Kingdoms of the Wall Read Online Free Page A
Author: Robert Silverberg
We'll go up there together, you and I, side by side, rising through Kingdom after Kingdom just as the First Climber did. We'll meet the gods, just as He did. We will have their blessing. We'll see all the wonders and learn all the mysteries. And together we will return, with new knowledge that will change the world. What kind of knowledge that is, I can't begin to say. But I know it's there. I know it without any question. We have to find it. And so we have to make it happen that we become Pilgrims, you and I. Are you following me? We have to make it happen ."
And he stretched his hand toward me and encircled the thick part of my arm with his fingers, three above and three below, digging his fingertips into my flesh so that I had to gasp with the pain of it: and this was little Traiben, who had no more strength than a fish! Something leaped from him to me in that moment, something of the strange fire that burned within him, something of the fever of his soul. And I felt it burning within me too, an utterly new thing, the passionate yearning to find my gods on that mountain, and stand before them, and say to them, "I am Poilar of Jespodar, and I am here to serve you. But you must serve me too. I wish you to teach me all that you know."
He held me like that for a long moment, so that I thought he would never let go. Then I brushed at his hand, gently, as one might brush at a glitterfly hovering around one's head that is too lovely to hurt, and he released me. But I heard him breathing hard beside me, in hot excitement. It was a troublesome thing for me, this frenzy of Traiben's that had come over him so passionately and that he had passed over into my spirit.
"Look," I said, desperate to step back from the intensity of the moment, for passion of that kind was something new to me and it was making me tremble, "the Procession is going to start."
* * *
Indeed everyone was uttering little hsshing noises to silence his neighbor, for the grand march was beginning. The Sweepers in their purple loincloths went dancing by, whisking dangerous spirits out of the roadway with their little brooms, and then, in silence, came the heart of the Procession out of the heavy morning mists that lay at the lower end of town. My father's father's brother's son Meribail led the way, all bedecked in a shining and magnificent cloak of scarlet gambardo feathers woven tightly together. Beside him on the one side was Thispar Double- Lifer, the oldest man of the village, who had lived seven full tens of years. Traiben's father's father's father, he was. On the other side of Meribail was another of our old ones, the double-lifer Gamilalar, who had lately celebrated the beginning of his seventh ten. Following these three in the Procession came the heads of all the Houses, walking grandly two by two.
But my mind wasn't on the Procession. It was full of Traiben's words, which had set me aflame with new and consuming ambitions. He had put an urgent need into me that had never been there before.
And so I made my vow. I would climb the Wall to its utmost point. I would attain the Summit. I would stare into the eyes of the gods, from whom all wisdom flows, and I would absorb all that they could give me. Then I would return to our lowland home, which only a few had ever succeeded in doing, and most of those no longer in their right minds. And I would teach to others everything that I had mastered on high.
So be it. From that moment on my life's goal was graven in stone.
And it was Traiben's goal too. How strange! That frail awkward boy had dreams of being a Pilgrim? It seemed almost comical. They would never choose him, never, never. And yet I understood that when Traiben desired a thing, Traiben was capable of attaining it.
Together we would achieve the Pilgrimage, Traiben and I. We were twelve years old, and our lives were irrevocably set from that moment forth.
2
The events of that day's Procession passed before me
And he stretched his hand toward me and encircled the thick part of my arm with his fingers, three above and three below, digging his fingertips into my flesh so that I had to gasp with the pain of it: and this was little Traiben, who had no more strength than a fish! Something leaped from him to me in that moment, something of the strange fire that burned within him, something of the fever of his soul. And I felt it burning within me too, an utterly new thing, the passionate yearning to find my gods on that mountain, and stand before them, and say to them, "I am Poilar of Jespodar, and I am here to serve you. But you must serve me too. I wish you to teach me all that you know."
He held me like that for a long moment, so that I thought he would never let go. Then I brushed at his hand, gently, as one might brush at a glitterfly hovering around one's head that is too lovely to hurt, and he released me. But I heard him breathing hard beside me, in hot excitement. It was a troublesome thing for me, this frenzy of Traiben's that had come over him so passionately and that he had passed over into my spirit.
"Look," I said, desperate to step back from the intensity of the moment, for passion of that kind was something new to me and it was making me tremble, "the Procession is going to start."
* * *
Indeed everyone was uttering little hsshing noises to silence his neighbor, for the grand march was beginning. The Sweepers in their purple loincloths went dancing by, whisking dangerous spirits out of the roadway with their little brooms, and then, in silence, came the heart of the Procession out of the heavy morning mists that lay at the lower end of town. My father's father's brother's son Meribail led the way, all bedecked in a shining and magnificent cloak of scarlet gambardo feathers woven tightly together. Beside him on the one side was Thispar Double- Lifer, the oldest man of the village, who had lived seven full tens of years. Traiben's father's father's father, he was. On the other side of Meribail was another of our old ones, the double-lifer Gamilalar, who had lately celebrated the beginning of his seventh ten. Following these three in the Procession came the heads of all the Houses, walking grandly two by two.
But my mind wasn't on the Procession. It was full of Traiben's words, which had set me aflame with new and consuming ambitions. He had put an urgent need into me that had never been there before.
And so I made my vow. I would climb the Wall to its utmost point. I would attain the Summit. I would stare into the eyes of the gods, from whom all wisdom flows, and I would absorb all that they could give me. Then I would return to our lowland home, which only a few had ever succeeded in doing, and most of those no longer in their right minds. And I would teach to others everything that I had mastered on high.
So be it. From that moment on my life's goal was graven in stone.
And it was Traiben's goal too. How strange! That frail awkward boy had dreams of being a Pilgrim? It seemed almost comical. They would never choose him, never, never. And yet I understood that when Traiben desired a thing, Traiben was capable of attaining it.
Together we would achieve the Pilgrimage, Traiben and I. We were twelve years old, and our lives were irrevocably set from that moment forth.
2
The events of that day's Procession passed before me
Readers choose
Sky Masters (v1.1)
Larry Kane
Grace Dent
Jill Mansell
David Bishop
Michelle Bellon