Page 89 of Katabasis

Two contradictory statements came to Alice’s mind then, and she couldn’t decide which one seemed more plausible, so she uttered them both. “That can’t be.” And then, “But I didn’t know.”

“Then you’re blind,” said Elspeth, “because it was written all over his face. Yours, too.”

Alice reasoned that Elspeth was probably right.

If she thought about it, a small part of her suspected the same.

Only she didn’t know what to do with this information.

She wished she could carve it out of her chest; set it flaming and quivering down somewhere else, maybe lock it in a box, if it would just leave her alone.

“But we were fighting when we met you,” said Alice. “He hated me.”

“All the same. If anything, that made it easier to tell.”

“But he never said.” Alice sniffled, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I wish he’d just said .”

Elspeth shook her head, smiling sadly.

“Magicians,” she sighed. “Fools, all of us.”

Alice slept. What delicious sleep it was; quick and dreamless, sleep that came easy and made time slip away. Elspeth was staring at her when she awoke, her face tight and pensive. She kept tapping her fingers against her leg. Her mouth twitched, like it couldn’t decide between a smile and a frown.

Alice sat up. “What is it?”

“I am trying to decide whether to help you.”

“Oh. Well let me know if I can offer any input.”

Elspeth did not respond.

Alice set her hands on her lap and watched the water rippling. She felt like a naughty child in time-out. She felt she was being weighed, though she couldn’t say what for.

At last Elspeth sighed. “I haven’t been fully honest with you.”

“That’s more than fair.”

“No, look.” She drew a satchel out from beneath the paddles. She placed her hand inside, hesitated for a moment, then withdrew an item. She placed it in Alice’s hands. “Here.”

Alice understood immediately what she beheld.

A Dialetheia. She peeled the fabric back and found the most curious plant she had ever seen: a Janus-headed flower, one face with seven petals the red-orange hue of the rising sun, twinned at the back by a second face with seven petals of identical shape, these the bluish-white of a falling moon.

Vibrant and deathly both at once; warm and cool.

A pomegranate tree growing defiantly in the land of the dead.

A True Contradiction, the thing that could not be.

“I found it just before we met,” said Elspeth. “The Kripkes weren’t after you. I should have told you. They were hot on my heels. They were after me.”

Alice turned the True Contradiction over in her hands, marveling at the brilliant hues along the stems and stamens, at the delicate, tiny buds emerging from the tips of the branches.

What a relief, to see such colors after weeks in grays and black.

The only splash that had broken up the monotony was the brilliant red of blood—but here, finally, was green.

“Where was it?”

“In a crack between two boulders at the bank of the Lethe. Can you imagine? No fanfare, no fairy rings. Just growing there, impossibly, with nothing to announce itself. I would have passed by it entirely if I weren’t looking for a place to moor.”

Alice heard Peter’s voice in her head. The world is not a complete system; there is always an exception.

No explanation for its existence; no reason why one might expect it to have existed before or ever exist again.

The world was simply unknowable; exceptions cropped up all the time, and all you had to do to beat the odds was just look.

“Hold it close,” said Elspeth. “Drop that and I’ll kill you.”

“My word.” Alice held it closer, marveling.

The petals were so fine, thinner than paper, their translucence lined with patterns like lace.

“A contradiction explosion...” Slowly the implications caught up to her.

They wouldn’t just be able to leave Hell.

They could change everything. With the True Contradiction on one side of a proof, they could write anything else into validity.

They could end world hunger, end famine and wars, reshape reality’s boundaries however they liked.

If they could just get the True Contradiction out of this place, they could do anything .

“But then that makes you God, Elspeth. You could do anything you liked. Reality’s just putty in your hands. ..”

“You still need blood,” said Elspeth. “Where do you think I’d get all that blood?”

“But still...”

“And the archives are quite clear on the limits,” said Elspeth. “The Dialetheia won’t work above. It’s only a miracle in Hell. Above, it’s just a tree.”

Elspeth leaned back, arms folded. “It seems to me that the only useful way to employ a True Contradiction is to take it back to the Lord of Hell. That’s how Orpheus bargained for Eurydice.

The Lady Persephone was so moved by his music that she gifted him the first Dialetheia as a favor, and then Hades had to barter with him to retrieve it.

