The Sweetsong of the Ladydove - Part VIII

Chapter 12
I helped the Ancient with the rest of his journey, leaving only briefly to watch the fate and path of Contessa.
Her husband chose not to go with her. I followed her to the Merengula Grove, and noticed where she settled in. She arrived at about the same time the Ancient was winding up his trip around the world.
What normally would have been a complete trip of around thirteen years, turned into about four years, and two months.
And those years had passed quickly, as the Ancient and I bonded, and had many unique experiences together, and as I enjoyed the spiritual highs with Contessa.

The Ancient came back through Parrberry Grove, a large and bustling center of activity. By now, all the families that were split from the initial fall were together again, including my own. The Ancient sought out his wife. They embraced a good long one, and then talked a great deal longer. He voiced his doubts about coming back right away, for fear of being a hypocrite.
His wife responded, “If you feel better about holding off until the rest are mostly fallen, that is alright with me, if you come and visit often.”
So the Ancient returned to the community, counting the days as the people left one-by-one to go see the Groves Phenomenon.
Whenever anyone left the community, second-class angels who guarded the outskirts did not stop them. But if they returned, they were stopped by these guards and asked to “pronounce the key word.” If they had not fallen, they could hear from higher angels what the word was. If they had fallen by participating in the forbidden programs, then because their spiritual perception was clouded, nothing reached their spiritual ears, they could not therefore repeat the key word, and they were rejected. The key word was different each time. I didn’t need a key word; I could enter and leave the pure places at will, probably because I was a spirit, or probably because I was the Devil, and surely the Devil could go anywhere, so to be able to tempt the people.

To speed up the Ancient’s return, I continued my whisperings, causing people’s curiosity over the “wondrous things” happening at the Parrberry Grove to grow beyond resistance. And I didn’t have to do all the work. The “grapevine” was a wonderful, natural tool: This business about the Fall was a subject on everyone’s mind, at all hours of the day. And the fact that the queen was the first to fall caused great wonder among the people, making them think that it had to be something of a necessity. Those under the Prophetess Contessa also fell in to this same thinking since she had fallen also. Thus, their minds rationalized that it was okay to at least visit the place, as everyone else was doing. The rest of their conversion was quite simple after that.

Occasionally I visited the Ancient, having missed him, and worried that he might be lonely. He barely gave off the impression that he was glad to see me, some times more than others. But on one visit -- during the year 440, which actually was year 5 of the fall -- he said, as the first order of business, “I don’t know why, but I feel compelled to tell you about some upcoming events on Priegan: In about 2000 years from now (he used a primitive counting system, but he made sure the translation to my own system was accurate), a messiah will come to Priegan. By then, the people will have turned wicked enough to execute him over some unjust and unfounded cause. His death will be both tragic, but needful, as it will give him the opportunity to conquer death, and save his people.
“Before any of this comes to pass, one significant event will be the annihilation of a third of the population through a black sickness. This will be tragic, but it will have to happen, to maintain peace in the world, for the insect that spreads this will be among the wicked, mostly. This will happen in a time not long from today, when kings cease to rule over the land.
“After the plague, a time of growth will take place. Then a group of men and women will gain power, taking its roots from an older organization that was once noble, that will develop secret oaths. It will be this group that will be responsible for the Messiah’s death. After it establishes its first secret oath, which I believe will involve targeted assassinations, it will take between 100 to 120 years for this group to gain enough power and influence to bring about the death of the messiah.”
After the Ancient told me all that information, I noticed that he published these figures and prophecies.

As the Ancient waited out the complete fall of Priegan, I went to visit Contessa. When I tried to appear to her, there was no response. But she had taken immediately to learning how to read and write. Perhaps her concentration was distracting her.
So I tried visiting her in her more idle moments to get her attention, practicing my visual and telepathic transmissions. Finally, after dedicated practice, I started to get measurable results, beginning with only audible suggestions. But it usually happened after she would lay herself down for bed. Her first response was manifest in how she looked around the room with only her eyes after I spoke to her. After waiting a while, she closed them, waited for a while, then she whispered, “Come back to me, my personal angel.”
