Tales from Kalgachia - 11
On the steps of the Directorate of Education and Outreach in Oktavyan City, savouring a few breaths of cool fog-laden air, stood Xantus Yastreb - for that was who he was.
His presence went unremarked by the denizens of the city who shuffled by, quite unaware that he was their head of state. Rumours that Kalgachia's ruling Council of Perfecti was led by a surviving heir to the House of Yastreb had spread around Kalgachi society to the point of being an open secret - but on account of his correctional upbringing by the Minarborian church, no picture of Xantus had ever made it into public record and no Kalgachi could identify him by sight. Beyond a few paper-photo mugshots which had long since rotted into the soil somewhere south of Lithead, the only surviving image of him was an inconvienently placed portrait at the sanatorium which had previously been his family estate. As fate would have it, that little canvas work had ruined his plans for a gradual divulgence of his true identity to the woman he was courting - she had stumbled upon it during their excursion to that very same sanatorium. Although he had quietly confiscated the picture from the premises, the damage appeared to be done.
Only appeared so, Xantus recalled with gentle amusement as the slim figure of one Ilessa Aerit came strutting out of the fog. Her eyes met his with an instinctive smile as she reached the steps and lithely leapt up them to embrace him.
"Goldie!" she chirped between kisses. "You do arrange for us to meet in some strange places... still, it makes a change to have business at the Directorate that I don't dread."
"You're late," said Xantus, nodding toward the illuminated face of a clock tower across the street which seemed to float in the fog. "I could have caught a cold, waiting out here much longer."
He pressed his tongue against his cheek as Ilessa hissed mockingly at him. Having a natural body temperature high enough to kill most people due to the legacy of his engineered genes, he was immune to almost all extremes of cold weather - it had inspired many a comically lame joke on his part, which Ilessa seemed to enjoy.
Ilessa turned to observe the passing citizenry below, her head resting on Xantus' shoulder. "So why here?" she said.
Xantus' contented face fell into a dour flatness as if a switch had been flicked. "Well you know my brothers in Council are aware of... us..."
"Mmm-hmm," said Ilessa. "Are they okay with it?"
"Yes... and no. There have been... developments."
Ilessa's head recoiled off Xantus' shoulder. "What kind of developments?"
Xantus looked around to ensure nobody was in earshot, then looked into Ilessa's eyes with a melancholy sigh. "They summoned me to a special conclave. It seems they're not happy with their chairman indulging in the more... carnal pleasures of this world."
"Carnal?" Ilessa's brow wrinkled. "That's far too crude a word for how we pass the time together! Well, apart from our last night at Karymovka... but nobody got hurt!"
"Personally I think they're jealous," said Xantus.
"You're damn right they are, the joyless prudes. I thought the whole renunciation-of-pleasures thing was just a Church gimmick to keep the masses in line. Do you mean to say the Perfecti really believe in it?"
"Some do," said Xantus. "Enough to cause me problems... cause us problems, rather."
Ilessa's silver eyes widened and she siezed Xantus by the shoulders. "Goldie! Promise me that neither of us are going to get whacked by the Prefects because of this. Or cursed by your Trogolodyte friends. You know I love you, but we can't go on if it's causing this kind of-"
"Relax, Lessie, it's fine. The Council's covenant disavows fratricide, and it's holding for now. But... I've been issued with an ultimatum."
"To do what?"
"The majority of the Council want you and I to break things off. But I negotiated with some of the others, and everyone agreed to let us carry on with... two conditions."
Ilessa blinked, waiting for an elaboration. Xantus looked around again.
"...the first condition is that I am no longer permitted to travel to the surface world. I'm to remain entirely underground, where the Council can keep me in their oversight."
"But that's absurd, Goldie!"
"Not for me. I was a chaplain on a submarine in the Shrub's day. I can live with cramped spaces. Anyway, the Prefects have checked out your background and found nothing concerning, so you'll get clearance to visit me down there any time you like... that's quite a privilege in itself. But only if you agree to the second condition."
"Which is?"
Xantus reduced his voice to furtive mumble and looked down at the steps beneath his feet. "That we get married..."
Ilessa's eyes glazed over. Then, to her surprise, she heard the sound of her own voice. "Okay."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Because this is your last chance to back out. I don't want you under any illusion about what you're getting into here. You'll be giving up your simple schoolteacher's life."
"What?" said Ilessa, her soft smile instantly disappearing. "Why?"
"During my negotiations with the Council, I managed to put some conditions on their conditions. Quite some time ago I reported your innovations in child development to the brother responsible for Education and Outreach. He was quite impressed at the time, and during all this business I took the oppurtunity to remind him again. Anyway, we talked it out for a while. He's asked me to give you this." Xantus slid a gilt-edged envelope from the forest green felt of his cloak, and handed it to Ilessa.
"What is it?"
"Open it and find out."
