Ruler of Naught by Sherwood Smith, Dave Trowbridge

like banked coals—and a few, she judged, would leave
Desrien when their majority came, unable to tolerate the soul-mirroring airs of
the planet.
    She began to speak. “Desrien and all its beliefs and faiths
rest in the Hand of Telos, which has five fingers.” Her hands moved in the
pattern of the mudras , adapted from her own tradition, that were part of
the language of the Magisterium. “These principles enfold us all, but there are
many ways to speak and hear and live them. I will share mine with those of you
who wish.”
    Some of the children leaned forward, eager to hear. Others
listened politely, with the respect they had been taught was due a Phanist, the
highest rank in the Magisterium. At the back of the group stood a small,
redheaded boy, with the pale, blotched skin of an atavism, his gaze hungry with
an indefinable longing. She smiled at him and continued.
    “We all encounter the numinous, a message from something
that is beyond all measurement and knowledge.” Her left hand was poised beside
her at eye level, palm-up as if supporting a water jar; her right touched the
top of her head, the center of her forehead, and the center of her chest in a
fluid movement.
    “We all possess some fragment of whatever sends these
messages, however we may conceive it.” Both her hands came together vertically
before her eyes, cupped around a space, and then descended to her chest.
    “We all live a story which has no ending we can see or
understand.” Now she brought both her hands together before her, thumbs and
middle fingers touching in a circle parallel to the ground. She transformed the
circle into the ancient symbol of infinity by bringing the fingers and thumbs
together, then rotated her right hand until its palm faced outward, thumb to
finger and finger to thumb, and folded her hands together, circle to circle.
The symbol of the projective plane, true infinity.
    From beyond the group of children, the redheaded boy
watched, but his hands were busy with something she couldn’t see, hidden behind
the heads of those seated in front of him.
    “We all suffer because we are attached to things that really
don’t matter.” Here she used one of the most ancient of the mudras, Turning the
Wheel of the Law.
    The red-haired boy began tossing the object in the air
rhythmically; it was a small silver ball. The setting sun sparked highlights
off of it, small splashes of glory dappling the deepening shade of the tree
overarching the courtyard. A wave of dizziness and disorientation overwhelmed
Eloatri and she fell out of the world into the Dreamtime.
    o0o
    The path was dull gray, wide and edgeless, suspended in an
infinite space. A golden light shone from behind her. She turned and beheld the
face of the Buddha at the beginning of the path, inhumanly calm and indwelling
with transhuman compassion, its lips curved in a smile terrible with
possibilities.
    The Buddha’s eyes opened. She shriveled under his gaze. His
mouth opened on a soundless resonance as the Word resounded throughout the
Wheel of Time and a slow procession of figures came forth, all dressed in the
finery of the High Douloi. Among them she saw the tall figure of the High
Phanist, his face enshadowed in his cowl. There was the sound of weeping, and a
blow against her heart.
    o0o
    Eloatri opened her eyes, staring without comprehension for a
moment at the field of purple and yellow that slowly resolved into the dense
canopy of the higari tree. Through its branches glimmered a star.
    An anxious face bent over her, an elderly man with a green
band around his forehead: a healer.
    “Are you returned, bodhisattva?”
    She levered herself up on one elbow, feeling light-headed,
and looked around. Most of the children were gone; a few still stood at some
distance, looking worried. A small group of adults stood to one side, less
worry in their faces than respectful waiting.
    “Yes.” She sat up as the dizziness passed. The redheaded boy
was not among the remaining