I practiced more kinetics. I was determined to communicate with Contessa, and feel her emotions out, now that she was alone. I had plenty of time to practice, so over the next few weeks I could see a little bit of progress.
An idea suddenly hit me, and I searched for ripe pieces of fruit that I could cause to fall on her pathway. In searching the route she traveled daily, I found a meeka tree nearby, one of the few types that existed both in and outside the Pure Gardens. I practiced at making the wingseeds travel laterally as they fell. After a few days of this type of practice, I managed to get them to fall near the path that Contessa walked. Next, I got those pieces to form a sun, with rays emanating from it.
Tessa didn’t find my sun on the first day.
By the second day, some birds had upset the diagram, and I had to rebuild it. I worked at audible or spiritual noises so I could scare the birds away, next time they tried to disturb my wingseed sun. Through the millennia, I had learned that animals sense spiritual commotion quite easily.
On the third day, she passed it again.
On the fourth day, I managed to make a wingseed fall on her face. She absently brushed it away and continued on.
Six more days had passed before something sank in. And during those six days, I came to her at night, when she was most relaxed and before she went into deep sleep. I introduced myself as “the angel of the rising sun,” and repeated to her over and over that she should look for the wingseed sun. I said this in as many different ways as possible, while also telling her that wingseeds were falling around her for a reason.
On that sixth day, when she happened to see a wingseed fall in front of her, she stopped. She watched it as if trying to remember something. Then she looked down and thought some more. She looked along the path ahead of her, and saw something that looked familiar. She approached it, and . . .
She saw the wingseed sun!
She sucked in a gasp of breath and stood there motionless for a while. She put a hand over her gaping mouth, then smiled expectantly as she looked around, saying, “Angel! Is that you? Derebispa?”
She noticed a trail of wingseeds leading away from the path, and she followed it until she arrived at the meeka tree. When I saw that she was headed for the tree, I caused a few more to fall, and helped them to form the letters, “T-E-S-S.”
She now tucked the papers she was carrying under her arm, put both hands over her mouth and nose. Then she sobbed as tears came to her eyes. She fell gracefully to her knees, and said, “Oh, my dear angel Harusten! My Derebispa! You’ve come to visit me!”
I caused a breeze that pushed a few of the wingseeds away, then wrote in the sand, “Yes.” At the same time, I uttered the word.
The word did not appear immediately, so I had to write it about 15 times before enough dirt moved to notice an indentation where my finger had passed. When she saw the first few indentations, she sucked in another breath, then smiled. After the strokes of the word grew deep enough to recognize the word, she sobbed out a laugh. Then she looked up and said, “So, evidently, you came, but I couldn’t see you. Is that right?”
I underlined the same word, managing to make the line a little bit deeper after 15 strokes. She laughed out a short puff of air again, then said, “My mind doesn’t feel any different, but my body feels a lot more tired, now.”
I wrote, “You will get accustomed to it.” I wrote each letter about 12 times before going to the next one. Because I could move my finger quite rapidly, each letter took, on the average, about five to ten seconds to appear.
Contessa carefully sounded out each letter. It took her a while to say “accustomed,” and she mis-pronounced it, but she did know enough phonics to get the general feeling of it. She then said, “What is ‘ac-coosto-med?’” Then she worked the word a little more, before she lit up and said, “Oh! It . . . it seems to be accustomed! Is that right?”
I made a second line under the word “Yes.”
She laughed even again, and said, “Oh! This writing is a wonderful thing!”
We visited like this for a while. Each time I wrote a word, I pronounced it to her. At one point, I wrote, “Listen, when I write.”
It took her a while to realize that this meant that I was speaking to her as well as writing.
This interaction took place each day at our meeka tree for a number of weeks. By this time, my writing took shape quicker, for I was getting better at moving things. Also, Contessa perked up once, after I pronounced a word, and she said, “I heard it! I heard you say that word!” She was as jubilant as a child would be over finding her lost doll.
