feeling that Thersa’s undying youth was connected in some way with the caribou sacrifice, and that taking her as his spouse would bind him to that event. Knowing that time flows differently for gods, Thiuderieks believed that Thersa’s quest for approval for their marriage—at least by the gods involved in the sacrifice—should be attempted."
Martha paused in her reading. “Isabel, you and Ottilie Krüger have each experienced a True Vision of Thersa’s caribou sacrifice. You have described the vision to some of us here. Will you now please share it with all of us?”
Isabel described her True Vision in detail, telling them of observing closely Thersa’s hunt, and of the woman’s wonderfully athletic vault in which she unsheathed her dagger in mid-air and landed on the caribou’s neck between its antlers. She told of seeing the animal’s life blood pouring out while Thersa rode it to the ground, and of her own profound sense of Thersa’s feelings in making the sacrifice uniting with the animal’s feelings in being the victim. The experience had opened to Isabel’s heart the vast, strange joy shared by all caribou in their arduous lives. She said, “In a moment I saw and knew the being of each and every one of those caribou!”
Martha summarized the True Vision which had been received by Ottilie, with its scene of Thersa’s days-long preparation of the pyre on which the bull caribou was to be consumed by fire. Then she returned to the journal:
"On their long northward trek, Ingundis the Fair learned more from Thersa about her sacrifice, and about the astounding presence of the god who had appeared to receive her offering and to answer her request. Thersa was unable to recall the words spoken by the god to her in accepting her offering, and Ingundis found this odd because Thersa vividly recalled the event’s other details. After some hesitation, Thersa gave Ingundis permission to read her Living Memory of the sacrificial event, in order to recover the god’s words.
Reading it, Ingundis the Fair was deeply disturbed by the dialogue between Thersa and the god, whose personal presence she found far more splendid than Thersa’s description of it.
“Are you God?” the astonished maiden Thersa had asked. The sacrificial pyre had collapsed in a burst of flame, and the god had answered, “Yes. I am God. Do as you will; I am with you.” The god had vanished, but before he had done so, Ingundis had recognized the Self Sign of the god Sunderer. She had been appalled by his blasphemous statement.
While Hans and Isabel shared questioning frowns, Evelyn appeared to be amused. Rolf was wide-eyed. Leo stroked his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully.
"Ingundis the Fair read Thersa’s Living Memory at the actual site of Thersa’s caribou sacrifice. Although it was overgrown by a woodland, and the glacier had receded more than a hundred miles, Thersa knew the location by its geology and through her easy communication with Place-gods.
“The Strand of Thersa’s Living Memory allowed Ingundis also to communicate with the Place-god of the sacrifice. From the Place-god, Ingundis the Fair learned that the Arch-god called the Heart Shield had himself rendered judgement in the matter by deeding a stake in Sunderer’s Heart Weight to Thersa. That stake of immense Heart Weight was to remain Thersa’s until Sunderer had made amends for his blasphemous mockery of the young maiden’s offering. Ingundis understood then that it was Thersa’s god-like Heart Weight which somehow preserved her maidenly beauty which had won Thiuderieks's staunch heart.”
Isabel exchanged a glance with Hans. She asked, “Martha, what exactly is this Heart Weight?”
Martha nodded to Rhoda, who answered, “Heart Weight is one’s ballast in the essential dimensions of the Commons (or the Spiritual Realm, whichever you choose to call it). In a way, it’s like the Earth’s gravity, in which we all have a stake.”
“So,” said Leo, “Thersa was going around in the spirit of her vow, being as much in the Realm of the gods as on earth. It’s no wonder that she remained a maiden, deathless”
“You’ve said it better than I would have done, Leo.” Martha shifted her gaze to her daughter Antonia, snuggled up next to Leo and smiling approvingly at him.
"They learned that Thersa’s tribe no longer existed. None of its tokens were borne by any people met by them in that sparsely populated northern region. Upon returning with Thersa, Ingundis the Fair was eager to communicate her understanding that the cause of Thersa’s unusual longevity was her god-like Heart Weight.
"It happened that Cleaver had come to Thiuderieks soon after Thersa and Ingundis the Fair had departed. The god had hidden his identity from Thiuderieks, calling himself the Comrade, and their conversation had developed as Cleaver had planned.
"When Ingundis the Fair arrived at Thiuderieks’s Clan Hold, Thorismund told her at once that Thiuderieks had promised to fabricate a Soma for the Friend. A god named the Comrade had represented the Friend using a Calling Portal to work out the terms of a Pact between Thiuderieks and the Friend for the Design and fabrication of the Soma. Thiuderieks had already done some preliminary Design work for the Soma, and he had determined the necessity of the Elixir, a co-Device of the Soma which would transform Makers into temporary Soma attendants. These attendants would assist the god in vesting himself personally in the Soma and in operating it. The Soma was, in fact, something like an Anima for a god.
