"I see," said Laura. "And when did you begin to see it differently?"
"What makes you think I ever did?"
"Oh, I know you did, and that you do," she said. "You see it now as a Chrism. Why else would you use the word, even if you didn,t originate it? You see it now as a great synthesizing power, uniting not the higher and the lower, but two ways of being."
"Yes, I did come to that. I admit it. I did. Slowly, I did come to that. I woke from the self-loathing and the guilt and I came to see it as instructive and even at times magnificent. I didn,t need the wisdom of Darwin to know by then that we are all one great family, we creatures of the earth. I,d come to sense it, the communion of all living things. I needed no principles of evolution to open my eyes to it. And I did hope and dream of a lineage of immortals, creatures like us who, possessing the power of human and beast, would see the world as human beings themselves could not see it. I conceived a dream of witnesses, a tribe of witnesses, a tribe of Morphenkinder, drawing from the beast and the human a transcendent power, as it were, to have compassion and regard for all forms of life, rooted in their own hybrid nature. I conceived of these witnesses as set apart, incorruptible, unaccountable, but on the side of the good, the merciful, the protective."
He held her gaze, but he,d stopped speaking.
"And you don,t believe that now," she ventured. "You don,t believe in the magnificence of it, or that there should be this tribe of witnesses?"
He seemed on the verge of answering but then did not. His eyes moved back and forth on the empty space before him. Finally he said in a small voice.
"All creatures born in this world want immortality," he said. "But why should a tribe of immortal witnesses be Morphenkinder, part human, part beast?"
"You just said it yourself," said Laura. "They should draw from the two states a transcendent power, and have compassion for all forms of life - ."
"But is that true of us?" Margon asked. "Do we truly draw on both states for a transcendent power to feel compassion? I don,t know that we do. I don,t know that our immortality is anything other than incidental, as much of an evolutionary accident as consciousness itself."
Felix appeared deeply affected by what Margon was saying, and eager to interrupt.
"Don,t go on with this now," he pleaded gently. "You,re traveling into your darkest memories, darkest disappointments. This is not the time or the place."
Margon appeared to agree.
"I want others to have the dream," he said, looking again to Laura, and then at Stuart and Reuben. "I want there to be such a dream of transcendent witnesses. But I don,t know if I believe in it, or ever really, truly, did."
He seemed personally hurt by his own confession. Suddenly and obviously broken. Felix was visibly protective and concerned. Thibault appeared fearful, and faintly sad.
"I believe it," said Felix gently, but not reprovingly. "I believe in the tribe of witnesses. I always have. Where we go, what we do - it,s not written. But I believe we are to survive as the tribe of those who have the Chrism."
"I don,t know," Margon responded, "that our witness will ever matter, or that our synthesis of powers will ever have other witnesses - ."
"I understand," said Felix, "and I accept that. I take my place among the hybrids, those who continue, those who see the spiritual world and the brutal world in a unique way, those who look to both as a source of truth."
"Ah, that,s it, of course," said Margon. "We always come back to that - that both the brutal world and the spiritual world are sources of truth, that the truth resides in the viscera of all those who struggle as well as in the souls of those who would transcend the struggle."
The viscera of all those who struggle. Reuben drifted, caught again in that chapel of the forest canopy gazing up at the stars. And in the viscera is the pulse of God.
"Yes, we do always come back to that," said Felix. "Is there a maker hopelessly beyond this world we know of cells and breath, or is He holding all this within Himself?"
Margon shook his head, glancing sadly at Felix, and then he looked away.
The expression on Stuart,s face was beautiful to behold. He had something of what he had wanted, and he was no longer asking anything. He was gazing off, clearly mounting up and up through all the lofty thoughts that were being inspired in him, keeping company now with possibilities that hadn,t occurred to him before.
And Laura was engrossed, and turning inwards. Maybe she too had what she wanted.
And if only I could describe what I see now, Reuben thought, that my soul is opening, that my soul is breathing and I am penetrating ever deeper into the mystery, the mystery that includes the viscera ... but it was more than he could express.
Something immense had been attempted. And now it seemed all backed off from the peak that had been conquered.
"And you, Margon," Laura asked, in the same respecting but probing manner. "Can you die, as Marrok died? Or Reynolds Wagner?"
"Yes. I am sure that I can. I have no reason to believe I am in any way different from any other of the tribe. But I don,t know. I don,t know if there are in the universe gods who cursed me for stealing this elemental power, and cursed those to whom I,ve passed it with my teeth. I don,t know. What does it explain, any of it? We are all an enigma. And that will be our only truth - as long as we know only how and when ... and not the why of anything."
"You don,t believe in such a curse, surely," said Felix reprovingly. "Why do you say these things now? And that is hardly our only truth, by the way, that we are an enigma. You know that too."
"Oh, perhaps he does believe these things," said Thibault, "more than he,s ever cared to admit."
"A curse, it,s a metaphor," said Reuben. "It,s the way we describe our worst unhappiness. I was brought up to believe the entire creation was cursed - fallen, depraved, damned until Divine Providence saved it, that is, from the curse imposed on the entire creation by Divine Providence Itself."
"Amen," said Laura. "Where did you go from there?" she asked. "Who was the first one to whom you ever gave the Chrism?"
"Oh, it was an accident," he said, "as it so very often is. And little did I realize it would provide me with my first true companion for the years to come. And I,ll tell you the best reason there is to make another Morphenkind. It,s because he or she will teach you something that all your years of struggle have not taught you, and can,t teach you. He or she will give you a new truth of which you never dreamed. Margon the Godless meets God in each new generation."