After another seven weeks, I was communicating with her through verbal means only. When she was relaxed at night, she picked up my words even more clearly.
Next, I practiced at making myself seen. This took quite some time, for it needed concentration not only on my part, but on hers as well. And when it finally happened, my visibility came and went, until our efforts became second-nature.
By this time, practically all of Priegan had fallen from the Pure Gardens.

It was two years after the end of his anti-sower crusade, when the Ancient -- finding himself alone -- packed his provisions and visited his wife again. It was the sixth month of the year 441. But the visit was only to inform her of his impending visits to the other communities, again. He said with heavy sadness, “It has come to me through uneasy feelings that not all have fallen, yet. I must check all the other communities. I cannot, in good conscience, leave anyone who might still be faithful. I am the one responsible for all, and I must be there for them, be their example, giving them support and communication from heaven until such time that they decide to fall. If they never fall, then I shall live with them forever.”
The Queen only looked at her husband, sinking into dismay while knowing she couldn’t do anything about his resolve. She knew he was right, that he couldn’t feel free of neglect if he left before any of the rest of them, even if there remained only one. After a few moments, she smiled and said calmly, regally, “You are right, my beloved. I understand that you need to wait until the end. But I am coming with you, this time.”
“Not so, my dear Senzjan. For you cannot enter where I go. It is best that you find a life here.”
Senzjan thought for a moment, then said, “I am almost convinced. But meanwhile, rest here tonight, and I and my people will send you off as a hero tomorrow.”
That night, the Queen had a long meeting with Teerliaka, Darimar, and his wife, Terrumay. I listened in, and it became more clear with each passing minute that she was planning on leaving the community to go with her husband. She was giving Darimar and Terrumay final directions on how to handle this community, and how to direct the affairs of the immigrants. To Teerliaka she gave reminders on how she had been coordinating all the affairs of the industry, and the network of growing groves as well as which projects were needing attention, and who was over each. Finally, Teerliaka said, “But you can’t go back into the villages.”
The queen said, “However, I can camp without them. And that is just what I am going to do. Or I will stay at one of the Groves, and help them along, as my husband does his job. I can do many things in one trip.”
“When are you going to tell your husband?”
“After he has gone. If I tell him now, he will say no, again. After he leaves, I will eventually catch up to him, and by then, he will definitely have trouble getting rid of me.”
“Are you sure? What if . . . he . . .”
“Whether he falls or not, it does not matter. I feel peaceful over this decision, and nothing can change my mind. I will also take a following with me, to keep me company, to put up and take down my mobile dwellings, and to do various needed tasks for the various groves.”
She prepared those of her family, servants and friends that were willing to leave with her.
In the morning, the Ancient mounted his carban, tugged at his pack animal, and signalled his meager entourage. Everyone waved at him somberly as he rode off, the Queen in the midst of them, looking sad and proud at the same time.
When he was almost out of sight, Senzjan gave the signal, and her servants hopped into action, packing their tents efficiently, and pulling together a store of provisions that had already been prepared during the night.
The send-off for her was less somber: the people were happy that she was going to be with her husband. She rode between two throngs of cheering people lining the street as she left town, waving and throwing kisses to all.
And all the people stayed to watch until she and her company were out of sight.
That was the last this generation saw or heard of Dene Senzjan -- the Queen of Priegan -- her company, and her husband.
And thus began the reign of Darimar, the second-in-command after Senzjan, a good man whom the people were content to proclaim as their king.

After the queen left, I couldn’t help but look back at Teerliaka and marvel over her beauty, over the presence she carried! To me, she was the queen of the universe! Just looking at her put me in a nostalgic tail spin. It was torturous to look at her, for it served as a reminder of what I couldn’t have. Yet, I felt I had to communicate with her. It seemed possible, now that I had practiced with Contessa.
I waited through the day until Teerliaka could relax. She was resting while slowly eating a dewmelon when I came to her. I turned up my power and concentration, then said, “Teerliaka!”
