So last week I heard that The Fulcrum is a finalist in the 18th Annual National Indie Excellence® Awards. Hurrah! Now I can put gold stickers on all my copies, which, if you know me, is really like winning an Oscar. In honour of this event, I’m posting an extract that links to the cover of The Fulcrum. Love and light, fellow weirdos.
Chapter 45. Pietro meets the Name Keeper
Father Antonio felt the coolness on his skin, like stepping into a musty cave. When he’d first visited this place, he’d expected that the interior would mirror the vast exterior. But, like everything else in this otherworld, the laws of time and space had no hold here. Pietro stood next to him, peering around the circular space that was clad entirely in white marble. Twelve statues lined the wall. Bright moonlight streamed in through an oculus in the dome above.
“Quite astonishing, isn’t it?” Father Antonio kept his voice low, but it still echoed. He always felt watched by the strange shapes that took the form of things organic and mathematical, magical and scientific. “Like a teeny, tiny Pantheon.”
The boy bent down to touch the warm water at his feet. “Everything is wet,” he said, looking around him. “The walls, even the statues…” He looked up at the oculus. “Where is it coming from? I thought we were walking into a mountain? Is that the night sky? Father?”
“We are going there.”
“Where? There are no doors?”
“There.” The priest pointed to the ground directly below the oculus. A narrow hole, just wide enough for a man’s body, had appeared in the center of the room.
Pietro took a step back. “What’s down there?”
“The steps. They’re impossibly steep, and it will feel like the chances of falling to one’s death are high. It will feel claustrophobic. The air will be thin. But at least the steps are solid and there are handrails on either side.” He turned to the boy and gave him the sternest look he could muster. “Follow me. Do as I say.”
Pietro nodded and followed him obediently across the wet marble floors. At the edge of the hole, the priest lowered himself carefully to the ground and dangled his pale legs over the edge so that his feet touched the first step. He grumbled as he felt his clothes soak through. It was a terrible insult to his bottom. At least the water was warm. He peered down to assure himself that all was as he remembered it. The tunnel below was of black rock, grainy to the touch. It lay at a slight angle and only the first few steps were visible. Beyond that, only darkness.
“I will go first,” he said. “I will go slowly. Hold onto the handrails on either side of the shaft. Do as I say. Do you hear me, boy?”
“Yes, yes. What about your cane?”
“I won’t need it here.”
The priest inched his way slowly forward, each foot feeling out the next step before he put his weight on it. Pietro followed carefully. Deeper they went and deeper, until all light was gone, and the only sound was their breathing. It would be soon. He always tried to prepare himself for the disorientation of it, but it always took him by surprise. This time was no different. But it was Pietro who saw it first.
“Is this gold in the rock?” he whispered. “There are speckles of gold everywhere!”
“Are you holding onto the handrail, boy?”
“Yes, of course, but what are these flecks of go– OH!”
The priest steadied himself against the dizziness as reality rearranged itself. He could see it now: the blackness of the rock had become the night sky; the gold flecks, stars. Deep in the heart of the mountain, they were flung into the expanse of the universe.
“Father Antonio? Where are we?” Pietro’s shaking voice echoed. “Are you there? Father?”
“I am. It’s just a trick of your imagination. A shift in perception. Your senses are deprived of information and your imagination fills the void. That is all. Just keep moving. Slowly.”
“A trick? If I reach out to touch the rock, it is still hard, but, my eyes, my body … it feels like open air! There is a sound. Do you hear it? It’s like a … a chant? Like the Buddhist monks?”
It was probably best to give the boy a moment. He remembered his first time here. The monk who had brought him had made him rest against the stair and take it all in as some kind of mystical experience, but he knew it was all an illusion, a test from God he was not about to fail. Mysteriously, she had responded to his show of strength by saying simply, “What use are eyes when the weak are so blind to the truth?” He’d agreed with her affably and followed her as she led him further down.
“We’re almost there, boy. You must focus now.”
“But it’s beautiful! Can I not just stay for a moment? All my fear is gone! It’s as if God is here!”
“Good heavens,” Father Antonio shook his head. “And they call me dramatic. Come.”
They shuffled down, one careful step at a time, until they reached a grotto, empty but for a small pool. A soft light emanated from the inky water. He led the boy to the edge of it.
“Now, Pietro. We’re going to step into that pool. Yes?”
Pietro gripped his arm. “I cannot swim.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I don’t need to,” Pietro repeated, watching the water with suspicion.
“Just take a step forward. That’s the only option you have now. It’s too late to do anything else. Remember your calling.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Do you have faith, Pietro?”
