upon my ears like some huge wave. Lysicles is a vulgar, hustling sort of man who is bent on making his fortune by serving Thucydides and the conservative interest.
“Then it’s quite clear,” I said. “Thucydides will attack Anaxagoras—and his friend Pericles in the assembly. Pericles will defend Anaxagoras—and his own administration.”
“And you ...?”
“Will do nothing.” I was firm. “My own position here is fragile, to say the least. The moment that the conservatives decide that it is time for another war with Persia, I shall be put to death—if time does not anticipate your politicians.” I made myself cough pathetically; then could not stop coughing. I am indeed ill.
“What,” asked Socrates abruptly, “happens when you die?” I gasped for air: it seemed an eternity before the air filled up my chest. “For one thing,” I said, “I shall have left Athens.”
“But do you think that you yourself will continue in another fashion?” The young man seemed genuinely interested in what I thought or, rather, what Zoroastrians think.
“We believe that all souls were created at the beginning by the Wise Lord. In due course, these souls are born once, and once only. On the other hand, in the east, they believe that a soul is born and dies and is born again, thousands and thousands of times, in different forms.”
“Pythagoras held the same view,” said Socrates. “When Archelaus and I were in Samos, we met one of Pythagoras’ oldest disciples. He said that Pythagoras got this doctrine from the Egyptians.”
“No.” I was firm. I can’t think why. I don’t really know anything about Pythagoras. “He got it from those who live beyond the Indus River, where I have traveled ...”
Archelaus was impatient. “This is most fascinating, Ambassador. But the fact remains that our friend has been arrested.”
“The fact also remains,” said Socrates coolly, “that men die, and what happens or does not happen to the mind that inhabits their flesh is of considerable interest.”
“What shall we do?” Archelaus seemed close to stormy tears. In his youth, he had been a student of Anaxagoras’.
“I’m hardly the person to ask,” I said. “Go to General Pericles.”
“We did. He’s not at his house. He’s not at government house. He’s not at Aspasia’s house. He’s vanished.”
Eventually I got rid of Archelaus. Meanwhile Anaxagoras is in prison, and at the next meeting of the assembly he will be prosecuted by Thucydides. I assume that he will be defended by Pericles.
I say assume because early this morning the Spartan army crossed the border into Attica. General Pericles has taken the field, and the war that everyone has been anticipating for so long has at last begun.
I am fairly certain that Athens will be defeated. Democritus is upset. I tell him that it makes no difference at all who wins. The world goes on. In any case, between Athens and Sparta, there is not much choice. Each is Greek.
I shall finish explaining to you, Democritus, what I was not able to tell your friend who asked me what happens after death. Once free of the body, the soul returns to the Wise Lord. But, first, the soul must cross the bridge of the redeemer. Those who have followed in life the Truth will go to the house of good mind, and happiness. Those who have followed the Lie—that is, the way of the Wise Lord’s twin brother Ahriman, who is evil—will go the house of the Lie, and there suffer every sort of torment. Eventually, when the Wise Lord overwhelms evil, all souls will be as one.
Democritus wants to know why the Wise Lord created Ahriman in the first place. This is a good question, which my grandfather answered once and for all.
At the moment of creation, the Wise Lord said of his twin, “Neither our thoughts, nor our deeds, nor our consciences, nor our souls agree.”
Democritus says that this is not a proper answer. I say it is. You say that it is merely a statement about oppositions. I
Carolyn McCray, Ben Hopkin
Orson Scott Card, Aaron Johnston