The Dialetheia has too much power to let loose in the world, you see.

It’s no use to us down here, but the Lord of Death needs it back.

So you take it to the final court, to the throne on the island at the edge of the world, and you offer it up freely.

You always get one boon, that’s what the stories say.

And with that boon, you ask for your life.

” Elspeth nodded to the Dialetheia. “So be careful what you say up there. You only get the one chance.”

It took Alice a long moment to realize she had just been given instructions.

She could not find the words. She had no frame of reference to make sense of this, this impossible generosity. It defied every rule she’d been taught about moving within the world, in which favors were like the conservation of matter. A give always entailed a take. “You’re just giving it to me?”

“Well, don’t look so put out about it.”

“But can you find another one?”

“It’s a Dialetheia, you fool. They don’t just grow on trees.”

Alice did not know what to do with this gift. She could think of no appropriate response. Just then the Dialetheia felt so heavy in her grasp; she was seized with the irrational fear she might fling it into the water.

Archimedes mewed in agitation. Elspeth scratched the back of his neck. “Hush, you,” she murmured. “I know what I’m doing.”

A small part of Alice lit up with suspicion. Surely Elspeth wanted something. Everyone always wanted something. No magician ever did things out of kindness, or they wouldn’t have gotten where they were.

But there was no guile on Elspeth’s face. Just a sweet, open sympathy. Just kindness.

“But I don’t deserve this.” She deserved none of the favors she had received.

Peter’s sacrifice, Gradus’s sacrifice, now Elspeth.

What am I to you , she wondered, that you would do this for me?

Her mind cycled through the possible tropes: relations of dependence or charity; mother to child; elder sister to younger; mentor to mentee; lover to beloved.

But none of them fit, none of them came close to approximating this singular, inexplicable grace.

“Elspeth, why—”

“There’s no why,” said Elspeth. “You don’t have to understand it. You just have to accept.”

Alice pressed her face against the Dialetheia, brushing her cheeks against its petals. It smelled like another world; like a garden in spring, like fresh rain and birdsong. The world used to smell like this , she thought. I used to smell this all the time.

“In any case,” said Elspeth, “I don’t think they’re so difficult to find after all.”

“No?”

“We don’t understand the gods very well,” said Elspeth.

“But we should not assume they have the same constraints as mortal beings. King Yama theoretically has control over his entire domain. I don’t think he lets something like a True Contradiction hang around just out of sheer negligence. I don’t think the gods do negligence.”

“Then you think he left it here on purpose.”

“Rules are so boring,” said Elspeth. “So is infinity. You can’t knock about a closed system forever; the possibilities run out. I think, then, sometimes the gods like to play. Just for the hell of it.”

“Peter thought something similar,” said Alice. “It’s how he interpreted Godel. There are always exceptions. There’s always something unexplainable, meaning at some level everything becomes possible.”

“That’s a good sentiment to hold on to,” said Elspeth. “Better than the alternative.”

“So you’re going to find another one.”

“Eh.” Elspeth gave her a little smile. “Maybe.”

Realization dawned. “You’re not searching anymore.”

“I’ve held off the inevitable for so long.” Elspeth had a faraway look in her eyes. “And I don’t want to put it off any longer. I’m tired of the Neurath , understand? I’m tired of always bobbing out at sea. I want someone to ferry me over.”

“I’ve seen them,” said Alice. “The ship, the angels. They came for Gradus, and I watched...”

Elspeth pressed forward, eager. “Oh, yes?”

“And it was beautiful.” Alice was so glad she did not have to lie. “Exactly like all the stories promised. They let you board. They let you drink. And then they take you over the horizon, to whatever lies beyond.”

Elspeth rapped her knuckles against her wooden seat. “Then let’s hope they’ll come for me eventually.”

“You’re way ahead of everyone in Dis,” said Alice. “You’ll do fine.”

Elspeth nodded. Alice saw her lips tighten with something—fear, perhaps—but they just as soon gave way to Elspeth’s typical resolve. “Any chance you could tell me how to get out of there quick?”

“You think I know?”

Elspeth chuckled. “Fair, that. Any advice, then?”

“Avoid the citadel.” Alice settled back, gripping the Dialetheia tight against her chest. “The citadel’s a waste of time.”