She did not react. With a little more emotion, I said, “Teerliaka! My Lenazuree!”
She looked up, then looked around. Seeing nothing, she looked down at the ground, took a deep breath, then bit her lip as her face turned sad.
The third angel -- the one who seemed more focused on me in our previous encounters -- said to me, her dark eyes sincere and almost vacant as she divided her attention between me and her subjects, “It is better that she not hear you. If you do not contact her, she will endure your absence better. If you do have communication with her, then when you two go to your separate rewards, the parting will be the more terrible for both of you.”
I thought about that for a moment, stared with reverent longing at Teerliaka, then turned away slowly. I said to the angel, “Thank you; I wish I were going to a place where I could put in a good word for you.” I left the area, making a mental note to never visit the place again, while Teerliaka lived there.
Thus, Contessa was my only real relationship from then, on.

Chapter 13
Meanwhile, I noticed a trend developing among the people: They were searching for foods and chemicals that altered the brain enough to help them “feel high.” They also sought for activities that might bring on any type of euphoria.
Thinking back on all that I had heard, seen and felt since my Priegan experience began, I came upon the reason for this trend: the people were trying to enjoy the extreme satisfaction they remembered in the Pure Gardens. I mentioned earlier how I felt, taking in the pure food of those gardens: it brought emotional and spiritual fulfillment, a low but soothing tickling sensation, and a generous supply of energy. Now, if the food was like what I was used to on other planets, it just filled you for a while and didn’t do much else. Sometimes, it was even sour, compared to Priegan’s pure food, and caused the stomach to ache.
One of the things that accelerated this trend was the discovery of a bean containing a drug that reduced fatigue.
It hit me that I was familiar with trends, that I could easily explain their rises and falls. The many lives I had lived and remembered helped me to put together many conclusions. In addition, I now had the help of watching people, and picking up on their audible and visible intentions, and their emotions.
I suddenly found myself a pass-time, and practiced the prediction of trends and events. I was astonished at how easy this was:
Even if it were difficult to read minds, it is amazing how you can know what someone is thinking when they look at someone or something in a certain way, and you factor in the last thing said, the next thing he or she says, and also the private events of that individual, along with his/her pursuits, goals and dreams, and his/her weaknesses and strengths.
Then, when you add up all the data, and you hear your subject’s plans, both long and short, and the plans of others that this person is planning on contacting, and knowing their intentions as well, you can quite accurately predict what’s going to happen in a few hours, or even days.
When you know which paths they are going to travel, and who’s path they will cross, you can foresee interruptions in their plans.
After I got good at doing this, I practiced factoring more people into the equation, made calculations based on multiple planned or foreseen events, compared them with the trends of other worlds, then made predictions for next year and the following years.
I felt a thrill when my predictions began to be realized, and I began to enjoy a new kind of power.
One day, I got creative and decided to monitor the progress of natural events, thus enhancing my predictive abilities. As I mentioned before, being in spirit form helped me notice things that are quite hidden to the physical senses. And I could make myself quite small, to look at the elements.
I could tell how saturated a hill of dirt became during a prolonged rainstorm, and, by measuring its movements, and sensing the degree of stress on the bedrock below it, I could tell how much dirt was going to move. By studying the geological features in its path, I could tell if it was going to reach a certain location, or stop up a stream. At first, I had trouble predicting the time of each slide, but I made mental notes of the actual events, then adjusted the formulas to help me make more accurate predictions in the future.
I trained Contessa how to do astral projections. After a few months, we made contact in the spirit, and traveled together. She helped me to sense the activities of nature, and she brought in a lot of data from the people, having listened to them and having calculated their activities and trends. This helped me to see even further into the future, or to make more specific predictions.

The first person who died on Priegan (besides myself) was a man who contracted a fever, a runny nose and breathing problems. He died soon after. This happened at the end of the 18th year of the Fall (or the year 18 D, “D” signifying the Darimean calendar, as King Darimar had instituted a new reckoning system starting with the Fall of Priegan). Two days later, the man’s daughter came down with the same symptoms.