“I do, Father.”
“Then take the step. In fact…” The priest moved to the side and held out his hand. “We’ll go together.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I don’t trust that you’ll go in after me.”
“Madonna.” Pietro gripped the priest’s arm. “Do I hold my breath?” He clutched his throat. “I feel I cannot breathe. Once, when I was a child, a friend pushed me under the water at the fountain of our village and I nearly drowned.” He paused. “I think I may have died. Have I died?”
The boy’s hesitance was beginning to irk. “You’re talking a lot for a dead person. Now. On the count of three, we will step into the water together.” But just before he started to count, he remembered what he’d wanted to tell Pietro. “Oh. One more thing,” he said. “In their true form, angels do not look the way you think they look.”
“Wha–?”
“Good! Now we go. One, two, three!”
He grabbed Pietro’s hand and pulled the boy into the pool with him. There was no splash of water. They met no resistance. Only a rushing sound engulfed them and the feeling of being licked by cool, kind flames, and then they stood at the bottom of the same stairs they’d descended. Except now they looked down a wide tunnel, carved deep into the mountain. Daylight and the call of birdsong in the distance called them onwards.
The priest inspected Pietro’s face. The boy seemed stunned finally to silence, but alive and present. He was faring better than the others had.
“Very good. Follow me.”
Puddles and moss covered the stone floor, and around them the peeps and clicks of frogs joined their echoing footsteps. Even though the air was cool here, the priest had started sweating. As they walked, the low chant pulsed through the air around them again, making his skin tingle as it always did. He checked that Pietro was following him and, satisfied that the boy would do as he was told, walked with purpose to the opening ahead, preparing himself to soak up the vision they approached. The glory of this sight never failed to fill him with awe.
The mouth of the tunnel opened onto a landing overlooking a colossal cave, a subterranean Eden protected by the black rock belly of the mountain. Above, a brilliant, crystalline dome, impossibly high, let in opalescent light. The sound of a waterfall, unseen from where they stood, filled the space and its fine spray sparkled in the air. Pietro gasped as a flock of macaws swooped past, close enough to smell their oily feathers.
Father Antonio waited for him to look down, but the Name Keeper spoke before the boy had a chance to register it. The sound came first as a series of chords from which the voice emerged, sibilant, rounded and clear, as if the creature was all around them.
“We have arrived.”
The priest peered carefully over the ledge. Far below, in a clearing between the forest plants, a giant lotus flower of pale pink light swayed as if underwater. In its center, a silver-shimmering figure rose up, surrounded by tendrils that moved slowly back and forth across the petals of the flower, and then up to the stone face of the mountain, writing lines of text on the rock.
“The Name Keeper,” Father Antonio whispered, glancing back at the boy who stood frozen, mouth hung open and staring.
The Name Keeper elongated itself up to meet them, arranging the part of itself closest to them into humanoid form. It made its eyes large and beautiful, its mouth wide. Its silver skin shimmered like fine silver scales.
“You … are an angel?” Pietro whispered.
The Name Keeper regarded Pietro closely. The thrumming hum pulsed stronger and then: “This is the name you have given all.”
Pietro rubbed his eyes. “Is this really happening, Father? Did I die in that pool? I didn’t feel the water.”
The Name Keeper turned its dazzling countenance to the priest.
“Have you told the one nothing?”
Its mouth moved differently to the shape of the words it spoke. It reminded him too much of the Imp.
“I couldn’t risk it. Besides, he doesn’t need more than what you’re going to give him.”
“Give me? Father? What’s going on?” Pietro had started shaking. “An actual angel.” He reached out his hand to touch the Name Keeper, and then pulled it back in alarm. “So hot!”
Father Antonio took a step back as the Name Keeper floated still closer to Pietro, stretching out its neck to meet the boy eye to eye. Then, as if speaking with a million voices made of rain, it said, “Does the one named Pietro willingly give itself to be the Second for this birth?”
The priest took another step back.
“Y-y-es?” Pietro stammered.
The Name Keeper pulled away slightly.
“Yes!” Pietro repeated firmly.
At least the Name Keeper seemed satisfied by this.
The priest took yet another step back as the cave filled with the rushing sound of a thousand feathery tentacles moving up from the center of the lotus, up, up, up until they gathered to stroke Pietro’s face and caress his body.
“Father Antonio! What is this?”
The priest checked his footing and, assured that he was at a safe enough distance, prepared himself.