Ilessa tore open the envelope with her teeth and unfolded its contents - a certificate filled by a calligraphic hand:
ILESSA ZAKATTE AERIT
the office of
PEDAGOGUE GENERAL of the GARDEN
empowered and commanded by the authority of the COUNCIL of PERFECTI to enact such measures as may be beneficial to the cognitive development, moral rectitude and general wellbeing of those Kalgachi citizens of prepubescent youth under the auspices of the collective institutions of Kalgachi elementary education, these institutions being in beneficient subjection to the authority and general guidance of the Pedagogue General in their daily undertakings.
The base of the certificate hung heavily with official seals, causing the document to sway gently in Ilessa's now-trembling hand.
"I know you don't want to be dragged out of Abiding Rustle Elementary, away from all the children," said Xantus. "Not for me, not for anyone. So to soften the blow, we've arranged for you to look after all the children of Kalgachia. Are you coming?"
Ilessa turned around, her jaw hanging open. Xantus was standing in the Directorate doorway.
"...your new office is in here."
The Pedagogue General's office was part of a larger suite, located deep underground among the labyrinthine sprawl that was the Directorate of Education and Outreach. The low, shallow-vaulted ceiling on its forest of polished granite pillars was standard for the Directorates but this particular suite, in the image of the innumerable schoolhouses it administered, was fitted out with parquet flooring and plywood furniture hardened with teak oil - notices were even scrawled on chalkboards. The ethnic composition of the staff was overwhelmingly Lywaller, and so too was Ilessa's predecessor as Pedagogue General before a routine medical checkup had revealed him to be 1/256th Froyalanish; twenty millilitres of blood from a race of notorious child molesters had been enough to force him into early retirement and now his subordinates, only too eager to erase the awkward memory of his presence, greeted their new boss with a particularly enthusiatic display of mirthful cooing and jolly salutations as she was led to her office by her unidentified companion. The panelled door of the office was closed, and once more they were alone together.
Ilessa sat at her desk and excitedly inspected the contents of its drawers, then began sifting through her in-tray which had accumulated a sizeable stack of paperwork during the absence of her genetically-compromised predecesor. Xantus paced the room, deep in thought.
"Of course, you'll be of great help to the more enlightened minds of the Council while you work here," he said. "I don't think the prudish ones will ever change their ways. It's not a matter of public record, but in the early days we had to purge a few of our number for taking personal advantage of the chaos... their corruption has inspired a sort of pendulum swing to the opposite. The sensible ones looked at the corrupted thesis and instinctively became the antithesis, but what we need is synthesis. Those who oppose you and I... reject the pleasures of the world because they view everything with a physical sensation as inherently corrupted. They don't understand that the physical world was created in the image of the Garden Ketheric... an imperfect decoy, of course, but a close one. That's precisely why it has such a hold over people."
Xantus looked back at Ilessa. Her out-tray was already filling up, each document almost glowing with under the scrutiny of her silver eyes. A signature here, an annotation there, another paper lifted from the in-tray. It was as if she had worked here for years. Belatedly she lifted her head. "Hm? You were saying something?"
"About your place in the Garden," said Xantus. "Every pleasure in this world has a more pure counterpart in the Garden Ketheric. All a person needs to overthrow the Archons of Irredeemable Corruption, those who created this physical world and impose its limits, is an ability to enhance and beautify which outshines the Archons' cynical creation and gets people closer to their Ketheric source. The artistic muse comes direct from that source, you know. It's our way out. Our means to victory. My friends in the Troglodyti understand this, but half those crusties in the Council have no appreciation of arcane subtlety. Most people of our generation don't have it. We're too possessed by the ghosts of our Minarborian past. No... our only real hope lies with the children. If they can be infused with... pretty things from the youngest age, they'll be equipped to throw off the yoke of worldly corruption with a power we can only dream about. That's where you come in, Lessie..."
"Uh-huh," said Ilessa, failing to look up from a new sheaf of papers. "Have you seen this? Some deranged cleric in Bergburg wants to set up a yeshiva for unborn babies, beaming acoustic scripture straight into the womb.... says his tests have already got a foetus to bow its way through the Amidah and sing cantillations through the stethoscope! I'm referring this one to the DHPW Ethics Board." She scribbled a note on the document in question, selected a stamp to thump on it and tossed it into the out-tray before immediately fetching the next missive. "What's this one... another query about the optimum height of the second grade Naughty Stool. It's in the regulations already, damn it! Forty centimetres for the standard, sixty for the Very Naughty Stool with restraints. Even if a teacher doesn't know it by heart, they shouldn't need to write to the Directorate to find out. I'll have to cut down on this type of time-wasting..."
"You know," said Xantus with a sigh, "I have a feeling you'll do just fine here. Give me a call when you've emptied that tray."
"Mmm-hmm," said Ilessa, lost in the content of her paperwork as Xantus walked away. At the sound of him working the door handle, she finally looked up. "Goldie," she said.
"Yes?"
"I don't want the wedding to be too fancy."
"Neither do I."
Ilessa smiled, her eyes returning to the paperwork as Xantus closed the door behind him.