"Without his two apprentices, Thiuderieks had been unable to begin fabricating the Soma Device. In fact, its Design and the conditions relating it to the Pact had proved to be more complex than he had foreseen. Therefore, the Pact had not yet been finalized and ratified. But Thiuderieks, in his enthusiasm, had given to the Friend his solemn pledge to fabricate the Soma.
"Coming to understand this state of affairs, Ingundis the Fair was horrified, having recognized from the Self Sign of the blasphemous Sunderer that it was he who was the Friend with whom the Comrade had communicated. At once, she took Thorismund with her to Thiuderieks. The meeting among those three is held to be the first War Thing. In that meeting, the Ban of Swords between humans and gods was lifted for the first time—but only after Ingundis and Thorismund had worked long and hard to open Thiuderieks’s eyes to the Friend’s true identity: Sunderer, whom they concluded was, in fact, their Foe.
"The wedding of Thersa and Thiuderieks was postponed, and Thiuderieks cautiously drew out his negotiations with the Comrade over an extended period of time. The delay gave Ingundis the Fair and Thorismund time to seek more information about the activity of the Friend in the northern regions in which his influence was said to be established. Ingundis and Thorismund, who both came from Word Wise families, corresponded with and visited Word Wise families who had made Histories of their travels. They found the Self Sign of Sunderer in these Histories and in the verbal narratives of recent witnesses.
"It was not a pretty picture which they uncovered. The worst part of it was the temple of the Friend, where human sacrifices were being offered. This practice was so shocking to the sensibilities of those times, that its discovery had been kept secret while a Thing of Word Wise had been deliberating for a decade over the means by which it might be shut down. Their Thing commanded little strength of arms, compared to the force of armed men guarding the temple. In those times organized armies had not yet evolved, and most arms existed for protection against dangerous beasts and small bands of brigands who had recently appeared, waylaying traders.
"Thorismund and Ingundis learned also about the Calling Stone of the Heart Shield. They journeyed to the Stone, which was set on a pedestal on a low hill and was without Keepers. Only a few Word Wise had consulted it. The two of them removed it, leaving on its pedestal an inscription identifying its new location: Thiuderieks’s Hold in the south.
"While Thiuderieks delayed, waiting for a report from Ingundis the Fair and Thorismund, Cleaver began to suspect that the Friend’s subterfuge of friendship with humans had been found out. But Thiuderieks explained to ‘the Comrade’ that he was unable to do the necessary work in his Workshop without his two apprentices “…who have fallen in love, and they have gone to speak with their families about a union between them. Gods must expect such delays and inconveniences in dealing with humans.”
"In his conversations with the Comrade, Thiuderieks craftily extracted some information from him about Sunderer’s Province by telling him that the human assistants for the vesting of the Friend in the Soma must be anchored in the Friend’s Province by means of the Elixir. By using measuring Calipers while conversing with the Comrade, he was able to determine that the Friend’s Province was in the lowest Airs of the Commons, which confirmed his identity as Sunderer, the god of the Netherworld.”
Diego asked, “What use did Thiuderieks have in mind for the Soma?”
Ricardo told him, “What Thiuderieks had in mind was for the Soma to be used for extracting and refining pure mineral ores without tunneling and digging up the ground. Thiuderieks planned to build Calipers into the Soma, which its Maker attendants would operate to control the power wielded by the Soma. Thiuderieks never doubted that the Friend would cooperate with the Makers as gods had always done in the Workshop. He had not given sufficient thought to the use of Makers’ Chants to invoke the essential presence of gods guided by the Ethical Force, by means of which Makers become a part of the guiding Providence of nature. Thiuderieks had not considered that in the case of the Soma, the vested god would not necessarily be guided by the Ethical Force, because his personal presence would be lodged in the Soma, allowing him to see and act in his own agency when vested in it. Had Thiuderieks been more cautious, he would have come to understand that Sunderer, vested in the Soma, would have the power to do considerable damage, destroying things left and right with a force as great as that of atomic weapons.”
Hans asked, “Well, even though the Friend hasn’t gotten his Soma yet, hasn’t he gained a personal foothold in Earth’s Province, at least in the Keep?”
“That’s partially true, Hans, but let’s listen to Martha for an answer to your question, as much as an answer is possible.”
~ 2 ~ "Thiuderieks came to understand that Sunderer had successfully used deception to gain a foothold, and some power, in Earth’s Province. When he, with Thorismund and Ingundis the Fair, used the Calling Stone of the Heart Shield, the Heart Shield informed Thiuderieks that, because he had solemnly pledged his word, he must proceed to make the Pact and draw up the Soma’s Design—as carefully and artfully as he was able, so that—vested in the Soma—Sunderer would be personally present in Earth’s Province.