Pietro looked around in panic as the Name Keeper’s tentacles, now beams of pure light, pierced his body and lifted him slowly off the ground. The tentacles started vibrating along the length and breadth of the boy until he surrendered completely, and his head dropped back in a gasp of pleasure. The priest looked away. It was always such an unexpected intimacy. He didn’t need to keep watching to appreciate the intensity of what was happening. He could feel the rhythmic pulse of sensual excitement rising from his groin, through his sacrum into his chest and out the crown of his head, until he felt weightless with desire; wonderous, beautiful, pure desire. If this is what was happening to him, what was the boy experiencing? He’d never thought to ask the Seconds. It felt too improper.
A sharp clack signaled the end of the process. The priest felt the release in his body and looked back just in time to see the tiny black balls emerge through the boy’s clothes like fat droplets and fall from his body to the rock floor.
Clack clack clack clack.
Five pearl-like beads rolled to the end of the landing and dropped off the side. The Name Keeper placed the body upright again and waited for the boy to regain consciousness and steady himself on solid ground before retracting its tentacles.
When Pietro came to, he looked around, bewildered. “What … what happened?”
The Name Keeper pulled itself back towards itself.
“Some say the one is now free.”
The boy looked at the Name Keeper differently, as if he’d seen something of it. But it was already moving on.
“For you, Sanctifier.”
Its feathery tentacles moved in unison to bring something up from below and held it out for Father Antonio. An amulet of polished amber lay in a slender, shimmering hand it had manifested.
He cautiously accepted the large oval piece. “It is time then?”
“This Sanctifier complains always complains such complaining about pain and age.” The many voices said. “This Sanctifier’s wish is granted. Every one gets what it wants from the all.”
A terrible, sad regret overcame him. He remembered the first time he was handed his amulet. The monk had showed him how to open it, let him press the tip of his forefinger into the warm paste hidden in the center, explained its purpose. She’d let him taste it and had answered his questions gently and kindly. Would he be as good to his successor? Was he indeed ready to let this go? Whether he was ready or not, it was too late now. He sighed and let his fingers find the cool ivory of the amulet around his neck.
“Can I at least keep mine?”
“For the collection of curiosities.”
“It is very beautiful.”
“When this Sanctifier is complete, everything passes to the next. All that is left is the empty vessel and carved bone.”
“It’s more than that. It’s art!” He felt suddenly angry. “You know, for Beings who are supposed to be–” he wiggled his fingers above his head “–you’re very unpoetic. Far too pragmatic.” He looked to Pietro for support, but the boy was inspecting his body like he expected to find a new limb. He would be no help for a while. Days maybe even. “Anyway. Who is it?”
“As one its name is Graiyeanne Wilth.”
Graiyeanne Wilth. It sounded suspiciously foreign.
“Where is she from? What is her background?”
The edges of the Name Keeper’s form had started shifting again.
“Not for this Sanctifier to know. Human mind too easily closed by knowledge. Closed like clam animal. Small, scared clam animal. Waste such waste.” A vibration passed through its body like a wave. “This one has powers Sanctifiers have not enjoyed for many human generations.”
“Now that’s just unnecessarily hurtful.”
“Sanctifier will find will anoint will pass on the gift.” It bent slowly down towards Pietro again. The boy beamed at it. All fear had gone from him. “Keep the Second close. The all has cleared the one but there is a block state. Haste made Sanctifier slow. Slow mud slow so slow.”
“But he has a good heart, has he not?”
“The all does not transform good hearts to gold. A crumb of doubt needs more than faith like a mustard seed.”
There was a sound of distant rain as the Name Keeper pulled away from the landing and found its place once again in its lotus flower in the center of the vast cavern. The petals resumed their ethereal swaying.
The sadness returned to the priest’s chest. It was so magical here, the miraculous jungle, the air wet and warm, all of it bathed in the otherworldly light from the crystalline dome. How was he to leave this for the final time? This dream, this vision of heaven that would be lost to him forever now. Was it too late to change his mind? To decide to stay in this paradise?
But a sharp light filled his vision, and he lifted his arm to shield himself against a white heat.
The peeper clicks, a peacock call.
And then nothing.
They were back on the side of the road, the gate shut, cicadas calling in the afternoon sun. His cane was in his hand and Pietro was standing beside him, looking around in confusion. The priest checked his phone. They should’ve told the car to wait. They had been gone for only seven minutes.
The Fulcrum is available in print and e-book on Amazon, and in South Africa through The Book Lounge, Bridge Books, and Exclusive Books Cavendish and Waterfront.
Some more information about The Fulcrum:
• Synopsis and reviews
• A talk and two extracts
TANYA MEESON 