Act III — The Split

Page 16 — Zahlia Feels the Veil

The Veil is here.

I have said it before, and I will say it again, because the saying is the thing that is true. The Veil is here — the thin place between the worlds that the old world's priests learned to read the way a miller learns to read the water, and the reading was the whole of the old world's faith to me. The Veil is here, and the here is the one the world does not let go of. I want the record to keep the here, because the here is the one thing the sixteenth page begins with, and the beginning is the work: the Veil is here on the third morning of the new world, on the black sand of a coast that has a name the world will not give it, and the being-here was the whole of the finding, and the whole is the one the camp has kept since.

It was Zahlia who found it.

I want the record to be careful about the finding, because the careful is the one thing the finding is owed, and the owing is the work. She did not find it the way a thing is found, with the looking and the reaching. She found it the way a word is found in a mouth — already there, before the mouth knows it. A word in the mouth is not a word the mouth put there. The word was there, and the mouth is the one the word found, and the being-found was the whole of the finding.

It was the third morning. The finding was in the air, in the thin place between the camp and the water — and the thin place had not been there the night before. I have watched that stretch of air since the second morning, and the watching is the work of the record: the stretch of air between the camp and the water was the air. It was the air of the new world, and the being-the-air was the whole of the stretch, and the whole was the one the second morning gave it. On the third morning, the stretch was not the air. The stretch was the thin place, and the thin-place was the one the air owed the Veil.

Zahlia felt it.

She put her hands up — the way she does, palms flat, fingers a little spread, the hands of a woman who has spent her life holding a word in the air — and the air around them went thin.

Not quiet. Thin.

I want the record to keep the not-quiet, because the not-quiet is what the feeling is owed. The air around her hands did not go quiet. A quiet air is a still air. The air around her hands went thin — the way the air goes thin at the top of a place that is not supposed to have a top. I have stood at a top like that, in the high place of the old world's sanctum, and the standing is the work of the old world on my lungs: the thin air at the top of a place is the air that has been used. The air around her hands had been used. By what, the record does not say. The record will say, on the page that owes it, and the page that owes it is not the sixteenth page.

I felt it too.

I want that plain, because the plain is the whole of the record. I am the archmage. I have read the Veil the way the old world taught me to read it — with the hands, and the hands were the one thing the craft owed the Veil. And I felt it. And the feeling was not in my hands. The feeling was not in my knowing. The feeling was in the between.

I will keep the between, because the between is what the sixteenth page lives on. The between is the place where the Veil is not. The Veil in the old world was a thing — a wall, and the wall was the one thing the Veil owed the reading, and the whole of it was what I had read a hundred times before I put my hands up on the third morning of the new world. When I put my hands up, the wall was not there. The between was there. And the between is not a thing, and the not-thing was what the sixteenth page found.

The Veil is not what it was, she said.

I will keep the saying, because the saying is what the sixteenth page owes the record. She said it with her hands still up, and the still-up was what the finding owed the saying. She said it the way she says it — the way the reader says it, and the not-guessing was what her craft owed the saying.

It is thicker. Or it is thinner. I cannot tell you which, and I am not going to guess, because the guessing is where the world finds out.

I want the record to keep the or, because the or is what the sixteenth page lives on. Thicker, or thinner. The two are the whole of the finding, and the whole is what the world owes the record. Thicker — the Veil has grown, and the camp is further from whatever is on the other side; the further was what the thicker owed the camp, and a camp might spend a comfort on it, and the comfort is the one the record refuses, because the comfort is not in the record. Thinner — the Veil has worn, and the camp is closer to whatever is on the other side; the closer was what the thinner owed the camp, and a camp spends a fear on it, and the fear is the one the record keeps, because the fear is in the record. She will not guess. The not-guessing was the whole of her craft.

She looked at me.

In the old world, the Veil was a wall you could read. Here it is a wall that reads you back. I put my hand on it, and it put its hand on me, and the hand was not mine.

I will keep the three of them, because the three are what the sixteenth page is owed. A wall you could read — the old world's Veil was the wall, and the wall was what the old world owed the craft. A wall that reads you back — the new world's Veil is the reading, and the reading was what the new world owed the hand. The hand was not mine. I will keep that one last, because the last is what the sixteenth page lives on: the Veil put its hand on her, and the putting was what the Veil owed the hand. The world here puts its hand on the camp the way it puts its hand on the coal's word and the water's sentence and the ground's lid, and the putting-everywhere was what the world owed the camp.

I asked her what that means.

She asked me what I thought it meant.

I told her I thought it meant we were in a place that had been in a place, and that the second place had not cleaned up after the first.

I want the record to keep the not-cleaning-up, because the not-cleaning-up is what the answer refused to be. I am not a man who gives answers. I have said it on the twelfth page, but I will say it here, because here is the page that owes it: the not-answering is the first question of the camp, and the first-question was what the camp owed the world. A place that had been in a place — the new world is the place, and the first place is the one the new world is in. The second place did not clean up after the first. The not-cleaning-up was what the second owed the first, and the not-cleaning-up is the thing I gave Zahlia for an answer, and the thing was not an answer, and the not-answer was what I owed her.

She told me that was not an answer. And she told me I was not a man who gives answers, and the not-giving was what she owed me. And she told me the not-answering was the first question of the camp — the question the camp has asked since the second morning, the one the camp does not stop asking, the one the world has not stopped keeping. She said it the way she says the findings: flat, and once, and with the whole of her craft in the saying. I stood there with my hands still up from my own test, and the standing was the whole of the exchange, and the whole is the one the record has: she asked, I did not answer, and the not-answering went back to the camp the way it went back on the twelfth page — to the place where the camp keeps the questions it does not spend.

The Veil is here.

I will leave it standing there the way it stood when I left it. The Veil is here. The here is what the world does not let go of. And the not-knowing — thicker, or thinner, the or the world does not let go of — is the whole of the world, and the whole of it is the thing I have kept against the third morning and every morning since.

The seventeenth page is owed the night. The night is what the camp has not yet spent, and the not-spending is what the camp owes it.