Immediately, a red flag went up in my mind, and I informed Contessa that there would be an epidemic of sickness and death, and that this would affect many people.
She asked, “How can you know that?”
I answered, “Because it has happened too many times before in all my experiences. When the people haven’t experienced a sickness, their immunity to it is at about zero.” I explained to her the concept of the body’s immunity system.
Contessa asked, “Can it be stopped?”
I said, “Yes, but not immediately. The body’s defense has to be built up, and it may take a while to find the source of the disease, and clean it up.”
Contessa said, very concerned, “Tell me what to do, and I’ll tell the people.”
I looked at her with a sardonic grin. “Do we want to stop it? Maybe this planet needs a cleansing, so that there will be more room for the new-borns.” I now felt like a true devil, my desire to destroy turning to lust.
She looked at me, silently surprised. I continued, “Also, perhaps the people will learn faster if they do it themselves. Usually, need helps to accelerate the thinking and creative process.”
Contessa said, “My children could die. I wish you would show me this one time, and I promise I will help the people to learn how to think on their own.”
Seeing the beginnings of panic and a show of helplessness in her eyes moved me to compassion, and I agreed to help her.
I began by saying, “We need to follow a rigorous routine, starting this very day.”
Contessa contacted King Darimar to ask permission to start a health program. She told him that she was in contact with Harusten’s spirit, who was training her.
Six more people had died from this disease, so the king gave permission.
According to my instructions, Contessa called in some scribes and had them write down everything she was going to say, so that she could publish these life-saving guidelines. Through Contessa, I specified that first and foremost, everyone should practice cleanliness: They should keep their hands washed, and clean everything they touched or ate. This involved the boiling of water, and the cooking of fruit and vegetables, until we could be sure the danger had passed.
Next, I explained containment and quarantine principles. Everyone was to put a filter over their mouth and nose, a filter that did not exist at present, but that should be made in great quantity, now. I also explained that it was important to use a heavy filter to cover one’s mouth when coughing or sneezing. Priegans had never learned to do this, because there had been no diseases among them, and they didn’t know the dangers that these unchecked bodily functions could bring about.
I suspected that unrestrained coughing and sneezing was the major vehicle in this disease’s ultimate spread, but I didn’t say anything; statistics would probably say it all, later on.
So I continued giving out instructions to Contessa, and she promptly relayed them to the people. I told her not to tell the rest of the population that I was behind this, because as I visited the rest of Priegan, I saw that the name Harusten was beginning to take on a sinister connotation, for having caused the Fall.
I explained to Contessa what to do if an acquaintance or family contracted the disease; what to give them, how to treat them, how to observe their progress, how to estimate their temperature, and how to report their progress.
Next, I outlined that all people were to keep meticulous track of all their activities, their comings and goings, the objects they handled, any injuries they received and with what objects, the animals they saw, what they stepped on, the food they ate, the liquids they drank, who they visited, and where and how they slept, so that if they contracted the disease, a pattern might show up among those infected.
Meanwhile, I taught Contessa how to make clay. I had her hire several people to engrave her writings in the clay, and make a reversal of those engravings with a type of plaster. Next, I had her make an oily ink that wouldn’t dry easily, to rub onto the plaster. Rubbing plasque paper over those raised letters on the plaster helped to reproduce my instructions to Contessa. These instructions were posted on as many public doors or buildings as were available, so the people could read what to do to stay healthy.
Also, I directed that people try to find gold, lead and other metals, describing how to recognize their natural states. I did this so that a more permanent press could be made.
After Contessa sent those instructions off to be printed, I had her search out and organize a group of people to comprise a Department of Health. This included my father the botanist and herbologist, a few of the original members of the Literature Committee (as they had already learned of many properties and possibilities in the vegetable kingdom), and others who were migrating toward the study of the human physiology and medicine. They were assigned the task of refining or honing the diagnostic process that I started.
