Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 12: Democritus, Archbishop of St. Plutarch

Light traversing a properly shaped crystal shall divide into separate beams. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, violet. Pose a second crystal of correct shape, and these beams shall reunite into a single beam of white.

And if your light be the sun itself, and your crystal be ten million drops of rain? Why, behold the rainbow. The symbol of hope sent by the saints to remind the Middle House how those above watch over us through every storm.

We creatures of clay move through textures of light woven together as silk threads of a tapestry. As our clay is itself but a further winding of endlessly divisible threads.

Consider a grand cathedral orchestra playing a masterpiece of music. A clever ear can isolate the flute from the oboe, the trumpet from the harp, the drum from the cymbal.

All things observed, touched, known, can be so divided, identified, analyzed. And yet, what does it mean? What is the worth of dissecting a symphony, a tapestry, a beam of light?

The Lucretians see the light, touch the clay, hear the music. And they alone dare test, divide, identify.

And so they alone know that beneath every thread that weaves our world, is a separate, secret realm of rules. The smallest grain of sand shall obey the same laws as a mountain or the whirling moon itself.

Even unto the saints. They too are divisible, of parts identifiable. And though they may appear to us as golden beams of light or marble statues, a stranger on the road or a voice in a dream. The saints are the construction of rules twining together; like light, like grains of a rock, like melodies of music.

When the Deaconry decided to send Cedric as Questioner to his former love Beatrice, I did not object. The mission was valid; to inquire upon a dangerous cult corrupting doctrine, leading folk to destruction. If it ended with Cedric's death? Well, he had agreed to join the service of St. Plutarch. Such ending would be his gain, and ours.

And yet as I watched the proceedings, I felt able to divide their wisdom into smaller, meaner parts. They of the Deaconry are wise spirits; but never forget: they are dead. Truly, they recall love, and all the fires of desire and ache of loss. But only recall. Never more than recall. And that recollection of love is to them at once burning agony, and sweet perfume.

Well, if you were starving, and could only smell fresh bread, but never taste the least crumb... might you not sit in command of a bakery ordering this sweet cake, that fresh loaf be baked and brought before you, so that you might inhale the warm memory?

At heart, the Deaconry sent Cedric to Beatrice to torment a living man with agonies horrible as Beatrice and her devotees inflicted upon themselves. So that at the table of the high council, they might, just briefly, close dead eyes to the living world, and recall the sweet, wonderful, unbearable pains of life.