"As a consequence of taking the Heart Shield’s advice, Thiuderieks postponed for six years his marriage with Thersa, while laying the foundations for his Garth in the Commons which now encircles Sunderer’s Province of the Netherworld. It is the initially unforeseen vast length of chronological time—eight-thousand years—required for fabricating Thiuderieks’s Garth, which has caused the Soma’s fabrication to be still with us.
"In response to Thiuderieks’s explanation of the need to delay their marriage, Thersa had said to him, ‘I have sought you, my love, for a thousand years; I can wait a few years more.’ She has not yet ended her wait. But the ‘few years’—which grew to eight-thousand—are drawing to a close, and we think that when—and if—they are reunited, Thiuderieks’s War Thing will also have come to its end. More cannot be said about that now, because what is known about their reunion is Secret."
“But,” said Martha, “I can tell you about the Heart Shield, who is the Arch-god. His role is the highest in the Guiding Province. Makers traditionally refer to him as Closer, because he closes personal transactions between humans, and between humans and gods, with a settlement of their Heart Weights. His essential act gives final expression to the Ethical Force. In the case of the interaction between Sunderer and Thersa, the Heart Shield acted both personally and essentially in the service of the Ethical Force.”
Isabel frowned. “Does the Heart Shield close his own personal acts with humans? Or is there an Arch-Arch-god to close his and an Arch-Arch-Arch-god above him and so on, forever?”
Rhoda smiled. “That’s a fair question, Isabel. “It is our Creator who closes all personal acts between gods.”
“Rhoda, by using the same logic I would conclude that the Creator is the first cause of the gods and, as makers of nature, the gods are only secondary causes like us.”
Rhoda’s smile was brilliant. “That’s right, Isabel! Like us, although on a grander scale, they create only secondarily.”
“Well, even if it’s logically correct, I’m not sure that I actually believe it.”
Rolf asked, “What does ‘closing acts’ mean?”
Rhoda explained: “A closing act is the closure of an event in Earth’s Province, in which the event becomes a thing of the past, as we normally understand it. But if the event is not in the past of all of the creatures involved in it, it has a present, and so it has a future in the Commons. An unclosed event’s Meaning and Doing are still open, so the event can be changed in some way throughout its Niche. For instance, the Clan’s construction of Thiuderieks’s Garth in the Commons is past, present and future to us in this room. The Makers who are working there, who make up the Ultimate Shift, come from throughout the past three thousand years of history, including some of our contemporaries from Home Ranch. Each Maker works for a term of six years of chronological time. So, of two Garth Makers working side-by-side on the Garth, one may have been dead for a thousand years before the other was born, in our chronological terms.”
“Does this kind of strangeness reflect the fact that all times are present to God?” Rolf asked.
“In a way it does, Rolf.” Ricardo explained, “In some ways the gods have a greater likeness to God than humans have. The gods are knowing secondary causes who make material nature, as we experience it, while being themselves a higher part of nature. Whatever creative essence a god brings into nature, his essential presence through which that essence is applied scans the whole of the evolving Cosmos and beholds all instances of events in which his particular creative power plays a role. As his essence is applied in these events, they move—according to his sense of time—into his personal past. So, Rolf, a god beholds all things at once, and it’s a lot like the way that we imagine God does. But a god doesn’t really view one vast present moment, because gods, like humans, are temporal beings. Compared to our present moment, however, a god’s present moment is a lot like an ‘eternal moment’. His personal time is determined only by the sequence of his own personal acts. In the intervals separating his personal acts, a god’s essential vision is not temporally ordered; it’s ordered much more by Meaning than by Doing.”
Rolf shook his head, “I sort of get what you’re saying, Ricardo, but it makes my head swim.”
Leo asked, “So, is a god’s time bound to his personal experience with others?”
“That’s right,” Rhoda answered.
“Okay, Rhoda. Then, I’m guessing that Thersa’s sacrificial caribou offering, nine thousand years ago, involved Thersa, Sunderer and the Heart Shield personally. I’d wager that event is the true root of the War Thing, and so it’s still with us in a living way. The Pact between Thiuderieks and the Friend—a thousand years after the caribou sacrifice—must also involve Thersa's caribou offering in some way, and it sets the stage we’re playing on now. Am I getting close to seeing the big picture?”
Martha watched Rhoda and Ricardo share surprised and pleased looks. She whispered to Antonia, “You’ve married a smart guy, but I think he has just now signed up for another tour of duty.” Antonia smiled at her mother, shrugging her shoulders, then proudly watched Leo’s face while he engaged in animated discussion with Rhoda, Ricardo and Rolf. While others crowded around to listen and join in the conversation, Antonia looked down at her hands, trying to imagine all of the gods whose essential presence was involved in making those hands. She smiled to herself, shaking her head.
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