I then selected a group of people -- potential scientists -- whose job it was to study the effects of various plants and extracts, and see which ones served as antibiotics, what products helped to reduce fever, and so forth. Through Contessa I taught them briefly how to use control groups for administering the various tests and making evaluations.
I also had some of these two teams -- volunteers -- accompany Contessa to the bedside of those who were infected, so that they could take some sinus scrapings, watch them, and study their environment for clues as to what might have caused the disease.
I also assigned a committee to search far and wide, and report any unusual occurrences in nature, such as dead animals, the waste they leave behind, any fallen fruit trees that perhaps attracted insects to it, or any mudslides or other geological aberrations that might have poisoned a water supply, or altered anything else in any way. Contessa and I also participated in this search.
My prediction -- based on experience and not revelation -- began to be fulfilled: more and more people contracted the disease and died from it. The more the people died, the more the survivors believed Contessa, and applied her directives.
In all, about 988 people were infected, and 450 people died. The survivors treated it as a tragedy, as they’d never seen anything worse. I told Contessa I understood, but then I gave her statistics from other worlds, where the adversary had a stronger hold on the people, and upwards of millions had died from a single infection.
But now, the mechanism was in place for future diseases. By the time infections were at a rate considered “controlled,” and very few deaths were resulting, this people had come a long way in learning how to defend themselves for the next time, and how to prevent infections as well.
This epidemic was later to be considered one of many viruses that come and go, and occasionally cause minimal discomfort for a week or two, now that people could build up defenses in the blood stream, and now that they knew that drinking fluids and getting rest was the major tactic in fighting them.
After I relaxed over all this, the memory of what the Ancient prophesied came to me. He had told me that there would be a terrible plague, but that it would remove many of the people that would adversely influence the population. Had I done something to prevent that plague? But as I remembered more, he had said that the plague would come after there ceased to be kings. For the moment, it seemed that King Darimar would be around for a while.
In fact, he reigned an amazing 62 years as the King of Priegan. Because of fatigue he stepped down and offered the job to his son, Teruman.
Teruman reigned well, but he was an original Priegan, and was very old, as well, having very little of the fire required to reign over such a vast region. After 18 years, he offered the throne to his children, but they had been privy to the logistics, and saw the terrible work involved, so they declined. His grandchildren and great-grandchildren had already settled into careers that kept them busy and happy, so there were no takers.
At this point in time, Harumain, my brother’s son, was 33 years old, and married to one of Darimar’s heirs. When he was offered the job, he accepted, having a few ideas of his own about how to handle such a vast kingdom.
When his reign began, he designated each “grove” and its satellite villages as a kingdom. He appointed kings or monarchs over each kingdom, then had them report all their activities to him. He outlined routine procedures for a wide variety of scenarios, then specified that if something couldn’t be handled by the satellite kingdoms, the matter could then be presented to him.
He even appointed a subking over his own group of villages, leaving all the petty and daily problems to others, and he dedicated his time to only upper-echelon issues. This gave him plenty of extra time to spend with his family, and to pursue a few hobbies.
The overall effect was amazement in the people, that he had dreamed up such a plan, and that it created so many opportunities to a greater number of people. He was known for centuries afterward as a hero, a political revolutionist.
Do I need to mention where he got those ideas from? Perhaps I already did, by just asking that question.
However, I must say that after I left him alone, he took off and went on to do great things on his own.
Eventually, Contessa died of natural causes. I knew her time was near, because of how she was deteriorating. I waited nearby so I could greet her as her spirit left her body. When the moment came, she looked at me, smiled warmly, then was pulled away quickly like a science fiction spaceship stretching away into multi-dimensional space.
A few decades later, Teerliaka died of natural causes, never having married. She was 148 years old. She, also, saw me, came to me, and touched me. I could actually feel her touch! It was a soothing spiritual sensation. But she, too, was whisked off, and I was left alone, more lonely than I had ever felt before.
I brooded in darkness, letting my angry thoughts fly, again.