CoJ chp 3: The Cry

[JasonPratt]

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___Along with this woman, I turn back my gaze, beloved; back to those fateful days: where I find the dark man—and his same dark struggle.
___Seifas dips his pen into his ink, and debates of slaying one last man…

❖ ❖ ❖

___The final apprentices now are rising from the shadows, trying to claim their masters’ power.
___My current commander, Portunista, is such a one. She makes it clear, that she is her only goal. To that degree, she is honest.
___And, as long as her troops stay warm and fed, and have some time for leisure, I suppose they won’t complain.
___I would complain. I am a subcommander.
___But to preserve that authority, I must stifle my conscience.

___I hate it.
___I can feel my soul eroding away.
___I should just leave.

___but I have nowhere to go.

___…I should kill myself—rather than offer a silent assent to the dissolution around me.

___What is my duty?
___Should I risk my soul to chance that I might live, to see the return of justice?
___What chance is that?
___If I cannot decide—it might as well be no chance.
___And if justice will not be fulfilled—then there is no hope.
___And if the cries in my heart are hopeless…
___. . . I might as well be dead.

___I have a small knife. I bought it for this.
___I see it where it lies, awaiting my choice…

___I do not fear death, as other men do. I am one of the Guacu-ara.
___If there is nothing, I shall not know it. If there is something, then I will fight or I will serve; and that is no different from now.
___So, shall the cries within me be fulfilled? The knife awaits my answer…

___If the cries are only my wishes, they are not a reliable guide—my wishes are *not *the ground of All. I won’t continue my pain for a self-delusion.
___If the cries are only induced by the world around me, then they are unthinking urges. Only to fill such hungers would cast my mind into death—or else I am there al- ready. I might as well complete it.
___If the cries have only been trained into me by men, then where did they receive their notions of justice? From where I have said? Their own cries will only be hunger or lies!
___I might as well kill myself.

___A shameful act, you say? The act of a coward? Not the mark of a man or warrior?
___But, if there is no justice, then why should I agree? From my own pride? To kill my life is the ultimate pride—the deadliest victory over mere instinct!
___Should I agree, because of your pride? I might as well prefer my own—and then, to the knife!
___Should I agree, for you perceive justice? How is your mirror then better than mine?? And if I cannot see justice, even the blurriest vision, your witness to me also fails!
___Even my reason can have no meaning: without true justice, my motives for thinking are only irrational.

___So.
___I am a cripple, deluded. I should completely free myself.
___A knife to the artery stings but a bit.

___A death in battle? What can a death mean, in a world without justice!?
___I will seek elsewhere, for satisfaction—or else for oblivion!

___. . . . . . yet, I choose to stay, still.

___Why?
___Not from lack of nerve or skill to do the deed.
___Why??

___Because, whatever else is real—so is my cry for justice.
___It may not be what I think it is—but it is something.

___What does this tell me?
___To myself I ask: what do I hunger for? Why am I starving inside my mind and soul?!
___I want to see the return of justice!
___Ah—it is only my instinct, only my training, only…
___Perhaps. Perhaps. . . . . .

___Listen, knife. What rests beside you, there in the shadow? You I have known for a day. What is this I have known, for years?
___This weapon, I say, is my aasagai.
___No, you say; that is an axe.
___Oh? And why should I listen to you?
___Here is a rigid, finger-thin needle, as long as some men are tall, with sharpened pommel and infighting quillions—I hold it along the shaft of its length, and twirl it around myself for defense, until I punch past the guard of my foe…this is an axe?!

___If you were to say “a spear” I might agree. It shares some traits with things called spear. It has no likeness to things called axe.

___Yet, if I mistook, and held an axe instead, you still would be absurd to say “not an aasagai”—unless you had some accurate notion of what an aasagai is; and what it is not.

___And I can tell this difference!
___Mere desires of my heart, are not justice! Mere training is not of itself justice!
___I do perceive the distinction, the disparity!
___Somehow . . . despite any blurrings and flaws and mistakes . . .

