Watson, Ian - Novel 08 by The Gardens of Delight (v1.1) Page B

           “Mother
Hen obviously thinks so too. She’s still . . . stuck in what she is. Her
hatchlings aren’t, though. The drake is a bird of knowledge already, you see.
He takes to the water I right away. His sister only
has the capacity for knowing the water, as yet.”
                “But—”
                 “Ah,
you can believe your eyes, Denise. No cuckoo-duck switched Mother Hen’s eggs
when she wasn’t looking. Beings really are transformed into one another.”
                 “But—”
                 “Him.” Jeremy
tapped his nose wisely. “He’s the
transforming agent. Of course, a lot depends on the readiness of whoever or whatever is transformed. Even a duck’s karma
counts. You see, a creature here is free from its instincts—in the old sense of
the ruling programmed patterns. Instincts have become . . . overt,
comprehensible, malleable . All creatures are similarly
privileged. A hen can have the will to alter. Even a fish can. If it can conceive of alteration. And it mil. Alas, that’s all that Mother
Hen has done— conceive it! Ah, but
it’s a step in the right direction—or perhaps I should say a step in the
leftward direction.”
                 “Huh? Hein?”
                “Leftward is the wise way,” murmured
Jeremy, and
                 marched straight ahead out of the dell, in apparent
contradiction of this sentiment.
                 Presently
the woods and shrubs thinned out as the land rose to a crest around a valley—an
amphitheater of turf with a pool at its heart. The pool was perfectly circular,
its sides as neat as if they had been cut with a compass and trenching tools,
and the water was a particularly brilliant blue. A band of
animals and people milled around the pool, at a discreet distance.
                 “It’s
the Cavalcade!” exclaimed Sean, staring down.
                 “Ah,
you do remember?”
                 “Me
too,” nodded Denise.
                 “You’ll
find many such cavalcades, my friends. They spring up spontaneously in the
appropriate places.”
                 Women
waded and swam in the pool itself. A few of them were negresses ,
one of whom held a ball or giant cherry upraised in her hand. She tossed it
into the watery throng as though into a water polo team. White egrets and black
ravens flew about and perched upon the women’s heads and shoulders. The pool
was full of women, but no men intruded. Around the pool, at
that circumspect distance, circled the cavalcade of males. They rode on
the backs pf bears and boars and goats, on horses and camels, on oxen and
stags. One man rode a spotted cat with its tail stiffly erect: it was a lynx as
large as any pony. A griffin stepped around the circle too, with its wings
folded underneath its rider’s thighs. A white unicorn pranced there, stabbing
its narwhale horn into the air. The air almost crackled with electricity
running between the male riders and the women in the water. While the women
waited, swam, or played ball with the big cherry, trying to catch it on the
crowns of their heads and balance it there for a moment, the riders circled and
recircled the pool, building up potential.
                 “What
is it you remember?” asked Muthoni. “What’s going on down there?”
                 “They’re
acting out Bosch’s painting—the ride around the pool. Good lord, they are it. And anticlockwise, anticlockwise
all the time—always turning to the left hand. Sinister,” said Sean softly to
himself.
                 “What’s
sinister about it?” asked Denise. “It just looks like they’re getting ready for
a sort of sacred orgy. Well,” she giggled, “orgies can be fun.”
                 “It
does tend to draw you into it, doesn’t it? I could rush off down there right
now myself, leap on the back of a