Laws as a whole, and I believe in the Giants. I have taught only that the Giants were not real in the sense that we are real. I have taught that they were intended as symbols of some higher reality and were not meant to be taken as literal persons.”
“What higher reality is this?” the Spokesman demanded. “Describe it.”
“You ask me to do something the writers of the Book of Laws themselves couldn’t do,” Honath said hotly. “If they had to embody the reality in symbols rather than writing it down directly, how could a mere pursemaker do better?”
“This doctrine is wind,” the Spokesman said. “And it is plainly intended to undercut authority and the order established by the Book. Tell me, pursemaker: if men need not fear the Giants, why should they fear the law?”
“Because they are men, and it is to their interest to fear the law. They aren’t children, who need some physical Giant sitting over them with a whip to make them behave. Furthermore, Spokesman, this archaic belief itself undermines us. As long as we believe that there are real Giants, and that some day they’ll return and resume teaching us, so long will we fail to seek answers to our questions for ourselves. Half of what we know was given to us in the Book, and the other half is supposed to drop to us from the skies if we wait long enough. In the meantime, we vegetate.”
“If a part of the Book be untrue, there can be nothing to prevent that it is all untrue,” the Spokesman said heavily. “And we will lose even what you call the half of our knowledge—which is actually the whole of it—to those who see with clear eyes.”
Suddenly, Honath lost his temper. “Lose it, then!” he shouted. “Let us unlearn everything we know only by rote, go back to the beginning, learn all over again, and continue to learn, from our own experience. Spokesman, you are an old man, but there are still some of us who haven’t forgotten what curiosity means!”
“Quiet!” the Spokesman said. “We have heard enough. We call on Alaskon the Navigator.”
“Much of the Book is clearly untrue,” Alaskon said flatly, rising. “As a handbook of small trades it has served us well. As a guide to how the universe is made, it is nonsense, in my opinion; Honath is too kind to it. I’ve made no secret of what I think, and I still think it.”
“And will pay for it,” the Spokesman said, blinking slowly down at Alaskon. “Charl the Reader.”
“Nothing,” Charl said, without standing, or even looking up.
“You do not deny the charges?”
“I’ve nothing to say,” Charl said, but then, abruptly, his head jerked up, and he glared with desperate eyes at the Spokesman. “I can read, Spokesman. I have seen words in the Book of Laws that contradict each other. I’ve pointed them out. They’re facts, they exist on the pages. I’ve taught nothing, told no lies, preached no unbelief. I’ve pointed to the facts. That’s all.”
“Seth the Needlesmith, you may speak now.”
The guards took their hands gratefully off Seth’s mouth; they had been bitten several times in the process of keeping him quiet up to now. Seth resumed shouting at once.
“I’m no part of this group! I’m the victim of gossip, envious neighbors, smiths jealous of my skill and my custom! No man can say worse of me than that I sold needles to this pursemaker—sold them in good faith! The charges against me are lies, all lies!”
Honath jumped to his feet in fury, and then sat down again, choking back the answering shout almost without tasting its bitterness. What did it matter? Why should he bear witness against the young man? It would not help the others, and if Seth wanted to lie his way out of Hell, he might as well be given the chance.
The Spokesman was looking down at Seth with the identical expression of outraged disbelief which he had first bent upon Honath. “Who was it cut the blasphemies into the hardwood tree, by the house of Hosi the Lawgiver?” he demanded. “Sharp needles were at work there, and there are witnesses to say that your hands held them.”
“More lies!”
“Needles found in your house fit the furrows, Seth.”
“They were not mine—or they were stolen! I demand to be freed!”
“You will be freed,” the Spokesman said coldly. There was no possible doubt as to what he meant. Seth began to weep and to shout at the same time. Hands closed over his mouth again. “Mathild the Forager, your plea may be heard.”
The young woman stood up hesitantly. Her fur was nearly dry now, but she was still shivering.
“Spokesman,” she said, “I saw the things which Charl the Reader showed me. I doubted, but what Honath said restored my belief. I see no harm in his teachings. They remove doubt, instead of fostering it as you say they do. I see no evil in them, and I don’t understand why this is a crime.”
Honath looked over to her with new admiration. The Spokesman sighed heavily.
“I am sorry for you,” he said, “but as Spokesman we cannot allow ignorance of the law as a plea. We will be merciful to you all, however. Renounce your heresy, affirm your belief in the Book as it is written from bark to bark, and you shall be no more than cast out of the tribe.”
“I renounce it!” Seth cried. “I never shared it! It’s all blasphemy and every word is a lie! I believe in the Book, all of it!”
“You, needlesmith,” the Spokesman said, “have lied before this Judgment, and are probably lying now. You are not included in the dispensation.”
“Snake-spotted caterpillar! May your—ummulph.”
“Pursemaker, what is your answer?”
“It is No,” Honath said stonily. “I’ve spoken the truth. The truth can’t be unsaid.”
The Spokesman looked down at the rest of them. “As for you three, consider your answers carefully. To share the heresy means sharing the sentence. The penalty will not be lightened only because you did not invent the heresy.”
There was a long silence.
Honath swallowed hard. The courage and the faith in that silence made him feel smaller and more helpless than ever. He realized suddenly that the other three would have kept that silence, even without Seth’s defection to stiffen their spines. He wondered if he could have done so.
“Then we pronounce the sentence,” the Spokesman said. “You are one and all condemned to one thousand days in Hell.”
There was a concerted gasp from around the edges of the arena, where, without Honath’s having noticed it before, a silent crowd had gathered. He did not wonder at the sound. The sentence was the longest in the history of the tribe.
Not that it really meant anything. No one had ever come back from as little as one hundred days in Hell. No one had ever come back from Hell at all.
“Unlash the Elevator. All shall go together.”
The basket swayed. The last of the attic world that Honath saw was a circle of faces, not too close to the gap in the vine web, peering down after them. Then the basket fell another few yards to the next turn of the windlass and the faces vanished.