___. . . I must have some sight of true justice!

___And, if justice exists…then hope must exist.
___And you, knife, offer no hope at all.

___Would Matron Cami be proud for me…?
___how I miss her

___We of the Guacu-ara never were told of our parents. Our ranks were our brothers; our Matrons our mothers. But Cami loved us: the children she never would bear, whom she had forsworn for our sake.
___I do not know where my birth-mother is; nor the only mother I ever have known.
___But now I am sure that someday, somehow, my cry for justice will be answered.
___And with that knowledge, I find I can sleep.
___For tonight.

Next chapter

[JasonPratt]

Note from the real author…

Whoops! Only meant to work on transposing this today, not post it yet until tomorrow! Then I hit “submit” instead of “save draft”, and the engine won’t let me unpost and save it back to draft. Ah well. So there won’t be an entry Monday.

While this isn’t the final chapter of subauthor contemplation (bringing the reader up to speed on what’s happening in the main narrative), the next chapter will be much more traditionally narrative. Also the first (or in some ways second) action scene.

Yes, the novel is named after this chapter, more or less. I had originally been going to call the novel “Cry for Justice”, but for various reasons having to do with sequel titling and phraseologies at a climactic moment near the end, I switched the preposition to “of”.

In editing, I came very close to deleting this chapter altogether, since it provides almost no further background information (aside from a clever way to introduce Seifas’ weapon, which can also be seen on the book’s cover in an abstract fashion) and delays the arrival of the first (or first main) action scene. But I found I had worked the ‘event’ of this chapter too thoroughly into the composition of subsequent chapters, regarding the development of Seifas’ character. In short, I needed some way for him to resolve to go on with his life without deciding that he himself was the ground of justice, in comparison and contrast with other characters later. But in my final main redraft of the book (when I trimmed it from 206Kwords to 144K) I tried hard to shorten the difficult initial chapters, including this one, to move things along as quickly as possible to the main narrative.

Seifas uses a variation of the theistic argument from morality to talk himself out of suicide, but phrased and formulated in such a way as a contemplative pre-Judeo-Christian from various cultures might have (and did occasionally) put it in the real world.

If you see some obvious holes and weaknesses in the argument, that’s okay, I know they’re there. It’s meant to be a tool for someone talking themselves out of suicide, not an airtight dissertation, and besides I don’t even use the argument myself. Also, I’m going to be playing with the weaknesses later in the book. (After the halfway point, so that chapter won’t be posted online.)

Still, I respect the AfM, so gave it a fairly detailed abbreviation, as much as I thought a character of Seifas’ schooling would demand on short notice.

This is the (second) longest bit of metaphysics in the book, and one of only two presented in a formal argument–the other of which looks at the matter from a quite different angle with very different conclusions!–so aside from the occasional rumination you needn’t worry about any more of this kind of thing.

“Guacu-ara” and “juacuar(a)” are based on the South American native word from which we eventually derived “cougar” and “jaguar”. It’s a hard “G” and normal “j” (not silent) in the story, respectively; the former for designating the formal organization, the latter as an informal racial designation. One of the more unexpectedly difficult things I discovered, was how to describe Seifas physically from character perspectives, because while he looks a little alien aside from some easily obvious features (jet-black skin, white irises) he looks just as human to other people as they do to each other. So for example a reader might be thinking he has the tufted ears of a cat, but he doesn’t; but none of the characters would notice his ears look just like theirs. A real world Zulu or Masai actor would doubtless play him in the film, without much alteration.

The term “aasagai” is based on the realword “assegai”, a Zulu term for spear. I altered it partly because neither Seifas nor any other character are actually speaking Zulu, but mostly because it doesn’t resemble any kind of Zulu spear. So I took the Dutch/Zulu term for vulture, “aasvogel”, death-bird, and built the new word from that, “death stick”. (Since there wasn’t a Zulu alphabet for the longest time, the two words are probably identical anyway, but I’ve had people wonder why I ‘misspelled’ assegai. I know my H. Rider Haggard, I assure you. )

While most of the character names have real-world parallels of one or another kind, “Seifas” was invented by me for the story–mainly because of his morose tone at the beginning. He sighs a lot. This will start to change next chapter.

[puddy]

I already like this character. There is depth to his words, and a stirring in his heart. I will need to read this chapter quite a few times to understand all his words… I am glad you decided to keep this chapter. Also I like the name Seifes (sorry I can’t remember yet how it is spelled)